by Buffa, D. W.
Helen caught the omission, the thing that had not been said. She felt a catch in her throat at what she had begun to foresee. “There is no vice-president. If Russell resigns, who…?”
Bobby got up and, forcing a smile, held out his hand, beckoning her to come outside. He led her through the rose-covered yard, out to the far side of the pool. The air was sweet with the scent of the bougainvillea and the distant, salt-water sea. “Remember when we came here, remember how we said that whatever happened we would always have this place? I know how difficult I’ve made things for you, how hard you’ve tried to make things easier for me. But something has happened -”
“Just tell me, Bobby. Whatever it is, it’s all right. Whatever you think you need to do, that’s what I want you to do. It’s something about Charlie and that meeting with the President last night and the fact that there isn’t a vice-president and -”
“Russell had to promise to nominate a new vice-president, someone they would name, someone who would be confirmed immediately and would take over the moment Russell left.”
“It’s you, isn’t it?” she asked with a smile that surprised him with its eager confidence. “It should be you. It had to be you. You’re the one who saved the country from that band of murderers and thieves. Who else could it be?”
“But what about you?” he asked. “I know how much you hate that life, all the nonsense that is involved. Everything we do, everything we say - the only privacy we’ll ever have is late at night. It wasn’t a week ago that nearly everyone in Washington thought I was a murderer and that you were….”
“A whore?” she laughed. A sly, knowing grin tripped across her fine, lovely mouth. “There are worse things than being married to a man other people think would kill the man who took advantage of her. No, Bobby, I’m stronger than I was. Don’t worry about me; think only about what you have to do. When it’s all over, when you’re finished, we’ll come back here. Think about all the things we’ll have to talk about.” They went inside and Bobby noticed a package on the table in the entryway.
“It just came this morning,” explained Helen. “I was so excited to see you, I forgot all about it. It’s from some place in France.” She waited while he opened it. There was a thick manuscript inside with a few lines scribbled on the cover.
“It’s Jean Valette, the book he has been working on, a book he wanted me to read.” Bobby thumbed through the pages. He looked again at the cover. Jean Valette had written in a flamboyant hand: “Read it, study it; do it slowly, take your time. That is all I ask.”
“I looked at it briefly while I was there: four hundred tightly reasoned pages, full of historical and philosophical analysis. The crisis of the West,” said Bobby, shaking his head at the enormity of the task. “It took him twenty years to write it; it will probably take me that long to work my way through it.”
Helen noticed the time. “It’s almost six. He said he would come back. He does every day.”
Bobby was confused. “Who is coming back? Every day?”
Starting four or five days ago, six o’clock. He’s very polite. He calls from the gate, asks if you’re here and when I tell him you’re not, he thanks me and says he’ll try again tomorrow.”
“Maybe you should have called the police,” said Bobby, a little worried.
“No, he’s fine. The second time he came, I went out and spoke to him through the gate. He told me he had met you once and -”
“Met me once? That could be anyone, some crank; or worse, some -”
“No, I told you, it isn’t like that at all. He said he had met you once and that Quentin Burdick told him he could trust you.”
“What did he look like?” asked Bobby with a sudden sense of urgency. “Middle-aged, medium height, medium weight, someone you wouldn’t notice in a crowd?”
A sad smile crossed her mouth as she nodded.
“I think that you might not notice him if you passed him on an empty street. He’s very nice, painfully polite.”
“And he’s coming at six, five minutes from now?” asked Bobby, just to be sure. “I better go meet him.” Bobby walked up the long driveway to the iron gate that stretched between the vine covered white stucco walls that kept the house, and the two people who lived in it, safe from the prying eyes of the world. At six o’clock an aging beige automobile that no one would ever notice much less want to buy pulled up and the driver got out. Hart pushed the button that opened the gate and Richard Bauman quickly slipped inside.
Bobby had not seen the former Secret Service agent since the night he met with Clarence Atwood at the Watergate. Bauman had not changed in any obvious way, but there was still a difference: He seemed more certain of himself; all the guilt he had felt that night was gone.
“Come inside,” said Hart as they shook hands.
“No, I don’t want to be a bother.”
“What can I do for you then? My wife told me that you had been here every day.”
“She’s been very nice about it. Yes, every day. I knew you would come back here. I could not stay in Washington. I would have been dead by now.”
“Come in,” said Bobby. “We can talk.”
“Can you come with me?” asked Bauman politely, but with insistence. “There’s something I have to show you. It’s what I gave Quentin Burdick, what probably got him killed. It’s in my room, at the motel where I’m staying. I didn’t want to carry it around with me, in case I was being followed.”
“Sure, all right. Tell me where it is. I’ll just grab my keys and tell Helen where I’m going.”
The motel was one of the cheaper places, where tourists on a budget liked to stay, rooms with a view of the parking lot and a long walk, a mile or more, to the beach. Bobby sat on one of the two plastic chairs, Bauman sat in the other. A tattered leather briefcase lay on a wooden table next to them. Bauman removed a large, manila envelope and handed it to Bobby.
“It’s all here, everything I got from Atwood’s office. I made copies and put the originals back. I gave one to Burdick - decent man, told me there might not be anyone else around to trust, but that I could trust you. They were all involved, you know; one way or the other, all of them: Constable, his wife, Russell, the others. Whether they knew what was going to happen, whether they had any part in the decisions that got made - doesn’t matter, they were all responsible.”
Bobby bent toward him. Bauman was a completely honest man. He knew that, but he still was not sure what Bauman was trying to tell him. He tapped his finger on the envelope. “You got this from Atwood’s office, and you gave it - a copy of it - to Quentin Burdick?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” said Bauman with a slight, embarrassed smile. He would try to be clearer. “Atwood hired the girl. All the records of payment are in there. But the girl wasn’t just some paid assassin; she was one of ours, someone who did things that no one is supposed to know. Atwood knew everything about all of them, what they had done, the money they had taken - all of it. That was the leverage he had, that and the fact that he didn’t have any reservations about doing whatever seemed to be necessary.”
“But he wouldn’t have had any reason to have Constable killed,” objected Bobby. “Russell and Madelaine Constable had a lot to lose if Constable lived, and a lot to gain if he died. Atwood had to be working for them, didn’t he?”
“That’s right. Atwood didn’t do this on his own, have the President murdered, I mean. Because the rest of what happened: Burdick, what happened to those two in Paris, the attempt to make it seem like you were the one responsible - I’m pretty sure Atwood did that on his own; did it, as far as I can tell, with the consent of both Russell and Mrs. Constable. Once the President was killed, all they cared about was protecting themselves and getting what they wanted. They depended on Atwood for that. Do what’s necessary, that’s what they would have told him, and no one needed to tell him what that meant.”
Bobby was on the edge of his chair. “But then, if it wasn’t Atwood on his own, and if it wasn’t R
ussell or Constable’s wife, who told Atwood to kill the President?”
Richard Bauman nodded toward heavy envelope. “There, on the last page, I think you’ll find the answer. It’s how the whole thing started, isn’t it?” he asked as Bobby dug through the documents.
Bobby pulled out the last page, read it through quickly, and then, scarce believing what he had seen, read it through again. He looked up at Bauman. “It’s a whole page of payments, a ledger with the amounts and the dates on which they were paid. And all of this, millions of dollars, from the same source? You’re sure? You’re absolutely sure of this?”
“Same as with the others. Atwood was not working for the President, or the President’s wife. He certainly was not working for Irwin Russell. Atwood was always working for The Four Sisters. He was on the payroll of Jean Valette.”
When Bobby got home he was angry, disturbed, and, as it seemed to Helen, ready to find any excuse for a fight, not with her, but with anyone else who happened to get in his way. She tried to calm him down, but he kept pacing back and forth, spitting out in short bursts what he had just learned.
“Jean Valette, the same man who helped save my life, the same man who helped restore my reputation, the same man who provided the evidence to destroy Madelaine Constable and Irwin Russell, ordered the murder of Robert Constable!”
She tried to teach him prudence with her eyes. “There’s no proof of that. All you know for sure is that Atwood was paid a great deal of money by The Four Sisters. There is nothing in that to link Jean Valette to murder. Atwood could have done it on his own, for the same reason as the others: to keep Constable from talking about what he knew.”
Bobby stopped moving. He fixed her with a steady, unrelenting gaze. “Jean Valette did it, ordered Constable killed. I know he did. He told me, but I wasn’t smart enough to understand it. He said he knew I would become president. He knew it because he set everything in motion. He moved everyone around like we were pieces on a chess board, put us in situations where we had only one choice, the choice he knew we would have to make. He said I would be president, and because of him I’m going to be. And what that really means is that Jean Valette is the Grand Master, the only one who knows the game.”
The End
A Note from the Author
Thank you for reading The Grand Master. Please let me know what you think! You can email me personally by visiting my official website at http://www.dwbuffa.net.
If you enjoyed this Bobby Hart novel, Rubicon by Lawrence Alexander (my pen name) also features the same protagonist. My other novels feature defense attorney Joseph Antonelli, the character who brought my work into the circle of main stream crime fiction. Read more about my books at my website or at various online retailers.
D.W. Buffa’s other novels
Evangeline
“Ever since Moby Dick we fear that the ocean treats human beings by its own rules. Marlowe, a worthy successor of Captain Ahab, was the only one who knew these rules.”
- Lufthansa Exclusive Magazine
“A fascinating read.”
- Adelaide Advertiser
Trial by Fire
“The fast-moving dialogue and fine sense of characterization keep the reader hanging on for the ride.”
- Publishers Weekly
“Haunting, memorable...will be considered a classic in years to come.”
- Midwest Book Review
“D.W. Buffa would be a household name in a perfect world. Meticulously plotted...with unforgettable characters. Very highly recommended.”
- BookReporter.com
Breach of Trust
“Another well-crafted legal thriller from one of the genre’s best practitioners.”
- Calgary Herald
“Political intrigue abounds...a truly surprising end.”
- Publishers Weekly
“Maddening suspense, captivating courtroom scenes, and a marvelously twisted ending.”
- Booklist
Star Witness
“A great legal thriller. D.W. Buffa keeps readers engrossed in this fulfilling drama that ends in a way nobody could have predicted.”
- Midwest Book Review
“Legal thrills...in the world of Hollywood- a world where make-believe and real life are so entwined that it’s difficult to separate the truth from the dreams shown on the screen.”
- Houston Chronicle
The Legacy
“A first-class premise... taut, well-paced.”
- Publishers Weekly
“Buffa builds a compelling, suspenseful story... He combines a strong plot with more character development and a striking portrayal of San Francisco, its corruption and its opulence, its beauty and its mystery.”
- Booklist
“As the whos in the whodunit roll out tantalizingly, Buffa expertly lays out the chessboard of the courtroom and its inhabitants who range from crusty to cunning. Bottom line: Add this to your docket.”
- People Magazine
The Judgment
“Buffa can keep company with the best writers of legal thrillers and courtroom dramas. Absorbing.”
- The Orlando Sentinel
“If there’s anybody who can mount a challenge to John Grisham’s mantle... Buffa’s the most sure-footed guy to do it. A crisp, first-rate read... a tightly wound thriller. A richly textured cast of characters.”
- Edmonton Journal
“D.W. Buffa continues to show great intelligence and erudition. There’s nobody else like him.”
- San Jose Mercury News
“Littered with plot twists and land mines that explode when least expected...A novel with wide appeal. A fastmoving tale that jolts and veers enticingly off track, but also stays comfortably in sight of the main objective. Well-developed characters and a rich milieu add depth to this excellent thriller.”
- Publishers Weekly
The Defense
“A gripping drama...made up of not just one but several exciting trials...More satisfying still, it ends with a couple of twists that are really shocking. And it leaves you wanting to go back to the beginning and read it all over again.”
- The New York Times
“An excellent legal thriller.”
- USA Today
“Stunning legal reversals...fine, flowing prose...[a] devastating impact.”
- The New York Times Book Review