by Greg Iles
I can just make out the inventory room of the bookstore. “You got me out? You sent that blocked text?”
She nods, her eyes filled with worry.
“How?”
“I sent it from my computer, using a special app.”
“No, I mean how did you get me out? Free from those bastards.”
“With Sally’s cache.” Nadine gives me an apologetic smile. “I’ve had it from the beginning.”
Of course she has. “Because of your mother,” I say softly.
“And the book club. Sally and I got very close during those two years.”
“But . . . why didn’t you tell me? My God. Didn’t you trust me?”
“Honestly? No.”
I can’t get my mind around this. “Why not?”
“Marshall, I think you’re a good person. I like you a lot. But you’re also a journalist. A journalist who made his name by breaking big stories. And this story is as big as anything you’ve ever done.”
“Which part? Buck’s murder? The Poker Club? The paper mill?”
“It’s all connected. But the paper mill is the lights-out scandal. I couldn’t risk you ruining the town’s future by going live on CNN three hours after you learned the truth.”
“Do you really think I’d do that?”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t? You don’t know yet what’s under all this. Think back three days ago, to Buck’s murder. How would you have felt if I’d handed you a bomb that could destroy the Poker Club?”
She’s right about that. “Okay . . . I get it.”
“By the way, you’re set to meet with the Poker Club in four and a half hours. At Claude Buckman’s bank.”
“What the hell? Why?”
Nadine looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Because if you don’t, you’re as good as dead. They’re not going to let you run around loose if they don’t think we’ll cut a deal with them. Especially after they see the morning paper, which should hit their doorsteps in two or three hours. They are going to freak when they see those stories.”
After what happened to me in the jail, this is too much to absorb. “Ben and those old pressmen are really going to get a paper out?”
She nods in the dim light.
“Well, if you didn’t trust me a few hours ago, at the hospital, why do you now?”
“I’m sorry about that. I was actually on the verge of telling you I had the cache when Jet called. Three minutes later you were outside with her.” Nadine lifts a steaming cup of coffee off a cardboard box and hands it to me. “Maybe this will lessen the sting.”
The coffee fills my mouth like a healing elixir, and the first infusion of caffeine makes me shiver with pleasure. “What made you decide to confide in me at the hospital?”
“You told me about the paper you were planning to put out.”
“I don’t understand. It was you who sent me that PDF file? You’re ‘Mark Felt’?”
“Of course. And I don’t want to hear any damned Deep Throat jokes.”
I hold up my left hand. “Not from me.”
“I sent you that as a test of sorts. To see how you’d handle the information. And you passed. You’re using the material that will hurt the Poker Club members, but you held off on the Mr. Chow stuff, which was potentially more explosive, because you weren’t sure what you had. That told me you were willing to proceed with caution, even after they hurt your father. You’re not trying to wreck the whole Azure Dragon deal without regard for the consequences.”
“Yeah, well . . . I’m not so sure about that now.”
“What did they do to you in the jail? Your forehead looks like it has rug burn.”
“They taught me how to hold my breath.”
“What does that mean?”
“Not now. Have you heard anything about my father?”
“He’s about the same. You should call your mother. She’s sleeping at the hospital tonight.”
I glance at my watch. “Arthur Pine came to see me in the jail. In trying to get me to talk, he told me some things I didn’t know. I think I understand why Sally created the cache now.”
“Is that so? Why, do you think?”
“If she chose you to hold it, then you must know.”
“Actually, I think Sally initially hoped I’d hold the cache without knowing what was in it. But I persuaded her to tell me everything in the end.”
“What’s ‘everything’?”
Nadine bites her lip, still struggling with whatever it is she knows. “The last thing she told me—and it nearly killed her to do it—was that her husband had fathered Jet’s child.”
I don’t know if it brings anxiety or relief to hear someone else say it out loud. But if Nadine got close enough for Sally to confide this to her, then she must know more than anyone else alive—other than Max—about Sally’s death.
“How long have you known about Kevin?” Nadine asks.
“Since about nine o’clock tonight.”
“Wow. You must be pretty freaked out then.”
I drink some more coffee, then wrap my hands around the cup for warmth. “You could say that.”
“It was Jet who hit Max with the hammer tonight, wasn’t it?”
“What makes you say that?”
Nadine leans against a shelf unit behind her. “After the police hauled you off, I pulled her away from Paul long enough to ask if you’d done it. She had the decency to say no. That—and the way she overreacted to that cop arresting you—told me Jet must have done it.”
“Max tried to rape her tonight. By the pool on Parnassus Hill.”
Nadine blinks but doesn’t otherwise react. Nevertheless, I see her mind working behind her eyes.
“I think she’d have killed him with that hammer if I hadn’t been there,” I add. “She hates him.”
“I imagine so. She’s been living a lie for thirteen years. Not many people could endure that. She snapped tonight when she attacked that cop.”
“You don’t like Jet much, do you?”
Nadine takes the mug from my hand and drinks a sip of coffee. “I actually admire her in many ways. I’ve seen her in court. But I think she’s screwed you up pretty bad.”
I hesitate to go further in this direction, but after tonight on the hill . . . “Do you want to elaborate on that?”
“Let’s just say Jet’s another reason I didn’t tell you about the cache before now. I knew you’d tell her about it. And I don’t trust her not to use it for personal reasons.”
“To get custody of Kevin, you mean?”
She nods.
“How long have you known about her and me?”
A faint smile touches Nadine’s lips. “I figure you’ve been sleeping with her for about three months.”
She guessed it nearly to the day. “When did you know? And how?”
“The first two months you came into the store for coffee, you were so pissed off about leaving Washington and watching your career stall that you were hard to be around. Then one day you waltzed in on air. Either you’d started sleeping with somebody or doing drugs.”
“How did you know it was Jet?”
She shakes her head, her incredulity plain. “Any time her name came up in conversation, even four tables away, you’d look up from your coffee. Every time you said her name the timbre of your voice changed. Even now. Not to mention, your gate code is her birthday.”
I feel my cheeks go red. “How’d you know that?”
“After I found those earrings, my mind started working. The code ended in your birth year, but it wasn’t your birthday. I have a St. Mark’s alumni directory. Took about thirty seconds to find out what Jet’s was.”
“I guess I wouldn’t make much of a spy.”
Nadine snorts a little laugh, but then her expression turns serious. “If Paul Matheson doesn’t know you’re sleeping with his wife, it’s because he’s worked hard to blind himself to it. He’s not my cup of tea, but he’s no dummy, either.”
“No.”
>
“After what I saw tonight, you’d better be damned careful. If that cop had tried to handcuff Jet, Paul would have hurt him. The other cop would have shot him for it, but Paul didn’t care. I don’t think he’d hesitate to hurt you, Marshall. Even kill you.”
“I saw. He’s close to the edge.”
The sound of an engine rises in the alley behind the back door. Nadine looks up at a small window set high in the wall, then reaches out and snuffs the flame of the candle.
“A wavering light might look weird,” she whispers, “no matter how dim.”
“Do you still have your gun?”
“In my purse, on the floor. But I’d rather not shoot a cop if we can avoid it.”
I hear my heartbeat in my ears as the engine grows louder. It seems to stop outside the door, but after several seconds, it moves on.
“Why don’t we go sit in the banquette up front?” I ask the barely discernible form in front of me.
“Because even with the lights out, it’s visible from the street if you press your face to the glass. We’d better stay back here. There’s a little bathroom over there. I’ll turn on the light and crack the door in a minute.”
“Okay. Hey, how did you recruit Tim Hayden to pick me up?”
I sense more than see an affectionate smile. “He and the guy I’m staying with are lovers. I got my friend Chris to call Claude Buckman and deliver the threat that sprung you from jail. Tim volunteered to pick you up and bring you here. If I don’t hear from him soon, I need to call and check on him.”
“Why don’t you call him now? I’ll call my mother.”
“You can’t power up your phone.” Nadine’s cell flashes to life between us, and I see a snarky look on her face. “Either of them. Use mine.”
She dials my mother’s cell from her contacts list, then holds the phone to my ear. After five rings, Mom answers in a ragged voice, “Nadine? Have you heard anything about Marshall?”
“It’s me, Mom,” I say, taking the phone. “I’m out of jail, and I’m okay.”
“Thank God. They didn’t hurt you, did they?”
“I’m fine. Nadine got me out.”
“I told you she’s good people. I like that girl, Marshall.”
“Me, too. Is Dad awake yet?”
“No. They’re thinking about bringing him out of the coma later this morning. I’m trying to stay optimistic.”
“I’ll check back soon. I wanted to tell you something. I had a sort of epiphany, I guess, while I was in jail. I realized why you asked me whether I hadn’t punished Dad enough by now.”
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, you were right. I—”
“Don’t tell me, Marshall. Tell him. You’re going to get your chance.”
I feel my mother’s invisible hands pushing me toward forgiveness, and maybe redemption. “I’ll be there after it’s light, unless you need me sooner. Just call Nadine’s cell phone.”
“I will. Be careful.”
I click end. “I guess you heard all that?”
By the phone’s light, I see Nadine smile to herself.
“So . . . are you ready to tell me what’s in the cache? Or are you still trying to decide whether you can trust me?”
Her smile vanishes. She looks over her shoulder to the faint outline of her worktable. “Why don’t we sit down? Let me get some light on.”
She crosses the room in the dark, then turns on the bathroom light and leaves the door cracked, enough to throw a faint wedge of fluorescent light into the room. I take my coffee and sit on the near side of the table. She sits opposite me and absently picks up a pen resting on a notepad.
“There are three main issues,” she says, doodling on the pad. “First, what’s in the cache. Second, how I got it and what Sally intended should be done with it. Third, what are we going to do with it? A lot of this is going to get very personal for you. But we have to talk about it. Where do you want to start?”
“What’s in the cache? I need to know what’s at stake for everybody.”
“A lot,” she begins, tapping the pad like an attorney framing a question in a deposition. “There’s a staggering amount of general business corruption. Political manipulation, bribery, tax evasion, you name it. Most of that’s local, except the tax stuff, which involves accounts in the Seychelles. There’s a local dimension to the paper mill and the interstate and bridge as well. The Poker Club wired those deals every way they could think of, skimmed in ways I’ve never seen before. All the new infrastructure, the ancillary businesses—every angle has been maximized for graft and spread among the local constituencies, including the black leaders. But all that’s nothing compared to the central knot. The plum on the wedding cake. It’s the crime of the century, Marshall—I kid you not.”
“That’s enough foreplay.”
Nadine mimes disappointment. “Don’t deny me my little triumphs. It’s been killing me to be the only person who knows this shit. Scaring me, really. This mill deal is like the ultimate expression of Trump’s America. It took the new EPA granting an unprecedented exemption to allow construction on top of the old electroplating factory, which was almost declared a Superfund site ten years ago. But who cares, right? It’s moneymaking time. And that mill is the golden anchor that made the interstate and the bridge and all the rest possible.”
“Jesus, would you tell me the heart of the thing already?”
There’s wicked pleasure in her eyes. “Can’t you tell me? I’ve been pushing you toward the answer for three days. Think. Why did Azure Dragon choose Bienville, Mississippi, for their billion-dollar paper mill? At least five other towns on their list were far superior in every respect.”
I throw up my hands. “Why?”
She sighs with disappointment. “Avery Sumner.”
“Judge Sumner? The Poker Club member who got appointed to fill the vacant Senate seat?”
“Yes!” She looks as though the whole truth should be self-evident.
“I must be a moron. Explain, damn it.”
“God. Bienville was in the running to get the paper mill, but way down the list. It was a cattle call. Most potential site cities sent distinguished delegations to China to make their pitches. Some state governors flew over. Everybody’s singing the same song. They compete to give the biggest tax breaks and best infrastructure package, a contest Bienville couldn’t possibly win. Right?”
“I imagine not.”
“But somebody in the Poker Club—I’m pretty sure it was Max Matheson—got the brilliant idea of offering the Chinese something nobody else could.”
“Which was . . . ?”
She extends an open hand as though offering me something of immense value. “A U.S. Senate seat.”
Avery Sumner. “How could they offer the Chinese Sumner’s Senate seat?”
“Not the seat itself. They offered votes. Pro-China votes on major pending legislation. Especially trade legislation.”
I must have been more exhausted than I knew. But now my heart is racing. “The Poker Club guaranteed Sumner would vote pro-China in exchange for Azure Dragon building their paper mill in Bienville?”
“Bingo. For a cool six billion yuan invested in southwest Mississippi, China got a guaranteed Senate vote.”
“Christ. But . . . leaving aside the treason, or whatever crime that is, Avery Sumner was only appointed to serve out the remainder of a term. How many votes affecting China will come up in the time he has left?”
“In two years and four months? Enough. I think the Chinese would consider his vote on even two major bills a thousand percent return on their investment.”
She’s right: the scale of this crime is staggering. It’s hubris on the part of the Poker Club, but to Buckman and Donnelly and the rest, the potential payoff must have seemed worth the risk. “And the Chinese government?” I ask. “Were they involved with this? Or was it just Azure Dragon Paper?”
Nadine laughs softly. “That’s like asking me if Putin knew his olig
arch buddies were involved in election tampering. You think some Shanghai businessman would risk espionage against the U.S. without the sanction of his government? You get a bullet in the back of the neck for that in China.”
“All this is detailed in Sally’s cache?”
“Painstakingly. Her recordings of the Poker Club meetings contain several discussions about it, and her documentary evidence verifies it beyond doubt.”
Though I’m sitting, I feel dizzy, as though I’ve been whisked a thousand feet into the air. “This is bigger than . . . almost anything I can think of. Selling a U.S. Senate seat to a foreign power?”
Nadine has an almost beatific smile on her face. “If you think about it, U.S. Senate seats have been sold for a long time. Candidates have to spend millions to even have a chance at winning one. The Citizens United decision worsened the problem exponentially. And once a senator’s in office, lobbyists pay millions to get their votes. How big a leap was it, really, to start selling votes directly?”
“It’s not the first time, is it?” I realize. “Governor Rod Blagojevich tried to sell the seat vacated by Barack Obama. Went to jail for it. Fourteen years. Did you ever hear the FBI tape of what he said about that seat?”
She shakes her head.
“‘I’ve got this thing and it’s fucking golden. I’m just not giving it up for fucking nothing.’”
“He’d have been right at home in the Bienville Poker Club. At least Buckman and his crew are trying to help the city as well as themselves.”
Despite my earlier indignation over Nadine’s lack of trust, I can’t help but fantasize what breaking a story of this magnitude would mean to my career. It’s like being the only reporter with the Pentagon Papers story, or Watergate. I feel an irrational fear that I’ll be killed before I can write it up and get it out to the world. Or maybe that’s not so irrational—
“This crime is actually ancient history,” Nadine informs me. “The Romans had a specific law to deal with bribery of senators for their votes. Lex Acilia repetundarum. But our situation gets into ambitus, as well—all the illegal crap the Poker Club did to get Sumner appointed to that seat. All twelve members pulled every string they could reach to put his butt in that chair.”
“Where is the cache now?” I ask.