Whitehorse (22 page)

"Seems he was in one of his better moods today," Shamika said behind her.

"He's such an ass. If the voters only knew…"

"You okay?"

"He'll call tonight and apologize. He always does. He might even send flowers. Monday he'll send Val a present, maybe some money. And I'll forgive him, again. Because each time he apologizes and says he'll never lose his temper at me again like that, I'll hope like hell that
maybe
this time he means it and there might be a smidgen of a chance that he'll turn out to be human after all."

"Do you really think that's going to happen, Leah?"

"No." She shook her head. "Not a chance."

ELEVEN

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T
he Sunday papers were ablaze with photos, innuendos, speculations, and condemnations of Johnny Whitehorse. Was he simply another icon too good to be true? Had he managed to dupe his adoring public? And what about his people, the Native Americans whom he represented as an example of what they were capable of becoming?

The interview on the local news with her father did not help. He gloated over the fact that Johnny had publicly insinuated that the senator was involved in corruption of the reservation casinos—and here he was obviously involved in drugs. The public could be assured that the senator would be encouraging an all-out investigation of Mr. Whitehorse. When asked what he thought of his daughter's relationship with
Whitehorse
, the senator looked directly into the camera, and replied: "I adamantly deny that my daughter is involved with Johnny Whitehorse. They are acquaintances. Nothing more. My daughter and I have an incredibly close relationship. She would never associate with a man like
Whitehorse
, especially knowing how he has publicly massacred my reputation the last few months."

By Sunday afternoon Leah had called Johnny's house no less than a dozen times, always getting his answering service. The first few times she left a message:
Urgent. Call Leah.
Later, her frustration mounting, she'd simply hung up in the service's ear.

"Why don't you just get in the truck and go see him?" Shamika asked.

"I don't want to seem pushy."

"Since when were you ever concerned about that?"

"He must be going through incredible worry."

"Maybe he needs a shoulder to lean on."

"Considering what my father's been saying, I'm probably the
last
person he'd want to lean on."

"Might be nice to assure him that your father doesn't speak for you. As I recall, he never did."

"What if he rejects me, Shamika?"

"He might. But I doubt it. Go, girl. You're not going to have a moment's peace until you do."

Leah made the drive over to Johnny's house in less than two minutes. The front iron gates were shut and locked against the curious and concerned fans milling around the entrance, hoping to get a glance of Johnny. The dozen bodyguards positioned along the entry and the stretch of fence lining the highway made certain that the women's attempts to shimmy over the barricade were unsuccessful. Engine idling, her fingers tapping the steering wheel as she collected her thoughts and watched a guard tackle an enthusiastic fan who attempted to climb the gates, Leah assessed the situation until a truck pulled up behind her and blasted its horn.

She drove south down the highway until she came to a barely visible track between a cluster of pines. By the looks of the weeds growing amid the tire marks, a few years had passed since the road had been used. No telling what she might run into along the way.

Leah eased the truck off the highway and onto the sandy track. As brush scraped along the undercarriage, the truck bounced like a buckboard wagon into and out of the old ruts.

The forest closed in around her, a wall of pines and cedars and wild berry bushes. The air became tangy with their scents, rousing memories of lazy picnics in pine-needle-covered hiding places, her mind drowsy with love, desire, and warm red wine. She and Johnny had discussed building a home in these trees, hidden away, wrapped up in nature and thumbing their noses at the hectic, prejudiced world.

She almost missed the fence opening. Over the years weeds and bushes had almost swallowed it. Leaving the truck, Leah waded through the overgrowth, jimmied with the gate latch that had become rusty over the years, and finally gave it a hard kick that sent the corroded metal flying through the air in two pieces. She was forced to pick up the gate end and shove it through the high grass to make room for the truck to pass through, onto Whitehorse Farm property.

The trail leading back to the house had long since grown over. Following the fence line, her memory leading the way, Leah wove through the rises and gullies that she had once ridden horseback over—long before she had fallen in love with Johnny Whitehorse—back when her world was made up of make-believe, her companions those only in her imagination. Her mother had been alive then, and sometimes joined her. They would spend hours exploring their domain. Her mother would take dozens of photographs and return home to paint them on canvas, selling them in shops that specialized in supporting local artists.

Topping a hill, Leah hit the brakes. Before her stretched the compound, glistening like a scattering of polished white stones under the afternoon sun: the house, the barns, the offices. The mile-long exercise track formed an oval of rich brown dirt, starting gates at one end, observation booth at the other where Johnny's father would wait, stopwatch in hand, for her father's horses to streak across the finish line. She had never been able to judge Jefferson Whitehorse's thoughts by his expressions—whether he was pleased or unhappy over a horse's running time. That was simply the way it was with the Apache. Only their eyes gave away their thoughts and feelings. They either embraced you, or cut you to the bone.

She drove to the house, parking beside Johnny's truck near a bench under a tree. There were several cars scattered along the drive: a BMW, a Jaguar XJS with the convertible top down, a Jeep Cherokee.

The door opened at her knock. A tall man with broad shoulders and no hair, wearing an extremely well-cut and expensive suit, peered down at her through his John Lennon-style glasses.

"How the hell did you get in here?" he demanded. "Jeez, where is that security?" He stepped around her, onto the porch, searching the grounds. Leah slipped into the house and was halfway across the foyer before the man turned and shouted, "Hey, come back here. Dammit! Where is security?"

"I'm a friend of Johnny's," she said without looking back. There were voices coming from the study. She headed there.

A collection of suited men sat in chairs, a couple smoking cigars that clouded the room in a dingy haze. Leah knew immediately that Johnny would not be among them. He did not allow smoking in his company. In fact, had he been anywhere on the premises, the cigars would be tucked away in the men's briefcases.

Their talk came to an abrupt stop as they stared at her. The bald man she'd left at the front door moved up behind her. "We have company, gentlemen. Does anyone know where security has gone? What am I paying those sons-of-bitches for?"

"Where is Johnny?" Leah asked, making eye contact with an older gentleman who did not seem so perturbed by her entrance.

"I hoped you could tell us, Ms.
Foster.
Sorry. I meant Mrs. Starr." He rolled the cigar between his lips before adding, "Gentlemen, this is Senator Foster's daughter. The young lady in the paper dancing with Johnny? I believe they're old friends."

"Jesus," the bald man muttered, stepping around her. "That's all we need."

"I assure you, gentlemen, I'm here strictly on my behalf. Not my father's. I haven't heard from Johnny since the accident. He hasn't returned my phone calls. I'm concerned."

"That makes four of us." The man with no hair adjusted his glasses. "I'm Edwin Fullerman. Johnny's agent. We were just discussing you. We'd hoped you might have spoken with Johnny."

"No." She shook her head.

The gentleman she'd addressed first left his chair and extended one hand. "I'm Robert Anderson, Johnny's legal advisor. This gentleman over here is Roger Darnalli, Johnny's business manager, and this is Jack Hall, public relations advisor. We all flew in last night, for whatever good it's done us. No one seems to know where the hell our client is."

"Not even Roy Moon?"

Edwin rolled his eyes. "Trying to get anything out of
that
man is impossible."

"He'll talk to me."

Johnny's agent dropped onto a leather sofa and crossed his legs. "Great. Terrific. Go to it. You might tell him to pass on to my client that his silence and sudden disappearance are not exactly going to endear him to the advertisers who have spent millions on ad campaigns plastered with his face and body. Jesus!" He leaped from the sofa, arms thrown open as he stared at the ceiling and yelled, "We're talking frigging ten million dollars in endorsements here!"

"Not to mention the impact this will have on his own companies," Darnalli interjected as he flipped open a file and ran his finger down a compilation of numbers. "Whitehorse Jeans had the third highest sales profits for jeans for the first quarter of this year, both in this country and
Japan
. Christ." He shook his head. "Johnny's bigger than Buddha in
Japan
. One hint of scandal and he's cooked."

"You can imagine how my conversation went with Craig Morris at the Celebrities for a Drug-Free America this morning. Just last week we finalized a deal with NBC and the National Football League to air a thirty-second commercial of Johnny's anti-drug rhetoric during the next Super Bowl. Johnny would have made the cover of
Newsweek
again. Oh, and did I fail to mention what that little coup would have meant if we got around to negotiating the Costner-Redford deal? We're talking fifteen million easy."

Jack Hall studied the tip of his cigar. "We'll simply get him into Betty Ford—explain that the pressures of his success became too much—I'll point out to Craig Morris that this slip of Johnny's could make one hell of a point. See what disasters befall you when you succumb to drugs…" He grinned. "Brilliant. Think about it. All this publicity. Rainwater's death—his beloved
fiancée—
I'll call the
Enquirer,
promise them an exclusive if they really make an issue of Johnny's grief. I'll slip them a few photos of the funeral—"

"Great." Ed shook his head. "While you're at it, slip them a few photos of Johnny in prison for manslaughter and possession. He's hardly going to be able to do the Costner-Redford deal when he's serving ten to twenty, is he?"