Richard Patterson - The Lasko Tangent

“What the hell are you doing?” I blurted stupidly.

He remained silent, giving the room a searching glance. Only the desk was between us. The overhead light cast a sickly yellow tint on the bare walls. The desk touched the wall to my right. But between the desk and left wall was a four-foot space. His eyes gauged it, then turned back toward me.

I felt a sudden wave of anger. “Give me the memo.”

He shook his head. My anger was turning into numb disbelief. I had almost outrun them. But all this time I had been a rat in Lasko’s maze, with Woods blocking the end. “It was you all along,” I said. “Everywhere I went Lasko was ahead of me. And you were the one who kept him there.”

He stared at me with contempt. “Nothing justifies the fuck-up you’ve made, hunting Lasko like a prep school Captain Ahab. You’re a fool, with no sense of proportion.”

“And you’re a low-rent John Dean, Woods, with the ethics of a war criminal.”

He answered in a smooth indifferent voice. “Lehman’s dead. I didn’t want that but there it is. There’s only you to say this memo ever existed. And there’s no one over me for you to say it to.”

The words had a sickening accuracy, and he could make them come true. The indifference was the underside of the wholly adaptable man. At bottom, he didn’t give a damn about anything except himself. And he was slick enough to bury the evidence without a trace.

We were both to the side of the desk now. Three feet between us. Woods was framed by the dark window. We watched each other.

“Try to stop me, Paget, and I’ll leave you here for Lasko’s friends.” He pointed behind me to Mary. “Her too, if you care about that.”

“No more middlemen, Woods,” I answered. “If you want to walk out of here you’ll have to kill me yourself. I know it all now. Most important, I know where the money was going.”

“I’ll bite,” he said negligently. “Where?”

“The President.”

Woods’ eyes froze, but his voice was unnaturally calm. “Just how did you reach that amazing conclusion?”

“It explains everything. You just have to put the facts in order. You start with the antitrust case, which would almost surely ruin Lasko. There’s only one man in the government who could kill that case. Lasko’s friend, the President.

“The price was one and a half million, with Catlow the perfect middleman. But getting the money was harder. Lasko’s first problem was that his company’s cash poor. So he used Green to hype the stock offering an extra one-point-eight million, laundered a million-five through Martinson, Carib, and the First Seminole Bank, then assigned Lehman to get the money to Catlow. They probably called it a ‘campaign contribution.’”

Woods seemed numbed by my recital-or perhaps he was deciding what role to play next. But the anger seized me now; he had to hear it all. “I could never see why a smart man like Lasko would use men like Green, Lehman, or Martinson. The only answer was that someone big was shaking him down and that the trial was coming soon, too soon for Lasko to plan properly. He had to use what help he could and hope he could slide by, or fix any problems later.

“Lehman was the first problem, and Lasko’s men fixed that. I was the next and you became chief fixer, not out of loyalty to Lasko, but to the President. You thought you had me wired. But none of you knew I had Lehman’s memo.”

Woods’ eyes weighed it all, then seemed to snap to a decision. I tensed, awaiting his move. “You’ve lost,” he said coolly. “The entire government’s against you-and without the memo, no one will believe any of this.” The words covered his careful slide toward the door. Part of me couldn’t believe we were going to fight. But the part that remembered Alec Lehman knew we were. He kept inching. I slid back my right foot, to brace myself.

Woods suddenly dipped his shoulder and shot forward, knocking me against the desk. I bounced off and punched up from the rib cage. It caught him while he was admiring his block. His teeth clicked, then the pain ripped through my forearm. Woods rocked, then caught himself against the wall.

I lunged for the memo. But Woods was too quick and too strong. He sidestepped as I stumbled past, off balance. Then his fist crashed into my cheekbone. I staggered, then sprawled face first on my desk, seeing a sudden purple haze. The haze cleared. In front of me was an onyx bookend, a squat hunk of rock. I grabbed it left-handed and spun.

What I got was teeth. His hands jerked up to clamp his mouth, as if to hold it together. I cocked the bookend, then hacked at his forehead. I heard Mary scream. Woods tottered on his heels. I hit him again. He staggered, eyes glazed. Then he slid slowly down the wall. I gaped at him, breathing hard.

I turned. Mary stood in the doorway, staring with shocked eyes. “Are you all right?” she asked in a strangled voice.

“I guess so.”

“What should we do?”

I couldn’t answer. My face ached and my right hand was a doughy pincushion. I tried to flex it. Woods was sprawled gracelessly on the floor, like the victim of a sudden stroke. His mouth was bloody. I stooped by him, thinking of Lehman and Tracy, McGuire and Lasko-and Mary. Woods didn’t care. He was out cold.

I got up. Mary was still staring at Woods. “I can’t believe it, Chris.”

“Neither can I.”

She looked up then and saw it in my face. She froze, irresolute, then turned to run. I caught her and threw her against the wall. She made a little sound, like a hurt cat. Her fingers covered her mouth. I moved toward her.

She shook her head like a mechanical doll. “No. No, Chris. You heard him threaten me too. You can’t believe-”

I shook her hard. “Lehman,” I demanded. “It was you and Woods.”

She stared at my face, mouth working, as if something were stuck in her throat.

“Tell me, before I mash your fucking face into the wall.”

Her words escaped in twos and threes. “That night-you said you were going to Boston-to meet Gubner.” She paused for breath. “I called Jack after-I got in. He didn’t know Gubner either.”

“So?”

She hesitated, then spoke quietly. “So Jack called Lasko.”

“Go on.”

“The case was dangerous-politically-to the White House. I don’t know who Jack talked to over there. He never said anything about money-I don’t think he knew. Jack’s ambitious, if you hadn’t noticed.”

She had begun to sound more confident. She was still talking, and I hadn’t hurt her. My grip tightened. She spoke quickly, as if to stop me. “He said Lasko knew from the name Gubner that Lehman was involved.”

It fit. Gubner had said that Lehman’s co-workers knew they were friends. “When Woods let me go to St. Maarten, was that because you told him I knew Lane Greenfeld?”

Her eyes dropped. “Greenfeld’s been covering Lasko. Jack was afraid you’d leak things if you weren’t happy.”

“And transferring the case to Justice?”

She spoke to the floor. “Jack’s idea. He gave it to Catlow. Catlow sold it to McGuire.”

I clamped her shoulders. “Goddamn you.”

Her jagged voice jumped. “No one knew Lasko would kill Lehman. I could hardly sleep.”

I shook her. “I was there, remember?”

The personal thing was close to the surface. It passed unspoken between her eyes and mine. “Please, Chris,” she said evenly. “Let me talk.”

I slowly eased my grip. Her mouth worked soundlessly, then started. “I never talked to Lasko or anyone at the White House. I never wanted you hurt. I didn’t know, really. I didn’t know what I was into-I just tried to help Jack control the case. I couldn’t expose him after the Lehman thing. He said we were both in trouble, because I’d known what he was doing. That’s the only reason I went on.”