The police had thrown a tight security ring all around the Carlton Hotel in Wilshire Boulevard, just south of Beverly Hills. It seemed to Jamie that Los Angeles had no real centre. It sprawled carelessly from district to district… but if the city had a wallet it would surely keep it here. Jamie had never seen so many expensive shops and boutiques standing shoulder to shoulder, the windows dripping with watches and jewellery and five-thousand- dollar suits.
The Carlton was an old-fashioned building, fifteen storeys high and stretching an entire block. As Alicia and Jamie drove into the front courtyard, a dozen valets in matching grey waistcoats hurried forward to help them out of the car and then to park it below. But even the valets were outnumbered by the secret service personnel, who had their own uniform: black suits, white shirts, sunglasses and earpieces. To Jamie they looked almost ridiculous, like something out of a cartoon. But perhaps that was the idea. They were advertising the fact that the hotel was protected.
Senator John Trelawny was staying here for twenty-four hours before he gave his speech at the LA Convention Center and he had taken over the entire twelfth floor for the night. There were less than five months until the general election and his campaign team numbered almost a hundred people, including media advisors, political consultants, speech writers, pollsters, personal aides and more security men. All of them had rooms, and for one night all the lifts to the twelfth floor had been blocked. To visit the senator, guests would need to show ID and then receive a pass key – provided by the secret service. Callers were accompanied all the way. If they didn’t have an invitation, they didn’t get in.
“Will he see us?” Jamie asked as he and Alicia followed a winding corridor into the hotel.
Alicia nodded. “I just have to let him know we’re here…”
They entered a cavernous lobby with a huge chandelier hanging over a round, polished table. Jamie found himself staring open-mouthed at the wealth on display. There was too much of everything. Too many electric candlelights, too many vases of flowers – at least ten of them – on the table, too many antique clocks and mirrors and display cases packed with handbags, scarves and shoes. And too many people. There was a concierge desk and a reception desk and porters and guests everywhere. Rush hour for the rich, Jamie thought. He had never been anywhere like this.
Alicia stopped and looked around, searching for someone she knew. A few moments later, she found him. “There!” she exclaimed, and moved forward.
A man was standing next to a table close to the lifts. He was dressed in the same dark suit and white shirt as the other security men, but he had a brightly coloured tie as if to announce that he wasn’t actually one of them. Even so, there was a telltale wire curling behind his ear and he was obviously doing the same job: scanning the lobby with suspicious eyes. He was at least six and a half feet tall with blond, close-cropped hair, blue eyes that were constantly on the move and the body of a weightlifter. His shoulders were huge. Either he was ex-army or a retired basketball player… or both.
The man saw Alicia and recognized her before she was nearer than ten paces.
“Alicia!” He greeted her by name but he seemed more surprised than pleased to see her.
“How are you, Warren?”
“I’m good.” He drawled the words. “I didn’t know you were in LA.”
“I didn’t know I was coming until a couple of days ago.”
Warren had noticed Jamie, who was standing a few steps behind her, trying to keep out of the way. The man frowned briefly, and Jamie was suddenly nervous that he might have been recognized.
“This is a friend of mine,” Alicia said. “His name is David.” There was a showcase against the wall, advertising Davidoff cigars. Jamie knew that she had plucked the false name from there and hoped that the security man hadn’t noticed it too. She turned to him. “David, this is Warren Cornfield.”
Warren nodded slowly at Jamie, then turned back to Alicia. “What can I do for you?” he asked.
“I want to see the senator.”
“You want to see the senator?” A slow smile spread across Cornfield’s lips. But he wasn’t amused. “You know that’s not possible, Alicia. Tomorrow he’s talking to ten thousand people. Somehow, I don’t think he’s got time to see you right now.”
But Alicia stood her ground. “When I left, he said his door would always be open to me.”
“That’s not what he told me.”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“I’m not his assistant, Alicia. You know that. I think maybe you should ring back another time and get an appointment.”
Jamie could see that Alicia was struggling to keep her temper. “I’m here right now, asking for an appointment, Warren,” she growled. “And you’re right. You’re not his assistant. So why don’t you call up to Elizabeth, who is – and she can ask John if he’ll see me.”
“You’re wasting your time.”
“We’ll see, shall we?”
Alicia smiled pleasantly but Warren scowled. He didn’t like being talked to in this way but it was clear that Alicia wouldn’t be argued with. Warren held up a single finger and walked away, his head cocked, talking into a concealed microphone. To anyone else looking, he could have been arguing with himself.
“Warren is John’s personal security officer,” Alicia explained. “He’s supposed to liaise with the secret service but half the time he thinks he actually runs it. We never did get along.”
“I can see that.”
“They say he was with the CIA a while ago but he got thrown out. Personally, I think…”
But Alicia didn’t finish the sentence. Warren Cornfield was walking back towards her and his whole demeanour had changed. He was like a sulky child. “He says he’ll see you,” he muttered.
“Thank you, Warren.”
“Why don’t we make that Mr Cornfield? You’re not part of the team any more…”
He snapped his fingers like an angry diner demanding a drink. One of the younger secret service men came running over. “Show these people up to twelve,” he said.
“Yes, Mr Cornfield.”
Alicia smiled at him and she and Jamie went over to the lift. The security man inserted a key into the lock and pressed the button for the twelfth floor. The doors closed. “You friends of the senator?” he asked.
“I used to work for him,” Alicia said.
“He’s a good guy,” the security man went on. “I might even vote for him myself. Charles Baker is a jerk.”
There was a silver-haired man in a suit but no tie waiting for them when the lift arrived. Warren must have radioed up from below. The man knew Alicia at once. “My dear, it’s very good to see you. How have you been keeping?” He had an Irish accent.
“It’s great to see you, Patrick. Still playing the horses?”
“Still losing.”
“This is a friend of mine.” She indicated Jamie but was careful not to say his name. “Patrick is John’s campaign chairman for the state of California.”
“Good to meet you.” Patrick smiled and Jamie warmed to him at once. He was obviously puzzled by Jamie’s appearance but had decided to ask no questions. “He can’t see you for very long, Alicia,” he said, as he led them down a corridor. “Right now the pressure’s on.”
“How is he?” Alicia asked.
“He’s doing a grand job. I just wish the contest wasn’t going to be so damned close…”
There was a set of double doors at the end of the corridor with yet another secret service man on guard. Patrick showed a pass and led Alicia and Jamie into a large conference room with a single table scattered with notepads and pens, computers, printouts, files, trays of sandwiches and bottles of mineral water. There were a dozen people sitting round and from the look of them none had slept very much in recent days. They were busy talking, arguing over a graph of some sort, but as Alicia came in, one of them stood up and with a shock Jamie recognized the man he had seen on posters all over Los Angeles.
John Trelawny didn’t look like a politician. That was Jamie’s first thought. He was a handsome man, taller than Jamie had expected from his picture and younger too, perhaps in his late forties. He had hair which had once
