Keyes conceded the point with a nod, then promptly obliterated his concession. “You can probably measure the damage it could cause by the one-hundred-thousand-dollar price somebody’s apparently willing to pay for it. Then there’s Steady’s rather curious behavior just prior to his death.”
“Curious how?”
“He reserved a room at the Hay-Adams for the next three months and was all over town, calling in old markers to get himself a permanent seat at the North trial.”
“Jesus,” Pall said.
“Of course, it could’ve been mere advertising.”
“For what?”
Keyes shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe his manuscript. Or he even may have been hinting that he knew something awfully juicy about North, Poindexter and company—or perhaps about other White House residents, past and present, whose names needn’t be mentioned.” Keyes paused. “Unless you want me to, of course.”
Pall swiveled away from Keyes to stare at the top left corner of the room behind the desk. Still staring, he said, “The Haynes kid turned down your offer of fifty K and that other so-called offer of a hundred K. So what’s his asking price?”
“I understand it to be seven hundred and fifty thousand.”
Pall spun around to face Keyes. “Buy ’em.”
“The memoirs?”
Pall nodded.
“With what?”
“With any currency he wants, in any bank he chooses.”
“You’ll arrange the money,” Keyes said and succeeded in not making it a question.
Pall again nodded.
“But suppose,” Keyes said, “just suppose that the memoirs turn out to be nothing more than a rehash of wicked deeds done long ago and very far away—in the Congo, for instance?”
“You believe that?”
“No, but it remains a possibility.”
“Buy ’em,” Pall said again. “Once they’re bought, you get a ten percent finder’s fee. Seventy-five thousand bucks, cash in hand.”
Keyes sighed and looked away as if faintly embarrassed.
“This is extremely awkward, but I do feel I should mention that my wife is rather rich and awfully generous.”
It took a moment or two for Pall to erase his surprised look and replace it with a knowing gray smile. “I get it. You want your old job back.”
“Not really.”
“Then what?”
“Ambassador.”
First came a pained expression, then a sigh and, finally, the question. “Where?”
“I rather fancy the Caribbean.”
“The Caribbean,” Pall said, staring at Keyes with a mixture of wonder and dislike. “Okay. You’ve got it. But let me spell out what else you’ve got. And that’s exactly one week to get ahold of the Haynes memoirs. If you’ve got ’em by then, we’ll announce your nomination as ambassador to the democratic island republic of Rumandsun or some such.”
Pall fell silent for a moment, leaned forward, bared most of the light gray teeth in a snarling smile and said, “But if you haven’t got ahold of ’em by then, we’ll leak it that you’ve been fired from the agency for gross incompetency or worse. Probably a lot worse.” He paused to let the awful smile vanish. “Did I make all that clear?”
“Yes, I do believe you did,” said Hamilton Keyes.
Chapter 20
Erika McCorkle gave up eighteen miles out of Berryville when she saw the Tall Pine Motel’s blue neon vacancy sign winking at her through the snowfall.
She and Granville Haynes had left his dead father’s farm shortly before 5 P.M. It was now 6:07 P.M. and dark, but they had managed to drive only eighteen miles, their progress impeded first by the snow, which gave no sign of letting up, and then by four wrecks, the last a Chevrolet pickup that had spun out on a curve and flipped over, killing its fifty-two-year-old driver and his thirty-seven-year-old girlfriend.
Haynes and Erika McCorkle reached this fourth accident just after state troopers had set out warning flares. Two patrol cars, bar lights flashing, aimed their headlights at the wreck. Haynes rolled down his window and talked to one of the troopers briefly while waiting for him to wave them on. When the trooper did, Haynes stared at the dark pool beneath the upside-down pickup and decided it was blood and not engine oil after all.
As the Cutlass slid to a stop on the packed snow in front of the Tall Pine Motel office, Erika McCorkle said, “See if you can get two rooms. If not, try for twin beds. But if all they have left is a double bed, we can work it out.”
