A few blocks later, the veins standing out on Pete's forehead started to reduce in size. He said, 'We're almost there now. That's Mega Mart up ahead. The building's got its own EXECPROTEK unit.'
EXECPROTEK was a civilian security and confidential investigations agency with plenty of clout, originally founded by Brinsley S. Wolters, former ace sleuth and opposition researcher on the Senator's staff. Senator Keehan's own private eye.
Pete said, 'Goofy name, EXECPROTEK. Sounds like some sort of fancy condom.'
Jack remained straight-faced. 'Nice to have your own private police force, though. Every dynasty should have one.'
Pete nodded. 'They've got Mylon Sears over there, honchoing the operation. He's nobody's fool.'
Jack, thoughtful, said, 'Sears is Wolters's top lieutenant. Shows you how much store the Senator sets on this Chavez thing.'
Pete grinned, said, 'Maybe it won't look so sweet to him now that the bodies are piling up.'
'Might make Sears more cooperative.'
'Uh-uh. Susan wouldn't like it.'
'What's her problem, anyway, Pete?'
'She thinks we're picking on her because of her tie-up with LAGO. She's right, of course.'
'Garros might be inclined to meet us halfway,' Jack said, 'considering that we know about his hookups with the Golden Pole dancers, Vikki and Dorinda. He doesn't need that kind of heat while he's romancing Susan Keehan. That gives us some leverage.'
Pete shook his head. 'She's so stuck on that guy, she'll just figure we're making things up to smear him. On the other hand, Caracas might not like it that he's risking a multimillion-dollar romance by two-timing the heiress. Or is that three-timing? In any case, he's got the boys back home to worry about.'
Jack said, 'Plus whoever it is that tried to whack Paz.'
'Yeah, there's that, too.'
The Mega Mart building looked like a starship poised for takeoff on the launching pad. It had been built and was owned by the powerful Keehan clan. A decade earlier, they'd gambled big on the future of New Orleans, and it had paid off.
Even now, in the post-Katrina climate, it continued to thrive and its prospects remained bright. Much of the skyscraper's space was occupied by Keehan business interests, not only the family's primary and openly acknowledged financial vehicles, but also a number of subsidiaries, satellite and shell corporations linked to it by a complex and tenuous web of cutouts and holding companies.
Office space in the Mart was eagerly sought after by companies independent of any association with Keehan interests, attracted by the site's first-rate accommodations and the charismatic allure of the dynasty's name.
The Keehans were one of the richest families in the United States. Back in the nineteenth century, the fledgling dynasts had been a clan of Philadelphia lawyers and bankers who'd gotten into the oil business on the heels of the state's rich Spindletop strike. Pennsylvania's oil deposits were soon exhausted, but not before the family had diversified its holdings into coal, steel, railroads, and real estate, taking their place among the great robber barons of the Gilded Age.
In this, they were no different from many other hardheaded, hardfrsted plutocrats of the era. The Keehan genius lay in an early and intensive concentration in the field of politics.
Most of their fellow titans of industry shunned direct involvement in partisan politics, disdaining the whole grubby business of electioneering, preferring to take the easier course of buying politicians rather than filling the offices themselves.
The Keehans knew better, realizing early on that elective office was where the real money and power lay.
Politicos controlled the building of schools, hospitals, government buildings, roads, canals, and all the vast, ever-growing infrastructure of the public sector.
They decided where the projects were sited, who would get the contracts to build them, and which banks and brokerage houses would oversee the issuing of bonds and stock offerings necessary to finance them.
Here was where the real money was made for oneself and one's friends; here lay the power and influence to make sure that nobody else could take away those gains.
Paid publicists ballyhooed the notion of a Keehan tradition of public service, playing it up big. After a while, even the Keehans had come to believe it themselves.
Pennsylvania was the fountainhead of the family's financial and political power and continued to remain its stronghold and home base. The state had elected one Keehan governor and sent several more to Congress.
The family had long since branched out, going nationwide, establishing tentacles north, south, east, and west. Its business and politics went hand in hand. Getting Keehans and their allies elected built an ever-expanding continuum of power.
Behind it all lay the motive force of the family fortune, source of all good things.
In the time-honored mode of the super-rich, they'd established a number of philanthropic endowments, funds, and foundations. It was another way to augment the family's access and influence throughout the national economy — and it was all tax-free, too.
The foundations fed into the political zone, which fed into the financial zone, which fed back into the philanthropic and political zones. A colossal daisy chain to promote all things Keehan.
In recent political history, Keehans had filled such cabinet posts as secretary of state and attorney general, as well as being appointed ambassadors and Federal court judges. By the first decade of the twenty-first century, the current generation of Keehans held office throughout the land on the city, county, state, and national levels.
No Keehan had yet been elected president, though several had tried and failed — an ever-rankling sore spot to the family pride. They were still in there pitching.
Patriarch of the clan was Burl Keehan of the Pennsylvania Keehans, the original root and branch of the dynasty. He was the family's preeminent politician, the born backslapper and dealmaker, Mr. Personality. As Senator Keehan, he was a long-serving senior legislator with a safe seat in Congress and a high-ranking member of several all-important committees, including Intelligence and Appropriations.
His brother, Wilmont, was the family's top financial man and wealth generator, Mr. Money Bags. Wilmont was the father of Susan Keehan.
Life is good, Raoul Garros said to himself. He was on top of the world, in more ways than one.
He was in a room on a floor near the top of the Mega Mart building, up so high that he could look down on the tops of the other skyscrapers in the midtown business district. The room was the inner sanctum of a suite of rooms belonging to Susan Keehan, director of the New Orleans branch of the Keehan Humanistics Fund and mistress of the building and all it contained.
She belonged to him. She was his lover, his fiancee, and she stood naked in his embrace, pressing against him. The room they now shared, this eagle's nest, was also their love nest.
The combination of the time, the place, and the woman was intoxicating. Cooler heads than Raoul's might well have overheated amid such surroundings. They reeked of wealth and power, blazoning the pride and prestige of their possessor.
This upper floor of the building was the headquarters for the Keehan Humanistics Fund, the controlling corporate entity of the entire structure and much more besides. A suite of rooms had been set aside for Susan's personal use, luxury, and comfort. The suite contained her office, as well as an adjacent room that served as her living quarters and inner sanctum. It was strictly for her personal convenience and comfort while she was at her place of business. Her main residence in the city was a mansion in the Faubourg Marigny, a neighborhood as old, storied, and rich as the Garden District.
Here, in the Mega Mart monolith, these rich and secluded surroundings were her private world, her retreat. Inner sanctum. In here, Susan Keehan was as naked as she was ever going to be. And not just physically. Though there was that, too. Right now.
Raoul Garros was thirty-five, handsome, athletic, of good family, a playboy and a power player in the hierarchy of LAGO, Venezuela's state-owned oil outlet in New Orleans.
