Michael Prescott - Mortal Faults

“Size doesn’t matter. Quickness is what counts.”

“And if you run up against a guy who’s bigger and quicker than you?”

“Then I guess I’d be dead. I told you there were easier ways to make a living.”

Reynolds shook his head with a slow grin. “You’ve got some brass ovaries, don’t you?”

“So I’ve been told.” Actually she’d never heard it put quite that way before.

“And I take it you’re not averse to breaking the law now and then.”

She returned to her chair and leaned against it, giving him a good look. “I don’t discuss those details with clients. It’s better that way-for everyone concerned.”

“Deniability. Sure. Officially I know nothing. Unofficially-well, let’s just say a person in your line of work can’t be too hung up on legalities.”

“People might say the same thing about politicians,” Abby quipped. Reynolds gave her a cool stare. Not a man who could take a joke, it seemed. “Somebody seems to have filled you in nicely about my services,” she said.

“I like to be informed about the people I work with.”

“You did your homework. But I’m still not sure I understand why you need me. Most of my clients come to me because the police won’t listen to them. But the cops aren’t going to give a U.S. congressman the brush-off.”

“I’d prefer not to go through those channels.”

“Why not?”

“Because if it is Rose who’s been going to my events, I don’t want the story to come out. I told you, Jake got into some trouble with the law. Nothing ever got into the media about it. If this story breaks, and people start looking into my past…” He sighed. “I don’t want my son getting hurt. He’s put all that nonsense behind him. He’s straightened out.”

Abby thought it likely that Reynolds was less concerned about his son’s welfare than about his own image as a law-and-order type. The former “crusading D.A.” wasn’t the sort of guy who ought to have a family member whose criminal activity had been covered up for ten years.

She didn’t voice her suspicions. “I don’t suppose you have a last known address for Ms. Moran.”

“Her last address that I know of is when she lived at our house. She’s not listed in any local directories. I checked.”

“She might be listed under another name. Was she married when she was in your employ?”

“No.”

“She might be married now. She could have taken her husband’s name.”

“Or changed her name,” Reynolds said. “Obtained a new identity.”

“Why would she do that? She doesn’t have any sort of criminal record, does she?”

“No, no-nothing like that.”

“Then there would be no reason for her to change her ID.”

“Right. Of course not.” He said it too hastily.

Something was wrong here, but Abby didn’t press. “I can start the next time you have a public event.”

“Then you can start tonight. I’m doing a town hall meeting at a high school in Laguna Hills.”

“Don’t believe in wasting time, do you?”

“Do you?”

“Nope. Tell me the address and I’ll be there.”

“My assistant-”

“Can give me that information. I know the drill. Can she also give me a photo of Rose Moran?”

“No, and neither can I. I don’t have any photos of her.”

“None?”

“Who takes snapshots of their housekeeper? But I can give you the next best thing. I went through the stills my media people shoot at all my campaign appearances.”

He removed a glossy blowup from his desk drawer and handed it to her. It was a crowd shot. One face out of many had been circled with a red marker. A middle-aged woman with a lot of curly blond hair that could be a wig.

“Good enough,” Abby said. “Now there’s the little matter of my fee.”

“You charge three hundred dollars a day, correct?”

The man really had done his research. “That’s right.”

“I said I’d double it. Six hundred dollars, every day you’re on the case. Pretty good money. I hope you’re worth it.”

“I like to think I am.”

“Everyone thinks they’re worth more than they are. I expect results, Miss Sinclair. Don’t think you can take me for a ride. Well”-he allowed himself a crass grin-“not that way, anyhow.”

Were all politicians like this guy? The advantages of absolute monarchy had never been clearer to her.

Abby shook his hand again, with more reluctance this time.

“Nice to have met you,” she lied. “And good luck with your campaign.”

“I won’t need it. My opponent’s a hack they put up against me just to fill the slot on the ballot. Nobody challenges me in my district. Nobody serious.”

“You’re sure you’ll win, then?”

“I always win.”

He wasn’t smiling when he said it. She believed him.

Whatever else he might be, Jack Reynolds was a man who did not know how to lose.

Abby positioned herself on a bus-stop bench in Laguna Hills at six forty-five. The entrance to the high school parking lot was just down the street. From her vantage point she would see the cars rolling in and, with luck, spot Reynolds’ mystery woman driving one of them.

Having had a couple of hours to kill after their meeting, she’d gone back online, using her laptop with a wireless modem, and found the address of Reynolds’ campaign headquarters in Huntington Beach. The place itself was easily identifiable by the REELECT JACK REYNOLDS sign in the window and the American flag flying overhead. Inside, she asked for campaign literature and was directed to a card table stacked with brochures. She pretended to look over the material while she checked out the place.

It was a definite step down from Reynolds’ Newport Beach digs. The decor consisted of folding chairs and Office Depot furniture. Campaign signs were plastered on the walls, some professionally printed, others hand-lettered, most displaying Reynolds’ uninspired slogan: FOR THE PEOPLE. Abby wondered if anyone had ever run against the people. Bland or not, the slogan was everywhere, tacked to file cabinets, taped to windows, even worn as a campaign button on the collar of somebody’s snoozing Great Dane.

Partitions had been set up to divide the room into cubbyholes and offices. Fluorescent panels glared down, some of them flickering wanly. Banks of TV sets, volume muted, were tuned to a variety of news channels. A stale odor of pizza grease hung in the room, undisturbed by the air conditioning even though it was roaring at full blast.

A dozen or so volunteers and staffers, mostly young, worked at two different tables. One group was stuffing envelopes while the others were cold-calling prospective voters. Most got immediate hang-ups, but they persisted, undeterred by rejection, reading from a script whenever they found someone willing to listen to the pitch.

Abby found the atmosphere-part boiler-room operation, part all-night dorm-room bull session-strangely invigorating. It was electoral politics at their grass-rootiest, being played out with a sweaty energy she rarely saw in L.A., where the local style was to feign ironic detachment at all times. These folks weren’t poseurs. They were serious about reelecting their congressman, and they were working hard. Reynolds might think the outcome of the contest was assured, but the message hadn’t reached the troops in the field.

Abby didn’t like Reynolds personally and had next to no interest in politics, but for a moment she was almost tempted to sign up for campaign scut work, just to be part of the action.

Looking across the room, she saw someone who was clearly a step above the volunteers and run-of-the-mill staffers, an angular, youngish man with close-cropped hair and what looked like a permanent five o’clock shadow. He sat in the semi-privacy of cubicle, manning the best desk in the place, with the only swivel chair in evidence, talking on a hands-free phone while studying a computer monitor and reading two newspapers at once. Half moons of sweat rimmed the armpits of his button-down shirt; his tie was loosened, his wilted collar open, his jacket thrown over the back of his chair. He sipped compulsively from a Styrofoam coffee cup, wincing every time he swallowed. The stuff must be foul, but it was fueling his hyperactivity.