Or kill me.
He buried his hands in his pocket and walked slowly into the night. Yeah, they might kill him this time. But one thing was certain.
It beat letting the Russians do the job.
Chapter 20
The winds shifted overnight, and by morning the grip of winter had lifted from the Capitol. Jack and his father decided to go for a jog in the National Mall before breakfast. They weren’t alone by a long shot. It didn’t take springtime and cherry blossoms to bring out the joggers by the hundreds, more stress than sweat oozing from their pores. Harry, however, became winded in less than ten minutes. He found rest on a park bench near the World War II Memorial.
“I ran two miles every morning when I was in the governor’s mansion,” said Harry, shaking his head. “Your old man isn’t what he used to be.”
This was one of those moments when the good son was supposed to step up and say something like Nonsense, you’re in great shape. But Jack was thinking other thoughts.
“Dad, there are some things I need to tell you.”
Harry reached down and tried to touch his toes but made it only to his knees. “Okay,” he said, groaning. “I’m listening.”
“I’m starting to wonder about this whole thing.”
“My being vice president?”
“It’s more about how the job came open in the first place.”
Jack sat on the bench beside him. A group of college students ran by. Jack could almost smell last night’s frat party in the air. He let them pass, then continued.
“I’ve been hearing some disturbing things lately. Did you know that Grayson was cheating on his wife?”
Harry looked as if he’d just sucked a lemon. “What does that have to do with anything? Let the man rest in peace. And who told you that, anyway?”
“His daughter.”
“You talked to Elizabeth about her father’s sex life?”
“Well-yes, actually. His widow, too.”
“You’ve been hanging around Theo too much.”
“It’s not what it sounds like. This is serious.”
“Seriously weird.”
“Dad, just listen.”
“No, I really don’t want to hear this. You of all people should know better than to put rumors inside my head. I’m about to face off against two congressional committees, and there are members of those committees who never miss an opportunity to embarrass the president. The less I know about anything that doesn’t deal with my own qualifications for the job, the better.”
“This isn’t about you being qualified. I’ve been talking with Paulette Sparks about this-”
“Damn, Jack. Why would you do that?”
“She’s been helping me sort this out.”
“She’s a Washington reporter. She’s not helping you.”
“Paulette thinks Grayson may have been murdered.”
“That’s it, I’m outta here,” he said as he sprang from the bench.
Jack went after him, jogging at his side. “Why won’t you listen to this?”
“Why won’t you stop talking?”
“This is important.”
“This is poppycock.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I live in the real world, Jack. You should try visiting there some time.”
“A fifty-year-old man cheats on his wife, and both he and his young lover end up dead. For a criminal defense lawyer, that is the real world.”
Harry stopped abruptly. “I’m trying to pull you up out of that cesspool, Jack. I’m giving you a shot at the big leagues. Don’t blow it.”
“A shot? I didn’t ask for a shot.”
“As your father, I’m asking you to stop talking with Paulette Sparks.”
“As your lawyer, I’m telling you to open your eyes.”
“As my lawyer, you should have known better than to put your trust in a reporter in the first place.”
“What are you going to do, fire me?”
Another runner passed them. It gave Harry time to reflect, but he still didn’t pull any punches. “Yeah,” he said, grunting. “I think I am.”
Jack stopped running. “What?”
Harry continued several paces down the path, then turned to look Jack in the eye. “I need a lawyer who really wants this job. Ever since you got here, all you’ve done is play detective. That’s not helping me.”
Fired by my own father? Jack didn’t know what to say. “Okay. If that’s the way you want it.”
“If this keeps up, we’ll end up not speaking to each other, and it’ll be the bad old days all over again. That’s what I don’t want.”
“So…I should go back to Miami?”
“I think it’s best this way. Now, come on, let’s start back.”
“You go ahead. I don’t much feel like it.”
“Suit yourself.”
Jack watched in silence as his father turned and merged into a long line of joggers that was headed in the general direction of the White House.
Chapter 21
Paulette Sparks returned to Washington on Tuesday night. Chloe’s funeral had left her completely drained.
She wondered if her father would ever recover.
Paulette’s relationship with Chloe’s mother had never amounted to much, but it killed her to see their father suffer. Chloe had caused him so much heartache in her teenage years-drinking and driving, hitting the party scene, not coming home at night. Paulette resented her for that, but it was nothing compared to Chloe’s resentment toward her. As the older sister, Paulette had done everything before Chloe. Chloe was riding a bike when Paulette learned to drive. Chloe was in middle school when Paulette started college. At the funeral, Paulette recalled an argument they’d had years earlier, when just by coincidence Chloe’s acceptance to journalism school was completely overshadowed by Paulette’s landing a job with CNN.
“I hope you die before I do, too!” Chloe had screamed at her.
Her sister hadn’t gotten her wish.
“Seventh Street,” Paulette told the taxi driver.
“Where?”
It was a dark and drizzly night at Reagan International Airport, and the only sound in the car was the wump-wump of the windshield wipers.
“Columbia Bowling Alley. You know it?”
“Yeah. Do you?”
“Sure,” she said.
“Funny,” said the driver. “You don’t look the bowling type.”
“Looks can be deceiving.”
“I hear you. But you know, if you’re going to the alley looking to soothe the beast, I could probably help you find whatever you-”
“I’m not looking for drugs. I’m going bowling.”
“Okay, sure. If you say so, lady.”
Paulette was only half lying. No, she wasn’t looking for drugs. But she wasn’t going bowling. She was on a mission. Instinctively, she reached inside her purse and touched the envelope, just to make sure it was still there. It was.
Chloe’s letter had landed in their father’s mailbox on the morning of her burial. The poor man had nearly fainted. He gave it to Paulette to read it to him. The very idea of getting a letter from a daughter he had just laid beneath the earth was too painful for him to handle. Chloe had mailed it just one day before her death. The timing was not mere coincidence.
Paulette opened the envelope and read it one more time in the backseat of the taxi, the dim reading lamp giving her barely enough light:
Dear Dad,
I can’t remember the last time I snail-mailed a handwritten letter to you, but don’t be alarmed. This is good news. Mostly good news. I am working on the biggest story of my life right now. This one goes all the way to the White House.
I’ve been dealing with a confidential source for a couple weeks now. He hasn’t told me everything, but I know enough to understand that this could be dangerous stuff. That’s why I’m writing you this letter.
I have been making copies of all my notes on this story. In case someth
ing happens to me-I’m not saying it will, but just in case it does-I want you to know where they are. Take the key that’s in this envelope. It’s to locker number 23 at Columbia
Lanes Bowling Alley on 7th Street. You’ll find everything in the locker.
I know you probably think this sounds crazy or even paranoid. If you’re sharing it with Paulette, she’s probably rolling her eyes right now. But this is serious stuff, Dad. It’s going to be big. Bigger than anything you can imagine. You are going to be so proud of me.
Love, Chloe
The taxi stopped at the curb in front of the bowling alley. The orange neon sign on the door said they were “PEN,” the letter “O” burned out. Paulette paid the driver and stepped onto the sidewalk. She tried to put one foot in front of the other, but something stopped her. The cold night air hit her in the face, unleashing swarms of butterflies in her stomach.
Not until that moment-as she stared at the entrance to the Columbia bowling alley-had Paulette even considered the possibility that the locker might hold some kind of journalistic treasure. She’d promised her father to check it out and take whatever was inside the locker to the police. Knowing Chloe, she expected the locker to be empty. The girl just wasn’t well.
Two men with bowling bags passed her on the sidewalk, and Paulette followed them inside. It was a league night, lots of men dressed in baby blue shirts with short sleeves and their names stitched onto the pocket. Paulette was strangely reminded of her midwestern roots-the winter days of Ping-Pong after school in the basement and bowling on weekends. Chloe used to throw a fit when their father told her to use the bumpers to keep the ball out of the gutters. She had always insisted on competing straight up with her older sister.
Paulette walked past the counter toward the women’s lounge. The lockers were in a separate room adjacent to the bathroom. She double checked the number on the key and found locker 23 in the second row. She stepped toward it, inserted the key, and turned the handle. It opened. The butterflies returned; the locker wasn’t empty.
You never cease to surprise me, little sister.
Paulette took the expandable folder from the locker and went to the wooden bench in the center of the room. She untied the string and peeked inside. It contained notes, just as Chloe had explained in her letter. Some were handwritten. Others were typed. Paulette was certain that the handwritten notes would be utterly unintelligible. She took a closer look at the typewritten pages, which were stapled together and better organized. They appeared to be a rough draft of an article.
The first line was a grabber: When should a president no longer be president?
Paulette almost smiled. She read on.
In dark times, this country has asked that question before. The Keyes presidency, however, presents an entirely unique question in American history: When should a president never have become president in the first place?
Paulette’s adrenaline was pumping. She kept reading-couldn’t stop reading. By the fourth paragraph she had to put it down and catch her breath. She went right back to it, read some more, and instinctively brought the papers to her chest, as if to prevent her pounding heart from exploding.
My God, Chloe.
A wave of paranoia suddenly came over her-a taste of what her sister must have felt at the end of her life-and Paulette checked over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching. No one else was in the room. She gathered up the papers, stuffed them back into the file, and closed up the locker. Chloe’s notes were hers now. This story was too important to sit on the shelf inside some locker in a bowling alley. Someone had to run with this. She would do it for Chloe-maybe even give her a posthumous co-byline. All Paulette had to do was verify a few facts.
And then one way or another, this story would rock the White House to its political core.
Chapter 22
The Greek found her with ease, just a train ride away.
She was living in an old Italian neighborhood in Queens, worked in an Italian bakery, and made the best cannoli outside of Palermo. She sang Italian songs while she worked and spoke in a perfect Sicilian dialect to her customers. The red, green, and white Italian flag hung in the window each morning, right beside the Sicilian coat of arms with its distinctive trinacria-three bent legs and three wheat ears around the winged head of Medusa. On some level, the Greek understood her connection to the old country. On another, he couldn’t comprehend the constant reminders.
It was as if the Sicilians had never raped her.
Without question, Sofia was the love of his life. Forty years hadn’t changed his feelings toward her. That one night in Cyprus, however, had changed everything else.
The express ride from a hotel rooftop without an elevator had left him unconscious for days and had landed him in traction for weeks. The sterile smell of white hospital linens was forever imbedded in his brain, and sometimes he could still feel the itch beneath the body cast. Sofia had taken him home in a wheelchair, but his life as an invalid was finished at their doorstep. Despite Sofia’s protestations, he had insisted on walking up the stairs to their second-story apartment under his own power. It took him almost ninety minutes, and the irony was not lost on him that this was his first journey up those steps since the Sicilians had rushed upstairs to throw him off the roof. He was exhausted, as much from the pain as from the effort. At the top, Sofia had taken him in her arms, and he made a promise to her and to himself. He would make himself stronger than ever, he would refuse to live his life on painkillers, and he would once again make sweet love to Sofia the way a man should make love to a beautiful woman. He’d started slowly with her, bringing his sense of touch back to life by exploring the curve of her neck, the soft wave of her long black hair, the smoothness of her skin. When he was ready for more, however, she pulled away. At first he thought it was the battered state of his body that had turned her off, the scars from the many surgeries that had put his broken bones back together.
“It’s not you,” she’d told him, and the way she looked away in shame, he knew immediately.
“The Sicilians. Did they-”
A weak, almost imperceptible nod of the head confirmed it.
Eight months later, his body was well on the mend. But the marriage was officially over.
The Greek had checked on her over the years, just out of curiosity, to see how she was doing. She’d married an American and moved to New York, where they opened Angelo’s Italian Bakery and worked side by side for more than three decades. The Greek respected her right to move on, even though his need to see her had at times been overwhelming. Every so often, he would give in and watch her from a distance-a glimpse of Sofia walking to the bus or raking leaves in the front yard. The Greek didn’t think of it as stalking, but Sofia never even knew he was there-except once. Two years earlier, he’d allowed himself to be seen. He was standing on the sidewalk in front of her house as she stepped outside to the mailbox. So many years had passed, but there is a way a man stands, a way he looks at a woman that endures over time and identifies him like a fingerprint. They didn’t say a word to each other, but their eyes met and held, and the silence between them spoke volumes. The feeling had been unlike any the Greek had ever felt, and the spell was broken only when Sofia’s husband called to her from inside the house. Even then, she hadn’t turned away immediately-but finally she did, and she disappeared inside the house. That minute or so between them wasn’t much in terms of time. But it had been enough to convince the Greek that the connection was still there, that his “once in a lifetime” was her “once in a lifetime,” too, even if she had settled down and remarried.
The Greek hadn’t returned since then. On some level, however, his memories of Sofia were at least part of the reason he’d kept himself in such amazing physical shape. The Russians breathing down his neck made him want to see her one last time. An Internet search at the library, just to see if she was still living in the same place, had turned up an obituary. Sofia’s husband was dead-and at that moment, the light had switc
hed on.
Plan C was hatched.
The Greek would visit Sofia. He would tell her how he felt. And unless those eyes had lied to him two years earlier, she would help him. She would believe in him this time, forgetting or at least forgiving him for the fact that he was a man whose actions never lived up to the tenderness of his words or intentions. Sofia was his last hope.
The bells on the door tinkled as he entered Angelo’s Bakery. Four P.M. was the end of another eleven-hour day for a baker. Sofia was behind the counter cleaning when she looked up and saw him.
“Ciao, Sofia,” he said softly.
She froze with recognition. Or maybe it was disbelief. She averted her eyes, staring down at the bread crumbs she’d swept into a neat pile on the floor, as if afraid to look at him.
“It can’t be,” she said.
“You know it is.”
She still wouldn’t look at him. He stepped toward the counter. She was just three feet away, and even in the twilight of her life, her beauty pulled him closer, triggering the memories. For a very brief moment, Sofia was nineteen again, his body was strong, and they could wrestle till dawn bringing each other pleasure.
“You are such a beautiful woman,” he said.
Sofia nervously brushed back a wisp of hair from her face.
“Why have you come here?” she said.
“I need you.”
“You lie.”
“It’s true,” he said. “Right now, I need you more than ever.”
“For what?”
He leaned forward, getting as close to her as he could without crawling over the counter. “Sofia, this time they are going to kill me.”
She was silent for a moment, then slowly raised her eyes to meet his. “You should have been dead a long time ago.”
“That’s true. But I’m still here.”
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