“Just some things on my mind, T.J.” He sat back against the park bench and gazed keenly at his friend. “It looks like your current boss will be around for another four years.”
Wyatt shrugged. “From the kitchen one president looks a lot like another, Republican or Democrat. They all eat. But don’t get me wrong. He’s doing an okay job. He treats us good, gives us respect. Gives respect to the Secret Service too; not all of them do, you know. You think you’d treat people willing to take a bullet for you pretty good.” Wyatt shook his head. “Things I’ve seen on that score make you sick.”
“Speaking of the Secret Service, I saw Agent Ford last night.”
Wyatt brightened. “Now, that’s a good man. I told you after Kitty died and I had pneumonia he came to my house to check on me almost every day he was in town.”
“I remember.”
Stone moved one of his bishops forward and said, “I saw Carter Gray land at the White House yesterday.”
“Secret Service don’t like that one bit. Chopper coming in should only be Marine One with the man on it and that’s all.”
“Carter Gray’s status allows him to make his own rules.”
Wyatt grinned, hunched forward and lowered his voice. “Got some scuttlebutt on him you’ll get a kick out of.”
Stone eased forward. Their chess matches sometimes included snatches of relatively innocuous gossip. White House domestic staff tended to have long tenures at the White House, and they were famous for both meticulous attention to their duties and, more important for the First Family, their discretion. It had taken Stone years to get Wyatt comfortable enough to discuss anything that happened at the White House, however trivial.
“The president asked Gray to go up to New York with him on 9/11, you know, for his big speech at the memorial site.” Wyatt paused and looked around at a passerby.
“And?” asked Stone.
“And Gray flat turned him down.”
“That’s a little brazen, even for Gray.”
“Well, you know what happened to his wife and daughter, right?”
“Yes.” Stone had met Barbara Gray decades ago. She was an accomplished woman even back then, with a compassion that her husband had never possessed. Stone had instantly respected her, later faulting the lady only for her poor choice in husbands.
“Then the president asked Gray to go up with him to that town in Pennsylvania, the place that changed its name to Brennan.”
“And is he?”
“You don’t turn down the man twice, right?”
“No, you don’t,” Stone agreed.
Both men fell silent as Wyatt studied the board and then made his move, edging his rook toward Stone’s knight.
While Stone considered his options, he said, “I see that Gray has some problems of his own to deal with. This fellow Patrick Johnson who was found dead on Roosevelt Island, he worked for NIC.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s been making the rounds at the big house.”
“The president’s concerned?”
“He and Gray are real tight. So dirt hits Gray, it’s bound to splash on the president. The man’s no dummy. The president’s loyal, but he’s not stupid.” T.J. glanced around. “I’m not telling tales out of school. Everybody knows that.”
“I’m sure NIC and the White House have been working the media hard, because there wasn’t much in the morning news about it.”
“I know the president’s been ordering a lot of late-night snacks and coffee. Man’s going into the homestretch on the election, and he doesn’t want nothing to upset the applecart. And a dead body can upset a lot of things.”
After their chess match was finished and Wyatt had left, Stone sat and thought for a bit. So Gray was going to Brennan, Pennsylvania? That was interesting. Stone had thought it a little gutsy of the town to pull a stunt like that, but apparently, it had paid off.
He was about to leave when he saw Adelphia walking toward him, carrying two cups of coffee. She sat down and handed him one. “Now we have the café and we chat,” she said firmly. “Unless you have meeting to go to,” she added drolly.
“No, no, I don’t, Adelphia. And thank you for the coffee.” He paused and added, “How did you know I was here?”
“Like that is big secret. Where do you come when you have the game of chess? It is here you come, always it is. With that black man who works at White House.”
“I didn’t know I was that predictable in my movements,” he said, his tone somewhat annoyed.
“Men, men are always predictable. Do you like your café?”
“Very nice.” He paused and then commented, “You know, these aren’t cheap, Adelphia.”
“It is not like I drink the café a hundred times all of the days.”
“But you have money?”
Adelphia eyed his new clothes. “So? And you, you have the money.”
“I have a job. And my friends, they help me.”
“It is no one that helps me. I work for money, all of it.”
Stone was surprised that he’d never asked her this before. “What do you do?”
“I am seamstress for laundry place. I work when I want. They pay me good. And they give me good deal on room,” she said. “And then I can buy the café when I want.”
“It must be very rewarding to have such a skill,” Stone said absently.
They stopped talking, and their gazes idly took in other people in the small park.
Adelphia finally broke the silence. “So your match of chess, you were victor?”
“No. My defeat was based on equal parts lack of concentration and my opponent’s considerable skill.”
“My father, he was very excellent at the chess. He was a, how you say . . .” She hesitated, obviously searching for the right words in English. “My father, he was a, how you say, Wielki Mistrz.”
“A grand champion? No, you mean a grand master. That’s very impressive.”
She glanced at him sharply. “You speak Polish?”
“Just a little.”
“You have been to Poland?”
“A very long time ago,” he said, sipping his coffee and watching the breeze gently move the leaves on the trees overhead. “I take it that’s where you’re from?” he asked curiously. Adelphia had never spoken about her origins before.
“It was in Krakow that I was born, but then my family, they move to Bialystok. I was just a child, so I go too.”
Stone had been to both those cities but had no intention of telling her that. “I really only know Warsaw, and, as I said, that was a long time ago. Probably before you were born.”
“Ha, that is nice thing you say that. Even if it is a lie!” She put her coffee down on the bench and gazed at him. “It is very much younger you look, Oliver.”
“Thanks to you and your wizardry with scissors and a razor.”
“And your friends, do they not think so too?”
“My friends?” he said, glancing at her.
“I have seen them.”
He looked at her again. “Well, they’ve all come to visit me at Lafayette Park.”
“No, I mean at your meetings I have seen them.”
He tried not to look concerned at her stunning words. “So you followed me to my meetings? I hope they weren’t too boring.” What has she seen or heard?
She looked coy and, as though she’d read his thoughts, said, “It might have been things I hear, or it might not.”
“When was that?” he asked.
“So finally it is I have your attention.” She edged closer to him and actually patted his hand. “Do not worry, Oliver, I am not spy. I see things but I do not hear. And the things I see, well, they stay with me always. Always they do.”
“It’s not like we have anything worth overhearing or seeing.”