The Return of Elliott Eastman (15 page)
Read The Return of Elliott Eastman Online
Authors: Ignatius Ryan
The following morning Elliott awoke feeling as if he’d been the one drinking at the tropical punch bowl. Gazing in the mirror he noted more of his hair was starting to fall out, his eyes were still yellow from jaundice and he felt weak.
“You look terrible,” he said to the haggard face in the mirror.
His cell phone rang and he answered it.
“Backspace here. I just sent you over the photos and videos from last night.”
“Great. I’ll check them and get back to you.”
“Call me and we can look at them simultaneously. There are some real beauts.”
“Okay.”
After pouring himself a strong cup of coffee Elliott sat down at his computer and opened his e-mail. The messages from Backspace started pouring in. Elliott clicked the first one open immediately and couldn’t suppress a grin. He called Archie.
As soon as Archie answered the phone Elliott asked, “Is that guy, I think it’s Ron Emanual from Missouri, wearing rouge?”
“No, he’s been kissed so many times it just looks that way”.
“He sure seems happy, and the lady in the photo is a real looker” Elliott observed. “And look at those red eyes. He’s had a few too many.”
“He has.”
“Wait a minute,” Elliott said. “Emanual’s in favor of the bill. Why was he there?”
“You wanted everyone we could get. And as you well know they can change their vote at any time,” Archie replied.
“True,” Elliott replied.
There were hundreds of photos of men and women in some form of embrace. Several showed the men being kissed feverishly by strikingly gorgeous women. Dozens of others showed senators returning the kisses in an equally feverish manner. Another photo showed Senator Graham with at least a half dozen bright red lipstick kisses covering his face, which also bore a foolish grin from ear to ear. One showed the back of a senator’s head while his face was buried in a woman’s cleavage. She was smiling. Another showed a close up of a man’s hand complete with wedding ring clutching a woman’s buttocks so hard her dress was crumpling beneath his grip.
There was still a degree of reluctance on Elliott’s part to go this route. He sighed and said, “Well you’ve got the guest log with a photo of each senator as they signed in. Let’s get the photos sent out with the letter I forwarded to you earlier indicating if they don’t vote for SB 1190 the photos will be released nationwide in all forms of media and to their wives.”
“You know Elliott, I can cut and paste every man in that room into a few of the best shots, but I was thinking. Why don’t we go after the flip side of the coin? Why don’t we go after the lobbyists?”
“They tried to get a bill passed banning lobbyists in 2006, but it didn’t pass the Senate,” Elliott responded, feeling that tiredness creeping over him again.
“No, I mean if you can get me the names of the most aggressive lobbyists you’re up against I can copy and paste their mugs on these same photos.”
“You have a very devious mind. I’ll get a call into Eddie and James and see what they have on file for our lobbyist friends.”
He refreshed his coffee and typed an email to Eddie requesting photos of lobbyists, but before he hit the send button he paused. Even if they were able to curtail the current lobbyists’ activities, others would simply fill the void. There had to be a more effective way to address the situation and he thought he might just have the answer. He hit send anyway.
The phone rang around midnight. Fumbling for a moment Elliott finally answered, “Hello.”
It was Archie.
“It’s Eddie and James. They’re in a D.C. hospital.”
“What happened?” Elliott asked fully awake now.
“They were beaten pretty badly.”
A note was pinned to Eddie’s chest and it read, “There is worse to come.”
“What’s the prognosis?”
“They’ll live, but James may lose an eye. Eddie is awake but barely coherent. I could barely understand him. I think they might have drugged him.”
“Damn,” Elliott growled. “Where were they picked up?”
“Central Park, but the cops are pretty sure they were dumped there because no one heard a thing.”
“It’s the lobbyists.”
“Or Cobbings,” Archie added. “I think they were trying to get some dirt on Cobbings.”
“Do we have Cobbings bugged?”
“No, we only did the senators’ offices and not all of them.”
“Damn.”
Archie continued, “If they know Eddie and James’ identities they can track them back to you.”
“And possibly you too,” Elliott countered. “You better pack your stuff and get out of there Archie.”
“Only if you do too.”
“They won’t come after me.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Archie replied. “Do you have any idea what the legislation you’re trying to force through Congress is going to do to the powers that be? This is not just upsetting the apple cart Elliott. This is taking the Titanic by the rudder and throwing it on shore. It’s going to change the way the American people live. It’s going to change bankers’ incomes in a vast and irreversible way. People will kill over the amounts of money we are proposing.”
“I get the picture,” Elliott said. “Let me think a minute.”
Archie continued. “Besides, if they come after me they’ll be in real trouble. I’ve got more firepower tucked away here than we had in Iraq.”
“I’m going to make some calls and get them moved over to Bethesda Hospital. Can you get a couple of the guys over there to provide security?”
“Yep, and I’m going to track where those guys were tonight and see if I can get a license plate number or some kind of identification on who did this to them.”
“How can you do that?”
“We haven’t forgotten all you taught us in Iraq. We watch each other’s backs. I planted some homing devices on their vehicle which should give me a read on where they were. Then all I have to do is hack into the transportation department’s camera network. We might get lucky and get a traffic light camera or a store camera that picked up what happened to them.”
“I can’t decide whether you are amazing or certifiable.” Elliott quipped.
“Actually, these days you can track a person by cell phone, but that simply tells you where they are, not where they’ve been.”
“I’ll take your word for it. Can you get me their hospital info?”
“Sure, here’s the phone number and room number. I’ll have a couple of men over there in a half hour.”
“Thanks for the call, Archie.”
“Take care Sarge.”
The meetings in the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Senate Banking Committee were extremely heated. The Washington Post got wind of the extremely elevated level of debate and ran a front page story entitled, “The Bill that Broke the Senate in Two.”
Many people in Washington’s power elite were slowly becoming aware that something very unusual was happening on the Hill. When he wasn’t calling the doctors attending to his two injured men Elliott followed the progress of the bill, listening for any mention of it while watching C-SPAN six hours a day and answering reports from his men in the field.
Stephanie Wells called back two mornings later.
“Elliott? Hi, this is Stephanie, have I caught you at a bad time?”
“No, of course not, it’s always good to hear your voice.”
“I think I have some good news for you.”
“Great, I could use some.”
“I spoke to the head of the Association of Advancement for Retired People. He’s very enthusiastic about the bill. And don’t worry, I didn’t use your name. He’s sent out emails to every chapter of AARP instructing them to sign a petition endorsing the bill, but get this. The Florida chapter, which is a couple of hundred thousand strong, has a group called ‘The Minute Men’ which is about ten thousand strong and they have agreed to go to D.C. by RV, car, train and boat whenever the time for the vote on the bill is set. Of course loads of people will come from all over the country. He knows a lot of people in the music industry and is going to get the word out to them. It’s going to be another Woodstock.”
“That is good news. Nice work Steph.
“And he also brought up another idea which I thought was a good one.”
“I’m all ears.”
“It’s a group called ‘The National Federation of Independent Businesses’, a group of small business owners. I say a group, but there are about six million of them employing two to twenty people on average. They have seen their sales numbers drop off dramatically since the financial meltdowns in 2008 and 2015. Sales haven’t risen much since then, and they are one pissed off bunch of people. Please excuse my colorful colloquialism. They’re angry that the big banks got all this bailout money and have used it to buy influence and they feel like big companies that donate freely to election campaigns get preferential treatment. Companies like General Electric with record profits paying no taxes. I was thinking if we could amend your bill so that when the deficit is paid off and the funding starts for Social Security we could move to end the payroll tax for Social Security. Employees get more take-home pay and the employers don’t have their portion of the payroll tax and all the accounting costs for implementing the Social Security payroll tax. That’s the equivalent of a 4.2% pay raise for the employee and a 6.2% pay raise for the employer. It’s a lot of money Elliott. Employers will likely hire more people as it will cost less, and employees will have more money to spend and thereby jump-start the economy. The National Federation of Independent Businesses would go wild over that idea.”
“Same old Steph, out in front of everybody and thinking outside the box. I think it’s terrific.”
“Careful there Mr. Eastman. I’m reaching that point where using my name and old in the same sentence can get you in real trouble.”
“Sorry, but I think considering the fact that I’m twenty years your senior should get me off the hook.”
Stephanie laughed. “I’ll let it go this time, but you know it never felt that way.”
“What never felt what way?”
“It never felt like you were that much older than I am.”
“I know. We were a perfect fit,” Elliott replied softly.
“Do you know when you might be out to D.C. next?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I’d really like to see you Elliott.”
“I know.”
He didn’t have the heart to tell her he’d flown in twice to check on Eddie and James.
They fell silent, each waiting for the other to speak. When the silence began to grow awkward Stephanie said, “Do you still have the same e-mail address? I’ll send you the contact information for both of these men just in case you need it.”
“It’s still the same.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Thanks.”
As soon as he set the phone down it rang again.
“Elliott? Archie here. Eddie and James have been released. They were able to save James’ eye, thank God. I suggested they head for your ranch to rest up, but they would have none of it. They’re worried they might be followed and they want a piece of the guys that jumped them. I was able to do some creative hacking and I got a clear shot of the vehicle that cut them off. The video shows them being manhandled into the back of a black Escalade. I got a clean read of the license plate off a traffic light video cam. It’s registered to one Reginald Soro who, get this, works as a private detective. We could talk with him and see who hired him.”
Elliott was quiet, thinking for a moment. “Tell Eddie and James they are off duty for now. They will be followed. Get two new faces and see if they can track down Soro. I want to know who paid for the hit on Eddie and James. I want to know if there is a new player in the game.”
“I’ll get Jim Buckner and Gordon Harrison on it. They’re good at the special ops stuff.”
“Good.”
Elliott stood on shaky legs and turned up the sound on C-SPAN so he could hear it in the bathroom. He went to shave and make himself presentable to the doctors administering the chemo today. As he entered the bathroom he glanced in the mirror and said, “Hello, craggy face.”
He paused, shaving blade in shaky hand, and studied the dark circles under his eyes as the water in the sink heated up. His hair had thinned to the point where he could see areas of his scalp he’d never seen before.
‘Damn chemo. I can’t see Stephanie looking like a concentration camp escapee,’ he thought. But he owed her some kind of explanation. He could hear the hurt in her voice today, and she’d done such a beautiful job, but he didn’t want her to know his life was numbered in weeks, maybe days. It was true he did long to see her, more than she would ever know, but the last thing he wanted to do was resurrect their feelings for one another and then leave her grieving after he was gone. He supposed he was taking the easy way out, but nothing about it felt easy.
Setting the blade down he turned the water off and moved back out to the den where he put C-SPAN on mute and called Stephanie back.
“Hi Steph. Hey, I’m sorry. I’m just buried. I’ve got forty men in the field right now. I promise when I’m coming to D.C. I’ll give you plenty of notice.”
“I’d like to see the ranch again. It’s been a long time,” Stephanie said softly.
Elliott actually considered the idea for a moment. They’d enjoyed some marvelous times here. “It’s just not a good idea right now, I’m sorry.”
“I understand. Do what you have to do. I’ll see you soon.”
“Bye.”
The call was supposed to make him feel better, but it didn’t.
After showering and shaving he put on a Brooks Brother’s suit and drove the forty miles to Colorado State University where Dr. Yates had arranged for him to get treatment.
Two days later after a double-dose of chemo, he was being helped to his car by an orderly when he heard his phone ringing from inside his briefcase.
“Please, it might be important, and I can make it the rest of the way to my car myself.”
“Are you sure sir?” the orderly asked.
“Yes, thank you,” Elliott said setting the brief case on the ground, opening it and quickly answering his cell phone.
“Elliott here.”
“Elliott. It’s Paul White. The Senate Banking Committee just sent SB 1190 back to the floor with no changes.”
“They didn’t even try to amend it?”
“No, the bastards didn’t want a repeat of the Discharge Motion maneuver so they made sure they got it out of committee within the 30 days, but essentially they’re saying it’s fine the way it is.”
“That makes no sense. I assumed the banking lobby would hammer us,” Elliott commented.
“I know. I thought the same thing. I don’t like it; I can’t figure out what they’re up to,” the President added.
“I thought they’d attack the amount of the transaction fee, you know, cut it in half or something,” Elliott added.
“I heard rumors the opposition was going to modify the bill to have the transaction fee apply to personal accounts.”
“That would be dirty pool, but would effectively destroy the intent of the bill, if they could get it through,” speculated the former senator.
“I think the Banking Committee moves are just a feint to lull us into complacency,” President White speculated.
“They’re up to something.”
“And we’ll see it out of Armed Services and Appropriations shortly. I can’t imagine they’ll leave it unchanged.”
“We’ll see. Who can you line up in the Senate that we can count on?” Elliott asked.
“We can count on …”
“Listen Paul, I’m just getting in my car. Can you e-mail me the contact information for the senators you can trust? I’ve got some driving to do.”
“You know you just interrupted the President of the United States?”
“Yep, and I’m not even sorry about it.”
As Elliott drove back to his ranch he had to stop twice because of the dry heaves. His stomach was as empty as a sun bleached gourd, but his body was telling him it had been through hell and something needed to be ejected from it. As weak as a kitten from his second roadside stop, he was climbing back into his car when his phone rang again.
“Elliott?”
“Yes.”
“Archie, I’ve got a hell of an idea. Ouch, don’t hit me.”
Elliott could hear a woman’s voice in the back ground, “Don’t you go taking credit for my idea.”
“Hit me again and I’ll kiss you.”
“Go on. You’re keeping the Senator waiting.”
“Elliott?”
“Yes, Archie, I take it you’re with Goldie?”
“Yes, Goldie, my beautiful angel is right here.”
Goldie put a finger down her throat and made a gagging sound.
“Goldie, or one of her girlfriends on the cheerleading squad, met Bono before he was married and developed a close friendship. They still talk once or twice a year,” explained Archie, making sure to get the credits right.
“I’ve met Bono as well, quite an impressive fellow,” Elliott mentioned.
“Agreed, well we had an idea. Bono knows a lot of people. If we were to make him aware of the sweeping impact of the ‘War on the Deficit’ bill, we’re sure he would back it and he might bring in other famous friends and we could air a national TV ad. You know, kinda like the ones that Yul Bryner did about the dangers of cigarettes before he died of cancer? I’m excited about the idea.”
“It’s worth a shot. Run with it.”
“I knew you’d like it. I’ll let you know how it goes. Later.”
Elliott was pulling onto the long gravel drive that led to his sprawling ranch house when his phone rang again. It was Robert Dale, his attorney.
“Hello Robert.”
“Hi Elliott, here’s the monthly report, as you requested. The manager of the prison inmate project is reporting they have had over fifty thousand hits on their web site requesting information on how to apply, and another ten thousand have simply shown up at the gates. This thing is going wild. And this is just in Texas. It’s a whole new industry that’s grown up over night.”
“Of course, free food, a roof over their heads and a chance to get a leg up in life. It’s simple human nature to want to improve their lot in life.”
“We’re running into a little trouble with getting accredited, but we’re making progress. And our foundation has been approached by representatives from California, Georgia, New Jersey and Ohio inquiring how the costs are shaping up.”
“And how are they shaping up?” Elliott asked as he climbed out of the car.
“They’re coming in at about 66% of what it cost to run the former prison.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. I read somewhere the average cost to house, feed and clothe a prisoner for a year was around $71,000. 66% of that times fifty thousand ex-prisoners is one hell of a savings, while helping to make productive citizens out of serial prisoners. When word gets out, every state in the Union will be knocking on your door.”
“And a lot of these teachers and other assistants were on unemployment. Some of the former prisoners were on welfare and soon they’ll be gainfully employed, imbued with self-esteem and a sense of worth. We’ll be seeing people dropping off the welfare rolls in very significant numbers very soon.”
“We’ll see quite a few prison guards on the unemployment lines,” Elliott said softly.
“They negotiated themselves a CEO style severance package. They won’t be hurting.”
Roberts’s voice grew husky and he faltered to a stop.
“Don’t question it. Not for a second. It is a good thing you are doing, Elliott.”
“You’re the one who has made it happen, Robert.”
“Me? I’m glad I was able to be part of it. I just had my paralegals move forward with the hiring process for unemployed teachers and managers and then let things run their natural course. You’re the one footing the bill.”
“Well, keep up the good work and please keep me posted,” Elliott concluded.
“I’ll be speaking with you soon,” Robert replied.
Elliott’s phone rang the moment he set it down. Glancing at the number he noted it was the President’s private line and pressed the green answer button.
“Yes, Paul.”
“Appropriations just sent the bill back. Their sub-committee on economic policy believes the transaction fees are too high and will reduce liquidity and possibly push up interest rates. They recommend a flat ten cent tax on all transactions over one million dollars. They also recommend that JP Morgan hold the transaction tax funds in a Wall Street lock box account.”
“Ten cents on transactions over one million dollars is nonsense. That’s nothing. It essentially guts the bill,” Elliott observed.
“We were wondering why the banking committee wasn’t the one to carve the bill up, and now we know. It was a smart approach. They don’t want the bankers to be the ones who are against the bill, which might bring the wrath of the people down on the bankers who they despise already,” the President said thinking out loud.