The Next President (47 page)

“Shit, shit, shit.”

“What?” J. D. asked.

“You don’t believe me?”

“No, the problem is I do believe you. And I want this story so bad it makes my teeth ache. But listen, Mr. Cade, there’s no hvo ways about it: I sneak you in, I get fired. I might have a great story, but it’ll be my last.”

“Maybe not,” J. D. hinted.

“Don’t fuck me around, Mr. Cade. If you’ve got something more, tell me.

Maybe I’ll start my own Internet rag.”

“I’ve sent some material to a friend,” J. D. told the reporter.

“Help me, and I’ll arrange to have him send it to you … if anything should happen to me.”

“Jesus,” Hayashi whispered.

“You think you’re going to get killed?”

“You were the one who said I was hanging my ass out, remember?”

“Yeah… and if I don’t help you and you get killed, I’ll never find out what you know. If I let that happen… Hell, either way I’m finished.”

“But my way you get one very big story and maybe a second; the other way you don’t.”

The reporter finally gave in. J. D. said he should have the press pass messengered to the Refuge.J. D. promised he would never reveal how he got it if Hayashi never revealed the source for his story.

“I called you cagey, Mr. Cade, but that doesn’t cover the half of it.”

J. D. hoped he was as clever as the reporter thought—showing up at the Bowl when everyone expected him to be at the studio—because if he was going to save Evan, he’d have to take a lot of people by surprise tonight.

The valet at the Century Plaza brought Jenny Crenshaw’s car up for her. She was reaching in her purse for a tip when Dante DeVito came up from behind and took her elbow. Jenny was so startled she jumped, but by the time she saw who had his hand on her, she was already angry.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, and pulled her arm free.

“We need to have a little talk.”

“I don’t have the time. I don’t have a free minute all day.”

“Me either. But Senator Rawley gave me a special job to do, and it involves talking to you—so we’re going to talk.”

Jenny saw that she was not going to get rid of the special agent.

“You drive,” she said.

“If you want to talk, you can drive.”

DeVito nodded. He got behind the wheel and Jenny slipped into the passenger seat. He asked, “Where are we going?”

“CBS. Television City. It’s on Beverly Boulevard and—” “I know where it is.” DeVito steered the car out of the hotel driveway and into traffic.

“So talk,” Jenny said.

DeVito did, keeping his eyes on the road.

“You were there when Cade met the Rawleys. Did you hear Mrs. Rawley ask Cade if someone had hurt him recently?”

“Yes.”

“The senator wants me to find out who might’ve hurt him.” DeVito glanced at Jenny.

“I figure one person could be you.”

Jenny turned bright red. DeVito faced forward again but kept talking.

“The two of you had a thing going. Everyone in the protection detail knows it. Now you and Cade are on the outs. Normally that’s nobody’s business but yours. And if you tell me to fuck off, that’s your business, too. But it’s also what I’ll have to tell the senator.”

After a long pause, Jenny asked, “Why is this so important?”

“You know I’ve always had my doubts about Cade. I’ve shared them with the senator.”

DeVito had expected some sort of complaint from the woman at his side but when he heard none he looked over at her again.

“The senator doesn’t necessarily agree with me that Cade is the guy who shot at him in Chicago.

But he does agree it’s important to understand the man’s frame of mind. So if you tell me he’s just upset over a lover’s quarrel—and we don’t need the details, believe me—then that will ease everybody’s mind.”

“It wasn’t a quarrel,” Jenny said.

DeVito stopped for a red light at Beverly and Crescent Heights and stared at her.

“Then what was it?”

“A dream. I had a dream that spooked me.” She told the agent of her nightmare that J. D. was a demon killer who assassinated Del Rawley at the Hollywood Bowl.

“And I think the whole damn thing was your fault, sowing seeds of suspicion in everyone’s minds. J. D. Cade hasn’t done a damn thing to make me think he’s an assassin. He saved Del’s life. But I have one silly nightmare and I let it scare me so badly that I alienate the man personally and push him right out of the campaign.”

The light turned green and DeVito stepped on the gas.

“You tell Cade about this dream?”

“No. I’m embarrassed that I’ve told you.”

“Don’t be. I believe dreams can tell you a lot.”

“Sure, especially when they play right into your preconceived notions.”

DeVito considered debating that point but let it go.

“So as far as Cade knows, you just lost interest.”

“No, he’s too smart for that. I’m pretty sure he knows I doubt him now… and how can I tell him it’s all because of some damn nightmare I had? I’d sound like an idiot.”

DeVito disagreed, but he was not there to give advice to the lovelorn.

“Donnel Timmons is the only other person in the campaign Cade is close to personally?”

“Yes, as far as I know. Vandy Ellison would like to be close to him, but I don’t think he’s obliged her. Not yet, anyway.”

DeVito pulled into the parking lot at Television City.

“Have you heard of anyone else who’s important to Cade?”

Jenny Crenshaw looked at him and said, “His son.”

DeVito parked the car and left Jenny to call for a ride back to the hotel.

As she watched him go, Jenny felt torn that she hadn’t informed DeVito that Don Ward had told her he’d found the man who wanted Del dead. She still wasn’t sure Don had really done it.

But a part of her was afraid that he had—that he’d found out it was J. D. Cade.

J. D. was driving east on San Vicente Boulevard when he called his cousin Ben. While traffic whizzed past him in L.A.” Ben answered the call on his PCR in the stillness of the vast Shawnee National Forest. The news from Ben was not good. He’d failed to find Evan in town or at the Giant City visitors’ complex and was now searching the woods for him with the help of his neighbor and his dogs. Ben told J. D. he would call just as soon as he had anything to tell him.

“Good or bad,” J. D. instructed Ben.

“Either way, let me know immediately.”

“I understand,” Ben replied.

J. D. left his car in the underground parking lot at the Century City Mail—watching carefully that Arnold Roth was nowhere nearby. He walked northeast on Little Santa Monica Boulevard. It was a half mile from the mall to the Peninsula Beverly Hills Hotel. J. D. had the sidewalk to himself the whole way. He was grateful there were stretches of L.A. where it was virtually impossible to follow someone on foot and not be noticed.

The Peninsula, however, was right around the corner from the Wilshire Boulevard retail corridor of Beverly Hills, where people shopped on foot and even arrived at the hotel without the presence of a car.

J. D.‘s appearance passed muster with the doorman and he received a smile as he entered the building. Finding a house phone, he asked the operator to connect him with Mr. Garvin Townes’ suite. Townes’ phone rang four times and then the hotel’s voice mail center kicked in. J. D. hung up. Townes was either out, in the shower, or busy with his coven. Any such distraction would serve J. D.‘s purpose.

He found his way to Townes’ suite, feigning the assurance of a frequent and valued guest of the establishment. There was no one in sight as he approached his enemy’s door, but when J. D. stopped opposite it, the reason seemed to be that he’d noticed his shoelace had come undone. He stooped to tie it and in doing so momentarily lost his balance and had to put his hand on the floor to steady himself.

With his hand thus extended he performed the simple legerdemain of sliding a small slip of paper under Townes’ door. Then he tied his shoe, continued down the corridor, took the stairs back to the lobby, and made his way back to the mall.

The message J. D. had delivered to Townes’s suite read: Tonight in Hollywood… but only if you’re there.

DeVito found Donnel Timmons in his hotel room. He got the impression the man had been about to go out and was none too glad for the delay. Too bad about him.

“What can you tell me about your old army unit?” Agent DeVito asked.

Donnel regarded DeVito impassively. Accepting at least a momentary delay in his schedule, he settled himself comfortably in an easy chair. He gestured to DeVito to have a seat.

“What do you want to know?” Donnel asked evenly.

DeVito remained standing.

“Tell me what your unit did.”

“1st Logistical Command was the army’s Wal-Mart. Pilferage and Inventory Control was store security. Simple as that.”

DeVito looked at the prosperous middle-aged black man. He knew that Donnel Timmons had been a big supporter of Del Rawley from the start.

Now he also knew that Timmons had been a part of the same army Spockshop operation in which Cade had served. Belatedly DeVito had the uneasy feeling he should have given this man a much closer look.

He had to admit the racial thing had blinded him. What black person wouldn’t want to see the first black president?

But as a professional, he chastised himself. He should have asked: What could be better camouflage in this situation than having a black skin?

“Mr. Timmons, what would you say if I told you that you were full of shit?”

“I’d say I musta forgot to eat my prunes.” Donnel’s smile mocked the special agent.

DeVito wasn’t amused. He said, “You and Cade were part of a covert operation in Vietnam, Mr. Timmons. Your army service had as much to do with inventory control as my job has to do with writing parking tickets.”

“Might be your next job. Real soon.”

“Are you working with Cade, Mr. Timmons? Are you part of whatever he has planned?”

“Yeah, I am. See, what we both plan is to get Del Rawley elected president.”

Donnel looked around as if to make sure no one would overhear what he had to say next.

“Then we’re gonna make connections at the Pentagon and corner the market on army-navy surplus,” Donnel laughed at his joke, made sure DeVito saw he was laughing at him.

This time DeVito turned red.

“You’re a very funny man, Mr. Timmons. You going to be the court jester in the Rawley administration?”

Donnel got to his feet and for a second DeVito thought he was going to take a swing at him. That’d be all he’d need, getting into a fight with a prominent black supporter of the candidate. He’d be gone so fast-But Donnel walked calmly past the special agent and opened the door for DeVito letting him know their discussion was over.

“If I do go to work at the White House,” he told DeVito “maybe I’ll see to it you’re the one who walks the family dog. Picks up after the messes he makes.”

Garvin Townes returned to the Peninsula from a meeting with the president.

He was outwardly happy but, in truth, he was a highly conflicted man. His position as national security adviser in the next administration, heretofore dangled as a carrot, had just been confirmed. What should have been his greatest moment of triumph was marred by his gnawing doubts about what that bastard Cade would do. Or refuse to do, even at the cost of his son’s life.

In hindsight, Townes knew he should have had Cade killed years ago.

Townes pushed open the door to his suite and stopped dead when he saw the slip of paper on the floor. He observed it from the doorway. Not hotel stationery.

Plain white bond of an ordinary quality. He could see fragments of type, but the message as a whole was concealed by the fold in the paper.

The old covert warrior looked into the suite. He could sense no one lurking nearby who would fall on him should he stoop to retrieve the message.

With a frown, he quickly looked behind him, but there was no one about to attack him from that direction, either.

Stepping into his suite, closing the door behind him, and picking up the slip of paper, Townes read the message. But at first the words themselves were lost to a far more important bulletin: Cade had found him!

Townes’ eyes darted around the suite once more, all but certain a sadistically smiling Cade would step out from concealment with a gun in his hand, bent on vengeance. Townes had a weapon of his own in his bedroom and he slinked toward it, ready to make a dash if need be. But when he had the reassurance of holding his Clock in his hand, he realized that Cade was not present. No, Cade had only slipped the note under the door.

The note! Tonight in Hollywood… but only if you’re there.

A trap. What else could it be?

The answer came readily to Townes. It was a challenge.

Cade wanted to bring all the players into one forum, test them, and see who won. Townes had to smile. That was as it should be. How could he, as national security adviser, be expected to best adversaries from all around the world if he couldn’t outwit his own former subordinate? Yes, this would be his crucible, and he would emerge victorious.

By early that evening the Toad had lost all sight in his right eye. In his left eye, where he’d splashed the water—an exercise in agony he’d been unable to repeat in his other eye—there was now only a small circle of focus through which he could see clearly; it was like looking through a corrective lens with the circumference of a soda straw.

In order to watch his captives, he had to move his head to point his partially sighted eye at what he wanted to see. But each time he moved his point of focus off one of the prisoners, the other two seemed to move. Not to lurch forward at him, but to rock gently back and forth. Each time he tried to catch them at it, the one he focused on was stationary’ again.

Blair asked Evan, “How come you admitted your father killed mine?”

Evan sighed.

“Well, in a practical sense, it doesn’t matter. Mr. Ribbit over there is just waiting to get the word to kill us.”

“That right, Froggy?” Blair asked.

The Toad rotated his head. His appearance was truly ghastly. His right eye looked like melted wax. The left eye was less deformed but the pupil was reduced to the size of a pinhead. The Toad’s only response to Blair’s question was a cruel smile.