“I watched it all on television,” said Laura after she gave him a cool drink in an ice-filled glass. “It was very dramatic, the way Charlie did that, opening the door and you stepped out. I started to cry, and then, when I saw the stunned looks on the faces of those reporters, I started to laugh.”
She had started talking, and now she could not stop. Her excitement grew with every word, as she recounted what she had seen.
“And the coverage has been non-stop, everyone with an opinion about what is going to happen and, as usual, no one knows what they’re talking about. Except of course that Russell has to go, that Hillary Constable is finished, and that one or both of them may have had her husband killed. Everyone knows now that Atwood had it done; everyone knows-” Suddenly, she stopped. “I’m sorry; I forgot. He really killed himself while he was talking to you on the phone? How awful! Why did he do that, though? Why did he want you to know that he was doing that? Was it his way of getting back at you for finding out what he had done?”
Bobby tapped the edge of his glass.
“He wanted to let me know that I wasn’t even close to the truth. That’s what he said, but I’m still not sure what he meant. He didn’t kill himself because he was innocent. Unless he was just angry and deranged, lashing out at the world the way people about to kill themselves sometimes do, unless he just wanted to make me wonder if I had made some kind of tragic mistake, it has to have something to do with Hillary and Russell, something about why they did what they did. I don’t know. But Atwood’s dead and his secret, whatever it was, died with him. And so has any chance of proving that Hillary and Russell are responsible for Robert Constable’s death and the deaths of all the others.”
“But they’ll still face charges, won’t they, for what they did with The Four Sisters?”
“Maybe not.”
“But why? They have all the evidence.”
“Hillary can claim that she did not know anything about what her husband was doing. And as for Russell, he’s trying to make a deal.”
There was a look in Bobby’s eyes that told her that this had something to do with them, that whatever deal the president was trying to make might have serious consequences for how they lived their lives.
“A delegation from the House and Senate, led by Charlie Finnegan, met last night with Russell in the White House. They were there until almost three in the morning. They told him that his only choice was resignation or impeachment, that if he chose to fight, if they had to impeach, they would gather all the evidence from every source they could find and that not only would the vote for impeachment be unanimous but he would then certainly face criminal charges in a court of law.”
Laura summed it up neatly.
“If he is impeached, he goes to prison, but if he resigns…?”
“That’s the question. Russell wants a promise of immunity, or the promise of a pardon from his successor. Charlie was furious. He told Russell that no one was going to promise him anything, certainly not a pardon for crimes that-and Charlie said this to his face-might include conspiracy to murder. Russell looked like he had been hit by a truck. Charlie told him that the best he could hope for was that the fact he chose to resign instead of putting the country through the ordeal of a trial of impeachment would be taken into account in whatever deal he made with prosecutors. It might be enough to keep him out of prison.”
Laura caught the omission, the thing that had not been said. She felt a catch in her throat at what she had begun to foresee.
“There is no vice president. If Russell resigns, who…?”
Bobby got up and, forcing a smile, held out his hand, beckoning her to come outside. He led her through the rose-covered yard, out to the far side of the pool. The air was sweet with the scent of the bougainvillea and the distant, salt-water sea.
“Remember when we came here, remember how we said that whatever happened we would always have this place? I know how difficult I’ve made things for you, how hard you’ve tried to make things easier for me. But something has happened-”
“Just tell me, Bobby. Whatever it is, it’s all right. Whatever you think you need to do, that’s what I want you to do. It’s something about Charlie and that meeting with the president last night and the fact that there isn’t a vice president and-”
“Russell had to promise to nominate a new vice president, someone they would name, someone who would be confirmed immediately and would take over the moment Russell left.”
“It’s you, isn’t it?” she asked with a smile that surprised him with its eager confidence. “It should be you. It had to be you. You’re the one who saved the country from that band of murderers and thieves. Who else could it be?”
“But what about you?” he asked. “I know how much you hate that life, all the nonsense that is involved. Everything we do, everything we say-the only privacy we’ll ever have is late at night. It wasn’t a week ago that nearly everyone in Washington thought I was a murderer and that you were…”
“A whore?” she laughed. A sly, knowing grin tripped across her fine, lovely mouth. “There are worse things than being married to a man other people think would kill the man who took advantage of her. No, Bobby, I’m stronger than I was. Don’t worry about me; think only about what you have to do. When it’s all over, when you’re finished, we’ll come back here. Think about all the things we’ll have to talk about.”
They went inside and Bobby noticed a package on the table in the entryway.
“It just came this morning,” explained Laura. “I was so excited to see you, I forgot all about it. It’s from some place in France.”
She waited while he opened it. There was a thick manuscript inside with a few lines scribbled on the cover.
“It’s Jean Valette, the book he has been working on, a book he wanted me to read.”
Bobby thumbed through the pages. He looked again at the cover. Jean Valette had written in a flamboyant hand: “Read it, study it; do it slowly, take your time. That is all I ask.”
“I looked at it briefly while I was there: four hundred tightly reasoned pages, full of historical and philosophical analysis. The crisis of the West,” said Bobby, shaking his head at the enormity of the task. “It took him twenty years to write it; it will probably take me that long to work my way through it.”
Laura noticed the time.
“It’s almost six. He said he would come back. He does every day.”
Bobby was confused.
“Who is coming back? Every day?”
Starting four or five days ago, six o’clock. He’s very polite. He calls from the gate, asks if you’re here and when I tell him you’re not, he thanks me and says he’ll try again tomorrow.”
“Maybe you should have called the police,” said Bobby, a little worried.
“No, he’s fine. The second time he came, I went out and spoke to him through the gate. He told me he had met you once and-”
“Met me once? That could be anyone, some crank; or worse, some-”
“No, I told you, it isn’t like that at all. He said he had met you once and that Quentin Burdick told him he could trust you.”
“What did he look like?” asked Bobby with a sudden sense of urgency. “Middle-aged, medium height, medium weight, someone you wouldn’t notice in a crowd?”
A sad smile crossed her mouth as she nodded.
“I think that you might not notice him if you passed him on an empty street. He’s very nice, painfully polite.”
“And he’s coming at six, five minutes from now?” asked Bobby, just to be sure. “I better go meet him.”
Bobby walked up the long driveway to the iron gate that stretched between the vine-covered white stucco walls that kept the house, and the two people who lived in it, safe from the prying eyes of the world. At six o’clock an aging beige automobile that no one would ever notice much less want to buy pulled up and the driver got out. Hart pushed the button that opened the gate and Richard Bauman quickly slipped inside.