by Stuart Woods
“Of course,” Will replied. “Any time Joe likes.”
The Speaker of the House materialized at Will’s elbow. “Evening, Will,” he said, with a warmth that caught Will off guard. “Katharine, you look lovely tonight.”
“Thank you, Mr. Speaker,” Kate said. Nobody had called her Katharine since high school.
“How are you, Eft?” Will asked.
“I’m better than expected, at this stage of the campaign,” Efton replied softly, as if he didn’t want to be overheard.
“You think you’ll have a majority of delegates before the convention?” Will asked.
“Could be,” Efton replied. “Then it looks like it’ll be George Kiel and me in the general election. And you, of course; you’ll be on the ticket, won’t you?”
“Only if I’m at the top of it,” Will said, surprising himself. He took Efton’s comment as it had been intended, as a barb.
“That’s the boy,” Efton said, punching Will’s shoulder. “Never say die!”
“Sometimes the voters say it for you, Eft,” Will replied. “Excuse me, I want to talk to George.” He steered Kate in the direction of his opponent for the Democratic nomination.
Kiel greeted him, smiling broadly. “Well, Will,” he said, “I thought you’d be on the road.”
“Funny, George, I thought you would be, too.”
“Well, I guess I can afford a night off to have dinner with our acting president, but frankly,” he said, smiling, “I’m surprised you can. My people tell me we’re going to take the nomination on the first ballot by a hundred and fifty votes.”
Will managed a broad smile. “You go right on thinking that, George.” Will’s best projection was that he was sixty votes behind, but he wasn’t going to tell Kiel that. “I love an overconfident opponent.”
Kiel managed a chuckle, then turned serious. “Will, you and I need to sit down and talk about some things. How about tomorrow morning at nine, in my hideaway office on the Hill?”
Will had no intention of sitting down with Kiel until he was forced to. “I’m afraid I’m off at the crack of dawn tomorrow, George,” he said. “Maybe at the convention?”
“Well,” Kiel said, “I suppose our relative positions will be better defined by that time.”
“I guess they will,” Will agreed.
An usher came into the room, rang a gong, and announced dinner. The crowd moved into a room that had been set with four tables of eight, as a string quartet from the Marine Band played in a corner. Will and Efton were at the same table, as were George Kiel and Mallon. Will wondered if there were some subliminal message in that. Was Joe Adams trying to tell the crowd something? He looked across the room to where Joe sat, chatting earnestly with a beautiful woman to his right. Joe looked tanned and fit, Will thought.
The guests worked their way through three courses of dinner, chatting noisily. Will was grateful that he and Efton were on opposite sides of the table; he was never comfortable in the Speaker’s company, disliking both the man and his politics. Still, he had always been scrupulously polite to the man, except in campaign speeches. Will looked around the room, noting the composition of the guest list. There were prominent members of the Senate and the House from both parties, and Will could spot no members of the press, with the exception of the long-retired Walter Cronkite, who, with his wife, sat at the Adamses’ table. They were on coffee when Joe Adams stood up and addressed the group.
“Good evening to you all,” he said. “This is the first time that Sue and I have entertained in the White House since the first lady so kindly asked us to move in, and we are very pleased to have you all as our first guests.
“What you have in common, of course, is that, after the coming election, you will all play important roles in the running of the country. Almost certainly, the eventual nominees of the two parties are here, and by extension, the next president of the United States. So what Sue and I have here is not just a very special group of guests, but a very distinguished captive audience.” There was a low chuckle from the crowd.
“You all know that I have declared my intention of withholding my endorsement of any candidate before the convention, and I believe my party can select a slate without my help, even at that time. Of course, after the conventions, I have to say that I’m leaning toward supporting the Democratic candidate.” Loud laughter.
“Although I don’t expect to take much part in active campaigning.”
“Hear, hear!” Eft Efton shouted, and the crowd laughed again.
“I didn’t say I was going to be neutral, Eft,” Adams said with a smile. More laughter.
“I asked you all here tonight,” he continued, “not to once again convey my hands-off position during the campaign, but to talk about your hands-on position. I hardly have to tell you that, in recent years, our political process has taken on a harsh, even bitter partisanship that has not served either the process or the country well. We have spent far too much time and energy fighting for political advantage instead of working to make this a better country. I want us all to stop it, and the current campaign is the time and place.
“Because of the position in which fate has placed me, perhaps I’m in a better position than most politicians to call for this change. During my months as acting president, I have bent over backward to govern in a bipartisan fashion, and some of you have responded to that effort, while others have been, shall we say, less enthusiastic.” Nobody laughed.
“We’re beginning the new millennium in extraordinarily good shape—a healthy economy, a lack of major military conflict and even political conflict, low unemployment, lower crime rates, and high optimism among our fellow countrymen. The last century has often been called the American Century. Well, let’s have another American Century. Let’s consolidate the gains that our fathers and grandfathers and we ourselves have fought so hard to earn, and let’s go on to make this a better, safer, more peaceful country, while maintaining our leadership role as the world’s only superpower.
“But I’m falling into clichés here, and I don’t want to do that. I want to ask every one of you to go into this election as Americans, first, and party politicians second; I want an end to personal attacks and false moralizing; I want the next president to reach out to both parties and their constituencies; I want each of you here to dedicate himself to a new bipartisanship in this country. I believe there is more at stake right now in this country than at any time since the end of World War II, and if we can’t face the next century working together, we have a great deal to lose.
“I know that there are those among you who think that you are all right and everyone else is all wrong. I know this is true because at times I have had those same feelings myself. Doing this job has shown me that I was wrong.”
Then something happened that frightened Will. Joe Adams stood, his head down, staring at the table in front of him, saying nothing. For a moment, he thought Adams was near tears, then he realized that he had simply forgotten what he was going to say, or perhaps even where he was and who he was talking to. Sue Adams reached out and took her husband’s hand, and still he did not continue. Somebody had to do something.
Will got to his feet, applauding; so did Eft Efton, and in a moment, the crowd was standing, cheering. Sue Adams led her husband from the room. At the door, he paused, waved to the crowd, then disappeared.
The applause died, and Will’s eyes found Kate’s across the table. He could see the fear in them.
29
Before dawn, Will kissed a still-sleeping Kate good-bye, went downstairs, gave his bags to a Secret Service agent, and got into the car. Tim Coleman and Kitty Conroy were waiting for him, sipping coffee.
“So, how was the Adamses’ first White House party?” Kitty asked.
“Just great,” Will lied. He had lain awake last night wondering if Joe Adams’s slip was temporary or indicative of a slide into permanent senility.
“You don’t sound as if it was great,” Kitty said.
; “Sorry, I’m still half-asleep.”
“Well,” Tim said, “this ought to wake you up: I had a call yesterday from Lou Regenstein.”
“The movie mogul?”
“That’s right; he’s the chairman of Centurion Studios.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever met him.”
“You’ve met Vance Calder, haven’t you?”
“Yes, at a dinner party in New York a couple of years ago.”
“Well, Calder is, apparently, a big fan of yours.”
“First I’ve heard about that,” Will said.
“You must have impressed him at the dinner party.”
“We did talk a lot; I found him very bright. For a Brit, he seemed pretty well informed about American politics.”
“He was born there, but he’s been an American citizen for more than twenty years. And, in addition to being Centurion’s biggest star, he’s a major stockholder in the studio.”
“I think I knew that; I’m not sure how.”
“Anyway, both Calder and Centurion want to get behind you in a big way.”
“How big?”
“Calder and the costar of his next film want to host a fund-raiser for you in L.A. right before the convention. He’s promised to get a thousand people to his house, at a thousand dollars a head.”
“He can get a thousand people into his house?”
“He’s got twelve acres in Bel Air, and he’ll do it on the lawn. It never rains in sunny California.”
“A million bucks in individual contributions? Wow.”
“And a lot of them will contribute to the party, too. There’s more: Centurion is going to give a million to the party after you’re nominated.”
“That would make them the single biggest contributor, wouldn’t it?”
“By a long shot.”
“Tell them I accept.”
“I already have. I hope you don’t mind, but I thought it was better not to hesitate.”
“You did the right thing, Tim,” Will said. “This is a great way to start the last leg of the campaign for the nomination.” He looked at Tim and Kitty. “So why do you two look so glum?”
“I guess you haven’t seen the Washington Post this morning,” Kitty said, handing it to him and pointing at a story below the fold:
FORMER CLIENT ACCUSES SEN. WILL LEE OF INCOMPETENCE IN APPEAL OF MURDER CONVICTION
“What the hell is this?” Will said, reading the piece.
“Larry Eugene Moody is appealing his murder conviction,” Tim said. “His grounds are that he was incompetently represented by you in his original trial.”
Will was having trouble reading the story in the moving car. “Go on,” he said. “Just how was I incompetent?”
“He says—or his new lawyer says—that you failed to depose a key witness against him, and that you offered no other witnesses to counter her testimony.”
“This would be the African-American girl who said he raped her in high school?”
“That’s the one.”
“It’s true that her testimony probably got him convicted. I thought I had it won until another witness blurted out the story about the alleged rape. Does the lawyer say how I was supposed to know she’d be called?”
“Moody says that he told you about the accusation in his first meeting with you, and that you did nothing to prepare for the witness.”
“That’s a bald-faced lie!” Will said. “Larry was convicted because he withheld that information from me. If I’d known about the incident with the girl, I would have known how to avoid opening the door on her testimony.”
“Was there anyone else at that first meeting between you and Moody?”
“No, we were alone.”
“Too bad; it’ll be your word against his.”
“All right,” Kitty said, “let’s run down what we’ve got here, and figure out how to deal with it. This story is, of course, immaterial to anything in the election. I think it’s a sideshow staged by the Republicans; they’re just hoping that enough mud will stick to hurt you. What we’ve got to do is to issue a statement this morning denying the charge of incompetence and stating the basic facts in the case.”
“All right, I buy that,” Will said. “You can type it up on the airplane and release it to the traveling press on the way west.”
“After I hand that out, I think you ought to go forward in the plane and just chat with them informally about the murder case. You have nothing to hide, it’s just Moody’s desperate attempt to avoid being put to death, et cetera.”
“All right. I can do that, but I have to avoid saying that Larry was guilty, though, God knows, he was. It wouldn’t be ethical for a lawyer who represented someone in a murder trial to talk about his client’s guilt while his case is under appeal.”
“You might point that out to the press.”
“I certainly will.”
Tim spoke up. “I think it’s interesting that, if Republicans are involved in this, they’re out to get you even before the convention. That indicates to me that they’d rather run against George Kiel than you.”
“A backhanded compliment, if I ever heard one,” Will replied. Then something popped into his mind. “Wait a minute,” he said. “You said that the fund-raiser in L.A. is going to be hosted by Vance Calder and his costar?”
“That’s right,” Tim said.
“And who is his costar?”
“Gosh, I forgot to ask,” Tim replied.
“As soon as they’re awake in L.A., call and find out.”
“Okay; I’ll call Regenstein back at nine their time.”
Kitty was looking sharply at Will. “What is it?” she asked.
“I think I might know who the costar is,” Will replied.
“Who?” Kitty and Tim asked simultaneously.
“It might very well be Charlene Joiner.”
It took a moment for the penny to drop; then both their mouths dropped open. “Oh, shit,” Kitty said.
“Charlene called me over the holidays and asked me to handle an appeal for Larry Moody. I refused.”
“What else did she want?” Kitty asked.
“That was about it.”
“About it? Come on, Will, what else?”
“That was it, really,” Will said. He was not about to mention that Charlene had suggested they get together.
“This is not good,” Tim said.
“Well, there are going to be a thousand people there. Maybe it’ll be all right.”
“You don’t understand,” Tim said.
“Understand what?”
“There’s more to the news story about Moody’s appeal.” He picked up the Post, turned to an inside page, held it to the light, and read. “Moody’s lawyer also charged that Will Lee had a sexual relationship with Moody’s girlfriend during the trial, in which she was an important witness in establishing Moody’s alibi. The girlfriend, Charlene Joiner, is now one of Hollywood’s rising stars.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Will said.
“I agree,” Kitty chimed in. “I thought we had killed that particular snake in your first senatorial campaign, but it’s back.”
“Maybe that’s not a bad thing,” Tim said.
“What are you talking about?” Kitty demanded.
“I wasn’t all that active in that campaign,” Tim said, “but as I recall, there was a school of thought that the, ah, incident with Charlene Joiner may have actually helped in the campaign.”
“That was before Bill Clinton,” Kitty said.
“Oh,” Tim replied, “there is that.”
“Yes,” Will agreed, “there is that.”
30
Senator Frederick Wallace strolled down a Capitol hallway toward his hideaway office, the best in the Senate. Seniority had its privileges. He nodded to many passersby, spoke to a few, and kept his trademark half smile fixed to his face. He let himself into the room and immediately stepped on something made of paper. He closed the door, held on to the doorknob for support, and reach
ed down for the envelope on the floor. Freddie Wallace had a considerable gut, and he did not like bending over.
Wallace walked across the room to his big easy chair, tossed the envelope onto the coffee table beside it, opened a cabinet, and poured himself a shot of neat bourbon. It was not yet ten o’clock in the morning, but he always started the day with a shot of this very fine, private stock bourbon that a Kentucky friend supplied him with. It was something he had learned as a very young man from Harry Truman.
Truman had knocked his back, though, like medicine, and Wallace was far too appreciative of the skills of Kentucky distillers to rush the experience. He sipped at the bourbon, then picked up the envelope that someone had shoved under his door. It bore only his name, the Capitol room number, the zip code, and the admonition that the contents were personal and confidential. It bore an Atlanta postmark.
Wallace got a fat finger under the flap and tore open the envelope. Inside he found a single sheet of paper, no letterhead or return address. The page had been composed very neatly on what was obviously a manual typewriter, an uncommon instrument these days. He read:
Dear Freddie,
I hope you don’t mind if I call you that. Although we’ve met only a few times, always in passing, I feel that I know you well. We have much in common: We are both old, wise in the ways of the world and, particularly, in the ways of politics, and we are both very crafty human beings, not to say sneaky.
We are also both in possession of some extremely sensitive knowledge regarding the recent health of an influential person. I trust I will not have to allude further to the person for you to know whom I mean; I would not like to do that in a written communication.
I know you well enough to feel certain that you will, under what you deem the proper circumstances, use this information against another person who shares this knowledge with you and me. I don’t want you to do this, Freddie, for my own reasons, so I am taking this opportunity to let you know that, should you allow your worst nature to come to the forefront, I am going to take it upon myself to make your golden years very difficult. I can do this, because I have documentary evidence of a part of your life that, if made known, could destroy your credibility in the Senate and make your marriage a perfect hell.