“Of course, Jason,” Magnus replied, following his host into the front hall. The party roared on in the other room as Jason led Magnus down the corridor. “What is all this secrecy?” Magnus asked a little nervously when Jason looked over his shoulder to see if they were being followed.
“The Haas business, Vance.”
“What about it?”
“Do you really think it’s a good idea?”
“I didn’t initially, but it’s starting to grow on me.”
“I can see Cassie’s growing on you, too.”
“Jealous again, are we?” Magnus laughed pleasantly. “Are you more worried about Haas or her? I wonder.”
“You know how I feel about Tony. I don’t like the idea of Cassie tangling with him. Is he sober enough these days to know what’s going on?”
“Just barely. That’s why Cassie’s going to come in so handy, you see. Whatever ugly little facts Ruthie Nester manages to dig up, Cassie’s flattering interview is going to help whitewash them.”
“You better have a lot of whitewash. Why protect him? You can’t have any use for him anymore.”
“Don’t bet on that. You never know when you’re going to need a favor, Jason.”
“I know all about Senator Haas and his little favors. I’m getting the feeling that Ruthie Nester and others do, too. I think this whole thing might blow. I don’t want Cassie in the middle of it when it does.”
“You don’t want her in the middle of what, Jason? Excitement? Success? All seem a little too familiar to you now? I think the problem here is that your little country mouse is turning into a city slicker, and you don’t like it.”
“I’m not worried that she’s changing, Vance, I’m worried about what she’s changing into.”
“Something a bit more like Miranda, right? Well, I’m sorry you’re disappointed. Personally I’m delighted. She’s far more to my taste now, Jason.”
“Don’t you dare touch her, Vance. Don’t corrupt her.”
“Oh, my, we are vicious tonight, aren’t we?” Magnus took a step back, pretending fear. “And just who are you to dictate who does what to whom?”
Later, when everyone had gone home, Jason tried again to break through to the Cassie he thought he knew.
“What’s going on with you?” he asked gently as he came up behind where she stood, looking out the French doors to the street. “I feel like we’re a million miles apart.”
“Perhaps we are,” she admitted.
“But why, Cassie?” he demanded. The fear he’d been trying to control rushed through him. “What’s happened to us? What have I done?”
“Why do you assume that you’ve done something?” she asked, turning to face him. “Isn’t it possible that I’ve done something instead? For the first time in my life, I’ve found a bit of success in what I do. I like the sensation, Jason. I feel whole for once, and very strong. I feel that I can really make a difference here. In New York. At Magnus. Like I’m finally headed somewhere.”
“You sound so much like Miranda,” Jason replied wretchedly, staring beyond her to the street. “I know what you’re going to say next: I’ll hold you back. I’ll clip your wings. You’re not ready to settle down. Something like that, right?”
She met his gaze; his dark eyes were almost black, cold and flat. He raised his hand uncertainly, and for a moment she was afraid he was going to hit her, but instead he brushed his fingers lightly down her cheek.
Cassie shivered. Was it fear or desire? She didn’t know, and at that moment it didn’t matter. Jason stepped toward her, and she found herself incapable of moving away. She had been so determined not to give into him, not to give in to her own unquenchable longing. But as he took her into his arms, she knew it was impossible.
“I’ve missed you so much,” he told her as he leaned down to kiss her. As his lips met hers, she knew that—despite Miranda, despite all her darkest suspicions—her need for this man went beyond reason or caution. Her mind kept telling her to be careful. Miranda’s words rang through her thoughts: Trust no one. Trust no one. Briefly her nightmare about drowning resurfaced, flooding her with dread. But Jason, sensing some renewed resistance, drew her closer, held her tighter. And she felt herself relax in his arms as all her fears were overruled by the fierce, quickening demands of her heart.
Twenty-four
“Did you get him shaking hands with the girl in the wheelchair?” Sheila asked as the camera crew climbed back into the van.
“We got him shaking hands with the entire fucking school,” Harvey, one of the two cameramen assigned to the project, replied. “The man does a very nice handshake. His hands also shake all by themselves, I’ve noticed.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, Harve?” Cassie demanded from the passenger seat in front. Freddie, the other cameraman, climbed in on the driver’s side. Sheila, Harvey, and Cal, the sound technician, were squeezed together in the back of the van with all the mobile equipment.
“Just that our esteemed senator has a major thirst problem,” Harvey replied as he capped his camera. “I ran into him in the rest room before. The man carries a flask the size of a canteen.”
“I hope you didn’t say anything to him,” Cassie said as the Senator’s limousine pulled away from the curb in front of the junior high school in Brooklyn where they’d been working.
“Nah, I just asked him for a swig.”
“You what?”
“He’s kidding, Cassie,” Sheila intervened, pretending to punch the cameraman in the stomach. “Harvey has a very warped sense of humor that not everybody appreciates.”
“Yeah, well, we need a little humor to get us through this one,” Harvey grumbled. “I don’t get it, you guys. The man’s a major fuck-up, and we’re supposed to make him out like he’s the Pope or something. Next time I’m following him into the men’s room with my camera. Shoot the bastard chugging it down.”
“No, you won’t, Harve.” Sheila sighed. “No, he won’t, Cassie,” Sheila repeated when Cassie turned to the backseat. “Harvey’s a pro. He’ll do what he’s told.”
“But I’ll think what I like,” Harvey grumbled. “And personally I’m thinking that I’d reelect my mother-in-law before I’d vote for that pompous son of a bitch.”
No one could blame the cameraman, Cassie thought as she watched the limousine pick up speed in front of them. Haas was just about impossible to capture in a flattering light. They’d been filming all week at various goodwill and fund-raising events, and Cassie doubted that they’d canned more than five minutes of usable video.
For one thing, Anthony Haas didn’t look well. His face, already puffy and flushed, would appear almost balloonlike once television added its standard ten pounds to his figure. And though his staff gave Cassie’s crew drafts of the Senator’s speeches before each event, the words delivered frequently had little relation to the printed ones. The worst moments were when Haas was forced to ad lib.
“Stay in school, that’s the most important thing you can do for yourself, your parents, and the nation,” the Senator said to end his prepared speech that morning before asking for questions.
“Why stay in school, Mr. Senator?” a third-grader asked. “My brother got shot in this school last month. Sometimes I’m afraid to come here.”
“Because it’s important,” Haas responded evasively, glancing down at his watch.
A teacher stood up and said, “The child has asked you a question, sir. I think she has a right to a decent answer. Our public schools are becoming more dangerous every day. What are your plans for changing that if you get reelected?”
“We’re working on some legislation now that would do a lot to protect these children from the outrages of the gun-toting, drug-dealing predators who are feeding off and, uh, feeding off these … kids. We’re doing everything possible to stem the tide of corruption and abuse that has decimated the very core of our educational system. We’re…”
“B
ut what exactly are you proposing?” the teacher demanded. “More police protection? Metal detectors? After-school counseling?”
“Uh…” Haas turned uncertainly to where his staff was standing near the side entrance. Geoffrey Mellon, trim and handsome in tailored pinstripes, had a bounce in his step as he hurried onto the stage.
He smiled at the Senator with seeming affection as he took the microphone.
“I’m working closely with the Senator on the legal aspects of all those important possibilities you’ve raised, ma’am. The Constitution, though an amazing document, also has a way of throwing up certain roadblocks on what might seem the straightest path to a solution. Drug counseling, sex education, job discrimination—all these issues, as you know, are central to the Senator’s beliefs. They’re also key to helping these children grow into mature, responsible adults. With a conservative Supreme Court now sitting, it is essential that we elect leaders, like our Senator, who will fight for our liberal causes, who are unafraid to speak up for the poor and underprivileged…”
With almost boyish charm, Geoffrey had talked on extemporaneously for another five minutes, saying things that sounded important without proposing anything the least bit concrete. Not for the first time, Cassie saw how effectively the Senator’s staff directed their man. They were like a powerful, smoothly oiled machine attached to a faulty and deteriorating figurehead, keeping him alive and viable. But, especially with Geoffrey, Cassie sensed a ruthlessness and cynicism that made her uneasy. How far would they go, she wondered, to protect Haas’s reputation and power base?
By the time the assembly was finally dismissed, Cassie sensed that—due primarily to Geoffrey’s damage control—most of the teachers and administrators in that room were convinced that Haas should be reelected in November.
“What’s next on the agenda?” Freddie asked as their van followed the Senator’s limousine up the ramp to the Queensboro Bridge.
“A Democratic Women’s Caucus lunch,” Cassie told him, scanning the computer printout that Haas’s press secretary Rita Kirbie faxed Cassie’s office every morning. “He’s giving the keynote.”
“That prick Mellon stopped me back at the school,” Sheila added, “and informed me we’re allowed to record audio, but no video. The hostess is apparently some society type who doesn’t want her precious belongings advertised on television.”
“Great, so you won’t need Freddie and me,” Harvey said. “I wouldn’t mind getting the stench of politicos out of my nostrils for a while.”
“Take the van, then,” Cassie told him as Freddie pulled up to the curb behind the Senator’s limousine on Park Avenue. “Let’s meet back at the studio around five and see what we got on tape today.”
“Cassie, hon, I can already tell you what we have,” Harvey said as Sheila, Cassie, and Cal climbed out of the car and started to organize the equipment, “but I don’t like to use that kind of language in public.”
The Senator seemed decidedly more at ease and credible with the elegantly dressed women attending the catered luncheon fund-raiser than he had been at the school. Though Sheila, Cassie noticed, seemed suddenly uncomfortable and out of sorts. With access to Miranda’s wardrobe, Cassie blended seamlessly with the crowd in her silk crepe beige Armani suit; Sheila, in black cotton stirrup pants and a B52 Bombers T-shirt, definitely did not.
“Christ, finger bowls!” Sheila snorted as she plunked herself down next to Cassie at a table in a far corner of the hostess’s large oval music room, the only table with a place card, labeled in an imperative hand: “Press.”
The French doors connecting that room to the dining room and living room beyond were all open, providing almost everyone with a view of the Senator at the head table near an ornately carved eighteenth-century fireplace. A collection of French furniture was pushed to the sides of the room; oriental carpets were rolled; only the sedately lit oil paintings, several of which Cassie was able to identify as minor works of major masters, remained on public view. In decor and spaciousness, the apartment wasn’t that much more elaborate than Jason’s town house. And the guests, several of whom seemed vaguely familiar as friends of Miranda’s, no longer intimidated Cassie as they once would have done.
“What’s the matter with finger bowls?” Cassie asked, dipping her hands into the warm, lemon-scented water as she surveyed the chattering, expectant crowd. Waiters in white jackets moved from table to table, serving small plates of smoked salmon cornets filled with crème fraîche and caviar.
“Like, they’re utterly passé.”
“And since when did you become the expert?”
“I’ve been reading up on this crowd, Cassie,” Sheila replied, pushing her unused bowl to one side as she dug into her salmon. “Library microfiche of the society pages comes in handy. As does Town & Country and W. I wish Vanity Fair hadn’t stopped with their party section. It was an excellent resource for finding out what to serve to an intimate crowd of your five hundred closest friends. Also, it’s the one connection I got between your sister and Haas.” Sheila lowered her voice, turned to Cassie, and added, “I don’t mean to push, babe, but someday soon you’re going to have to let me in on what we’re doing here. Harvey’s right. The thing we’re doing on Haas is pure B.S. I know enough to guess that we’re digging for the three men you say Miranda’s notes threatened. It doesn’t take a genius to guess one of them is—”
“Not now,” Cassie cut in as she saw Geoffrey Mellon snaking his way around the tables toward them. “Here comes the Senator’s wet nurse.”
“How’s it going?” he asked, his smile taking in all three Breaking News staffers. “Getting everything you need from Rita’s people? I see you’re following our itinerary pretty closely.”
“Day in the life,” Cassie said, smiling back, “just like I promised.”
“Great, terrific. Well, the Senator himself asked me to invite you to an event that’s not on the official schedule. We’re having a party at his Brooklyn brownstone for his reelection volunteers. Next Saturday night. Strictly social though,” he added as he waved across the room to somebody. “Leave your techies at home.”
“That man even manages to make an invitation sound like a threat,” Cal observed as Geoffrey moved on through the crowd. “You should hear his voice—without video—sometime. Gives me the creeps.”
The Senator’s luncheon speech, though the same stump script Cassie had been hearing all week, was received on Park Avenue with polite applause and such flattering questions as “Do you ever aspire to an office higher than the Senate, Anthony? Several of us hear your name is in the hat for vice president next time out.”
“Buffy, darling,” he replied, his beefy face flushed and smiling, holding up a restraining palm, “one thing at a time, please. Just help carry me back to old Washington this year, that’s all I’m asking for here.”
“Plus a couple of million for the kitty,” Cassie murmured under her breath. The luncheon finally broke up around three, and Cassie, Sheila, and Cal shared a cab back to the office.
The screening of the day’s footage was as unusable as Harvey had predicted, and the subsequent meeting was short and depressing.
“Mac’s going to skin us,” Freddie said. “Maybe I should put in for early retirement.”
“I don’t think you’re eligible at thirty-two,” Cassie replied. “Now, come on, guys, it’s not that bad, really. I mean, after we cut in stock footage from his civil rights days. Once it’s all edited, it could very well be…”
“Awful,” Harvey concluded for her.
“He’s right,” Sheila said after the others had left. When Cassie, labeling the tape canisters, didn’t respond, Sheila went on, “It’s my ass as much as yours, okay? I ripped off those notes for you from Mac. And I helped talk the man into letting us do this ridiculous piece. In other words, since I’m already in this over my neck, how about telling me just what it is I’m drowning in?”
“You don’t really want to know.�
�
“Bullshit.”
“I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“And I don’t like you coming on like my mother here, Cassie. Enough of this mavericking around. If you want me to stay with you on this, I need to know everything. Now.”
“Okay,” Cassie said, realizing what a weight had just lifted from her shoulders. “Let’s go back to our office. But, I promise, you’re in for some disillusionment.”
“Hey, like I was born knowing I was in for that,” Sheila said as she turned out the lights in the editing booth and followed Cassie down the hall.
Twenty-five
“I just don’t get it. Why would Vance need to pay Haas that kind of dough under the table? If he liked the man, just contribute to his political war chest.”
“These notes clearly state the money went into Haas’s private savings account,” Cassie pointed out. “Whatever’s going on between them, I don’t think it has to do with politics.”
“Blackmail?”
“Perhaps,” Cassie agreed. “But look at this,” she added, leaning across Sheila to move the cursor farther right on the computer screen. “Miranda cross-referenced Magnus’s deposits to several favorable F.C.C. rulings Haas helped manipulate on his behalf. See, back in 1979 that $10,000 deposit follows shortly after Magnus was granted permission to buy that cable network in Georgia.”
“Bribes.”
“I think so,” Cassie said. “Jason is part of the picture, too. It’s just too much of a coincidence that he gets zoning approval for a major development a month after these deposits were recorded.”
“But there’s not much on Jason after the mid-seventies,” Sheila pointed out. “Looks like Magnus’s payoffs have only increased over the years.”
“Jason might have been paying in cash,” Cassie replied. “Would have been a lot safer. Harder to track.”
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