Stuart Woods - Below the Belt

Stone didn’t say anything for a minute.

“I can hear the lawyer’s wheels turning in your head,” Rawls said. “You’re trying to figure out whether making that call might make you liable.”

“Not legally liable.”

“Liable to get killed for your trouble.”

“You swear to me that your book isn’t going to hurt Kate or Will?”

“One of the two pardons that Will made — mine — will become public knowledge, but not the other. Kate can honestly deny all knowledge of mine, and Will can offer justification.”

“What justification?”

“An old KGB hand defected to the Agency during Kate’s run for the presidency, and he spilled the whole story from the KGB point of view. It makes me out, correctly, to be a victim, not a willing collaborator. That gave Will justification for my pardon. If the story comes out, others will verify what the Russian guy spilled to the Agency. I may not end up smelling like a rose, but I won’t be thought of as a traitor anymore. And it won’t damage Kate.”

Stone sighed. “Okay, what’s the name and number of your pack-and-ship place in D.C.?”

“I’ve already texted it,” Rawls said. “It’s in your phone. If for some reason I don’t survive this, I’ll thank you now for your help, Stone. Otherwise, I’ll see you in Islesboro next summer, if not sooner.”

Rawls hung up.

Stone checked his messages; the phone number was there.

Holly called from home. “I wanted to thank you for our time together,” she said. “I loved it, I really did, and Kate was right, not being in touch with the White House allowed me to reset my brain. It made me a woman again, something I had almost forgotten, instead of just a functionary.”

“I never forgot you were a woman,” Stone said.

“Thank you for that, and thank you for the proposal, however unconventional it may have been.”

“You’re welcome.”

“How long is the offer going to be open?”

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that. I can’t see into the future.”

“I guess I’ll have to accept that answer.”

“Or my proposal.”

“An important part of me wants to, and right now, but my head is getting in the way.”

“I understand that. It’s the other part I love most.”

“Thank you for that, too.”

“Have you seen 60 Minutes ?”

“No, I missed it. I wasn’t here to record it. I’ve talked to a friend who saw it, so I know pretty much how it went.”

“I was impressed.”

“You were ?”

“So was Will.”

“He hadn’t seen it when we talked.”

“How was the trip back?”

“Will said that Kate is looking forward to having me back, and that was a relief.”

“Did you ever doubt it?”

“I’m afraid I did, getting suddenly cut off like that. Will told me that Ed Rawls is living in his old house in Virginia.”

“And rebuilding his Maine house.”

“Sounds like he’s optimistic about the future. He thinks he might be alive to enjoy it.”

“He’s not sure about that,” Stone said.

“What happens to the strong case if he’s suddenly not around?”

“I think he’s made plans, just in case.”

“That’s scary. Will won’t like to hear it.”

“I don’t think Will has anything to worry about, nor Kate.”

“It sounds like you and Ed have been talking.”

“He did most of the talking.”

“Can I ask you what he said?”

“Not yet, maybe later.”

“Has a new woman come scratching at your door?”

“Not yet.”

“Don’t worry, it’ll happen soon.”

“I don’t much care at the moment.”

Holly laughed. “When it happens, you’ll be responsive — you always are.”

“I’m not sure whether to take that as a compliment or a condemnation.”

“Take it as a compliment, you’ll feel better.”

“I’ll try.”

“Don’t try too hard. I have to go now. The pizza deliveryman is ringing the doorbell.”

“Bye-bye.”

“Bye-bye.” They hung up.

The phone rang a minute later.

“It’s Dino. Dinner at P.J. Clarke’s at seven?”

“Done.”

“See ya.” He hung up.

Dino, scotch in hand, was ogling the women at the bar when Stone arrived.

“I guess Viv is out of town.”

“She is. She has an early meeting in L.A. tomorrow morning.”

Stone looked around. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Just browsing,” Dino said. “Hey, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about you.”

“From Christian St. Clair?”

“Yep.”

“I didn’t know there was anything about me he doesn’t already know. I’m sure he has copies of my medical records and tax returns.”

“I’m sure he could get them if he wanted them,” Dino replied.

“Did you see 60 Minutes ?”

“I did. That guy is something, isn’t he?”

“Knott or St. Clair?”

“Both, I guess.”

“Let me ask you something. Do you think St. Clair is capable of murder?”

Dino froze. “What makes you ask that?”

“Because I’ve heard he had three or four people taken out who knew stuff about Knott.”

“Jeez, I don’t know. He seems like the most civilized guy in the world.”

“Do you think he would remain civilized if somebody tried to take away something he wanted?”

Dino shrugged. “People can change in a flash.”

“I’m not sure it would represent a change,” Stone said. “I think when a man has that much money, when he’s completely in control of his own destiny, he starts wanting to be in control of other people’s destinies, too.”

“Certainly Knott seems to be entirely Christian’s creature.”

“Entirely,” Stone said. “If Christian could get him elected, then Christian would be, effectively, President of the United States.”

“He’s too short to be President,” Dino said.

“Yeah? Napoleon was too short to be emperor of France, too, and we know how that ended.”

“Well, Christian has chosen a very tall guy to be his surrogate, maybe he’s compensating that way. What do you think St. Clair would do if he had that power?”

“I think he’d make it a lot easier for him to be Christian St. Clair. When you have that much money, only government can impede your progress. That’s why the super-rich give so much money to political races.”

“I suppose so.”

“I heard just today that Christian invited ten super-rich guys to lunch at the Club to meet Nelson Knott.”

“Yeah? What happened?”

“Four of them have agreed to start PACs with a hundred million each, and two others are considering it.”

Dino choked on his scotch, and Stone pounded him on the back. He was finally able to speak. “Four hundred million in the bank, just like that?”

“Six hundred million, maybe, and that’s not counting whatever Christian is spending. Knott might be playing the game with a billion in the bank.”

“Then Kate is in trouble.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“But to go back to your original question about St. Clair, if he’s invested a couple of hundred million of his own money in Knott, then yes, I think he might kill people to protect his investment.”

“Well,” Stone said, “I don’t want to be one of them.”

That night, Stone dreamed exotic, dramatic dreams that seemed to involve Christian St. Clair and his political surrogate, but when he awoke, he could only remember fragments.

He breakfasted, showered, shaved, dressed, and went downstairs to his office. He opened his cell phone and went to Ed Rawls’s text with the information on the pack-and-ship place in D.C. and dialed the number. He had decided to take the distribution of Rawls’s books out of Ed’s hands and into his own.