Under Siege (23 page)

“No. I know you’re doing what you think is right. But I don’t think it’s right. I don’t want to think it’s right.”

“Judith-was

“No, Mr. Liarakos. I’m not going to squander another minute of my life arguing about a dope dealer’s constitutional rights. I’m not going to touch another dollar earned by helping a dope dealer escape justice. No.”

This time when she left he didn’t go after her.

He sat in his chair and stared at the transcripts.

A ball glove wrapped around a scruffy baseball lay on the credenza. He pulled on the glove and tossed the ball into it. The impact of the ball meeting the leather made a satisfying “thock” which tingled his hand. The thumb of the glove was sweat stained. He had habitually raked it across his forehead to wipe away the perspiration. He did that now, enjoying the cool smoothness of the leather, then placed the glove back on the polished mahogany.

He kept a bottle of old scotch in the bottom drawer of his desk. He got it out and poured a shot into an empty coffee CUP.

He was pouring a second when the phone rang.

“Yes.”

“There’s a lady on the phone calling from California. She won’t give her name. Says it’s a personal matter.”

“My wife?”

“No, sir. I know her voice.”

“I’ll take the call.” The phone clicked. “Hello,” he said. “This is Thanos Liarakos.”

“Mr. Liarakos, this is Karen Allison with the California Clinic?”

“Yes.”

“Your wife apparently left the clinic during the night, Mr. Liarakos. We can’t find her on the grounds. She took her suitcase with her.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m sorry, Mr. Liarakos. We did what we could.” “Yes,” he said, and gently cradled the telephone.

On Friday morning Henry Charon drove to Baltimore to find a pay telephone. He parked at a mall and located a bank of three phones near the men’s room. Since he was early, he ate lunch in the food court, lingered over coffee, then strolled the mall from end to end. Finally, with five minutes to go, he walked to the pay phones and waited. A woman was busy explaining to her husband why the new sheets on sale were a bargain. She hung up a minute before the hour

walked away briskly, apparently the winner of the battle. She had glanced at Charon once, for no more a second, and had not looked at him again.

Charon dialed. The number he was calling, according to Tasson, was a pay phone in Pittsburgh. The area codebledab-was right, anyway. Charon had checked. When the operator came on the line he fed in quarters from a ten-dollar roll. Tasson answered on the second ring. “Yes.”

“You got my shipment?”

“Yes. Where and whent’

“Truck stop at Breezewood, Pennsylvania. Tomorrow at three.”

“Got it.” The connection broke.

Charon walked out of the mall and got in the car. Before he started it he carefully studied a map, then folded it neatly and stuck it above the visor.

Four hours later in Philadelphia he bought a ticket for tomorrow’s seven-fourteen bus to Pittsburgh. He ate dinner in a fast-food restaurant, then drove around north Philly until he found a cheap motel, where he paid cash.

He was up at five a.m. He parked the car at a twenty-fourhour garage a half block from the bus station and was in the waiting room thirty minutes early.

The bus left right on the minute. Charon’s luggage consisted only of a backpack, which rested on the seat beside him. There were eleven passengers. Charon sat near the back of the bus where the driver couldn’t see him in his mirror.

TWO seats forward, on the other side of the aisle, sat a couple that lit a marijuana cigarette thirty minutes into the trip, just after the bus had reached cruising speed on the Pennsylvania TL-IMPIKE. The odor was sickly sweet and heavy. Charon cracked his window and waited for the driver to see the obvious smoke cloud and stop the bus. The bus never stopped. After a second cigarette the man and woman drifted off to sleep.

Henry Charon watched the countryside pass and wondered what it would be like to hunt it.

Four people got off the bus at Harrisburg and three got on. The couple across the aisle lit more marijuana. One of the new passengers cursed, which drew laughter from the smokers. The bus driver ignored the whole affair.

The driver pulled into the bus parking area at the Breezewood truck stop a little after noon. He announced a thirty-minute lunch stop, then darted down the stairs and headed for the restaurant. Most of the passengers trailed after him.

Taking his backpack, Henry Charon went to the men’s room in the truckers’ section of the building. He found a stall, dropped his trousers, and settled in. When he came out an hour later the bus was gone.

Charon bought a newspaper, then went into the restaurant and asked for a menu and a booth by the windows.

Senator Bob Cherry had the reputation of being an old-time politician. Now in his early seventies, he had been a U.s. naval aviator during World War II and had shot down seven Japanese planes. After the war and law school, Bob Cherry had gone into politics. He had served four years in the Florida legislature, four years in the United States House of Representatives, and then run for the Senate. He had been there ever since’

Tall, gaunt, with piercing eyes and a gravel voice, he mastered the rules of the world’s most exclusive gentlemen’s club and set out to make it his own. He had. He had passed up chances to run for majority leader and whip: he preferred to lend his support to others, more ambitious than he and perhaps less wise, and use his influence to dictate who sat on the various committees that accomplished the work of the Senate. As chairman of the Government Oversight Committee and patron of the party leaders the power he wielded was enormous. Cabinet officers invited him to breakfast, presidents invited him to lunch, and every socialite in Washington invited him to dinner. When Bob Cherry wanted something, he usually got it.

His wife had died ten years ago, and ever since he had had a succession of tall, shapely secretaries. Each lasted about

years. His current helper was approximately twenty-six was a former Miss Georgia.

Today, at lunch, T. Jefferson Brody had trouble keeping his eyes off her. He wasn’t trying very hard. He knew Bob Cherry well enough to know that the old goat got a kick out of younger men drooling down the cleavage of the sweet piece who was screwing him afternoon and night. So T. Jefferson Brody, diplomat that he was, ogled Miss Tina Jordan appreciatively. When she walked across the dining room on her way to the ladies’, he made a point of admiring her shapely ass as it swayed deliciously from side to side. Brody sighed wi/lly. “She’s something else.”

“That she is,” Bob Cherry agreed with a tight grin. “What’s on your mind, Jefferson?”

Brody took a check from his inside jacket pocket and passed it to the senator. It was for five thousand dollars. “A donation to your voter-registration PAC.”

Cherry stared at the check. “The FM Development Corporation. Never heard of “em.”

“They’re nationwide. Build shopping centers and stuff all over. They’ve contributed to your PAC before.”

“Oh. Forgot. And they say the memory is the first thing to go.” Cherry folded the check and slipped it into a pocket. “Well, thank you and FM Development. Any donation on behalf of good government is deeply appreciated.”

“What’s the government going to do about foreign aid to Russia?”

Cherry took a sip of his wine, then said, “Probably arrange tax credits for corporations that do joint ventures with the Soviets. Something like that. American business could teach the Russians a lot, provide capital, management expertise, inventory control, and so on. Our companies wouldn’t have to make much of a profit, if any, with tax credits as an incentive. It might work pretty well.” He went on, detailing some of the proposals.

Jefferson Brody didn’t pay much attention. He was thinking tilde about PAC’S’-POLITICAL action committees. PAC’S were a glaring loophole that had survived the latest get-naked-and

honest bloodletting over election reform. Members of Congress could have private war chests with which they could pretty much do as they pleased as long as the money wasn’t spent for direct reelection efforts. So the war chests were for voter-registration efforts, political education of constituents, presidential exploratory efforts, that kind of thing.

The niftiest thing about the noncampaign PAC’S though, and Brody felt his chest expand as he contemplated the genius of the guy who had thought of this, was that the elected person could put wife, son, daughter, and two or three girlfriends on the PAC payroll, thereby supplementing the family income. He could also use the donated loot to pay his own expenses if those expenses were related, in even a vague, hazy way, to the purposes of the PAC.

Consequently congressional PAC’S were slush funds, pure and simple. In private the politicians scrambled desperately to avoid the hardship of trying to make ends meet on a salary four times larger than the average American’s, while in public they orated endlessly about all they had done to improve the lot of those said average working stiffs. Harsh and heavy, they told their constituents, were the burdens of public service.

Not that T. Jefferson Brody was put off by the hypocrisy of many politicians-Brody would have recoiled in horror at the mere thought of trying to survive on ninety thousand dollars a year. On the contrary, their greed was a real plus. Some needy soul on Capitol Hill always had a hand out. And T. Jefferson Brody was making a fine living counseling clients to fill those empty palms.

As Miss Tina Jordan returned from the powder room, Brody glanced at his watch. He had a dinner engagement this evening with another senator, Hiram Duquesne, who wanted a campaign contribution. Hiram was one of those lucky dogs who had gotten into office before January 8, 1980, so by law when he retired he could pocket all the campaign contributions he had received over the years and hadn’t spent. Needless to say, with the most recent election only six weeks past and Duquesne once again a winner, he

still soliciting. Luckily FM Development had a cam contribution PAC-TO help those pre-1 980 incumbents, Hiram Duquesnes of the world, who wanted their golden years to be truly golden.

Bob Cherry was in that blessed group, too, Brody remembered with a start. No doubt he would have Miss Jordan call him next week and remind him of that fact. Brody had that to look forward to. He glanced again at his watch. He was going to have to get back to the office and transfer some funds before he delivered Duquesne’s check. Still, he didn’t want to rush Bob Cherry and his piece. He suggested dessert and Cherry accepted. Miss Jordan sipped a cup of cappuccino while the senator ate cheesecake and Brody admired the scenery.

When the luncheon bill came, Brody expertly palmed it. Cherry pretended he hadn’t seen it.

After an hour Henry Charon got up, paid his bill at the truck stop’s restaurant-it was a lot less than Brody had just put on his gold plastic-and went to the gift shopconvenience store. He spent twenty minutes there, then another twenty in the men’s room. By a quarter to three he was once again seated in a booth by the windows in the restaurant. So at five minutes before three p.m. he saw the van pull in and Tasson get out. He stood beside the truck and pulled off a pair of driving gloves while he looked around. He stuck the gloves in his pocket and walked toward the building.

Tasson came into the restaurant right on the hour. He looked around casually and came over to Charon’s booth in the corner. “4Hi.”

“Want some coffee?” Charon muttered. “Yeah.” When the waitress came over Tasson ordered. “It’s all there.”

“All of it?” dis.ev”…Mng.”

Henry Charon nodded and again scanned the parking area.

“So how many people know about this?” Charon asked after Tassone’s coffee came and the waitress departed.

“Well, it took some doing to get what you wanted. Obviously, the people that supplied it know I took delivery. But they aren’t going to be shooting their mouths off. Most of this stuff is hot and they were paid well.”

“Who else?”

“The guy fronting the dough. He knows.”

“And all the people working for him?”

“Don’t make me laugh. He and I know, but nobody else. And believe me, I’m not about to tell you who he is. Another thing, after you get the bread, you won’t see me again. If you’re entitled to any more money under our deal, someone else will deliver it.”

“I don’t want to see you again.”

“You might as well know this too: Tasson ain’t my real name.”

A flicker of a grin crossed Charon’s lips. He watched the other man sip his coffee.

Charon passed a yellow slip of paper across the table. “You’ll need this to get the truck back. Wednesday of next week. At a prage in Philadelphia.” He gave Tasson the address. “The money? When and where.”

“My place in New Mexico. A week from today. Just you.”

“I understand.” Tasson sighed. “You really think you can do this?”

“Yeah.”

“When? My guy wants to know.”

“When I’m ready. Not before.” Tasson started to speak but Charon continued: “He won’t have to wait too long.” The truck wore Pennsylvania commercial plates. Charon drove out of the parking area and followed the sips toward 1-70 east. The truck was new-only 326 miles on the odometer-and almost full of gas. Charon wore his own driving gloves. Twenty-five miles after leaving Breezewood he crossed into Maryland.

He kept the truck at fifty-five miles per hour where he could. Laboring up the low mountain east of Hagerstown

best he could do was thirty-five in the right-hand lane. ssing the crest he kept the transmission in third gear to the brakes from overheating.

At Frederick he took 1-270 toward Washington. Traffic was light and he rolled right along in the right lane.

The storage place he had rented was in northeast Washington. Charon’s worst moment came as he backed the truck between the narrow buildings and nicked the corner of one. He inspected the damage-negligible, thank God-and tried it again. This time he got the truck right up to the open prage door of the storage bin he had rented last week.

The extra key on the ring fit the lock on the back of the truck. Charon unloaded the vehicle carefully but quickly. It wasn’t until he had the prage door down that he stood and took inventory.