The Way You Look Tonight (8 page)

Jack Kennedy returned her smile, and spoke for the first time in several minutes. ‘And you wouldn’t object if our people checked you out, Stella? Got in touch with your alma mater in
Cambridge, for example? Talked to the people you’ll be studying under at Smith?’

Stella’s eyes widened slightly. ‘Not at all . . . but why would you want to do that, Mr President? You still haven’t explained why we’re having this
conversation.’

Jack Kennedy steepled his fingers and rested his chin on top of them.

‘Now
that,
Stella, is where serendipity finally enters the picture.’

Todd Johnson wasn’t at all sure it had been such a great idea to transfer from Detroit Police to the President’s personal Secret Service detail. He’d thought
it would be a whole lot more glamorous than this. Todd had envisaged loping alongside the presidential limousine as it drove slowly through vast, cheering crowds, perhaps winning the occasional
admiring glance from the First Lady as he pressed a finger against his earpiece and barked crisp, efficient updates into the tiny radio microphone pinned to his suit lapel.

But not this. Not sitting alone in a nondescript mid-range unmarked radio car with busted air-con and nothing to do unless the receiver suddenly crackled to life with a message. Which it
hadn’t. Not since they’d got here.

All the other guys were down on the beach, eyeing up the women and working on their suntans. When he’d stepped out of the car to get some air and maybe tilt his own face up to the sun for
a few minutes, his boss had materialised from the sand-dunes like some kind of frigging magician and yelled at him to ‘get back in the goddamn car, Johnson, or get back to Detroit!’

He wondered if he could smoke a cigarette, and then decided against it. Old hard-as-nails would probably pop up from the dunes again like a jack-in-the-box, and he’d be on report. He
sighed. Things had better start improving soon or he’d be seriously thinking about going back to work in his brother’s car showroom in Dearborn.

‘
Jesus Christ!
’ He jumped near clear through the car’s roof at the sudden hammering on the driver’s window. ‘What the f—’

It was one of the local Vineyard cops, a three-striper. Todd got a grip and rolled down the window.

‘Yeah?’

The sergeant grinned at him. ‘Sorry, son. Didn’t mean to startle you there.’ He held up his ID. ‘Trade?’

Todd fished out his Secret Service pass from an inside pocket and flashed it back at the cop. ‘What’s up, officer?’

The sergeant nodded to the short-wave radio unit bolted to the sedan’s dashboard. ‘You having trouble with that thing? We been trying to raise you from the station this past twenty
minutes. I tried you from the car on the way over here. Nix.’

Todd flicked a few switches, and then thumped the top of the receiver-transponder.

‘Stone cold. I was wondering why it had all gone quiet . . . it was fine when we got here,’ he added, lamely.

‘Yeah, well, praise the Lord for the US Telegram Service, huh?’

Todd looked at him blankly. ‘Begging your pardon?’

The sergeant pulled a crumpled telegram envelope from his back pocket. ‘Looks like we’ve not been the only ones trying to reach you, son. This came through a few minutes ago from FBI
Miami. Urgent, for the Attorney General. I do believe he’s still here.’ The sergeant nodded out towards a low headland. ‘I noticed the
Victura
’s still at anchor
around the point. You take this straight to him, son. It’s in plain speech so your boys won’t need the codes.’

Todd got out of the car. ‘You’ve read it then.’

‘Couldn’t avoid doing so, friend. Don’t have a single idea what it’s about, mind. Maybe it
is
a kinda code after all. All seems to be about the number
four.’ He nodded. ‘I’ll be getting back. You get that radio fixed, mind, on the double. Hell, what if the Ruskies are comin’?’

Todd could hear the sergeant laughing as he strolled back to his patrol car.

He looked down at the envelope. This was it. A personal message for the President’s brother. And he was the one lucky stiff who got to deliver it.

‘An FBI
telegram
? What the hell’s wrong with the radio, Johnson?’

The most senior of the three Secret Service men guarding the veranda of the beach house glowered at him, chin thrust forward aggressively.

‘It’s out of service, sir. I only just—’

‘Then get straight down on that beach there and tell the old man RIGHT NOW. We need to get the
Victura
’s back-up unit ashore and powered up right away.
Jesus
,
Johnson, what if the Ruskies are coming?’

The older man snatched the telegram from Todd’s unresisting fingers and turned to go inside the wooden building.

‘But sir,
I
was going to—’

The screen door slammed shut and Todd was talking to himself.

‘I’d sprint, not walk to the beach, Johnson, if I were you,’ one of the remaining guards said dispassionately, eyes hidden behind blank shades. ‘Even then I
wouldn’t bet against this being your last day with the organisation, sport. Enjoy what may be left of it.’

Before the President could begin, there was a double knock on the den’s sliding door.

‘
Dammit.
Yes, come in . . .’

The door rolled back and the agent stepped into the room. ‘Sorry to interrupt, Mr President, but a telegram’s just come through from the FBI in Miami, urgent for the Attorney General
here.’

Bobby laughed. ‘A
telegram?’
He reached out for it. ‘Maybe Hoover’s boys will start using the Pony Express again soon.’

The agent looked embarrassed. ‘Problem with our radio car, sir. We’re on it.’

‘Sure.’ The Attorney General took the envelope and opened it as the agent slid back out of the room as quickly as was decently possible.

He stared, expressionless, at the sparsely worded paragraph in front of him. After a moment, he closed his eyes and wearily pinched the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger.

‘Oh,
shit.
’

‘Hey, Bobby . . .’ His brother inclined his head towards Stella, still perched on her beanbag.

‘What? Oh . . . I apologise for my language there, Miss Arnold . . . Stella, I mean . . . would you, ah, excuse us a moment?’

‘Of course,’ Stella said, beginning to get up. ‘Do you want me to go outside?’

‘No, no, you stay comfortable in here. Jack, would you come into the hall, please?’

Stella was left alone in the den. She looked out at America’s most powerful at play while their President and his brother whispered outside on the stairs.

She’d always had a vivid imagination, but she couldn’t have got close to predicting such a wildly improbable scenario.

Despite everything, she started to laugh.

‘Four!
Are they sure?’

‘Pretty much. The FBI say everything about the new one found this morning screams the same
modus operandi
as the first three, Jack, even before the post mortem. We’ve got a
real problem here. And there’s something I haven’t told you yet.’

The President was sitting on the stairs, his hands cradling his head. Now he raised it to stare at his younger brother. ‘Oh man, this thing just gets better and better. What, and
why
, if you please?’

‘C. Farris Bryant is flying up to Washington from Miami tomorrow and he wants to see you in the White House first thing Tuesday when we get back. The
why
is that I only took his
call as we were leaving Hyannis Port earlier and I didn’t see any good reason to burden you with it until the morning.’

The President pushed his hair back with both hands. ‘Great. So we have four murdered and mutilated women down there inside precisely three weeks, and the state governor on the warpath to
Washington. Thank the saints Bryant’s a Democrat, at least.’

‘Small mercies, yeah . . .’ Bobby considered a moment. ‘I’ll give you the background during the flight down to Washington tomorrow, but the bottom line is that Bryant is
attracting serious investment to turn Florida into America’s new winter playground. He’s building freeways and bridges and green-lighting all kinds of tourist development. There are
huge deals on the brink of being signed.

‘But the mother of them all – and don’t you start in on me, Jack, this was news to me too, I swear – Bryant says he’s begun secret talks with Walt Disney to get the
new Disney Park located down there and things are at a very delicate stage. Right now, Bryant needs a multiple murderer rampaging round southern Florida like he needs a fucking hole in the head. He
wants to know what we’re going to do about it.’

‘And this conversation with him this morning was
before
he knew about this fourth one?’

‘
Oh
yeah. I’m expecting sweet, loving messages from him waiting for me when we get back to Hyannis Port. I’d probably be hearing them right now if the radio car
wasn’t out of action.’

The President looked back towards the den where Stella waited patiently for them.

‘And Bryant’ll be opposite me in the Oval Office Tuesday? Wanting answers?’

‘You can bet on it.’

His older brother nodded slowly. ‘Right. Then we’re going to feed this guy some seriously good news. We’ll tell him that we’ve drafted one of the world’s foremost
young minds concerning homicidal psychopaths, and she’s on the case as a special advisor to the FBI as of yesterday.’

His brother stared at him, and gave a short laugh. ‘Isn’t that what you might call something of an over-promotion, Jack? Sure, she’s as bright as a new penny but Jeez . . .
she’s only twenty-one, twenty-two at most.’

‘
We
know that, Bobby, but Bryant doesn’t. We’ll sell her to him as a prodigy. Come on, help me fix this. It doesn’t have to be for long – maybe a week at
most. Meantime you get some kind of endorsement from her senior don at Cambridge, something that looks impressive; something that I can wave in Bryant’s face. We just need to keep the guy
happy for a few days until the FBI boys get a lead, which they surely will. The Keys aren’t the Wild West, for God’s sake – we’re talking about a handful of small islands
here. Anyway, you never know, maybe we’ll cut a break. Maybe this girl really
can
help us out. She seems confident enough, that’s for sure.’

Jack Kennedy stood up. ‘Come on. Let’s go pin a deputy’s badge on the kid.’

Stella heard the den’s sliding door opening behind her and she turned from the beach window to see Jack Kennedy entering the room alone.

‘Oh . . . where’s your brother, Mr President?’

‘He’s gone to get us some cold beers. I, ah, think you may appreciate a drink when we’re done here. We all might.’

He smiled reassuringly at her before beginning to lower himself awkwardly onto one of the beanbags. Suddenly he winced and grunted in pain.

‘Um . . . I think I may remain standing, if that’s OK with you, Miss Arnold.’

‘Of course . . . are you all right?’

‘Never better, thank you. I just have a touch of stiffness in my back today, that’s all.’

She watched him fishing for something in a jacket pocket before he produced a small brown glass bottle and quickly unscrewed the lid. He glanced at her. ‘Aspirin,’ he said. ‘It
takes the edge off. Would you, ah, pass me that water, please?’

There was a pewter tray bearing a blue glass carafe with matching tumblers set on a small table beside the window. Stella poured a glass out and handed it to him.
I’m giving a glass of
water to the 35th President of the United States and it doesn’t feel peculiar at all
, she thought, as she watched him take a sip from it and throw his head back to swallow the pill. She
caught the briefest glimpse of it on his tongue. The tablet was bright red and tiny. It didn’t look like any kind of aspirin she’d seen before.

‘Thank you,’ he said, handing back the glass.

He smiled at her. ‘Stella, I have to tell you that I think your presence here today is a remarkable coincidence and, ah, a fateful one at that.’

‘In what way?’

‘You may be able to help us. Help our country, rather.’ He considered her for a moment. ‘You’ve heard of the Florida Keys?’

‘Of course. I’ve seen the Humphrey Bogart film
Key Largo
, just like everyone else. And ever since I watched
White Christmas
and those gorgeous opening scenes set
down in the Keys at night, I’ve wanted to go there.’

The President laughed. ‘Another touch of serendipity, then. Because that is
exactly
where Bobby and I want to send you. The Florida Keys. Tomorrow, if possible. Tuesday by the
latest.’

Stella felt her jaw falling open and somehow managed to close it again. She swallowed, hard.

‘You want me to go to Florida? Why? And why the rush? I’m sorry, Mr President, I just don’t understand any of this.’

There was a faint clinking behind her and she turned to see Bobby Kennedy coming back into the den, clutching several opened bottles of iced beer to his chest. He slid the door shut again with
one foot.

‘Don’t worry, Stella, you’ll understand well enough when we get round to telling you what’s going on down there.
Jesus
, Jack, are you still wandering all over
the course here? Haven’t you got to the damn point yet?’

He put the bottles down and turned back to Stella.

‘OK. Here it is. We’ve got some crazy fellow running around the Keys, killing young women. Four in the last month – in the last three weeks, to be exact. That’s bad
enough, of course. But the thing is . . . well, the thing is, he does terrible things to them before they die.’

Stella’s air of baffled frustration evaporated.

‘I see. What sorts of things? Go into as much detail as you can, please.’

She stared calmly at the younger Kennedy, sat back down on her beanbag and gestured to him to do the same. ‘How does he kill them, exactly? No, wait. Whatever he does to them, before and
after, it’s the same methodology every time, isn’t it?’

Bobby Kennedy’s eyes widened at the abrupt change in her, and her acuity. He sank back down on the floor opposite her as before, impressed by this sudden cool focus. Maybe his
brother’s instincts were right. Maybe she
would
make some kind of difference down there.