by Rob Byrnes
No assistant, no researcher, and no sense of security. How was she supposed to handle all that? She was almost at the moment of her greatest triumph and everything was falling apart.
The blogger dropped a hand into her purse and felt the handle of her nine-millimeter. At least she still had that.
She finally forced one leg to move, and then the other, and soon was walking. That helped. She was incapable of blogging or doing much besides alternating between extreme bouts of anger and paranoia, but at least she could walk.
And she decided she hated Gretchen. How dare she get pregnant like that? June suspected she’d done it out of spite. The girl knew by quitting she’d leave June all but alone. She could manage without a researcher for a week or two, but not much longer.
What was worse was the realization that without Edward and at least the possibility that Gretchen might come in every now and then, she was now the only person on the entire fifth floor. A burglary had been committed, the Live! Nude! Girls! and their patrons were spreading their diseases below, and Captain Enright reported junkies in the building, but she was alone. If something happened, there’d be no one to help her.
For the first time ever she wished the Bulgarians were back in their office.
She felt again for the pistol, and again was reassured.
June saw only one immediate option. No others came to mind.
For at least the short term, she needed Edward Hepplewhite back.
She could fire him—would fire him—later and fill the position with someone more competent and, hopefully, better able to defend her office. But that would take time. June Forteene could not afford the time to hire and train a new employee right now…not with the photo of Austin Peebles’s penis about to go public. When that happened, the phone wouldn’t stop ringing and the e-mail wouldn’t stop flowing into her in-box, and she’d have to be ready.
She picked up the phone before she had an opportunity to doubt her own judgment and hoped he wasn’t still in jail.
It hadn’t been difficult for Mary Beth to find the PEEBLES FOR THE PEOPLE campaign fund-raiser. It was posted right on the website. The Friars Club, six to eight p.m., two thousand dollars per person. And she wouldn’t even have to change out of her breasts-and-curves-enhancing dress. She left a vague note about a campaign event on the kitchen table. Then she went to work.
As she waited in line to pay her for her ticket, she debated telling Lisa about the money. Two thousand dollars was a large enough amount that she’d probably notice. But if Mary Beth told her, there was a good chance Lisa would object—she was already acting inexplicably strange about Austin Peebles—so she decided it would be a better idea to keep it to herself for the time being.
After they ran her credit card there was no turning back, and Mary Beth walked into the Milton Berle Room and took a look around. The crowd wasn’t the type she was used to mingling with, but it was definitely the type she aspired to mingle with, if on the old side.
And then she spotted him across the room.
Austin Peebles stood in the middle of a knot of people, smiling shyly while one guest after another talked his ear off. He looked young enough to be the grandson of most people in the room.
And she thought, The poor thing…
Ironically, Austin was thinking the same things. Both “poor thing” and “these people are old enough to be my grandparents.”
These events used to be tolerable when Penelope was speaking to him—she wasn’t always pleasant, but his wife could be a delightfully catty companion—but she couldn’t even be bothered to show up at this event. For that matter, even Mother Concannon had taken a pass, leaving him at the mercy of Kevin Wunder and approximately one hundred senior citizens.
Ah well, he thought. Start the day campaigning at a senior center, and end the day campaigning with the seniors.
The circle of elders seemed to tighten around him, some of the women tenderly touching his arm as if he were a favored grandchild. It was intrusive, but it wasn’t the first time he’d been the center of attention. He figured he could stick it out until eight o’clock and act happy to be there…but then he saw the beautiful young woman in the low-cut blue dress standing across the room and thought he might not have to act after all.
If Penelope Peebles had known who her husband was ogling at that moment, she might not have cared. Even without knowing Mary Beth was a lesbian, she might not have cared.
Less than two years earlier, she’d entered the marriage with her eyes wide open. Austin had many less-than-admirable qualities, but guile and manipulation were not among them. Penelope knew exactly what she was getting: a bad boy husband who, not coincidentally, would bring her greater public exposure and double the number of potential clients for her financial management firm.
It was like they had an unwritten—and unspoken—contract. Until something voided that contract, they would present a unified front and prosper. It would be a win-win situation for both of them.
It was also unwritten and unsaid that sexting a photo of your freakin’ erection to some stranger on the Internet was a contract-killer.
She thought she’d probably stay with him through the election, but it was hard to imagine life with Austin past November. Penelope had a career to build, and no time for her immature husband’s shenanigans.
If the photo went public—and thanks to the incompetent thieves Kevin Wunder had hired, that seemed likely—the marriage was definitely over. Austin’s private dalliances were his own business; publically humiliating his wife was another thing altogether.
Her mother might try to convince her to save the marriage, but Penelope could be very determined. And if her mother loved the man-child so much, she could marry him.
She looked at the clock and realized she was wasting too much time obsessing over the situation, so she buzzed for her assistants—the same large young men who’d given her a hand a few nights earlier when she had a completely blank check to rip up in front of a very disappointed trio of burglars—and announced it was time to get back to work.
When Mary Beth arrived home late that night, Lisa was waiting up.
“You wore that dress?” were the first words out of her mouth. “You wore that dress to campaign with Austin Peebles?”
“It’s a long story,” she said but realized she should elaborate when she saw the hard, unhappy expression on her partner’s face. “I wanted to make an impression.”
“I’ll bet that did it.”
Mary Beth smiled. “Yeah, he definitely knows who I am now.” When Lisa started to say something, Mary Beth cut her off. “He also knows I like women. I made that clear right up front.”
Lisa believed her but couldn’t quite put all the pieces together. “So why the dress?”
“Look.” Mary Beth pulled a chair away from the kitchen table and sat. “We know Austin Peebles is a horndog, right?” Lisa nodded. “That’s why I wore the dress. We don’t have a lot of time, and I needed him to notice me right away. It worked!”
“Go on…”
“We ended up having a long conversation, and—”
“Did you convince him that his own campaign manager is trying to stab him in the back?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. First I had to get my foot in the door. I’ll take care of the other business tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? Do you have another date?”
“Now, Lisa…”
Lisa frowned. “I don’t like this.”
“But it’s working. I’m in.” She held up her cell. “I even have his phone number.”
“So how did it come up you’re a lesbian?”
“Well…” Mary Beth gulped and knew this already not-so-pleasant conversation was about to go in an even less pleasant direction. “You see, he sort of…tried to seduce me.”
“What?!”
Mary Beth scrambled to get the words out before Lisa had a complete meltdown. “Which is when I told him I’m a lesbian. So you see? It was all very innocen
t.”
Lisa looked away and tried to remind herself that Mary Beth was home and nothing could have happened and those were the only things that really mat— “I can’t believe that horny motherfucker tried to seduce you!”
Mary Beth now had two secrets from her girlfriend. The first was the two thousand dollars she’d spent to access the fund-raiser.
The second was that Austin Peebles now had a pet name for her.
Kitten.
Chapter Fifteen
Grant Lambert pondered the dozen sheets of paper on the kitchen table in front of him for a while, made a few jots, made a few more, contemplated a while longer, and then squeezed his eyes closed. His head throbbed. Worse than that, it was never all going to come together with the precision he needed for the plan to work. His gang was going to have to simultaneously burgle and / or rob five different locations, several of which had already been robbed and burgled and several others which seemed as secure as Fort Knox.
And what a gang. Some weren’t even professional criminals, and one was only a few years above the age where he’d have to get his mommy’s permission.
What struck him, though—what made him so pessimistic that he had a hard time concentrating—was that they were missing one key component.
They still didn’t have their inside man.
Despite the fact his thus-far unidentified penis fragment was out there on the Internet for the world to see, Austin Peebles wouldn’t believe him. Grant knew Wunder was setting up Peebles, but until Peebles came to realize it, there was no hope to bring him on board.
And with just days to go before June Forteene released the entire photo—consisting of an entire penis and an entire Austin Peebles head—they didn’t have time to integrate anyone into the campaign. If he’d had a month, it’d be tough enough; it was an impossible task to pull off in mere days.
He kept diagramming ways in which there might be a one-in-a-million possibility of doing the job and hoped that Mary Beth could turn on the charm.
In fact, Mary Beth was turning on the charm.
Austin had a small, partitioned corner in the rear of the campaign headquarters, affording him some privacy. It was the quiet space where he was supposed to make campaign fund-raising calls, although he more commonly used the seclusion to take pictures of himself making faces and forward them to old college friends from Brown.
The campaign staff respected Austin’s corner—few had even been on the other side of the partition—which made it somewhat galling when Mary Beth, a new volunteer on her very first day, was invited in by the candidate. If it had been anyone but Austin, there might have been some hard feelings.
She posed for a few photos with him—they puffed their cheeks; they stuck out their tongues—and waited for him to send them to his friends before getting down to business.
“I need to talk to you about something important.”
Austin frowned just a bit. He didn’t like “important.” “What is it, kitten?”
Mary Beth nodded at a nearby space, identically partitioned. “Is that where your campaign manager sits?”
“Kevin? Yes, but he doesn’t usually arrive until late afternoon. Why?”
“Because he’s what I need to talk to you about.”
That confused him. “Kevin?”
Her expression was grave and she delicately took one of his hands. “He’s not your friend, Austin. He’s trying to destroy you.”
He laughed. “Oh, c’mon. Kevin’s my campaign manager!” He waited for her to let him in on the joke, but quickly saw no joke was coming. “Why would you—?”
“He’s the person who’s been sending the pictures to June Forteene!”
Austin shook his head. “So weird you would say that! Just the other day these two guys came up to me when I was campaigning outside Bloomingdale’s and said the exact same thing!”
She squeezed his hand. “I’m with them. We’re trying to protect you.”
“Wait.” He pulled his hand away. “You’re working with those thieves?”
She grabbed his hand and held it firmly. “You can’t do this alone.”
He tried to pull away again but there was no way she was letting go, so he gave up. “But why would Kevin do something like that?”
Mary Beth stared deeply into his eyes. “Because he wants to be in Congress. But first he needs to get rid of you.”
“But…”
She tightened her grip. “Listen to me. You’re down to two options: Work with us to stop Kevin Wunder, or sit back and watch him destroy you.”
“But…”
“No no no no no! There’s no ‘but.’ You already know he hired my friends and then stabbed them in the back. That should tell you something right there about his character.”
“Wow.” Austin sat back in his chair, a look of confusion on his face. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
Nodding toward Kevin Wunder’s partitioned retreat, she said, “Let’s take a look.”
Mary Beth walked to Wunder’s workspace first, and Austin obediently followed a few seconds later. It didn’t take them long to find the smoking gun.
“That’s brazen,” she said, holding a yellow Post-It bearing the message Call June. “It’s like he’s trying to get caught.”
He shook his head, lost in thought. “I can’t believe it.”
“But there it is, all spelled out for you.” She embraced him gently and whispered, “But we’re here for you, Austin. We’ll take care of you.”
When he finally looked at her, his eyes were clear and his voice was determined. “What do you need me to do?”
She slipped the Post-It in a pocket—because it wouldn’t do any good for anyone to find a yellow Post-It reading Call June in Mary Beth’s handwriting on top of Kevin Wunder’s desk—and put her arms around him again. “I’ll fill you in on everything. In the meantime, don’t worry. We’ll take care of you, Austin.”
“Thank you, kitten.”
Shortly after Chase arrived home from Groc-O-Rama, the doorbell rang. He looked out the peephole and saw nothing but mass.
“Grant!” he called. “Farraday’s here.”
The response came from the kitchen. “You sure?”
Chase took another look through the peephole. “That or someone parked a truck in front of our door.”
When Farraday was standing in their living room, Grant said, “I thought you were going to Virginia.”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
Chase looked at him with sympathy. If Farraday hadn’t gone south to Virginia, it meant things had probably gone south with that Jarvis woman. “Okay, we’ll respect your privacy. But just so you know”—he placed a hand on the big man’s shoulder—“we’re here for you if you want to talk.”
Farraday scowled and swatted the hand away. “What part of ‘I don’t wanna talk about it’ didn’t you understand?”
Chase backed away, ceding the floor to Grant.
“So if you’re here, that must mean you’re looking for work.”
“Why not? I’ve gotta keep myself occupied.” He paused. “You still need a driver for that job?”
“That’s the only thing I need.”
Farraday grunted. “Before I make any commitments, who else is in?”
“Lisa and Mary Beth, but I told you that already.” Farraday indicated he wasn’t impressed. “Constance Price and Angelina Ortiz.”
“Angelina Ortiz? Who the hell is that?”
“Constance’s girlfriend.”
The driver’s mouth pulled downward. “What is this, on-the-job training?”
“Constance vouches for her, and that’s good enough for me.” Grant hoped it really was and got himself back on track. “Jamie Brock, of course.” Farraday made a face. “Nick Donovan.”
“Who?”
“Remember Kelly Marinelli?”
“No.”
“I’m sure you worked with her.” Grant thought it over. “Maybe she was married to someone at the ti
me. Marrying men is sort of a common thing she does.”
Farraday snapped his fingers. “Hold on. Do you maybe mean Kelly DuFour?”
Grant nodded. “Yeah, she married that DuFour guy something like three or four times. They were like the Burton and Taylor of small-time crime.”
Farraday searched his memory. “I thought I heard she went to law school and was legit now.”
“She did. But Nick Donovan’s her son, and not so legit.”
“Her son?” The Kelly DuFour he used to work with seemed to be too young to have a grown son. “How old is he? Twelve?”
“He’s a kid, but old enough to work.”
“You ever use him on a job?” Farraday asked, not quite buying it.
This question, at least, Grant could answer honestly. “Yeah, we used him the other day. He did a good job.”
“If you say so.” Farraday paused. “Anyone else in this gang of yours?”
Grant shrugged. “One more person, but you wouldn’t know her.”
“Try me.”
“Chrissy Alton.”
Farraday smiled, which is something both Grant and Chase found unsettling. “Chrissy Alton is great!”
“You’ve heard of her?” asked Chase. “I’ve worked with her once or twice, but didn’t think she was very well known outside Staten Island.”
“That’s where I met her. I worked out on Staten Island last year, and she was in on some of the jobs.” He shook his head with admiration. “That woman’s got a light touch and quick hands.”
“That she does.”
Grant reviewed the roster in his head one last time, hoping he hadn’t forgotten anyone. “So that’s the gang. And I’ve already explained the job to you.”
Farraday shook his head. “I still don’t feel good about it. We’re talking about politicians! Those are like superhuman criminals!”
Grant’s face was dead serious. “In that case, they’ve met their match.”
“Sure, Lambert.” The scowl was back on Farraday’s face. “Now that the small talk’s done, how about pouring me a drink.”
