The Next President (23 page)

So he addressed himself to her point.

“There’s a difference between selling your vision and selling yourself.”

“Not if you come along with your vision, to make sure it works.”

J. D. grinned reflectively.

“A telling point. You’re a pretty persuasive per son.”

“God, I hope so.”

“And you don’t mind the media poking into your private life?”

“Not so far. The truth is, your privacy gets invaded only as long as you’re news. For me, that will be until election day. After that, nobody will give a rat’s pa toot about Jenny Crenshaw.”

“But from now until then?”

Jenny stared at J. D. for a moment. Then she said quietly, “My darkest secret

“Is entirely your business,” J. D. replied with utmost sincerity.

“I had a nervous breakdown,” she told him anyway.

“It happened seven years ago, when my husband died. I was in a locked room at a private treatment facility for six weeks.”

J. D. didn’t say a word. Didn’t dare.

Jenny shrugged.

“You’re right. That’s nobody’s business but mine. And no body has yet to dig it out and expose it to public review. But if they did, I’d live with it. I’d pay the price for what I hope to gain.”

J. D. remained silent but thought that was, indeed, the heart of the matter paying the price for what you hoped to gain.

Jenny grinned at him.

“Don’t look so serious,” she told him.

“Don’t worry. You’re still new to all this. I won’t ask to know your darkest secret for at least another week or two.”

J. D. knew it was time to hold up his end of the conversation, and he

evaded neatly.

“I was just wondering what some reporter would make of the fact that you spent four hours in a bed at my house this morning.”

Jenny laughed mischievously.

“He’d undoubtedly make far more of it than there was. But so what? We’re both single, we’re both well over twenty one… and we both know your manners are far better than they need to be.”

“I’ll make a note of that.”

“Please do. But since this is a business lunch, we’ll stick to business. So let me assure you that dealing with the media is a two-way street. We use the newsies as much as they do us.”

And Jenny proceeded to tell him how.

DeVito was at the DGA Building on Sunset Boulevard doing a double-check of the auditorium where Orpheus’ news conference would be held. Everybody was aware that he’d been looking over their shoulders but nobody complained—even though more than a few of his colleagues now considered DeVito to be bad luck.

Shortly before the audience was due to start filing in, a veteran special agent named Landers sidled up to him where he was standing in one wing of the stage and whispered, “You hear about the two assholes and their accident?”

For a moment DeVito was irritated, thinking Landers had stopped by to tell him a joke when he ought to be working. Then he listened with serious interest to the story of how Roth and Danby had almost bought the farm last night.

“What the hell were they doing out there?”

“Who knows?” Landers said.

“Only reason I heard about it was they had to report the loss of their car, and word got out.”

Landers left. Left DeVito thinking that, sure, accidents happened. But more often than not they happened to people you hated to see get hurt or die. Not pricks like… J. D. Cade.

DeVito looked up and saw him standing there in the wings on the other side of the stage.

J. D. had spotted the Secret Service agent, too, saw DeVito giving him the evil eye. He’d been watching for Roth and Danby, concerned they’d give him more than dirty looks. But then he realized he was safe from them as long as the blackmailer still hoped he’d kill Del Rawley. The crew cuts if they were well-trained mutts, could kill him only after he smoked the candidate.

Which had to make them more than a little unhappy, knowing he had no such constraints.

On the other hand, unless Jenny Crenshaw was able to fit DeVito with a muzzle, the special agent seemed to have no limitations on giving J. D. grief.

The doors to the auditorium opened and a procession of Hollywood royalty made their entrance. Everyone had been obliged to pass through metal detectors, but once past that egalitarian security procedure, a pecking order as rigid as any in nature took over. The A-list took their places first and then the lower orders filled in around them. Del Rawley’s news conference was the hottest ticket in town that day.

Secret Service agents were positioned throughout the auditorium, and one was standing not five feet behind J. D. That wasn’t good enough for De Vito. He kept staring daggers at J. D. Jenny had left J. D. in his present spot while she went to talk with the candidate, so he had no choice but to remain there. DeVito unblinking stare was beginning to annoy him, however. He considered making a gesture. A mocking salute. An extended middle finger. In the end, he went with something practical: a small test. He darted his right hand under his suit coat.

For all DeVito knew, he was reaching for his handkerchief, but the agent reflexively pulled back his suit coat and reached for his Uzi. No doubt about it, J. D. had DeVito very tightly wound. Before things went too far, J. D. casually removed a notepad and pen from his pocket.

J. D. heard the Secret Service agent standing behind him mutter, “What the fuck?”

The man had seen DeVito go for his weapon, but he hadn’t seen any reason for such a move. There was only J. D. between the two of them, and he was harmlessly writing a note. The second agent quickly brushed past J. D. and peered out at the audience. Nothing was amiss there.

The agent asked J. D.”

“Did you see anything threatening?”

“Only him,” J. D. responded, nodding at DeVito

DeVito face was twisted in rage. He’d stepped on his dick and been caught at it. He disappeared into the backstage shadows.

A moment later, J. D. heard a quiet voice.

“I believe that man was tempted to shoot you.”

Donnel Timmons had eased up to J. D.‘s side. J. D. took a quick look around. The Secret Service agent who’d just questioned him had departed.

Probably wanted a word with DeVito

“Which man is that?” J. D. asked Donnel in the same soft tone.

“The one that was about to point his automatic weapon your way.”

“My way? You sure it was me? Weren’t you behind me?”

Donnel chuckled quietly.

“Yes, I was. Wondering where the hell I could duck. All the while I was thinking I may be middle-aged, but I’m still too damn young to die.”

“What are you two whispering about? We’re not going to have any secrets in my administration.” Del Rawley arrived with Jenny and another pair of agents.

The candidate greeted Donnel and then extended his hand to J. D. “Jenny tells me she gave you the short course in campaign politics at lunch, Mr. Cade.”

J. D. shook Rawley’s hand.

“She did, and it makes me glad I’m just a bit player, Senator.”

“Oh, we’ll get the most we can out of you, don’t you worry about that. So how is it you know my friend Donnel Timmons here?”

“From our army days, Senator.”

“You were in the same outfit?”

J. D. nodded. “1st Logistical Command. Pilferage and inventory control

Del Rawley cocked his head.

“Didn’t they used to call you guys the PANIC unit? I remember trying to get syringes and pressure bandages from a supply depot one time and they couldn’t be bothered with me. They were in a big sweat doing an emergency inventory all because they thought the PANIC boys were about to swoop down on them.”

“Must’ve been afraid of the likes of Lieutenant Timmons. I was just a clerk.”

Donnel cut J. D. a look, then he smiled and said, “Don’t you believe it, Del. We’d have been lost without J. D. Cade.”

Del tossed a glance at Jenny.

“There’s something going on between these two, all right. Old army buddies, you just never know what they got up to.

But we’ll find out soon enough. Gentlemen, I’m taking Ms. Crenshaw’s suggestion. You two have joined the circus.”

Then the candidate stepped onstage to give the most important speech of the campaign to date. He waited for the applause to die and came straight to the point.

“For me,” Del told his audience and the TV cameras, “there is no escape from taking responsibility for my actions. I don’t deny my affair with Sophie Moreau; I make no excuses for it. Sophie was the first love of my life. While I don’t share her politics, I’ve learned that I do share a son with her, and I’d very much like to get to know Bertrand.

“There’s no escaping the fact that the great love of my life is my

wife, Devree Harper Rawley, and since the attempt on my life in Chicago, Devree and our children, Eleanor, Bobby, and Colin, have never been more precious to me.

“There’s no escaping the fact that my political opponents exposed my affair with Sophie Moreau not because she is a Communist but because she is white. My political enemies were counting on the idea that a black man—a black man running for president—having had sex and a child with a white woman would stir revulsion in a multitude of voters, both black and white.

“All I can say to that,” Del told them, “is the heart follows its own path.

Seeking only a love that fulfills, it cares nothing for race, religion, age, or even gender. If I’m found to be unworthy of the office I seek because of who I fell in love with thirty-seven years ago, so be it. I’ll accept that judgment without regret. I am at peace with myself. I wouldn’t change a thing.

“But if I get only the votes of those people who still recall their first loves with undimmed joy, there’s one more fact that’s inescapable: I will be your next president.”

J. D. watched from the wings with Jenny and Donnel. Del Rawley seemed to be speaking directly to him. Or at least to his experience. He thought of his own first love, Mary Ellen McCarthy, and found himself nodding in agreement.

Then, as at the diva’s fundraiser, the realization that this man could affect him so deeply brought him up short. Made his body jerk. But no one noticed because they were fixated on the candidate, who was receiving a standing ovation from the audience.

Jenny and Donnel were applauding also, Jenny with a tear on her cheek, Donnel wearing a broad smile. Jenny turned to look at J. D.” and it was only then he realized that he, too, was clapping.

Glancing at Jenny and Donnel, J. D. remembered how he’d wished he could find a way to help force Del Rawley out of the race. So he wouldn’t have to kill him.

Just then the idea hit him as to how he could do that.

A moment later, his PCR beeped. When he saw who was paging him he excused himself.

“Where’s Mr. Cade?” Del asked as he stepped offstage.

“He had to make a phone call,” Jenny explained.

The candidate raised an eyebrow.

“Hope he got to hear the whole speech.”

“He was applauding as loudly as anyone,” Jenny told him.

“He told me at Marva’s the other night about his first love, the girl he should have married.

But she got away.”

“A lost love? Seems like Mr. Cade and I have one or two things in common.”

Then Del Rawley turned to Donnel Timmons.

“You know, Donnel, the way I recall it, you told me about being in the 1st Logistical Command, all right. But you never told me the PANIC part.”

Donnel shrugged, but he didn’t avoid Del’s eyes.

“What can I say? That’s like ‘fessing up to being with the IRS on April fifteenth.”

“Is this going to be a problem?” Jenny asked with a note of concern.

“No… no,” the candidate replied.

“I guess I’m just a little sensitive right now about anything that might jump up and bite me on the ass. I think one no regrets speech is pretty much the limit for any campaign. So, Donnel, I hope you and Mr. Cade don’t have any other secrets that might prove embarrassing.”

“Not me,” Donnel said evenly.

“Then we’ll have to ask Mr. Cade if he has any skeletons in his closet.”

The candidate and his retinue departed. Del instructed Jenny to ask J. D. Cade to join him for dinner that night.

“Dad,” Evan said, “where’ve you been? Grandma’s been trying to call you-and I just remembered that PCR number you gave me.”

J. D. had placed the call from the lobby of the DGA building. His mother must have tried to reach him that morning after he’d turned his phones off so Jenny could sleep undisturbed.

“What’s wrong?” J. D. asked.

“Is everyone all right?”

“Well, actually, I have a mild concussion and I’m in University Hospital.”

J. D. looked around and strained to keep cool.

“How’d you get the concussion?”

“There was this fight,” Evan said reluctantly.

“With who?”

“I never actually saw the guy who hit me. It was at this biker bar called Dingle’s.”

“Why were you there?” J. D. kept his voice at a conversational pitch, but he could feel a vein in his head start to throb.

“Blair and I were sort of—” “Blair McCray?”

“Yeah. We went to this bar looking for this guy and a fight broke out.”

“That’s been known to happen in biker bars. You might have thought of that.”

“The thing is, we found out that the guy we’re looking for paid these bikers to beat us up.”

“And they succeeded.”

“Not as much as they wanted. Deena saved us.”

“And she is…?”

“Ivar McCray’s common-law wife. Widow now. She’s looking for this guy, too.”

“And the reason everyone’s looking for this guy?”

“We … I think he’s the one responsible for Ivar McCray’s death. Maybe for setting me up, too.”

“Does he have a name, this guy?”

“Not that we know. We’re not even sure what he looks like. One description says he’s a long-haired biker who might have some Asian blood. Another says he’s short-haired and clean shaven. Hey, Dad, have you ever heard of the ROK Army?”

The question made J. D. struggle to stay in control.

“Yes.”

“This bartender named Punch says the guy we’re looking for could’ve been a drill sergeant for them. Were they as bad as he makes out? You know, if it moved, they shot it?”