Wilson stumbled his way over to his wife’s tidy desk to look for her address book. He finally found it in the bottom drawer. But he couldn’t read it without his readers. He spied his wife’s reading glasses on a little tray on the corner of her desk. They would do. He quickly punched in the numbers and waited for the call to go through. Even before he could identify himself, he heard his son say, “Hi, Mom, what’s up!”
“This is your father, Jeffrey, not your mother. I want you to put her on the phone so we can discuss what she’s done before this gets out of hand. Now put her on the phone. I know she’s with you. I also know you probably put her up to this.”
“Put her up to what? I don’t have a clue as to what you are talking about. Is Mom okay? Have you been drinking? You sound drunk, Mr. Speaker, sir.”
“‘Put her up to what’? Is that what you said?” Wilson snarled. “Like you don’t know. I just got served with divorce papers. I’m to vacate this house in thirty goddamn days. And your mother is gone. She walked out of the house this morning and never came home. Now I’m not going to tell you again, young man, put your mother on the phone. I know she went running to you. I know it. Where else would she go?”
“I’m not going to tell you again that Mom is not here, and I do not know what the hell you’re talking about other than that you sound drunk. My advice is sleep it off, take two aspirin, and call me in the morning. Of course, when you do, my response will be the same. But perhaps once you are sober, you will be able to understand what I am saying. Good-bye, Mr. Speaker of the House. I’m hanging up now.”
“Don’t you dare hang up on me, Jeffrey Lambert! I know a lie when I hear one, and you’re lying right now.”
“I am not surprised at all that you know all about lying. That’s all you’ve done your whole life, and, yes, Mr. Speaker, I am hanging up on you. Don’t call me back because I won’t answer the phone. On second thought, do not call me in the morning because I won’t want to talk to you then any more than I want to talk to you now.
“And, incidentally, if what I think you’re calling about is true, that Mom has decided to divorce you and throw you out of her house, then all I can say is good for her.”
Since he’d made the call on the house’s landline, Wilson could hear the phone’s dial tone. His son was true to his word and had hung up. He cursed then, using words that surprised him as he wondered where they had come from. In frustration, Wilson finished off the Jim Beam and tossed the empty bottle across the room. “Take that, Livinia,” he muttered as he stomped his way out of the room.
Back in his study, Wilson looked around, trying to decide what he should do next. A wise man would opt for the leather sofa by the fire to sleep off the Jim Beam. Right now, though, he didn’t feel particularly wise, so he snatched the papers that the process server had handed him. He settled himself in his chair, reached for his reading glasses, and started to read. On his fourth read-through, he’d really committed every single word to memory, having realized he’d somehow missed paragraph seven on his third read-through. That was when he knew he’d crashed and burned. He heaved himself upright and staggered over to his leather sofa, fell into it, and was instantly asleep.
It was four thirty in the morning when the Speaker of the House slid off the leather sofa onto the floor with a resounding thump. Stunned, Wilson struggled to his knees and was back on the sofa in seconds. He felt like he was in a sauna, even though the fire was nothing more than smoldering embers. He was soaking wet with his own sweat, and he was still dressed in his suit and tie. Somewhere along the way during the evening, he’d lost his shoes. He took a moment to wonder if that was important. He decided it wasn’t as he contemplated his black socks, held up by garters.
Wilson Lambert knew he was now stone-cold sober. He had a moment of instant recall as to why he was where he was, in the condition he was in. He cursed again simply because it seemed like the thing to do at the moment. He leaned back against the buttery-soft leather and closed his eyes. He knew at that precise moment in time that his life, as he knew it, would never be the same. He looked down at the pricey, fancy watch on his wrist to see the time. He needed to know so he would remember later on when he finally realized he’d crashed and burned. The time was 4:59 A.M. The date was October 9.
* * *
At 11:59 P.M. Hawaiian time, the huge Boeing plane carrying Livinia set its wheels down on Hawaiian soil. Passengers moved then, some waking up, others reaching for their carry-on bags in the overhead compartments. Livinia remained seated until the line formed for the passengers to head toward the front of the cabin. It took her fourteen minutes to make her way into the terminal, and another fifteen minutes to find her way to the nearest exit, where she could get a cab.
When she’d left Washington earlier in the morning, the temperature was a brisk fifty-five degrees. Here, she thought, the temperature was probably in the low eighties. The air felt warm and sultry against her skin. She looked around, then just fell in line with the others who were looking for a taxi, the same way she was.
She had made it. Almost halfway around the world from where she had begun her journey. Free of her husband. She looked around again. Everyone had a cell phone in hand. She reached for her own, turned it on, and checked her messages. She sighed so loud when she read Nikki’s message, she thought people would stare at her, but no one was paying the slightest attention.
She really was free. For the first time in almost thirty years, Livinia Lambert felt like if she waved her arms, she would fly off into the warm, sultry night, reaching so high she could touch the stars.
Free at last.
Chapter 11
Wilson Lambert made four phone calls, one after the other. He made them so fast that he felt a blister start to form on his fingers. His message was the same to all four partners at Queen, King, Bishop & Rook, short and succinct. This is an emergency. I will be at your office in thirty minutes. Be there.
“This had better be good, Buzz, or I will personally strangle you,” Maxwell Queen said thirty-nine minutes later.
“What the hell has gotten into you, Buzz?” Eli Rook growled. “Now I have to shave in the men’s room. I hate shaving in the men’s room,” he continued to growl.
“Do you have any idea how sick I’ve been, Buzz? Unless you’re dying, you are going to wish you were dead,” Leo Bishop snarled as he struggled with a sloppy-looking knot in his tie.
Josh King shot Buzz a look that was mean enough to raise the hair on the back of Wilson’s neck.
“You all just need to shut up and stop with the threats. Do you think I’d be here if it weren’t important? Let’s head to that soundproof conference room you’re always bragging about. Order some tea. Make it mint—it’s good for the stomach.”
It took some doing, what with the Chessmen getting in each other’s way as they snapped and snarled at one another; then they all focused on Wilson Lambert and let loose with another volley of angry denunciations.
“All right, here’s your damn tea, Buzz. Start talking,” Bishop said through clenched teeth a few minutes later.
Wilson Lambert looked around the polished conference table at the four men he considered his closest friends. In truth, they were his only friends. They all looked terrible, just the way he looked and felt. He should cut them some slack. Should, but wouldn’t.
He tossed the complaint down on the table. “I was served these divorce papers last night at six o’clock. I was going to call all of you then, but instead I ended up drinking a whole bottle of Jim Beam and passing out. That’s so you know where I’m coming from and why I called for this meeting.”
The Chessmen’s jaws dropped as though they’d been choreographed, but no one spoke because Buzz wasn’t finished. “Livinia is divorcing me. I was in shock last night when I was served these papers. For the record, I am still in shock. I have thirty days to vacate the premises and thirty days to respond to this complaint. A female lawyer, someone from Nikki Quinn’s firm, I assume, is represe
nting Livinia. Quinn herself also has Livinia’s power of attorney.”
“Good firm. All female,” Eli Rook said grudgingly. “Not as good as us, though.”
“Yeah, well, take a look at the signature on the last page, gentlemen!” Wilson shouted. “Just take a look!”
“Stop with the theatrics, Buzz. So some skirt with a law degree is handling your wife’s filing. So what? Why did you wait till now to tell us you were getting divorced? Do you expect us to believe this came out of the blue? I thought we all agreed that you needed to be squeaky-clean if you’re going to make a run for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Squeaky-clean means no goddamn divorce. Are we clear on that?” Josh King thundered.
“What? How dare you blame me! A divorce is the last thing I want or need. I didn’t have a clue. I was blindsided. I didn’t see this coming. I had nothing to do with this, and, no, before you ask, I did not cheat on my wife. There is no one who will come forward and say I did, either. Who the hell has time for flings? Certainly not I.”
“Well, what are you going to do about it, Buzz? If you’re here to ask our opinion, that’s one thing. If you’re here to have us represent you, that’s another can of worms. Which is it, Buzz?” Queen asked.
“This is going to screw everything up. We had a plan. What made her do this?” Bishop asked. “I think you need to give some thought to trying to patch things up. If even a hint of this gets out, it won’t be good. We need to be preemptive here.”
“I don’t know. It came out of the blue, just like Josh said. I don’t even know where Livinia is right now. Not the slightest idea. She walked out of the house yesterday and never came back. I thought she went to California, so I called my son, who said she wasn’t there. I think he’s lying, but I can’t be sure. If I knew where she was, I’d be on a plane right now, but I can’t do that, since I don’t know where she is. That alone should tell you no amount of sweet-talking is going to make her change her mind. What do you want from me?”
“What you promised if we backed you for your run. Now it appears we can kiss that promise good-bye because you didn’t see this coming,” King said in a voice so cold it could have set Jell-O.
Wilson Lambert cringed at the words and the tone. “I thought you four were the best of the best. If you can’t represent me, make me the injured party, what the hell good would you be to me if I was president? First of all, Livinia is no fighter. She’s a lady. She would never get down and dirty. That’s your specialty, isn’t it, down and dirty? You need to pull out all the stops on this. I know you have a top-notch investigative firm at your disposal. Call them to find her. Start with my son. Hack into his phone, his emails, whatever you need to do. Just get on it now.”
Eli Rook had his cell in hand and was busily punching in numbers. “We need to have a prepared statement ready to go when this hits, which will be like midmorning. The courthouse leaks like a sieve. I’m surprised it didn’t make the early-morning news!”
“What exactly is your relationship with your son these days, Buzz? I know at dinner the other night you said that he was in town to sign off on his own divorce. I don’t want you gilding the lily, either. Just tell us straight out so we are not blindsided. He’s got a voice now, what with that company he founded and now that he is a billionaire. People are going to listen to him. We are going to have to tread very carefully here,” Queen said.
“Jeffrey is a mama’s boy. We were never close. Like I said, he was joined at the hip to his mother.”
“So what you’re saying is Livinia was both mother and father to your son all his life because you were too busy with your political career. Is that about right? I also recall reading somewhere, and not all that long ago, that your son called you Mr. Congressman, then Mr. Minority Leader, and, finally, Mr. Speaker. Not Dad or Pop or Father, but Mr. whatever. At your instruction, so he would show respect. That was a quote in some Silicon Valley interview. Is that true? And, Buzz, it is going to come out that your wife is the one who has the money. You have been riding her financial coattails ever since you married her right out of college,” Leo Bishop said.
Buzz frowned. “It’s true. Jeffrey and I had words concerning his divorce. I think his soon-to-be ex is a gold digger. I said it from the day he married her. Livinia was smitten with her. I wasn’t. She had that look all gold diggers have. I have a question. What is our response to irreconcilable differences? That phrase could cover a multitude of things.”
“We’ll get into that a bit later. We can make that statement work for us. Right now, we have to call a press conference and be preemptive,” Maxwell Queen said.
“You realize that the Post is going to come down heavy on Livinia’s side. That reporter, Maggie Spritzer, and her colleague, whose name I can’t remember right now, will have a ton of material in their archives to use as fodder for their stories. On us. The Chessmen. That in itself is not good, Buzz. They will portray Livinia as the second coming of Mother Teresa, and you will be the Devil Incarnate,” Queen said, his voice sour and angry. “God alone knows how the two of them will blister this firm.”
The Speaker threw his hands in the air in frustration. “Sounds to me like you’re saying you aren’t up to the job of making this come out right for me. Is that what you’re saying?” Buzz barked.
“That’s not what Maxwell is saying at all, Buzz. We can handle whatever comes our way, just the way we always do. We know people who know other people, as you know damn well. You have to know whose ass to kiss in this town. You, Buzz, should know that better than anyone in this room because you’ve done your share of ass kissing all these years,” Josh King said, icicles dripping from his words.
“All of that, and a bag of chips,” Buzz sniped. “So far, none of you have looked at the last page of that complaint. I suggest you do that right now, then tell me if what you just said will hold up.”
The only sound to be heard in the conference room was the rustle of paper and chairs moving so that the four Chessmen could view the signature on the last page of the document on the table.
“Son of a bitch!” the four lawyers said in unison.
“ ‘Son of a bitch’ is right,” Buzz agreed.
“You said Nikki Quinn was your wife’s attorney!” Bishop spat.
“No, Leo, I did not say that. I said the Quinn Law Firm was representing Livinia. The first thing I said when we got in this room was for the four of you to look at the last page. You didn’t do that until just now,” Buzz said. For some reason, he felt pleased at the panicked look on his friends’ faces. It was something he’d never seen before. The Chessmen always projected an appearance of victory and jubilation to those present. But the momentary pleasure he’d just felt turned to outright fear at what he was seeing.
Buzz cleared his throat when the others suddenly found themselves speechless. “I guess what your expressions mean is this particular lady lawyer is going to outlawyer you, and that I will be going down the tubes. Is that what I’m seeing, boys?” He sat back and waited for the air to clear.
And then the Chessmen were all talking at once in voices that were jittery and shaky and nothing like the sonorous and sometimes bombastic tone they used to use in the courtroom, back in the day. Buzz went back to feeling pleased again, but only until he realized that it was his reputation that was being put in the Chessmen’s hands.
“You’re afraid of her! Admit it! Well, I never thought I’d see this day, boys. Suddenly I am not feeling very confident about your representing me. Actually, you’re scaring me. And don’t even think about calling this particular lady lawyer a skirt. I know who she is. I know her reputation. I know she lives in Las Vegas and is married to that guy Cosmo Cricket, who just happens to be the lead counsel for the Nevada Gaming Commission. That’s a lot of clout right there, boys! That means Cricket knows people, too. And his wife has had a direct pipeline straight into the White House for a long time, not to mention just about every damn courthouse in the country. For God’s sake, will one of you say something already
before I explode?”
The instant metamorphosis Buzz was seeing rocked him back on his heels.
“Don’t ever compare us to that gambling attorney in Las Vegas!” Maxwell Queen barked. “As for Elizabeth Fox, we can take her with our hands tied behind our backs if she doesn’t play dirty.”
“Well, you should know all about playing dirty, but I think you’re confused here, boys. Elizabeth Fox does not play dirty. She doesn’t have to. She has every judge in this town, civil as well as criminal, totally wrapped up in her court. She has more legal knowledge in that beautiful head of hers than the four of you put together, and do you know how I know that? I know it because my old golfing buddy, federal judge Ambrose Feldman, told me that on the ninth hole back in May of this year. Cosgrove, Spinelli, and Jepson all agreed. We were a foursome that day. They love and adore her, fought among themselves to get to hear her cases. Their wives all want to be like Elizabeth Fox.
“Just for the record, all four of those judges hate your guts. Spinelli referred to you as clowns. You know I’m right. So, having said all that, let’s all own up to our failings and get down to business. There has to be some way to outsmart that bitch.”
* * *
“Maggie is going to be so surprised by this little welcome-home party,” Myra whispered to Annie, who was busily tying the last cluster of colorful balloons to the dining-room chandelier.
“Why are you whispering, Myra?”
Myra laughed. “I was, wasn’t I? The element of surprise, I suppose. Ted outdid himself with the decorations. He even got a hospital bed and set it up in the family room, so Maggie won’t have to climb the stairs. As far as I can see, he didn’t miss a single thing. He said the nurse would be here at two, when the party breaks up, and will take over immediately. The food looks delicious, doesn’t it?”
Crash And Burn Page 11
