Graveland: A Novel (36 page)

“Gotta go, sweetie,” she says into the phone. “See you in a bit.” She puts the phone away and looks out the window.

They’re swinging around the median.

“That’s quite a crowd,” she says, beaming.

Howley looks out the window, too, at the flashing lights and the photographers, at the security guys and the onlookers.

“Damn right,” he says, the red carpet just sliding into view now.

He reaches a hand out to Jessica.

“You ready?”

*   *   *

On the periphery there is mild curiosity. A few people in a passing MTA bus crane to see. A man in a car, stopped at lights, beeps his horn. Pedestrians on Forty-ninth and Fiftieth glance, then glance away.

Closer in, under the canopy, it’s a different story. On either side of the red carpet, which leads from the curb through the central entrance and right up into the lobby, there are security barriers. These are draped in white. Thickset guys in black, with earpieces, parade up and down, scanning the area for trouble, never smiling, exuding a kind of dumb, steroidal menace. Behind the barriers, on either side, there are photographers and onlookers. The real action for the photographers—as far as Frank can make out—is probably inside, in the main lobby. That’s where the posing and the interviews will take place, the serious media work. The photographers out here, he’s guessing, are bottom-feeders, only a notch or two above the onlookers.

People like him.

As each car pulls up—all either SUVs, town cars, or limos—there is a directed flurry of attention. The assembled photographers and onlookers wait to see who gets out, then react accordingly. If it’s some middle-aged couple, tanned and moneyed-looking, as most of them have been so far, the reaction is muted. If it’s anyone with the remotest whiff of celebrity to them, the reaction tends to be pretty wild.

“This way! Over here!”

“Look at me!”

In the ten minutes he’s been standing at the barrier—having slowly wormed his way in, the nudge of an elbow here, an
excuse me
there—he has barely recognized anyone.

Which is a cause for concern.

He thinks he saw Ray Sullivan, secretary of the treasury, and he’s fairly sure he saw one of the lesser Bush brothers, Marvin or Neil. He saw the actress Brandi Klugman, who caused quite a stir, and a Fox News guy whose name he can’t remember. There were one or two others he half recognized, as well as several he didn’t.

And they keep coming …

But standing here now, Frank is feeling a little anxious.

A little anxious? A
lot
anxious.

What if he misses his opportunity? What if Craig Howley doesn’t show? What if he got here early and is already inside?

Every muscle in Frank’s body, every atom, is tensed up and ready for this. It’s all that’s left of himself, he realizes, as he eddies ever farther out to sea, beyond reason or logic, any access to his emotions long since abandoned. But it’s okay, because when the broad-shouldered security guy who’s been standing directly in front of him for the last few seconds moves to the right, it’s like a curtain being drawn back.

And there he is …

The door of the limo opens, and out steps tall, balding, moneyed-looking Craig Howley, unmistakable from his TV interview and a hundred magazine and Google images. By his side is the elegant Jessica—the driving force, apparently, behind this whole event.

Some short, stocky guy in a tux is there to greet them. There’s a little banter, a little glancing around, and then the couple join hands and turn, with Howley on the right, to head inside.

As they move forward, each second shattering in his mind like a pane of glass, Frank reaches into his jacket pocket for the Glock. He draws it out, inserting his finger right in over the trigger to make sure that he’s ready—to make sure that the various safety mechanisms deactivate when he pulls it.

He looks up.

Howley is nearly level with him now.

Given the crowded, confined space he’s in, it’s sort of an awkward maneuver, but Frank brings his arm up to his chest and then quickly extends it, all the way out, aiming at Howley’s head.

He fires once, then a second time.

The loud cracks are followed almost instantaneously by a collective intake of breath, and in the nanosecond before he is mobbed to the ground, Frank sees a streak of something, it’s red and stringy, spurt from the side of Howley’s bare head, which itself jerks and twists awkwardly off to the left.

Pinned to the ground now, face down, Frank closes his eyes. With both arms yanked back almost to breaking point, with a knee lodged sharply between his shoulder blades, and with voices roaring in his ear, and everywhere, he offers no resistance.

There is a degree of pain in all of this. He surrenders to it.

*   *   *

Even from three or four blocks away, Ellen can see the revolving lights of the police cars.

And of an
ambulance
.

There’s one crossing Park now, arriving east on Forty-ninth.

She’s ready to throw up, but fights it really hard, taking deep breaths and rolling down the window.

After another block, with the traffic ahead starting to get backed up, she thinks … what’s the point?

“Pull over, please,” she tells the driver. “Now. Here’s good.”

She pays and gets out.

At Fifty-first Street, she crosses to the east side of the avenue. The tension in the air here is palpable, and as she moves closer to the scene, the hubbub of a few hundred animated conversations soon begins to overwhelm even the roar of the traffic. She gets to the edge of the crowd, which has extended back now to the corner of Fiftieth, and just stands there, trying to see what’s happening.

She pretty much knows what
has
happened, though, doesn’t she?

No need to be told.

She makes eye contact with someone, a woman in a business suit, and throws her an interrogative look.

Woman shrugs. “Don’t know. Some guy got shot?”

Without turning, someone else, a lanky kid in front of them with a huge pair of cans around his neck, says, “Yeah. One man down. They got the shooter.”

Ellen nods, still feeling the urge to throw up.

A few minutes later, the ambulance takes off, followed shortly thereafter by at least three police cars.

The crowd begins to disperse.

She spots one or two reporters she knows, already on the scene, notebooks and recorders out.

Big story.

She turns around, eye out for a cab.

If she’s going to throw up, she wants to do it in the comfort and privacy of her own bathroom.

15

I
T SEEMS LIKE THE LOGICAL SOLUTION.

To reassume control of the company.

If
he
doesn’t step up to the plate, what are they going to do? Bring in an outsider? Pick someone from the Oberon gene pool who’ll cause all sorts of resentments and destabilize everything?

Nah.

This is the right thing to do.

Besides, he’s up for it, and has never felt more motivated or energized.

From the moment Vaughan enters the Oberon Building early Tuesday morning, he picks up on the reaction—heads turn, there are audible intakes of breath, he hears murmurs, people whispering. The elevator ride to the fifty-seventh floor is a solemn affair and passes in silence, but once he steps into reception—at least as far as
he’s
concerned—it’s business as usual.

Craig Howley’s death last night, at the hands of a madman, was an appalling tragedy, and tribute will be paid to him in due course, recognition for his contribution to the company, there’s no question about that—but Craig would be the first to acknowledge that you can’t let your guard down, that the show must go on, and must be seen to go on.

Back in his office, behind his desk, Vaughan firefights his way through a fairly cluttered agenda. It seems to be just one crisis after another. They’re relatively minor ones, but he works his magic on them nonetheless, mostly over the phone. One key meeting he sets up is with Beth Overmyer, Oberon’s VP of communications. She’s coming in at eleven to discuss how this whole thing should be dealt with from a media perspective.

On a more personal level, the situation with Arnie Tisch at Eiben-Chemcorp is a real worry for Vaughan. He needs to refresh his supply of this new medication, because he has only two pills left, but the trouble is … he’s been feeling so damn good that he hasn’t given any real thought to what might happen if, or when—and it’s now looking increasingly like when—he runs out.

So just before Beth Overmyer shows up, he spends a few minutes on the phone trying to reach Arnie Tisch.

But Arnie Tisch, it would appear, is unavailable.

Vaughan looks around the office, and over to the window. He hates being thwarted like this. He leaves a message—a message that is unequivocal in its grumpiness.

Moments later, Beth Overmyer is shown into the office. She approaches and takes a seat in front of Vaughan’s desk.

Initially, he’s distracted by how attractive she is, in her satin blouse and slim-fitting skirt, with her shapely legs and peep-toe shoes. Her sparkly eyes. Like a young Meredith.

Like a
what
?

Jesus Christ. Did he just think that? He did. Rather than feeling excited by her presence, though, or aroused, he feels irritated.

He nods at her to go on.

She starts by expressing her condolences, and shock, on the death of Mr. Howley. Vaughan nods at her again—yes, yes, now
go on
.

She outlines the media coverage of what happened last night. The main focus so far, without a doubt, is on the father-daughter angle, the high drama of all that. Howley is getting some attention, but it’s cursory. In a way, he’s little more than a piece of collateral damage.

“Which is good, isn’t it?” Vaughan says. “For us, I mean.”

“Sure.” She clears her throat. “But there could be some fallout from … well, from you being here. Today.” She pauses, indicating the desk. “Like this.”

“What? The man’s barely dead twelve hours and someone’s replaced him already? The unseemly haste of it, is that what you’re talking about?”

“Yes, but—”

“Yes, but it’s
bullshit
. Clearly. Because it’s
me
.” He pats his chest. “That’s the beauty of it. If it was anyone else, maybe, but—”

“The beauty, okay, but also, just maybe, the problem. It puts a spotlight on you, Mr. Vaughan.”

He freezes.

“And my understanding is that—”

“Yes, yes, okay.” He holds up a hand to silence her.

She’s right.

God
dammit
.

The “understanding” she referred to there is an unspoken company policy of always striving to protect Vaughan’s privacy, and even, where possible, his anonymity. Coming in like this today was certainly a bold move on his part, but also one that was bound to attract attention. By any standard, therefore, it was a serious error of judgment.

However, it is perfectly clear to Vaughan, now that he thinks about it, that the
real
error of judgment here was Craig Howley’s. There’s already been speculation in the papers and online that Howley was targeted because he ran a private equity company, and that this deluded character, this Frank Bishop, was supposedly carrying out the wishes of his own deluded daughter. But if Howley hadn’t gone on television and done that interview, if he hadn’t been so stupid as to place a value on that kind of exposure, on having a so-called high profile, maybe Bishop would have ended up going after someone else.

Who knows?

But why take the risk?

Beth Overmyer drums her fingers on the side of her chair. “Mr. Vaughan, may I be frank?”

It’s barely perceptible, but he nods assent.

“I think you should go home. This …
visit
. We can describe it, if we have to, as a gesture of solidarity with the staff. By the company patriarch. At this terrible time. But any announcement we make about a successor to Mr. Howley, or about whatever temporary arrangements we’re putting in place … it really shouldn’t have your name on it anywhere. In fact, you shouldn’t
be
here a minute longer than is necessary.”

Vaughan makes a face, petulant now.

But she’s right. Again. Maintaining privacy has been a priority throughout his life, partly fueled by a distaste for his father’s flagrant disregard of it, and partly necessitated by certain commercial sensitivities. But it has now reached the stage where it’s probably close to a pathology. So this carelessness of his today, this recklessness …

It’s taken him somewhat by surprise.

Maybe it’s due to the medication, he doesn’t know, but—

“Mr. Vaughan,” Beth Overmyer says.

He needs to keep his eye on the ball a bit more.

“Er … yes?”

“There
is
one other thing. It has come to our attention that Jimmy Gilroy has resurfaced.”

Vaughan leans forward on the desk and buries his head in his hands. This is the little bastard who broke the J. J. Rundle story and then spent the next year or so nosing around for a follow-up story on Vaughan himself. He was discouraged gently, and then not so gently. Obstacles were put in his way, incentives, too. Vaughan thought he’d been taken care of.

He looks up at Beth Overmyer.

Now
what?

“Well, he has apparently finished this book of his, and although no one seems to want to publish it, which is a good sign, he has just recently met up with Ellen Dorsey again.”

“Oh,
please
.” Vaughan slaps his hand on the desk.

“My concern, therefore,” Beth Overmyer goes on, “is that with this dreadful business of Mr. Howley’s death, there will inevitably be increased focus on Oberon, even on you … and that this might increase Gilroy’s chances of finding a publisher.”

Vaughan leans back in his chair. Initial intelligence reports on what Gilroy was putting together were pretty horrifying—a full family history, no less. But with confidentiality clauses, libel laws, insiders sworn to secrecy, and so on, he was never going to get very far.