The Plan

by Stephen Cannell

  The Ghost watched as Lucinda brought the green metal tackle box up from below and handed it to Ryan. As he opened the box, he angled it so that Jerry couldn't see inside. Under the tackle tray was an Army Colt.45. He had bought it in St. Thomas because of stories he'd heard about pirates in the Caribbean who boarded pleasure boats and killed the owners so they could strip out the electronics.

  "This little baby is amazing." He pulled out the steel-head feather lure and offered it to Jerry.

  The fishing boat was almost around the point. The Ghost knew now was the time to make his move, so he took the lure and smiled at Ryan and then, without warning, lunged across the open cockpit at him.

  Ryan's hand snaked out of the tackle box and the gun was cocked and aimed at Jerry's face before he even got close. The Ghost froze, caught halfway between his target and eternity.

  "Who the fuck are you, mister?"

  "I told you. "

  "Mickey sent you down here. . didn't he?"

  "Who's Mickey?"

  Lucinda didn't know why Jerry had tried to jump Ryan or why Ryan had the gun on him. It had all happened so fast.

  "Ryan?" she said.

  "This guy has a ticket from Atlantic City. He's set to go back tonight. He's not camping anywhere. I think your brother sent him."

  "How would Mickey know we're here?"

  "I don't know, but he sent this guy."

  "I saved your life," the Ghost said.

  "Did you? Or did you set us up and then attack that Mexican so we'd drop our guard? Now get off my boat!"

  The Ghost looked at Ryan and tried to read his eyes. Should he charge him? Would he fire? Some guys are killers, some aren't. Still, the Ghost had a healthy respect for the large-bore automatic in Ryan's hand.

  "I see you again," Ryan said, "and I'm gonna drop you."

  "I'm just a fisherman. I come out here every year to fish, have been for fifteen years. . "

  "Yeah? Then you oughts learn there's no rock cod on this coast. Get over the side, Jerry, or I swear I'll open you like a can of creamed corn."

  Jerry finally moved back to the rail, gave Ryan a wild, loopy grin, and rolled backward over the side, splashing into the water. Ryan and Lucinda watched him swim away from the boat.

  "Get the anchor up. I'll get the engine started."

  Lucinda moved to the anchor winch at the bow and turned it on. She could see Jerry Paradise treading water about twenty feet off the port side watching them. The anchor chain snaked up out of the water and the anchor clanged into the metal cleats under the bowsprit.

  Ryan had the engine going and they pulled out of Toyon Bay. As the boat swung around, she caught another glimpse of Jerry Paradise. He still had the same wide nightmarish grin on his face.

  Lucinda moved back to Ryan and sat quietly in the cockpit.

  "He's going to keep trying," Ryan said. "I just got lucky with that ticket falling out. I should have shot him." "Why didn't you?"

  "Gun was empty. Took all the bullets out a year ago when I started thinking about solving my problems with it.

  They sat in silence as the small engine pushed them away from the island.

  "Even if it was loaded," Ryan continued, "I don't know if I could have done it. Your brother was right. . I need a game with rules."

  Chapter 53

  STATURE STRATEGY

  The California Primary would put Haze Richards over the top mathematically, but after Super Tuesday, there was no way he could lose. All of the other Democrati c c andidates had pulled out.

  Haze was scheduled to make a speech after the California victory. The campaign staff was staying in the refurbished San Francisco Fairmont Hotel and the speech would be in the banquet room, which was campaign night headquarters for the California Haze Richards for President Committee.

  A. J. wanted to keep the speech short because Haze was still in mourning over Anita's death, although it was grief that included at least one romp with Susan Winter each day.

  Susan had become the campaign's unofficial first lady, and that caused A. J. more than a little concern. It was bad enough she was sleeping with Haze, but now she tended to treat everybody on the staff like dirt. She had resigned her position as "body woman" so that she would be free to work on Haze's body, an irony that gave A. J. no pleasure. She had become cold and imperious. The staff responded by calling her Nuclear Winter.

  Worse still, A. J.'s relationship with Haze had soured since Haze had won Super Tuesday-a result of the terrible criminal conspiracy they were both part of.

  They couldn't stand the sight of each other.

  A. J. decided to use that dreadful event rather than run from it. He demanded a meeting at five with Haze, requesting that they meet alone.

  By three o'clock on California Tuesday, the exit polls in both northern and southern counties indicated that the win would be with at least 65 percent. Ben Savage, although technically out of the running, was still on the ballot in his home state, but he had only been polling a tepid 20 percent. Haze would be the Democratic nominee.

  A. J. needed a quiet meeting with Haze to go over the text of the victory speech. He had worked with Malcolm Rasher for two hours the night before, trying to come up with the perfect three paragraphs thanking Californians for their support in helping Haze through the horrible days after Nita's death and for giving him the margin of delegates needed for victory. They had decided that Haze should talk about Nita, her memory, what she meant to him, how she was looking down and smiling on this day because it had been her dream as much as his.

  The meeting took place in Haze's hotel room as scheduled. The room was the presidential suite of the Fairmont Hotel. The ceilings were twenty feet high with hand-carved frescoes. The plate-glass windows overlooked the magnificent harbor with the red span of the Golden Gate Bridge cutting across the bay to Sausalito. It was a long way from Bud and Sarah Caulfield's humble farm in Grinnell, Iowa. Haze and Susan were wearing matching blue monogrammed robes.

  "Whatta you want?" Haze asked brusquely.

  "I've got the victory speech," A. J. said as he handed the pages to the candidate who read them, handing each one to Susan after he'd finished it. She was shaking her head in silent disbelief by the time she got halfway down the first page.

  "How much longer do you think you can play this pathetic bullshit about Anita?" Susan asked, drilling A. J. with cold eyes.

  "Oh, about four months, give or take a day," he said, the bile rising in his throat.

  "You're making Haze look weak. He's standing there, blubbering about Anita in front of the world. I think he should look strong. I think we oughta talk about the future, not the past."

  "Well, gee, let me run right down and work on that." "I think Suzie has a point," Haze said.

  There was a deadly silence in the room. A. J. started getting angry. "I've got poll stats down in my room that say America's heart is breaking for your loss. They want you to cry for Anita. She was your life mate, she was your partner. They know you loved her and they love you for it. I got you this far, I won Iowa, I came up with the defining event in New York, got the financing, and, goddammit, I'm not gonna stand around here and watch you shtup it away in a sea of vaginal bullshit."

  "That's it, Haze. . Fire this piece of shit," Susan hissed.

  "You can't fire me, Haze, and you know why? Because you and I share a terrible secret. Wanna tell Nuclear Winter here what it is?"

  "Cut it out, A. J."

  "I'll tell her. Want me to spill it right now, old buddy? 'Cause it's okay with me." The guilt over Anita was wearing A. J. down. He was perilously close to cracking up.

  "Shut up," Haze said softly.

  "Then tell her to get out! I have something else to say." "Give us a minute, Susan."

  "What?" She was on her feet now, wondering what A. J. had that could possibly outgun her.

  "Get out, Susan," Haze said, more forcefully. . and she got up and started for the bedroom.

  "Not here. Tell her to go to her own room." A
. J.

  opened the door and checked the hall for press. Then he motioned Susan to exit.

  "Go on," Haze said, and she moved out of the room, pausing for a second to drill A. J. with a venomous look. A. J. had slept with Susan Winter back when she was a law clerk in his office. A. J. had given her the job with the campaign, and now she had become a virulent enemy. After she left, he closed the door.

  "Haze, you're gonna ruin this, throw the whole thing away."

  "I don't think so."

  "Have you even looked at my stature strategy? I sent it up to you three days ago. You haven't said a word." He was referring to a program he'd devised to raise Haze's international stature after winning the primary. Haze had no international profile at all. A. J. wanted Haze to go abroad and have a series of meetings with important international figures like John Major, or Mitterrand. . with Yeltsin. Get his picture taken with Arafat and key members of the Israeli Knesset. The idea was to show Haze solving world problems with the heads of state in Europe, the Middle East, and the Orient.

  "I don't want to go abroad."

  "Haze, I can't protect you from the press if you're here."

  "I don't need protection."

  "You need protection. You're gonna say something stupid, make some blunder. You're not used to this kind of intense scrutiny. If I can get you overseas, we can play it differently. Haze, listen to me. Overseas, you're dealing with delicate shit. You can't discuss it. You can stay above the issues, like we did here. Somebody says, what's your position on the Serbs in Sarajevo, whatta you gonna say?"

  "How the fuck do I know? I don't know anything about that. That's why I don't wanna go."

  "You say strides are being made between peoples who have been at war for ages, and it is unreasonable to expect a solution overnight. You are working to see that steady progress is being achieved."

  "I can do that here."

  "No. No, Haze, you're outta slack over here. You can't feed the press platitudes forever. Now,you're the nominee! They're gonna demand specific answers, and every answer you give will create enemies who will cut into your approval ratings. The longer I can keep you abroad, the better chance we have of defeating Pudge in November. In six months, you're gonna be in the White House, Haze. You're gonna make it, but you gotta listen to me. You've gotta do what I say. I've never let you down yet. Have I? Tell me one thing I've told you, didn't turn out the way I said." There was desperation in A. J.'s voice. They both heard it.

  The argument lasted for almost half an hour, and in the end, they struck a compromise. Haze would go abroad, but only if Susan could go, too. A. J. agreed, knowing he would regret it, but he made Haze promise no more screwing. Haze was getting tired of the lecture and he finally agreed, but he had no intention of keeping the promise.

  Kaz and Cole watched the victory speech in a bar-restaurant inside the beltway. The talk in the bar was all about the coronation of Haze Richards, the candidate from nowhere who had swept in and won the Democratic nomination. Kaz and Cole sat in silence listening to the short speech, which included a moment where Haze talked about Anita and wiped his eyes.

  "You see any tears?" Kaz asked glumly.

  "Yeah, but it's California. Could be the smog. They got like fifty particles of nitrous oxide chasing every poor little oxygen molecule."

  Kaz waved at the bartender to get him another Coke. "We gotta find David Robb. I called around; nobody knows where he is. I guess that means we gotta check out hospitals and nursing homes. And death certificates."

  Cole looked down at the empty martini glass in front of him. "Lemme ask you something, 'cause I'm confused." "That's why I'm here, Cole, to cure your confusion." "Haze Richards has the Democratic nomination, right?" "Seems so." The bartender put the Coke down in fron t o f Kaz. Cole waved him off.

  "Anita Richards is dead, but we have nothing but hunches as to why."

  "Cops go on hunches."

  "I need two valid sources to run a story. Why would Haze kill his wife?"

  "Sympathy. Could win him the election."

  "Come on, he was winning."

  "Make him win bigger. . Or to stop the bimbo grenades that I'm sure Pudge was set to throw. What else is troubling you?"

  "How do we knock the Haze Richards campaign off the track? Seems to me the only thing we have a chance of proving is that the mob financed C. Wallace Litman and that his network is steering on the election. That may not even be a crime, and just because Litman worked on Teddy Lansky's tax returns in the seventies doesn't mean he was bankrolled by the mob. Where's the evidence? We've got no smoking gun."

  "Not yet, but if we can prove that UBC is a mob-controlled company, and if we can prove that Mickey Alo wants to put Haze in the White House, then I think we can knock him off. The American people hate to get duped. If we can prove the mob and UBC picked Haze and were trying to manipulate the election, the backlash will end it."

  Cole paid for the drinks and they moved to a table for dinner. "Ever since the Lansky trial in Israel I've always wondered what was in that suitcase. It had to be powerful. It kept him out of Israel," Cole said as they were seated.

  "My bet is illegal wiretaps of Lansky's private conversations with criminals. Probably stuff Justice couldn't use in the U. S. courts 'cause it was obtained illegally, but it would be perfectly all right to let the Israelis borrow it. If we get lucky, maybe those tapes still exist. They won't b e l isted in the records 'cause there was no paper behind the bugs. David Robb would have had to approve the deal. That means he has them or knows where they are. If we find him, maybe we get half the equation. . Maybe we get old recordings of Lansky talking to Joseph Alo."

  "Or maybe he's talking to Wallace Litman."

  "I wish I was still boozing so I could drink to it," Kaz said.

  The waiter brought menus, but when they saw the prices, they got up and left.

  Kaz and Cole had dinner at a crowded McDonald's next to a pinball arcade. As kids screamed and threw ice cubes, they divided up the tedious task of locating David Robb.

  Chapter 54

  DOWNWIND

  Lucinda steered a course for Cabo San Lucas, and the fifty-foot ketch headed downwind in a following sea.

  The course corrections were frequent as she rode the mounds of fast-moving water that were overtaking them from the stern. The sky was filled with high, scuddin g c louds that turned the day silver in the afternoon light.

  Ryan had stayed on deck, hopping awkwardly to port and starboard, reeling in the jib lines with the chrome coffee grinders.

  The incident with Jerry Paradise had crystalized the danger for both of them. For Lucinda, it was the final chord in a dark fugue that started playing the day they buried Rex an orchestrated deception that included the beating in the park. . the cold, empty warning in the den and the threat in the kitchen where he'd pushed her down and accused her of spying on him. All of these things paled next to Jerry Paradise and the attempt to kill them.

  "We should call Kaz and tell him what happened," Lucinda finally said.

  Ryan listened to the wind whistling through the rigging. He knew she was right. The cell phone was in the center drawer below. It was dead but Ryan told her there was a charger down below.

  Lucinda got the cell phone, turned on the tiny generator that fed power to the cabin, plugged in the charger, and set the unit up on the chart table. She turned to go back up on deck, but hesitated when she saw Ryan sitting at the wheel, looking off toward the horizon, his chin high, his right hand on the helm. Her heart caught as she looked at him. There seemed to be something more substantial about him now-something that was missing before, a strength of purpose, a determination. He looked down and caught her staring at him. She smiled to cover her embarrassment and clambered up the stairs to join him.

  "What were you just thinking?" she asked.

  "I was wondering what force in the cosmic plan decided to hand us this gigantic problem. How are we qualified to keep the underworld from stealing the presidency?"
/>   She had no answer. The thought overwhelmed her.

  A gust of wind caught the mainsail and they both felt the boat lean over as it rushed down the hill of rolling water.

  Ryan looked out at a low-flying gull that had its wings spread and was cruising, effortlessly, along behind the Linda, never changing its position, riding the same wind so that it appeared to be hovering, while in fact it was moving fast, maintaining the position with only slight adjustments of wing and tail. Ryan thought it would be nice if he'd been able to control the currents of his life with such ease.

  In forty minutes, the cell phone was charged and Lucinda went down and got it. She dialed her mother's number. It rang three times, then she heard Kaz's voice on the other end. "Yep," he said, noncommittally.

  "Kaz?"

  "Who's this?"

  "Lucinda. I'm with Ryan. He wants to talk to you." She handed the phone to Ryan, who put it to his ear.

  Kaz was still in Washington, parked in front of the Human Resources Office. He was about to go in and find somebody who would buy a line of bullshit he'd dummied up about an overpayment on David Robb's social security. "How y' doin', Kaz?" Ryan said.

  "How you feeling is a better question."

  "Coming along. But I have a problem that needs solving."

  "Do my best.. "

  "Nobody should have known where Lucinda and I were. We had been there for three days and some guy who called himself Jerry Paradise, or maybe his name's Harry Meeks, showed up and tried to kill us. He was from Atlantic City, so I'm pretty sure Mickey sent him, but the only thing I can't figure out is how Mickey could know where we were."

  "You call him?"

  "I called him once, but it was from a pay phone and it was the same day we got attacked, so that couldn't be it." He looked at Lucinda. "Just a minute. ." He turned to her. "Did you call your brother?"

  "No." Then she remembered the call she had made to Penny. "But I called my mother at the Jersey house two days ago when I went into Avalon for food."