Mike Lawson - Dead on Arrival

‘Why wouldn’t you hire him?’

‘Because Nick’s one of those people that, if given the choice between battering you into submission and sweet-talking you into doing what he wants, he prefers to batter. Though he hides it most of the time, there’s a deep mean streak in Nick. Maybe he feels, had he not been born black and poor, he wouldn’t have been playing second banana to Wingate all those years. Whatever the reason, I just don’t think he’d fit into our little club. We lobbyists don’t go around armed , darlin’. We rely on our charm as well as our clients’ money, and Nick, handsome and smart as he is, is for the most part devoid of charm.’

She said chawm , and DeMarco couldn’t help but smile.

‘I still don’t get it,’ he said. ‘If he resented Broderick so much, why didn’t he take a job at some think tank or a consulting firm? For that matter, why didn’t he go home and start campaigning against Broderick?’

Miranda didn’t answer immediately. She was making eye contact with a tall gray-haired man at the bar who was about as handsome as Cary Grant. She tipped her martini glass at the gentleman, then said to DeMarco, ‘Well, what I heard was that Nick met with Cal Montgomery …’

Montgomery was the chairman of the Republican National Committee.

‘… and with Rick Walters …’

Walters was the minority leader in the Senate.

‘… and I think those boys gave Nick the ol’ your-time-will-come speech and probably made him some kinda promise. You know, Virginia’s other senator ain’t no spring chicken either. But I’m just guessin’, sugar, since I couldn’t get any details from anyone.’

Which meant Miranda wasn’t sleeping with anyone who’d attended the meeting.

‘This bill of Broderick’s,’ DeMarco said.

‘Now ain’t that somethin’,’ Miranda said.

‘How involved is Fine in that?’

‘Totally, would be my guess. Broderick’s had some incredible luck — if you can call the Capitol nearly gettin’ blown up luck — but the guy who maneuvered that bill through the Senate was Nicky.’

‘I can believe it,’ DeMarco said. ‘Is Broderick really the lightweight that he seems to be?’

‘Yes and no,’ Miranda said. ‘I mean, the man’s no intellectual giant, but he has one thing goin’ for him and that’s ambition: raw, unrestrained, unadulterated ambition. You’d never guess it to look at him, but he’s one of the most power-hungry bastards you’ll ever meet, and considering that he works with ninety-nine other power-hungry bastards, that’s saying something.’

‘What’s he wanna be, president?’

‘No. I mean, yes, of course he wants to be president, but that’s not what motivates him.’

‘What does?’

‘Sibling rivalry.’

‘You gotta be shittin’ me.’

‘No. Bill Broderick was the classic unloved and ignored middle sibling, and his two brothers were the apples of his daddy’s eye. The oldest is not only a neurosurgeon, he’s out there on the leading edge. And the other brother, the one on the West Coast, he’s on the Hollywood A-list and has been invited to the White House a lot more times than brother Bill. I’ve heard that if you even mention his brothers to him, he gets this look on his face like he’d like to strangle you. This is the first time in his life, being a senator and in the middle of a national debate, that he’s ever gotten more attention than those other two boys, and he’s just lovin’ it.’

When DeMarco saw Miranda glance over at the gray-haired matinee idol at the bar again, he thanked her for her time and tried to pay for the drinks, but she wouldn’t let him. She pointed out that she spent more on shoes than he made in a year. As DeMarco was shrugging into his topcoat, she asked, ‘Are you finally over that ex-wife of yours?’

DeMarco laughed, sat back down, and told her about his cousin getting arrested and Marie having the nerve to ask him for help. He concluded by saying, ‘Yeah, I’m definitely over her.’

Miranda Bloom looked at him for a long moment with her marvelous, dark, seen-everything eyes. Then she reached out and patted his hand and said, ‘Oh, honey, you are so not over her.’

Oliver Lincoln sat on the patio of his Key West home, flipping through a copy of GQ , drinking iced coffee. The soothing burble of a nearby fountain — he liked fountains; he had three on his estate — added to his contentment. A feature on Italian tailors reminded him that he needed to contact Rubinacci and schedule a fitting. Spring was just around the corner, and he needed a few new lightweight suits. The Naples tailor was so busy that if he didn’t visit soon -

‘I’m so sorry to disturb you, Mr Lincoln.’

Lincoln looked up. It was Esperanza, his maid.

‘Mr Harris is on the phone. I know you said you didn’t want to be disturbed …’

‘You did the right thing, dear. I’ll take the call. Thank you.’

Lincoln was always polite to his domestic staff and he paid them well, and they, in turn, took very good care of him. Lincoln was not, however, happy that Harris was calling. Harris was a conduit, a human relay station, and the only reason he could be calling was because the client wanted to speak to Lincoln. And that meant Lincoln would have to leave his comfortable home and his lovely shaded patio with its bubbling fountain.

‘What is it, Harris?’ Lincoln said into the phone. He had no need to be polite to Harris.

‘At eleven-thirty,’ Harris said, ‘Prudential is expected to be at seventy, Amerigas at thirty-two, Johnson and Johnson at fifty-six, Credit Suisse at fifty-eight, and Chubb at ninety-seven.’

Harris worked for a national brokerage firm, and if by some fluke a law enforcement agency happened to note that either the client or Lincoln had called the firm — or was called by the firm — that wouldn’t be considered unusual. And whenever the client or Lincoln called Harris, they didn’t call Harris’s extension directly but went though a number used by the general public. And if someone happened to be tapping Lincoln’s phone, they would have heard Harris give reasonably accurate predictions for five stocks for a particular time of day, but the five stock prices given equaled a ten-digit phone number — 703-256-5897 — assigned to a public booth, and the time given was the time Lincoln was to call the number.

But connecting with the client was annoying. Lincoln would now have to drive to a public phone booth, making sure he didn’t use one he’d used before or one too close to his house. And finding a functioning phone booth was no easy matter. The other thing that irked him was that the client had the audacity to presume that Lincoln would just drop whatever he was doing and make the call at the time specified. Well, considering what he was being paid, Lincoln had to admit that wasn’t completely unreasonable.

He checked his watch. He had an hour and a half before he had to make the call. He took a shower and shaved, then dressed in fawn-colored linen-silk trousers, a whimsical Charvet sport shirt, and Spanish sandals. On his head he wore a white Borsalino straw hat and Persol sunglasses. He looked in the mirror and was delighted by his reflection.

Lincoln had been told before that he looked like a young Orson Welles. He was tall, six-three, and powerfully built. If he didn’t watch his diet he could become quite obese — as Orson had in his later years — but he did watch his diet. He had sleek black hair, a handsome, somewhat arrogant face, and sensuous lips — appropriate, he thought, for a sensuous man.

There had been some rather ferocious two-legged predators who’d made the mistake of thinking that Lincoln, a man with style, was easy prey. The predators no longer walked the planet, but Lincoln did — shod in Spanish sandals.