“He told you that?”
“He told me that. Even though earlier this very day he was singing the song of immigration reform in front of the cameras.”
“Did he say why he was changing his tune?”
“That’s the kicker,” Crader said, moving to the edge of his seat. If there was a more passionate human being than Crader McKenzie, Dutch had yet to meet him. “He says he can’t support any immigration reform that you would support because he doesn’t trust your judgment.”
“Really?” Dutch said, surprised. “Did he say why he suddenly couldn’t trust my judgment?”
“Yeah,” Crader said, a look of disgust crossing his face.
When he wouldn’t respond, Dutch prodded him. “What?”
“The asshole blames it on your wife.”
Dutch’s heart dropped. “My wife?”
Crader nodded. “I’m telling you, if I would have had a mallet on me, or even a sock of manure, I’d be in jail tonight.”
“What did he say about Gina?”
“Yes,” Gina said, entering from the Center Hall, causing Crader to quickly turn in her direction, “what did he, whomever he is, say about me?”
Crader sat his glass on the table in front of him and quickly stood to his feet when he saw that it was the First Lady. An exhausted Dutch remained as he was.
“Good evening, ma’am,” Crader said.
Gina almost smiled at how serious he always was. But he was always so respectful of her and of her position that she didn’t want to turn him against her too. “Good evening,” she said. “Sit down, please,” she added.
Besides, she thought, it wasn’t as if she felt all formal, not after the round of lovemaking she and Dutch had just endured. Not with her vagina still wet with his saturation. She, in fact, would not have dared come out here. But it was so rare that anyone visited the Residence at night without prior permission, and when they did come it usually had to do with a serious, personal matter. Given her encounter with reporters at the ribbon cutting ceremony today, she had a sneaking suspicion what that matter concerned.
“Hope I’m not intruding on anything top secret,” she said, standing at the sofa Dutch was seated on, and looking down at him.
Dutch reached out his hand, she took it, and he seated her down beside him. She was wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, her braids in a ponytail that made her look, it seemed to Dutch, like a fresh-faced teenager.
“You can never intrude on me, babe,” he said to her.
“So,” Gina said, smiling grandly although dreading what she suspected was going to be something unpleasant about her, “you mentioned my name. What is it this time? Who said what about me this time?”
Crader looked at the president. Dutch, who remained slouched down on the sofa and still held Gina’s hand, crossed his legs. Like her, he could still feel her wetness all over his manhood too, and just the feel of her body now seated against his made him wish he was in bed entering her again, rather than being forced to deal with this new round of craziness Washington was serving up.
And even worst, having Gina to hear about it.
“Crader ran into Jed Brightman at dinner tonight,” he said.
“I see,” Gina said. “And I take it the Speaker had something less than charitable to say about me?”
“More about the president, but, yeah,” Crader admitted regrettably, “about you too.”
Gina braced herself. Dutch squeezed her hand. “What did he say?” she asked.
Again Crader looked at the president. Dutch gave him the nod to continue.
Crader cleared his throat. “He made it clear that he will not support any immigration reform because he didn’t trust the president’s judgment.”
Gina hadn’t expected that. Since when did the Democratic Speaker of the House, or any reasonable person for that matter, question Dutch’s judgment?
“What bought that on?” she wanted to know.
Dutch looked too, wanting to know also, although reasonably certain that he already did.
Crader stared her dead in the eye. “It’s harsh,” he said.
Gina’s heart began to pound. She made an awkward attempt at smiling. “Don’t worry,” she said, “I’m used to harsh.”
Dutch felt a twinge of pain when she said that. Because she would not have had to be used to it, not any of it, if he would not have been so selfish as to marry her; as to have been so needful of possessing her and keeping her by his side even though he knew the kind of fishbowl life he was asking her to live.
Crader continued. “He said any man who would marry a woman like you had to lack good judgment.”
Gina continued to smile, to remain dignified, even though she had to fight back tears. Crader, in fact, was impressed with the brave front she was able to maintain. But he knew it had to hurt, just as Dutch knew that it did hurt. Just as Dutch didn’t realize he was now squeezing her hand so hard that she had to remove it from his grasp.
“Well,” she said, attempting to play it off, “no invitation for him at the next White House picnic.”
“He’s an asshole, ma’am,” Crader said pointblank. “Excuse my French, but he is. You’re the best First Lady this country has ever had and if they can’t appreciate that fact then to hell with them. Ma’am,” Crader added.
Gina smiled. Genuinely this time. “Thank-you,” she said.
She looked at Dutch. He was the one she was worried about. “You okay?” she asked him.
“No,” he said. “Hell, no.” And then he pressed his intercom button. His aide immediately came into the room.
“Get Jed Brightman over here now,” he ordered.
“The Speaker, sir?” the aide asked as if there could be any doubt.
“Yes, Carlton, the Speaker.”
“Right away, sir,” the aide said, and left the room.
Less than an hour later the Speaker of the House was escorted into the Billiards room where the president and Crader McKenzie were shooting pool. When the aide left, Jed Brightman nervously faced the commander in chief.
“You wanted to see me, sir?” he asked him.
Dutch took a shot that saw three balls scramble aimlessly at first, and then enter side pockets. “Yes, Jed, how are you?” he asked the Speaker as he chalked down his cue stick.
“I’m fine, sir.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t.”
“Why wouldn’t I be fine, sir?”
“Because you owe my wife an apology,” the president said.
The Speaker glanced at Crader. And then he looked again at the president. “Is that a fact?”
“That’s a fact,” Dutch said. Then he looked at the Speaker. “She’s waiting for you in the Yellow Oval.”
The Yellow Oval Room, as the Speaker knew, was the formal living area within the White House Residence, a place many presidents often met with official visitors, but rarely with friends.
“Yes, sir,” he said, finding it too disagreeable to argue any points. He, in fact, turned to leave.
“And, Jed,” Dutch said, causing the Speaker to turn back. Dutch stared him dead in the eyes. “I will kick your natural ass if my wife’s name so much as drip from your mouth again in any terms other than a glowing one. Do I make myself clear?”
The Speaker’s heart pounded. Dutch Harber was the most powerful man in the world, a man who knew everybody’s secrets and, with just a word in the ear of his CIA Director or FBI Director or some other high level director, could destroy people’s lives. Jed Brightman had too much unclaimed baggage, he knew, to ever pick a personal fight with the president. Political fights, all the time. But not a personal one. And especially not with this ghetto wife of his, a wife, as everybody in town was totally confounded about, he seemed to just cherish.
“Yes, sir,” the Speaker said, and left the room.
When he was gone Crader laughed, thrilled to see that obnoxious, racist prick reprimanded.
/> But Dutch, who could barely contain his rage, found nothing about the sordid affair amusing.
FOUR
It was nearly ten at night by the time the old but reliable Ford Fairmont drove the twenty-two miles outside of DC and entered the driveway of the small, unassuming home. Penelope Riley, Little Walt’s nurse-trained nanny, stepped out of the car and entered the home. When she rounded the foyer, and saw her sitting at the window, smoking cigarettes like there was no tomorrow, she exhaled.
“Those things will kill you,” Riley said.
Caroline Parker, the former fiancée to Dutch Harber, turned in Riley’s direction, her cigarette boldly displayed as if it were an attachment, her hazel eyes dull with boredom. “And that is supposed to scare me?” she said.
“It should.”
“Why?”
Riley simply stared at her niece. They connected nearly sixteen years ago, when Caroline was engaged to marry then-businessman Dutch Harber. Caroline’s biological mother was Riley’s younger sister, a sister whose drug addiction caused her to make a lot of poor choices. One of the poorest was to have a child by a wealthy, but married white man who quickly managed to terminate her sister’s parental rights and have the child adopted by friends of his. Rich, white friends of his.
When Caroline’s biological mother died, Riley tracked down the child, hoping to find in her a remnant of Riley’s deceased sister. But by the time she was able to track her down, Caroline was accepted as a white girl, was well entrenched in the white world on rich Nantucket Island, and she had no interest whatsoever in revealing her black heritage to anyone. She was engaged to gorgeous Dutch Harber and was already battling his mother as it was. So Caroline politely but firmly asked her aunt, her biological mother’s sister, to never again contact her or so much as mention that there was a relationship between the two of them at all.
Since Caroline was the last known relative she still had left, Riley decided to let her be and attempt reconciliation later, perhaps after she was married to this Dutch Harber and fully accepted into his rich family.
When news came that Caroline had been killed in that plane crash in France, Riley thought that her chance at reconnecting with her niece was gone forever.
Only Caroline had not been killed. Riley later learned that although Caroline was to board the plane in France to head back to the US, she had made a deal with Victoria Harber, the president’s now-deceased mother, who didn’t want her as a daughter-in-law, who had videotape of Caroline having sex with various other men, who could have destroyed her permanently if she didn’t go along with the scheme. As it happened, Caroline was to go to France on the guise of preparing what was to be her and Dutch’s honeymoon retreat, but then she would get lost in France forever, as if she voluntarily abandoned Dutch, and live off of Victoria’s largess. At least until she could make her own way.
They had no idea the private plane’s return flight would crash and incinerate all onboard, but when it did, and since Caroline’s name was still on the manifest, they let the news of her death stand.
Caroline married a rich businessman in France and, for nearly a decade, lived the high life. Until her French husband was convicted of running an international Ponzi scheme and was carted off to prison, leaving her near-destitute.
She reconnected with Dutch Harber’s mother, who disliked Dutch’s new wife even more than she ever disliked Caroline, and they plotted and schemed to win him back. It all blew up in their faces, however, with both of them (and others who participated) facing jail time. But the president’s mother passed away before she could start serving her time and Caroline, who seemed to have more lives than a cat, was able to get the charges dropped in exchange for turning state’s evidence against the others.
And this time, it was Caroline who reached out to Riley. By that time Riley was a retired nurse living a quiet, peaceful life. Riley was thrilled to reconnect with her niece. She had no husband or children of her own and thought she would eventually die all alone, just as she had lived.
But her thrill of having a loving niece to care for her in her old age was short-lived. Because within only a few weeks it was obvious to Riley that her long lost niece wasn’t interested in any real reconciliation, but only in getting revenge on Dutch Harber. And she needed her aunt to make it so.
“He would have let me rot in jail,” Caroline kept saying, bitterness spewing from her like a contagious disease.
And within a matter of days, and after promising to take her lonely, companionship-starved aunt to live with her in France once this was all over, provided her aunt did exactly as she told her to do, the plan was hatched.
“How did it go?” Caroline asked her aunt.
Riley sat down on the sofa and removed her shoes, her feet killing her. “It went fine.”
“And they still trust you?”
“Of course they trust me,” Riley said with a frown, rubbing one of her swollen feet. “I do my job and I do it well.”
Caroline smiled. Although in her mid-forties now, she was still a very beautiful, desirable woman, her hazel eyes and light-to-white smooth skin a picture of health and vitality. But Riley could see where all of her years of deviousness were beginning to take a toll. In fact, sometimes when Riley looked at her niece, she felt as if she was looking at evil itself.
But what could she do? She had no allegiance to Dutch Harber or to that loudmouth wife of his. When she was old and decrepit and alone, would they take care of her? Would they be there for her? Were they her flesh and blood the way Caroline was?
So she made her deal with the devil and decided that her allegiance, her very future at this point, would now be intrinsically linked with the only family she still had left. And she was no village idiot. She knew Caroline was no sure bet either. But she’d rather put her eggs in the basket of a blood relative’s, than with people who had no obligation to her on even that base level.
“I can’t wait to get this over with,” Riley said.
“You can’t stand that wife of his, either, can you?” Caroline asked.
“I can’t stand either one of them,” Riley admitted. “What they did to you is unforgiveable in my view.”
Caroline smiled. She had sold her aunt a bill of goods, a story where she was always the victim and Dutch and his now-deceased mother and even his wife had used and abused her on every turn. “Good,” she said. “You keep that attitude.”
“Any enemy of yours, is an enemy of mine.”
“That’s why I love you,” Caroline said, although in truth she could barely stand the sight of the dusky old lady.
“But what about Max Brennan?” Riley asked. “What if he tells the president?”
“He doesn’t know anything to tell,” Caroline snapped. “I didn’t tell him my motives. I told him you needed a job, that you would make a great nanny to the Harber baby, and that I wanted you to become that baby’s nanny so that I could eventually steal Dutch away from that Regina person.”
“And you think he believed you?”
“Of course he did. He hates the First Lady because Dutch loves her so much.”
“Why would he hate her for that?”
Caroline smiled. “Because, aunt, dearest, Max has the hots for Dutch Harber himself.”
Riley smiled. “Oh, go on. That’s nonsense!”
“No, it’s not either. He has always been smitten with Dutch.”
“And does the president know about this crush?”
“No, he doesn’t know,” Caroline said as if that should be obvious. “I didn’t know either until one drunken night, when Max came to my house while I was still engaged to Dutch, and we ended up making love. He admitted it to me then.”
Riley could hardly believe it. She was engaged to Dutch Harber, yet she slept with the man’s best friend? And she said it as if it was no big deal whatsoever. Sometimes she wondered if her niece had any morals at all.
And sometimes still, Riley wondered why she was allowing herself to be so desperate as t
o overlook so many of her niece’s faults. Although she wasn’t exactly overlooking them. She knew they were there. She just decided to live with them. She was pushing sixty now and wasn’t in the best of health. She wasn’t about to do anything to cause her to lose perhaps the last chance she would ever have to be connected to someone.
“So Max knows not to cross me,” Caroline said. “I have the goods on him. That’s how you got that job. On his recommendation. That’s how you became the hand that rocks the cradle of the most powerful baby on the face of this earth.”
“But you know what they’re saying,” Riley leaned back and said. “They’re now claiming that the president isn’t the father of that baby. They’re claiming that Little Walt is a black man’s child.”
Caroline smiled. She was the one who planted that story too. All it took was an anonymous phone call to a reporter. “That baby’s black as tar,” she told the reporter. “That’s why they won’t release photos.” Then she added, for good measure: “In fact, that baby looks a lot like Roman Wilkes.” And that was all it took.
The way Caroline saw it, if the Harbers could be preoccupied with yet another scandal, she could quietly hatch her scheme, and bring it to fruition, right under their stank noses.
“I heard those rumors,” she said to her aunt. “But I don’t believe a word of it.”
“Me either,” Riley said. “That baby may look black, but you can see President Harber all over that child. And talk about love,” Riley added. “That man loves that black boy to death.”
Caroline nodded. “Good,” she said. Because she was relying on that love. Because when Dutch Harber fell, she wanted it to be with the kind of excruciating pain he’d never felt before.
DUTCH AND GINA: A SCANDAL IS BORN Page 3
