by Alan Russell
Though the CIA’s President’s Analytical Support Staff (PASS) published the PDB, even they didn’t know its contents. The staff produced the paper “blind,” going through protocols to not read the copy. Only one member of the CIA had a subscription: the director.
The paperboy, thought Blackwell. It was the director who delivered the newspapers to the rest of the inner circle.
PASS produced other very secret, very classified documents, including the Senior Executive Intelligence Brief and the Economic Executives’ Intelligence Brief. Like the PDB, the information was published in such a way that one hand purposely didn’t know what the other was doing.
It was all there in writing. Politics. Economics. Business. For the most part it was “finished” intelligence, intelligence that had gone through the rinse, wash, and dry cycles, information that had been taken, evaluated, analyzed, and confirmed to a reasonable degree. Gold. Not that fool’s gold didn’t occasionally get paraded around as the real thing. The CIA and its army of analysts and agents were certainly fallible. They liked to pretty up information to justify their existence and support their position at the public trough from which they fed. The Agency was good at supplying position papers that would support whatever way the administration was leaning at the moment. Maybe that explained their failure in the past to accurately predict what had happened in Iran, Iraq, and the Soviet Union, not to mention the Camp Chapman attack in 2009. Sometimes it seemed like the CIA was more in the lobbying business than the espionage business. But Blackwell knew how to read between the lines better than anyone. He was good at picking out what was smoke and what was fire. In the hands of the right person, the CIA’s finished intelligence could prove very, very valuable. There were three types of finished intelligence: basic, current, and estimative. That was a fancy way of saying past, present, and future. It was the ultimate insider information, the headlines of the future delivered in advance.
Everyone wanted a crystal ball. Corporations and individuals paid huge money to Henry Kissinger and his ilk to try and position themselves and their companies in a changing world. Fortunes were there to be made and lost. Reading the world’s tea leaves was a big business.
The Securities and Exchange Commission was about the only governmental agency that knew government was just another big business. And there was no currency so valuable as insider information. Knowing US policy ahead of time could yield enormous financial gains, both short term and long term. Blackwell wanted that foreknowledge, and the power that went with it. Being in the inner circle would give him hundreds of ways to parlay that information into a huge windfall, including stocks, options, futures, commodities, and foreign exchange markets. And those were the quasi-legal ways.
That didn’t even take into account the much more profitable, and much more interesting, illegal methods to get rich beyond imagination.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
Usually getting to the bottom of things was the fun part, but this time it felt more like pulling teeth. The harder Graham dug at the roots, the more nerves he exposed. His and hers. Getting emotionally involved with Lanie had affected his thinking. He wanted to be protective of her, but what he had uncovered wouldn’t allow that.
Graham didn’t like having to take her into consideration. He was sure she wasn’t thinking about him. You could dress up their night together, put it under the category of mutual emotional comforting, but it still amounted to a one-night stand. That’s all it was, and all it would be. Still, he didn’t want to be the messenger delivering her the bad news.
He had to confront her, though. He was involved in all of this as well. It would just be easier if he didn’t give a damn. That’s how it usually was. He snapped pictures and didn’t look back. But this time was different. Their secrets intersected. No, they did more than that. They traveled the same bloody road.
His cell phone rang at quarter past seven. The number on his readout was a local one.
“Still up for dinner?” Lanie asked.
Graham pretended to be upbeat: “You bet.”
“Is nine o’clock too late? I should be able to get away by then.”
“That’s fine.”
“Do you like Italian?”
“It’s my favorite.”
“Good. There’s this wonderful restaurant just outside Brentwood called La Dolce Vita.”
Graham didn’t comment on the irony. It was, he thought, an appropriate place to have dinner with a paparazzo. Fellini’s movie, La Dolce Vita, featured a persistent photographer named Signor Paparazzo who was always trying to shoot the stars. Because of Fellini’s Signor Paparazzo, celebrity photographers were forever tagged with the name “paparazzi.” He doubted that was something he would tell Lanie. There was no need to give her a bad association with one of her favorite restaurants.
“One of the things I like most about the restaurant,” Lanie said, “is that it has these old-fashioned booths with high wooden dividers. And the manager is very accommodating. He lets me slip in through the kitchen and reserves the back booth for me.”
“Assuming I enter through the front door, what’s my story?”
“That you will be joining Elaine Barnes in her booth.”
You just didn’t get into a restaurant like La Dolce Vita. It wasn’t a private club, but like other prestigious LA restaurants it acted like one, catering to the Hollywood crowd. There were certain nights that you basically needed a secret password to get in. You had to be connected to get a table. Money wouldn’t do it, and being willing to wait all night wasn’t enough. You had to be a Hollywood insider. Stars liked being among their own and not having to look over their shoulders.
“I’ll look forward to seeing you,” Graham said.
Maybe he had inherited some acting skill from his mother. She never picked up on his lie.
After talking with Lanie, Graham turned the ringer of his second phone back on. He only had to wait fifteen minutes before it rang again.
“Pilgrim.”
He had expected Smith’s voice, had mentally prepared for it, but that didn’t stop his heart from racing.
“I’m listening.”
“You’ve been rather hard to reach.”
“I was afraid for my life.”
“But now you know better?”
“Let’s say I am somewhat reassured.”
“It was regrettable that we had to use scare tactics on you, and even more regrettable when matters apparently got out of hand. But you know that if we had truly wanted to remove you from the scene, we would have gone about it differently. A word to the French would have been enough. Your next stop would have been prison. They haven’t forgotten the accident.”
“Nor have I,” Graham said. “You haven’t let me.”
“We are prepared to do that now.”
“I want a face-to-face with you,” Graham said. “And I want fifty thousand dollars in cash to pay for the loss of my van and equipment. But this time I don’t want to meet on an oil rig, and I don’t want a tranquilizer dart in my ass.”
“Fine. I’ll call you back with the date, time, and details.”
“No,” said Graham. “My trust only goes so far. This time I’ll be the one in charge of arrangements. We’ll meet tomorrow at one o’clock in the afternoon at the George C. Page Museum on Wilshire. You’ll find me in front of the entrance to the museum.”
“I’ll have to see if I can rearrange my schedule—”
“Do it,” Graham said, talking over his objections. “Just the two of us. I better not see any sign of the brothers or anyone else.”
“I’m not sure—”
“Bring the money.”
“Pilgrim—”
“I never liked that name,” Graham said, and hung up.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
Graham parked in an alley with a view of
the back of the restaurant and waited in his car for Lanie to appear. The chef who grabbed a hurried smoke, and the busboy and dishwasher who hauled trash out to the Dumpster, had no idea he was watching. Graham had arrived early and for the last half hour had listened to the clatter of dishes and calling of orders. Periodically he inhaled the drifting scent of garlic, basil, and olive oil. On this night, it didn’t make him hungry.
Lanie was late. Graham wondered if he was being stood up. He had turned off his phones again. It was possible she had called and tried to leave a message for him at the restaurant. He had decided it wouldn’t be fair to sit down to dinner knowing what he was going to say and ask. That would be like sucker-punching her. He had followed the trail of her damaged rental, focusing on the Malibu area. He needed to ask her about a hit-and-run.
Graham noticed a movement in the shadows. Someone was waiting at the side of the building, someone who didn’t want to be seen. Graham could only see an arm. The figure was crouched down, his back to the wall.
Car lights suddenly illuminated the alley. The unmistakable outline of a limo showed itself. As it neared, the figure in the shadows started to move. Graham turned on his brights, surprising the man. He raised an arm and shielded his eyes. Graham saw he wasn’t holding a gun. In his hands was a camera.
As the limo drove toward the back of the restaurant, Graham continued to flash his brights, strobing the photographer. He started his engine, drove forward, and pulled beside the limo. Graham pushed open the passenger door while he continued to flick his brights on and off. Lanie emerged from the limo, looking mystified at his light display.
“Get in,” yelled Graham.
She hesitated for a moment, said something to her driver, then sat down next to him. The photographer cursed loudly as Graham pulled away.
“Friend of yours?” Lanie asked.
“Not anymore.”
“I hope I don’t sound ungrateful, but I’m not usually scared off by a lone photographer. In fact, I am sort of surprised there was only one.”
“I panicked,” Graham said. “He stayed out of sight until just before you pulled up. I thought he might have had a gun.”
“But you kept blinding him even after you knew he was a photographer.”
“I didn’t want to take any chances.”
“Why were you out in the alleyway anyway?”
“Because we need to talk.”
While waiting for her, Graham still hadn’t figured out how to begin their talk. His father would have known how to finesse the whole thing. Graham once told him that he had missed his calling as a funeral director. He had this way of making people feel better even at the worst of times.
“Domingo Avila,” Graham said.
“Oh.”
She made more of a sound than a word. It came from deep inside of her. It wasn’t a voicing of surprise, but more a chord of pain and guilt and sadness that she didn’t try and hide. Even now, years after his own accident, there were times when Graham felt like making that very same sound.
“One paragraph in the local paper,” Graham said. “He was a Mexican national out riding his bicycle, a dishwasher in a Malibu restaurant.”
Lanie didn’t say anything.
“Your rental was slightly damaged. That’s why you couldn’t return it.”
Next to him, she started wringing her hands.
“All this time you probably thought that the police were running tests. It’s amazing how much they can figure out with just a speck of paint or a shard of plastic. There are only so many Jaguars, so you figured it was only a matter of time before they tracked you down. The wait was the hard thing. I know. I’ve been there. It’s like waiting for a bullet to find you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Oh.”
That sound again.
“You couldn’t act responsibly,” Graham said, “because of who you were with at the time of the accident. There couldn’t be a police report because of the scandalous implications. Politicians have survived sex scandals before, but this would have transcended that. There was a death involved. That’s something that would stick to even a Teflon politician. Teddy Kennedy never removed the stain of Chappaquiddick.”
Lanie was still now, no hand wringing, no sounds.
“I remember how bad it was for me, but it was even worse for you because you’re so visible. There was no place you could escape, and no one you could talk to. I’m not Catholic, but I had my own personal confessor, and I know how much that helped me. You felt guilty because you were the driver, and the man you were with was married. Both of you had several glasses of champagne at the fund-raising party. You were by no means legally drunk, but in retrospect you’ve wondered if that might have played some role in your accident.
“You hit Domingo just as you were emerging from the tunnel. Even when your own life was in the balance you couldn’t stop thinking about that. When we were racing to see Dr. Burke, and you were almost comatose from taking those pills, you suddenly grew alert when I hit that possum. The accident was still in your thoughts. That’s why you were trembling and had your eyes closed when we entered the tunnel. Domingo Avila was haunting you then, just as he haunts you now.
“Some people wouldn’t be able to understand that. You are a movie star. He was a dishwasher with a green card. The world takes note of what you wear. When you change your hairstyle, it makes headlines. All Domingo Avila’s death rated was a paragraph in the local paper. He didn’t even make the LA Times. But none of that mattered to you. You saw his dead body. You probably held him. Maybe some of his blood stained your party dress.
“The police would certainly have ruled the accident wasn’t your fault, but their vindication wasn’t an option. You were someone who wanted to pay penance, but because of the situation you were denied that opportunity. You could only grieve in private. I know that you’re a stand-up person. From the first I’m sure you made it clear to the vice president that if the police came knocking, you, and you alone, would take all the blame. You were probably prepared to lie and say you were driving by yourself. Your guilt would have prompted you to do all of that—guilt that he was married; guilt that you were driving; guilt that there was a certain taint to your friendship because of your being a sayan, or bat laveyha, or whatever it is they called you. What else would the Mossad have asked of you other than to get close to Tennesson? I am sure your handlers encouraged you to be his good friend. They would have told you that you could best serve Israel’s interests with a timely word here or there. What possible harm, I am sure they emphasized, could come out of doing that?
“You already were his friend, his lover. Each of you admired the other. Your paths crossed at social events, at fund-raisers, at celebrations of the arts. The two of you were akin both politically and personally, and it’s no secret that Tennesson and his wife’s marriage is more of a business relationship than anything else.
“It’s said that Tennesson is the most charismatic politician since Jack Kennedy. He’s certainly one of the most photographed. Your mutual attraction must have been powerful indeed. I suspect the affair started several years ago. The miracle is that there has never been a whisper of it. There are some secluded mansions not far from the Beltway, mansions that are sometimes unused for months at a time. Both of you have influential friends. Discreet getaways could have been arranged, especially while you were on location in Washington, DC. You probably thought that no one knew. But someone always knows.”
Lanie didn’t acknowledge any of his allegations. The silence built until she finally said, “Take me home.”
“You can’t hide behind the walls of the Grove, Lanie. You should know that by now.”
She didn’t answer, so he prodded her a little more. “Don’t be thinking you can escape this by courting death again, Lanie. You try and commit suicide, and I promise you, I’ll put a trumpet to my lips and tell al
l.”
“Damn you.”
“Damn me.”
He hadn’t enjoyed torturing her. There was no other name for it. But now she would be ready to hear the rest. “You know what tunnel vision is, Lanie?”
She didn’t respond.
“Tunnel vision is like seeing the world through a small tube,” he said. “You don’t get the whole picture. You get just this small area of vision. Someone can be standing right next to you, but unless you turn and get them in your narrow line of sight, you can’t see them.
“We both suffer from tunnel vision, Lanie. But I think there might be some light at the end of your tunnel.”
Her mouth didn’t move, and her face said nothing.
“Because of what happened to you,” Graham said, “you’ve never been able to see beyond Domingo’s body. That’s understandable. But now I want you to open your eyes. I want you to see beyond the tunnel.
“Do you know what happened to Domingo’s body?”