“All right. I can do that, but I have to avoid saying that Larry was guilty, though, God knows, he was. It wouldn’t be ethical for a lawyer who represented someone in a murder trial to talk about his client’s guilt while his case is under appeal.”
“You might point that out to the press.”
“I certainly will.”
Tim spoke up. “I think it’s interesting that, if Republicans are involved in this, they’re out to get you even before the convention. That indicates to me that they’d rather run against George Kiel than you.”
“A backhanded compliment, if I ever heard one,” Will replied. Then something popped into his mind. “Wait a minute,” he said. “You said that the fund-raiser in L.A. is going to be hosted by Vance Calder and his costar?”
“That’s right,” Tim said.
“And who is his costar?”
“Gosh, I forgot to ask,” Tim replied.
“As soon as they’re awake in L.A., call and find out.”
“Okay; I’ll call Regenstein back at nine their time.”
Kitty was looking sharply at Will. “What is it?” she asked.
“I think I might know who the costar is,” Will replied.
“Who?” Kitty and Tim asked simultaneously.
“It might very well be Charlene Joiner.”
It took a moment for the penny to drop; then both their mouths dropped open. “Oh, shit,” Kitty said.
“Charlene called me over the holidays and asked me to handle an appeal for Larry Moody. I refused.”
“What else did she want?” Kitty asked.
“That was about it.”
“About it? Come on, Will, what else?”
“That was it, really,” Will said. He was not about to mention that Charlene had suggested they get together.
“This is not good,” Tim said.
“Well, there are going to be a thousand people there. Maybe it’ll be all right.”
“You don’t understand,” Tim said.
“Understand what?”
“There’s more to the news story about Moody’s appeal.” He picked up the Post, turned to an inside page, held it to the light, and read. “Moody’s lawyer also charged that Will Lee had a sexual relationship with Moody’s girlfriend during the trial, in which she was an important witness in establishing Moody’s alibi. The girlfriend, Charlene Joiner, is now one of Hollywood’s rising stars.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Will said.
“I agree,” Kitty chimed in. “I thought we had killed that particular snake in your first senatorial campaign, but it’s back.”
“Maybe that’s not a bad thing,” Tim said.
“What are you talking about?” Kitty demanded.
“I wasn’t all that active in that campaign,” Tim said, “but as I recall, there was a school of thought that the, ah, incident with Charlene Joiner may have actually helped in the campaign.”
“That was before Bill Clinton,” Kitty said.
“Oh,” Tim replied, “there is that.”
“Yes,” Will agreed, “there is that.”
30
Senator Frederick Wallace strolled down a Capitol hallway toward his hideaway office, the best in the Senate. Seniority had its privileges. He nodded to many passersby, spoke to a few, and kept his trademark half smile fixed to his face. He let himself into the room and immediately stepped on something made of paper. He closed the door, held on to the doorknob for support, and reached down for the envelope on the floor. Freddie Wallace had a considerable gut, and he did not like bending over.
Wallace walked across the room to his big easy chair, tossed the envelope onto the coffee table beside it, opened a cabinet, and poured himself a shot of neat bourbon. It was not yet ten o’clock in the morning, but he always started the day with a shot of this very fine, private stock bourbon that a Kentucky friend supplied him with. It was something he had learned as a very young man from Harry Truman.
Truman had knocked his back, though, like medicine, and Wallace was far too appreciative of the skills of Kentucky distillers to rush the experience. He sipped at the bourbon, then picked up the envelope that someone had shoved under his door. It bore only his name, the Capitol room number, the zip code, and the admonition that the contents were personal and confidential. It bore an Atlanta postmark.
Wallace got a fat finger under the flap and tore open the envelope. Inside he found a single sheet of paper, no letterhead or return address. The page had been composed very neatly on what was obviously a manual typewriter, an uncommon instrument these days. He read:
Dear Freddie,
I hope you don’t mind if I call you that. Although we’ve met only a few times, always in passing, I feel that I know you well. We have much in common: We are both old, wise in the ways of the world and, particularly, in the ways of politics, and we are both very crafty human beings, not to say sneaky.
We are also both in possession of some extremely sensitive knowledge regarding the recent health of an influential person. I trust I will not have to allude further to the person for you to know whom I mean; I would not like to do that in a written communication.
I know you well enough to feel certain that you will, under what you deem the proper circumstances, use this information against another person who shares this knowledge with you and me. I don’t want you to do this, Freddie, for my own reasons, so I am taking this opportunity to let you know that, should you allow your worst nature to come to the forefront, I am going to take it upon myself to make your golden years very difficult. I can do this, because I have documentary evidence of a part of your life that, if made known, could destroy your credibility in the Senate and make your marriage a perfect hell.
I am sure you know that I refer to the black woman with whom you have enjoyed a carnal relationship for more than twenty years, and who has borne you two sons. I am prepared, if necessary, to have her name and address released to the yellowest of the media, along with the names and university addresses of her children. They will all look fine on television.
If you can keep me happy, then I’m sure you can live out your tenure in the Senate and the remainder of your life, secure in the secrecy with which you have so carefully acted these many years. I should tell you, however, that although I would prefer not to muddy the clear waters of your life, it would not cause me the slightest regret to do so. In fact, if I should choose to confide in a certain magazine publisher, I might walk away with a million dollars, which, at my time of life, I could certainly use.
Trusting that you understand me clearly, I remain
Yours most sincerely
Senator Wallace knocked back the jigger of bourbon, then spoke aloud a string of very bad words. He had not lived this long and done this well to be brought down by a common blackmailer. He had to acknowledge to himself, however, that he, by his love of this dark woman, had made himself highly black-mailable. He had known, of course, that it would all come out eventually, but he had planned to be comfortably dead by that time, and the hell with the aftermath. He knew very well that his wife would immediately and noisily divorce him if she should learn of his liaison, and, since their marriage, he had depended upon her large fortune to keep him in the style to which he had long ago become accustomed. He was not about to give that up, so he had to move fast.