by James Mills
So he want back to his hotel and called Gus.
“He’s here. I spoke to him, just said someone wants to talk to him. He’s gonna give me an answer tomorrow night.”
“Is Samantha with him?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll be on the next flight.”
“Why don’t you wait till I’m sure Samantha’s here?”
“I can’t wait, Carl. I’ll be on the Delta flight leaving New York tomorrow night. It arrives in Nice the next afternoon.”
“I’ll be there. Is Michelle coming?”
“Are you kidding?”
When Larry got back to the hotel on his 2 A.M. break he stopped outside Samantha’s door and listened.
“Daddy? Is that you?”
He’d tried to be quiet, but she had ears that heard everything.
He cracked the door.
“Go back to sleep, Samantha. It’s two A.M.”
“I can’t sleep.”
So he went in and turned on the light. It was a tiny room, across the hall from his own, and she had put up posters of horses and rock stars. She slept with a stuffed bear the size of a cocker spaniel.
“What’s wrong, honey?”
“Nothing. I’m just awake. Let’s play cards.”
Walking back to the hotel, he’d been wondering how much to tell her about Carl. She had a child’s innocent wis dom, a natural discernment quick to detect frauds and swindlers. He found the cards in a bureau drawer.
“Five-card stud?”
“Yeah, great.”
She smiled, sat up, and smoothed the sheet. He sat on the edge of the bed and dealt. They used to play fish and old maid, but six months ago, in London, he had taught her poker. They played for used postage stamps. When she won, she pasted her stamps in an album.
He said, “I met a man tonight.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know.”
She peeked at her hole card and looked up. “Is he nice?”
“I’m not sure. He wanted to talk to me.”
“What did he say?”
She had a pair of queens showing and reached into her envelope of stamps.
“He has a friend he wants me to meet.”
She pulled her hand back.
“A friend he wants you to meet. So who’s the friend?”
“I don’t know. Someone he says I should meet, that it’s important, I’ll be glad if I meet him.”
“But he won’t tell you who the friend is?”
“No.”
She laid three stamps on the bed beside the cards. Knowing she had him beat, Larry raised her another three.
She said, “Sounds fishy.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“What’s he like?”
“He seems like a nice guy. I guess I believe him.”
“You believe everyone.”
“That’s true. Raise you another three.”
“I wonder who it is.”
“Yeah.”
He dealt the last card.
“Maybe someone famous wants you to work for them.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Maybe it’s something really exciting.”
Larry laughed. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Don’t be so pessimistic. I think you should meet him. Why not?”
She was smiling, full of confidence, adventure, and hope. He loved her enthusiasm. She did more for him than he did for her, and he wished he could change that. Sometimes she was all that kept him going, all that kept him away from the bottle.
He waited until she had won all the stamps, then said good night and kissed her cheek. She got out of bed to lock the door behind him.
In the doorway he said, “See you later.”
“Good night, Daddy. I think you should see the man’s friend.”
He waited in the hall until he heard her snap the lock, then hurried back to the club, quickly arranged his jacket, arranged his face, and headed for the piano.
The next night Carl waited in a doorway near the corner where he could see both the entrance to Larry’s hotel and the rear door of the Papagayo bar. At 10:30 he watched Larry come out of the hotel alone and walk toward the bar.
Carl moved out of the doorway’s darkness and caught a glimpse of a man at the end of the street ducking into a black Peugeot 205. He stepped back into the doorway and looked into the car as it moved past him up the street. There wasn’t much light, and maybe he was overcautious, but the man behind the wheel looked alarmingly like Warren Gier.
As Carl made his way through the crowds along the port to the bar’s terrace entrance, he kept thinking, It couldn’t be Gier. There’s no way that could have been Gier. Gier could not have been in that car.
He took a seat at the bar and listened to Larry play. Their eyes met but neither gave a sign of recognition. At the first break, Carl walked outside and waited at the back entrance. He searched the street for a black Peugeot 205. He was certain now that the dim, fleeting profile could not have been Warren Gier.
Carl stepped up to Larry as he came out through the door. “Can I buy you a coffee?”
“I have something I have to do for a few minutes. But it’s okay. I’ll see your friend. How do we do it?”
“I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning at eleven.”
“At the café?”
“See you there. And listen, just a question.”
“Yes?”
“Has anyone else contacted you in the past couple of days?”
“No. Is there someone else?”
“No, I just wondered. See you tomorrow. I’ll hang around and listen to the rest of your performance.”
But he didn’t hang around, not for long. After half a glass of beer and ten minutes’ thought, Carl went back to his hotel and called Gus. It was late afternoon in Washington, and Gus was about to leave for the airport.
Carl said, “Gier’s here.”
“Warren Gier?”
“The man himself.”
Carl told him about the Peugeot.
Gus said, “I’m on my way.”
14
You awake?”
Michelle, sleepless for more than an hour, had thought she heard an unfamiliar sound outside the house. Something scraping. They were leaving for France the next afternoon.
“Yeah.”
She felt Gus turn toward her in the darkness. Knowing he was awake made her feel safer.
She decided not to mention the sound. Instead she said, “I can’t get that stupid thing out of my mind.”
In the Washington Post that morning one of the columnists had called Gus a racist. He quoted an unnamed “black community leader” in Mobile who claimed that Gus gave stiffer sentences to blacks than to whites.
“Me either.”
“Is it worth it, Gus? I mean for you. It’s worse for you.”
“It’s bad for both of us, Michelle. But, yeah, it’s worth it. Nothing good comes easy. It’s only lies, anyway.”
“How can they say that, Gus? He has to know it’s not true.”
“Truth has nothing to do with it.”
Major activist groups were holding the threat of a primary battle over the head of any southern senator who voted for Gus’s confirmation. To give teeth to that threat, the opposition had to arouse anti-Gus sentiment among black voters. Middle-class concerns like privacy and affirmative action wouldn’t do that, but racism would. So for the past week TV spots, newspaper ads, and certain columnists had painted Gus as a racist.
“Oh, Gus, I just—” She put a hand on his cheek. They were silent, wide awake.
Gus said, “Would it keep you awake if I took a shower?”
“No. Go ahead.”
She felt him get out of bed, heard the bathroom door close, saw cracks of light around the door.
Michelle heard the shower go on—and then the scraping noise again. She went to the closed window and listened. After a minute, she heard it again, something d
ownstairs by the garage.
“Gus?”
He didn’t answer, probably couldn’t hear her above the noise of the shower. She didn’t want to bother him. She decided just to go downstairs and take a peek out the kitchen window.
A moment later in the kitchen, she put her face to the glass and strained to see the edge of the garage entrance. A faint light flashed for an instant from the garage into the front yard. Her heart stopped. Through the door connecting the kitchen to the garage, she heard the scraping sound, something dragging across the concrete floor. Two dozen cardboard cartons filled with Gus’s papers, still unpacked since their move, had been stacked next to the car.
She didn’t know what to do. If she called to Gus, he might not hear, and whoever was in the garage would escape. If she ran upstairs, Gus might not get down in time. She opened a kitchen drawer, took out the longest knife she could find, and stood at the door to the garage. She held the knife above her head, put her other hand on the doorknob, and took a deep breath. Then she threw open the door, screamed as loud as she could, stepped into the garage, and flipped the light switch.
He was young, short, overweight, stooping over a carton. He looked up, a rabbit caught in the headlights, eyes on her face, then on the knife. He ran from the garage and jumped into the passenger side of a car that roared out of the driveway in a cloud of exhaust and smoking rubber. She didn’t see the driver of the car or its plate number or even the make. But she would never forget that face, burned forever into her memory, as she was sure the image of her knife was burned into his memory.
She stepped back into the kitchen and was almost knocked down by Gus, stark naked, charging in from the living room. His eyes went from Michelle to the knife.
“Who screamed? What’s wrong? Put the knife down.”
She dropped the knife and fell into his arms.
“Michelle, what’s wrong? What happened?” She was trembling, hanging on. “It’s all right, honey. It’s all right.”
He led her into the living room. “Tell me what happened.”
“A man was in the garage. I think I scared him to death.”
“Are you okay?”
She had stopped shaking. She was smiling.
“I’m fine. Just a little—I’ll bet he’s shaken up. Crazy lady with a big knife.”
“What was he doing?”
“He was bending over a carton, like getting ready to lift it.”
Gus got up and went back to the garage.
“Where are you going?”
“Count the cartons.”
“Who was he, Gus?”
“Someone looking for dirt.”
Michelle waited. She didn’t want to see that garage again tonight.
Gus came back, carrying the knife. He dropped it in the sink. “Twenty-three. One missing.”
“What’s in it?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to go through the others.”
“Gus, I’m scared.”
He put an arm around her. “Let’s go to bed. I’ll call Rothman tomorrow.”
“We’re going to France tomorrow.”
“I know. Rothman can deal with your burglar friend.”
Carl was at the café at ten, and spent the extra hour on countersurveillance, more disturbed than ever about the black Peugeot. He checked the surrounding streets, walked through a parking lot a block away. No black Peugeot.
As he returned to the café, he met Larry on the street. They were walking to Carl’s car when Carl spotted a man fifty meters away between two parked cars, his face hidden behind a small hand-held video camera. The camera was aimed right at them.
Carl said, “Just a second. I’ll be right back.”
He started toward the man, who lowered the camera, jumped into one of the cars, and pulled out into the street. Carl ran, and the car, a black Peugeot 205, accelerated past him, almost knocking him down. This time, through the windshield, he had a clear view of Warren Gier behind the wheel.
Carl went back to Larry, got them both into his car, and was just turning the ignition when he heard a sudden banging on the passenger window. He swung his head, his hand moving instinctively to the Walther in his waistband. A girl’s face was at the window, her knuckles beating angrily on the glass.
Larry, yanking the door open, shouted, “Samantha!”
He jumped out of the car. “What are you doing here?”
The girl said, “You shouldn’t have done that! I’m going with you!”
She looked seventeen, tall, slim, pink T-shirt, white shorts, pink espadrilles. An older, long-haired, and very angry version of the girl in the video.
Larry said, “You can’t go with me. I told you.”
“You shouldn’t have just left me.”
“I didn’t just leave you. I told you I was going out. You can wait in the hotel. I’ll be back soon.”
“Who’s he?”
Carl had come around from the driver’s side, standing at a distance, staying out of it. She was full of fire, tear-filled eyes flashing anger.
“He’s the man I told you about. Carl, this is my daughter, Samantha.”
Carl said, “Hi.”
He put out his hand, smiling.
“Hi.”
Her grip was firm. She took him in at a glance, a one-second study that seemed to tell her everything she needed to know for the moment. Then she looked sharply back at Larry.
“Where are you going?”
“It doesn’t matter, Samantha. I’ll be back later. Madame Durand will give you lunch.”
“I want to go.”
“You can’t go.”
“Why?”
“Samantha, this is something personal between Carl and me.”
“I’m scared.”
“Samantha, that’s—”
“I saw someone following you.”
“No one’s following me, Samantha.”
She turned to Carl, facing him straight on, and this time the eyes tried to pull him to pieces. He felt sorry for her. She was terrified at the possibility of Larry driving off and leaving her. Or maybe she’d seen Gier tracking them with his TV camera. She wasn’t the only one concerned. Carl wanted to get back in the car and clear out.
“I don’t want to interfere, Larry, but why not let her come? It doesn’t bother me.”
Samantha reached for the door handle.
“There, so I’m coming.”
She climbed in the back seat, sitting straight, arms crossed.
Carl and Larry got in the front, and when Carl looked at her in the rear-view mirror she caught his eye and smiled. The fire was gone, and with it the tears and anger. What was Gus going to say when he came off the plane and saw that face?
Heading out of Saint-Tropez, Larry said, “I hope it’s really okay, Samantha coming.”
“Absolutely.”
“Where are we going?”
“My friend’s arriving at the Nice airport. We can meet him there and have lunch.”
Carl had been watching Samantha in the rear-view mirror. “That sound okay, Samantha?”
She smiled. The girl in the video.
“Yes, thank you.” The eyes were gentle, the aggression gone. “That would be wonderful.”
Polite. Shy, even.
“He’s where?”
John Harrington had walked into Helen’s conference room late and nodded quickly at the three others who were already around the table. Since an earlier meeting, the one at which Isaac Jasper had mentioned conventional tactics that “don’t meet your needs,” several Freedom Federation members had found excuses for staying away.
Helen said, “Saint-Tropez.”
“Gier’s in Saint-Tropez? In France?”
“So is Parham’s daughter. With Carl Falco. Her name’s Samantha.”
Harrington, shocked into silence, sat down.
Isaac slouched in one of the white chairs, elbow on knee, unshaved chin cupped in his palm. His eyes were closed.
Helen said, “Isaac, a
re you awake?”
The eyes opened slowly, but the chin did not come off the hand.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry. Just thinking.” Now the chin lifted. “I don’t want to sound like a prophet of doom, but …”
“Go ahead.”
“You guys have had it.”
Helen said, “Samantha’s in France, and we’ve had it? You’re pretty quick to throw in the towel, Isaac.”
“Maybe so. But they’ve found her. Some innocent, pretty little thirteen-year-old goes on Larry King, Letterman, Leno—you’ve had it. You will not find fifty-one senators willing to vote against the kind of sympathy that’ll produce. My opinion, maybe I’m wrong. Could be wrong. Hope I’m wrong.”
Helen looked at Harrington. “John?”
“I think Isaac’s a little prematurely glum. These things are never easy. The question’s always the same. How bad do you want to win?”
Helen said to Isaac, “You don’t think we can win?”
“I never said that. You can always win, if you’re willing to do whatever it takes to win. What I’m saying is, what you’re doing now won’t win. You’ll have to do something more effective.”
“Like what?”
“That’s not my job. That’s your job. I’m just giving an opinion. Business as usual—media, celebrities, phone banks, direct mail, press conferences—that won’t do it.”
Paula Yost stretched and looked wearily at the ceiling. “Kidnap the kid.” She pulled her arms down and her eyes met the shocked stares. “Just kidding!”
Isaac said, “I’m not suggesting anything like that.”
Helen said, “Of course not, Isaac. You may be many things, but you’re not violent.”
“Possibly subviolent.” Harrington said it with a grin.
Helen said, “I beg your pardon?”
“Like the suggestion that Parham grabbed some of the luggage-locker money.”
Helen said, “Why is that ‘subviolent’?”
“It’s a lie,” Harrington said, “but we use it. A sort of invention. We all know he didn’t take the money, but no one rejects the idea of using the accusation.”
“Dishonest.”
