The Hearing (17 page)

“Crystal clear.”

“Ernesto Vicaro would do anything to keep Judge Parham off the Supreme Court.”

“I understand.”

“Anything.”

Carl stared at her. She was frozen.

He repeated it. “Anything.”

“You’ve made your point.”

“Thanks for your time.”

“Thanks for yours.”

Going down in the elevator, Carl felt it’d been worth the effort. The interview had been Rothman’s idea. It had two objectives.
First, slow Helen Bondell down. There might be one or two things even the Freedom Federation wouldn’t do. Maybe Bondell would
draw the line at cooperating with a man like Ernesto Vicaro. And second, if she did accept Vicaro’s help—money, contacts,
something worse—she’d never be able to say she hadn’t known who he was, who TransInter was, who Harrington was representing.
Carl had told her, and she’d heard it. It was all on the recorder in his pocket.

In her first few weeks at Blossom, the State Department house, while Gus was working and testifying, Samantha spent her time
with Michelle. They did a little shopping and sight-seeing, but mostly they stayed home and talked. Every time Samantha related
some thought or recollection, she seemed to be holding back. She had a lot on her mind, thir
teen years of memories, and Michelle was willing to wait for the right moment to hear them.

In the moments she wasn’t with Michelle or Gus, Samantha spent a lot of time in the Box, the guards’ name for their cramped
office. The house itself seemed cold and sterile, filled with gloomy antiques, but the Box was friendly, warm and cozy. She
felt safe there. She talked often to Todd Naeder, and one of the things she’d learned was that everything Louisa had told
her was a lie. There had been no love affair, no backseat sex in the limousine. And there was no more friendship between Samantha
and Louisa. Samantha hadn’t broken it off, Louisa had.

“Don’t worry about it,” Todd told Samantha, “it’s not your fault. She doesn’t speak to me either.”

“But she’s so lonely.”

“I tried to be her friend and look what happened. If my boss believed what she said, I’d be out of a job now. Leave her alone.”

The last thing Louisa had said about Todd, a parting shot before she stopped speaking at all, had been that he was lazy, stuck-up,
and “unaware.” Samantha thought the unaware business was something Louisa had heard on a TV soap, and Todd was certainly neither
lazy nor conceited. He spent more time in the Box than anyone else, and was always ready to fill in for other guards who wanted
time off. He was hardworking, friendly, and not at all pushy, like most of the other young men she’d met, especially the rich
ones. When she was with him she felt relaxed, taken at face value. She didn’t have to spend a lot of time trying to figure
out what he was really thinking.

Returning from a small shopping center near the corner, Michelle was on Blossom’s front porch, digging in her bag for the
key, when the door burst open and Samantha almost knocked her down.

She headed across the lawn, toward the street, moving with determination.

“Samantha!”

Todd Naeder came through the door and started after her.

Michelle grabbed his arm.

“Wait. I’ll get her.”

She dropped her packages and ran after Samantha.

“Samantha, stop. What’s wrong?”

Samantha quickened her step. She was crying.

Reaching her on the sidewalk, Michelle put an arm around her.

“Samantha, wait a minute. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Samantha stopped, chin thrust forward in defiance and pain.

Michelle said, “Come back inside and tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’m going back.”

“Good.”

Michelle took a step toward the house, but Samantha pulled away.

“Not there. I’m never going back there. I’m going back to France.”

“Samantha, you can’t go back to France. I don’t understand. What’s wrong?”

“I’m going back to my—” She began to sob. “Where is he? I want to go back to my father. Where is …”

She put her head against Michelle’s shoulder. Michelle
led her back into the house and climbed the stairs to a small sitting room next to her and Gus’s bedroom.

Michelle sat next to her on a sofa. “What is it, Samantha? What happened?”

“Nothing happened. I just want to go back.”

“Why do you want to go back?”

“I don’t like it here.”

She looked at Michelle. “I’m sorry. It’s not you or Gus. I’m just—I’m scared here. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know what’s
happening. Everyone’s always talking about nominations and confirmations. Everything’s so serious and important. My dad’s
just a kid like me—nothing was ever very important except staying together, not getting caught by my mom. I don’t know what’s
happening here. I don’t know anyone. You’re my mother, but I don’t even know you. Gus—who is he? He scares me.”

“Why does he scare you?”

“He’s just … so important. I don’t know. I just want to go back.”

“He doesn’t want to be scary.”

“He tried to have me aborted. That’s what the TV says.”

“He loves you, Samantha.”

“Why’d you have me adopted? Why didn’t you keep me?”

“Samantha …” Michelle and Gus had talked about what to tell her about the adoption. How can you explain that to a thirteen-year-old?
“It’s a long story. We thought it would be better, we …”

“It doesn’t matter anyway.”

Michelle didn’t know what to say.

Samantha was silent. She looked lost, filled with despair.

“I’m always losing people, aren’t I?”

She looked up, searching Michelle’s eyes.

“I lost you and Gus, and then I lost my other mother, and now I’ve lost my other father, and what next? What next, right?
I’m going to lose you and Gus
again
. I’m tired of—”

She started to sob. Michelle reached out for her, but she pulled away.

“What’s going to happen to me? What am I doing wrong? Other kids don’t lose their parents. They just get born and that’s that.
I don’t know who I am, or where I’m supposed to be, or anything. What’s going to happen to me?”

“Nothing bad’s going to happen, Samantha. You’re with us now, with Gus and me, and you’re our daughter, and we’re going to
see to it that you’re happy.”

They went downstairs and had lunch. Samantha’s distress did nothing to diminish her appetite. An hour later, the pain locked
away, back in its place, she chatted with the cook as if nothing had happened.

J
ohn Harrington was waiting for Vicaro. Lawyers
never
wait for jailed clients. But he was waiting for Vicaro. Who ran this prison, anyway? Vicaro should have been deposited in
the interview room long before Harrington arrived.

Anyway, he had good news, placate the obese bastard. Vicaro’s money had been well spent. Millions contributed toward the most
massive political lobbying campaign Harrington had ever seen. And now the polls had begun to swing. That morning the CNN—
USA Today
poll had shown Parham’s popularity down two points, the first time it’d ever been below 50 percent.

Harrington smelled the sweat before he heard the iron gate unlock. He got to his feet, put out his hand.

“Ernie, good to see you.”

Vicaro ignored the hand, oozed into the metal chair, and grunted, open-mouthed, saliva spraying.

“Good to see me? You shouldn’t think good to see me. You should think terrible to see me. Maybe someday you’ll be here, be
in a worse place than this, and I’ll say good to see you.”

He was carrying a folded newspaper.

“Ernie, you know I didn’t—”

“All I read is this guy Parham. Parham, Parham, Parham.”

He stopped, staring at Harrington, expecting a response. What response?

Harrington said, “But all you read is bad, right? You don’t read nothing—anything—good, right?”

What the hell, he was even starting to talk like the guy. Vicaro spoke four languages—Spanish, English, Italian, and French.
Unfortunately, his English sounded as if he’d picked it up on the street.

“Nothin’ says he’s dead.
That
would be good.”

“Well, I have some good news for you, Ernie. The media campaign’s starting to pay off. There’s a new poll, out yesterday,
says more than half the people in the country don’t want Parham on the Supreme Court. That’s going to have an enormous effect
on—”

A forearm the size of a pig carcass slammed down on the metal table, sweat flying.

Harrington shot back in his chair, bushy eyebrows up around the hairline.

The room was windowed but soundproof. The guard outside sat placidly absorbed in a magazine.

While Harrington’s shocked eyes remained fixed on the arm that had struck the table, Vicaro’s other hand swung out of nowhere
and slapped him across the face with the newspaper.

Harrington, swatted like a puppy who’d just wee-weed on the carpet, felt tears of humiliation and fury fill his eyes. Before
he could speak, Vicaro reached across the table and put a hand on his sleeve. In a voice suddenly as calm as the eye of a
cyclone, he said, “You don’t understand, Johnny. What do I have to do to make you understand? I don’t care about media campaigns
and the polls look good. I care about Parham can’t win. You understand?
Can’t
win. You understand
can’t?
You know what
can’t
means?”

He took his hand back.

“I know what
can’t
means.”

Harrington, breathing hard, struggled for control.

Vicaro lifted his arm from the table and rested it on his knee. “So she never had the abortion.”

“It seems that way.”

“Seems
that way? Why do we have so much trouble understanding each other? Five hundred an hour, I’d think you’d make more of an
effort.”

“What I meant,” Harrington said with caution, “was that I agree that she never had the abortion.”

“So you guys blew it. You said she had it. Now they parade out the kid, ‘Here’s the abortion.’ You look pretty stupid.”

Harrington was too frightened to speak. It was true that the previous night Helen Bondell had told Larry King on CNN that
the supposedly aborted child, “a thirteen-year-old
named Samantha,” had been put up for adoption by the eventually-to-be Mrs. Parham. “The girl’s in Washington now,” Helen
had said, “under lock and key.”

Harrington had seen the broadcast in his living room, having a Chivas Regal with his wife, and if the word
betrayal
had still been part of his vocabulary he’d have used it. When he’d told Helen about Samantha, that Warren Gier had seen her
in Saint-Tropez and that she was now in Washington, she had promised to keep it to herself.

“This is big news,” King had exclaimed. “How do you know this?”

Helen smiled sweetly. “Sources.”

King said, “You sure it’s true?”

“Oh, it’s true. Everyone’s been saying Parham encouraged his wife to have an abortion, and now here’s this beautiful, innocent,
decidedly unaborted child—I assume she’s beautiful and innocent, I haven’t seen her.”

“Egg on your face?”

“
My
face? I didn’t have anything to do with any of this. I’m just a bystander. Like you, Larry.”

This morning, every paper Harrington could find had the story on page one, expanded with speculations, exaggerations. “No
Abortion—She’s a Beauty.” “Mystery Girl Is No Abortion.” “Gus’s Abortion Comes Alive.”

Harrington finally had to admit it—it was a clever move. Not only had Helen isolated the Freedom Federation from any White
House wrath the disclosure might provoke, she had destroyed the White House’s ability to choose for itself when to reveal
Samantha’s existence.

“Ernie,” Harrington said, “they have not paraded out the kid, and probably never will. If there’s one thing they do not want,
it’s to pour fuel on the abortion issue. What they’d like
most is to have everyone forget all about this girl. So far, no one’s even seen her. The White House’ll do everything they
can to make the whole issue go away. Including the girl.”

“I’d like to see Papa go away.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Vicaro shouted. “Papa! Papa Parham! Go away!”

Harrington felt as if he’d spent an hour locked in a sauna with an angry lion. Did Vicaro expect Harrington to make Parham
“go away”? To have him killed? Did he intend to do it himself? How far was Vicaro really willing to go to keep Parham off
the Supreme Court? Well, certainly he’d love to see Parham dead. Parham was the one who’d locked him up.

Harrington waited to catch the eye of the guard, then cautiously pushed back his chair until he was safely out of range of
Vicaro’s hands. He didn’t want to say anything—even in a soundproof room—that might suggest he had a suspicion of the mayhem
that was on Vicaro’s mind. But for his own sake he did want to discourage Vicaro from doing anything terminally stupid.

He stood and said, “Gus Parham cannot win. Even if his nomination gets to the Senate, the Senate will never confirm him. Never.”

He looked at Vicaro and tried to bore a hole into the black eyes.

“You pay a lot of money for my opinion and advice. So please believe this. Gus Parham will never be confirmed.”

And don’t try to kill the guy, okay?

Vicaro’s silent gaze was more foul and evil-filled than the hot, stinking room.

The guard came in.

Harrington said, “I’ll be in touch.”