A pause; how painful this was. “Of course I do, and I think I know—” Morgan broke off. “I’d better not say it. Jack Adams wouldn’t want me to.”
“The audience wants you to say it, Morgan.”
Cries of Say it, Morgan! Go for it!
At last Morgan said, “All right. Sorry, Jack. But what I think, after a whole lot of prayer and meditation, is this: My husband came from nowhere with a new idea for America, and nobody much gave him a chance of succeeding. But the people like what they see when they look at Jack Adams, and I think that scares some people. Now I’d really better stop before—”
Go on! Say it, girl! Morgan! Morgan! A brief spontaneous chorus of Jack’s song: “Jack, Jack, Jack!”
“All right,” said Morgan, “I will say it. I think that these accusations—and they hurt so much—I think they may just possibly be forming a pattern, and that this just might have something to do with the fact that my husband, Jack Adams, is the outsider in this race, the only candidate without powerful friends, without very much money, just an ordinary American orphan from a little village in Ohio. And as I said, I think that frightens certain people, and that they’re all connected to each other, and that they are out to destroy Jack because he is right about America and they are wrong, and he is good and they are evil. That’s what I really think, that it’s some sort of plot. And oh, how I hope I’m wrong!”
Wise and sympathetic, the host said, “I don’t think so, Morgan.”
Neither did the audience.
Jack’s campaign really took off after Morgan’s brave outburst. The media played Morgan’s accusations big. The Unconscious Underground picked it up at once, as if it were a thought that occurred simultaneously in twenty million minds. It explained Jack. It explained everything. It got everyone off the hook. No matter what befell, it immunized Jack against exposure, even against prosecution and conviction, because it cast doubt on all future accusations against him. It wasn’t only the elite who loved Jack. The common people showed that they did, too. Jack won primary after primary. Like all great natural politicians, Jack Adams was ordinary but ordinary in a way that magnified the virtues of all the people who instinctively perceived that he was a whole lot like them. This benevolent deception of the people delighted the intelligentsia. This was what made the media love him: He was their fantasy candidate. How they would have loved Peter, too, if only they had known him.
Two
1 The race for the nomination came down to the final primary.
Jack won by a tiny plurality but he was still fifty delegates short of the number needed to be nominated on the first ballot at his party’s convention, a month hence. He was, of course, broke. His campaign had spent Peter’s twenty-seven million dollars, or whatever laundered portion of it Morgan had been able to salvage from the shambles that was the Columbus Bank of the Western Reserve. In its insatiable hunger for money, the campaign had also consumed every penny the faithful had raised from other sources, and it was in debt for millions more.
Back in Columbus, in Morgan’s soundproof room, Jack said, “What do we do now?”
“Win,” Morgan said.
Jack was tired, querulous. The onslaught of unbelievers had taken its toll on him. “How, without money?” he cried. “The bastards won’t give me any because they think I can’t win, because they don’t want me to win.”
He was talking about the leaders of his own party. Despite his victories, they still did not want him. Jack had won the popularity contest, yes—but barely. They still did not believe that he could win the election against a popular incumbent president who had no negatives except for a mild downturn in the economy after ten years of prosperity.
“They’re killing me,” Jack said. “Killing me, Morg!”
Morgan ignored the hated nickname. “They can’t kill you,” she retorted. “Remember who you are.”
Morgan meant one thing by this—that he was a child of history, of which Peter was principal agent. Jack understood another, that he was a child of a handsome prince and a beautiful maiden thrown together by fate. Just the same, her words cheered him up. He needed cheering. For the first time, and at what the world saw as his moment of triumph, he himself was not sure. The Republicans were already taking an interest in him; they were turning over rocks. Every insider already knew that the stories about Jack’s sex life were true—and if these tales of serial rape were fact, what else might he turn out to be? As for his own party’s leaders, they did not suspect the real truth about Jack—who would?—but they sensed that something was wrong with this boy. Something hidden. Something dark. If it came out, it could destroy not just Jack but the party itself, which was already bleeding from a thousand self-inflicted wounds. Jack was a time bomb; he worried them deeply. If he was elected, they would have to defend him to save themselves, and God knew what the price might turn out to be.
Jack was worried too. Morgan’s plan to pour money into businesses designed to fail had worked admirably. Nearly every one of these bogus enterprises was by now on the brink of failure or bankruptcy. However, the scam had drained the Columbus Bank of the Western Reserve of nearly all its assets. The bank through which most of Jack’s campaign funds had flowed was about to fail. The examiners were about to arrive.
“Then what?” Jack asked again.
Morgan said, “This is exactly what we anticipated and planned for. The examiners will close the bank down. Fine. That was always the plan. The bank has served its purpose. It’s time to get rid of it before it can become an embarrassment.”
“It’s already an embarrassment.”
“To the governor, to some of our friends who will stand up for you no matter what. Not to you. There’s not a single conversation, not a single fingerprint, to link you to that institution.”
“Jesus, Morg! It was my idea.”
“Nobody knows that but me, and I’m not going to tell. The governor is the one who’s got things to worry about.”
“You think he’s going to take the fall? You don’t know him.”
“What fall? Bad judgment? Everybody already knows he has that. So he fucked up a bank just like he fucked up the state and hisown life. If he keeps his mouth shut, he’s home free. He’ll toe the mark. He’s got two million five in a bank in the Cayman Islands.”
“That son of a bitch! I don’t even own a wallet. And even if I did, I’d have nothing but air to put in it. We’re going to lose this thing.”
“Jack, don’t worry. Peter has always come through. He’ll come through again. Just raise as much money as you can to fill the gap.”
“I told you, it’s hopeless. I get nowhere. Danny says he’s getting nowhere. The word is out. The fix is in. They’re setting me up to lose. They fucking hate me, Morgan.”
“All that will change when you don’t lose.”
“Then get me the money I need to win this thing,” Jack said. “The only thing they understand is money. You tell Peter that.”
Jack had no idea that I had disappeared, that Peter had vanished, that Morgan did not know if he would ever come back, that they were alone. She had thought it best not to worry him. Like me, she was what she was. Nothing could change that. In her heart she believed they would be rescued by the revolution, by history. By Peter. She tousled Jack’s hair, actually touched him. He looked surprised. What had he done to earn this sympathy?
“Don’t worry,” Morgan said. “We ain’t dead yet.”
2 Back in Columbus, Danny found Cindy at the kitchen table, hair combed, dressed for the day, drinking coffee and reading the newspapers. It was early in the morning, about six-thirty; he had been with Morgan all night. Cindy wore yellow vinyl dishwashing gloves to keep the ink off her hands. He had forgotten, actually forgotten, that she always did this. Once he had loved her for her Minnie Mouse gloves. The stab of guilt he always felt when he saw her after an absence was sharper than usual.
Danny said, “Can we talk?”
“That depends on what you want to talk ab
out,” Cindy replied.
“It’s about the firm,” Danny said. “Actually, about the bank. But there’s a connection.”
Cindy folded her paper and took off her gloves but said nothing.
Danny said, “A lot has gone wrong.”
“How much?”
“A lot. We’ll have to fold it. The bank.”
“It’s going to fail?”
“That’s right.”
“What about the depositors?”
“There’s the FDIC. But some of them will lose a lot.”
Knowing the answer, Cindy said, “Danny, what exactly do you stand to lose?”
“I’m not sure. My name is on a lot of paper.”
“But not Jack’s name, not Morgan’s?”
“Jack was never involved in any way. Morgan was never an officer of the bank, only its consultant on management methods, never on substance. She was careful to make that point every time.”
“You mean she’s covered her ass and hung yours out to dry.”
“Whatever, she’s clean. I’m one of the responsible officers.”
“What did you do on your own?”
“Nothing. It was always Morgan. Her advice, her orders.”
“But never her signature?”
“Rarely. And when it was, she kept that paper.”
“Where?”
“In Morgan’s room.”
“What’s that?”
“A room in the old offices. It’s soundproofed, locked with a keypad. Only Morgan has the combination.”
“She didn’t trust you with that, just with criminal responsibility for her malfeasance?”
Danny did not reply.
Cindy said, “Do you want me to be your lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“Is that Morgan’s idea, too? Double indemnity—I can’t testify because I’m your wife, technically. And I can’t disclose anything you tell me because I’m your law—”
“It wasn’t Morgan’s idea. I haven’t discussed it with her.”
Cindy had known that this moment would come. She was ready for it. “All right,” she said. “Let’s get started.”
Cindy asked Danny a series of questions. He was amazed at how sharp she was, how clearly she saw patterns that had been designed to be undetectable. Of course, he did not know what a lot she already knew about the inner workings of the bank. By the end of her interrogation she also knew everything that Danny knew.
“Danny,” she said, “you’re in very deep trouble.”
“I know,” he said. “What am I going to do?”
“There’s only one thing to do. Go to Merriwether Street—”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“—right now, at his house, before he leaves for the office. Tell him everything and make the best deal you can. Say nothing about this to that woman who’s been fucking you, and not one word to Jack.”
Danny was staggered. What he had wanted was delay, not an explosion. He said, “Go to the U.S. attorney a month before the convention that’s going to nominate Jack? How can I do that?”
“You have to do it.”
“I can’t. I’m Jack’s attorney. I’m Morgan’s attorney. Everything they’ve ever told me is protected by attorney-client privilege.”
“And I’m your attorney, Danny.”
“And Jack’s law partner. Your lips are sealed, too.”
“Like hell they are. There’s no partner-partner immunity. They’ve set you up, Danny. They’ve systematically plundered the bank to get Jack the nomination, and now they don’t need it or you anymore, and you’re the designated fall guy. That was the idea from the start.”
“No.”
“No? Okay, say it’s just bad luck. What does that change? You’ll be indicted, Jack will say how much he loves you and feels for you and what a hero you’ve always been to him and always will be, sob. Morgan will simper for the cameras. And then you’ll go to jail and they’ll go to the White House.”
Danny exploded. “Merriwether Street is a Republican, for Christ’s sake! He’ll use this to destroy Jack!”
Of course he is, Cindy thought. Of course he will. That’s the whole point. She said, “Nobody can destroy Jack. He’s a fucking hydra, every head with a great big smile. Lop one off, he grows another one. But you’re human, Danny, and you’ve got only one head to lose.”
Danny recoiled. “I can’t do this,” he said.
“You’ve got to do it or go to prison for twenty years.” She stood up. “Let’s go. We don’t have much time.”
But Danny could not move. His brain refused to send the necessary signals to his body. “I can’t,” he said. “Not to Jack; not to Morgan. She and I have already betrayed Jack. I can’t do it again. I can’t do it to the country.”
“You can’t do it to the country?” Cindy said. “Think what you’ll bedoing to the country if you don’t do this, Danny! They won’t be satisfied until they ruin the country. They hate America, Danny. They always have. They wanted the other side to win in Vietnam, the side that tried to burn you alive. They didn’t give a shit what happened to you then, and if you think they care now, you’re a bigger chump than even they think you are.”
Danny shook his head in denial. “You can’t,” he said, “reduce this whole situation to the wounds I got in Vietnam.”
“Like hell I can’t,” Cindy said. “They might as well have set you on fire with their own hands.”
But Danny would not be convinced. “They’re not that way at all, Cindy,” he said. “You’re wrong about them. You have every right to be angry. I know what you think and feel, but Jack would never do such a thing to me. Never.”
“Oh no? Danny, take my hands. I have something to tell you.”
“Do I want to hear it?”
“No. Give me your hands.”
They clasped hands across the tabletop. In minute detail, Cindy told Danny what had happened on the night he left for Vietnam: what she had felt, what she had done, why she had done it.
Then she told him he had been drafted in Jack’s place: “It’s documented, Danny. You got your future burned up for him because you were where he was supposed to be. And he was so grateful that he got me drunk and raped me so I had to kill my baby just in case it belonged to Jack.”
“Kill your baby?” Danny cried, horrified. “What in the name of God are you talking about?”
“I had an abortion.”
“An abortion? Wasn’t it my baby, too?”
“I don’t know. I’ll never know. If I had been sure it was yours, I would have had it, Dan. It was a boy. And if it was yours, then Jack Adams murdered it just as surely as if he had smothered it with a pillow.”
Danny was white-faced. He said, “Why?”
“Because I couldn’t have anything left behind by that son of a bitch growing inside of me.”
“Cin!”
His eyes overflowed. He reached out for her. She moved away, holding up a hand as if it were a crucifix and he had come from Satan.
She said, “If you won’t do this, Dan, if you won’t save yourself, I will. I’ll divorce you and testify against all three of you. I’ll see you in prison before I’ll see those two going scot-free so they can fuck the United States of America like they’ve fucked the two of us and ruined our lives. You’ll have to kill me to stop me, Dan. Take your choice.”
Danny said, “You think I could do you harm?”
Cindy laughed, and it sounded to Danny like someone he did not know had made the sound. “Oh, Danny.”
He looked at her as his wife for what he was sure would be the last time. He said, “I can’t do it. I’m sorry.”
“What a surprise,” Cindy said. She walked out the door and got into her car.
3 Cindy arrived at F. Merriwether Street’s large old-money Tudor house in time to watch him back his battered Oldsmobile out of the driveway. She followed and, at the next stop sign, pulled up beside him and signaled him to pull over.
It was a mel
low, sun-splashed morning. Standing on the sidewalk in a shower of pollen, he sneezed spasmodically as he listened with mouth agape to what Cindy had to tell him.
The Columbus Bank of the Western Reserve had loaned twenty-seven million dollars to twenty-two different new enterprises that had all failed or gone bankrupt? And the loans were inflated?
Cindy said, “That’s correct.”
“Where did this all this money come from in the first place?” Street asked.
“From the Banco Amazones in Leticia, Colombia.”
“Who put the money into the bank?”
“I don’t know. Danny doesn’t know, either.”
“It’s pretty obvious what the possibilities are,” Street said. “They’ve been laundering drug money to finance Jack’s campaign. Tell me if I’m wrong.”
Cindy was silent.
Street said, “They must be crazy. Twenty million dollars in one whack?”
“Twenty-seven million.”
“The only questions,” Street said, “are, one, Which drug cartel provided the cash? and, two, What do they want in return?”
“I don’t know who they are, or what they want,” Cindy replied. “But now I’ll tell you, before I tell you one more thing, what I want.”
“I’m listening.”
“Clemency for Danny Miller.”
“You want a lot.”
“Nailing Danny means nothing,” Cindy said. “Jack and Morgan would love it if you did get him. Plus the ex-governor. That’s the way they set it up. Don’t take the bait. You’ve got to promise me to get the real criminals and treat Danny as the patsy he is, or—”
“Or what? Do you realize what you’ve just told me?”
“Do you realize what I’ve just given you?”
Yes, he realized. If F. Merriwether Street, rock-ribbed Republican, cracked this case and sent the nominee of the opposition party to prison, not only would he assure his own political future by winning the presidential election for his own party almost single-handed, he would also destroy his old tormentor, Jack Adams, and paint Jack’s party with Jack’s crime. Nearly dead of its own follies anyway, that party would vanish into the political wilderness for years to come, perhaps forever.
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