Lucas Davenport Novels 6-10

  ‘‘Audrey? Is that you?’’ He was in the study; he sounded sober.

  ‘‘It’s me,’’ she said tentatively.

  ‘‘Jesus Christ, where have you been? I’ve been calling Helen, but nobody ever answers.’’ He’d been lurching down the hall as he spoke, a yellow legal pad in his hand, and when he turned into the kitchen, he spotted the black eye and pulled up. ‘‘Holy cow. Did I do that?’’

  She recognized the mood and moved to take advantage of it: ‘‘No, of course not,’’ she said sarcastically. ‘‘I’ve been hitting myself in the face with a broomstick.’’

  ‘‘Aw, Jesus . . .’’ That was all she’d get. He went on, ‘‘But Jesus, we gotta talk. I got a cop following me around. And the board’s gonna meet on Wednesday, but probably won’t make a decision. They’re talking about a search, for Christ’s sake.’’

  ‘‘A search? That’s just a way of slowing everything down.’’

  ‘‘I know that. It’s me or O’Dell or Bone.’’

  ‘‘Have you talked to your father?’’

  ‘‘Just for a minute, to ask him to stay out of it for the time being. I thought it might be a little too obvious if he got out there. At this point.’’

  ‘‘Good thought . . . What about the cop?’’

  ‘‘It’s this fuckin’ Davenport,’’ McDonald said impatiently. ‘‘He was talking to Bone today, and the word is, he’s asking about me.’’

  ‘‘What’s he asking?’’ Audrey asked. ‘‘He doesn’t think you . . .’’

  ‘‘I don’t know; I’m finding out. He could be a problem.’’

  ‘‘How can he be a problem? You didn’t shoot anybody.’’ His eyes slid away from hers: ‘‘I know . . . but he could be a problem.’’ He looked back: ‘‘I mean, Jesus, if there’s a search, you think they’re gonna pick a guy who the cops are investigating?’’

  ‘‘Okay.’’

  ‘‘And the thing is, the sheriff up there, Krause, he’s just about signed off on the thing, from what I hear. He’s dead in the water. If it wasn’t for Davenport, it’d be pretty much over with.’’

  ‘‘Maybe that’s something your father could help with right now.’’

  ‘‘Come on in here,’’ Wilson said, and turned back toward the study. The study was a large room with a window looking out on the front lawn, and two walls of shelves loaded with knickknacks, travel souvenirs, and small golf and tennis trophies going back to Wilson’s days in prep school and college. Framed photos of Wilson and Audrey with George Bush, Ronald Reagan, and in much younger days a tired-looking Richard Nixon, looked down from the third wall. Wilson dropped into the brown-leather executive’s chair behind the cherry desk, while Audrey perched on a love seat below Nixon’s worn face.

  ‘‘So call your father on Davenport. On the board, we can call Jimmy and Elaine,’’ Audrey said. ‘‘Elaine is very close to Dafne Bose, and Jimmy’s been trying to get into the trust department’s legal work forever . . .’’ Dafne Bose was on the board. ‘‘If we can get to Dafne, we’re halfway there.’’

  ‘‘You know who else?’’ He looked down at the legal pad. ‘‘We’re carrying two million bucks in land-andattachments paper on Shankland Chev, which they couldn’t get a half-million anywhere else. And Dave Shankland . . .’’

  ‘‘. . . is married to Peg Bose.’’ Peg Bose was Dafne’s daughter. ‘‘We couldn’t use that right away, it’d look too much like blackmail. But if we got in a squeak . . .’’

  ‘‘Here’s the list I’ve got so far,’’ Wilson said. He passed the legal pad to Audrey. ‘‘Seventeen board members, so we need nine. Four I can count on—Eirich, Goff, Brandt, and Sanderson. If we can get Dafne, we can probably get Rondeau and Bunde, ’cause they pretty much do what she suggests. Then we’d need two . . .’’

  ‘‘How about Young? You know he wants to get into Woodland.’’

  ‘‘Oh, man, I don’t know if I could swing that,’’ Wilson said doubtfully.

  ‘‘We need a black member anyway, because of that government thing, and who’d be better than Billy Young? His father was a minister and he’s really pretty white. And he must be worth . . .’’

  They began working down strings of possible supporters, analyzing relationships, working out who knew who, who owed who, who could be bought, and with what.

  Later, getting coffee, Audrey without thinking brushed her cheek, and flinched at the sudden lancing pain. The black eye: she’d forgotten about it, and Wilson had never really paid any attention to it anyway. The excitement of conspiracy, she decided: some of their tenderest moments had occurred in the study, working over legal pads . . .

  • • •

  MARCUS KENT WAS AN ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENT IN corporate operations, working for Bone; he sat on one end of Susan O’Dell’s couch. Carla Wyte, who technically worked for Robles in the currency room, lounged on the other end. Louise Compton, wearing blue jeans and a Nike sweatshirt, sat cross-legged on the floor.

  ‘‘. . . either Bone or me,’’ O’Dell was saying. She was on her feet, as though she were a junior exec making a presentation to the board of directors. ‘‘McDonald can’t get more than six. He’s the obvious first thought, because of his family, but twelve members would be dead set against him. When that becomes obvious, things will start to move. I can see myself with eight votes; and I can see eight for Bone, but only a couple are solid for each of us. Everything is very fluid . . . So I think we’re gonna have to start maneuvering here.’’

  ‘‘How about Robles?’’ Wyte asked.

  ‘‘No chance,’’ O’Dell said. ‘‘It’s gonna be Bone or me.’’

  ‘‘Bone is good,’’ Wyte said. ‘‘His division makes the big bucks.’’

  ‘‘Most of it by me,’’ Kent said.

  O’Dell looked at Kent: ‘‘But it’s his division, not yours. He gets the credit.’’

  Kent said, ‘‘Before we get any further in this, let me ask . . . What do we get out of it? Carla and Louise and me? We know what you get.’’

  O’Dell said, ‘‘You get Bone’s job. He won’t stay around long if I’m picked for the top spot. And Carla’s eventually going to move into Robles’s slot. But right away—and I mean right away—she gets money.’’

  ‘‘How much?’’ Wyte’s eyebrows went up.

  ‘‘Fifty more. Fifty is the number I had in mind.’’

  ‘‘Fifty is a nice number,’’ Wyte said.

  ‘‘And it’ll be twice that when Robles leaves.’’

  Compton said, ‘‘How about me?’’

  ‘‘You’re gonna be my executive assistant. You’re gonna be my ears. My intelligence department. You’ll do real well—in terms of clout, if not in title, you’ll be number two in the bank.’’

  ‘‘So how do we do this?’’ Wyte asked. ‘‘What do we do . . . assuming we’re all in.’’

  O’Dell looked around the room. After a second, Kent said, ‘‘I’m in,’’ and Compton said, ‘‘Yeah.’’ Wyte nodded.

  ‘‘So . . .’’ O’Dell said. ‘‘I’m going to start putting together a pitch for the board. It’s got to be good, and it’ll take time. And I’ll start working the board: that’s something I have to do personally.’’

  ‘‘To some extent, it’s gonna be like a political campaign, but with fewer voters,’’ Compton said. She’d come to the bank from the state capitol. ‘‘One thing we can do is, we can make the point with the newspapers that you’d be the first woman ever to run a major bank in Minnesota. Or anywhere, as far as I know. Any other major bank CEOs are women?’’ She looked around, then answered herself. ‘‘No. Okay. I’ll check that out, but I can also start working the papers.’’

  ‘‘That’s good,’’ O’Dell said. ‘‘But we’ve got to get it going. How long before we could see it on the news?’’

  Compton looked at her watch: ‘‘I’ve got time today. I’ll have to talk to a couple of people, but we should see some action by tomorrow morning. When they call, you’ve got to
be modest and all that . . . you know, the board has to make a decision.’’

  ‘‘I know,’’ O’Dell said. ‘‘I can do that.’’

  Kent leaned forward, took a cinnamon candy out of a bowl on the coffee table, peeled off the crinkly cellophane wrapper, and popped the candy into his mouth: ‘‘Speaking of negative campaigning . . .’’

  ‘‘Were we speaking of that?’’ Compton asked, with a quick, cynical smile. They would have come to it sooner or later.

  ‘‘We are now,’’ he said. ‘‘We all know Bone’s weakness.’’

  ‘‘Women.’’

  O’Dell shook her head. ‘‘That won’t help. We just don’t have the time—even if we could find somebody willing to dig into it, it’d take weeks.’’

  Kent was shaking his head. ‘‘Not really. Not if the cops look into it and if somebody tips the papers that the cops are looking into it.’’

  ‘‘Why would they?’’ Wyte asked.

  ‘‘ ’Cause of the woman,’’ Kent said, sitting back, savoring his little nugget.

  ‘‘Marcus . . .’’ O’Dell said.

  ‘‘James T. Bone is fucking Marcia Kresge. And has been for a while.’’

  O’Dell’s mouth had literally fallen open. ‘‘You’re kidding me.’’

  Kent shook his head: ‘‘Nope. I saw her one night at Bone’s place—I was in the ramp, I’d been over at Casper Allen’s, about his idiot trusts . . .’’

  ‘‘Casper lives right downstairs from Bone,’’ O’Dell said to the others.

  ‘‘. . . and she’d been fuckin’ somebody , believe me. And as she’s getting into her car, who should come out after her, carrying something? James T. Bone.’’

  ‘‘The cops need to know that,’’ Wyte said, with an effort at sincerity. ‘‘I mean, even if we weren’t trying to . . . to

  . . . help Susan, they’d need to know that. Dan’s death is worth millions to her, and opens the top job for her lover.’’

  ‘‘That’s what I thought,’’ Kent said, leaning back on the couch, sucking on the cinnamon.

  Two hours later, O’Dell ushered Compton into the elevator, the last of them to go, and stepped pensively back into her apartment. Kent was a rat: she’d have to remember that. Starting now. The other two should be okay . . .

  She spotted her rifle case, dumped in the corner Saturday morning. The case was empty: the Garfield sheriff still had the rifle. She picked it up, carried it back to a storage closet, and slipped it inside. Stuck on the wall of the same closet was an instant-open gun safe. Acting on impulse, she jabbed at the number pads, rolling her hand like a piano player, and the door popped open. Inside lay an Officer’s Model Colt. She took it out, pulled the magazine, pulled the slide back to make sure the chamber was empty, let it slam forward.

  She moved slowly through the apartment, dry-firing the pistol from various hiding spots and corners; corny but fun. After ten minutes, she carried the pistol back to the safe, reseated the magazine, and shut the safe door.

  She’d have to get out to the range one of these days; she was losing her edge.

  MARCIA KRESGE WAS GETTING COMFORTABLE ON James T. Bone’s couch: ‘‘Are you going to get the job?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know. O’Dell’s pretty strong.’’

  ‘‘How about McDonald?’’

  ‘‘We can handle McDonald.’’

  ‘‘Good. He’s an asshole. O’Dell, you know, smokes dope.’’

  ‘‘So what?’’ Bone said. ‘‘So do you.’’

  ‘‘I’m not trying to get to be a bank president,’’ Kresge said.

  ‘‘I don’t think that’s enough to disqualify her,’’ Bone said.

  ‘‘It would if she was arrested for possession,’’ Kresge said. ‘‘The board wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole.’’

  ‘‘You’d really wish that on her?’’ Bone asked with real curiosity.

  ‘‘I’d like to see you get the job,’’ Kresge said. ‘‘And I could fix the bust.’’

  ‘‘How?’’

  ‘‘We’ve got the same dealer,’’ Kresge said.

  Bone laughed despite himself. ‘‘How’d that happen?’’

  She shrugged, not seeing anything funny in the coincidence. ‘‘You know, we all hang out at the same places, and word gets around. This guy, Mark, used to be a waiter at The Falls. He’s working his way through college.’’

  ‘‘Selling grass?’’

  ‘‘Grass, speed, acid, coke, heroin, ecstasy. PCP probably. Anyway, he deals to Susan. If somebody tipped off the police, maybe they could catch him making a delivery. You know, socialite dope ring. The cops would like that.’’

  ‘‘What if they got your name?’’ Bone asked.

  She shrugged. ‘‘I’d get rid of everything before I tipped them, and I wouldn’t buy any more. What’re they going to do? If they even got my name, I’d sue their butts off if they let it out.’’

  ‘‘Listen,’’ Bone said, now serious, leaning toward her: ‘‘Forget it. I swear to God, Marcia, if anybody tips off the cops about Susan, I’ll whip your ass.’’

  ‘‘Oooh . . . that could be fun,’’ she said lightly.

  ‘‘No. It wouldn’t be fun,’’ he snapped.

  Sometimes he frightened her, just a bit, she thought. But a bit more than she found pleasant. ‘‘You’re not gonna get this job by looking pretty, you know,’’ she snapped back.

  ‘‘I know that. I’m working on it,’’ he said.

  ‘‘I could talk to a couple of people.’’

  ‘‘Anything you could do I’d appreciate . . . but let me know first.’’

  ‘‘Hey: If I go into banker’s-wife mode, I could probably deliver two or three votes off that board. That damn Jack O’Grady has been trying to get my pants off for fifteen years: I bet he could pull a couple votes for you.’’

  ‘‘I think Jack’s already with me,’’ Bone said. ‘‘But encouragement would be good.’’

  ‘‘Even if I have to take my pants off?’’

  ‘‘How big a change would that be?’’ he asked.

  A pause. Then Kresge, smiling prettily, said, ‘‘Really great fuckin’ thing to say, Bone.’’

  ‘‘Tell you the truth, I’m surprised the police haven’t spent more time with you. You’re not the most discreet person in the world, and you weren’t divorced when Dan was killed.’’

  ‘‘I can be discreet when I wanna be,’’ she said. ‘‘Look at us.’’

  ‘‘Okay.’’

  ‘‘Besides, a woman cop did come around and talk to me—Sherrill, her name was. Last name. She had that big-tit look you go for. And hell, I told her everything.’’

  ‘‘But not about us.’’

  ‘‘She didn’t ask.’’

  Bone stood up, turned. ‘‘Anyway: I think McDonald’s in trouble. We know O’Dell’s gonna get a certain number of votes, and I’ll get mine, but it’s McDonald’s that are up for grabs.’’

  ‘‘How’s McDonald in trouble?’’

  ‘‘This cop—Lucas Davenport, assistant chief . . .’’

  ‘‘I know him, actually.’’

  ‘‘He thinks McDonald’s involved. I’ve talked to him a couple of times and he’s a smart guy. He’s talking to McDonald’s pals and the word is getting out. If there’s even a whiff of involvement, the board’ll drop him like a hot rock.’’

  ‘‘So anything that would encourage Davenport to look at McDonald . . . that would help.’’

  ‘‘As long as it didn’t turn back on us.’’

  ‘‘I’ll see what—’’ The doorbell rang, and Kresge turned her head.

  Bone stepped across the room and opened the heavy paneled door. Kerin Baki was there, struggling with an oversized briefcase. As she brought it in, her glasses slipped down her nose, and she jabbed them back as though they’d mutinied. She saw Kresge on the couch and said, ‘‘Mrs. Kresge. Have you spoken to Mr. O’Grady?’’

  ‘‘We were just talking about that,’’ Kresge
said pleasantly. ‘‘Your boss was giving me a very hard time.’’

  Baki turned, said, ‘‘Mr. Bone, you should listen to Mrs. Kresge on this.’’

  ‘‘Christ, you’re conspiring against me,’’ he said.

  ‘‘ Working for you,’’ Baki said. ‘‘I printed everything I could find on the mortgage company performance since McDonald took over. There are a few things we can use— not necessarily his fault, but you know how mortgages have been performing . . .’’

  ‘‘Let me get a Coke,’’ Bone said. ‘‘What would you like, Kerin? Marcia already has a—’’

  ‘‘Bloody Mary,’’ Kresge said. ‘‘And it’s all gone. I’ll help you . . .’’

  ‘‘Just sparkling water,’’ Baki said. She began spreading her papers on a coffee table as Bone and Kresge went to the kitchen to get drinks. When Baki finished with the papers, she heard Kresge laugh, a low, husky laugh with a little sex in it; she could see them moving around Bone’s small kitchen, inside each other’s personal space, casually bumping hips.

  Their relationship had been clear to Baki for a while now; she wouldn’t tolerate it much longer. She got so deep into that calculation—the end of Bone’s relationship with Marcia Kresge—that she almost didn’t notice them walking toward her.

  ‘‘Kerin?’’ Bone said curiously. ‘‘Are you home?’’

  He was standing next to her, holding out a glass and a bottle of lime-flavored Perrier. ‘‘Oh. Sure. Preoccupied, I guess.’’ She pushed the Perrier aside and went to the papers. ‘‘This stack of papers is the annualized return on . . .’’

  BONNIE BONET DYED HER HAIR BLACK, THE DENSE, sticky color of shoe polish. She dressed in black from head to toe, wore blue lipstick, and carried thirty-five extra pounds. But she was almost smart and could write poetry in Perl-5. She sat across the table from Robles and said, ‘‘Because the motherfucker was going to kill a couple of thousand people, that’s why.’’

  ‘‘I know you’re lying,’’ Robles said. He’d broken a sweat.

  ‘‘No you don’t. I’m not lying.’’