Odd Partners
Page 37
“Bastard messing with my sweet tea?” Ebbett grumbled in mock rage. Then his eyes slid to Kim Morton. “A local security guard took on a pro assassin…and kicked his ass.”
“I just had some thoughts. It was Agent Tomson and Agent Ivers who did everything.”
“Don’t play down your role.” He looked her over for a moment. “Artie was telling me a few things about you. How you always wanted to be a police officer.”
“Oh,” she said, looking down. “I guess. That didn’t work out. But I’m happy with my life now.”
“That’s good. Sure…But you know my campaign slogan.”
She said, “Making a great country greater.”
“So what if I could make your happy life happier?”
“I’m not sure what you mean, sir.”
“What I mean is you did something for me; now I’d like to do something for you. Artie, leave us alone for a few minutes. There’s something I’d like to discuss with Ms….I mean, with Officer Morton.”
“I’ll be outside, sir.”
* * *
—
At exactly 10:20 that night Governor Paul Ebbett’s speech concluded with “And God bless the United States of America.” The last word vanished in the tide of screams, whistles, and thunderous applause. Thirty thousand people were on their feet, waving banners and tossing aloft fake straw hats.
Art Tomson, who’d been onstage for the full event, now walked down the steps and joined Kim Morton, who was standing guard at the doorway that led to the underground passage through which Governor Ebbett would exit in a moment.
The evening had gone off without a hitch. In a few minutes Searcher would be in the SUV and speeding to the airport.
“Good speech,” she said.
Tomson, who’d heard it or variations of it scores of times, simply nodded noncommittally.
Then she lowered her voice and said, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Did the governor tell you what he’s going to do for me?”
“No.”
Morton explained what the candidate had said in their private meeting. “He’s going to get me into the state police academy here. He’s a friend of our governor, who owes him for something or another.” Her face broke into a smile. “And he arranged for a stipend—almost as much as I’m making here. He said one favor deserves another. He did that all because you told him I wanted to be a cop.”
“He was asking about you. He thought you were sharper than some of the people working for him.” Tomson added with gravity in his voice, “And the fact is, none of us came up with that idea about the poison.”
“Just a theory is all.”
“Still, in this line of work, better safe than sorry.”
Thomson tapped his earpiece and heard: “Searcher’s on the move.”
Into his sleeve mike he said, “Roger. Exit is clear.”
Tomson shook Morton’s hand. She gave him a fast embrace. Never in his years of being an agent had he hugged a fellow personal protection officer. He was startled. Then he hugged her back and peeled away to join the candidate and his escort hurrying to the waiting SUV.
III
May 24
The main room at Earl’s wasn’t smoky, hadn’t been for years. Even vaping was prohibited.
But the aroma of tobacco persisted, as the owners of the place had made no effort to clean the smell away. Because men, alcohol, and semiclad women somehow demanded the scent of cigarette smoke—if not the fumes themselves.
Bil Sheering was at the bar, nursing a Jack and Coke, looking at the scruffy audience sitting by the low stage and at unsteady round bistro tables. While he knew they all could figure out “Exotic Dance,” he was wondering how many had a clue what an “Emporium” was. He wondered, too, why Earl—if there was, or had been, an Earl—had decided to affix the name to his strip joint.
Then his attention turned back to Starlight, the woman on center stage at the moment. Some of the dancers who performed here were bored gyrators. Some offered crude poses and outsized, flirtatious glances. And some were uneasy and modest. But Starlight was into dancing with both elegance and sensuality.
He was enjoying her performance when his attention slipped to the TV, where an announcement was interrupting the game. On the screen was a red graphic: “Breaking News.”
Somebody beside him chuckled drunkenly. “Don’tcha love it? ‘Breaking news’ used to be a world war or plane crash. Now it’s a thunderstorm, vandals at a 7-Eleven. Media’s full of shit.”
Bil said nothing but kept his attention on the grimy TV. A blond anchorwoman appeared. She seemed to have been caught unprepared by what was coming next. “We now bring you breaking news from Washington, D.C. We’re live at the campaign headquarters of Governor Paul Ebbett for what he has said is an important announcement.”
Bil watched the man stride to the front of the room. Cameras fired away, the thirty-shots-per-second mode, sounding like silenced machine guns in a movie.
At Ebbett’s side was his wife, a tall, handsome woman on whose severe face was propped a stony smile.
“My fellow Americans, I am here tonight to announce that I am withdrawing from the campaign for president of the United States.” Gasps from the crowd. “In my months on the campaign trail, I have come to realize that the most important work in governing this country is on the grassroots level, rather than inside the Beltway. And it’s in those local offices that I feel I can be of most benefit to my party and to the American people. Accordingly, I will be ceasing my efforts to run for president and returning to my great home state, where I’ll be running”—he swallowed hard—“for supervisor of Calloway County.” A long pause. “I’m also urging all of my electoral delegates and other supporters to back a man I feel exhibits the best qualities of leadership for America, Senator Mark Todd.”
Another collective gasp, more buzzing of the cameras.
Ebbett took his wife’s hand. Bil noted she didn’t squeeze it, but let him grip the digits the way you might pick up a gutted fish in a tray of shaved ice to examine it for freshness.
“Senator Todd is just the man to lead our party to victory and”—Ebbett’s voice caught—“make a great nation greater. Thank you, my fellow citizens. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.”
No applause. Just a torrent of questions from the floor. Ebbett ignored them and walked from the room, his wife beside him, their hands no longer entwined.
The scene switched back to the brightly lit newsroom and the anchorwoman saying, “That was Governor Paul Ebbett, who just yesterday seemed unstoppable on his route to his party’s candidacy. But there you heard it: his shocking news that he is dropping out of the race. And his equally stunning endorsement of Senator Mark Todd. Todd, considered a far more moderate and bipartisan politician than Ebbett, has been the governor’s main rival on the primary campaign trail. Although Todd avoided personal attacks, Ebbett rarely missed the chance to belittle and mock the senator.”
Reading from what had to be hastily scribbled notes on the teleprompter, the blond anchor said, “A lot of people were surprised by the success Ebbett enjoyed in the primary campaign, which played to the darker side of American society. His positions were controversial. Many in both parties thought his nationalist-charged rhetoric was divisive. He openly admitted that his campaign phrase, ‘Make a Great Country Greater,’ meant greater for people like him, white and Christian. He promised to slash social spending to education and the poor.
“He alarmed those both in this country and abroad by stating that one of his first acts in office would be to mass American troops along Russia’s borders. Some pundits have said that Ebbett might have targeted Russia not for any political or ideological reason, but because he believed a common enemy would solidify support around
him.
“We now have in the studio and via Skype hookup our National Presidential Campaign panel for an analysis of this unexpected announcement—”
“Hey, Bil,” came the woman’s voice behind him.
Bil turned to see the dancer who’d just been up onstage sidling up to him, pulling a shawl over her ample breasts. Bil wasn’t completely happy she’d donned the garment.
He knew she went by Starlight at Earl’s but he couldn’t help but think of her by her real name: Kim Morton.
She smiled to the bartender, who brought her a scotch on the rocks. The headline dancer began to pull bills out of her G-string. As tawdry as Earl’s was, it looked like she had been tipped close to two hundred dollars—for twenty minutes at the pole. She sipped her drink and nodded at the screen. “You did it.”
“Me?” Bil asked, smiling. “We did it.”
She cocked her head. “Guess I can’t really argue with that one.”
We did it….
They sure as hell had.
Six months ago, the National Party Committee had become alarmed, then panicked, that Paul Ebbett was picking up a significant number of delegates in the primary contests, beating out their preferred candidate, Senator Mark Todd. They were astonished that Governor Ebbett’s bigoted and militant rhetoric was stirring up a groundswell of support.
The committee knew Ebbett was lose-lose. If elected, he would destroy not only the party, but probably the economy and perhaps even the nation itself—if he managed to start World War III, which seemed more than a little possible.
Committee Chairman Victor Brown wanted Ebbett out. But backroom attempts to negotiate with him to drop out were futile. In fact, the effort incensed him and fueled his resolve to win…and purge the ranks of those who had questioned his ability to lead the country.
So extreme measures were required.
Last March Victor had called in Bil Sheering, who ran a ruthless political consulting company in Washington, D.C. Bil had hurried back from his hunting lodge in West Virginia to his M Street office and got to work.
For the plan Bil came up with, he needed a “pro”—by which he meant a call girl based in the region of the Midwestern state where Governor Ebbett would be holding a big rally in May. After some research, he’d settled on Kim Morton, aka Starlight, a dancer at Earl’s with an escort business on the side. He’d found her to be smart, well-spoken, and without a criminal history. She also had a particular contempt for Ebbett since her husband had been killed in Afghanistan, which she considered an unnecessary war, just like the one Ebbett seemed to be planning.
Victor had given Bil a generous budget; he offered Morton a quarter-million dollars to take a hiatus from dancing for two months and get a job as a security guard at the Pittstown Convention Center. She used her charm and intelligence to talk her way onto the security team working with the Secret Service at the rally, earning the trust of the senior agent, Art Tomson.
The day of the rally, Bil, who’d grown an impressive moustache and shaved his head, dressed in combat gear and smeared mud on the license plate of an old hulk of a Toyota he’d bought at a junkyard. He’d made his way toward the convention center from Haleyville to Prescott to Avery, making intentionally suspicious purchases: sniper bullets and PVC pipes and hardware. He’d also made the anonymous call about a man having a phone conversation about Ebbett and the rally with a rifle in the backseat of his car.
Meanwhile, Kim Morton continued to ingratiate herself into the Secret Service operation…and get the attention of Ebbett himself. She’d spotted the suspicious man in the crowd, armed with two rotten tomatoes (the kid was an intern from National Party headquarters given a bonus to play the role). Finally she’d offered her insights about the sniper attack being a diversion—poisoning might be the real form of assassination. (There never was any toxin; at the hardware store Bil had not stolen the rodenticide but had merely hidden the cans in another aisle; when they were later discovered the Secret Service would conclude the attack was a product of the security guard’s overactive imagination.)
The script called for Morton to tackle Ebbett to “save his life.” Following that intimate and ice-breaking moment, Kim Morton had fired enough flirtatious glances his way to ignite latent flames of infidelity. After he’d asked her to stay and Art Tomson had left the suite, Ebbett slipped his arm around her and whispered, “I know you want a slot at the police academy. An hour in bed with me and I’ll make it happen.”
She’d looked shocked at first, as the role called for, but soon “gave in.”
The ensuing liaison was energetic and slightly kinky, as Morton told him she was a bit of a voyeur and wanted the lights on. Ebbett was all for it. This proved helpful, since the tiny high-def video camera, hidden in her uniform jacket hanging strategically on the bedroom doorknob, required good illumination.
She’d delivered the video to Bil, who uploaded the encrypted file to Victor Brown. The head of the national committee had called Ebbett last week and gave him an ultimatum: Withdraw or the tape would go to every media outlet in the world.
After a bit of debate, in which Ebbett had apparently confessed to his wife what had happened (the fish-hand thing suggested this), the man had reluctantly agreed.
Eyes now on the screen, Morton said to Bil, “He’s actually running for county supervisor?”
“That’s the only bone they’d throw him. He’s up against a twenty-two-year-old manager at Farmer’s Trust and Savings. The polls aren’t in Ebbett’s favor.” Bill leaned close and whispered, “I have the rest of your fee.”
“I’ve got one more show. I’ll get it after.”
Bil had an amusing image of himself, sitting in the front row and, as Starlight danced close to him, tucking $150,000 into her G-string.
“This worked out well. You interested in any more work?” he asked.
“You’ve got my number.”
Bil nodded. Then he lifted his drink. “Here’s to us—unlikely partners.”
She smiled and tapped her glass to his. Then she shrugged the silky wrap off her shoulders into his lap and walked back to the stage.
CREDITS
“Reconciliation” copyright © 2019 by Anne Perry
“The Nature of the Beast” copyright © 2019 by William Kent Krueger
“Sad Onions: A Hap and Leonard Story” copyright © 2019 by Bizarre Hands LLC
“The Wagatha Labsy Secret Dogtective Alliance: A Dog Noir Story” copyright © 2019 by Jacqueline Winspear
“Glock, Paper, Scissors” copyright © 2019 by Shelley Costa
“Blood Money: An Inspector Rutledge Story” copyright © 2019 by Charles Todd
“The Violins Played Before Junshan” copyright © 2019 by Lou Kemp
“What Ever Happened to Lorna Winters?” copyright © 2019 by Lisa Morton
“Oglethorpe’s Camera” copyright © 2019 by Claire Ortalda
“The Last Game” copyright © 2019 by Robert Dugoni
“NO 11 SQUATTER” copyright © 2019 by Adele Polomski
“A Cold Spell” copyright © 2019 by Mark Thielman
“What Would Nora Do?” copyright © 2019 by Georgia Jeffries
“Hector’s Bees” copyright © 2019 by Amanda Witt
“Georgia in the Wind” copyright © 2019 by William Frank
“From Four till Late: A Nick Travers Story” copyright © 2019 by Ace Atkins
“Bite Out of Crime” copyright © 2019 by Allison Brennan
“Songbird Blues” copyright © 2019 by Stephen Ross
“Security” copyright © 2019 by Gunner Publications, LLC
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
New York Times bestselling author ACE ATKINS has been n
ominated for every major award in crime fiction, including the Edgar three times, twice for novels about former U.S. Army Ranger Quinn Colson. He has written eight books in the Colson series and continued Robert B. Parker’s iconic Spenser character after Parker’s death in 2010, adding seven bestselling novels in that series. A former newspaper reporter and SEC football player, Ace also writes essays and investigative pieces for several national magazines including Time, Outside, and Garden & Gun. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his family, where he’s friend to many dogs and several bartenders.
ALLISON BRENNAN believes that life is too short to be bored, so she writes three books a year and is raising five children. She’s the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than three dozen thrillers and numerous short stories. She currently writes two award-winning series—the Lucy Kincaid thrillers and the Maxine Revere cold case mysteries—and lives in Northern California with her husband, her youngest three kids, and assorted pets.
SHELLEY COSTA’s work has been nominated for both the Edgar and Agatha Awards. She is the author of You Cannoli Die Once, Basil Instinct, Practical Sins for Cold Climates, and A Killer’s Guide to Good Works. Her stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Blood on Their Hands, The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories, Crimewave, and The Georgia Review. Shelley holds a Ph.D. in English from Case Western Reserve University, where she wrote her dissertation on suspense, and she teaches fiction writing at the Cleveland Institute of Art. She and her husband live in Chagrin Falls, Ohio.
JEFFERY DEAVER is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous suspense novels, including The Blue Nowhere and The Bone Collector, which was made into a feature film starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. He has been nominated for five Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, and is a two-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Readers Award for Best Short Story of the Year. A lawyer who quit practicing to write full-time, he lives in California and Virginia.