Carnal Curiosity (22 page)

“They were inside a house in a village until twenty minutes ago,” Will said. “Some kind of high-level meeting.”

Then streaks of light appeared on the screen, and they converged on the convoy. All four cars exploded, no more than a second apart.

“Jesus Christ,” the technician muttered. “That’s four dead-on hits with Hellfire missiles from two drones.”

“Who is—was—in the cars?” Stone asked.

“Six or seven top al-Qaeda leaders,” Will said. “I’ve seen a bunch of these strikes, but this is the most incredible of all of them.”

The butler brought him a drink, and they raised their glasses. Kate gave the toast: “To drones and Hellfire missiles,” she said.

The Lees were as excited as Ann and talked nonstop all through dinner. As they were finishing dessert a young man came into the apartment bearing a stack of newspapers. “Hot off the presses!” he said as he distributed them to the diners.

Stone got his and immediately was drawn to a headline stretching halfway across the front page:

MRS. STANTON WON’T BE VOTING FOR MR. STANTON

Will began to read the accompanying article, which was short and in a front-page box: “Mrs. Barbara Stanton, wife of the vice president, Martin Stanton, who is the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, sat in her La Jolla, California, living room and heard this question from our reporter:

“‘Why should the Democratic Party choose your husband as its presidential nominee?’

“Her answer seemed spontaneous and unrehearsed: ‘I won’t be voting for my husband, either for the nomination or in the general election. I’ve given this a great deal of thought, and I
have decided that I will not be the first lady in a Stanton administration.

“‘I have lived with Marty’s infidelities since the first year of our marriage, more than a dozen of them—that I knew about. Each time this happened, he begged my forgiveness and I forgave him each time. I forgive him this time. But I won’t live with him anymore, and I won’t go back to Washington. I’m going to live here in California, in this house that I love, paint the pictures and take the photographs that I love, and maybe I’ll even write a book. If I do, it won’t be published before the election.

“‘But to address your question: Martin Stanton is, arguably, one of the two candidates in both parties best qualified to run the country, but to elect him is to start the clock running for his next affair to be exposed, embarrassing himself, his party, and the country. I won’t sit in the White House and wait for that to happen, and I won’t vote for him. From this moment I will give my vote and all my support to Katherine Lee.’”

“Wow,” Ann Keaton said.

48

S
tone leafed quickly through the first section of the
Times
.

“The story on Stanton runs for more than four full pages,” he said, “but nobody is going to get beyond that box on the front page.”

“I believe you’re right, Stone,” Will Lee said.

“Kate,” said Ann, “you haven’t said a word.”

Kate placed a hand on her chest and took a deep breath. “Speechless,” she said.

“Nothing like this has ever happened before,” Will pointed out. “This is a political nuclear bomb.”

Suddenly, a phone rang, startling all of them. Then a second phone began ringing, then Ann’s cell phone rang.

“Ann, will you take these calls, please?” Kate asked. “No comment, but be nice.”

Ann started with her cell phone. “Ann Keaton. Director Lee will have no comment on Mrs. Stanton’s statement, now or later. She sends her sympathy to both of the Stantons during this
difficult time for them.” She hung up, went to a landline, and repeated the same words. This went on for half an hour, until Will asked a Secret Service agent to call the switchboard and stop all calls from being put through.

Will switched on the TV and was greeted with a banner slide:
BREAKING NEWS!

MSNBC had already assembled a panel of reporters to discuss the news. Everybody watched in silence as they each sounded the death knell of the Stanton campaign.

“Put it on Fox News,” Kate said to Will. Unaccustomed to tuning it in, Will took a moment to find the channel. A beautiful blonde commentator faced the camera. “The battleship that is Martin Stanton has just received a successful kamikaze attack from his wife. The battleship is sinking.”

Kate spoke up. “I want to call Barbara Stanton,” she said. “She must be feeling so alone right now.”

“I’ll get her for you,” Ann said. She went to her iPhone contacts and pressed a number. “Kate Lee for Mrs. Stanton,” she said to whoever answered. Ann handed the phone to Kate. “She’s on the line.”

Kate took the phone, walked across the living room, and sat down in a chair. She remained there for a minute or so, then hung up and came back. “Barbara was perfectly composed,” she said. “I commiserated briefly and asked her to call me if she needed anything.”

“I hope you thanked her for her support,” Will said.

“I did not,” Kate replied. “The call wasn’t about me.”

“Any predictions about the political fallout?” Stone asked the group.

“Who knows?” Will said. “Thirty years ago, Marty would
have had to get out of the race, but after the Clinton years, anything could happen. Marty is already only a dozen votes short of the nomination. I don’t think he’s going to gain any new supporters after this, but if his usual supporters stick, then he could still pull it out at the convention.”

“How about the general election?” Stone asked.

“Two of the four remaining Republican candidates have infidelities in their pasts,” Will said, “and Marty is demonstrably a better man than any of the four. He could win.”

“Then we’d have an unmarried man in the White house for the first time since Woodrow Wilson,” Ann said, “during the period between his first wife’s death and his remarriage. Women will be lining up to sleep with Marty, and he’s not noted for saying no.”

“The mind boggles,” Kate said.

They watched various television channels for the next hour. Martin Stanton was surrounded by reporters at a political dinner in Kansas and made a brief statement, saying that he had no statement.

Ann’s cell rang again. “Good evening, Senator,” she said, then covered her phone. “Mark Willingham,” she whispered. Kate shook her head. “I’m sorry, but Director Lee isn’t taking any calls tonight. I’m sure you can understand why. Of course, I’ll give her a message.” She listened at some length, then thanked him and hung up.

“What was that about?” Kate asked.

“Can’t you guess?” Will said.

“He didn’t come right out and say it,” Ann said, “but he intimated that he might throw his support and his delegates behind you in return for the vice presidential nomination.”

“He didn’t!” Kate said.

“Oh, yes he did,” Will said. “And he meant it.”

Kate stared blankly at the coffee table.

“Something wrong, Kate?” Ann asked. “This could throw the nomination to you, if Marty doesn’t get it on the first ballot.”

“This is what’s wrong,” Kate said. “I don’t want Mark Willingham for my vice presidential candidate. I just don’t trust the man.”

“How would you feel about Pedro Otero?” Will asked.

“I like him. I think he’d be a great running mate.”

“And the Hispanic vote would be all yours,” Ann pointed out.

“She’ll win the Hispanic vote big, in any case,” Will said.

“Otero is young, he’s smart, he has a great record as governor and congressman, and he gives a great speech.”

“He sounds perfect,” Stone said.

“He is,” Ann interjected. “But he won’t call and offer us that deal. That kind of backroom dealing is not in his blood.”

“I won’t offer it to him before the convention,” Kate said, “and not at the convention, either, unless I have the nomination first.”

“Then you will lessen your chances of winning the presidency,” Will said. “But I love you for saying that.”

49

S
tone sat up in bed, watching television and reading the
Times
and the
Daily News
. The Barbara Stanton story was at the top of the front page of both papers, and the
Times
ran her statement in a box for the second time. The morning television shows could talk of nothing else for the first hour. Practically every Washington journalist appeared on one show or another, sometimes on three or four.

Ann was in charge of the remote control and changed channels every time a commercial came on. “I don’t see how Marty Stanton can stand up under this barrage,” she said.

“Well, so far he’s done nothing but issue a bland statement through his press secretary,” Stone said. “He doesn’t seem to be at work in his office in the Executive Office Building, and he hasn’t appeared outside the vice president’s residence. It’s as if he’s taking an artillery barrage and chooses just to go underground until it stops.”

“How can he do anything else?” Ann asked. “If he sticks his head up, he takes another bullet.”

The cuckolded husband of Stanton’s paramour seemed to be the only participant in the story who was enjoying it. He announced that he had filed for divorce from his wife and moved out of their home.

Ann picked up her cell phone and listened to her voice mails. “That’s weird,” she said. “I have a voice mail from Don Dugan, asking me to call him. What could he possibly want?”

“Maybe he’s still annoyed about being barred from the campaign and wants to try again. I’d ignore the call.”

“Done,” Ann said, erasing it. She called back three of her favorite reporters and gave them just a little more information. “Director Lee spoke with Mrs. Stanton briefly Saturday night but did not discuss her endorsement. She has written Mrs. Stanton a letter thanking her for her support. No, the director will have no further comment on the matter.” Finally, she hung up and got her feet on the floor. “Whew! I’d better get to the office early today. It’s going to be chaos.”

“If you need to hide, come here,” Stone said.

“That’s exactly what I’ll do.”

The phone rang, and Stone picked it up.

“It’s Dino.”

“Hi, there. How’d the interrogation of Anita Mays and Bill Murphy go?”

“Well, there’s kind of a problem about that,” Dino said.

“What kind of problem? They lawyer up?”

“Yes, but there’s more. Ms. Mays was on her way in from Rikers Island this morning on a prison bus, when the bus was broadsided by a heavily loaded beer truck. Mays got out through a broken window and disappeared into the rush hour crowd.”

“Was she handcuffed?”

“Yes, she was cuffed to a chain that ran the length of the bus, but the chain was broken in the impact.”

“Any reports of her?”

“Not a one, and we don’t know who her friends are.”

“Does Bill Murphy know about her break?”

“No, we’ve kept the escapees’ names off the news. There were two others. We’re going to start in on Murphy in a few minutes. We’re waiting for his lawyer to arrive.”

“Good luck!”

—

A
nita Mays sat on a rooftop overlooking Barrow Street and spotted the two cops in an unmarked car parked outside her shop. Satisfied there was no one inside the place, she climbed off the roof and down a ladder to the fire escape, then down to the ground. The plot of land behind the shop was filled with odd pieces of statuary that were too big to display inside, and she found the spare key under some dirt inside a concrete planter and let herself into her apartment through the rear entrance. She paused inside and listened for footsteps from upstairs but heard none. She was alone in the building, and she knew exactly what she wanted.

She and Bill had been loading the van when the cops took them, and they hadn’t finished. Her backpack still lay on the bed where she had left it, hidden under the pulled-back duvet. She had her wallet in there, and the thirteen thousand dollars that the guy Jim had paid her for the two pictures. She also had three sets of fake IDs—driver’s licenses, birth certificates—and her own passport.

She showered and changed into motorcycle leather, then
packed a bag and left the apartment the way she had come in. She emerged into the block behind the shop and walked to the garage where she kept her motorcycle. There she exchanged the license plate with one from another bike parked nearby. She strapped her bag to the luggage rack and got into her helmet. Five minutes later she was headed north on the West Side Highway and thence to Connecticut, where her older sister lived in a village called Roxbury. Halfway there, she found a mall with an electronics store and bought herself a pre-paid, throwaway cell phone and called her sister.

“Hey, Berta,” she said.

“Hey, Nita.”

“Is your garage apartment available for a couple of weeks?”

“Sure. I had an ad in the paper to rent it, but no takers. When are you coming?”

“In about an hour and a half,” Anita said.

“I’ll have some lunch ready. I’m not going to work until early afternoon.” Alberta was a real estate agent.

“See you then.”

Anita got back on her motorcycle and onto the Sawmill River Parkway. She made a point of sticking to the speed limit.

—

D
ino sat in an observation booth behind an interrogation room and watched through a one-way mirror as Bill Murphy came into the room with his attorney, a woman named Beth Cutter, a smart lawyer whom Dino knew from other cases. Detectives Connor and Cohn were the interrogating officers.

Connor read Murphy his rights again, and Murphy signed a document saying that he understood them and had an attorney.

“All right,” Cutter said, “Bill is willing to talk to you and maybe answer some questions, if what you’re offering is good enough.”

“Right now, we’re not offering anything,” Connor replied. “This is just a friendly little chat.”

“Then, in the absence of an offer, my client will have nothing to say.”