“You actually did take me off,” Lisbeth pointed out.
“Only for two weeks. Life’s too short to hold a grudge.”
Appreciating the honesty, Lisbeth couldn’t help but smile. “You’re a smart woman, Dr. Manning.”
“Dear, we’re the ones who’re supposed to be currying favor with you—though I will say you can do better than silly little squibs about what people are tipping, which, let’s just admit, is below you.” Slapping her husband on the arm, she added, “Lee, give the girl a nice quote about cystic fibrosis research so she can do her job.”
“Actually,” Lisbeth began, “I’m just here . . .”
“We should get you onstage, sir,” Wes interrupted.
“. . . to see your right-hand men,” Lisbeth added, pointing at Dreidel and Wes. “I’m doing a piece on loyalty. Thought maybe I could grab their quotes and turn them into superstars.”
“Good—you
should
,” the President said, putting an arm around Dreidel. “This one’s running for Senate. And if I still had the keys . . . he’s Vice President caliber.” The President paused, waiting for Lisbeth to write it down.
Pulling a notepad from her overstuffed black purse, Lisbeth took the cue and pretended to scribble. Over her shoulder, she could feel Wes seething.
“Don’t worry,” Lisbeth said to Manning. “I’ll take it easy on them.”
“Mr. President,” a throaty female voice called out as they all turned to the middle-aged woman in the designer suit and matching designer hairdo. As honorary chairperson for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Myrna Opal tapped her diamond Chopard watch, determined to keep the program running on time. “I think we’re ready, sir.”
The instant the President took his first step toward the stage door, Wes fell in line right beside him. “Wes, I’m fine.”
“I know, but it’s . . .”
“. . . less than ten feet to the door. I’ll make it. And Dreidel—I hope you’re at my table later.”
He says the words while looking at Wes. In the White House, they used to follow etiquette and make sure the President was always sitting next to whomever he needed to be near. For four years, he didn’t pick his tablemates. These days, he no longer bothered with political favors. It was the only perk of losing the White House. The President could finally sit next to the people he liked.
“Just make sure you get these nice cystic fibrosis folks in tomorrow’s column,” the First Lady added, motioning to Lisbeth.
“Yes, ma’am,” Lisbeth blurted, never taking her eyes off Wes. He’d been around the world’s best politicians for almost a decade, but he still was a novice when it came to hiding his own emotions. Nose flaring . . . fists tight . . . whatever he was burying, it was eating him alive.
“This way, sir,” one of two Secret Service agents said, motioning the President and First Lady toward the stage door. Like mice behind the piper, the cystic fibrosis chairperson, and PR person, and fund-raising person, and photographer, and remaining honchos all fell in line behind them, an instant entourage that sucked every straggler from the room.
As the door slammed behind them, the quiet was overwhelming. To Lisbeth’s surprise, Wes wasn’t the only one to stay put. Dreidel was right next to him, a warm grin on his face.
“Come . . . sit,” he offered, pointing to three empty seats at the cloth-covered round table that was used as a sign-in desk. Lisbeth obliged but wasn’t fooled. Fear always brought out kindness. And if the hotshot state-senator-to-be was anxious, her B+ story just became an A-.
“So how’d the birthday party planning go?” she asked, pulling a seat up to the table.
“The what?” Dreidel asked.
“For Manning’s birthday,” Wes insisted. “Our meeting this morning . . .”
“Oh, it was great,” Dreidel insisted, repatting the part in his hair and readjusting his wire-rim glasses. “I thought you meant my fundraiser.”
“Figure out where you’re gonna have it?” she added.
“Still deciding,” Wes and Dreidel said simultaneously.
Lisbeth nodded. These guys were White House trained. They weren’t falling for minor-league tricks. Better to go in soft. “C’mon, didn’t you hear what the First Lady said?” she asked. “
Adores the column.
I’m not here to drink your blood.”
“Then why’d you bring your cup?” Dreidel asked, pointing with his chin at her notepad.
“That’s what’s scaring you? What if I put it back in its holster?” she said, reaching under her seat and tucking the pad and pen back in her purse. Still bent over, she looked up, struggling to keep eye contact. “That better?” she asked.
“I was joking,” Dreidel said, clearly playing nice. Without a doubt, it was his secret they were smuggling.
“Listen, fellas,” Lisbeth begged. “Before you get all— Damn, sorry about this . . .” Reaching into the jacket pocket of her black suit, Lisbeth took out her cell phone and hit the
Receive
button. “Hey, Vincent . . . Yeah, I just . . . Oh, you’re kidding. Hold on, gimme a sec,” she said into the phone. Turning to Wes and Dreidel, she added, “Sorry, I gotta take this . . . it’ll just be a minute.” Before either of them could react, Lisbeth was out of her seat, speed-walking toward the main door. “Just watch my purse!” she called back to Dreidel and Wes, shoving her shoulder into the door and crossing into the ornate chandeliered lobby of the Kravis Center. With a tight grip on her phone, she pressed it to her ear. But the only things she heard were the voices of the two young men she’d just left inside.
“You told her we were
party planning
?” Dreidel hissed.
“What’d you want me to say?” Wes shot back. “That I was trying to save what was left of your marriage?”
Sacred Rule #8: If you really want to know what people think about you, leave the room and listen to what they say. Lisbeth learned this one the hard way on the Palm Beach party circuit, when a local socialite paid a parking valet $1,500 to eavesdrop on Lisbeth’s conversation with a confidential source. A week later, Lisbeth saved the $1,500 and simply signed up for two separate cell phones. Today, cell phone A was in her purse, back with Wes and Dreidel. Cell phone B was pressed to her ear. When she put her notepad away, all it took was the press of a button for A to speed-dial B. One faked important call later, Sacred Rule #8 proved why it would forever be in the top ten.
“But if she finds out about Boyle . . .” Wes said on the other line.
“Easy, poppa—she’s not finding out about Boyle,” Dreidel shot back. “Though speaking of which, tell me what you found . . .”
Alone in the lobby, Lisbeth stopped short, almost falling out of her scuffed high heels.
Boyle?
She looked around, but no one was there. They were all inside, lost in the hum of
An Evening with President Leland F. Manning.
Lisbeth could hear his voice rumbling off the main stage. A rush of excitement flushed her freckled cheeks. Finally . . . after all these years . . . an honest-to-God A+.
A
hhh!” The Roman roared as Benjamin used sterilized scissors to cut the dead gray skin from the edges of the wound in his palm. “That
hurts
!”
“Good—that’s a sign of no nerve damage,” Benjamin said dryly in the small basement office his ex-wife used to use for her electrolysis practice. The Roman sat on a modern leather sofa; Benjamin swiveled slightly on a stainless-steel rolling chair. “Hold still,” he added. Pressing his thumb in The Roman’s palm and his fingers on the back of The Roman’s hand, Benjamin squeezed tightly on the wound. This time, The Roman was ready. He didn’t scream at all.
“No bony tenderness or instability . . . though I still think you should have it X-rayed to be sure.”
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah, I could tell that by the way you passed out in the doorway. Just a picture of health.” Unbending a paperclip, Benjamin twisted the metal until the two tips of the clip were almost touching, barely half a centimeter apart. “Do me a favor and close your eyes.” As the Roman obliged, Benjamin lightly pressed the tips of the paperclip against the side of The Roman’s thumb. “How many points do you feel?”
“Two,” The Roman said.
“Good.” Finger by finger, Benjamin repeated the question, then wrapped The Roman’s hand in fresh gauze. Eventually working down to The Roman’s bloodied foot, he tweezed pieces of sock and shards of shoelace from the wound and applied the same paperclip test to each toe. “How many now?”
“One.”
“Good. Y’know, it’s a miracle you didn’t fracture any tarsal bones.”
“Yeah, God’s on my side,” The Roman said, wiggling his fingers and tapping the gauze bandage on his palm. The blood was gone, but the pain was still there. Nico would pay for that one.
“Just keep it clean and elevated,” Benjamin said as he eventually wrapped The Roman’s foot.
“So I’m okay to fly?”
“Fly? No . . . forget it. This is rest time. Understand? Take it easy for a few days.”
The Roman stayed silent, leaning down and carefully sliding his foot into the shoes Benjamin had brought from upstairs.
“Did you hear what I said?” Benjamin asked. “This isn’t the time to run around.”
“Just do me a favor and call in those prescriptions,” The Roman said, fighting the urge to limp as he headed for the door. “I’ll call you later.” Without looking back, he stepped outside and pulled his cell phone from his pocket.
Ten digits later, a female voice answered, “Travel Office, how can I assist you?”
“I’m trying to make a reservation,” The Roman said, walking out into the darkness as a gust of Virginia chill tried to blow him sideways. “I need the next flight you have for Palm Beach.”
T
his?” Dreidel asks as he stares down at the unfolded fax. “This’s the last thing Boyle got from the library?”
“According to the archivist.”
“It doesn’t even make sense,” Dreidel moans. “I mean, a personnel file, I could understand . . . even an old targeting memo for some attack that went wrong . . . but a
crossword puzzle
?”
“That’s what she sent: one sheet with some names on a stupid
Beetle Bailey
cartoon—and on the opposite side, a faded, mostly finished . . .”
“. . . crossword puzzle,” Dreidel repeats. He studies the crossword’s handwritten answers. “It’s definitely Manning’s writing.”
“And Albright’s,” I say, referring to our former chief of staff. “Remember? Albright started the puzzles . . .”
“. . . and Manning finished them.” Turning back to the crossword, he points to a jumble of doodles and random letters on the right side of the puzzle.
AMB . . . JABR . . . FRF . . . JAR . . .
“What’re these?”
“No idea. I checked the initials, but they’re no one he knows. To be honest, it looks like gibberish.”
Dreidel nods, checking for himself. “My mother does the same thing when she’s working a puzzle. I think it’s just work space—testing letters . . . trying different permutations.” Focusing back on the puzzle itself, he reads each answer one by one. “What about the actual boxes? Anything interesting?”
“Just obscure words with lots of vowels.
Damp . . . aral . . . peewee
,” I read across the top, leaning over his shoulder.
“So the answers are right?”
“I’ve had a total of twelve seconds to look at it, much less solve it.”
“Definitely looks right,” Dreidel says, studying the finished puzzle. “Though maybe this’s what the FBI guy meant by
The Three
,” he adds. “Maybe it’s a number in the crossword.”
I shake my head. “He said it was a group.”
“It could still be in the crossword.”
Eyeing the only “three” in the puzzle, I point to the four-letter answer for 3 down.
“Merc
,
”
I say, reading from the puzzle.
“Short for
mercenary
,” Dreidel says, now excited. “A mercenary who knew to leave Boyle alive.”
“Now you’re reaching.”
“How can you say that? Maybe that’s exactly what we’re missing . . .”
“What, some hidden code that says,
At the end of the first term, fake Boyle’s death and let him come back years later in Malaysia
? C’mon, be real. There’s no secret message hidden in a
Washington Post
crossword puzzle.”
“So where does that leave us?” Dreidel asks.
“Stuck,” a female voice announces from the corner.
Spinning around, I almost swallow my tongue. Lisbeth enters quieter than a cat, her eyes searching the room to make sure we’re alone. The girl’s not dumb. She knows what happens if this gets out.
“This is a private conversation,” Dreidel insists.
“I can help you,” she offers. In her hand is a cell phone. I glance down at her purse and spot another. Son of a—
“Did you record us!? Is that why you left?” Dreidel explodes, already in lawyer mode as he hops out of his seat. “It’s illegal in Florida without consent!”
“I didn’t record you . . .”
“Then you can’t prove anything—without a record, it’s all just—”
“
It could still be in the crossword . . . Merc . . . short for mercenary . . .
” she begins, staring down at her left palm. Her voice never speeds up, always a perfect, unsettling calm.
“A mercenary who knew to leave Boyle alive . . .”
She turns her palm counterclockwise as she reads. “
Now you’re reaching.
I can keep going if you want. I haven’t even gotten to my wrist yet.”
“You tricked us,” I say, frozen at the table.
She stops at the accusation. “No, that’s not— I was just trying to see why you were lying to me.”
“So you do that by lying to
us
?”
“That wasn’t what I—” She cuts herself off and looks down, weighing the moment. This is harder than she thought. “Listen, I’m . . . I’m sorry, okay? But I’m serious . . . I can work with you on this.”
“Work with us? No, no no!” Dreidel shouts.
“You don’t understand . . .”
“Actually, I’m pretty damn fluent at this stuff—and the last thing I need right now is more time with you, listening to your bullshit! I have a
no comment
on all this, and anything you print, I’ll not only deny, but I’ll sue your ass back to whatever crappy high school newspaper taught you that damn phone trick in the first place!”