Frames Per Second (33 page)

He hoped something would happen soon. It had taken Deegan several hours of calls to line up the boat, and now the light was falling from the sky fast. Ben would soon be hard pressed to get an in-focus shot. Even with his fastest black-and-white film, a steady tripod, and a beanbag fitted into the porthole, he would need a fairly fast shutter speed to counteract the slight movement of the boat in the water.

“Come on,” he said, to himself, to McGuire. “Show me something.”

When, about fifteen minutes later, that something came along in the form of a poorly disguised Senator Cheever—being met by Teri Wheeler—Ben didn’t hesitate. True, he found himself swearing a lot. Saying damn it, damn it,
damn it.
As always, it was one thing to suspect. Quite another to put it on film.

But he thumbed the motor drive onto high speed and nailed the shots. Including one of a clearly nervous Cheever pulling his sunglasses away, his face angry looking. As if he were demanding an explanation. Her face remained calm, somewhat cajoling.

Cheever turned away abruptly and fumbled with the sunglasses when McGuire came out of the cabin. Ben swung the lens over, and got a tightly compressed shot of all three.

McGuire grinned over his shoulder as he began casting off lines, and then he hurried up to the flybridge and put the boat in gear. When Teri turned away to lead Cheever down into the cabin, Ben captured a little smile on her face that he would never want to see a woman direct at him.

Sarah came down and picked up his binoculars and looked out the other porthole.

“Oh my God,” she said.

Once Cheever was inside the cabin, Sarah looked over at Ben. He was rubbing his forehead.

“You know what else?” Sarah said.

“What?”

“That cute little halter and shorts she’s wearing?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s what the girl in the first set of shots was wearing—the ones Peter took. The girl sitting in the car with McGuire whose face we couldn’t see.”

“Same girl,” Ben said. Feeling stupid.

“Yep.” Sarah raised the binoculars again. “Same girl.”

CHAPTER 39

AS THE SUN SET OVER THE HORIZON, MCGUIRE TURNED THE INTERCOM up just enough to know they were going at it, and then he turned it down. It had taken Teri all of a half hour to get past the senator’s objections, past all his “We can’t ever see each other again” shit.

Things moved along much more easily once she started pouring the booze.

It made Jimbo irritable, knowing the two of them were down there screwing. Even though it was what he told her to do. Jimbo couldn’t figure out exactly what he felt for Teri. There was the sex, sure. But he also liked the twisting, turning way her brain worked. He liked that they saw the world the same way. He liked knowing her secrets.

She also brought a sophistication that allowed him to move in circles his uncle had never moved in before. That made him look good in front of the old man, which was important to McGuire.

Problem was, he and Teri had to keep their distance from each other, at least in Massachusetts. That damn reporter got too close with his camera the one time they’d been together and Teri had “overreacted,” as she called it.
 

Brought in one of her right-wing mercenaries to blow the guy up.

She had the ability to make men do what she wanted. Jimbo would give her that. By any description, she was a pretty piece, but that didn’t explain it. Didn’t explain what she could do in bed. Didn’t explain how she could figure out what you
wanted,
and put herself in the position of being able to give it to you—at a price. Hell, he had to admit he jumped through some hoops himself by sending Dawson in looking for the same damn shot.

Before she had legally changed her name while at college, she was known as Lynn Whalen. Her mother was a failed actress who turned to hooking. Lynn had grown up as a piece of white trash just outside of Newark and had been turned out by her mother’s boyfriend, Daddy Bob, by her fifteenth birthday.

But as Teri had whispered in Jimbo’s ear the very first time, she “always knew how to take care of myself.”

By her seventeenth birthday, she convinced a private detective named Louis that they could form a profitable partnership. Her first task for him was to smash Daddy Bob’s jaw with a tire iron and kneel on his throat so she could kick her “stepfather” in the balls. She told Jimbo that she kicked him so long and hard that her mother later complained that she was left with nothing but a mean gelding.

And then Lynn went into business. Simple stuff—she posed as the smart, elegant beauty that she knew was within her and put herself in the position to meet wealthy married men … and Louis did the rest. Sometimes he burst in with a camera, sometimes he just set up a hidden video.

The men always paid.

The problem was that those scams were terminally small-time. Five or ten thousand, usually. Once she brought in twenty thousand dollars off one guy. Even wealthy men couldn’t spend the kinds of sums she truly wanted without attracting attention—and that would defeat her hold on them. It was a conundrum, not that she knew that word back then.

But she made enough to put herself, as Teri Wheeler, through Columbia. She told Jimbo that it was there that she developed her long-term plan.

And then she put eight or nine years into making it a reality.

* * *

McGuire put the boat on autopilot and went to the cooler to fill a beer mug with melting ice cubes and water. He found himself grinning as he climbed down and eased the cabinway door open. There they were on the center settee. The senator pumping away. Teri on her back, seeing McGuire now, that little smile of hers that she shared only with him.

McGuire poured half the ice water down Cheever’s back.

Christ, but McGuire couldn’t help but laugh. You’d think he’d branded the guy with a white-hot poker, the way he screamed and rolled over, trying to protect himself.

McGuire said, “Time for your wake-up call.”

Then he poured most of what remained in Cheever’s face. The final half inch he tossed off at Teri, making her squeal with laughter, “Don’t, Jimbo, don’t!”

And
that
was like dumping a tub of ice water onto the senator.

That little laugh. Made his head jerk around. Made his bellowing outrage die in his throat.

McGuire reached over to the bridge that was inside the cabin and pulled the throttles back so the engines were at a near idle. So he could hear himself think.

“Teri?” the senator was saying. “Teri, what the hell is going on?”

“It’s time to shut up and listen,” she said, still smiling. “… Senator.”

McGuire gave Cheever his name.

The guy’s face froze for a moment. And then he got to his feet, reaching for some clothes. “I’ve heard of you,” he said. “I know who you are.”

“Well, that’s good,” McGuire said. “Seeing as you’ve been working for me for damn near a year now.”

Two hours later, McGuire said, “I’m losing my patience.”

Christ, that was an understatement.

It was all he could do not to take his nine millimeter out from under his jacket and knock a few of the guy’s teeth out of his head. The senator just didn’t seem to get it.

Oh, he got that he was in trouble again. Swore up and down at Teri at first. Came up with words he probably never used in a campaign election. Including, “Conniving …
cunt”

Sounded funny earlier in the evening when McGuire still had his sense of humor. But now it was old. Now Cheever was looking at McGuire as if he were some sort of punk.

McGuire had them all up on the flybridge now and they were puttering into Boston’s inner harbor, the skyline of the city sparkling beside them. He continued under the Tobin Bridge, and headed to one of his construction sites.

The guy was talking nonsense.

“You can destroy my career, but you can’t destroy
me.
Goddamn it, I’ll tell you what I told that guy Harris—I’ll take you down with me. I won’t be blackmailed.”

“Get off it,” McGuire said. “Just do what you’re told and all goes on like before. We’ll even take care of this Harris guy if he’s holding you up.”

That seemed to confuse the senator. “You mean you didn’t send him?”

McGuire shook his head. “Shit, no. He’s been a pain in the ass for us, too.”

Cheever rubbed his temple “Look, I’ve settled with him. And I’m not going to do what you ask.”

“You’ve
been
doing what we asked for a goddamn year!” McGuire shouted for the first time that evening. Using his elbow, he suddenly cracked the guy behind his ear. He grabbed Cheever’s shoulder before his face crashed into the GPS monitor. The guy was too public a figure to be showing up with facial bruises without people asking questions. It was like threatening a Ming vase. McGuire was tired of wearing kid gloves. And
very
tired of being treated like a kid himself.

“You hit me.” Cheever touched the back of his head and then looked at his hand to see if he was bleeding.

“Listen, you idiot,” McGuire hissed. “You’ve known you were in
somebody’s
pocket. Maybe you didn’t know it was such a sleazy pocket. Maybe you thought that money coming from Goodhue and the frigging NESF was business as usual from people who thought like you did so that made it OK. But let me make it clear. When that ‘conniving cunt’ over there stopped talking about software standards and whispered her thoughts on the different construction contractors for the Greater Harbor project, you
knew
she was repping somebody. You knew this wasn’t her day job. Well, that somebody was me. Whenever she told you the good news about a flood of campaign contributions that just seemed to keep rolling in, that was
me
talking in your goddamn ear, and that was
me
filling your campaign chest, and that was
me
telling her to suck your dick. Christ, I’m even your goddamn landlord.”

Cheever looked at him as if he’d just eaten something awful. “The townhouse?”

McGuire laughed. “You think Teri swung that sweet lease-back deal by herself? Big hunk of cash for your campaign chest, plus low rent? You knew she was up to something, you’re not that dumb. Now you’ve been a good boy so far, done pretty much everything she
influenced
you to do, but you’ve been a pain in the ass this last major assignment. So I’m going to put it to you real plain. Stockard is in. Stockard gets the bid. You see to it the others on the committee buy off on him, and you make sure that you squash any objections to Bill Taves on the project.”

“Bill Taves?” the senator looked up. Bewildered. Still not believing that someone had actually smacked him. Goddamn U.S. senator. “Stockard’s paying you to do this?”

“No, Stockard’s not paying me. I’m paying
him.
I own him, and I own you. Before him, I owned Pratt.”

The senator looked at him like he was lying. “That’s not possible, you’re just a
kid.’’

McGuire smacked him with his elbow again. He spoke in the senator’s ear. “OK, my
family
owned him. That make you feel better?”

The senator was shaking his head again. Surprising McGuire. Coming up with stuff that McGuire never figured a politician would have. “You can hit me all you want, you little shit.”

“Stop it, both of you,” Teri said, sharply.

McGuire stared at her, and she gave it right back. He took a deep breath and waited to see what she had in mind.

She spoke to the senator in a more soothing voice. “Bob, listen to me. I objected to bracing you like this at first, but then I decided you had to know. All we’ve shown you so far is the worst. Now let me tell you about the best.”

“This punk bastard hits me and now you’re going to sell me something?” Cheever said.

“Bob, I’ve taken you as far as I can go with you still in the dark.”

“Taken me?” The senator shook his head. “You little bitch, I did my first campaign when you were in junior high.’’

“And look what’s happened since I’ve been on the scene,” she said, steadily. “Campaign chest better than you’ve ever had before. Major committee recommendations. I even saw to it that that ridiculous anti-assault weapon bill of yours got through—believe me, that only happened one way—we let you. We’ve got plans for you.”

“You …” Cheever sat back suddenly. His face, if possible, turned more sallow.

She continued quickly, focusing upon him entirely. “You
know
I’ve made everything easier for you. I didn’t do that on a winning smile and a cute ass.” She gestured at McGuire. “I’ve got people like him set up all over the country. And I’ve got people running men like you. Senators, congressmen … both parties, Bob. Trust me, you’re in good company. And we can move you forward.” She leaned forward. “Consider it. I’m not saying it’s a done deal, but you know you’re one of the logical choices for the GOP next election. For president, maybe; vice-president almost certainly. It takes people like me behind you. And it takes money. When I tell someone like Goodhue to pay up, he says, “How much?” And then I figure out how to make it look legal. For you, it was the townhouse deal. We put you in the right position, you’ve got money, you’ve Congress and the Senate voting your way … voting
our
way … things can happen.”