The Next President (43 page)

This time the silence that ensued belonged to Ben. He knew that the time had come for him to repay J. D. for freeing him of the need to kill Alvy McCray In all the years that had passed since Alvy’s death, Ben had thought he would gladly kill for his cousin J. D.” and now it looked like he was facing just that possibility.

Ben Cade told his cousin, “I’ll do whatever I have to, J. D.”

“Thank you. I don’t know if my mother knows what’s happened yet, but I have to think if Evan’s really gone, she’ll find out sooner rather than later.

Could Marie stay with her?”

“You bet. What do these people want, J. D.? Money?”

“I only wish. All I can say, Ben, is if we don’t get Evan back, something terrible is going to happen.”

The Toad saw two faces appear in the window of the trailer, first the man’s and then the woman’s. They stared fixedly at Evan Cade tied to his tree. Trying to decide if he was still alive, no doubt. If their vision was adequate,

they’d soon see his chest rising and falling. Yes, they’d noticed. They were talking, and now they were looking for who had trussed up their friend.

The Toad made his entrance, stepping from the shadow of the trees to the sunlight of the clearing. But he was ready to duck back quickly if they opened fire on him immediately which they should have done but didn’t.

“As you see, I have your friend,” the Toad called out.

“He’s alive and well, but he won’t be for long if you don’t come out.”

The two faces disappeared from the window, which was the second best they could do: get out of sight and keep quiet. Taking the next carefully calibrated step, the Toad fired a round into the ground. Two seconds later the woman’s face appeared at the trailer’s window. She fired through it. Three distinct rounds. A revolver, not a semiauto. But she was too late. The Toad had stepped back behind a tree and none of the shots threatened him. But one kicked up a clod of dirt a foot from Evan Cade.

“You almost killed your friend,” the Toad announced.

“No skin off my ass, Froggy,” the woman replied.

The Toad’s features tightened. Froggy. He knew what he looked like but he’d always hated that particular name. Toad he could live with. Indeed, he wore it comfortably. Toad had a certain weight to it, an earthy dignity. But Froggy? She’d pay for that.

“So I should just shoot him, then?” The Toad stepped out from cover and pressed his pistol to Evan Cade’s temple. He watched the trailer carefully for any sign of a gun pointed his way. The woman was no marksman, but there was no point taking chances.

Still hoping to do things the easy way, the Toad called out, “Have you ever seen that famous film clip from the Vietnam War? The one where the South Vietnamese general calmly walks up to the captured VC suspect, puts his gun to the man’s head, and blows his brains out? It’s my favorite. Such decisiveness. Such… dispatch. Well, here goes.”

The door to the trailer opened. The man stepped out first. The woman followed, clearly the more reluctant of the two, and she had a revolver in her hand. But it wasn’t pointed at the Toad.

“Drop your firearm,” the Toad told Deena, his gun still at Evan’s head.

Instead she flung it into the trees.

“Fuck you. Froggy. The one thing you ain’t gonna do is kill me with my own gun.”

The Toad stepped back from Evan. He pointed his weapon at Blair and Deena and told them, “That’s quite all right. There are so many other things I can do.”

Then, at the Toad’s direction, Blair and Deena untied Evan and carried

him into the trailer. Once inside, with his prisoners all settled nicely on Deena’s sofa at the rear of the trailer and his gun trained on them, the Toad called the Gardener on his PCR.

“Yes, sir. This is Harold.”

“Harold,” Deena snorted.

“I’d prefer Froggy myself.”

The Toad’s eyes narrowed. This one would indeed get special attention.

“No, sir. No problems. I’ve just taken the woman who killed Farrel, and Blair McCray. My prisoner count is now up to three.”

Jenny Crenshaw went to J. D. Cade’s room at the Century Plaza. She had decided not to phone ahead. She wanted to make it a cold call. Get a first impression of him in whatever state he appeared at his door. But after knocking hard, harder, and door-rattling hardest, she concluded that he wasn’t inside.

She listened for the sound of a shower running, a TV blaring, or some other competing noise that would mask her assault on the door. But she heard nothing.

She told herself that J. D. might simply have stepped out for an early breakfast. He might have gone for a workout or a swim. He might even have made a trip to his house to pick up, say, a change of clothes.

But, coming on the heels of her nightmare, not finding J. D. Cade where she’d expected him to be disturbed Jenny more than she wanted to admit.

She thought to bang on the door one more time, if only to vent her distress, but she restrained herself and started back to her room. Maybe he’d be there, calling on her.

But if he wasn’t… if he wasn’t back soon … if there wasn’t some completely mundane reason for him being in some very ordinary place ..

.

Maybe he should stay away.

At least until Del’s appearance at the Hollywood Bowl was over.

J. D. was at the Refuge, sitting at the desk in the den, Pickpocket’s laptop computer in front of him. He was, he had to admit, putting his affairs in order.

Planning what he knew might be the last day of his life.

He made two digital copies ofTownes’ memoirs. He’d mail them out that morning: one to his lawyer and one to Ben. He included instructions as to what should be done with the copies in the event of his death.

With the mailings ready to go, the next thing he needed to do was to

find a reporter. Jenny had told him how the campaign used the media. J. D. was going to see if he could do it, too.

He called the Los Angeles Times and asked for Tom Hayashi. Hayashi was

the investigative reporter who’d broken the story of the discover” And there’s no story there, huh?”

“Wouldn’t want to make a promise I couldn’t keep.”

There was a pause, then Hayashi asked, “What’s this someone’s name?”

“As you said, let’s meet somewhere and I’ll tell you.”

“You’re pretty cagey, Mr. Cade. I like that. Okay, we’ll meet.”

The reporter gave J. D. a location.

“I’ll meet you there at noon,” Hayashi said.

“That’ll give me time to see if I can track down the president’s urologist.”

Another task started: finding Colonel Townes. With the president coming to L.A.” J. D.‘s money said that Townes wouldn’t be far behind. If he hadn’t arrived already.

Putting the pieces together, J. D. had realized that the reason Townes so badly wanted to see Del Rawley die was that he wanted to guarantee the incumbent reelection. Which meant, plain and simple, Townes was going to be a player in the next administration if his man won.

Del Rawley had said that J. D. wasn’t sucking up for a job in Washington, but Townes clearly was. Undoubtedly a bigger job than he’d ever had before.

And if the colonel wanted something badly enough, he wouldn’t care who he had to kill to get it.

The new wrinkle was Townes saying he’d kill himself if he didn’t get his way. J. D. had to admit that the twisted bastard had sounded sincere about committing suicide… but J. D. wanted Hayashi to find Townes for him to make sure there would be no backsliding on the colonel’s part.

IfJ. D.” Evan, and Del Rawley were not destined to outlive this day, then J. D. wanted to be sure that Townes’ life expectancy was similarly limited.

The place where J. D.‘s thinking hit a sticking point was at Donnel Timmons. How could he even think about shooting Donnel now, after his old comrade in arms had saved his life? In the hours since he’d almost died at the Beverly Center, J. D. had asked himself many times why Donnel had saved him from Roth.

Was it because they’d once been friends?

Or was it only because Donnel knew from him that Roth worked for Townes, and Donnel had feared Roth would intercept Townes’ stolen memoirs and return them to him?

When Donnel wanted to take them away from J. D. In either case, finding the will to even wound Donnel now … he just didn’t see how he could do it. He’d have to do something else. Maybe decoy Donnel out of the picture. But the more he thought about how Donnel had saved him, the less he could accept that Donnel would actually go through with an

assassination of Rawley. After all, Donnel had been closer to Rawley—more likely to fall under the spell of his considerable charm—for far longer than J. D. had. He hoped to hell he wasn’t just romanticizing an old friend. A friend he knew for a certainty had killed at least eight people. One more than him, Unable to take that line of thought any further for the moment, J. D. decided he’d better check in with Jenny. She might be wondering where he was by now. He tried to reach her at the hotel but she wasn’t there. He tried campaign headquarters and his call was taken, but not by Jenny.

Instead Vandy Ellison cheerfully greeted him.

“Hi, J. D. How’d you like to go out with me tonight?”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Well, Jenny just spoke to me. She was on her way out so she asked me to say that she tried to call on you at the hotel this morning but you weren’t in your room.”

“What’s this about going out, Vandy? Del’s at the Bowl with the president tonight.”

“Yes, exactly. Jenny thought you and I should watch the debate at the Westside Studio lot—in a screening room with a bunch of Hollywood types.

We’ll be Del’s surrogates and answer any questions the people there might have.”

“The A-list isn’t going to be at the Bowl?” J. D. wanted to know.

“Jenny’s idea. There’ll be a few exceptions, like Marva, of course, but Jenny decided to give Del’s seats to everyday people who want the chance to see him. She thinks this will contrast nicely with the incumbent filling his seats with the pols and poobahs from his camp.”

J. D. looked past the politics to the crucial point.

“I’m not going to be at the Bowl?”

“I know,” Vandy commiserated.

“I’m not, either. But with all the celebrities Jenny’s turned down, she thought she’d better do something to placate them. And you are still a very hot commodity. People will turn out for the chance to talk with the man who saved Del’s life. As for me, I’ll console myself that I’ll finally get to spend some time with you.

“So, what do you say?” Vandy asked.

“Can I drop by your house in a little while and we’ll work out all the details?”

J. D. felt as if he was about to be sucked into a whirlpool. Without the access to Del Raw-ley that he’d come to take for granted, there was no chance he’d … He wondered if he’d gone too far last night. Had he overplayed his hand by suggesting possible threats against the candidate at the Hollywood Bowl? Had he made Jenny uneasy? Was she deliberately easing him out?

“J. D.? Are you there?” Vandy asked.

“Yes, I’m here.”

“So, can I come over?”

He couldn’t turn her down. Right now Vandy was his only unforced link to the campaign. But he was going to stall.

“Sure, Vandy. But listen, I have to catch up on some personal business I just can’t put off. Why don’t you stop by, say, an hour before we have to leave for the studio? That way we should have enough time to go over… well, whatever you think needs going over.”

J. D. was sure Vandy had heard the innuendo in his voice, because there was a lilt in hers when she said, “I’ll see you at six, then.”

Just then J. D. had a moment of inspiration.

“Maybe there’s one thing you can think about before you come over.”

“I’ll be thinking of all sorts of things, but tell me what you have in mind.”

“Well, Jenny might be overestimating my box office appeal, and it wouldn’t do to play to less than a full house. Maybe you could hint that besides you and me, there might well be a special surprise guest. That should pack ‘em in.”

Vandy understood immediately.

“You mean Del? That’s brilliant! Have him drop by after he’s done at the Bowl. That way he can be a man of the people, and he won’t put any ofTinseltown’s perfectly sculpted noses out of joint, either.”

“I was just thinking of a tease to guarantee a good turnout, but if you think…”

“I do. And as long as you’re so humble, maybe I’ll take credit for the idea.”

“By all means.”

“I’ll get right on it,” Vandy said.

See that you do, J. D. thought. See that you do.

DeVito poked his head into Jenny’s office—Vandy’s assertion to J. D. notwithstanding, she hadn’t left campaign headquarters. She had just been about to make a phone call, but put the receiver down as the special agent took a seat in one of her guest chairs.

“What?”

“Where’s your boyfriend?” DeVito wanted to know.

“I’ve been looking all over for him but I can’t find him. So I figured he had to be with you or you’d know where he is.”

“You’re referring to Mr. Cade?”

“You got another boyfriend?”

Jenny knew there was no use trying to fool the Secret Service about who was sleeping with whom in a presidential campaign.

“No, I don’t.”

“So where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t know or won’t say?”

“He just called in, but I had Vandy Ellison talk to him.”

DeVito knit his brow. A lover’s spat? he wondered. Normally he wouldn’t give a damn, but nothing was normal anymore, so he spoke up.

“Trouble in paradise, Ms. Crenshaw?”

“No,” Jenny said frostily.

“Things just ran their course, then.”

“Special Agent DeVito this is really none of your business. If you want to find Mr. Cade, see if Vandy Ellison can help you. Now, I really have a lot to do.”

But DeVito persisted.

“You’ll see Cade tonight, though, right? At the Bowl?”

“Mr. Cade will not be at the Hollywood Bowl tonight. He’s been asked to appear at the Westside Studio to speak to an audience of entertainment people.”

Cade wouldn’t be at the Hollywood Bowl? DeVito was amazed. What the hell was going on here? What could have made Jenny Crenshaw change her mind about Cade? Something merely personal … or something he should know?