Dutch and Gina: The Power of Love (33 page)

“He’ll probably fuck her too,” Brightman said of the Cameraman.
 
“Why are you sending her with him?”

Dutch ignored the pervert and sat in the chair in the spacious bedroom.
 
“Lovely,” he said, looking around.

“I didn’t know she was underage, all right?” Brightman immediately said.

Dutch looked at him.
 
“Who said she was?”

Brightman was at first thrown.
 
And then he caught himself.
 
“She’s seventeen and you know it!” he yelled.

“Fifteen, but who’s counting?” Dutch countered, unable to shield his contempt for the man.

Brightman looked worn, defeated.
 
He sat on the edge of his bed, his sagging breasts and rolled belly making him look more like the Pillsbury doughboy than some sex machine stud he was known to be around town.
 
“What do you want?”

“You will resign,” Dutch began.

“Resign?” Brightman responded angrily.

“You will resign at exactly noon tomorrow.
 
And you will resign not only from the Speakership,” Dutch went on, “but from Congress altogether.”

Brightman was astounded.
 
“You can’t be serious!” he proclaimed.

“Okay,” Dutch said mildly.
 
“Don’t resign.
 
And tomorrow morning my attorney general will take a look at those photographs and have you in jail tomorrow night.
 
Resigning from Congress will be the least of your concerns, because that’ll happen too.”

Brightman stared at Dutch.
 
“If you release my photos to Prim, we’ll release your wife’s photos to the media,” he warned.

Dutch fought hard to contain himself.
 
“And then you’ll be dead,” Dutch said, his face revealing nothing but seriousness.

Brightman’s heart skipped a beat.
 
Because he knew Dutch Harber.
 
He knew how ruthless he could be.
 
He knew he never bluffed.
 

“Prison or resignation,” Dutch said, “or death,” he added, since Brightman took him there.
 
“The choice is yours.”

Brightman began shaking his head.
 
He could not believe this turn of events.
 
But he knew the jig was up.
 
Dutch Harber didn’t come knocking at your door unless there were no reprieves.
 
He grabbed the pack of cigarettes on his nightstand, lit one, and then took a puff, exhaling it high into the air.

He crossed his legs.
 
“And what exactly,” he said, “will be the reason for my shocking and sudden resignation?”

“Insanity of course,” Dutch said without hesitation.

Brightman frowned.
 
“Insanity?
 
Why the hell should I claim insanity?”

“Because you have definitely lost your mind,” Dutch said angrily, “if you were thinking for even a second that I was going to let assholes like you, Rand, and Shelly, rape my wife, decimate her good name in public, and there be no retribution.”

Brightman stared at Dutch.
 
And as quickly as Dutch said it, he understood it.
 
He could hardly believe how they didn’t understand it all along.
 
And he shook his head.
 
What in the world, he thought, were they thinking?

Then he took another drag on his cigarette.
 
Because he thought it far too late.

“Why?” he asked Dutch.
 
“Why no arrest?”

“Because I want to keep this hanging over you like a festering cancer; like the sword of Damocles over your head.
 
You so much as think about touching another minor; if you so much as think about releasing any photos of my wife that turns up anywhere in this world, you will be destroyed.
 
Right now, I want to take away the one thing you most want, and that’s power.
 
The rest will come.
 
If you mess up.”

As Dutch moved to leave, another man, whom Brightman didn’t recognize, came into the bedroom.
 
Brightman frowned and looked at Dutch.

“He stays with you until you make your announcement tomorrow.
 
Then you’re free,” Dutch said, and left.

Brightman looked at the strongman that now, essentially, held him captive, and then puffed repeatedly on his cigarette.
 

“Free,” he said with a sarcastic snort.
 

And then tears began to come.

The banging on the door of the modest Virginia home woke the vice president and his wife, Erin, with a start.
 
They had refused to take up residency on the grounds of the Naval Observatory, a perk of the vice presidency, and opted to remain in their own home, a home they owned for twenty years, and that was also under secret service protection.
 
What Shelly didn’t understand, as he got out of bed and put on his robe and slippers, was why the agents didn’t just give him a call, rather than all of these dramatics.

But that was the level of disrespect they all displayed toward him, Shelly thought bitterly as he made his way down the stairs and to the front door.
 
That was why he slung open that door, ready to give those agents a piece of his mind.
 
Who did they think they were disturbing him, the vice president, that way?
 
When he saw the president standing at that door, however, he quickly changed his tune.

“Dutch?” he said smilingly, trying his best to shield his alarm.
 
Dutch Harber at his door couldn’t possibly be good news.

“May I come in?” Dutch asked.

“Yes, of course,” Shelly said nervously.
 
When Dutch just stood there, Shelly realized his blunder and stepped aside to allow him passage in.
 
He looked around, saw that the Secret Service agents that were supposed to be on guard, were on guard, and then closed the door behind his boss.
 

The two men stood toe to toe in the home.

“How are you, Shell?”

“I’m good.”

“And Erin?”

“She’s good too.
 
Trying to get some sleep.
 
Thanks for asking.”

Dutch stared at Shelly.
 
He wasn’t a bad man, just a foolish one.
 
One that could easily be led by strong men like Jed, like Robert, like Dutch himself.
 
Then Dutch sighed.
 
He made a deal with the devil when he originally put Shelly on the ticket as his VP.
 
It was all strategic then.
 
But he didn’t realize just how profoundly a mistake that selection was until during their reelection campaign, when Shelly attempted to bait racists for votes.
 
But by then the bumper stickers were printed, the convention logo bearing both their names was set, it would have been political suicide to replace the sitting vice president at that time.
 
Now, however, Dutch wished he would have replaced him anyway.

“Were you asleep too?
 
It’s early.
 
It’s just past eight.”
 
Dutch said this as he began moving around and looking around the home.

“We’re early birds,” Shelly said absently, following Dutch.
 
This was most unusual, and disrespectful too if you asked Shelly, but what was a man in his position to do?
 
He couldn’t very well tell the president to sit down, to stop making himself at home, to stop being so monumentally rude.

“Beautiful home, Shell,” Dutch said as he continued to walk around.
 
They were in the dining room now.

“Thank-you,” Shelly said.
 
“We were fortunate to get it when we did.
 
The markets were weak, it was a buyer’s market then, and we pounced.
 
Now this home is worth five times what we paid for it.
 
Or, at least, it was worth that.
 
Now, in this economy, it’s more like three times what we bought it for.”

“You don’t say?” Dutch said, moving toward the kitchen.

“Yes, I do say,” Shelly finally said.
 
“Now say here, Dutch, I don’t mean to be rude, old fellow, but what exactly is this about?
 
It’s night time. I consider myself off the clock.
 
I told you what I know.”

Dutch looked back at him.
 
“Did you really, Shelly?”

“Yes!
 
I told you Robert and Jed had concocted that ridiculous scheme.
 
I had nothing to do with that.
 
I, in fact, was questioning it all along.
 
Ask them.
 
They’ll tell you.”

Dutch looked up at the way the pots and pans hung from the rafters in the kitchen.
 
Such an old-fashioned kitchen, he thought.
 
“It’ll be a shame to lose all of this modesty, Shell,” he said.

Shelly frowned.
 
“What do you mean?”

“This home.
 
It’s so modest.
 
So beautifully middle class.
 
It’ll be a shame to lose it.”

“If you’re saying I’m a man of the people you’re right.
 
I enjoy living as modestly as possible, to keep that common touch.
 
That’s why we refused to stay at the mansion.
 
But why would I be losing my common touch?”

“Not your common touch,” Dutch said.
 
“I suspect you will gain more of that.
 
The
I feel your pain
part of that common touch, if you get my meaning.
 
No, I’m talking about this home itself.
 
It would be a shame to lose your home.”

Shelly’s heart began to pound.
 
He knew Dutch didn’t say words he didn’t mean.
 
“Why would I lose my home?”

“Well that’s what happens, isn’t it, when the Feds get involved?
 
They seize all property, all assets.
 
All offshore bank accounts.”

Shelly stopped in his tracks.
 
“What are you talking about?
 
What bank accounts?”

Dutch smiled, began moving the refrigerator out of its slot against the wall.
 
“Assets,” he said as he moved the big thing.
 
“Like this refrigerator here.”

Shelly’s heart was now about to pound out of his chest.
 
“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Or like this wall back here,” Dutch said after his muscular frame had successfully removed the refrig.
 
“Or, more specifically,” he added as he slung off a removable panel, “what’s inside this wall.”

Shelly’s heart fell through his shoe as he and, most importantly, Dutch, stared at stacks and stacks and stacks of cold, hard cash.
 
All saran-wrapped in perfect conformity, all stuffed inside that carved out section of his kitchen wall.

Shelly staggered back until he was sitting at the kitchen table.
 
Dutch, still in his baseball cap, jeans and jersey, stood there staring at him.
 
Shelly suddenly looked as if he had aged twenty years in twenty seconds.
 

“Well, Shelly,” he said, so disgusted in the weakness of this man that he could hardly bear it.
 
He had it all: power, position, his own family money.
 
Why did he need to have this too?
 
“What do you have to say for yourself?”