President's Girlfriend 07 - What He Did for Love (24 page)

“This is the last time I’m going to ask you,” he said.  “Who bankrolled you, Rance?”

Marcus was angry that he had been bested by the likes of Dutch Harber.  He knew Dutch’s weakness, and he was ready to exploit it.  “Gina bankrolled me, motherfucker!” he yelled out.   “Gina gave me anything I wanted.  Even herself.  Did you know that?  My own sister gave it to me repeatedly.  That’s why her ass wanted me in DC.  To give her the kind of good sex her husband couldn’t give to her!”

Dutch looked at Marcus.  The mere thought of Gina’s beautiful name on his perverted lips made Dutch a maniac.  He grabbed Marcus again and began slamming his head into the brick wall that surrounded them.  Blood began to trickle out of Marcus’s ear, but that didn’t stop Dutch.  It inspired him.  And he continued to slam.

Marcus tried to fight back.  He attempted to push Dutch away from him with brute force alone.  And eventually he succeeded in causing them both to fall to the floor fighting.  But it was a hollow victory for Marcus because Dutch quickly regained his position on top.  And he continued to beat Marcus’s ass. 

Marcus attempted to bite Dutch.  But that turned out to be the wrong move because it angered Dutch even more.  And as soon as Dutch regained his footing, he began to kick Marcus in the balls repeatedly.  Marcus screamed out in pain.  But Dutch wouldn’t let up.  He wouldn’t show him anything but disdain.  Even as blood began to appear, he kept kicking Marcus in that same penis that Marcus ridiculously claimed had pleasured Gina.  He kicked him in those same balls that Marcus had displayed by setting that booby-trap to begin with.  He kicked that sonafabitch until the pain was unbearable.

And Marcus was broken.

“Osgood,” Marcus said through his pain.

That name alone caused Dutch to stop all activity.  He stared at the downed wise guy.  “Osgood?  Henry?”

“Thurston.  His father.  He bankrolled me.”

Dutch didn’t have to ask why.  He just continued to stare at Marcus.  Then he kicked his ass again.

While Marcus moaned and groaned in pain, Dutch went to the door and opened it.  His private security team entered again and closed the door.  Dutch pulled out his handkerchief and began wiping his hands.

“Okay,” Dutch said to them and they made their way to Marcus.

“Come on, pal,” the security chief said as his men grabbed Marcus and pulled him up.

“You see what he did to me!” Marcus decried.  “The president can’t hit a private citizen and get away with it!  He can’t get away with this!”

But the Security chief was as indifferent to Marcus’s cries as Dutch had been.  “Let’s go, Rance,” he said.  “Time for you to walk the plank.  Time for you to walk through that door.”

Marcus, still bent over in pain, stared at the side door they had turned him toward.  “Why do I need to walk through any door?  I can barely stand up!”

“Then crawl through,” Dutch said.  “Walk or crawl, but you’re going through it.”

“But why?”

“Because my wife walked through a door and found your shotgun staring at her.  Now it’s your turn.”

Marcus’s heart began to pound.  Dutch wouldn’t do this to him.  He was the president for crying out loud!  What president behaved like this?

“Just arrest me,” Marcus said, preferring to take his chances in the criminal justice system.  “I’ll confess to everything.  Just arrest me, Dutch!  That’s the moral thing to do!  You’re supposed to be such a moral man.  How can a moral man allow a thing like this to happen?  How can you live with yourself?  You’re gonna hate yourself, Dutch, if you do this to me!  Please, Dutch.  Arrest me!  Dutch!”

But Dutch was as unbendable as iron.  He turned and began walking away.

“Dutch!” Marcus cried again as the men opened the door and pushed him inside.   “You can’t let them do this! 
Dutch
!”

But Marcus’s voice quickly went silent.  And then all that could be heard in that soundproofed, underground bunker was gunfire with the same rapid release that Gina must have heard.

LaLa and Crader sat alone at the kitchen table inside of Blair House sipping coffee.  The silence in the room was deafening. 

“Thanks to me,” Crader said with a frown on his face, “we’re at a crossroad.”  LaLa looked at him.  “Either you stay with me and believe I’m not that man I used to be, or you leave me.  It’ll devastate me, I can’t pretend it won’t, but it’ll be exactly what I deserve.”

“Why did you do it, Crader?” LaLa asked.  “Why didn’t you tell me, when you were supposedly coming clean with me, that you had also slept with Shannon while we were engaged?  You wanted to get in as many women as you could before you became a married man, which is sick in and of itself, but at least I would have known.  And that would have been behind us.  But you didn’t even mention her.”

“I didn’t remember---”

“Crader, if you tell me that lie again I declare I’ll get up from this table and leave your ass for good. I’ll do it on the strength of that lie alone, I declare I will!”

Crader’s heart began to pound.

“Now, I’m asking you again,” LaLa said.  “Why didn’t you mention her?”

Crader exhaled.  “I wanted to keep her around.  Dutch said she was my
just in case
, and I think he was right.”

LaLa was perplexed.  “Your
just in case
?  What’s a
just in case
?”

Crader moved around in his chair.  He knew he was admitting nasty truths about himself that even he found disgusting.  “Just in case it didn’t work out with us,” he said, “I’d still have Shannon.”

“She was your consolation prize.”

“I wouldn’t call her a prize, but she was . . . convenient.”

“And would be willing?”

Crader nodded.  “Yes,” he admitted.

LaLa shook her head and sipped more coffee.

“I fired her,” Crader said.

“You shouldn’t have hired her,” LaLa said.  “So don’t try to pretend that’s some great thing you did.  And what about her feelings?”

“Her feelings?  She accepted the job expecting action from me.  I never gave in to any such thing, but don’t shed any tears for her.  Her shit’s not sweet either.   She would have slept with me in a heartbeat if I would have let her.”

 “And you expect me to blame her for that?”  LaLa shook her head.  “I blame you and you alone, Cray.”

“Oh, so because she’s a woman she bears no blame whatsoever?  Is that what you’re telling me?”

“I’m telling you she didn’t owe me anything.  If she sees how you’re willing to disrespect me by hiring her when you knew what she was about, then why wouldn’t she be disrespectful to me too?  You didn’t give a damn about my feelings, why should she?”

“It wasn’t like that, La.”

“It was exactly like that, Crader!”  Tears wanted to appear in LaLa’s eyes, but she fought them back.  “No human being has ever hurt me as much as you have, and you’re supposed to love me.”

Crader swallowed hard.  LaLa’s revelation stunned him.

“And then you talk about crossroads?” she asked.  “Stay with me or leave me, you say, as if it’s as simple as that!  This is the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make, Crader.”  Then she sat erect.  “But I’ve made a decision.”  And amazingly, even to LaLa, it didn’t take her long to make it, either.

Crader, however, was dying inside.  If this woman left him he didn’t think he could go on.  Those were the stakes for him.  He wouldn’t want to go on.

LaLa went on.  “If I left you today, and divorced you, I think that would be good for me.  I think I would have done what any rational, self-respecting female would have done, and felt better about myself for it.  You don’t deserve me, Crader.  And I don’t deserve to be treated the way you’ve treated me.  You’re a cheater and a liar and sometimes I hate you for what you put me through.”

She fought valiantly, but the tears came anyway.  But she soldiered on.  “But you’re also a kind man, a giving man, a fantastic father, and a strong leader.  The only place you seem to falter is in the husband department.  The only person you seem to constantly fail is me.  That’s the truth, Crader.  You have not been a good husband to me.”

Crader hurried to her side and fell on his knees.  This was LaLa.  He was not too proud to beg.  “Don’t leave me, La,” he said.  “Please, don’t leave me!  I’ll do anything to keep you.  I don’t want anybody else.  I was wrong to hire that woman.  She’s a good chief of staff, even you know that, but other people would have been just as good.  I was wrong, La.  I don’t love her, I’ve never loved her.  You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved.  You’re the only woman I’ve ever even wanted to marry.”

He paused after saying that.  “I had planned to be a bachelor all my life,” he said as that sad reality hit both of them.  Because LaLa knew the truth of that statement, too.  Before she came along, Crader had no intentions of marrying any one.  But something did change within him.  And he chose her to be his bride.

But she couldn’t keep excusing his behavior.  “When you decided to marry me, Crader,” she said, “why didn’t you decide to do right by me?”

“I did decide that.  With all my heart I decided that.  And I tried to do right, La.  But you didn’t marry a straight lace man. You married me.  And I’m . . .”

“A mess,” LaLa finished for him.

Crader nodded his head. “Yes.  And more,” he agreed.  “But I’ll go to pieces if you leave me, La.  I need you.”

And that was the thing that had made up LaLa’s mind.  He needed her and she knew it.  He loved her too, but his love for her wasn’t as dependable as his need for her.  It wasn’t fair that she would love a man like this.  She deserved a man whose love overshadowed his need. 

But Dutch was right.  She had to decide if she wanted Crader, warts and all, or if she wanted to dump Crader and hope that another man would come along who had no warts at all.  They were out there, these good little perfect gentlemen, but would they cross her path?  And could she love a man simply because he wasn’t as “messy” as Crader McKenzie was?  Could another man make her heart patter whenever he entered a room?  Could he make love to her the way Crader made love to her?  It was all a false choice, and she knew it.  She shouldn’t have to explain her decision away.  But she was married to a man like Crader.  And she knew, if she stayed with him, that more explanations would undoubtedly come.  More days like this.  

But she believed there would be far more fantastic days where there was no other man on the face of this earth she would rather love.

Crader, however, wasn’t privy to her thinking.  He could feel her slipping away from him.  And he continued to beg. 

He grabbed her hands and held them gently.  “I’ll do anything you tell me to do, La,” he said.  “I’ll hire all men to work for me.”

LaLa smiled.  Crader was so moved by her smile that he gained strength from it.

“Whenever another woman cross my path,” he continued, “I’ll run in the opposite direction and scream for her to get her pretty self out of my sight.”

LaLa laughed and shook her head.  He was so silly, she thought!

“I’ll even get castrated, La, to prove my love to you.”

That, however, caused LaLa’s smile to disappear.  “Oh, no you won’t,” she said.  “You’ll be no damn good for real then!”

Crader was, at first, offended.  No she didn’t act as if his sex was the only good thing about him!  But then she smiled, and he smiled, until the seriousness of the moment overtook them again.

“In other words,” he said, rubbing her hands, “I’ll show you that you’re the love of my life.  I’ll show you one day at a time, La.”

LaLa stared at him.  She’d heard his promises before.  But what could she do?  She loved the fool!

“No more games?” she asked him.  “No more
just in case
females?”

“No more, La. I promise you.”

“Don’t promise me, anything,” LaLa said.  “You can show me better than you will ever be able to tell me ever again.  Can you live with that, Crader?  Can you be depended on to give to me the kind of love you may not be able to give?”

Crader’s throat tightened.  She was giving him yet another chance.  And as sure as he had breath in his body he wasn’t going to blow this chance again.

“Yes,” he said and pulled her into his arms.  “Hell yes!”

But tears were in LaLa’s eyes.  Because she knew, in deciding to stay with her troubled husband, she would never have that happily ever after she always dreamed she’d have.  Her life with Crader McKenzie, despite his bold castration pronouncements and promises, may very well be just as drama-filled as it was filled with happiness. 

But she also knew, as his kisses moved from her mouth to her breasts, that despite it all, staying with Crader was the absolute best thing she could do for herself, for her daughter, and for her man. 

Gina, she also knew, would disagree mightily.  But Gina had Dutch.  Gina had the gold standard as far as LaLa was concerned.  She could afford to disagree.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Dutch was seated upright on the weight bench and was listening intently as his FBI Director, his Homeland Security Director, and his Attorney General stood at his feet.  They were in the White House gym, and had just told the president what they all considered excellent news.

“Fifty-two in all, sir,” the FBI Director relayed.  “We’ve arrested fifty-two in total.”

“That’s impressive.”

All of them smiled.  “Thank-you, sir,” the FBI Director said.  “When one started talking, it became like dominoes.  All of them started talking.  At least to a point.  There’s still a lot we don’t know.”

“That’s why you handle this situation with great caution,” Dutch ordered.  “Don’t get ahead of yourselves.  At the presser you’re going to insist that the investigation is still ongoing, and you will insist that fact repeatedly.  Don’t leave the public with the false impression that your work is done.  You don’t want to get caught flatfooted should more names surface during your interrogations and you have to have more and more press conferences announcing the new names.  Don’t overreach.”