They ran at a slower clip during voting hours on Tuesday, February 22, and when the polls closed the exit analysts predicted Lake would win his home state and run a close second in Michigan. Governor Tarry, after all, was from Indiana, another midwestern state, and he’d spent weeks in Michigan during the previous three months.
Evidently, he hadn’t spent enough time there. The voters in Arizona opted for their native son, and those in Michigan liked the new fellow too. Lake got 60 percent at home, and 55 percent in Michigan where Governor Tarry got a paltry 31 percent. The balance was divided among the noncontenders.
It was a devastating loss for Governor Tarry, just two weeks before big Super Tuesday and three weeks before the little one.
LAKE WATCHED the vote counting from on board his airplane, en route from Phoenix, where’d he’d voted for himself. An hour from Washington, CNN declared him the surprise winner in Michigan, and his staff opened the champagne. He savored the moment, even allowed himself two glasses.
History was not lost on Lake. No one had ever started so late, and come so far so fast. In the darkened cabin, they watched the analysts on four screens, the experts all marveling at this man Lake and what he’d done. Governor Tarry was gracious, but also worried about the enormous sums of money being spent by his heretofore unknown opponent.
Lake chatted politely with the small group of reporters waiting for him at Reagan National Airport, then rode in yet another black Suburban to his national campaign headquarters where he thanked his highly paid staff and told them to go home and get some sleep.
It was almost midnight when he got to Georgetown, to his quaint little rowhouse on Thirty-fourth, near Wisconsin. Two Secret Service agents got out of the car behind Lake, and two more were waiting on the front steps. He had adamantly refused an official request to put guards inside his home.
“I do not want to see you people lurking around here,” he said harshly at his front door. He resented their presence, didn’t know their names, and didn’t care if they disliked him. They had no names, as far as he was concerned. They were simply “You people,” said with as much contempt as possible.
Once he was locked inside, he went upstairs to his bedroom and changed clothes. He turned out the lights as if he were asleep, waited fifteen minutes, then eased downstairs to the den to see if anyone was looking in, then down another flight to the small basement. He climbed through a window, and stepped into the cold night near his tiny patio. He paused, listened, heard nothing, then quietly opened a wooden gate and darted between the two buildings behind his. He surfaced on Thirty-fifth Street, alone, in the dark, dressed like a jogger with a running cap pulled low to his brow. Three minutes later he was on M Street, in the crowds. He found a taxi and disappeared into the night.
TEDDY MAYNARD had gone to sleep reasonably content with his candidate’s first two victories, but he was awakened by the news that something had gone wrong. When he rolled himself into the bunker at ten minutes after 6 a.m., he was more frightened than angry, though his emotions had run the gamut in the past hour. York was waiting, along with a supervisor named Deville, a tiny nervous man who’d obviously been wired for many hours.
“Let’s hear it,” Teddy growled, still rolling and looking for coffee.
Deville did the talking. “At twelve-o-two this morning he said good-bye to the Secret Service and entered his house. At twelve-seventeen he exited through a small window in the basement. We, of course, have wires and timers on every door and window. We’ve leased a rowhouse across the street, and we were on alert anyway. He hasn’t been home in six days.” Deville waved a small pill, the size of an aspirin. “This is a little device known as a T-Dec. They’re in the soles of all of his shoes, including his jogging shoes. So if he’s not barefoot we know where he is. Once pressure is applied from the foot, the bug emits a signal that is broadcast for two hundred yards without a transmitter. When pressure is relaxed, it will continue to provide a signal for fifteen minutes. We scrambled and picked him up on M Street. He was dressed in sweats with a cap over his eyes. We had two cars in place when he jumped in a cab. We followed him to Chevy Chase, to a suburban shopping center. While the cab waited, he darted into a place called Mailbox America, one of these new places where you can send and receive mail outside the Postal Service. Some, including this one, are open twenty-four hours for mail pickup. He was inside for less than a minute, just long enough to open his box with a key, remove several pieces of mail, throw it all away, then return to the cab. One of our cars followed him back to M Street, where he got out and sneaked back home. The other car stayed at the mailbox place. We went through the waste can just inside the door, and found six pieces of junk mail, evidently his. The address is Al Konyers, Box 455, Mailbox America, 39380 Western Avenue, Chevy Chase.”
“So he didn’t find what he was looking for?” Teddy asked.
“It looks as though he tossed everything he took from his box. Here’s the video.”
A screen dropped from the ceiling as the lights faded. Footage from a video camera zoomed across a parking lot, past the cab, and onto the figure of Aaron Lake in his baggy sweats as he disappeared around a corner inside Mailbox America. Seconds later he reappeared, flipping through letters and papers in his right hand. He stopped briefly at the door and then dumped everything in a tall wastebasket.
“What the hell’s he looking for?” Teddy mumbled to himself.
Lake left the building and quickly ducked inside the cab. The video stopped; the lights became brighter.
Deville resumed his narrative. “We’re confident we found the right papers in the trash can. We were there within seconds, and no one else entered the premises while we waited. The time was twelve fifty-eight. An hour later, we entered again and keyed the lock to Box 455, so we’ll have access anytime we need it.”
“Check it every day,” Teddy said. “Inventory every piece of mail. Leave the junk, but when something arrives I want to know it.”
“You got it. Mr. Lake reentered the basement window at one twenty-two and stayed at home for the rest of the night. He’s there now.”
“That’s all,” Teddy said, and Deville left the room.
A minute passed as Teddy stirred his coffee. “How many addresses does he have?”
York knew the question was coming. He glanced at some notes. “He gets most of his personal mail at his home in Georgetown. He has at least two addresses on Capitol Hill, one at his office, the other at the Armed Services Committee. He has three offices back home in Arizona. That’s six that we know about.”
“Why would he need a seventh?”
“I don’t know the reason, but it can’t be good. A man who has nothing to hide does not use an alias or a secret address.”
“When did he rent the box?”
“We’re still working on that.”
“Maybe he rented the box after he decided to enter the race. He’s got the CIA doing his thinking for him, so maybe he figures we’re watching everything too. And he figures he might need a little privacy, thus the box. Maybe it’s a girlfriend we missed somehow. Maybe he likes dirty magazines or videos, something that is shipped through the mail.”
After a long pause, York said, “Could be. What if the box was rented months ago, long before he entered the race?”
“Then he’s not hiding from us. He’s hiding from the world, and his secret is truly dreadful.”
They silently contemplated the dreadfulness of Lake’s secret, neither wanting to venture a guess. They decided to step up surveillance even more, and to check the mailbox twice a day. Lake would be leaving town in a matter of hours, off to do battle in other primaries, and they would have the box to themselves.
Unless someone else was also checking it for him.
AARON LAKE was the man of the hour in Washington. From his office on Capitol Hill he graciously granted live interviews to the early morning news programs. He received senators and other members of Congress, friends and former enemies alike, all bearin
g tidings of great joy and congratulations. He had lunch with his campaign staff, and followed it with long meetings on strategy. After a quick dinner with Elaine Tyner, who brought wonderful news of tons of new cash over at D-PAC, he left the city and flew to Syracuse to make plans for the New York primary.
A large crowd welcomed him. He was, after all, now the front-runner.
FOURTEEN
THE HANGOVERS were becoming more frequent, and as Trevor opened his eyes for another day he told himself that he simply had to get a grip. You can’t lay out at Pete’s every night, drinking cheap longnecks with coeds, watching meaningless basketball games just because you’ve got a thousand bucks on them. Last night it had been Logan State and somebody, some team with green uniforms. Who the hell cared about Logan State?
Joe Roy Spicer, that’s who. Spicer put $500 on them, Trevor backed it up with a thousand of his own, and Logan won it for them. In the past week, Spicer had picked ten out of twelve winners. He was up $3,000 in real cash, and Trevor, happily following along, was up $5,500 for himself. His gambling was proving to be much more profitable than his lawyering. And someone else was picking the winners!
He went to the bathroom and splashed water on his face without looking at the mirror. The toilet was still clogged from the day before, and as he stomped around his dirty little house looking for a plunger the phone rang. It was a wife from a previous life, a woman he loathed and one who loathed him, and when he heard her voice he knew she needed money. He said no angrily and got in the shower.
Things were worse at the office. A divorcing couple had arrived in separate cars to finish the negotiations for their property settlement. The assets they were fighting over were of no consequence to anyone else—pots, pans, a toaster—but since they had nothing, they had to fight over something. The fights are nastiest when the stakes are smallest.
Their lawyer was an hour late, and they had used the time to simmer and boil until finally Jan had separated them. The wife was parked in Trevor’s office when he stumbled in from the back door.
“Where the hell you been?” she demanded loud enough for husband to hear up front. Husband charged down the hall, past Jan, who did not give chase, and burst into Trevor’s small office.
“We’ve been waiting for an hour!” he announced.
“Shut up, both of you!” Trevor screamed, and Jan left the building. His clients were stunned at the volume.
“Sit down!” he screamed again, and they fell into the only empty chairs. “You people pay five hundred bucks for a lousy divorce and you think you own the place!”
They looked at his red eyes and red face and decided this was not a man to mess with. The phone started ringing and no one answered it. Nausea hit again, and Trevor bolted out of his office and across the hall to the bathroom, where he puked, as quietly as possible. The toilet failed to flush, the little metal chain clinking harmlessly inside the tank.
The phone was still ringing. He staggered down the hall to fire Jan, and when he couldn’t find her he left the building too. He walked to the beach, took off his shoes and socks, and splashed his feet in the cool salt water.
TWO HOURS LATER, Trevor sat motionless at his desk, door locked to keep out clients, bare feet on the desk, with sand still wedged between the toes. He needed a nap and he needed a drink, and he stared at the ceiling trying to organize his priorities. The phone rang, this time duly answered by Jan, who was still employed but secretly checking want ads.
It was Brayshears, in the Bahamas. “We have a wire, sir,” he said.
Trevor was instantly on his feet. “How much?”
“A hundred thousand, sir.”
Trevor glanced at his watch. He had about an hour to catch a flight. “Can you see me at three-thirty?” he asked.
“Certainly, sir.”
He hung up and yelled toward the front, “Cancel my appointments for today and tomorrow. I’m leaving.”
“You don’t have any appointments,” Jan yelled back. “You’re losing money faster than ever.”
He wouldn’t bicker. He slammed the back door and drove away.
The flight to Nassau stopped first in Fort Lauderdale, though Trevor hardly knew it. After two quick beers he was sound asleep. Two more over the Atlantic, and a flight attendant had to wake him when the plane was empty.
The wire was from Curtis in Dallas, as expected. It was remitted by a Texas bank, payable to Boomer Realty, care of Geneva Trust Bank, Nassau. Trevor raked his one third off the top, again hiding $25,000 in his own secret account, and taking $8,000 in cash. He thanked Mr. Brayshears, said he hoped to see him soon, and staggered out of the building.
The thought of going home had not crossed his mind. He headed for the shopping district, where packs of heavy American tourists choked the sidewalks. He needed shorts and a straw hat and a bottle of sunscreen.
Trevor eventually made it to the beach, where he found a room in a nice hotel, $200 a night but what did he care? He lathered himself in oil and stretched out by the pool, close enough to the bar. A waitress in a thong fetched him drinks.
He woke up after dark, sufficiently cooked but not burned. A security guard escorted him to his room, where he fell on the bed and returned to his coma. The sun was up again before he moved.
After such a long period of rest, he awoke surprisingly clearheaded, and very hungry. He ate some fruit and went looking for sailboats, not exactly shopping for one, but paying close attention to the details. A thirty-footer would be sufficient, just large enough to live on yet manageable by a crew of one. There would be no passengers; just the lonely skipper hopping from island to island. The cheapest one he found was $90,000 and it needed some work.
Noon found him back at the pool with a cell phone trying to placate a client or two, but his heart wasn’t in it. The same waitress brought another drink. Off the phone, he hid behind dark sunshades and tried to crunch the numbers. But things were wonderfully dull between his ears.
In the past month he’d earned about $80,000 in tax-free graft. Could the pace continue? If so, he’d have his million bucks in a year, and he could abandon his office and what was left of his career, and he could buy his little boat and hit the sea.
For the first time ever, the dream almost seemed real. He could see himself at the wheel, shirtless, shoeless, cold beer at the ready, gliding across the water from St. Barts to St. Kitts, from Nevis to St. Lucia, from one island to a thousand others, wind popping his mainsail, not a damned thing in the world to worry about. He closed his eyes and longed even harder for an escape.
His snoring woke him. The thong was nearby. He ordered some rum and checked his watch.
TWO DAYS LATER Trevor finally made it back to Trumble. He arrived with mixed feelings. First, he was quite anxious to pick up the mail and facilitate the scam, anxious to keep the extortion going and the money rolling in. On the other hand, he was tardy and Judge Spicer would not be happy.
“Where the hell you been?” Spicer growled at him as soon as the guard left the attorney-conference room. It seemed to be the standard question these days. “I’ve missed three games because of you, and I picked nothing but winners.”
“The Bahamas. We got a hundred thousand from Curtis in Dallas.”
Spicer’s mood changed dramatically. “It took three days to check on a wire in the Bahamas?” he asked.
“I needed a little rest. Didn’t know I was supposed to visit this place every day.”
Spicer was mellowing by the second. He’d just picked up another $22,000. It was safely tucked away with his other loot, in a place no one could find, and as he handed the lawyer yet another stack of pretty envelopes he was thinking of ways to spend the money.
“Aren’t we busy,” Trevor said, taking the letters.
“Any complaints? You’re making more than we are.”
“I have more to lose than you do.”
Spicer handed over a sheet of paper. “I’ve picked ten games here. Five hundred bucks on each.”
&nbs
p; Great, thought Trevor. Another long weekend at Pete’s, watching one game after another. Oh well, there could be worse things. They played blackjack at a dollar a hand until the guard broke up the meeting.
Trevor’s increased visits had been discussed by the warden and the higher-ups at the Bureau of Prisons in Washington. Paperwork had been created on the subject. Restrictions had been contemplated, but then abandoned. The visits were useless, and besides, the warden didn’t want to alienate the Brethren. Why pick a fight?
The lawyer was harmless. After a few phone calls around Jacksonville they decided that Trevor was basically unknown and probably had nothing better to do than hang out in the attorney-conference room of a prison.
THE MONEY gave new life to Beech and Yarber. Spending it would necessarily entail getting to it, and that would require they one day walk away as free men, free to do whatever they wanted with their growing fortunes.
With $50,000 or so now in the bank, Yarber was busy plotting an investment portfolio. No sense letting it sit there at 5 percent per annum, even if it was tax-free. One day very soon he’d roll it over into aggressive growth funds, with emphasis on the Far East. Asia would boom again, and his little pile of dirty money would be there to share in the wealth. He had five years to go, and if he earned between 12 and 15 percent on his money until then the $50,000 would grow to roughly $100,000 by the time he left Trumble. Not a bad start for a man who would be sixty-five, and hopefully still in good health.
But if he (and Percy and Ricky) could keep adding to the principal, he might indeed be rich when they turned him loose. Five lousy years—months and weeks he’d been dreading. Now he was suddenly wondering if he had enough time to extort all he needed. As Percy, he was writing letters to over twenty pen pals across North America. No two were in the same town. It was Spicer’s job to keep the victims separated. Maps were being used in the law library to make certain neither Percy nor Ricky was corresponding with men who appeared to live near one another.
John Grisham Page 12
