by Stuart Woods
Margie crossed her legs. “Tricks ain’t bad. I’ve made three house calls since Friday to a john upstairs. He’s had two other girls, too. A horny gentleman.”
Keane showed her Perkerson’s photograph. “Is that, by any chance, the guy?”
She glanced at the picture. “Nah. He don’t have a mustache, and he wears horn-rims. You’re the third one who’s showed me that picture. He must be some bad guy.”
“Yeah, he is.” Keane looked up to see a gaggle of people crossing the lobby, headed for the atrium. It was that guy Lee, and he was hemmed in on all sides by men who looked at everybody but him. Their coats were open, and they all wore the same lapel pins.
Keane glanced at his watch. Ten to six. Lee was supposed to appear on the mezzanine at six. What the hell, Keane thought, I’m not doing any good here. I might as well go up there. He struggled to his good foot and got the crutch under his arm.
Then he turned and saw somebody else he knew striding purposefully across the lobby, ignoring everyone.
*
Perkerson set up his tripod and opened the briefcase. This was going to be something like the shot at the abortion clinic, he reflected, but easier. The distance was shorter, and since the mezzanine was indoors, there was no chance of a gust of wind to ruin his shot. He locked the rifle barrel into the stock and began screwing on the large scope.
*
Keane swung along as fast as he could, taking an extra hop on his good leg at every step. Willingham was headed for the elevators. The colonel disappeared around a corner of the elevator bank, and Keane began praying, “Don’t let me lose him, please, God.” At the corner of the elevator bank, he stopped, took a deep breath, and limped slowly around the corner. Willingham was entering the last elevator down the line.
“Going up, please!” Keane called out, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice. “Going up!” He reached the door to find Willingham holding it for him and looking at his watch.
“Floor?” Willingham asked.
Keane looked at the buttons. Willingham had punched five. “Six,” he replied, mopping his brow. “Thanks very much.”
The two men rode up in silence. Willingham looked at his watch again; the muscles in his face were flexing as he continually clenched and unclenched his jaw. The elevator reached five, and Willingham stepped out. Keane was going to follow, but Willingham had stopped and was reading the sign pointing to various room numbers. The elevator closed.
Keane banged on the side of the car in frustration and looked at his watch. Four minutes to six. The door opened on the sixth floor and Keane hustled out of the car and toward the door to the fire stairs. Steps were a goddamned nuisance with a crutch, and he grabbed the handrail and swung down them two at a time, the crutch in his other hand. As he turned the corner at the landing, he missed a step and pitched headlong down the last half dozen of the steel steps.
Whimpering in pain, Keane struggled to his good foot and hopped toward the door. Locked. It would open only from the other side. He hammered on it. “Open up!” he yelled. “Emergency!” He put his ear to the door and heard nothing on the other side.
Keane dropped to his knees and went into his inside pocket for his tools. He began trying to pick the lock.
*
Perkerson had the rifle set up, locked, and loaded. He saw Lee start up the long escalator to the mezzanine and brought his eye to the sight and his finger to the trigger. He’d get him before he made the mezzanine. He got the crosshairs centered and began squeezing the trigger. There was a loud knock on the door.
Perkerson swung around, grabbing for the pistol in the shoulder holster.
“Harry, it’s me, Willingham!”
What the hell? Perkerson thought. “Say that again?” he shouted.
“It’s Colonel Willingham! Let me in, quickly!”
Perkerson glanced out the window. Lee had reached the mezzanine and was headed for a raised platform at one end of it, making his way through a crowd, shaking hands. He’d shoot when Lee was on the platform, speaking.
Perkerson crossed the room and opened the door. Willingham was standing there, looking worried.
“I want to watch you shoot,” Willingham said.
“All right, sir,” Perkerson replied, “come on in. He’s just about to speak.” As he turned away, he wondered what the Archon was doing there. And then a terrible thought crossed his mind; he heard the door close behind him; he turned and saw the gun in Willingham’s hand. “You’re weak,” he said, as he dropped and brought up his own pistol.
*
Keane got the fire door opened and hopped through it, abandoning the crutch. He came to the hallway and looked up and down it; empty, except for a maid’s cart. He began to run, on both his good foot and the cast, from door to door, putting an ear to each one, listening for an instant. As he moved down the hallway, the maid came out of a room ten yards away, and then a very odd thing happened. A fist-sized hole appeared in the door just ahead of him, and a little cloud of splinters and dust exploded outward. There had been no other sound.
Keane dived past the door, and when he regained his feet, he had his pistol in one hand and his badge in the other, holding it out to the maid. “Police!” he half whispered, half shouted. “Give me your passkey, now!”
*
Perkerson sat on the floor of the suite’s living room, holding his belly, which was wet and sticky. He was having trouble getting his breath. Willingham was sitting, too, Stuart Woods leaning against the door, a bloody hole in his cheek and another in his forehead, over his right eye. His eyes stared blankly at Perkerson, and there was a streak of gore down the door where the Archon’s head had left its trail. One of Perkerson’s three shots had missed, and there was a hole in the door, next to the peephole.
Perkerson grabbed a chair and hauled himself to his feet. The pain was starting now, and it was more terrible than any he had ever known. He staggered toward the rifle on its tripod, the pistol still in his hand, and dropped to one knee, his firing position. Lee was on the platform, holding up his hands for quiet. Perkerson sighted.
*
“I just want to say a few words to you before the evening starts,” Will said. “The polls don’t close for another hour, and, of course, we don’t know anything yet, but I want to tell you that no matter what happens tonight, each of you will have my deepest gratitude for a long time to come. I’ll tell you the truth, I didn’t know people could work as hard as you have for no money at all.” He paused as the sound of breaking glass came from somewhere.
*
Keane got the key into the lock, turned it, and pushed. There was a dead weight on the other side. He dug in his good foot, put his shoulder to the door, and pushed. Slowly, it slid open. Perkerson was on one knee at the window, crouched over a rifle fixed to a tripod. Keane brought his weapon up with both hands.
“Nooo!” he screamed as he fired.
*
Will turned to his right to take in a television camera, and as he did, the fabric on the shoulder of the FBI man standing next to him exploded, and the man sat down hard. Will bent to help him, wondering what had happened, and as he did, a pitcher of water on a table behind where he stood blew into a thousand pieces, showering everyone with water and ice. While Will was still trying to figure that out, he was hit, hard, in the back, and he collapsed onto the floor of the platform. People began screaming and diving to the floor.
*
Keane’s first shot had gone wide, through the window, but his second caught Perkerson in the shoulder and spun him around. Keane advanced toward him, hobbling on his cast, firing as he went. It was still a better than twenty-foot shot, and he was taking no chances. He wasn’t sure where the fourth shot went. Before he could fire a fifth, something hit him, hard, in the groin, and he went down. Perkerson had produced a pistol from somewhere.
From the floor, Keane kept firing.
*
The noise had stopped. The maid was afraid to put her head through
the doorway, but, flattened against the wall, she called out, “What’s going on in there?”
“I need help,” a man’s voice replied weakly. “Call police, tell them an officer is down; need an ambulance.”
Another noise came from the room, a sharp report. The maid heard a sigh on the other side of the door.
*
Will was having trouble breathing, but still, they were moving fast. He had been half carried to a freight elevator at the back of the mezzanine, and now they were going down.
“How are you feeling?” an FBI man asked.
“Just a little winded,” Will panted.
“I’m sorry I hit you so hard,” the man said. “When I saw Wilkins go down, I just threw a block into your back and fell on you.”
Will looked at the man. He was maybe six-four, two hundred and twenty pounds. “Where did you play?” he asked.
“I played for Bear Bryant at Alabama,” the agent replied. “About two hundred years ago.”
Will managed to get some air into his lungs. “I’m not surprised. Where are we going?”
“Just out of here, until we find out what’s going on,” the agent said.
They stepped out onto a loading platform, and the agent looked around. The Atlanta detective with them had a handheld radio to his ear.
“This ought to do for the moment,” the agent said. “We should know something soon. Are you cold?”
“I’m enjoying the fresh air,” Will said, breathing deeply for the first time in several minutes.
The detective spoke into the radio. “Roger, I got it. How’s Keane?” He listened for a moment. “Oh,” he said.
“What’s happened?” Will asked.
“Perkerson’s dead. There were three of them in a suite on the fifth floor. An ex-cop named Mickey Keane, a friend of mine who’s been hunting Perkerson, was one of them. A maid saw him go into the room, and there was lots of shooting. A guy named Willingham is dead. That mean anything to you?”
“No,” Will said.
“No. Anyway, Mickey apparently got Perkerson, but he took at least one himself. They’re on the way down now.”
Will noticed for the first time that an ambulance was parked at the loading platform. “That got here fast,” he said.
“It’s been here all afternoon,” the detective replied dryly. “We thought we might need it for you.”
A stretcher on wheels came through a pair of swinging doors, propelled by a paramedic, while another carried a bottle of clear liquid attached to the man on the stretcher. They paused at the back of the ambulance while the rear doors were opened.
The detective walked over to the stretcher, and Will followed. “How is he?” the detective asked the paramedic.
“Ask me,” Keane said.
“Shit, I knew that bastard couldn’t kill you.”
Will leaned over the stretcher. “Mr. Keane, I’m Will Lee. They tell me you just saved my ass. Thank you.”
“Ah, I didn’t do it for you,” Keane said. “I did it for a buddy of mine, a cop. He’s dead now.”
“The effect was the same. I’m indebted to you.”
“Another friend of mine, named Manny Pearl, is pulling for you in the election,” Keane said.
“The guy with the stripper demonstrators? Tell him I love his bumper sticker, ‘A.B.D.D., Anybody But Dr. Don.’ I’ve seen them all over the place.”
“I’ll tell him,” Keane said. “He’ll be pleased.”
“We gotta go,” the paramedic said, and Keane was rolled into the ambulance.
“Well,” Will said to the agent and the detective, “I think I’d better get back upstairs and show them I’m not dead. The polls are still open, and I wouldn’t want anybody to stay home.”
32
Kate opened the door to the suite and grabbed him. “We saw the whole thing on television,” she said, hugging him tightly. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
“I’ll try not to,” he said, kissing her on the neck. They stood, holding each other, for a moment.
“There’s a surprise waiting for you,” Kate said, leading him toward the living room.
Will turned a corner to find Senator Benjamin Carr, sitting in a wheelchair, something like a grin on his face. Jasper was with him, and a uniformed nurse hovered nearby.
Will knelt by the wheelchair and took the Senator’s hand. “I’m awful glad to see you, Senator,” he said. “I’m sorry it’s been so long, but they’ve been keeping me busy.”
The Senator tilted his head, and his jaw worked, but no words came.
Jasper stepped over to the wheelchair. “Now don’t you worry none, Senator, it’ll come.” He turned to Will. “The Senator’s been trying to talk.”
*
It was eleven o’clock, and the results still weren’t in. Will, his parents, his aunt Eloise, Kate, the Senator, his nurse, Jasper, Tom Black, and Kitty Conroy all sat around the huge television set. The FBI agent was on the phone, and the detective was pouring himself a bourbon.
“It’s all going to depend on the ruburbs,” Tom said. “We’ve taken the places our polling said we would, but Moss Mallet couldn’t say about the ruburbs.”
The FBI agent hung up the phone. “My people went into Willingham’s house with a federal warrant,” he said. “It took them two hours, but they found a concealed safe, a big one, with a lot of records in it—membership lists, contributors, paramilitary teams—hundreds of names.” He turned to Detective Dave Haynes. “There was a clerk in our Atlanta bureau on the list, and also the name of an Atlanta police captain.”
“You don’t have to tell me who,” Haynes said, rising. “I gotta get out to the hospital and tell Mickey.”
“Calhoun’s going to have a hard time explaining his connection with Willingham. The guy was the chairman of his board of deacons,” the agent said.
“He’ll find a way,” Will said.
“Maybe,” the agent said. “But what my people found in the safe is going to make it tough for him.”
“Listen up,” Tom said, pointing at the television set.
The anchorman turned to the camera, a sheet of paper in his hand. “We finally have a projection to make in the race for the United States Senate,” he said. “Results just in from the north Atlanta suburbs have tipped the scales, and our projected winner is Will Lee.”
A rush of air went out of Will. Kate came and put her arms around him. There was much hugging and shaking of hands in the room.
“Our projected final result is fifty-one point six percent for Lee and forty-eight point two for Calhoun, with two-tenths of one percent write-ins for other candidates,” the anchorman said.
“I’m glad we didn’t need that two-tenths of a point,” Tom Black said.
“And now,” the anchorman said, “I’m told that the Reverend Don Beverly Calhoun is entering the grand ballroom at the Atlanta Hilton, and we’ll take you there, live, for his statement.”
The camera followed Calhoun through a crowd of teary supporters. He mounted the platform and called for quiet. “Before I make my statement,” he said, “I have to announce that a close friend of our campaign and our church has died this evening under tragic circumstances. I will have more to say about this tomorrow, but now I would like us all to have a moment of silent prayer for the soul of Colonel J. E. B. Stuart Willingham.”
“His soul is going to need it,” Will said. “Come on, I don’t want to see the rest of this. Let’s all get downstairs.”
The group gathered itself to go. Patricia Lee gave her son a huge hug, and Billy Lee shook his hand. Aunt Eloise hugged him, too, and Tom Black was pounding him on the back while Kitty Conroy kissed him. Then Jasper came and put a detaining hand on Will’s arm. “The Senator wants to see you, Mr. Will.”
Will crossed the room and knelt beside the wheelchair. The Senator managed a smile, and Will could tell he was struggling. The old man gripped Will’s hand tightly, and his lips moved. Finally, the words came haltingly out.
&
nbsp; “Congratulations … Senator,” he said.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am most grateful to Tom Susman, once again, for his knowledge of Washington and his personal contacts; to Melody Miller, deputy press secretary to Senator Edward Kennedy, for a superb tour of the United States Capitol and many insights into the workings of the Senate; to Bill Johnston, chief assistant to Senator Wyche Fowler of Georgia, for his detailed reminiscences of the senator’s 1986 race; to Carter Smith, Jr., M.D., for advice about the effects of strokes; to former congressman Elliott Levitas, for his comments; and to Ed Garland, ace trial attorney, for his suggestions on the conduct of murder trials.
If I got any of this wrong, it is my fault and not theirs.
I am also very grateful to my agent, Morton Janklow, his associate, Anne Sibbald, and all the people at Janklow, Nesbit Associates, who continue to exercise the greatest care and concern for my career as a writer.
I am particularly indebted to the enthusiasm of my new editor, Trish Lande, who, at a difficult time, took charge of this book and devoted nights and weekends to its prompt and successful completion.
Stuart Woods is the author of more than forty novels. A native of Georgia, he began his writing career in the advertising industry. Chiefs, his 1981 debut, won an Edgar Award. An avid sailor and pilot, Woods lives in Key West, Florida, Mount Desert Island in Maine, and New York City. Visit his Web site at www.stuartwoods.com.
BOOKS BY STUART WOODS
FICTION
Santa Fe Edge§
Lucid Intervals†
Kisser†
Hothouse Orchid*
Loitering with Intent†
Mounting Fears‡
Hot Mahogany†
Santa Fe Dead§
Beverly Hills Dead
Shoot Him If He Runs†
Fresh Disasters†
Short Straw§
Dark Harbor†
Iron Orchid*
Two Dollar Bill†
The Prince of Beverly Hills
Reckless Abandon†
Capital Crimes‡
Dirty Work†
Blood Orchid*
The Short Forever†
Orchid Blues*
Cold Paradise†
