Twisted Prey (Lucas Davenport #28)(8)
Lucas nodded, and asked, “Is Grant going to run for president?”
“Yeah, probably. That’s another problem, but I’m not asking you to solve that one. My first priority is staying alive.” They sat and thought in silence for minute, then Smalls asked, “What do you think?”
“I believe you’re telling the truth, but I’m not sure the truth is going to lead directly to Taryn Grant. I’ll talk to the West Virginia cops, poke around, see what develops. Probably stay away from Grant, at least for the time being,” Lucas said.
“I can have my staff line up anyone you want to talk to,” Smalls said. “My chief of staff is named Kitten Carter. She’s absolutely reliable and trustworthy. I’ll have Kitten liaise with you, since she already knows about it.”
“Good. I have to talk to my wife, but I can be in D.C. on Monday,” Lucas said. He sat back and looked at Smalls, leaned forward and said, his voice as soft as Smalls’s, “One more thing, though: if it’s Taryn Grant, how did she get hooked up with another bunch of professional killers? She’s only been in Washington for, what, two years?”
“I’ve got an answer for that,” Smalls said. “She’s on the Senate Intelligence Committee and she talks to spooks all the time. Then there’s the fact that she could run for the presidency. She’s young, great-looking, richer than God and willing to spend that money. It looks like we’ll have a seriously unpopular president in two more years who might either take a chance and run again and risk getting blown out or leave it to some other guy who’ll still be carrying that unpopularity on his back. So, she’s a real possibility. When the people in Washington sniff out a real possibility . . . well, they can’t climb on the bandwagon fast enough. Everybody’s got to have a bandwagon going into a presidential election.”
“Even killers?”
“The intelligence community,” Smalls said, sitting back and simultaneously turning to look down the concourse, as though he might spot a spy. “Listen, Lucas, there are literally hundreds of trained killers out of the military and working as contractors with the private intelligence organizations. Most of them are fine people. Patriots who have risked their lives for the country. But some of these guys aren’t so fine, and I’ve had a few of them testifying before committees. They don’t have any real limits, moral or otherwise. They live on risk. They love it. You show them Grant’s kind of money and the possibility that she might wind up in the White House? They’ll be available. That’s my gut feeling.”
“Why you and why now?”
“Because I’ve been pissing on Grant ever since the election and some of it is beginning to stick.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t piss for a while,” Lucas suggested.
Smalls grinned, and said, “I’m hiding out in town for now, and I’ve hired a couple of ex-cops to cover me. If you jump on this, maybe you’ll be able to tell me how much trouble I’m in. Be nice to know, before I get back out in the open.”
“Let me ask you a couple of uncomfortable questions . . . How’s your marriage?”
“Well, you know . . .”
“You’ve got a few bucks yourself . . .” Smalls’s financial disclosure forms, filed at the time of the election and printed in the Twin Cities newspapers, hinted at a fortune in the neighborhood of a hundred million dollars. “And if your wife thought you were about to, uh, move on . . .”
Smalls shook his head. “She knows I’m not.”
“Your daughter once mentioned something about a Lithuanian lover. If you were to die, who inherits? Would the Lithuanian lover be in line for a payday? Directly or indirectly?”
“No. My wife’s not stupid,” Smalls said. “Besides, most of the money would go to the kids, after the government takes its cut. On balance, she’s financially better off with me alive.”
“Okay.”
“Again, I would like to stay that way: alive.”
“What about your friend Whitehead? Anybody want to get rid of her?” Lucas asked.
In exasperation, Smalls jabbed his index finger into the tabletop a half dozen times, hissing, “Lucas! Lucas! Pay attention! Keep your eye on the goddamn ball here! It was Grant! No, I can’t think of anybody who’d want to kill CeeCee. She’s been divorced for fifteen years, her husband is as rich as she is, and he’s got a whole ’nother family. CeeCee has two adult daughters, nice girls, work in L.A., got all the money they need, they produce movies or some goofy shit like that. Listen: we decided to run up to the cabin at the last minute, nobody even knew we were going, somebody was watching us.”
“All right, I need to eliminate the obvious possibilities,” Lucas said. “I’ll take a look at it. You might want to call the Marshals Service director and have a chat. Not about Grant, though. Tell him you want me to review the situation.”
“I’ll do that. First thing tomorrow. As far as Grant goes: if you have to poke a stick into that wasp’s nest, be my guest. But be careful. Nobody seems to believe me, but these guys who tried to kill me, and murdered CeeCee, they’re pros.”
* * *
—
AS LUCAS DROVE HOME, he thought about U.S. senator Taryn Grant. Two and a half years earlier, she’d knocked Porter Smalls out of the Senate, beating him 51 percent to 49 percent, after what Smalls called the ugliest political trick in the history of the Republic.