Power Play (14 page)

Slowly, reluctantly, Jake got to his feet. Perez took his topcoat off the hook on the back of the office door and Jake realized he hadn’t taken his car coat off. He rummaged in its pockets for his cap while the two of them headed out into the hallway and toward the car Perez had waiting.

Monster was behind the wheel.

“Hi, Jake,” he said cheerily as Jake climbed into the black sedan’s rear seat. Perez ducked in and sat beside him.

They drove off campus, through the heart of the city, and out into the wooded countryside, heading away from the mountains. Visions of one-way rides and Mob assassinations flooded Jake’s mind.

“Where’re we going?” he asked, trying to keep his voice from shaking.

“The senator’s place, out by the lake,” said Perez.

It was a low, slant-roofed country lodge out on the edge of the lake that had been created when the river had been dammed to make a reservoir. In the summertime families came out for swimming and waterskiing. Jake had spent many moonlit evenings with Louise along the shore, watching the waves glittering in the silvery light.

Monster swung the car up to the lodge’s front door and killed the engine. Perez slid out of the backseat and Jake followed him.

“I’ll wait here,” Monster said, leaning his beefy arms on the sedan’s roof. “I’ll drive you back to town when you’re finished, Jake.”

“Fine,” Jake replied, trying to smile.

Inside, the lodge was decorated in rustic style: log walls, timber beams supporting the ceiling, comfortable armchairs grouped around a big stone fireplace, blackened from use although there was no fire crackling in it at the moment.

Senator Leeds was standing by the big sweeping window that looked out onto the lake, a tumbler of amber liquid in his hand. The late-afternoon sunlight glinted off the water. Even with most of the trees bare the scenery was spectacularly beautiful.

“You’re Jacob Ross,” the senator said as he turned his back to the view. He took a few steps across the oval rug and stuck out his hand. “We met at the dedication of the new library wing.”

“Senator Leeds,” Jake murmured as he took the senator’s hand. It was cold and wet from holding his drink.

Leeds was handsome, Jake saw again, although his once-chiseled features were getting soft. He still looked like a marble statue to Jake, but the marble was starting to turn into something more like putty.

Gesturing to one of the armchairs, the senator called to Perez, “Nacho, see what Dr. Ross wants to drink.”

“Just club soda, thanks,” said Jake.

“You’re not a drinking man?” Leeds asked.

Jake replied, “Not when I need to keep my wits about me.”

Leeds raised his head toward the ceiling and gave out a hearty laugh. “I see. You think you’re in the enemy camp so you want to be careful.”

Jake nodded.

Quite seriously, the senator said, “I’m not your enemy, son.”

You’re not my father, either, Jake said to himself.

Perez handed Jake a tall glass tinkling with ice cubes. “Club soda,” he said. “With lime.”

“Thanks.” Jake took a sip.

Senator Leeds stared at Jake for a long, silent moment. Then, “Jake, we have an awkward situation on our hands.”

“Awkward? How so?”

“You’ve convinced Tomlinson that this MHD business can get him votes, but the people running the MHD program don’t want anything to do with Tomlinson.”

“I guess that is kind of awkward,” Jake admitted.

“It would be best if you told Tomlinson to drop the MHD idea. It’s pie in the sky, anyway.”

“I don’t think so,” Jake replied. “I’ve looked into the technical details and—”

“Pie in the sky!” Leeds insisted. “You’ve gotten Tomlinson to promise more than he can deliver.”

With the ghost of a smile, Jake said, “Isn’t that fairly normal for a politician?”

Leeds’s face went dark for an instant. But he quickly recovered and countered, “I deliver for the people of this state. I bring home the bacon.”

The pork, Jake amended silently.

Leaning forward to tap Jake on the knee, Leeds added, “And I can deliver for you, too.”

“For me?”

“My sources at the university tell me you’re up for tenure this year.”

Jake blinked in surprise.

“I can get the committee to grant you tenure. You’d be the youngest member of the faculty to get it. Quite a feather in your cap, career-wise.”

For several moments Jake didn’t know what to say. He simply sat there, open-mouthed, while Leeds smiled knowingly at him.

“All you have to do,” the senator went on, “is tell Tomlinson that you were wrong about MHD. It won’t work. Not for a long time. Ten years, at least.”

“But I don’t think that’s true,” Jake heard himself reply.

Leeds glanced up at Perez, then said, “It’s true enough. Professor Sinclair himself told me.”

“But—”

“Listen, son. You’re not helping Tomlinson with this MHD crap. If he tries to make an issue of it I’ll smash him flat with the facts.”

Jake said nothing.

“But if you get Tomlinson to back off, I’ll get you tenure at the university. A favor for a favor. Deal?”

Leeds was smiling but there was no warmth in it. His eyes were crafty, searching.

“I…” Jake heard Lev’s voice in his head, warning him not to make a decision before he’d thought hard about it.
Engage brain before putting foot in mouth,
Lev would say.

“I’ll have to think about it,” he said.

The senator’s smile disappeared like a lightbulb being snapped off. “All right,” he said. “You think about it. You’ve got twenty-four hours. I want your answer by this time tomorrow.”

Jake nodded and got to his feet. As he followed Perez back to the waiting car he thought, They’re giving me the carrot-and-stick treatment. Tenure is the carrot and Monster’s the stick.

DECISIONS

Perez stayed at the lodge; Jake rode up front beside Monster back to the campus as the sun set behind the woods and the shadows of evening crept over the land. By the time they reached the city it was fully dark.

Monster was in a good mood as he drove, reminiscing about the old days in the neighborhood.

“You remember the time those spics tried to throw a picnic in our park?” he asked, grinning widely.

It was a public park and the Hispanic kids had a perfect right to use it, but the guys from Jake’s school didn’t want them there and a major battle ensued, kids belting each other all over the grass, picnic tables upended, baskets of food turned into bludgeons, the air filled with blood and screaming and bilingual curses. Jake had hung back at the edge of the fight but Monster had waded right in, jovially cracking heads. The wails of police sirens finally sent everybody scampering. By the time the cops arrived the only people in the park were unconscious or too battered to get up from the grass—plus some cranky old farts who told the cops what had happened.

“I remember this one guy in the park,” Monster was giggling as he spoke, “pulled a switchblade on me. Thought that gave him the edge. I just grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm right out of his shoulder socket. I bet the poor jerk still can’t use that arm.”

Jake stayed silent. The happy days of youth, he thought. I wouldn’t live through them again for all the money in the world.

But then he thought, Maybe Monster’s trying to tell me something. Maybe he’s trying to remind me of what he could do to me if Perez or Leeds tells him to. Jake shook his head. No, Monster’s not that subtle. If they tell him to break my head he’ll do it, but he’s not shrewd enough to try psychological warfare on me.

“I seen your apartment building,” Monster said as he pulled up in front of the campus garage. “Nice-lookin’ place.”

Compared to what? Jake asked silently. Maybe compared to the row houses they both grew up in the building looked pretty good, but next to Tomlinson’s mansion or even Amy’s swanky condo his apartment building was seedy, run-down.

Jake opened the car door and started to get out, but Monster grabbed his shoulder. Turning, Jake saw that Monster was smiling at him.

“Good to see you again, Jake,” he said. “I always liked you.”

“I like you, too, Monster.”

They shook hands, Monster’s big paw engulfing Jake’s. Standing out on the sidewalk as the car pulled away, Jake realized that Monster had said he’d liked him. Liked. Past tense.

Once he got up to his apartment, Jake pulled off his coat and phoned Amy. As he punched the keys of her number he saw that his machine had no messages for him. Nobody had called. As usual.

*   *   *

“So I’ve got twenty-four hours to give Leeds my answer,” Jake said. With a glance at his wristwatch he amended, “Twenty-one and a half hours, actually.”

Amy had agreed to meet him as soon as Jake had called. The bar at the Roosevelt Club.

“Tell them at the door that you’re Mr. Tomlinson’s guest,” she had instructed Jake.

“Right.”

“And wear a tie or they won’t let you in.”

Opened when Theodore Roosevelt was president of the United States, the Roosevelt Club was the hangout of the richest men in the state. Business and political leaders. Old money. Franklin Tomlinson’s father had served as chairman of its house committee for decades. Senator Christopher Leeds had never been invited to join.

The bar was a quiet, darkly paneled room at one end of a plush corridor that led to the club’s spacious dining room. Jake was surprised at how small it was. Only half a dozen stools at the bar itself, and no more than four high-walled booths along the far wall. There was a rear door that opened onto a garden, where members could come in or slip out without going through the main area of the club.

No one was sitting at the bar when Jake entered, and only one booth was occupied, by three elderly couples sipping at cocktails and chatting amiably.

Jake pulled up a stool and angled it so he could watch the door to the corridor. Amy won’t sneak in through the garden, he figured. The black bartender asked what he wanted to drink and Jake ordered Jack Daniel’s on the rocks.

“Sir, are you a club member or a guest?” the bartender asked.

“I’m Mr. Tomlinson’s guest.”

“Mr. Tomlinson Senior, sir, or his son?”

“The son.”

The bartender smiled brightly. “Jack on the rocks. Right away, sir.”

At that moment Amy showed up at the doorway. With Tomlinson, who was holding her arm. She wore a cardinal red cocktail dress, its skirt mid-thigh, its neckline scooped low enough to show some cleavage. Tomlinson was in a dark gray three-piece suit, tailored perfectly.

They both smiled at Jake and Tomlinson pointed to one of the empty booths. Jake slid off his stool, then turned to the bartender.

“I’ll bring your drink to your table, sir.”

Without being asked, the bartender began to mix a pair of martinis. Jake realized that Tomlinson had brought Amy here often enough for the guy to know what she drank.

He slid into the booth opposite the two of them and shook hands perfunctorily with Tomlinson across the table.

“So Leeds actually met with you,” Tomlinson said, by way of greeting. He seemed fascinated with the idea.

“He wants me to tout you off MHD,” Jake said. “I’m supposed to give him my answer tomorrow afternoon.”

Tomlinson looked up at the paneled ceiling, then asked, “What did Chris offer you?”

For some reason that he didn’t understand, Jake felt a pang of guilt.

Misunderstanding Jake’s silence, Tomlinson prodded, “Come on, Chris knows how to play the game. He wants something from you, so he offered you something in return.”

With considerable bitterness, Jake said, “He offered me a choice: tenure at the university or a broken head.”

Tomlinson broke into a grin. “He threatened you?”

“Not in so many words, but it looked damned clear to me.”

Amy said to Tomlinson, “He must be worried if he’s pressuring Jake.”

“Worried about the MHD idea.” Tomlinson’s smile broadened. “We’re on to something, all right. If MHD scares him, it’s a card we can use to beat him.”

With a glance at Jake, Amy said, “I don’t understand why Leeds is being so blatant about this. He has Sinclair on his side. Tim and Bob Rogers aren’t going to come out and openly support you. Why is he so afraid of the MHD idea?”

“Because it’s a great issue,” Tomlinson said, with growing excitement. “It’s an issue that can decide this election.” He reached across the table to bang Jake playfully on the shoulder. “By god, Jake, I think you’ve won the election for me.”

Jake muttered, “I hope I live long enough to see election day.”

“Don’t tell me you’re scared?” Tomlinson said.

“Damned right I am. I know the goons he’ll use. I grew up with them.”

With a wave of his hand, Tomlinson said, “We’ll protect you. Don’t worry.”

Jake nodded uncertainly.

“And if it’s tenure you want, that’s no problem. My father built half the goddamned school’s campus. He’ll put in a word for you.”

Just like that, Jake thought, staring at the man. His father puts in a word and I get tenure. If I live to enjoy it.

The bartender brought their drinks on a tray. Jake noticed that Tomlinson’s martini was garnished with a twist of lemon, while Amy’s had three little green olives on a plastic spear.

“Thank you, Kenneth,” Tomlinson murmured to the bartender.

Tomlinson lifted his glass and Jake noticed that its stem was actually two curved arcs of glass: they looked like a cowboy’s bowed legs.

“To MHD,” Tomlinson proposed. Jake touched his glass and Amy’s with his own.

After a sip, Amy said, “We have a problem.”

“What might that be?” Tomlinson asked, taking a second swallow of his drink.

“With Sinclair in Leeds’s camp, and Tim and Rogers neutralized, who’s going to be our spokesperson about MHD? Who’s going to explain it to the reporters and the public?”

Tomlinson nodded toward Jake. “My science advisor, of course.”

“Me? I’m not a public speaker.”

“Come on, Jake,” Tomlinson said, “you speak before auditoriums full of students every day, don’t you? Talking to reporters isn’t that different—they’re just a little dumber and a lot more aggressive, that’s all.”