Эд Горман - Stranglehold

“I want to know exactly what you’re talking about. This is my house and my money being spent, and whether this bastard likes it or not I have the final say on this campaign.”

So nice to see you, Natalie. Won’t you have a cup of coffee and sit down and chat for a while? You just have a way of brightening up a room.

She charged up to Byrnes’s desk. “What the hell have you two been talking about?”

“Darling, it would help if you’d calm down.”

“This bastard forces his way in here at breakfast time and I don’t know what’s going on — in my own house? Now I want to hear everything you’ve said.”

And with that she gathered her black train and went to sit in a leather wing chair identical to mine. I took pleasure in watching her try to get comfortable with her ridiculous train piled beneath her. She was angry with her train. If she got mad enough at it, she’d probably set it on fire.

Byrnes sighed and said, “You won’t be happy to hear this, Natalie.”

“And why should that make any difference? I haven’t been happy to hear anything since this man and his flunkies started bungling Susan’s campaign.”

“This isn’t something they did, Natalie. This is—”

I could almost see him drawing himself up to give her the bad news. “Craig Donovan physically attacked Dev last night and told him that he wanted a second payment in the same amount — and he wants it delivered by tonight.”

Both Byrnes and I were ready to crouch into defensive positions because the blast would likely smash windows and toss furniture around. But it didn’t happen. We glanced at each other. It was a cartoon moment, when two characters stare at a stick of dynamite that burns down but doesn’t explode.

She laughed. “Well, isn’t that just fucking ducky? So now Mr. Conrad here has managed to screw up the situation with Donovan, too.” The voice started to rise at the end. “And just why the hell did he come to you?”

I lied. “I’m not sure.”

“That doesn’t matter now. What matters is what we do next. Do we pay him again?”

She put her head down, folded her hands in her lap, and began shaking her head back and forth. Without looking up she said, “If we weren’t so close to the election, I’d fire your ass and rip you up in public, which I plan to do whether we win or lose.” This was the old Natalie. She didn’t want to disappoint her fans. When her head came up she glared at Byrnes. “If you were any kind of a man, you’d punch him right in the face.”

“Oh God, Nat,” Byrnes said. “C’mon. That kind of talk isn’t going to help anything.”

“Oh? And just what kind of talk will help anything?”

He started to push back from his desk. I had the same impulse he did. To get up and walk around, anything to break the tension.

“Why don’t I fix you a brandy, Nat?” Byrnes said.

“It’s eight o’clock in the goddamned morning, Wyatt. What are we, lushes?” But her words lacked their usual fire. She sounded more miserable than angry. When she finally met my eyes, she said, “I want you out of here.”

“All right.”

“I’m going to fix it so you’ll have a hard time getting any kind of clients, Conrad — even city council ones. I’ll ruin you.” Then to Byrnes: “I thought you were going to get me a brandy? You don’t do anything else around here. Can’t you at least do that?”

There was no point in saying good-bye. I was at the moment in crime movies of the forties when the detective always picks up his fedora and walks out. Except I didn’t have a fedora. I closed the door quietly.

About halfway down the hall, just at the point where I could see the sunlight blaze through the vestibule window, Winnie appeared and slid her arm through mine. “I take it Natalie’s not happy.”

“I don’t know how you stand it.”

Her laugh was warm and bright. “Oh, Natalie’s all right. In her way she means well. She’s like most control freaks. They think they’re doing you a favor by having everything their own way. It’s for your own good — and they just don’t understand why you can’t understand that. I had an older sister who was like that, God rest her soul.”

She opened the front door for me. The chill, brilliant day leapt at me. She looked back down the hall. “There are times when I actually feel sorry for her.”

I smiled. “I guess I haven’t gotten to that point yet. And somehow I don’t think I ever will.”

She touched my arm and laughed. “A lot of people say that, I’m afraid.” Then she was closing the door, sealing herself inside the tomb with the one and only Natalie Cooper.

David Manning and Doris Kelly sat next to each other just inside the office headquarters. Given their expressions you’d think they were patients waiting on bad news from a doctor.

Manning said, “We’re hiding out here, Dev.” Doris nodded. She was pale and nervous.

“From what?”

Before Manning could speak, Ben came back from his desk and said, “They got it after we did.”

“Got what?”

“Reporters,” Ben said. “Three of them were here for an hour. I had to practically push them out the door. Then they went over to the foundation.”

“That’s why we came over here,” Manning said.

From her desk, Kristin said, “Then they started in on me first.”

“What the hell are we all talking about?” I said.

“The son. Bobby,” Ben said. “Somehow they found out about Susan and her son.”

So there you had it. The information hit my brain and my entire body tensed. The word was out and from here on in there was no way we could get ahead of this story. All we could do was defend ourselves, and when you defend yourself a good share of people assume you’re guilty. If we’d broken the story at a press conference that we had called, we could have spun it our way — a mother reunited with her son, sad and sorry that she’d had to give him up for adoption, but now they were together again. Duffy and the press would still have come after us, but at least we would have put a tender face on it before the savagery began.

“I assume we don’t know who contacted the press.”

“Not yet, Dev,” Ben said.

Manning said, “We’ve got a lot of work to do at the foundation, but I don’t want to go back there. I don’t want to get trapped into saying the wrong thing.”

“They even followed me to the bathroom,” Doris said. “I was half afraid the woman reporter was going to follow me inside.”

“I suppose Duffy’ll be on TV right away. Gloating.”

“He won’t have to be on TV, David,” I said. “The press’ll do all his work for him. He can stay above it. He gets to sit in the stands while we get ripped up in the arena.”

“Who the hell knew about it?” Ben said. “Just a handful of people.”

“Larson, that’s who I’m thinking of.” Kristin continued working on her computer as she talked. “That’s what he’s good at. He manages to find out things that other people never get to.”

I was thinking of the woman I’d met at Craig Donovan’s. Another possibility. She knew about it. Donovan would have told her. Not unthinkable that he’d beaten her again and she’d decided to ruin his plan for blackmail.

The first thing I had to concentrate on was preparing a presentation for the press. I had to find Susan and we had to work out a story. Then we had to find Bobby. Even though our heartwarming mother-and-son reunion spin was late, it had to be performed, anyway. We had to do our best to keep Susan in a sympathetic light. We would lose votes over this; the thing was to hold those losses to a minimum.

“I need to talk to Susan,” I said. “What’s her schedule today?”