Liars & Thieves: A Novel

by Stephen Coonts

  And it did. For a second she looked startled, but she said, “Perhaps I should talk to him.” She laughed to cover up letting her face slip. “And maybe I should write the president a letter. If enough people want her, he will have to choose her. Right?”

  Our dinner arrived, and she picked at it. Skinny rich women never eat much. “Have you ever personally met Zooey?” I asked casually.

  She took her time before she answered. “Several times, as I recall. Parties and receptions.”

  “Did you ever go to the White House?” I asked warmly, as if that were a big deal.

  Again the hesitation. Her answer could be checked, and she knew it. “One of the receptions was at the White House. I’ve forgotten the date and occasion, though.”

  “Must be cool, getting invited to the big house.”

  “It was, believe me. I bought a special dress for the occasion from a well-known designer”—she named him—“and believe me, I don’t do that very often.”

  That didn’t cut much ice with me. I had seen her closet, which was about the size of my apartment. I kept my mouth busy with my pork chop.

  We went on to other subjects, split a dessert—she had exactly one bite—and lingered over a coffee and liqueur. She palmed the tab expertly, and I let her. My guess was that the dinner and tip had run to at least $250. She was used to it. No doubt Carlo would have stuck her with the bill, too.

  When we left she put her arm around my waist. “Where are you staying in New York?”

  “With friends. That way I can pocket the per diem.”

  “Would they miss you if you didn’t go there tonight?”

  “Might telephone in a missing persons report. I’m willing to take a chance, though, if that was an invitation.”

  “It was.”

  Oh, boy. Willie was going to get an earful.

  When we got back to the hotel there were two uniformed cops and two plainclothes dicks standing in front of the penthouse elevators checking credentials. It looked to me as if I got the bugs shifted just in time. They also gave the story I told Dorsey more credibility.

  Sex with Dorsey was always a workout. She was one of the new moderns who believes that a woman’s sexual satisfaction is her own responsibility, so she went after hers with a will. Of course it was fun for me, too, since she was trim and tuned up and filled out in all the right places.

  After the first round of bedroom gymnastics, she played with my chest hair and took another shot at my reason for being in New York.

  “Hey, babe, a terrorist incident this week is a risk no one in government is willing to tolerate. The town is packed with feds and fuzz and badge-toters from all over.”

  “But you’re not FBI.”

  “I go where I’m told. Have to to keep getting paid.”

  She left it there, and we got after it again.

  I sneaked out of Dorsey’s room at six in the morning while she was still asleep. Waking up alone would be hard for her ego, but I’d had enough of her company. I got a cup of coffee and a bagel from a street-corner vendor and went around the block to the van, which was locked up and empty. I went inside and locked myself in. Willie must have got a cab or train back to New Jersey last night.

  They were awake and playing politics in Royston’s suites by nine. He got telephone call after telephone call, and I listened to his side of the conversation. He had a deep, gravelly voice, so I quickly learned to pick it out no matter how many conversations were going on in the room.

  Tuesday was the first day of the convention. The platform committee had a large faction, I quickly learned, with an agenda that didn’t match the president’s. Royston spent the morning on that issue when he wasn’t meeting the heads of state delegations who came to call. I suspected Royston was going to be talking to delegations all week.

  Each and every one asked Royston who the president wanted on the ticket with him. Royston was coy. If he knew, he wasn’t saying. After I heard him dance around the issue for the fifth time, I decided that he probably didn’t know. He did, however, ask each delegation what they thought of Zooey.

  That was more for show, I figured, than anything else. The presidential nominee was going to get whoever he wanted to join him on the ticket. True, years ago a Missouri senator was announced as the presidential nominee’s selection, then dumped by the nominee, George McGovern, when it became plain that the senator’s mental health history worried the delegates. McGovern apparently dumped him on the theory that if the delegates were worried the voters would be, too. Of course, the voters turned out to be extremely worried about McGovern, so the veep choice didn’t really matter. Yet it might have.

  This president hadn’t announced his choice, and no doubt he would not until the very last minute. Royston was merely taking temperatures and weighing support.

  Yet when he had mentioned her name to eight delegations by eleven o’clock, I would have bet my pension, if I live to collect one, that Zooey Sonnenberg was going on the ticket with her husband. Dorsey was going to be thrilled.

  I wondered why. I’d spent a lot of time with her during our torrid affair a couple years ago, and she had never once mentioned a single political issue. I didn’t know her party affiliation or if she was even registered to vote. If I had been forced to guess, I would have labeled her a nonpolitical independent who voted her conscience. She certainly didn’t need to vote her wallet.

  The idea that she supported Zooey because she had met her was ludicrous. With her money Dorsey got invited everywhere in Washington. She had met everybody worth meeting at one time or another. Rubbing shoulders with the smart and powerful hadn’t changed her much, from what I could see.

  I was listening to Dell Royston and wondering how much of anything we were going to get out of all this political wind when my cell phone rang. I checked the number before I answered it. Sarah Houston.

  “Yo.”

  “I heard you spent a hot night with Dorsey O’Shea.”

  Ol’ Willie. Can he keep his mouth shut or what? “We need to know what she knows,” I said.

  “So you were pumping her. Jerk!” The connection broke.

  What was she hot about? It’s not like she and I had something going.

  Willie Varner arrived around noon. He greeted me with a giggle and “Hoo boy, what a night you had!”

  “Being a gentleman on a mission, of course you listened all evening to Royston’s suite.”

  “When Dorsey wasn’t moanin’ and tellin’ you what a stud you are, yeah, I channel surfed to Royston’s station. Big political stuff goin’ on there, lots of drinkin’, no women.”

  “Great. And you called Sarah to give her the hot news about where I was spending the night.”

  “Actually she called me. Said you had turned off your phone. Wanted to know where you were. She’s got the hots for you, too, you lucky devil. How in the world do you manage to walk down the street carryin’ your cojones?”

  “Gimme a break, goddamnit!”

  “Royston and his bootlickers came poppin’ into those suites about ten minutes after you left. You cut it mighty fine.”

  “Yeah, that’s the way I do things.”

  “At least ol’ Dorsey says what you got is mighty fine.”

  “Hey, it was in the line of duty, man! As your friend, I ask you to say no more about it.”

  “Tough shit, Carmellini. I’m goin’ to talk about it ever’ chance I get for the next fifty years. She says you’re a real stud, big guy, and I think you oughta go with that endorsement. Take it to the bank. She’s a prime piece of ass and you did a good job fuckin’ it. Be proud. Be happy.”

  I let him have the last word. It was the only way to shut him up.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  On Wednesday amid much pomp and circumstance the convention nominated the president to run as their party’s candidate in the election that fall. Actually they nominated three men, the president and two favorite sons, then dragged the speeches out for most of the afternoon and didn’t
get around to the voting until prime time, when the proceedings were televised. Surprise, the president received most of the votes to be the standard-bearer, then someone moved that the convention make the nomination unanimous, which was done by yeas and nays.

  Throughout the afternoon Royston hung out in his suite and received a steady stream of visitors—governors, senators, congresspersons, cabinet secretaries, big party donors, and people who wanted to be governors, senators, congresspersons, and foreign ambassadors. It was quite a parade and boring as hell to listen to. And difficult. The rooms where Royston was not receiving visitors were full of people; to select individual conversations from that hubbub, you had to use the computer and zero in on a voice print. Willie did it a few times with my coaching, but it hardly seemed worth the effort. All the talk was about a woman VP candidate. The fact that the president’s selection would be female was a foregone conclusion with that crowd, most of whom assumed that the soccer moms and working mothers of America would flock to the banner of the party with a woman on the ticket; the only question was which woman. Zooey Sonnenberg seemed to have the most supporters.

  The president called Royston once, and he called the big guy twice to report on the visitors and what they said about the chances of the party carrying their states. I could only hear Royston’s side of the conversation, and it wasn’t anything earth-shattering. I became convinced these two knew the local politics of every county and hamlet in America.

  Royston made no big promises, and neither did the president. Apparently they didn’t think this was the time or place for promises—they didn’t need them. Not yet, anyway.

  There was some opposition to Zooey for the vice-presidential spot on the ticket, an undercurrent, but how significant it was I didn’t know. To the best of my knowledge neither did Royston, because I didn’t hear anyone give him actual polls of state delegations.

  I was listening to this pablum while contemplating my navel when the telephone rang. Thinking it was probably Sarah or Jake Grafton, I clicked it on.

  “Tommy, this is Dorsey.”

  I almost dropped the telephone. “Just a second while I turn off the television.”

  I frantically turned the volume knobs as far down as they would go. Silence filled the van, and Willie stared at me while I took several deep breaths.

  “Hey, Dorsey, how you doing?”

  “Fine. Where are you, Tommy?”

  “Working. By the way, how did you get this telephone number?”

  “Oh, I turned on your phone and got it while you were asleep Monday night. You don’t mind, do you? I realized that I didn’t know how to get in touch with you, and that seemed like an easy way.”

  Sleeping around can get you in trouble—I learned that in high school. “Enjoying New York?” I asked brightly.

  “Oh, yes. I was wondering if you would like to go to dinner?”

  “This evening?” I kicked the brain into gear. Did she just want a repeat of Monday night? Was she going to try to wheedle information from me? Or was something else on her mind?

  “I’m pretty busy right now, Dorsey. If this is social I probably should work.”

  “It’s important to us.”

  “Us?”

  “You and me.”

  Willie couldn’t hear what Dorsey was saying, but he heard enough of my side to get the drift. He winked and leered lasciviously. I shut my eyes so I could concentrate.

  “Could we discuss it over a hamburger?”

  “That’s not the venue I would choose, but if you only have a little time …”

  “If it’s important, let’s wait until after the convention. I’ll have several days free then.”

  “It can’t wait.”

  “Okay. Ten o’clock in the hotel café. They do salads, too, I suspect.” Dorsey O’Shea might munch a burger on her way to hell, but not otherwise.

  “Ten o’clock,” she said. “I’ll see you there.”

  “’Bye.”

  “Good-bye, Tommy,” and she hung up.

  As I folded up the phone, Willie chortled. “She can’t get enough.”

  “You think?”

  “What else could it be?”

  Indeed. If only I knew how Dorsey was mixed up in this, maybe I could guess. What I did know for certain was that she wouldn’t tell me. No way.

  “Was she in her suite when she called?”

  “No. I checked while you were talking. No audio from the bugs there.”

  I opened the phone and checked the number of the last call received, then wrote it down. I called Sarah and asked her to find out where the phone was. Almost an hour passed before she called back. The delay she blamed on a lack of a high-speed Internet connection. As if I cared.

  “So where is it?”

  “It’s a cell phone belonging to one Dorsey O’Shea.”

  “Thanks.” Well, no help there.

  “So how is everything with you two?”

  “Really, Sarah, I’m not in the mood.”

  “Never mind. I’ll ask Willie.”

  Jake Grafton wandered aimlessly through the beach house looking at everything and seeing nothing. He was engaged in the most noxious task known to modern man—waiting on a telephone call. From time to time he flipped through his sectional charts, read his airport directory again, measured distances and calculated flying times. Occasionally he looked up from his task and watched a few minutes of convention coverage. Then he went back to wandering.

  Callie and Mikhail Goncharov chatted from time to time, ate, and napped. Callie managed to read a few chapters in her current novel. Goncharov had nothing in Russian to read, so he, too, paced, but he did his pacing upstairs.

  “He’s a kind, gentle human being,” Callie told her husband at one point.

  “Who is?” he asked distractedly.

  “Mikhail.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m trying to imagine how I would have managed to get from day to day if I had been in his place, trapped in a bureaucracy I loathed, one engaged in subversion, murder, framing innocent people for crimes they didn’t commit, all to prop up a criminal regime. I think I would have just quit. Would have gotten a manual labor job to eat.”

  Her husband gave her a long look, yet said nothing.

  “On the other hand,” she mused, “quitting would have been a cop-out. If you don’t fight evil, you become evil.”

  “That’s a platitude,” her husband murmured.

  “Every deep human truth is a platitude,” his wife shot back. She was no shrinking violet, which Jake Grafton well knew.

  “You would have done what he did,” Jake said. “If fate had put you in that place, you, too, would have written down the secrets, hoping that someday you could find a way to make the truth known. That choice took courage and commitment. Goncharov may be a kind, gentle man, but he’s got guts. So do you. That’s one reason I married you.”

  He squeezed her hand and wandered out into the yard to look at the grass.

  Ten o’clock came all too quickly. I left the van fifteen minutes early and walked completely around the hotel so that I would approach the main entrance from the side opposite the van. I had on my sports coat and tie.

  Dorsey was fashionably late, arriving in the café at six after the hour. She saw me at a table in the corner and joined me.

  She bussed me on the cheek and squeezed my hand before she sat down. “Thank you for coming.”

  “You look ravishing this evening, Ms. O’Shea.”

  Actually she looked like she was under a lot of stress. I had seen her in that condition before—chasing the porno tapes, and after she shot the intruder in her house—and knew the signs.

  The waitress came, and Dorsey ordered a salad, as I had predicted. I ordered a sandwich and a glass of wine. Dorsey also thought a glass of wine would be good.

  “Do you think I look old?” she asked.

  Of course I denied it. She was in her early thirties and looked maybe twenty-five.

  “I fe
el as if life is passing me by,” she continued as if she hadn’t heard me. “I am wasting my life.”

  This was a new Dorsey, introspective. I’ve always believed that the idle rich should avoid introspection. “What do you want out of life?” I asked politely, trying to guess where this gambit was going.

  “I want to be happy,” she said flatly. “I want a man who loves me, and I want kids.”

  This was the first I’d heard about kids. That comment jarred me. Dorsey wasn’t my idea of the maternal type.

  “What is happiness?” I offered, just to keep her talking.

  “I’m not sure,” she mused. She began playing with that idea and was still chattering when our drinks came. The wine was cool and delicious. As I sipped it and listened to Dorsey the thought occurred to me that maybe I should have ordered something stronger. I was beginning to suspect that Dorsey was on her way to a destination I wasn’t going to like.

  And by God, damn if she didn’t go there!

  “Tommy, you’re the only man I ever met who didn’t want something from me.”

  “I don’t do platonic relationships,” I muttered.

  “I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about money. Every single man and half the married men who meet me have dollar signs in their eyes. I’ve heard every investment opportunity and charitable scheme you can imagine. I hear a new one almost every day.”

  “You need to find a better class of people to hang with.”

  “I need a man who wants me, not my checkbook.”

  “They’re out there. You’ll meet one.”

  “Why not the two of us, Tommy? You and me. Is that so crazy ?”

  So there it was. I was being proposed to. And I had no idea how to handle it.

  The waitress arrived with our food, which gave me a few seconds to think. When she disappeared I sat watching Dorsey toy with a little tomato with her fork. Finally she put the fork down.

  “Dorsey, I don’t think you’re in love with me.”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps I am. But I think we could love each other. I like you so much … Oh, Tommy, can’t you see us together? We could travel all we wanted, see the world, enjoy the people and places and find a perfect spot for us. And we could have children. Two, I think, a boy and a girl. You and I living life together could be so perfect.”