Butterfly (77 page)

had been something so final in this last gesture. She had sworn she wouldn’t cry when this

moment came, but now she couldn’t help herself.

“I will miss you,
amiga,”
she whispered.

“I know. And I’ll miss you.” Beverly turned away from Carmen and looked at the oth-

ers gathered in the room.

Maggie, with her frizzy red hair escaping its knot, sat red-eyed and speechless. Ann

Hastings shared a love seat with Roy Madison, both grave-faced and silent. And Jonas

Buchanan, standing like a sentinel by the closed door. Only Bob Manning was not pres-

ent. He was out in the car, waiting for Beverly.

The enormous old house, a mansion once owned by a silent movie star, seemed to

hover all around them in a kind of expectancy. Dust-filled beams of afternoon sunlight

streamed through the diamond-paned windows and cast an otherworldly glow on the

silent occupants. Beverly Highland stood wraithlike in the center of the circle of friends,

tall and thin, her platinum hair swept neatly up, her cream-colored slacks and white silk

blouse emphasizing her paleness. She was pausing to give her friends a final look at her.

Everything that had to be done was done; everything was ready and finished.

All that remained was for her to go to the Century Plaza Hotel, where Danny Mackay

was waiting.

“It’s time,” she said at last, and her friends bestirred themselves.

They accompanied her to the white Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud that waited with its

motor purring, and one by one they embraced her. Beverly paused to look at them—

Carmen, who had once been Carmelita; Ann, who had been lonely and unhappy;

Maggie, who had been a new widow with two babies when Beverly found her; and Jonas,

the black ex-cop who had found her mother and nearly her sister, who now regarded her

with damp eyes. Then she got in and Bob Manning closed the door behind her. Beverly

didn’t do or say anything as the car snaked its way down Beverly Canyon Drive to

Highland Avenue. But finally she had to—there was one last thing to do before she got to

the hotel.

Picking up the car telephone, she dialed a number she knew by heart, and asked for

Detective O’Malley.

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Kathryn Harvey

The day had started out badly for the lieutenant, and now, in late afternoon, it was

only getting worse. Why did this Danny Mackay business have to happen in his precinct?

O’Malley looked at the thick file on his desk and shook his head. What a mess! That

Texas farm wife with her photograph had sure started something. The minute that picture

was printed in the newspapers, it seemed to O’Malley, all sorts of characters began com-

ing out of the woodwork. It looked as if half the population of Texas had known Danny

Mackay in his earlier years and had some dirt on him. They talked to anyone who would

listen. In these past two days newspapers all over the country had carried stories of Danny

and Bonner’s wild, whooping and hollering days as young tent preachers. The supermar-

ket tabloids even published photographs of old barns and fields where orgies and satanic

rituals were reported to have taken place. O’Malley had no doubt that 80 or 90 percent of

these people had never even
seen
Mackay, much less been fleeced or seduced or aban-

doned by him. And the thirty-odd women all claiming to have had illegitimate children

by Danny only served to point up the ludicrousness of the whole affair.

But these eight Danny Girls in their red cowgirl outfits, coming forward and telling

the press that they were prostitutes and admitting to having been in an orgy with Mackay

on the night before the primary, well, this was a little too close to home.

Pressure was mounting on the lieutenant to take action. Because of all the dirt that

was suddenly coming out about Mackay, public opinion was rapidly shifting. People were

beginning to think that not only did Danny know about the Beverly Hills whorehouse

but he personally ran it and frequently availed himself of its services. Well, in the eyes of

a self-righteous public that had been duped and was angry to find itself so gullible and

therefore was looking for revenge and a way to redeem itself, Danny Mackay was guilty of

a crime and should be arrested.

By Lieutenant O’Malley.

His phone was ringing and there was a stack of telephone messages he had yet to read.

More supposed confessions from Danny Mackay’s past. More indignant complaints from

decent citizens wanting something done. O’Malley retreated to the relative quiet of the

men’s room and gave his fingernails a good scrubbing.

How on earth could they arrest Mackay? They had no real proof of any wrongdoing in

this city. Sure, what they had on him now would be enough to bring in anybody else, at least

for questioning, but not Danny Mackay. My God, O’Malley thought as he lathered and

washed and rinsed his hands clean, this was
Reverend
Danny Mackay everyone was talking

about, one of the richest men in America, the leader of the Moral Decency movement, a

man of powerful connections—a man with one foot in the White House, for God’s sake!

O’Malley dried his hands, tossed the paper towel into the trash can, and paused to

look at himself in the mirror.

The man who put the cuffs on Danny Mackay had better be damned sure he knew

what he was doing. Or he might regret it for the rest of his career.

On his way back to his desk O’Malley was told that Beverly Highland was on the

phone asking for him.

He groaned. Beverly Highland was one of Danny Mackay’s staunchest supporters.

Hadn’t she made a statement to the press yesterday about her continued belief in the

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343

man? She was one of the people who made this city tick. One word from that woman,

O’Malley knew, and she could have his badge.

His hand hovered over the phone. What on earth did she want to talk to him about?

It was going to be an order to lay off Mackay.

With a sinking feeling that not only was this not his day, it hadn’t been his week,

Detective O’Malley braced himself and picked up the phone.

Things were looking bleak in the Mackay suite of the Century Plaza Hotel. A kind of

frantic chaos had Danny’s large staff in its grip as they shouted into the phones, received

and sent telex messages, talked to the press, and tried to fight off the ultimate doom that

seemed to be racing toward them. Tomorrow the Republican Convention was going to

open. Already, Danny’s political supporters were falling away at an alarming rate. And his

financial empire was beginning to crumble. Investors were pulling out, various of his

holdings on the New York Stock Exchange were dropping sharply, Christians all over the

country were clamoring to get their donations back. And Danny, in the midst of this

nightmarish maelstrom, had no idea why all this was happening to him.

That Texas farm wife, for instance. Seeing the photograph in the paper had stopped

him cold. Yeah, he remembered the woman and the day she had snapped a picture of him

and Bonner in that old tin tub out back. Hell, she had been in it with them! Danny

remembered those few good days of eating her hot Texas chili and romping in her bed,

the three of them. But what was all this garbage about homosexuality? Why on earth

would she appear all of a sudden and tell such an outrageous lie?

“Someone must have put her up to it,” a bewildered Bonner had said.

Yes. But who?

And then, all of a sudden, like an avalanche or a gigantic ocean wave, all those others

with their incredible stories, swearing that they had known Danny and that he had done

this or that to them. A couple of them were actually true—he admitted he had left a few

bastards around the South—but the rest—satanic rituals, orgies—where had all that

come from?

He was pacing the carpet and frequently looking at his watch. When Beverly

Highland had called that morning to say she wanted to meet privately with him, Danny

had felt as if the marines were coming to his rescue. She had assured him on the phone

that she continued to stand by him and that together they would work this out. She was

rich and powerful, and people believed her. There was yet time to save Danny’s neck. And

Beverly Highland was going to do it.

Danny made the mistake of glancing up at his father-in-law. The senator sat in a chair

like some old pasha, puffing on his foul cigars and passing judgment on his son-in-law

with each hour that ticked away. He had spent the day behind locked doors with party

organizers, trying to save the drowning rat that was his son-in-law. For their own sakes

they were going to try to rescue him, but it was going to take a miracle to do it.

That all these recent stories were lies and imaginings the old man had no doubt. What

infuriated him was that the boy was stupid enough to let it all get started in the first place.

Danny Girls turning out to be prostitutes! Of course Mackay was denying knowledge of

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Kathryn Harvey

that. As far as he knew, the girls his staff had recruited were all peaches-and-cream

American virgins. Where those eight came from was beyond him. And that business

about the missionary, Fred Banks, who was arrested in some Middle Eastern jail—the

man himself had come out and announced it had been a hoax engineered by Danny!

Danny insisted the man was being paid by someone to tell the story. But who? That was

exactly the problem—Danny hadn’t a clue as to what was going on. Hell, what kind of a

man is that to have in the White House?

The senator was giving his son-in-law one last chance. If Beverly Highland came

through for him, then there was hope of saving his ass yet. If she didn’t, then the senator

was packing up his daughter and taking her back to Texas. And Good News Ministries, as

far as he was concerned, could go to Hell in a handbasket.

“She’s here,” someone said, and Danny rushed to the window. Even from so high up

he could see the commotion down on the street, where reporters were surrounding the

Silver Cloud and bulbs were flashing and TV cameras were following Beverly Highland

into the lobby.

She glided serenely through the crowd, with Bob Manning carving a path for her, and

entered the elevator without having said a word. It was Manning who told the press that

Miss Highland would make a formal statement after her meeting with Danny Mackay.

Bob Manning knocked on the door for her, and it was opened almost as soon as his

knuckles touched wood. Beverly entered the smoke-filled room and immediately felt the

tension in the air, sensed the panic and desperation, smelled the fear. For an instant she

was reminded of the dirty smell of Hazel’s whorehouse, where men gathered to smoke

and drink and sweat their fears away. Danny’s staff parted for him like an obedient sea,

giving way as he came to greet Beverly like a magnanimous monarch. He came toward

her with outstretched hands, but she merely held on to her flat eel-skin bag and requested

that they be left alone.

“Alone” to Danny meant having just eight or nine people around him—it had been

years since he had drawn a breath without secretaries, bodyguards, and advisers in his

presence. But Beverly meant
alone,
and so he sent his people off to the other suites and

closed the door behind them.

The room felt strange, being suddenly so silent. Beverly had allowed “Mr. Purvis” to

stay, while she kept her chauffeur with her, explaining that he was also her secretary and

bodyguard. Three of them sat down while Manning remained standing by the closed door.

“Miss Highland,” Danny said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, “you

don’t know how much I appreciate your standing by me and continuing to believe in me

during this awful nightmare. Surely the Lord has blessed me to have given me a friend like

yourself.”

A faint smile lifted her lips. “It must be awful for you, Mr. Mackay.”

“It’s been terrible. The curses which Moses visited upon Pharaoh couldn’t compare to

what I’ve gone through in this past week!”

She watched him. Although he had clearly fixed himself up to look his best for her

visit, the toll was showing on Danny’s face. “Has it been torture for you?” she said softly.

“Yes, ma’am.”

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345

“Has it caused you great pain and anguish?”

He blinked. “It certainly has.”

“Do you feel alone and abandoned?”

Perplexity briefly flickered across his handsome face. Then he said quietly, “That is

exactly how I feel, Miss Highland. It’s remarkable how well you understand my situation.”

“I am not a stranger to those afflictions myself, Mr. Mackay. And surely you must feel

confused and bewildered by everything that has happened. You must think that your

whole world has suddenly come apart for no reason.”

“Well, I’ll tell you, Miss Highland”—he cleared his throat—“or may I call you

Beverly?”

She nodded slightly. “You may call me anything you wish, Mr. Mackay. There was a