Below the Belt

by Stuart Woods

  “Exactly.”

  Stone found the card that St. Clair had given him and called the number.

  “Stone? What a nice surprise to hear from you.”

  “Thank you, Christian. Holly and I wanted to thank you for your wonderful hospitality last evening. We had a fine time.”

  “We were all delighted to see you. Have you looked into the possibility of joining our cruise?”

  “We have, and we’d be delighted to.”

  “Are you still in Islesboro?”

  “We are.”

  “We’re anchored in North Haven. I’ll send a launch for you.”

  “That’s fine. They can come to my dock—it’s one down from the yacht club’s jetty.”

  “I should think they could be there in, say, two hours?”

  “That’s good. You can have them call me when they’re a few minutes out, and we’ll meet them on the dock.”

  “I’ll do that. Bring your mess kit and whatever else you may need.”

  “We’ll do that.”

  “See you for dinner, then.”

  “Good.” They hung up. “The launch will be here in two hours,” he said to Holly.

  “Great. Have you thought about what to do with the strong case?”

  “Yes, I’m going to leave it in the safe here. Certainly I’m not going to carry it around.”

  “What about Bob?” Bob’s tail began beating against the floor at the mention of his name.

  “Seth and Mary will take care of him. They’re already in love.”

  “I’d better go pack.” She ran upstairs.

  Stone called Ed Rawls’s number and got the usual recorded message. At the beep he said, “Ed, we’re going away for a few days. You can reach me on my cell phone, if you need to.” Then he went upstairs to pack.

  18

  STONE SAW THE BREEZE LAUNCH coming from his back window. He checked the security system, armed it, and he and Holly left the house, locking the door behind them, and walked down to his dock. They were taken aboard with the crew’s usual dispatch, and as they settled into seats in the cabin, Stone felt his cell phone vibrate and heard a chime. That meant a text.

  He checked his messages and found one with a blocked name. It read: BAD TIME TO LEAVE THE ISLAND. He showed it to Holly. “Response from Ed.”

  “What do you think he means by that?” Holly asked.

  “I haven’t the foggiest notion.” He texted back: TOO LATE, WE’VE DEPARTED. I’LL PROBABLY BE REACHABLE MOST OF THE TIME.

  “We’ll be about an hour to North Haven,” the helmsman said. “There’s a Times and a Wall Street Journal on the table behind you.”

  Stone picked up the Times, and a story in the upper-right-hand corner of the business section caught his eye. “Listen to this,” he said to Holly, and read it aloud. “Nelson Knott, the online entrepreneur and Internet marketer of vitamin supplements, placed an announcement on his Facebook front page last night saying that he is forming an exploratory committee to consider a run for President of the United States as an independent candidate in the next election. Knott, who has at one time or another been registered to vote as a Republican, a Democrat, and a Libertarian, said, in part, ‘Like most Americans, I have lost faith in all our political parties to change the way we’re doing things, which is just awful. I will come to this race without any political baggage or ideology, pledged simply to do the right thing and to do it right. Let’s take our country back!’”

  “Oh, that’s just wonderful,” Holly said wryly. “And look, there’s a photograph of him with his lantern jaw and that horrible black wig he wears, while swearing it isn’t a wig. He’s what, about six feet six?”

  “Likely the tallest presidential candidate in American history,” Stone said, “according to the article.”

  “I expect he’ll run on that. It’s about all he’s got going for him.”

  “Do you think he’ll attract voters away from Kate?”

  “My guess is that he’ll get a lot more Republican votes than Democratic ones.”

  Stone turned to the inside page where the article was continued. “It says that the FDA has banned half a dozen of his supplements from sale, saying they contain little that’s beneficial except sugar and salt.”

  “They’re constantly after him, but he still manages to flog tons of that stuff on late-night infomercials.”

  “I don’t get it—who does he think is going to vote for him?”

  “Maybe the people who buy his self-help books. There are more than a dozen of those tomes, and they’re hot sellers on the Internet. He claims to have put all the profits into investments that have made him rich.”

  “Ah, yes, he claims to be worth five billion dollars, according to this article.”

  “If anybody believes that, I’ve got a very nice, very tall monument, beautifully located on the Mall in Washington, that I’d like to sell them.”

  Stone turned the page and found something else to read. He was on the crossword when the launch slowed and pulled up to the Breeze’s stairs.

  “Just leave your luggage and I’ll have it put into your cabin,” the helmsman said, and they climbed the stairs, this time to be met by their host.

  “Stone, Holly, welcome aboard again,” Christian St. Clair said. “Would you like to freshen up, or would you like a cocktail?”

  “I’m pretty fresh,” Holly said. “I vote for the cocktail.”

  St. Clair led them aft, where the others were seated, with one new addition: a man in a double-breasted blazer with shiny brass buttons stood, towering over everyone, especially his host. “Stone,” St. Clair said, “allow me to introduce you and Holly to Nelson Knott and his wife, Clarice, who joined us this morning for this leg of our cruise.” Knott’s hair did not appear to be a wig, and it was no longer black but a chestnut color with a good deal of gray. The woman was more than a foot shorter than her husband, and much cleavage was in view.

  Knott offered a huge hand that enveloped Stone’s, as if it belonged to a child.

  “How do you do?” Stone said, stunned. He looked around. “Where’s Whit Saltonstall?”

  “Right here, Stone,” a voice behind him said. “Walk with me, Stone.” He turned and followed his wife toward the launch.

  “Are you leaving us, Whit?” Stone asked, catching up.

  Saltonstall smiled and lowered his voice. “I won’t spend another minute in the company of that ass. He got on at Rockland this morning, when we were still asleep. I can’t imagine what he’s doing here, and I don’t want to find out. Have a pleasant sail.” He went down the stairway to the launch, and it pulled away.

  —

  STONE WENT BACK to the other guests and was handed a Knob Creek on the rocks. Holly already had one.

  Now he noticed that the magazine publisher and newspaper editor with whom they had dined the evening before had been replaced by two other couples, who were introduced. One of them was a casino owner from New Orleans who was often on the news at election time; the other was an elderly man with thick white hair who Stone did not recognize.

  “I’m sure you know Harold and Cassandra Ozick,” St. Clair said, indicating the casino owner, “and this is Clint and Lily Holder.” Now Stone had it: Clint Holder was a Texas oilman with widespread interests, including, if the rumors were true, about forty acres of downtown Dallas. He was sometimes known in the papers as “Clint Holdup.” Both men were huge contributors to political action committees that backed Republican candidates.

  “How do you do?” Stone said, shaking everybody’s hand. He could understand why the other guests had abandoned ship, but, since he didn’t have that opportunity at the moment, he decided to make the best of it.

  The group exchanged small talk for a while, then Stone excused himself and Holly. “We’d better change for dinner,” he said. Everybody made moves in
that direction. They followed a crewman below and forward to a cabin with a carved rose on the door. Inside, their clothes had been put away, and their luggage had disappeared. The cabin was large, sporting a plush sofa before a fireplace and a king-sized bed. There were fine oil paintings of yachts and yacht clubs on the wall.

  Holly leaped onto the bed. “Perfect!” she said.

  “We’ll see,” Stone replied. “What do you think of our fellow guests on the cruise?”

  “Oh, I think this is going to be such fun!” Holly said, bouncing up and down on the bed.

  19

  DINNER STARTED WITH about half a cup each of the first beluga caviar Stone had seen in years. It was almost impossible to find, legally, just about anywhere but in Iran or Russia, and nobody was leaving any on his plate.

  They proceeded to an enormous porterhouse steak, about four inches thick, carved at tableside, and the wine was a 1978 Château Lafite-Rothschild, decanted and waiting.

  “We are indebted to Clint and Lily Holder for our food and wine this evening,” St. Clair said, “and a good thing, since I was going to give you pizza and wine from a screw-top bottle.”

  They all toasted the Holders.

  Stone couldn’t help noticing that the casino man, Ozick, was wearing diamond studs and cuff links of about three carats each with his dinner suit, which sported little threads of gold woven into the fabric. His wife, Cassandra, who was forty years younger than he, was wearing a skin-tight dress sewn with rhinestones, if they weren’t actually diamonds. Just the thing for a cruise of the Maine islands.

  The Holders, however, were dressed elegantly and with more reserve, though Lily’s diamond necklace attracted attention, and Clint’s studs were tiny oil derricks, encrusted with pavé diamonds.

  “Barrington,” Clint Holder said, around a chunk of steak, “I’ve never heard of you. What do you do?”

  “I’m a partner in the New York law firm of Woodman & Weld,” Stone replied, “and I serve on a couple of boards.”

  “I know your firm,” Holder said. “A hothouse of flaming liberals.”

  “I don’t think the partners would take too much exception to that, except for the ‘flaming’ part, but the practice of law is pretty conservative, though some of our clients are not.”

  “What boards are you on?” Holder demanded, as if this were a job interview.

  “The Steele Insurance Group and Strategic Services. I also serve on the board of the Arrington Hotel Group, of which I am a principal.”

  “Ah!” Holder said. “We stayed at your L.A. hotel a few months back, and it was damned fine!”

  “I’m glad you had a good experience,” Stone replied.

  Ozick spoke up. “I’m in the hotel business, myself,” he said, “as housing the gamblers at our casinos.”

  “Yeah,” Holder said, “I’m in the cattle business, too.” Everybody laughed, except Ozick.

  “Nelson,” St. Clair said to Knott, “I was interested to read of your interest in the presidency.”

  “Thank you,” Knott replied in a deep, beautifully modulated voice. “I’m grateful for your interest, Christian.”

  “What sort of planning are you doing?”

  “Well, we’re forming a new party, to be called the Independent Patriot Party, and we’ve started work on getting on the ballot in all fifty states.”

  “And how’s that going?”

  “We’ve just gotten started, really, but it’s going to be more expensive than I had first thought.”

  “And how are you going to finance your campaign?”

  “I’ve already loaned it fifty million dollars. That’s a start.”

  “A properly run presidential campaign is going to cost north of a billion dollars,” St. Clair said. “Are you going to self-finance all the way?”

  Knott laughed, revealing the best teeth Stone had ever seen, or the best dentistry. “I certainly hope not.”

  “Well, the Republican Party is in pretty bad shape, after the last election, but Kate Lee is going to be very well financed, don’t you think so, Stone?”

  “I expect so,” Stone replied.

  “I think Kate has done a creditable job as President,” St. Clair said, by way of needling Knott, Stone thought. He also thought that St. Clair knew all of what he’d just asked Knott about, and he was just getting the recital for the benefit of his guests.

  “The last presidential candidates in either party that I had any respect for were Joe Adams and John McCain,” Knott responded.

  “Nelson, I don’t know if I mentioned that Holly, here, is Kate’s national security advisor.”

  Knott beamed at Holly. “So, it’s your fault,” he said, laughing, and the others laughed with him.

  “I’ll take all the credit I can get,” Holly replied, beaming back at him, “whether I deserve it or not.”

  Knott loved that, though his wife was looking at Holly as though she were about to throw a steak knife at her.

  “What are your politics, Mr. Knott?” Holly asked.

  “I’m for what’s right and what works,” he replied. “And please call me Nelson. May I call you Holly?”

  “Of course,” Holly said. “You’re a pragmatist. How refreshing.”

  A steward refreshed everyone’s wineglass.

  “Ideology doesn’t interest me,” Knott replied, “not any party’s. I’m for American rights.”

  “Does that include a woman’s right to choose?” Holly asked, and everybody froze.

  “Of course,” Knott said. “It’s not my way, but it’s the law, and I’m not going to stand in the way of the law.”

  “How very nice to hear it put that way.”

  “Excuse me, if I disagree,” Ozick said, and his face had gone pink.

  “We’ll excuse you for disagreeing, Hal,” St. Clair said, “as long as you’re not disagreeable at my table.”

  “Then I’d better keep my mouth shut,” Ozick said.

  “As you wish.”

  The plates were taken away and a Stilton appeared on the table, along with a decanter of port. They were shown the label: a Quinta do Noval, 1966.

  “And whom do we thank for this?” Stone asked.

  “That is from your host,” Holder said. “I don’t know a damn thing about port.”

  They all raised their glasses to their host and drank, and the cheese was passed around.

  “And where, Christian, do you find such superb Stilton in Maine?”

  “From Paxton & Whitfield, Jermyn Street, London. Just around the corner.”

  —

  AFTER THEY HAD made love and were catching their breath, Stone said, “What did you think of Nelson Knott?”

  Holly sat straight up in bed. “I think he’s a very dangerous man.”

  “Why so?”

  “He’s smart as a rattlesnake, but with a lot of charm when he wants to use it.”

  “And how did you learn this?”

  “Don’t you ever have trouble sleeping?”

  “Never.”

  “Well, I do, and at three in the morning, Nelson Knott is about all the company you can find on TV. That man is the slickest thing you ever saw, and if he’s as rich as Forbes said he is, and if he’s doing what he says he’s doing in all fifty states, he’s going to be a handful.”

  “Really?”

  “You just watch—the press are going to love him.”

  20

  STONE AND HOLLY GOT DRESSED the following morning and went up for breakfast. A hot buffet had been set out under the afterdeck awning. Harold and Cassandra Ozick were already seated at the table.

  Stone and Holly helped themselves and sat down. “Good morning,” Stone said to the Ozicks.

  Ozick muttered something unintelligible, but it didn’t sound welcoming.

  “That wa
s a great dinner last night, wasn’t it?”

  “It was,” Ozick admitted. “So, you’re a member of the Democrat Party, are you?”

  “No, I’m a member of the Democratic Party.”

  “Whatever.”

  “And you’re a very big contributor to the Republican Party, aren’t you?”

  “I buy men, not parties,” Ozick said. He caught himself: “That is, I invest in them.”

  “Interesting,” Stone said. “I read somewhere what you did in the last election, but it slips my mind. How much did you invest?”

  “Higher than you can count,” Ozick said. “And I’ll keep doing it as long as there’s a Democrat in the White House.”

  “Tell me,” Stone said, “are you happy with your return on investment?”

  “We’ve still got the House.”

  “But that’s not enough, is it?”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “Who are you going to . . invest . . . in next time?”

  “I may have to give it a fresh look. That fellow Knott has already asked me for a hundred million.”

  “What do you like about Nelson?”

  “I like it that he’s already a celebrity,” Ozick said. “I don’t have to invest in making him one.”

  “And, if he’s elected, what do you want from him?”

  Ozick looked him in the eye. “Favorable consideration,” he said.

  “Can you really get a hundred million dollars’ worth of ‘favorable consideration’ out of a President?”

  “I’m not just in the casino business, you know, I’ve got money everywhere, some of it in defense industries.”

  “Ah, now I get the picture.”

  “Do you really, Barrington?”

  “I think so. You invest, then when, say, a new fighter jet is up for bids, you get the nod.”

  “A contractor always wants the nod.”

  “But, because you’ve invested, you expect to get the nod.”

  “I hope for an improvement in my chances.”

  “So, there are no guarantees. It’s like at your gaming tables—you put down your money, and you take your chances.”