Стюарт Вудс - Wild Card

Ari walked quickly from room to room. “How much to rent?” he asked.

“Seventy-five hundred, per month. Unfurnished, of course, minimum one-year lease.”

“How much for the furniture?”

“You’d have to speak with the decorator about that.”

“I’ll take the apartment if you’ll speak to the decorator and get me a favorable price for the furniture.”

The woman took out her cell phone, dialed a number, and then wandered into the kitchen to talk. Then she came back. “The retail price of everything here is thirty-eight thousand dollars, but you can buy it all for twenty-five thousand.”

“Done,” Ari said, producing a checkbook.

“There’s a security deposit of a month’s rent, and you pay the first and last months now.” She told him whom to make the checks out to, and she produced a lease and began filling in the blanks.

“Oh,” Ari said, “does that include parking in the building?”

“Yes, for one car.”

He turned to Annie. “Do you own a car?”

“No,” she replied.

“That is satisfactory.” He wrote a check for the rent and another for the furniture.

“When would you like to move in?” the agent asked, handing him the lease and a pen.

“Now,” Ari replied.

“I’ll need half an hour to clear the checks,” she said.

“That’s all right. We have some shopping to do.”

She handed him two sets of keys, he gave one to Annie and they went downstairs.

“What kind of shopping?” Annie asked.

“I’m going over to J. Press and buy some suitable clothes. Why don’t you do the same? I don’t think Harvard Graduate Student is a good look for a political operative of either gender. We need to look more prosperous.”

“J. Crew is good for me,” she said.

He signed a blank check and gave it to her. “I’ll need receipts. I’ll meet you back here in a couple of hours.”

He shopped for an hour, chose some suits, jackets, shirts, and shoes, then got his clothes marked up for alterations to the cuffs and sleeves and ordered everything delivered to the apartment. Then he got into a cab.

“Take me to a Chevrolet car dealer,” he said to the driver.

Three-quarters of an hour later, he drove a new Tahoe off the lot and to his new building. He went upstairs and smelled cooking as he got off the elevator and let himself into the apartment.

The living room was crowded with shopping bags from J. Crew and J. Press, and Annie was in the kitchen. “Hi,” she said, “I did some grocery shopping.”

Bob Cantor knocked, then walked into Stone’s office and sat down. “I think you’ve had enough of Sherry and me,” he said.

“Nonsense. You can stay as long as you like.”

“What I’d like is to go back to my hideout in Brooklyn and take Sherry with me.”

“Do you think that will be safe?”

“It’ll be safe because they don’t know about it,” he replied. “I’ve swept the neighborhood here for the past couple of days, and it’s been squeaky clean. I think Brooklyn will be, too. I’ve also taken a couple of trips to my house downtown, and there’s no human surveillance on it. No electronic surveillance, either, if I’m any good at what I do.”

Sherry joined them and thanked Stone profusely.

“Our stuff is all packed and in the car,” Bob said.

“You okay for money?” Stone asked.

“Oh, yeah. I’ve always got cash on hand.” He stood up and offered his hand. “Call me, if there are any developments.”

“I don’t think there will be,” Stone said, “now that Jamie’s book is coming out. Since we’ve already done our worst, we’re not a threat to them anymore.”

“I hope you’re right,” Bob said. “Just remember, revenge runs deep in the Italian character.”

“That’s what Dino keeps telling me,” Stone replied.

They said goodbye and left.

Ari sat in front of his laptop and made a Skype call. Senator Joseph Box answered. “Ari?” he asked.

“Yes, Senator.”

“Welcome aboard.”

“I’ve been following your campaign on the Internet, and I have a couple of observations.”

“I’d be happy to hear them.”

“Senator, I get the impression that you have a good memory.”

“An outstandingly excellent memory,” Box replied. “I can recite whole chapters from books that I read in high school.”

“Can you memorize a fifteen-minute speech?”

“Certainly. I’ve pretty much been ignoring the teleprompter.”

“So I have noticed,” Ari said. “I don’t want you to confuse reciting a speech from memory and improvising one. They’re two different skills, and somehow, when you improvise, too many things come out wrong.”

“I’m hurt,” Box replied.

“Don’t be. Your memory will carry you through. It’s important, too, not to exceed the fifteen-minute limit. You run the risk of boring your audience, and it’s better to leave them wanting more than offering them too much.”

“I take your point.”

“I want you to have your clothes pressed more often, too,” Ari said.

“Oh?” Box looked hurt again. “I’ve been told you’re sometimes excessively blunt.”

“I try to say what needs to be said as quickly as possible. You have a tendency to look rumpled at the best of times, and keeping your clothes pressed lessens that. Assign a campaign volunteer to that task. Also, I’d like you to wear more solid-color ties or ones with very small figures, like pin dots.”

“Am I choosing my ties badly?”

“Yes.”

Box winced. “All right, I’ll do as you say. By the way, your speeches have been excellent.”

“Yes, they have been,” Ari agreed, “and they will continue being so. The press is picking up the lines I have intended them to.”

“Am I ever going to see you live?” Box asked.

“I’ll catch an occasional appearance on the trail, and I’ll introduce myself.”

“I’m told you don’t like shaking hands.”

“The custom of shaking hands arose from a desire to show others that one is unarmed. I am always unarmed.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“Goodbye, Senator.” Ari hung up.

Senator Box turned to his bodyguard. “That kid is weird,” he said.

Annie appeared, reflected in his computer screen. “I know you don’t like being touched,” she said.

“It’s good that you know.”

“I’m going to put my hands on your shoulders, and I want you to relax.” She reached out to him and detected an immediate stiffness.

“I had a massage once,” Ari said. “I disliked it intensely.”

“If you want a full and happy life,” she said, “you’re going to have to do some relearning.” She squeezed his shoulders slightly.

He took a quick breath.

“Now I want you to make a concerted effort to relax your shoulders, even though I’m touching them.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” he said.

It took her ten minutes to feel a little relaxation in his body, and another ten minutes before he seemed to like it. “There,” she said. “Was that awful?”

“It became less awful as you went along,” he said.

“We’re going to do that for a few minutes every day. You’ll have more energy, and you’ll sleep better.”

“If you say so.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” she said, kissing him lightly on the beginnings of his bald spot.

Ari jumped. “Too much, too soon,” he said.

After a fervent goodbye, Jamie was picked up in Stone’s garage by a black SUV with a driver and two women in the rear seat. The women got out and greeted her.

“Hi,” said the slightly taller of the two. “I’m Lane, and this is Ida.”