Murder at the Watergate (3 page)

It had been over twenty-five years since that fiasco took place, but it still resonated. Room 723 had been turned into a mini break-in museum, with a brass plaque, newspaper stories framed on the walls, and bookings at premium prices to voyeurs wanting to see what the lookouts had seen. The Watergate Hotel had celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the break-in by offering “Break-In” packages, replete with a complimentary copy of
All the President’s Men
, the Woodward and Bernstein version of the event. Tourists still stood outside the 2600 building and gaped, took pictures, asked, “Is this where the break-in happened?”

One thing was certain. President Richard Nixon and his Watergate “plumbers” had put the Watergate complex on the map. Interest was so intense that the hotel’s management had its name and logo removed for a period of time from everything that couldn’t be nailed down. And as one longtime employee was fond of saying, “We thank Mr. Nixon every day!”

Hedras surveyed clothing in his closet. Suit, or sport jacket and tie? The former, he decided. People would be dressed to the nines if they intended to go from the fund-raiser to the eight-thirty Placido Domingo concert at the Kennedy Center, a few minutes’ walk from the hotel. The party for Aprile had been scheduled so as not to conflict with the great tenor’s performance.

Hedras chose a dark blue suit with muted stripes, pristine white shirt, blue tie with tiny red birds on it, and highly polished black loafers. He left the apartment and rode the elevator down to the lobby.

“Evening, Mr. Hedras,” Bob, the desk clerk, said.

“Hi, Bob. Anything for me?”

Bob turned and checked the wall of boxes in which mail for the building’s tenants was sorted. “No, sir.”

Hedras could have taken the elevator to the basement and walked underground through the parking garages to the hotel, but the weather was nice. He preferred to get a little air before being cooped up yet again with movers and shakers trying to corner him to get their messages across to the veep. That’s what he disliked most about the job of helping guide Aprile’s run for the White House, having to suffer all the rich fools who thought that in addition to money, they had the answers to every domestic dilemma and international crisis, and who weren’t reticent about making their views known. That’s what their checks bought, somebody’s ear. For Chris Hedras, the debates that had been going on for years about reforming the way campaigns raised money was a waste of time, energy—and, yes, money. It was politics; you needed money to run, and those giving it to you damn well would have their moment in court. Those who were out moaned about the unfairness of the system. Those who were in weren’t about to change what got them there. If avoiding hypocrisy were high on his agenda, Washington, DC, was the last place he would work.

It wasn’t. There were more urgent things to worry about.

He stopped for a moment in the Watergate’s circular driveway at the main entrance to chat with the doorman, who’d been with the hotel for more than twenty years, then went through the doors and paused in the lobby.

“Good evening, Mr. Hedras,” the guest relations manager said from behind her desk.

“Good evening.”

“Big night,” she said.

“It’s supposed to be.”

They stopped talking as Placido Domingo, surrounded by an entourage, came in from the other direction. Two black stretch limousines waited outside, engines purring, doors open.

“I wish I could sing like him,” Hedras said.

She laughed. “He just bought an apartment here. He’s the new artistic director of the Washington Opera. He’s so sexy.”

“Oh, yeah? What about me?”

“What about you?”

“Don’t you think I’m sexy?”

She waved her hand in a way that said she’d heard that kind of talk from him too many times before. He grinned, walked in the direction of the small reception desk, took a quick right before reaching the Potomac Lounge, and went down a carpeted, circular staircase to the next level, where the public rooms were located. He was stopped at the foot of the stairs by two Secret Service agents.

“Hello, John,” Hedras said.

“Mr. Hedras, how are you this evening?”

“Great. Everything buckled down?”

“Yes, sir. Always is.”

Hedras looked to his left, where a contingent of other agents had fanned out. This was the second entrance to the hotel, the one used by dignitaries and celebrities to avoid the busy main lobby.

“Excuse me,” Hedras said, continuing down a long carpeted hallway leading to the public rooms, including the 6,500-square-foot ballroom with huge windows overlooking the Potomac. Agents were posted at regular intervals along his route. There was something satisfying about being recognized by them and not being challenged. The black-and-gold pin in his lapel was his grail; with it he could approach even the president. That little piece of metal made you feel powerful, made you feel good. On the other hand, he occasionally felt a twinge of resentment at the Secret Service agents guarding the president and vice president. If they wanted to, for any reason deemed necessary for security, they could stop him, detain him, even whisk him away, little black-and-gold pin or no pin. Of course, they wouldn’t do that, considering his position as one of the president’s men, now on loan to the campaign of the man likely to be next to occupy the “People’s House.”

“Chris,” a young woman said. She was a member of the campaign’s meeting-planning committee, and had been working ’round-the-clock with the hotel’s catering people to set up the event.

“Hey, Janet. How’s everything?”

Her long, dramatic sigh said it all. “I’ll be glad when this one is over and we’re all rich.”

Hedras passed her and went to the ballroom entrance, where dozens of hotel employees were putting finishing touches on tables. Although it would not be a sit-down dinner, plenty of tables had been provided for those wanting to get off their feet, or wishing to confer with others more comfortably.

Elfie Dorrance was on the other side of the room
speaking with characteristic animation to the Watergate’s sales and catering manager. When she spotted Hedras, she abruptly ended her conversation and came to him in her trademark self-assured, regal manner; Elfie Dorrance was as graceful as she was handsome.

“Christopher, darling, I wondered where you were. You’re generally early.”

“I was up all night, caught a few hours’ sleep.”

“Come with me,” she said, touching his arm and leading him from the ballroom to a room off the hallway called the Crescent Bar, which at one time was open to the public but was now reserved for the cocktail portion of weddings and other social events.

“Off limits, Mr. Hedras,” a Secret Service agent on duty said.

“Just a few minutes,” Hedras said. “We need a quiet place.”

The agent stepped back to allow them to enter. Elfie led Hedras to a remote spot in the room, looked around unnecessarily to be sure they were alone, and said, “Thank you for straightening out the mess with Manuel.”

Hedras’s voice was lower. “It wasn’t easy, Elfie. He can be intractable when it comes to people like Manuel.”

“I know, and if Joe doesn’t get off that stance it could kill his chances next November. Does he realize, Chris, that one out of every sixteen Americans is of Mexican descent?”

“Of course. Look, we both know what has to be done. But you’re pushing him too hard and fast, Elfie. You know what he’s like. He’s easygoing until he gets a piece of gravel in his craw, like the stuff going on in—and
coming out of—Mexico. Then he plants his feet, draws a damn line in the sand, and it takes tanks to move him.”

She broke into a large, engaging smile. “Or some gentle persuasion. All I’m saying, Chris, is that pulling further away from the president’s position on Mexico is eventually going to become public, set him at odds with the administration and, I might add, with our friends to the south. I couldn’t believe it when he argued against inviting Manuel for this evening.”

“He’s sensitive to any contributor whose name ends in a vowel. All this talk on the Hill about investigating the president’s so-called Mexico connection in the last election has him on edge. Sometimes I think he might fall off.”

“This is different, Chris. Manuel Zegreda is an upstanding, successful American businessman of Mexican descent. And a citizen, I might add, who heads up an American subsidiary of a Mexican conglomerate. If he wants to give money to a presidential campaign, he’s entitled to do that. It’s legal.”

“You know it goes deeper than that with Joe,” Hedras said, glancing toward the door where Janet, of the meeting-planning committee, was waving for him to join her.

“Let’s talk this out another time,” he said. “The important thing is that Zegreda got his invitation and will be here. Are you staying in town for a while?”

“No. Off to London in the morning, then to San Miguel. I’ll be there through the elections.” She touched his tie. “Why don’t you come down, relax with me a few days?”

“Relax with
you
? The last time you relaxed was when
they put you out for your appendectomy. Soon, though. We’ll grab some time when you’re back. By the way, the president made it official this afternoon. The veep will represent the country at the presidential inauguration in Mexico City.”

“Good. You look splendid, Chris. New suit?”

“Yes. I won’t bother to say you look splendid because you always do.”

She kissed him on the cheek and they left the Crescent Bar, she returning to the ballroom, he to give Janet some advice on how to handle the crisis of the moment.

Mexico. Maybe he
could
wangle a trip there in advance of Aprile’s official visit. A couple of days in the sun at Elfie’s hillside mansion would do wonders for mind and body. He winced against a headache that had developed, decided he’d get to bed as early as possible, and alone, and headed for the elevators.

The pert, plump Mexican girl answered the phone: “
Buenas noches
. Mexican-American Trade Alliance.”

It was good the office hadn’t upgraded its technology to include videophones. The sour expression on her face in response to the caller’s stern tone would not have been appreciated.

“He’s in a meeting, Senor Zegreda. He said he is not to be disturbed.”

Another series of winces as Manuel Zegreda told her why he thought she should get her boss out of the meeting.

“But, Senor Zegreda, I—”

The click of the phone caused her to hold the instrument away from her and look at it as though it had just performed a social indecency.

The door behind her opened.

“Who was that?” Valle asked. The managing director of the alliance was a stout man who wore suspenders to avoid creating a bulging belt line. Venustiano Valle’s shirt was yellow, his tie brown, the suspenders black. His
hair was coal black with the consistency of a shoe brush, growing unnaturally low on his forehead.

“Senor Zegreda,” she said. “He wanted me to interrupt the meeting but—”

“Get him back. Where is he?”

“At his office. He said he would be there for another hour. Then he goes to the party for Senor Aprile.”

“Get him back. Now!” Valle slammed the door.

Fifteen minutes later, after having spoken with Manuel Zegreda, Valle went into the hallway, turned right, and stopped at an adjacent office whose small, gold-on-wood sign also read
MEXICAN-AMERICAN TRADE ALLIANCE
. He rang the bell, waited impatiently until the door opened, entered, passed a section of the suite devoted to high-tech communications equipment, and went directly to a small room to the rear where a young man sat behind a desk, his sad, brooding expression straight off the pages of a men’s magazine fashion spread. He looked up, leaned back in his swivel chair, and put his hands behind his head.

“Have you heard from Mexico City yet?” Valle asked, taking the only other chair in the room.

“No,” the younger man said. “You know them. They never respond when they say they will.”

“Zegreda is impatient.”

The comment brought a trace of a smile to the younger man’s face. “That is hardly news,” he said.

Valle did not smile. He said in Spanish, “I don’t like these gaps in communication. I don’t like not knowing what they are doing. That is the way problems arise.”

“I know, I know, but I can do nothing. Mexico City is aware of the situation. I have called them four times
since noon today, and sent E-mail. Each time they say the information will be coming. If you would like, I will try again.”

“No, don’t bother.” Valle went to the window that overlooked the Kennedy Center, where cars had begun to arrive for that evening’s concert by Domingo. He said without turning, “Zegreda is attending the fund-raising affair tonight. Vice President Aprile did not want him there, but our friend convinced him. The vice president is a fool, Jose. He should take lessons from the president, a man for whom pragmatism has always worked.”

When Jose Chapas did not respond, Valle turned and looked at his younger colleague as a professor might at a student who’d woefully missed the point of the lesson. “Where will you be in the next hour?”

“Here.”

“And what does your Senorita Flores say about you working late?”

“Laura? She works late herself.”

Chapas had recently begun seeing Laura Flores, an attractive young Mexican woman working in Washington. Valle knew Laura’s family back in Mexico City, particularly her father, a wealthy businessman. He knew the family well enough to be aware of Senor Flores’s disappointment in his daughter, a headstrong young woman always, it seemed, leading a protest while a student in Mexico, and now stridently proclaiming her views—decidedly socialist, Valle was convinced—in Washington.

“I am going home,” Valle said. “You will let me know the minute you hear. The car phone. My private number. You can always reach me.”

“Of course.”

Valle returned to his office, packed his briefcase, put on his suit jacket, raincoat and hat, and stopped at the reception desk to say good night to Rosa, who browsed the lavish photographs in the latest copy of
Artes de Mexico
.