DUTCH AND GINA: WHAT HE DID FOR LOVE

by Monroe, Mallory

  “Oh, Dutch. I can just kick Crader’s ass!”

  “Enough about Crader!” Dutch admonished. “I want to hear about you. How’s it going with you?”

  “It’s going good. I’m getting a lot of work done. Thanks for letting me come.”

  “The house still standing? You seemed so worried about it.”

  Gina smiled. “Very funny. It’s still standing, Dutch.”

  “So where are you? In your office?”

  Gina dreaded this part of the conversation. “I’m on my way there now,” she said and cringed.

  “On your way there? On your way where?”

  “On my way to my office,” Gina said. “At BBR.” She said this and waited for the outburst.

  And it came.

  Dutch lurched from his seat. Little Walt looked at him. “BBR?” he asked. “Gina, didn’t I tell you to stay at the estate? Didn’t I tell you not to go anywhere near that office while I was out of town?”

  “I know what you told me. But I don’t want to have meetings at our home.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  Gina hesitated. She remembered Roman putting his hands on her, and how, initially, she allowed it. “Because I don’t want to mix our private life with work anymore. I’m taking care of BBR business and I prefer to take care of it at BBR.”

  Dutch wanted to argue with her. But something within him heard her. He heard the words she was not saying. Gina wouldn’t willfully disobey him unless she felt cornered, and had no other viable choice.

  He sat back down. “Just be careful, Gina,” he said to her.

  “You know I will.”

  “I miss you.”

  Gina smiled. “I miss you, too. In every way.”

  Dutch smiled. “I have a kid staring at me so cool it.”

  Gina laughed. “Tell Walter Harber, Junior, I’ll call him later.”

  Dutch looked at Walt. “Mommy will call you later, okay?”

  “Okay,” Little Walt said, and then went back to his play.

  “Goodbye, babe,” Dutch said.

  “’Bye, babe.”

  When Dutch hung up with Gina, he immediately phoned Ralph Shaheen, the head of the Secret Service.

  “How many people met with my wife at our home yesterday?”

  “Eight people in total,” Ralph replied.

  “They stayed into the night?”

  Ralph looked at his computerized information. “Negative,” he said. “Everybody left before dark. Only Mr. Wilkes remained after dark.”

  Dutch’s heart began to pound. “How long after?”

  “He left the home at exactly eleven forty nine p.m.”

  Dutch swallowed hard. “Thank-you, Ralph,” he said. Then he added: “The next time your agents allow my wife to leave home and I’m not notified of this change in plans, you will be fired. Do I make myself clear, Ralph?”

  There was a pause. “Yes, sir.”

  And Dutch hung up the phone. He was certain that Roman Wilkes made a play for Gina. And because Gina was so insistent on not having any more meetings at the house, she apparently had to resist his play for her. And she did resist, Dutch would stake his life on that assertion. But just how badly she felt about that resistance was what concerned Dutch.

  His concern, however, was interrupted, when he received word that Marcus Rance was in the building.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Dutch sat quietly in the soundproofed, underground bunker and watched Marcus Rance squirm in his seat. For nearly half an hour he just sat there, legs crossed, and watched his wife’s disgraced half-brother sit there like a defeated man too arrogant and full of himself to admit defeat.

  But it didn’t matter to Dutch. He had asked him a question and he wasn’t going anywhere until he received an answer.

  Marcus took another drag on the cigarette he had been given. He wasn’t smoking for the hell of it. He was smoking to avoid shaking.

  “You’re killing me here, Dutch,” he said to his brother-in-law.

  “Who bankrolled you?” Dutch asked again.

  “Nobody bankrolled me, okay? I bankrolled myself.”

  Dutch stood up. Enough was enough. He began to remove his suit coat. Marcus looked up, as his heart began to pound. Dutch wore stylish suspenders on top of his expensive dress shirt, but Marcus knew that sonafabitch. He was not fooled by his professorial look. Dutch Harber was a hard, cold, calculating man. And Marcus knew, when he was captured in South America and clandestinely returned to the U.S., that he was in mortal danger.

  And now Dutch was removing his suit and tie, and rolling up his sleeves. Marcus stood up. Dutch’s private security personnel moved to his side.

  “What?” Marcus asked. “I’m not going to be allowed to defend myself? Is this how it works, Dutch? They hold me down while you beat my ass?”

  “On the contrary, Marcus. I have no intentions of letting anyone hold you down. And yes, I intend to beat your ass.” He looked at his security. “Step outside,” he ordered.

  The team did as they were told. They joined Secret Service agents who had been ordered to remain outside. They had contacted their boss, Ralph Shaheen. Ralph had told them to obey the president.

  Marcus dropped his cigarette on the floor and stomped it out. He remained looking down as Dutch approached him. But that was his game plan. The only chance of any survival he had was to beat Dutch Harber so decisively that Dutch’s shame and respect for a superior opponent might just be enough to spring him. He knew he was grappling at straws. He was unlikely to leave this room alive. But ever since his capture, straws were all he had.

  That was why, when Dutch was within swinging distance, Marcus looked up and attempted to cold cock Dutch Harber. Dutch, however, blocked that punch and gave one of his own. Only his punch knocked Marcus to the floor. Dutch then grabbed him, slammed him against the wall, and asked him again.

  “This is the last time I’m going to ask you,” he said. “Who bankrolled you, Rance?”

  Marcus was angry that he had been bested by the likes of Dutch Harber. He knew Dutch’s weakness, and he was ready to exploit it. “Gina bankrolled me, motherfucker!” he yelled out. “Gina gave me anything I wanted. Even herself. Did you know that? My own sister gave it to me repeatedly. That’s why her ass wanted me in DC. To give her the kind of good sex her husband couldn’t give to her!”

  Dutch looked at Marcus. The mere thought of Gina’s beautiful name on his perverted lips made Dutch a maniac. He grabbed Marcus again and began slamming his head into the brick wall that surrounded them. Blood began to trickle out of Marcus’s ear, but that didn’t stop Dutch. It inspired him. And he continued to slam.

  Marcus tried to fight back. He attempted to push Dutch away from him with brute force alone. And eventually he succeeded in causing them both to fall to the floor fighting. But it was a hollow victory for Marcus because Dutch quickly regained his position on top. And he continued to beat Marcus’s ass.

  Marcus attempted to bite Dutch. But that turned out to be the wrong move because it angered Dutch even more. And as soon as Dutch regained his footing, he began to kick Marcus in the balls repeatedly. Marcus screamed out in pain. But Dutch wouldn’t let up. He wouldn’t show him anything but disdain. Even as blood began to appear, he kept kicking Marcus in that same penis that Marcus ridiculously claimed had pleasured Gina. He kicked him in those same balls that Marcus had displayed by setting that booby-trap to begin with. He kicked that sonafabitch until the pain was unbearable.

  And Marcus was broken.

  “Osgood,” Marcus said through his pain.

  That name alone caused Dutch to stop all activity. He stared at the downed wise guy. “Osgood? Henry?”

  “Thurston. His father. He bankrolled me.”

  Dutch didn’t have to ask why. He just continued to stare at Marcus. Then he kicked his ass again.

  While Marcus moaned and groaned in pain, Dutch went to the door and opened it. His private security team entered again and closed the door. Dutc
h pulled out his handkerchief and began wiping his hands.

  “Okay,” Dutch said to them and they made their way to Marcus.

  “Come on, pal,” the security chief said as his men grabbed Marcus and pulled him up.

  “You see what he did to me!” Marcus decried. “The president can’t hit a private citizen and get away with it! He can’t get away with this!”

  But the Security chief was as indifferent to Marcus’s cries as Dutch had been. “Let’s go, Rance,” he said. “Time for you to walk the plank. Time for you to walk through that door.”

  Marcus, still bent over in pain, stared at the side door they had turned him toward. “Why do I need to walk through any door? I can barely stand up!”

  “Then crawl through,” Dutch said. “Walk or crawl, but you’re going through it.”

  “But why?”

  “Because my wife walked through a door and found your shotgun staring at her. Now it’s your turn.”

  Marcus’s heart began to pound. Dutch wouldn’t do this to him. He was the president for crying out loud! What president behaved like this?

  “Just arrest me,” Marcus said, preferring to take his chances in the criminal justice system. “I’ll confess to everything. Just arrest me, Dutch! That’s the moral thing to do! You’re supposed to be such a moral man. How can a moral man allow a thing like this to happen? How can you live with yourself? You’re gonna hate yourself, Dutch, if you do this to me! Please, Dutch. Arrest me! Dutch!”

  But Dutch was as unbendable as iron. He turned and began walking away.

  “Dutch!” Marcus cried again as the men opened the door and pushed him inside. “You can’t let them do this! Dutch!”

  But Marcus’s voice quickly went silent. And then all that could be heard in that soundproofed, underground bunker was gunfire with the same rapid release that Gina must have heard.

  LaLa and Crader sat alone at the kitchen table inside of Blair House sipping coffee. The silence in the room was deafening.

  “Thanks to me,” Crader said with a frown on his face, “we’re at a crossroad.” LaLa looked at him. “Either you stay with me and believe I’m not that man I used to be, or you leave me. It’ll devastate me, I can’t pretend it won’t, but it’ll be exactly what I deserve.”

  “Why did you do it, Crader?” LaLa asked. “Why didn’t you tell me, when you were supposedly coming clean with me, that you had also slept with Shannon while we were engaged? You wanted to get in as many women as you could before you became a married man, which is sick in and of itself, but at least I would have known. And that would have been behind us. But you didn’t even mention her.”

  “I didn’t remember---”

  “Crader, if you tell me that lie again I declare I’ll get up from this table and leave your ass for good. I’ll do it on the strength of that lie alone, I declare I will!”

  Crader’s heart began to pound.

  “Now, I’m asking you again,” LaLa said. “Why didn’t you mention her?”

  Crader exhaled. “I wanted to keep her around. Dutch said she was my just in case, and I think he was right.”

  LaLa was perplexed. “Your just in case? What’s a just in case?”

  Crader moved around in his chair. He knew he was admitting nasty truths about himself that even he found disgusting. “Just in case it didn’t work out with us,” he said, “I’d still have Shannon.”

  “She was your consolation prize.”

  “I wouldn’t call her a prize, but she was . . . convenient.”

  “And would be willing?”

  Crader nodded. “Yes,” he admitted.

  LaLa shook her head and sipped more coffee.

  “I fired her,” Crader said.

  “You shouldn’t have hired her,” LaLa said. “So don’t try to pretend that’s some great thing you did. And what about her feelings?”

  “Her feelings? She accepted the job expecting action from me. I never gave in to any such thing, but don’t shed any tears for her. Her shit’s not sweet either. She would have slept with me in a heartbeat if I would have let her.”

  “And you expect me to blame her for that?” LaLa shook her head. “I blame you and you alone, Cray.”

  “Oh, so because she’s a woman she bears no blame whatsoever? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “I’m telling you she didn’t owe me anything. If she sees how you’re willing to disrespect me by hiring her when you knew what she was about, then why wouldn’t she be disrespectful to me too? You didn’t give a damn about my feelings, why should she?”

  “It wasn’t like that, La.”

  “It was exactly like that, Crader!” Tears wanted to appear in LaLa’s eyes, but she fought them back. “No human being has ever hurt me as much as you have, and you’re supposed to love me.”

  Crader swallowed hard. LaLa’s revelation stunned him.

  “And then you talk about crossroads?” she asked. “Stay with me or leave me, you say, as if it’s as simple as that! This is the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make, Crader.” Then she sat erect. “But I’ve made a decision.” And amazingly, even to LaLa, it didn’t take her long to make it, either.

  Crader, however, was dying inside. If this woman left him he didn’t think he could go on. Those were the stakes for him. He wouldn’t want to go on.

  LaLa went on. “If I left you today, and divorced you, I think that would be good for me. I think I would have done what any rational, self-respecting female would have done, and felt better about myself for it. You don’t deserve me, Crader. And I don’t deserve to be treated the way you’ve treated me. You’re a cheater and a liar and sometimes I hate you for what you put me through.”

  She fought valiantly, but the tears came anyway. But she soldiered on. “But you’re also a kind man, a giving man, a fantastic father, and a strong leader. The only place you seem to falter is in the husband department. The only person you seem to constantly fail is me. That’s the truth, Crader. You have not been a good husband to me.”

  Crader hurried to her side and fell on his knees. This was LaLa. He was not too proud to beg. “Don’t leave me, La,” he said. “Please, don’t leave me! I’ll do anything to keep you. I don’t want anybody else. I was wrong to hire that woman. She’s a good chief of staff, even you know that, but other people would have been just as good. I was wrong, La. I don’t love her, I’ve never loved her. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved. You’re the only woman I’ve ever even wanted to marry.”

  He paused after saying that. “I had planned to be a bachelor all my life,” he said as that sad reality hit both of them. Because LaLa knew the truth of that statement, too. Before she came along, Crader had no intentions of marrying any one. But something did change within him. And he chose her to be his bride.

  But she couldn’t keep excusing his behavior. “When you decided to marry me, Crader,” she said, “why didn’t you decide to do right by me?”

  “I did decide that. With all my heart I decided that. And I tried to do right, La. But you didn’t marry a straight lace man. You married me. And I’m . . .”

  “A mess,” LaLa finished for him.

  Crader nodded his head. “Yes. And more,” he agreed. “But I’ll go to pieces if you leave me, La. I need you.”

  And that was the thing that had made up LaLa’s mind. He needed her and she knew it. He loved her too, but his love for her wasn’t as dependable as his need for her. It wasn’t fair that she would love a man like this. She deserved a man whose love overshadowed his need.

  But Dutch was right. She had to decide if she wanted Crader, warts and all, or if she wanted to dump Crader and hope that another man would come along who had no warts at all. They were out there, these good little perfect gentlemen, but would they cross her path? And could she love a man simply because he wasn’t as “messy” as Crader McKenzie was? Could another man make her heart patter whenever he entered a room? Could he make love to her the way Crader made love to her? It was all a false ch
oice, and she knew it. She shouldn’t have to explain her decision away. But she was married to a man like Crader. And she knew, if she stayed with him, that more explanations would undoubtedly come. More days like this.

  But she believed there would be far more fantastic days where there was no other man on the face of this earth she would rather love.

  Crader, however, wasn’t privy to her thinking. He could feel her slipping away from him. And he continued to beg.

  He grabbed her hands and held them gently. “I’ll do anything you tell me to do, La,” he said. “I’ll hire all men to work for me.”

  LaLa smiled. Crader was so moved by her smile that he gained strength from it.

  “Whenever another woman cross my path,” he continued, “I’ll run in the opposite direction and scream for her to get her pretty self out of my sight.”

  LaLa laughed and shook her head. He was so silly, she thought!

  “I’ll even get castrated, La, to prove my love to you.”

  That, however, caused LaLa’s smile to disappear. “Oh, no you won’t,” she said. “You’ll be no damn good for real then!”

  Crader was, at first, offended. No she didn’t act as if his sex was the only good thing about him! But then she smiled, and he smiled, until the seriousness of the moment overtook them again.

  “In other words,” he said, rubbing her hands, “I’ll show you that you’re the love of my life. I’ll show you one day at a time, La.”

  LaLa stared at him. She’d heard his promises before. But what could she do? She loved the fool!

  “No more games?” she asked him. “No more just in case females?”

  “No more, La. I promise you.”

  “Don’t promise me, anything,” LaLa said. “You can show me better than you will ever be able to tell me ever again. Can you live with that, Crader? Can you be depended on to give to me the kind of love you may not be able to give?”

  Crader’s throat tightened. She was giving him yet another chance. And as sure as he had breath in his body he wasn’t going to blow this chance again.