Phillip Margolin - Executive Privilege

“Good speech,” Jack Bedford said from his seat on the couch. Her chief of staff was a former political science professor with degrees from Boise State and the Kennedy School at Harvard.

“I knew it would be. Any reaction yet from the press?”

“Fox loved it, and MSNBC vilified you. They brought up all that World War II stuff about interning the Japanese.”

“That’s to be expected.”

“But I’m not here to talk about your speech.”

“Oh?”

“Something happened that I thought you should know about.”

“And that is?” Gaylord asked disinterestedly as she took a brief look through the stack of documents on her desk that her AA had put in the priority pile.

“A girl named Charlotte Walsh, who worked at campaign headquarters, was murdered by the D.C. Ripper.”

Gaylord stopped what she was doing and looked up. “That’s horrible,” she said with genuine emotion. “We’ll send condolences to the parents and order flowers for the funeral. Nothing cheap.”

“Already done.”

Gaylord looked upset. “I hope the Ripper isn’t one of our staff or volunteers.”

“The FBI was questioning everyone at campaign headquarters but Reggie Styles has everything under control. If the Ripper is involved in your campaign there’s no evidence to show it. He’s probably some deranged, Caucasian loner who lives with his mother. That’s what the profilers always say.”

Gaylord grunted then she grew uncommonly quiet. Bedford sat patiently. His boss always got like this when she had an idea.

“Do you think we can use the presence of a successful serial killer in the D.C. area to paint Farrington as weak on the crime issue?”

“I’ve already written a line for you to use when you meet the press about Walsh’s death. ‘If Farrington can’t protect the people who live in his city how can he protect an entire nation?’ What do you think?”

Gaylord smiled. “I like it.”

Bedford grew serious. “There’s something else. Walsh may have been a spy for Farrington.”

“What!”

“As soon as we found out Walsh worked for you I sent someone to offer condolences and support to her roommate. It turns out that Walsh was a big Farrington supporter up until a week before she volunteered to work at our campaign headquarters. I mentioned this to Reggie. There’s a kid from Georgetown who’s volunteering. Seems he had dinner with Walsh the evening she died. He told Reggie she was pretty much alone in the office when she wasn’t scheduled to be there and she jumped when he found her making copies of an economic report. Then, a few minutes later, he caught her in Reggie’s office, and she jumped again. Reggie checked his office and nothing’s missing, but he had a list of our secret contributors in a locked drawer in his desk.”

“If Farrington planted a spy in our office we may be able to use that to our advantage.”

“My thinking exactly, but we have to tread carefully, especially now that she’s dead. We don’t want to be seen as throwing mud on the victim of a terrible crime.”

“Of course not. Why don’t you look around a little more and see if you can come up with some solid evidence that implicates Farrington’s people. Meanwhile, schedule a press conference for me. Maybe we can fly the parents in. That would be nice, don’t you think?”

“Where the hell have you been?” Perry demanded angrily when his secretary put Dana’s call through.

“I’ve been busy.”

“You’d better have a damn good explanation for your behavior. My client says you quit in the middle of your assignment after leaving some insane message about attacking someone in the woods.”

“It wasn’t my message that was crazy, Dale. It was the assignment. And, quite frankly, I don’t think your briefing was complete. You left out the part about the armed Secret Service agents and a few other tiny details.”

“What Secret Service agents?” Perry blurted out. Cutler thought he sounded genuinely confused, but lawyers were trained to lie.

“We’re going to meet tonight and have a long talk,” Cutler said.

“The fuck we are. What you’re going to do is bring the pictures you took and the cell phone I gave you to this office immediately.”

“And if I don’t, what are you going to do, sue me? I think Court TV will have a field day airing a trial that features a discussion of the goings-on at the president’s fuck pad.”

“What are you talking about?”

“President Christopher Farrington sent two men to kill me last night because I have pictures showing him in a bedroom with Charlotte Walsh shortly before she was supposedly killed by the D.C. Ripper. Guess what Mr. Family Values was doing in that bedroom with a girl who’s young enough to be his daughter?”

“Jesus Christ, Cutler, not on the phone.”

“It looks like I finally have your attention.”

“How soon can you get to my office?”

“Do you think I’m a total idiot? I’m not going anywhere near your office. Tonight, after the sun sets, you’re going to take a drive. Bring your cell phone. I’ll tell you where to meet me as soon as I’m certain you haven’t been followed. And don’t think I’m alone. I’ll have people watching you,” she lied, “and you’ll never know they’re there. If they spot a tail, the pictures go to the press. Understand?”

“Do not even think about making those pictures public.”

“That’s completely in your control, Dale. I want money for them. Either the president pays or CNN pays. I don’t care. I wasn’t planning on voting for Farrington anyway.”

For the meeting, Dana chose The 911, a bar in South-West D.C. that had two exits in addition to the front door. One was near the restroom and opened onto a side street, and the other was in the kitchen and opened onto a back alley. They would come in handy if she had to run. The bar was owned by Charlie Foster, a retired police sergeant she knew from the force. He’d put his life savings into it, and Dana had the impression he wasn’t making much of a return. The 911 was dark and smelled of stale beer and sweat and the noise level was high and threatening. Best of all, for Dana’s purposes, the customers were poor and black, and so was the neighborhood. If Farrington sent a Caucasian anywhere near The 911 he would stand out.

Meeting in a predominantly African-American neighborhood worked in Dana’s favor for another reason. In the legal community, Dale Perry’s reputation for viciousness rivaled that of Vlad the Impaler. Tales of Perry’s hardball tactics were tossed around at bar conventions the way baseball fans traded tales of no-hitters. Dana had heard the stories and knew she needed an edge. Meeting at The 911 gave it to her. Dale Perry didn’t like poor people and he feared blacks, whom he assumed all wanted to rob and kill him. Fear would keep Perry off balance during their negotiations.

Dana surveilled the area around The 911 for two hours before entering the tavern through the kitchen and mysteriously appearing on the seat across from the frazzled lawyer. She hadn’t told Perry the type of establishment she’d chosen for the meet and he was still wearing a dark blue business suit, a silk shirt, and a Herme`s tie, which made him as conspicuous in The 911 as someone dressed like Santa Claus.

“Enjoying the ambience, Dale?” she asked with a smirk.

“You’re lucky I’m still here,” Perry answered, trying to sound tough. It might have worked if it weren’t for the sheen of sweat on his forehead and the way his eyes shifted nervously as he spoke.

“Here’s the deal, Dale,” Dana said. “What you paid me to follow Charlotte Walsh was more than fair for a simple surveillance assignment, but it didn’t come close to compensating me for being hunted by armed Secret Service agents or being attacked by two men in my apartment who told me that they were going to rape me if I didn’t give them the pictures I took of Farrington and Charlotte Walsh. You know my history, so you know how that kind of threat would affect me.”