Wild Card

by Stuart Woods

  “It looks as though your prediction about the Thomases not acting while they are suing us and the book is out was not accurate.”

  “I can’t deny that,” Stone said. “I thought they were more careful people.”

  “Reckless, sounds more like it.”

  “I can’t disagree. Do you feel safe where you are?”

  “I’m on a high floor of a very good hotel with two armed guards. I feel safe for now, but tonight I have to speak to a public audience at a bookstore.”

  “Viv tells me you will be speaking to an invited audience of press and public officials, plus whoever might be in the bookstore at the time. The location was not advertised.”

  “That’s encouraging.”

  “Just do what your guards tell you to do, and don’t argue with them. You’ll be fine.”

  “If you say so, though your track record on this subject is less than perfect.”

  “If you want perfect, I’m sure Viv can find a nice steel room to lock you in.”

  Jamie laughed in spite of herself. “Oh, all right. I’m sure I’ll be safe tonight.” They both hung up.

  * * *

  • • •

  Early in the evening Bob showed up at Stone’s house.

  “What’s the latest?” Stone asked.

  “She’s stable and out of the ICU. They put her in a room. Her doctor showed me an X-ray. It was like shooting a bullet through the side of a football without hitting the air bladder inside, so there’s no brain damage. I caught a nap in a reclining chair, then she woke up and talked a bit, but the doctor hustled me out and told me to go home. Sherry wanted it that way, too. I’ll go back tomorrow.”

  “Consider yourself at home,” Stone replied.

  “What happened to Jamie at LaGuardia?” Bob asked.

  Stone told him, then looked at his watch. “She’ll be arriving at the bookstore about now. How about some dinner?”

  “Sure.”

  They went upstairs to Stone’s study and had a drink first.

  “I want to go on the offensive,” Bob said.

  “I know you do, and I understand why. Do you understand why you shouldn’t?”

  “Because they’ll be expecting me?”

  “Exactly. You’ve already nearly burned down their building—or rather, some unknown person did. They’re going to be ready. Wait until they’re not.”

  Bob nodded but said nothing.

  * * *

  • • •

  Rance Damien attended dinner with the two Thomases.

  “I watched a few minutes of a Joe Box speech,” Henry said. “He wasn’t awful. I didn’t cringe once.”

  “He is improving rapidly,” Rance replied, “under the tutelage of Ari. It turns out that he has a remarkable memory, so the teleprompter instructor has been returned to the wild.”

  Henry laughed at that, something he didn’t do often, unless there was a woman involved. “He even looks better,” he said.

  “That’s because Ari instructed him to have his clothes pressed daily.”

  “Tell us about this Ari,” Hank said. “Is he personable?”

  “Not in the least,” Rance replied. “He’s blunt to the point of rudeness, and beyond. He has the uncomfortable faculty of always saying what he’s thinking—unadorned.”

  “Is he trainable?”

  “Not in that regard, I think, but he can learn anything. Mostly, he already has. He would be erudite, if he had any charm.”

  “I didn’t know charm was a factor in erudition,” Hank said.

  “It is, if you want people to continue to listen to you. A recitation of facts gets pretty cold without charm.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Ari Kramer and Annie Lee stood offstage in a school auditorium and listened to Senator Joseph Box orate, except it was more like a chat among friends. Box at times gripped the podium with both hands; at others, he leaned on it with an elbow and emphasized with intensity in his voice but not volume.

  “He’s word perfect,” Annie said.

  “He certainly is. I don’t think I could have recited my own speech as perfectly. The man should have been on the stage.”

  “He is on the stage,” Annie said, “and will be until at least November.”

  “I was nervous about this being televised,” Ari said, “but now I’m glad it is. Let’s go and watch the rest on TV. I want to hear what the pundits have to say afterward.”

  They arrived in their hotel suite, sat on the edge of the bed, and switched on the TV in time to watch a standing ovation. The local anchorman came on and introduced a panel of New Hampshire newspaper editors.

  “They loved him,” Annie said. “Can I scratch your back?”

  “It doesn’t itch,” Ari said.

  “You shouldn’t take everything I say literally.”

  “You mean, scratching my back is a euphemism?”

  “As in, ‘You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.’”

  “Does your back itch?”

  “It’s a different kind of itch,” she said. “Why don’t we start with rubbing your neck? You’ve grown to like that.”

  “Yes, please, do that.”

  She had just begun when Ari’s computer rang and the person they knew as William Smith appeared on the screen. Ari sat down before the machine. “Did you watch?”

  “I did, and frankly, I was amazed. So were my colleagues.”

  “He truly doesn’t need the teleprompter. He has a prodigious memory.”

  “Who knew?”

  “It isn’t necessarily a sign of intellect, or even intelligence,” Ari said. “It’s more of a savant thing, like some mentally challenged people being able to do complicated math in their heads.”

  “We couldn’t ask for more,” Damien said. “In fact, we don’t want more. You just keep him stocked with speeches and position papers.”

  “I will do that,” Ari said.

  “I got your new address. Are you settled in?”

  “We are.”

  “I notice you’re dressing better, too.”

  “Yes, I am. We both are.”

  “I’ll say good night, then.” Damien switched off.

  Annie spoke up. “It sounds like they want more of a puppet than a candidate,” she said.

  “I think that’s an accurate assessment,” Ari replied. “Does that trouble you?”

  “Not particularly, not at sixty dollars an hour, anyway. How long are we going to follow him around?”

  “I think we’ll watch him on TV after this. I don’t want to stand around a lot of school halls, waiting for him to make a mistake.”

  “Good idea,” she said.

  “Weren’t you rubbing my neck?”

  35

  An SUV pulled up to a Barnes & Noble in Buckhead, in north Atlanta, and Ida opened the door for Jamie.

  “Aren’t you going to check inside first?” Jamie asked.

  “Already done by our local people. They’ve given us the go-ahead.” She held up her cell phone. “These work.”

  Jamie got out of the vehicle and, braced by Ida and Lane, was marched into the bookstore.

  An announcement came over a loudspeaker system. “Good evening, book lovers,” a woman’s voice said. “New York Times Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Jamie Cox is about to speak about her new book, Scandalous, in our audience area. Please feel free to join us there now.”

  Jamie saw a few people emerge from the stacks and wander over to where she was being directed. They were getting subtle, but close inspection by the local security people. While she was being miked by her publicist, the bookstore manager gave a short introduction, then remarked that questions would be taken at the end of the talk. She turned the podium over to Jamie.

  “Good evening,�
�� Jamie said to the crowd. “I thought you’d like to know that, earlier today, at LaGuardia Airport, two men entered the ladies’ room I was using, pulled guns, and were disarmed by my security guards. They fled on foot and have not yet been found. I do hope that none of you are armed, but if you are, you should know that women with guns are watching you.”

  This got a laugh from the audience and seemed to relax them.

  Jamie spoke for fifteen minutes about her book and the events recounted in it, then took questions for another fifteen minutes. She then sat at a table while the audience lined up to have their books signed.

  Later, she asked the bookstore manager how they had done.

  “Very well,” the woman replied, “a hundred and twenty-two sales, much better than average.”

  Shortly afterward, she was hustled into the SUV and driven back to the St. Regis, where she had dinner in her suite with her publicist and a publisher’s representative.

  “Tomorrow night,” Jamie said to Lane later, “do you think I could have dinner in the hotel restaurant? I’d feel less like a caged animal.”

  “Tomorrow night we’re in Palm Beach, where you’re speaking to an arts society, and you’re staying at the Brazilian Court. If everything is quiet, you can dine in the restaurant, which is very good.”

  “Oh, thank you,” Jamie replied, then got ready for bed.

  * * *

  • • •

  Stone, Dino, and Viv had dinner at Patroon.

  “What do you have on the two guys at LaGuardia?” Stone asked Dino.

  “They had an escape route planned, so we didn’t get them. We got their weapons, though, from the trash receptacle in the ladies’ room.”

  “Any prints?”

  “Nothing. They had apparently handled the weapons only when wearing latex gloves. We found some talc residue that’s used to make the gloves easier to pull on.”

  “Were they Italian?”

  “Why do you ask?” Dino said.

  “Because the Thomases are really the Tommassinis.”

  “The descriptions from witnesses were generic—nothing about ethnic appearance. One of the witnesses thought one of the shooters was a woman.”

  “So much for eyewitnesses,” Stone said. “Anything unusual about the weapons?”

  “Both were Glocks with homemade silencers, apparently never fired. They were originally sold at a gun shop in Virginia last year.”

  “How about the hit on Sherry?”

  “We found a single shell casing behind the parapet on a house across the street. A .22 long rifle, chosen for a head shot.”

  “So everybody’s a pro.”

  “People like the Thomases don’t hire their assassins at the unemployment office. Like you say, everybody’s a pro.”

  Viv spoke up. “All went smoothly for Jamie in Atlanta.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Stone said. “The way you’ve arranged the signing audiences is very good.”

  “Thank you. I wish we’d started her out at Teterboro, instead of LaGuardia. That was my mistake; I didn’t believe they would try it.”

  “How about other people at the Times? Any threats?”

  “All the principals are under guard. The computer kid, Huey, vanished. Apparently he went underground.”

  “I’ll bet he’s in his new apartment, which is under construction.”

  Viv looked at him, surprised. “Nobody at the Times told us about that.”

  “Probably because he didn’t tell anybody at the Times about it.”

  “Then we’re guarding what must be his old apartment.”

  Stone wrote the new address down and gave it to her. “Be discreet,” he said. “The kid would probably rather not know your people are there.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Annie Lee awoke, naked, in the king-sized bed in Ari’s suite. He was sitting at his computer in his pajamas. She reflected on their night together. Having sex with someone who didn’t like to be touched was a new experience for her. Still, if he had been awkward, he had also been enthusiastic, once they started. She was not all that experienced herself, having a strict father.

  She got up, put on a robe, then went and stood behind him.

  “William called,” Ari said. “He had the results of some private, overnight polling: it wasn’t a big sample, but it shows Box with a six-point lead over the incumbent Republican congressman, who won the seat last time by twenty-two points.”

  “Wow, that’s progress!” Annie said.

  He turned to face her and, to her surprise, put his hands on her hips. “What did you think about the sex last night?” he asked. “It was my first time, so I don’t have anything to compare it to.”

  “I’ve only had sex twice before,” she said, “so I’m not way ahead of you.”

  “What did you think, compared to the other two?”

  “The other one,” she said. “Twice.”

  “Okay.”

  “I thought it was very, very good,” she said. “It will only get better, as we become accustomed to each other. I warn you, you are now subject to being murdered by my father, should he ever suspect us of this.”

  He pushed her back and looked into her face. “Was that a joke?” he asked. “I’m never sure when you’re joking.”

  “It wasn’t entirely a joke,” she replied.

  “I don’t understand. What does that mean?”

  “It means that, should we ever find ourselves in the company of my father, you should not touch me or speak to me affectionately or do anything else that might allow him to think for a moment that we have had sex.”

  “I understand that,” Ari said. “Maybe you should just keep me away from him.”

  “Good advice,” she said.

  36

  Elise Grant went into Henry Thomas’s office without knocking, as she had been instructed to do, and set his mail on his desk. He was meeting with his grandson, Hank, and Rance Damien. They immediately switched to a Sicilian dialect, which they did not know she understood—her mother being Sicilian. She had failed to note that language skill on her employment application and was not sorry. She had heard some pretty good stuff.

  “Sit down for a moment, Elise,” Henry said in English. “I want you to take a letter for me when we’re done.”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied, taking a chair against the wall.

  They switched back to Sicilian. “I understand everything went wrong yesterday,” Henry said. “Rance?”

  Damien shifted in his chair. “Our people did not realize that Cox had security that would follow her into the ladies’ room,” he said. “They stuck to the plan and got away, but left their weapons, which were clean in every respect. We had more luck with the girl, Sherry.”

  Elise wanted to pee in her pants, but she held on.

  “We had a man across the street who shot her in the head. But she survived and is at Bellevue, in a protected ward, so we can’t get at her.”

  “She survived a head shot?” Hank asked, incredulous.

  “It was a small-caliber round, to keep the noise down—and I didn’t want her head exploding like a watermelon. The angle wasn’t right.”

  “Can we get at her?”

  “No, her area is under twenty-four-hour police guard. There are a couple of murder witnesses in the ward, too.”

  Henry took a sip of water from a glass, then turned to Elise. “Please get me some ice for my water.”

  Elise rose, went to the door, then ran for the ladies’ room, getting there just in time. Then she ran to the ice machine, filled an ice bucket, and went back to Henry’s office, where they were still speaking Sicilian. She poured him a fresh glass, then resumed her seat.

  “What about Barrington?”

  “He’s a tough nut to crack,” Damien said. “I got the
plans for his house from the city, and the house is armored.”

  “‘Armored’?” Hank asked. “The whole house?”

  “Believe it or not. He has some sort of government connection. One of our people got a good look at the Bentley, and that’s armored, too.”

  “Keep at it,” Henry said. “Now get out of here, both of you.” He turned to Elise. “Now.”

  She took a seat next to his desk and got her pad ready. He began to speak, still in Sicilian.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Thomas,” she said. “You’re speaking another language I can’t understand.”

  “Sorry,” Thomas said. He dictated the letter in English.

  Elise went back to her desk, typed and printed the letter, got it signed, ran it through the postage meter, and put it in her out box.

  She was trembling. She and Sherry had known each other fairly well at work, had had lunch a couple of times. She had been in a downstairs department at the time. Now, transferred to the executive offices, she was learning who she worked for, and she feared Sherry might be dead. She was afraid to quit her job.

  * * *

  • • •

  After work, she bought some flowers at a Korean market and took a taxi to Bellevue. She couldn’t find the ward on the hallway directory, but she saw two policemen get onto an elevator and followed them. They emerged into a hallway, mostly blocked by a steel desk, manned by a uniformed officer. She approached and gave him Sherry’s name and her own.

  He consulted a list. “You’re not approved,” the officer said. “State your business.”

  “Sherry and I worked together. She’s not expecting me, but she’ll want to see me.”

  “Let me see your driver’s license,” he said. A nurse passed through, and he gave her the license. “See if the girl wants to see this lady.”

  A minute later, Elise was seated at Sherry’s bedside.

  “Hello, Elise. This is a surprise,” Sherry said.

  “How are you?”

  “Better than I should be. I still have a headache, but at least they didn’t cut my hair off. How did you find me?”