John Grisham Read online

  “You know I’m not kidding, Mr. Lake,” Teddy said sternly, and there was no doubt that Aaron Lake had walked into a well-laid trap.

  Lake cleared his throat and completed the job of composing himself. “All right, I’m listening.”

  “It’s very simple. In fact, its simplicity makes it beautiful. You’re too late to file for New Hampshire, and it doesn’t matter anyway. Let the rest of the pack slug it out there. Wait until it’s over, then startle everyone by announcing your candidacy for President. Many will ask, ‘Who the hell is Aaron Lake?’ And that’s fine. That’s what we want. They’ll find out soon enough.

  “Initially, your platform will have only one plank. It’s all about military spending. You’re a doomsayer, with all sorts of dire predictions about how weak our military is becoming. You’ll get everybody’s attention when you call for doubling our military spending.”

  “Doubling?”

  “It works, doesn’t it? It got your attention. Double it during your four-year term.”

  “But why? We need more military spending, but a twofold increase would be excessive.”

  “Not if we’re facing another war, Mr. Lake. A war in which we push buttons and launch Tomahawk missiles by the thousands, at a million bucks a pop. Hell, we almost ran out of them last year in that Balkan mess. We can’t find enough soldiers and sailors and pilots, Mr. Lake. You know this. The military needs tons of cash to recruit young men. We’re low on everything—soldiers, missiles, tanks, planes, carriers. Chenkov is building now. We’re not. We’re still downsizing, and if we keep it up through another Administration, then we’re dead.”

  Teddy’s voice rose, almost in anger, and when he stopped with “we’re dead,” Aaron Lake could almost feel the earth shake from the bombing.

  “Where does the money come from?” he asked.

  “Money for what?”

  “The military.”

  Teddy snorted in disgust, then said, “Same place it always comes from. Need I remind you, sir, that we have a surplus?”

  “We’re busy spending the surplus.”

  “Of course you are. Listen, Mr. Lake, don’t worry about the money. Shortly after you announce, we’ll scare the hell out of the American people. They’ll think you’re half-crazy at first, some kind of wacko from Arizona who wants to build even more bombs. But we’ll jolt them. We’ll create a crisis on the other side of the world, and suddenly Aaron Lake will be called a visionary. Timing is everything. You make a speech about how weak we are in Asia, few people listen. Then we’ll create a situation over there that stops the world, and suddenly everyone wants to talk to you. It will go on like that, throughout the campaign. We’ll build the tension on this end. We’ll release reports, create situations, manipulate the media, embarrass your opponents. Frankly, Mr. Lake, I don’t expect it to be that difficult.”

  “You sound like you’ve been here before.”

  “No. We’ve done some unusual things, all in an effort to protect this country. But we’ve never tried to swing a presidential election.” Teddy said this with an air of regret.

  Lake slowly pushed his chair back, stood, stretched his arms and legs, and walked along the table to the end of the room. His feet were heavier. His pulse was racing. The trap had been sprung; he’d been caught.

  He returned to his seat. “I don’t have enough money,” he offered across the table. He knew it was received by someone who’d already thought about it.

  Teddy smiled and nodded and pretended to give this some thought. Lake’s Georgetown home was worth $400,000. He kept about half that much in mutual funds and another $100,000 in municipal bonds. There were no significant debts. He had $40,000 in his reelection account.

  “A rich candidate would not be attractive,” Teddy said, then reached for yet another button. Images returned to the wall, sharp and in color. “Money will not be a problem, Mr. Lake,” he said, his voice much lighter. “We’ll get the defense contractors to pay for it. Look at that,” he said, waving with his right hand as if Lake wasn’t sure what to look at. “Last year the aerospace and defense industry did almost two hundred billion in business. We’ll take just a fraction of that.”

  “How much of a fraction?”

  “As much as you need. We can realistically collect a hundred million dollars from them.”

  “You also can’t hide a hundred million dollars.”

  “Don’t bet on it, Mr. Lake. And don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of the money. You make the speeches, do the ads, run the campaign. The money will pour in. By the time November gets here, the American voters will be so terrified of Armageddon they won’t care how much you’ve spent. It’ll be a landslide.”

  So Teddy Maynard was offering a landslide. Lake sat in a stunned but giddy silence and gawked at all that money up there on the wall—$194 billion, defense and aerospace. Last year’s military budget was $270 billion. Double that to $540 billion in four years, and the contractors would get fat again. And the workers! Wages soaring through the roof! Jobs for everyone!

  Candidate Lake would be embraced by executives with the cash and unions with the votes. The initial shock began to fade, and the simplicity of Teddy’s plan became clear. Collect the cash from those who will profit. Scare the voters into racing to the polls. Win in a landslide. And in doing so save the world.

  Teddy let him think for a moment, then said, “We’ll do most of it through PAC’s. The unions, engineers, executives, business coalitions—there’s no shortage of political groups already on the books. And we’ll form some others.”

  Lake was already forming them. Hundreds of PAC’s, all flush with more cash than any election had ever seen. The shock was now completely gone, replaced by the sheer excitement of the idea. A thousand questions raced through his mind: Who’ll be my Vice President? Who’ll run the campaign? Chief of staff? Where to announce? “It might work,” he said, under control.

  “Oh yes. It’ll work, Mr. Lake. Trust me. We’ve been planning this for some time.”

  “How many people know about it?”

  “Just a few. You’ve been carefully chosen, Mr. Lake. We examined many potential candidates, and your name kept rising to the top. We’ve checked your background.”

  “Pretty dull, huh?”

  “I suppose. Although your relationship with Ms. Valotti concerns me. She’s been divorced twice and likes painkillers.”

  “Didn’t know I had a relationship with Ms. Valotti.”

  “You’ve been seen with her recently.”

  “You guys are watching, aren’t you?”

  “You expect something less?”

  “I guess not.”

  “You took her to a black-tie cry-a-thon for oppressed women in Afghanistan. Gimme a break.” Teddy’s words were suddenly short and dripping with sarcasm.

  “I didn’t want to go.”

  “Then don’t. Stay away from that crap. Leave it for Hollywood. Valotti’s nothing but trouble.”

  “Anybody else?” Lake asked, more than a little defensive. His private life had been pretty dull since he’d become a widower. He was suddenly proud of it.

  “Not really,” Teddy said. “Ms. Benchly seems to be quite stable and makes a lovely escort.”

  “Oh, thank you very much.”

  “You’ll get hammered on abortion, but you won’t be the first.”

  “It’s a tired issue,” Lake said. And he was tired of grappling with it. He’d been for abortions, against abortions, soft on reproductive rights, tough on reproductive rights, pro-choice, pro-child, anti-women, embraced by the feminists. In his fourteen years on Capitol Hill he’d been chased all over the abortion minefield, getting bloodied with each new strategic move.

  Abortion didn’t scare him anymore, at least not at the moment. He was much more concerned with the CIA sniffing through his background.

  “What about GreenTree?” he asked.

  Teddy waved his right hand as if it was nothing. “Twenty-two years ago. Nobody got convicted
. Your partner went bankrupt and got himself indicted, but the jury let him walk. It’ll come up; everything will come up. But frankly, Mr. Lake, we’ll keep the attention diverted elsewhere. There’s an advantage in jumping in at the last minute. The press won’t have too much time to dig up dirt.”

  “I’m single. We’ve elected an unmarried president only once.”

  “You’re a widower, the husband of a very lovely lady who was well respected both here and back home. It won’t be an issue. Trust me.”

  “So what worries you?”

  “Nothing, Mr. Lake. Not a thing. You’re a solid candidate, very electable. We’ll create the issues and the fear, and we’ll raise the money.”

  Lake stood again, walked around the room rubbing his hair, scratching his chin, trying to clear his head. “I have a lot of questions,” he said.

  “Maybe I can answer some of them. Let’s talk again tomorrow, right here, same time. Sleep on it, Mr. Lake. Time is crucial, but I suppose a man should have twenty-four hours before making such a decision.” Teddy actually smiled when he said this.

  “That’s a wonderful idea. Let me think about it. I’ll have an answer tomorrow.”

  “No one knows we’ve had this little chat.”

  “Of course not.”

  THREE

  IN TERMS OF SPACE, the law library occupied exactly one fourth of the square footage of the entire Trumble library. It was in a corner, partitioned off by a wall of red brick and glass, tastefully done at taxpayer expense. Inside the law library, shelves of well-used books stood packed together with barely enough room for an inmate to squeeze between them. Around the walls were desks covered with typewriters and computers and sufficient research clutter to resemble any big-firm library.

  The Brethren ruled the law library. All inmates were allowed to use it, of course, but there was an unwritten policy that one needed permission to stay there for any length of time. Maybe not permission, but at least notice.

  Justice Joe Roy Spicer of Mississippi earned forty cents an hour sweeping the floors and straightening the desks and shelves. He also emptied the trash, and was generally considered to be a pig when it came to his menial tasks. Justice Hatlee Beech of Texas was the official law librarian, and at fifty cents an hour was the highest paid. He was fastidious about “his volumes,” and often bickered with Spicer about their care. Justice Finn Yarber, once of the California Supreme Court, was paid twenty cents an hour as a computer technician. His pay was at the bottom of the scale because he knew so little about computers.

  On a typical day, the three spent between six and eight hours in the law library. If a Trumble inmate had a legal problem, he simply made an appointment with one of the Brethren and visited their little suite. Hatlee Beech was an expert on sentencing and appeals. Finn Yarber did bankruptcies, divorces, and child support cases. Joe Roy Spicer, with no formal legal training, had no real specialty. Nor did he want one. He ran the scams.

  Strict rules prohibited the Brethren from charging fees for their legal work, but the strict rules meant little. They were, after all, convicted felons, and if they could quietly pick up some cash on the outside then everyone would be happy. Sentencing was a moneymaker. About a fourth of the inmates who arrived at Trumble had been improperly sentenced. Beech could review the records overnight and find the loopholes. A month earlier, he had knocked four years off the sentence of a young man who’d been given fifteen. The family had agreed to pay, and the Brethren earned $5,000, their biggest fee to date. Spicer arranged the secret deposit through their lawyer in Neptune Beach.

  There was a cramped conference room in the back of the law library, behind the shelves and barely visible from the main room. The door to it had a large glass window, but no one bothered to look in. The Brethren retired there for quiet business. They called it their chamber.

  Spicer had just met with their lawyer and he had mail, some really good letters. He closed the door and removed an envelope from a file. He waved it for Beech and Yarber to see. “It’s yellow,” he said. “Ain’t that sweet? It’s for Ricky.”

  “Who’s it from?” Yarber asked.

  “Curtis from Dallas.”

  “The banker?” Beech asked excitedly.

  “No, Curtis owns the jewelry stores. Listen.” Spicer unfolded the letter, also on soft yellow stationery. He smiled and cleared his throat and began to read: ‘Dear Ricky: Your letter of January eighth made me cry. I read it three times before I put it down. You poor boy. Why are they keeping you there?’ ”

  “Where is he?” asked Yarber.

  “Ricky’s locked down in a fancy drug rehab unit his rich uncle is paying for. He’s been in for a year, is clean and fully rehabbed, but the terrible people who run the place won’t release him until April because they’ve been collecting twenty thousand dollars a month from his rich uncle, who just wants him locked away and won’t send any spending money. Do you remember any of this?”

  “Now I do.”

  “You helped with the fiction. May I proceed?”

  “Please do.”

  Spicer continued reading: “‘I’m tempted to fly down there and confront those evil people myself. And your uncle, what a loser! Rich people like him think they can just send money and not get involved. As I told you, my father was quite wealthy, and he was the most miserable person I’ve ever known. Sure he bought me things—objects that were temporary and meant nothing when they were gone. But he never had time for me. He was a sick man, just like your uncle. I’ve enclosed a check for a thousand dollars if you need anything from the commissary.

  “‘Ricky, I can’t wait to see you in April. I’ve already told my wife that there is an international diamond show in Orlando that month, and she has no interest in going with me.’ ”

  “April?” asked Beech.

  “Yep. Ricky is certain he will be released in April.”

  “Ain’t that sweet,” Yarber said with a smile. “And Curtis has a wife and kids?”

  “Curtis is fifty-eight, three adult children, two grandchildren.”

  “Where’s the check?” asked Beech.

  Spicer flipped the sheets of stationery and went to page two. “‘We have to make certain you can meet me in Orlando,’ ” he read. “‘Are you sure you’ll finally be released in April? Please tell me you will. I think about you every hour. I keep your photo hidden in my desk drawer, and when I look into your eyes I know that we should be together.’ ”

  “Sick, sick, sick,” Beech said, still smiling. “And he’s from Texas.”

  “I’m sure there are a lot of sweet boys in Texas,” Yarber said.

  “And none in California?”

  “The rest of it is just mush,” Spicer said, scanning quickly. There would be plenty of time to read it later. He held up the $1,000 check for his colleagues to see. In due course, it would be smuggled out to their attorney and he would deposit it in their hidden account.

  “When are we gonna bust him?” Yarber asked.

  “Let’s swap a few more letters. Ricky needs to share some more misery.”

  “Maybe one of the guards could beat him up, or something like that,” Beech said.

  “They don’t have guards,” replied Spicer. “It’s a designer rehab clinic, remember? They have counselors.”

  “But it’s a lockdown facility, right? That means gates and fences, so surely there’s a guard or two around. What if Ricky got attacked in the shower or the locker room by some goon who wanted his body?”

  “It can’t be a sexual attack,” Yarber said. “That might scare Curtis. He might think Ricky caught a disease or something.”

  And so the fiction went for a few minutes as they created more misery for poor Ricky. His picture had been lifted from the bulletin board of a fellow inmate, copied at a quick print by their lawyer, and had now been sent to more than a dozen pen pals across North America. The photo was of a smiling college grad, in a navy robe with a cap and gown, holding a diploma, a very handsome young man.

  It
was decided that Beech would work on the new story for a few days, then write a rough draft of the next letter to Curtis. Beech was Ricky, and at that moment their little tormented fictional boy was writing his tales of misery to eight different caring souls. Justice Yarber was Percy, also a young man locked away for drugs but now clean and nearing release and looking for an older sugar daddy with whom to spend meaningful time. Percy had five hooks in the water, and was slowly reeling them in.

  Joe Roy Spicer didn’t write very well. He coordinated the scam, helped with the fiction, kept the stories straight, and met with the lawyer who brought the mail. And he handled the money.

  He pulled out another letter and announced, “This, Your Honors, is from Quince.”

  Everything stopped as Beech and Yarber stared at the letter. Quince was a wealthy banker in a small town in Iowa, according to the six letters he and Ricky had swapped. Like the rest, they’d found him through the personals of a gay magazine now hidden in the law library. He’d been their second catch, the first having become suspicious and disappearing. Quince’s photo of himself was a snapshot taken at a lake, with the shirt off, the potbelly, the skinny arms, the receding hairline of a fifty-one-year-old—his family all around him. It was a bad photo, no doubt selected by Quince because it might be difficult to identify him, if anyone ever tried.

  “Would you like to read it, Ricky boy?” Spicer asked, handing the letter to Beech, who took it and looked at the envelope. Plain white, no return address, typed lettering.

  “Have you read it?” Beech asked.

  “No. Go ahead.”

  Beech slowly removed the letter, a plain sheet of white paper with tight single-spaced paragraphs produced by an old typewriter. He cleared his voice, and read: “‘Dear Ricky: It’s done. I can’t believe I did it, but I pulled it off. I used a pay phone and a money order so nothing could be traced—I think my trail is clean. The company you suggested in New York was superb, very discreet and helpful. I have to be honest, Ricky, it scared the hell out of me. Booking a gay cruise is something I never dreamed of doing. And you know what? It was exhilarating. I am so proud of myself. We have a cabin suite, a thousand bucks a night, and I can’t wait.’ ”