by Stuart Woods
“You don’t have even one more bedroom?”
“No, seсor.”
Shelly was waving at him. “It’s all right,” she said.
“Thank you,” Kerry said to the clerk, and hung up.
“I’ll sleep in here,” Shelly said.
“No, I’ll sleep in here. You take the bedroom. I insist,” he said, holding up a hand. “There’s a comfortable-looking sofa.”
“Oh, all right,” she said. “I’ll go freshen up.”
“Would you like something to drink?” he asked, opening the refrigerator behind the bar.
“I don’t suppose there are any margaritas in there?”
He held up a can. “Actually, there are.” He poured them each one. “No salt, I’m afraid.”
“That’s all right. I don’t like salt on my margaritas, anyway. Excuse me for a minute.” She picked up her bag and, taking her margarita, walked into the other room.
Kerry hung up his jacket, took off his tie, and rolled up his sleeves, then he grabbed his drink and walked out to the terrace. He arranged himself on a lounge chair and closed his eyes for a moment.
“There,” he heard Shelly say, “that’s better.”
He opened his eyes and found her spreading a towel on her chair. She was wearing a very small bikini, and the effect was riveting.
“Why don’t you put on your swimsuit and relax?” she said, arranging herself on the lounge chair.
“I didn’t bring one,” he replied, with regret.
She regarded him coolly. “Boxers or briefs?” she asked.
“Uh, boxers.”
“Same thing as a swimsuit,” she said. “You’ll burn up in those clothes.” She closed her eyes.
Kerry sat there, uncertain.
“Oh, go on,” she said, without opening her eyes.
He went back into the sitting room, hung up his trousers and shirt, and walked back to the terrace in his boxers, snagging another can of margarita on the way.
He refilled her glass, and she opened one eye. “Mmm, you’ve been working out.”
“Most days,” he said, holding in his belly. “There’s a gym in my building.”
“Good for you. Most of the agents in the Hoover Building are pretty dumpy-looking, except the youngest ones, and they’re…”
“Callow?”
“The perfect word,” she replied. “Are you seeing anyone back in D.C.?”
“No. I recently broke up with someone. You?”
“I’m about to break up with someone,” she said.
He wondered what she meant by that, but he was afraid to ask.
17
Bob Kinneypicked up the phone. “Good Morning, Mr. President.”
“Good morning, Bob. When can I expect your report on Martin Stanton?”
“Sir, I anticipate completing that early this afternoon, when the final detail should be in place. I’ll messenger it over the moment it’s in my hands.”
“E-mail it, Bob. It’s faster and cheaper.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll look forward to receiving it.” The president hung up.
***
Kerry Smith looked up into the eyes of Shelly Bach, who was astride him, moving rapidly.
“I love it that you look at me when we’re fucking,” Shelly said.
“Looking at you is fun,” Kerry panted, massaging her breasts.
She began moving faster, and they were at the peak of their mutual orgasm when the phone began to ring.
“Shit!” Kerry yelled. “Sorry, that was for the phone, not for you.”
He picked up the phone, while Shelly laid her head on his shoulder. They were panting in unison. “Hello?”
“Good morning, Kerry. What do you have for me?”
“Good morning, sir. Nothing just yet. It’s three hours earlier out here, and we’re planning to be at the Martнnez place at eleven a.m., local. He’s due back for his lunch.”
“Why are you breathing so hard?”
“I was working out, sir, doing sit-ups, when you called. I was just about to get into a shower.”
“I see. At what hour can I expect your report?”
“Sir, if Martнnez returns on time, we should be done by one p.m. and on the airplane by two. I’ll e-mail it to you from the airplane, so you should have it between five and six your time.”
“Call me the minute you have confirmation from Martнnez, so I can call the president. He’s on my case about this.”
“Yes, sir. I will.”
“How’s Special Agent Bach?”
“I haven’t seen her yet this morning, but I’m sure she’s fine. She certainly was at dinnertime. She’s just next door, if you’d like to speak to her.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Kinney said, slyly. “Call me.” He hung up.
“You’re very quick,” Shelly said.
“Maybe not quick enough.”
“You think Kinney thinks we were fucking?”
“I can’t read his mind, but it’s probably best to assume he does.”
“You want to do it again?” she asked.
“We did it three times last night and again this morning,” Kerry sighed. “I think that is the maximum performance level for an assistant director. If you want an improvement on that, you’re going to have to start seeing the new agents.”
She rolled over and lay beside him, her hand holding his balls. “I wouldn’t want to seem greedy,” she said.
“Good, because if you were greedy, you’d be flying me back to D.C. in a coffin.”
She kissed him on the ear. “You were wonderful,” she said.
“Once I sign off on your report and e-mail it to Kinney, this won’t be against agency policy anymore.”
“Does that mean we can do it on the plane?” she asked.
Kerry groaned.
***
They got into the car at eleven sharp, showered and pressed, if sore, and were at the Martнnez casa fifteen minutes later. Kerry was about to knock on the door when he heard a car coming.
An elderly Toyota pulled up, and an old man got out.
“Seсor Martнnez?” Shelly asked in her best Spanish.
“Yes, seсorita,” he replied in his best English. “What can I do for you?” He climbed the stairs to the porch and indicated that they should sit.
“I’m Kerry Smith, and this is Shelly Bach,” Kerry said. “We work for the FBI in Washington, D.C., and we’ve come to ask you a few questions.” He surreptitiously switched on a recorder in his pocket.
“Ohhh,” Pedro said with mock fear, “am I under arrest?” Kerry laughed. “No, Seсor Martнnez, nothing like that. I believe you’re acquainted with Governor Martin Stanton of California.”
“Yes, I am,” Pedro replied. “In fact, you could say I am the first person he ever met. We have been acquainted that long.”
“Could you tell me how you first met?” Kerry asked.
“Oh, yes, seсor. It is my favorite story. I was the driver for his father, you see. Every morning I would come to his house in Tijuana and drive him to the Coca-Cola bottling plant in his new Cadillac. I liked to drive the Cadillac.”
“They’re very nice cars.”
“Oh, yes. Well, on the morning I first met Little Martin, as all who worked for Big Martin would call him, I came to the house to drive the car, and Big Martin and his wife, Magdalena, were coming from the house in a hurry, because her time had arrived a little sooner than expected.” He made a big belly motion with his hands. “You understand?”
“She was pregnant,” Kelly said.
“Yes, seсor, but not for long. We get in the car, the two of them in back and myself behind the wheel, and we head for San Diego, where the hospital is where Big Martin and his father were born. There is a little delay at the border, but when the guard saw what was happening, he waved his arms and yelled for us to get going! Then Big Martin said to me, ‘Pedro, I can’t do this. You do it, and I will drive.’ So we changed places, and I
got in the back and we are racing for the hospital. Two or three minutes later, Little Martin’s first cry was heard. Soon we were at the hospital, and the doctors told me what a fine job I had done. Then Big Martin and I went to a bar across the street and got very drunk.”
Kerry laughed. “I don’t blame you-that was quite an experience. You say two or three minutes after you left the border crossing, Little Martin was born?”
“Yes, seсor, about that. Of course, I was pretty busy at the time; it could have been longer.”
“And which country were you in when the baby was born? Mexico or the United States?”
“Oh, the United States, seсor. We were halfway to the hospital by then.”
“That’s a wonderful story, Seсor Martнnez, and I thank you for telling it to us. Now we must be going back to Washington.”
“I’m very glad to have had you as my guests,” Pedro said.
They got into their car and, with a wave at Pedro, drove away.
Kerry breathed a sigh of relief and called Bob Kinney.
“What happened?” Kinney asked.
Kerry told him the story, blow by blow.
“And Martнnez is certain they were on U.S. soil when the boy was born?”
“He’s absolutely certain, sir, and I have him on tape saying so. I’ll e-mail you the report as soon as we’re in the air.”
“See you tomorrow, Kerry, and thank Special Agent Bach for me, will you?”
“Yes, sir, I’ll thank her.”
***
Will picked up the phone. “Yes, Bob?”
“It’s confirmed, Mr. President. Martin Stanton was born on U.S. soil. I’ll be e-mailing you Assistant Director Smith’s report in just a few minutes.”
“Thank you, Bob,” Will said. “And thank Assistant Director Smith and Special Agent Bach for me.”
***
IN THE AIR, Kerry closed his computer. “The report is submitted,” he said.
Shelly looked over her shoulder at the closed cockpit door. “Since there’s only one pilot, he can’t leave the controls, can he?”
“No,” Kerry replied, taking off his coat, “he can’t.”
“Oh, good,” she said, shucking her panties.
18
Will stood at a lectern in the White House Rose Garden with Martin Stanton by his side. The funeral of Vice President George Kiel had been held at the National Cathedral the day before, followed by burial at Arlington National Cemetery.
“Good morning,” he said to the knot of press, White House staffers, and dignitaries gathered there. “It gives me great pleasure to announce that I am appointing Governor Martin Stanton of California to the office of Vice President of the United States of America. You may have heard that I had already selected Governor Stanton as my running mate last week”-he paused for scattered laughter-“and since the office has become vacant, I didn’t think it was necessary to keep him waiting.” More laughter. “I regret only that Mrs. Stanton is unwell in California and unable to be here today, but I’m sure she is watching us on television. The customary FBI background check has been completed, and the director has informed me that there are no grounds on which to arrest the governor, so there was no reason for delay. As you know, the Constitution requires that the appointment of a vice president must be ratified by the Senate, and the leadership has informed me that the confirmation hearing will be held the day after tomorrow. Governor, would you like to say a few words?”
Stanton stepped forward to a round of polite applause. “Thank you, Mr. President. I am deeply honored by this appointment, and I am grateful to you for this opportunity. I know that Vice President Kiel’s shoes are large and will be difficult to fill, but I will do my best to fulfill the requirements of the office and the hopes of the American people.”
***
That evening, Felix and Marlene sat before their big-screen flat-panel television set sharing a pizza and watching the little ceremony on CNN.
Felix took a swig of his beer and belched. “Y’know,” he said, “that guy sounds like the guy on the tape.”
“Which guy? Oh, that guy?”
“That guy. He has that deep voice, y’know?”
“Felix, how many beers have you had?” Marlene asked.
“Not that many,” Felix replied, defensively.
“That guy is going to be the vice president,” she said.
“Yeah, I figured that out. I’m just telling you, he sounds like the guy on the tape.”
“So, if that’s true, this Stanton guy has a girlfriend stashed somewhere?”
“Sounds like it.”
“So, how do we prove that his voice is the one on the tape?” Felix scratched his head. “I could record that speech he just made off the TiVo and compare the two voices.”
“Compare them how?”
“Well, you know, there are ways you can compare two recordings electronically.”
“I know that the National Security Agency can do that,” Marlene said, “but I don’t know that you can do it.”
“I know a guy that might have the equipment to do it,” Felix said.
“Hang on just a minute,” Marlene said.
“Okay, I’m hanging.”
“We need to look at what we’re getting into here. What you usually do with the recordings you make is get a leg up on the story, get there first.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what I’m doing here.”
“Felix, this is different. If you sell this story to somebody based on these tapes, you’re going to have to give them the tapes, and even if the two voices are the same, those tapes have a lot of gaps in them. The Feds would find out where the tapes came from, and they would be all over you. You really want to go through that for a few grand, which is what you’re going to get for the tapes?”
“All that, just because I taped a guy and his girlfriend on the phone?”
“You taped him at the White House.”
“Well, I don’t know that. He could have been sitting on a park bench in the neighborhood, you know?”
“It’s still illegal to tape somebody on a cell phone, and if you sell the story, you’ll have to admit that’s what you did. Also, if all of this stuff was somehow confirmed and became believable, you’d be blowing a vice president out of the water. Hellfire would rain down on you, if you did that.”
“Just because he’s fucking somebody?”
“You just heard them say he’s married. Remember what happened to Gary Hart?”
“Who?”
Marlene sighed. “He was a guy running for president who got caught with a girl on the side-then he wasn’t running for president anymore. And he invited the press to follow him around. Stanton has not issued you an invitation to record his personal telephone calls. Do you want him to get blown out of the water?”
“What the fuck do I care-I don’t even know him.”
“My very point.”
“Look, all these guys are crooks. Why would you care what happened to him?”
“Well, putting aside simple human decency for a moment, I care what happens to you. Are you willing to trade the possibility of prison time and your face all over the news for the few grand you’d get for the tape?”
“I might like being famous,” Felix said.
“There’s famous good, and there’s famous bad. Nobody would ever buy a story from you again.”
“They might. The publicity might even improve my business.”
“You can’t operate your business, if that’s what you want to call what you do, from a jail cell, and when you get out, you’ll be Felix the ex-con that nobody wants to know, let alone buy dirt from.”
“I think you’re overreacting, Marlene.”
“I’m just trying to be real, here.”
“Well, how about this: I get this guy I know who has the equipment to compare the tape with a recording of what we just saw?” He began rewinding the TiVo.
“If you give this guy the two tapes, what’s to keep him from s
elling the story himself?”
“He’s a good guy-he wouldn’t do that.”
“Felix, there’s a real scarcity of good guys where money is concerned, especially money made this way.”
“Well, I’m just going to look into it, that’s all. I’ll talk to you about it before I do anything.”
Marlene opened another beer and went back to her pizza. She didn’t speak to him again that evening.
19
Will sat in his office aboard Air Force One, dictating responses to correspondence into a recording machine. The letters would be typed and ready to mail by the time the big Boeing arrived in Los Angeles. His phone buzzed.
Will picked it up. “Yes?”
“Moss Mallet would like to see you.”
“Send him in.”
Moss, his pollster, rapped on the door and opened it. “Okay, Mr. President?”
“Come on in, Moss,” Will said, and pointed to a chair. “Have a seat.”
Moss took a deep breath. “My office has just faxed me the raw data on our first poll since the convention. I haven’t finished all the analysis yet, but I thought you should know what the raw data are before you speak in L.A.”
“Shoot,” Will said.
“The appointment of Governor Stanton as your running mate, bumped you up a point in the poll, but-and this is weird-your appointment of him as veep knocked you down a point.”
“I don’t get it,” Will said. “People want him as my running mate but not as vice president?”
“The one-point bump seems to have come from Democrats, who like the appointment by seventy percent or so. Eight percent didn’t like it, and the rest are undecided. The one-point drop seems to have come from independents, mostly.”
“So the net result is flat, no change?”
“That’s right.”
“I thought we’d get a six- or seven-point bump in the polls, based on Marty’s popularity in California.”
“We did get that in California but not nationally.”