The Next President (48 page)

“The other reason is,” Evan continued, “if he’s going to kill us, why not make peace before we die? How long have our families been killing each other and where has it gotten us? Right here is where it’s gotten you and me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I didn’t kill your cousin Ivar, but frog dick and his friends made it look that way. They put me in a lot of trouble with the law and raised the possibility of starting the feud all over again. But why? I haven’t pissed off anyone that badly.”

“But maybe your father has?”

“Apparently. So if I’m framed for Ivar’s murder and Dad is revealed to have killed your father, what happens then?”

“Blood starts flowing in two states.”

“Pretty strong hand to use for blackmail,” Evan said.

“Not as strong as the one that sonofabitch over there is holdin’ now,” Deena said.

“Why didn’t they just grab you in the first place and leave the rest of us the hell out of it?”

Evan shook his head.

“That wouldn’t have left my dad enough room for hope. The way they were framing me, I bet they had someone or something ready to pop up and either hang me or clear me. I was in jeopardy, but my fate wasn’t sealed. So my dad had reason to think that if he went along with whatever they wanted, maybe things would work out. But the situation must have gotten desperate. Dad is probably outsmarting them somehow. That’s why they kidnapped me and they obviously didn’t give a shit how many other people got hurt or killed.”

Deena ground her teeth in anger and told the Toad, “You aren’t worth the sweat off my Ivar’s ass, you amphibian cocksucker.”

Evan said, “Don’t feel too bad, Deena. Whatever they have in mind, it’s not going to work. They’ve had me long enough by now to notify my father, so I’ll tell you just what he’s doing. He’s hunting them. He knows they’re never going to let me go. So it might take a little while, but Froggy over there, and all his friends, they’re just as dead as we are.”

Blair asked Evan, “What is it these shits want your father to do for them?”

“I don’t know.”

A deep, rumbling laugh emerged from the Toad.

“Would you like to know?” he asked.

“I might as well tell you. I bet your old man does just what he’s told; I bet he hopes he can save his sonny boy right up to the last second.” For effect, the Toad leaned his gruesome face forward and said in a stage whisper, “Your father… is going to kill… Senator Franklin Delano Rawley.”

Evan, Blair, and Deena all looked at each other in disbelief.

“You’re crazy!” Evan asserted.

“My dad saved Senator Rawley’s life!”

“He also took that shot at him in Chicago that just missed,” the Toad said with a gargoyle’s grin. He threw his head back and laughed again. Then he leaned forward once more and said, “And you know what? This time, I bet he gets it right.”

By 6:00 Belle Cade had decided that she’d had enough of Ben’s wife, Marie, hovering around her. Marie meant well, but every few minutes she was at Belle’s side, touching her elbow and asking if she could bring her a cup of tea, something to eat, anything at all. That, or she would just place her hand on Belle’s shoulder and look at her with an expression that was meant to keep Belle’s courage up. Marie was driving Belle to distraction at a time when she felt she had to do some serious thinking.

“Marie,” Belle Cade said in a very firm voice, “I appreciate that you’re trying to comfort me, but the best thing you could do right now is find something to read and be as quiet and still as humanly possible.”

Marie looked as if she was going to utter words of protest or explanation, but she thought better of it. She simply nodded, took the family Bible off a bookshelf, and sat down to read. A moment later her lips moved in silent synchrony with the passage she was reading. The twenty-third Psalm, it seemed to Belle.

“Thank you, Marie,” she said softly.

Left with no one to bother her, Belle said a brief prayer of her own for the deliverance of her grandson. She knew that without question her heart would break if Evan died. It would be the final blow in a life that had seen all the men she’d loved leave her.

Landon, her husband. She’d tried so hard to make him love her, make him love their son. But the sadness that ate away at him—over the wartime death in England of the girl he’d truly loved—was something that in the end nobody could overcome, and he took his own life.

It seemed barely a heartbeat later that J. D. had had to flee after

causing the death of Alvy McCray. Yes, she had visited J. D. many times in California, but for much of the last thirty’ years he had been absent from her life.

When Evan had arrived to attend the university and live in her house, that had been one of the most joyous days of her life. She had been able to see personal legacies from both her son and her husband in Evan, and for the past three years she had felt as if she was being repaid for all the time she’d missed with Landon and J. D. Repaid with interest, because Evan was his own wonderful, unique man.

She just couldn’t lose him, too.

Leaving Marie in the living room, she went to the kitchen, closed the door behind her, and picked up the phone. She was going to do something she never would have imagined possible: ask for help from the spouse of a McCray.

“My name is Belle Cade,” she told the man who answered her call.

“I

need to speak with Chief Edwards immediately. It’s a matter of life and death.”

When J. D. returned to the Refuge, he noticed a manila envelope leaning against his front door. He drove into the garage, walked through the house, and retrieved it. The envelope was from Tom Hayashi at the Times. He opened it in his living room.

He found a press badge with his picture and name on it. An accompanying note explained that Hayashi’s editor was happy to have J. D. write a story for the paper about what had gone on behind the scenes at the Rawley campaign on the day leading up to the debate at the Hollywood Bowl. Watching the debate from the press section at the Bowl would, of course, be a necessary part of j. D.‘s report.

Hayashi had proven more than a little cagey himself. He’d given himself cover for getting J. D. into the Bowl. So he wouldn’t lose his job after all. And if J. D. went berserk, why, poor Tom Hayashi had been duped. A blow to his ego and possibly his career, but not the kamikaze ending J. D. had scripted for him.

He took the press badge with him into his bedroom. He selected the clothes he would wear that night and put them out. He placed the pen gun and a small notepad into the outside pocket on the right side of the coat. The actual Mont Blanc pen he put into an inside pocket.

He looked at the digital clock on the nightstand next to the bed: 4:45. An hour and fifteen minutes until Vandy Ellison was due to arrive. He was bone tired, not having slept at all since finding the note that

Evan had been kidnapped and talking with Townes, but he knew if he was to lie down for a nap, he wouldn’t get up for hours.

He went into the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. He was drying himself off when he noticed something on the counter next to the sink:

the remaining chloral hydrate capsule. What was it the flight attendant had told him when she’d given the capsules to him? Don’t mix them with alcohol.

J. D. hadn’t touched alcohol in over twenty years, not counting the sip of champagne he’d had with Jenny, but when he’d leased the Refuge he’d noticed that the liquor cabinet was fully stocked. He went to it now and half filled a tumbler with scotch.

He took the drink and the capsule out to the table next to the pool. He brought the PCR, too. Just in case his cousin Ben called to tell him the worst about Evan. If that happened, he wondered, could he really kill himself?

Would that be a better choice than seeking vengeance?

For just a moment he felt a flash of sympathy for his father.

He looked out across the pool and the garden. Palm fronds rustled in a soft breeze. An idyllic place, a place to be at peace, but he couldn’t lose himself in the beauty that was all around him, not even for a moment.

Evan was at the center of his mind, and all his other thoughts hurtled around his son in eccentric orbits. He wished he could look at Evan just one more time. But all the photo albums with pictures of the two of them together were at his Santa Barbara home. Still… he did have a shot of Evan in his wallet. He pulled the billfold out and flipped it open remembering too late the details of the picture.

There was his son in a candid pose with his girlfriend, Pru Laney. Evan had sent it to him last year so J. D. could see and admire the girl he was dating. Now he wondered if Evan wouldn’t soon be as lost to him as Pru Laney was to … no, her parents were already dead.

J. D. closed his wallet and dropped it on the table.

He did his best to remember the good times he’d had with Evan. But the memories became elusive and when he latched on to one it fought him, re fusing to yield its life-sustaining joy. Soon his attempt at nostalgia became an exercise in masochism.

He put his wallet back in his pocket, picked up the drink, the capsule, and the PCR, and walked into the house. He sat down at the small desk in the bedroom, scribbled a terse note, and stuck it into the pocket of the coat he’d wear that night. He put it next to the genuine Mont Blanc pen.

He left the PCR in the bedroom and took the drink and the capsule into

the bathroom. He put the tumbler of scotch on the counter and emptied the chloral hydrate into it. He tossed the empty capsule into the wastebasket and stirred the drink with his finger. No reason not to be prepared, if that was the way he decided to go.

He stripped and gave himself a fresh shave. Then he took a cold shower to clear the remaining cobwebs from his mind. When he stepped out of the shower stall Donnel was there pointing a gun at him.

He told J. D.”

“Believe you were away on R and R, that time your father died, when we got the briefing on surreptitious entries.”

First assassin to get the job done wins. The thought came unbidden to J. D.‘s mind.

“You mind if I put my robe on?” J. D. asked.

“Or you want to shoot me the way I am?”

“You can put your robe on. We’ve got some things to talk about.”

Out of the corner of his eye Donnel noticed the tumbler of scotch.

“I understood you weren’t a drinking man anymore.” Donnel picked up the glass, sniffed, and smiled in approval.

“Scotch. Good stuff, too.”

“I thought I’d make an exception just this once,” J. D. said deadpan. He slipped into his robe as Donnel took a precautionary step backward.

“Looked around while you were cleaning off. Hope you don’t mind. Had to see if we were all alone.”

“We are.”

Donnel nodded and smiled.

“Saw your press credentials. You planning to show up at the Bowl when everyone’s expecting you to be over at the studio?”

J. D. didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.

“You sure are something, J. D.,” Donnel said with real admiration.

“Appears you are, too.” J. D. tied the belt of his robe.

“One thing I didn’t notice was Colonel Townes’ memoirs. Or did you make that up, hoping I’d have a heart attack?”

J. D. shook his head.

“It’s on digital disc. In a safe in the den.”

“Why don’t you show me?” Donnel took another step back to give J. D. room and waved with his gun hand for J. D. to take the lead.

On the way they came to the liquor cabinet. J. D. stopped and asked, “You mind if I get a drink, since you have mine?”

“You be real careful all you reach for is a bottle,” Donnel told him.

“Do it like that, you can drink anything you want.”

Keeping all his movements slow and obvious, J. D. picked out a bottle of soda water. He opened it and didn’t bother with a glass.

“Don’t want the scotch anymore?”

“The moment’s passed,” J. D. said.

“Don’t know what you’re missing,” Donnel replied with a smile. He took a careful sip from the tumbler.

J. D. watched to see ifDonnel noticed anything amiss with the taste of his drink.

But his smile widened.

“Like I said, good stuff.”

J. D. led the way into the den. He dialed the combination to the safe and then Donnel waved him to the other side of the room. Donnel opened the door.

“No gun… just a disc.”

Pickpocket’s laptop was on the desk, booted up but asleep. Donnel woke it up and loaded the disc. He sat down behind the desk and pointed to a chair with his gun.

“Take a load off and tell me the password to get into the disc,” he told

J.D.

J. D. did as he was told and took a swig from his bottle of water.

Donnel, responding instinctively, took a second sip of scotch.

Then he put the glass down and deftly fingered the keyboard with his left hand.

The file came up and once again Donnel murmured a heartfelt, “Sonofabitch.”

J. D. said, “There’s an index. You can look up specific page references for your name.” Then he took another pull at his bottle of water.

Donnel checked to make sure that his name had in fact been included in Townes’ tome. When he saw that it had, he picked up the glass and took a hefty jolt of the doctored scotch.

“Don’t know why one of us didn’t kill the fucking colonel a long time ago.”

Donnel’s left eyelid drooped abruptly, half covering his eye. He rubbed it vigorously.

“I’ve been thinking about doing just that,” J. D. replied. He took another drink of water.

“Probably never find the cocksucker even if you did decide to kill him.”

J. D. told Donnel where Townes was staying. Donnel found it interesting that J. D. knew. He took another sip of the scotch.

“Townes is the one put your boy in trouble… ain’t he?” Donnel wasn’t slurring his words, but they were coming harder.

J. D. finished off his water. He didn’t answer Donnel’s question.

“That’s why you gotta… kill Del Rawley. Mother fucker Townes pullin’ your… strings. Let’s see what all he’s got on you.” Donnel finished the scotch, then went to type out J. D.‘s name on the