WINNER TAKES ALL

by Robert Bidinotto

  So he felt lonely. Never more so than now, after his recent string of spectacular successes. He had salvaged the election from the catastrophe of Ash Conn’s murder, and then—through unthinkable daring and risk-taking—had rescued the campaign of his lackluster successor. If only there were someone who could appreciate him for it all, emotionally and with full understanding.

  And who could respect his motive . . .

  That thought prompted him, as it so often did, to press the hidden latch under his desktop. The side panel popped ajar. He rose, opened it, and then the interior safe. Ignoring the other contents, he slid out a large, heavy metal box from the bottom shelf and hauled it atop his desk.

  Inside were the archives of his life: a photo album; scrapbooks containing faded newspaper clippings, documents, official records; bundles of correspondence; personal mementos; several books; and a leather case.

  He opened the photo album first. The very first photo, preserved beneath a sheet of clear plastic, was a posed black-and-white studio portrait of him as a small boy, standing before his seated parents.

  These, their images, had been his only constant companions throughout the years, the indelible reminders of the vow he had taken as a child. They would have understood—and taken enormous pride in the course of his life.

  He paused on the photo for a long time, until the familiar sting of tears made it impossible to see the faces clearly. Wiping his eyes, he closed the album and moved to the leather case. He opened it carefully, knowing its age rendered it fragile.

  Inside, a medallion hung on a folded red ribbon edged with twin gold stripes. It was a complex thing: roughly round, with a gold border broken on the right by a curling red banner; on the left by a red star; and on the bottom by a crossed hammer and sickle. Inlaid at its center was a circular platinum disc featuring the face of Vladimir Lenin.

  The Order of Lenin—the highest civilian honor bestowed by the former Soviet Union.

  The medallion rested on a red document booklet, printed in Cyrillic script. He did not open the delicate item, nor did he have to. He had read it many times before. It announced that the honor—for meritorious services to the Soviet state and society—had been granted posthumously to his father, John Avery Tremills.

  He was relieved his father did not live to see what happened to the cause for which he had sacrificed his liberty, his health, and ultimately his life. The award was a bittersweet reminder of the ideals that had once animated millions, across several generations. His father had remained true to those ideals until his premature end in ignominious captivity.

  Trammel knew better. Communism was indeed “the God that failed,” as a disenchanted follower once put it. It no longer merited undying loyalty.

  Yet, his father’s life did. His commitment and character deserved to be honored, even if his cause did not. And not with medals from a dead and corrupt empire; but with action against the society that had destroyed the man’s precious life, as well as that of his loyal mother.

  He was slipping the medallion back into its leather case when his phone chirped. He took it out, looked at the screen, and sighed. He was tempted to ignore her once again, but he knew that she would continue, and there was no point in putting her off any longer.

  “Yes, Emmalee. I was intending—”

  “No you weren’t, you bastard!” she shouted. “You were gonna juss keep ignoring me, an’ you know it!”

  Drunk. The last thing he needed right now . . .

  “Emmalee,” he said carefully, “that is not so. I just got home a few moments ago. I was about to—”

  “No. What you’re gonna do is get your ass down here, right now. Because if you don’t, like, in the next three minutes, I’m gonna swallow this bottle of pills”—he heard a rattling noise—“an’ leave a note all about you. An’ if you think I’m kidding, juss try me!”

  He shot to his feet.

  “Emmalee—please, take it easy. All right, I understand you are upset with me. We do need to talk. I can—”

  “Right . . . now!” she shouted.

  Then broke the connection.

  A jolt of panic hit him. She sounds serious . . .

  He rushed to the door, grabbing his sports jacket from its wooden hanger on the wall hook. He heard the hanger fall and bounce on the marble as he flung the door open and trotted down the hallway.

  He spotted Julia in the living room reading something as he passed. She looked up.

  “Good God! What’s wrong? You look—”

  “Sorry. I shall be out for a while and will explain later.”

  He threw open the front door and headed toward the elevator—then, knowing it would be faster, the stairwell.

  2

  Julia stared at the closing entryway door, dumbfounded by what she had just witnessed.

  Avery, always in icy control of his emotions—looking completely unglued.

  She had never seen him ruffled, let alone in a panic, and had no idea what had happened to bring him to this. Yes, he had been sullen after his CarboNot stock crashed, and she knew he was angry over the destruction of his Gulfstream. But on the surface he was always unflustered, never raising his voice or projecting worry. Even after last week’s terrorist attacks, while she and everyone else were horrified and distraught, he remained a calm and reassuring presence.

  Which made this all the more shocking. Like his recent coldness toward her, and his affair with the unknown woman, this behavior was unprecedented. Her husband was becoming erratic—and it frightened her.

  A week ago, her doctor had prescribed diazepam for her anxiety and insomnia. She knew she needed one now. Tossing aside the latest issue of Variety, she left the parlor, heading for her bathroom medicine cabinet.

  Halfway there, she stopped.

  The door to his study stood ajar, blocked open by a wooden coat hanger lying on the floor.

  He had never permitted her to enter this sanctuary, not since they had first moved in, when he asked her to help choose the furnishings and decor. And he never left it unlocked, let alone open. Yet he had left here in such a rush that he didn’t make sure the door closed and automatically locked behind him.

  Maybe the reason for his panic could be found inside.

  And—damn it!—as his wife, she had a right to know what it was.

  He wouldn’t be back anytime soon, not the way he looked. So, heart thumping, she pressed her fingers on the door and pushed it open.

  The interior was much as she remembered from years ago, except now the beautiful cherry bookcases were loaded with hardcovers and leather-bound sets that looked old and collectible. In the center of the room, the crystal chandelier blazed above the huge cherry desk that he’d had custom-designed years ago.

  Then she noticed that the entire side panel of the desk was open, like a door—and that an open safe was hidden inside.

  Leaving the door to the room propped half-open by the hanger, she went to the safe, bent, and peeked inside.

  Then felt something cold crawl across her skin.

  A gun.

  Next to it, ammunition.

  On the shelf below, two big stacks of money.

  On the lower shelves, what looked like some kind of radio, and a walkie-talkie or something, and a bunch of phones and batteries, and other gadgets.

  She spotted a stack of little booklets on the shelf next to the money. Curious, she reached inside to retrieve them.

  They were passports, four of them. Puzzled, she opened the top one. Inside was a driver’s license, too. The matching photo on both documents was of Avery . . . but with dark hair and a mustache. And the name listed on them was Harold D. Felton.

  She stared, uncomprehending. Closing it, she slid it to the bottom of the stack, then opened the next one.

  Again, Avery’s face stared back at her from the passport photo and a second license . . . but this time sporting longish, light-brown hair and a goatee. The name on these was Richard T. Dieter.

  She shuddered. She ha
d to struggle to keep a grip on the passports as she shuffled them again to the final two.

  In the third, Avery was transformed into a balding man with wire-rimmed glasses, named Melvin A. Rothstein. In the last, he was a red-haired, broad-nosed fellow named Sean Ryan Mallory.

  “Oh God,” she heard a strange voice saying, again and again, before she realized it was her own.

  She sank slowly to the floor. Her brain could not make sense of this—except to realize dully that her husband of eighteen years had a secret life she knew nothing about . . . and that whatever he was, and whatever he was doing—it was wrong.

  After a moment, she got to her feet. She noticed a large, open metal box on his desk, and moved in for a closer look.

  On the desktop beside it lay a medallion. Bending over it, she saw the face of Lenin, and a hammer and sickle.

  And finally knew what this had to mean.

  Who the hell are you, Avery Trammel? If that’s your real name . . .

  A photo album also lay on the desk. She opened it to the first page: an old black-and-white photograph of a man, a woman, and a little boy. The man’s face, so much like Avery’s . . .

  She realized who they had to be.

  Shaky, she eased herself down into his desk chair, still clinging to the passports.

  Her brain was numb. Everything she thought she knew about the past two decades of her life had been a lie, blasted to pieces in just five minutes.

  She tried to pull together the torn scraps of her thoughts. She knew she had to do something, but had no idea what. Should she report him to the authorities?

  Well . . . for what, exactly? And which authorities?

  And besides, who would ever believe her?

  The items on the desk, in her hand . . . it was evidence of something terrible going on. But she could hardly steal any of it without him noticing. He was incredibly smart, and ruthless.

  She remembered the gun—and her mouth went dry.

  The evidence could not go with her. Everything in here had to stay exactly as—

  Then she thought of the obvious solution.

  She left the passports on the desk and hurried to the door. Making sure to keep it propped open, she ran to the bedroom for her purse. Fetching her phone, she rushed back into his study.

  She spread open the passports on his desk, laying the corresponding driver’s licenses alongside. Then she stood above them with her phone and started taking photos, including close-ups of each item.

  Next, she moved around to the safe, adjusted the camera for flash, and started tapping away. First, from a distance, to show the open panel. Then successively closer, to reveal the contents.

  Then, close-ups. The guns and ammunition. The twin stacks of cash. The strange-looking radio and the other gadgets. She pulled some of them out, placed them on the floor, and got good close-ups before replacing everything as it had been.

  Finally, she went back to the desk to photograph the medallion and the accompanying booklet in that strange Russian writing. She was busy taking shots of the photo album when she spied the scrapbook still lying within the metal box.

  She lifted it out and carefully opened it. Began turning pages.

  The shock she had experienced so far could not match what she now felt.

  As she took photo after photo of its contents, it was hard to keep her hands from shaking, harder still to focus through the welling tears. There was so much, too much. She kept it up as long as she dared, then replaced the scrapbook in the box.

  She spent her last moments in the room arranging everything exactly as she first saw it. Then, as she went out, she realized he probably hadn’t noticed that the hanger kept the door from closing, so she kicked it aside and let it click shut and locked.

  Outside, she felt nauseous. She had to lean against the wall to keep her balance.

  Now, she had to think about what to do next.

  The ugly image of that gun, and what it implied, loomed in her mind.

  Gripping her phone tightly in both hands, like a drowning person clutching a life preserver, she stumbled down the hallway and into her own office.

  She made sure to lock the door behind her.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Trammel rang her bell. And waited, growing more anxious by the second. Then rapped on her door. He did not dare call out, for fear of attracting the attention of neighbors.

  Finally, he heard the lock being unlatched. The door opened.

  She stood there in a short, pale-blue satin bathrobe, barely tied shut. It would have been any man’s sex fantasy—save for her bleary red eyes and the slackness in her lips.

  “Soooo. He actually came.”

  “Of course. Let me in, please.”

  “Sure . . . come on in, make yourself at home. After all, it is yours, you’re payin’ for it. Like you’re payin’ for me, right?”

  He nudged his way past her and closed the door.

  “Come, let us sit down, Emmalee. Here, let me help you to a chair.”

  “Oh, how gallant!” she said, smirking, but grabbing his offered arm.

  He steered her on an unsteady path toward a stuffed chair, but she shook off his hand and flopped on the sofa. Her bathrobe rode up and came almost completely undone. A near-empty Chardonnay bottle stood on the coffee table next to her phone, an almost-empty wine glass, and a box of tissues. Crumpled tissues were scattered across the table and on the carpet near the sofa.

  “Emmalee . . . dear. I am worried about you,” he said, hanging his jacket on the back of the chair opposite and sitting. “Tell me what is wrong.”

  Her mouth twisted into a sneer. “‘Emmalee dear.’ Oh, he’s so worried about you, Emmalee. How nice. Well, mister big shot, you sure have a funny way of showin’ it.”

  “Whatever do you mean? Have I not—”

  “You think you can just waltz into my life an’ buy my ass, like I’m some kinda cheap whore. You set me up here an’ then you pimp me out . . . No, wait, don’t you deny it, it took me a while to figure it out, but that’s what this is, isn’t it? Except I don’t get paid by the hour, I get paid by the month, I getta monthly allowance in my checking account, an’ this fancy pad, where I turn tricks for you, so that—”

  “My God, Emmalee! Is that what you think? Please, stop and listen. Carl Spencer—darling, that was for us. I thought you would enjoy it—you told me you would, and afterward you said you did. It excited me, too, secretly watching you—and I filmed it so we could watch it later, together.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “He didn’t pay you, or do you some kinda favors in return?”

  “Absolutely not! He had no idea you and I planned what happened . . . or that he was being watched and filmed. I only told him you needed a job, and he agreed to meet you to discuss it. You did all the rest.” He forced a smile. “Look at you. No wonder he found you irresistible.”

  Her eyes tracked down her exposed flesh. “Really?”

  “Of course! How could you think otherwise?”

  “Because you an’ he have been totally ignoring me, ever since. You don’t answer my calls, you stood me up this weekend. An’ he won’t take my calls, either, even though he promised me a job.”

  “You . . . called him?”

  “A bunch of times. I left messages, too, on the number he gave me. But after he got his jollies, now he doesn’t have the time of day for me.”

  Trammel had to clench his teeth.

  “Emmalee—you must be reasonable. Think about it. Carl Spencer is a presidential candidate. His schedule is completely booked, and everyone is watching his every move. His enemies would just love to find out about you. Did you honestly expect anything more than what happened that one night?”

  “I expect him to at least keep his goddamn promise and give me a goddamn job. Like I expect you to keep your goddamn promise when you make a date for the weekend.”

  “I am so sorry about that. But you know I am advising his campaign. And after the terrorist attacks, you cannot ima
gine how busy we have been.”

  “But you coulda called, at least, insteada keepin’ me waiting here.”

  He clenched his fists. “You are entirely right, my dear. It was inexcusable of me.”

  “Yeah. An’ when am I gonna meet Julia? You said we’d do things together, and you haven’t even introduced us yet.”

  This was getting way out of hand.

  “You are right about that, too. Julia and I have been so busy that we barely see each other these days. But I shall speak to her as soon as possible to arrange dinner together.”

  She seemed mollified at that. Then her lips began to work.

  “I thought . . .”

  “What did you think?”

  Tears began to puddle. “I thought you were gonna abandon me.”

  “Emmalee! How could you—”

  “After Ash, I couldn’t take that. I’d be all alone again. Back out on the street, without no money and no job, and—”

  She began to wail.

  He moved to the sofa, put his arm around her shoulders.

  “You should have known better than that. I told you I would take care of you, did I not?”

  She looked up at him, the tears laying fresh tracks of mascara down her cheeks.

  “You’re so strong, Avery. An’ look at me. I’m a mess. Since Ash died, I’m nothing.”

  “Now, you truly are being silly. You are intelligent, and talented, and beautiful.” He kissed her forehead.

  “You think I’m still beautiful? I was, once. I could get any damn man I wanted.”

  “You are gorgeous. Any man would be lucky to have you. Remember how Carl wanted you?”

  She giggled. “Yeah. He did.”

  “Here, let me get you a tissue.”

  She wiped her eyes and nose. Looked up at him again.

  “You still want me, too, right?”

  He squeezed her shoulders. “Of course I do.”

  “Prove it,” she said, opening the bathrobe.

  For Avery Trammel, the lies, and those implied by his actions, came easily.

  2

  Julia spent the next hour downloading the photos from her phone to her desktop computer, into an innocuously labeled file folder, and then uploading a copy of the folder into a cloud storage service. She made a third copy on a thumb drive, and hid it in a purse in the back of her closet.