Cut and Thrust

by Stuart Woods

  “Dino called and asked if he could bring a couple of guests,” Joan said, as she gave Stone his messages. “I’ve alerted Helene.”

  “Fine. Did he say who?”

  “Nope.”

  —

  IN SAN FRANCISCO, Pam Hale welcomed Barbara Grosvenor and her publicist, Hugh Gordon, to her television studio.

  “I’m so sorry you’ve had all this trouble with your former husband,” she said to Barbara, clasping her hand in both of her own.

  “Thank you so much,” Barbara said.

  “I hope that what we do here today will go a long way toward rectifying the situation.” She handed Gordon a sheet of paper. “Please look this over and have Barbara sign it,” Pam said.

  Gordon scanned the sheet. “Minimum of half an hour,” he muttered, “nonstop. That okay, Barbara?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Wait a minute—no editing?”

  “Oh, there’ll be editing for time, but that’s our professional responsibility,” Pam said smoothly. “And, of course, we own the copyright.”

  “That’s fine with me, Hugh,” Barbara said. She took the document from him, signed it, and handed it back to Pam, who handed it to her producer. “Put that in your safe right now,” she said to him, sotto voce.

  They had made up a set to resemble a corner of a living room, with a vase of plastic flowers on a table between two wing chairs. An assistant wired up Barbara, and Pam settled her guest into a chair and put a bottle of water and a glass on the table for her, while an assistant took Hugh Gordon into the Green Room, where he could watch a monitor. “All ready?” Pam asked. “Comfortable?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Pam got the signal through her earpiece, and she looked into one of the three cameras. “Hello, I’m Pamela Hale. My guest is Mrs. Charles Grosvenor—Barbara—who is one of San Francisco’s leading socialites and a large contributor to many local arts programs.” She turned to Barbara, and the director cut to a two-shot. “Barbara, you’re talking with us today because, as you have put it, you have been subjected to a campaign of terror by your former husband, well-known attorney Ed Eagle, of Santa Fe.”

  “I’m afraid that’s true, Pam. I wish it weren’t, but that has been my lot for years now. Mr. Eagle has made repeated attempts on my life, then blamed me for them, and the police have been able to do nothing.”

  Pam took Barbara patiently through her allegations, drawing out all the pain and suffering she said she had been through, and doing more listening than talking. Barbara relaxed and let the venom pour from her lips in honeyed tones laced with sadness and regret.

  Then, halfway through their half hour, Pam tacked onto a new course. “Barbara,” she said, smiling, “I’ve been carefully through the public record of your life, and have interviewed others who’ve known you along the way, and there are some things in your background we need to address. Let’s see, you were born the daughter of a pawnbroker in the Midwest, then moved to New York in your late teens. There you married a much older man, a diamond merchant.” She looked inquiringly at Barbara for confirmation.

  “Yes,” Barbara said tentatively.

  “Then, shortly after your marriage, you became involved with another man, a convicted felon with a history of violent crime, and with your help, he conducted a robbery of your husband’s diamond business, during which he shot and killed your husband.”

  Barbara was looking nervously around for Hugh Gordon. “Well, that’s a long story,” she said.

  “As a result, your lover was caught, tried, convicted, and given a life sentence, and you were convicted of accessory to murder and sentenced to seven to ten years, is that correct?”

  —

  IN THE GREEN ROOM, Hugh Gordon, who had been half dozing, sat bolt upright in his chair. “What?” he yelled. But there was no one to hear him. He ran to the door, but it was locked, and hammering on it and shouting brought no response.

  —

  “IT WAS THERE, was it not, that you first met Ed Eagle, who came to interview you for information on another case. He took a liking to you and offered his help when you were released?”

  “Yes, that was good of him,” Barbara said.

  “Then you obtained an early release from prison as a result of a court order aimed at ending prison overcrowding, and very shortly, you turned up in Santa Fe and renewed your acquaintance with Ed Eagle?”

  “Yes,” Barbara said.

  “He gave you a job, and the two of you began to go out. Then, a few months later, you were married.”

  “The worst mistake of my life,” Barbara said.

  “Then, after a year or so of marriage, having gained your husband’s trust, you emptied his bank and brokerage accounts and disappeared into Mexico.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Well, you see, Ed had become very violent.”

  “Did you ever call the police?”

  “No, I . . .”

  “Did anyone else ever witness this violence?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Did you have any visible injuries?”

  “No, I . . .”

  “Then, in Mexico, after being reunited with one of your sisters, who also had a criminal record, the two of you became involved with a young Mexican man in a sexual threesome, then you tortured the young man, mutilated him by cutting off his penis with a straight razor, and murdered him.”

  “That’s an outrageous accusation!” Barbara nearly screamed.

  “Perhaps so, but true,” Pam said. “You were tried, convicted of murder, and sentenced to life in a Mexican prison, were you not?”

  “It was a terrible miscarriage of justice.”

  “In prison, you formed a sexual liaison with the warden, did you not? Then you drugged him and escaped from a bathroom window in his apartment, and were met by an old friend from Los Angeles and spirited out of the country in a small airplane.”

  “It was the only way I could get away from being raped daily,” Barbara said, rallying.

  “After that you changed your identity and went to Los Angeles, where, one night, you entered a suite at the Bel-Air Hotel, where you believed Ed Eagle to be staying, and shot the occupant to death while he slept. You were arrested, then tried, and while you were waiting for the jury’s verdict, you escaped from the courthouse and hid at a resort near Palm Springs, where you met your next husband, Mr. Grosvenor.”

  “I was acquitted!” Barbara shouted.

  “Right, but you still had to plead to a charge of escaping from custody. After that, there was a series of attempts on the life of Ed Eagle, culminating in a knife attack by a killer you hired, which left Mr. Eagle in critical condition in a Santa Fe hospital.”

  “I had nothing to do with that!”

  “Are you saying that Ed Eagle staged a nearly fatal knife attack on himself?”

  “Of course he did. I’m not taking any more of this!” Barbara got to her feet and began ripping the wires from her body.

  “Well, there’s a great deal more here,” Pam said, holding up her clipboard. “I guess I’ll just have to continue without you.”

  The camera followed Barbara as she searched for a way out of the room, then Hugh Gordon appeared, breathless and red-faced. “This way!” he shouted, and the two of them made their escape from the studio.

  Pam turned back to the camera. “In the absence of Mrs. Barbara Grosvenor, let’s go through the rest of her history, which culminates with the explosion of Ed Eagle’s jet airplane at Santa Monica Airport a few days ago.”

  Occasionally consulting her notes, Pam went on.

  Everyone gathered in the early evening for a drink in Stone’s living room. Hal Henry, an old Hollywood hand in his sixties, regaled them with stories of the town’s golden years and held them rapt. Then Dino and Viv arrived with their guests, who turned out to be the po
lice commissioner of New York and his wife, Dorothy. Stone knew them well, and was happy to see them. They were almost ready to go in for dinner, when Fred came into the room. “Telephone call for Ms. Keaton,” he said.

  “You can take it in the study,” Stone said. She knew the way. Everyone chatted for a bit, then Ann returned. “Ed,” she said, “you’ve gotten very lucky with 60 Minutes: a segment they had planned to show this Sunday had to be held up while they sort out some legal problems and they were going to air a rerun, but the Pamela Hale interview from San Francisco came in and blew them away.”

  “That’s wonderful news,” Hal said. “You don’t get on that show on short notice unless you have something special.”

  “They’re doing a rough cut of the footage as we speak, and they want to come here tomorrow morning, show you the rough cut, then interview you on camera.”

  “Fine with me,” Ed said.

  “They’re going to make two segments of the two interviews,” Ann said. “The first segment will be softball questions from Pamela, allowing Barbara to get everything out of her system. That will be the interview her publicist wanted for her. The second segment will be taken from the last half of the interview, followed by the interview with you, Ed.”

  Hal Henry was nearly beside himself. “This is going to drive Hugh Gordon crazy. We’ve been rivals for years, and now all I have to do is find a way to take credit for the whole thing.”

  Everybody laughed. “I’ll see if I can get you a credit,” Ann said.

  They went in to dinner, and the evening passed in good food, wine, and conversation. Stone reflected that he didn’t give enough dinner parties, and he resolved to have more guests in his home.

  When the dessert dishes were being taken away, the commissioner cleared his throat loudly. “Stone,” he said, “may I have the floor for a moment?”

  “Of course, Commissioner.”

  “I have a couple of announcements to make: we’ve been a long time coming to this final decision, but tomorrow morning, on the steps outside City Hall, I’m going to announce my candidacy for the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City.”

  Applause from all.

  “I had considered running as an independent, to avoid a crowded primary, but after consideration, and considering the quality of the field, we decided to enter. It will give us more airtime before the general election and, thus, an edge over the Republican candidate.”

  “That’s great news, Commissioner,” Stone said.

  “There’s a bit more,” the commissioner said. “At the press conference, I’ll also be announcing my resignation as commissioner, so that I can run full-time. Naturally, I have a great interest in who succeeds me, so today I had a meeting with the present mayor, also a good Democrat, and he has agreed to appoint Chief of Detectives Dino Bacchetti to the office of commissioner.”

  More applause.

  “Dino has always been an outstanding cop, dating back to the days when he had Stone for a partner to keep him out of trouble, then as a sergeant and a lieutenant, when he led the detective squad at the Nineteenth Precinct. Although he has been chief of detectives for only a fairly short time, he has proved adept not only at leading the city’s detectives, but in handling the more public side of the office. In short, he has been a big success as chief and my best appointment. And if I’m elected and he keeps his nose clean, I’ll reappoint him upon taking office.”

  Fred, without being asked, suddenly reappeared with a magnum of Dom Pérignon from Stone’s cellar, and everyone drank to the old and new commissioners.

  —

  LATER, WHEN THE GUESTS had gone or retired, Stone and Ann made love until exhausted.

  “I’m sorry I can’t be here tomorrow to keep an eye on Ed’s interview with Morley Safer,” she said, “but that’s the sort of thing Hal Henry does every day, and he’ll see that Ed gets fair treatment.”

  “Don’t worry about Ed,” Stone said. “He’s an old hand at this sort of thing, and the camera loves him.”

  “I’m not surprised,” she replied. “Tomorrow, as I’ve said before, all hell breaks loose. I’ve got a meeting at eight A.M. where Kate’s campaign schedule will be finalized, barring last-minute changes, then we look at our first television ads, which were shot in New York yesterday and today. I’m very nervous about those.”

  “The camera loves Kate, too,” Stone said.

  “The TV campaign will break the day after the Republican convention ends. If Henry Carson gets the nomination, as seems fairly certain, he won’t have had time to get his TV campaign together, so we’ll have several days for our ads to run unopposed, as it were. Also, Kate is doing two of the network morning shows tomorrow and two the day after, then she goes quiet with the beginning of the Republican convention until the ad campaign breaks.”

  “Sounds like you have everything under control,” Stone said.

  “It may sound that way, but things can change in an hour, sometimes in a minute, so I will always be reorganizing.”

  “No one does it better,” Stone said.

  She turned and reached for him again. “That’s what I was just thinking about you.”

  Stone had an early breakfast at seven with Ann, who then dressed quickly and left for the campaign office. He read the Times and did the crossword, then dressed and got downstairs just in time to greet the 60 Minutes crew. He showed them around the house while the Eagles and their party had breakfast in the kitchen, and the director chose Stone’s study as his set for taping the interview.

  He stopped by the kitchen before going to his office. “Everybody sleep well?” he asked.

  There was a chorus of positive answers.

  “They said they’d be ready for you, Ed, at eleven sharp in my study. Knock it out of the park.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Eagle said.

  Stone went to his office and began returning phone calls and answering correspondence. Joan came in and turned on his TV. “Kate Lee’s commercial was on just a minute ago,” she said. “She’s on Morning Joe right now, so I’ll run it down for you.” She went into the DVR and rewound. “Here we go.”

  Kate came on-screen in what appeared to be the study at the Carlyle apartment. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Kate Lee, and you may have heard that I’m the Democratic nominee for president.”

  She continued talking conversationally, directing the viewer to her website for detailed policy information, while never breaking eye contact with the camera and not reading from a teleprompter. It was over in thirty seconds, leaving an impression of freshness, intelligence, and personal warmth.

  “I’m convinced,” Stone said. “She’s got my vote.”

  “Yeah, but you’re a pushover.”

  “How about you?”

  “Well, I’m a pushover, too, I guess. And if I weren’t, that ad would do it for me.”

  Eagle came in. “Got a minute?”

  “Sure.”

  Ed dumped his long frame into a chair. “I just called Cessna, and I got lucky. They’ve got a Citation M2 coming off the line in a couple of weeks, and the buyer wants out. I can buy his position at a discount.”

  “And you need an airplane, as I recall.”

  “Yep. The insurance company has already seen what’s left of the Mustang, and it’s a total loss, so I get the hull value. The training course at FlightSafety in Wichita starts in a couple of weeks, too. You want to do it with me?”

  “Why not? My airplane gets delivered the week after next. What’s the course, two weeks?”

  “That’s it.”

  “You’re on. Tell ’em to book me in the class with you, and I’ll get Joan to book us a big two-bedroom suite at the airport hotel. Is Susannah coming?”

  “Yes, she is. She’s qualified to train for a copilot’s rating, and she’s looking forward to it.”

  “That’s gr
eat, and when you get real old, you can swap seats.”

  Joan came in. “They’re ready to show Ed the interview upstairs, then they’ll record his riposte.”

  Ed disengaged from his chair and went upstairs.

  —

  BILLY BURNETT AWOKE early in his San Francisco hotel. After his trip to Napa he had found a room that faced the Grosvenor apartment, and he had a nice view from a block away and one floor above them, with about a thirty-degree angle. He raised the blinds and trained his binoculars on the apartment’s terrace. The angle made it impossible to see into the living room, so he would just have to catch her outside. He had no idea what time she rose, so he would have breakfast facing her building and just wait to get sight of her.

  —

  BARBARA SLEPT PAST her usual early hour for rising, and when she awoke, she was still rattled by the course the interview had taken. Hugh Gordon had told her not to worry, that he would sit down with Pamela Hale and see that the editing went their way. He was going to try for having the whole second part of the interview cut, but he admitted that was a bit of a stretch.

  She got out of bed as Charles emerged from his dressing room in a suit, ready for his day.

  “Good morning, my darling,” he said, offering a kiss on the forehead.

  “Good morning,” she said listlessly.

  He took her by the shoulders. “Now, you’re not still concerned about that interview, are you?”

  “I’m still a little shaken,” she said.

  “Nothing a buck’s fizz won’t fix.”

  That was the British name for a mimosa, equal parts champagne and orange juice.

  “Order me breakfast, will you? Just melon and coffee.”

  “And a buck’s fizz?”

  “Oh, all right, maybe it will help. I’ll be right out.”

  —

  BILLY HAD JUST finished his breakfast when a movement on the Grosvenors’ terrace caught his eye. He trained the binoculars and saw a tall man in a good suit stride out onto the terrace. A maid came, handed him a newspaper, and spoke briefly with him.

  Billy opened the briefcase containing the sniper’s rifle that he had built for himself. He assembled it, then unscrewed the head of a fat golf umbrella and shook out the thirty-six-inch barrel that he had made for longer shots. It took only a moment to screw it in place. He rolled the room service tray table into the hallway, put the DO NOT DISTURB sign out, and locked the door. He pulled a chair from the desk to the window, set up a short tripod, then screwed the silencer into the barrel and sat down.