The Shop

32

Cyril Landry said to Frank Haddox, “If you’ll forgive me for saying so, it sounds like your father was threatened by you.”

The attorney general snorted. “You’ve got that right.”

“As you said, he was a senator. But you were in the cabinet, the inner circle.”

Lazy grin. “You know what they call the attorney general? America’s Top Cop. That’s what I was. I still am. When you address me, you call me the attorney general.”

“Top Cop. Imagine. All that power in one man’s hands. I wish I knew what that felt like.”

“It’s…like a drug. You’re flying so high…you never want to die.” He seemed to lose focus, rubbed at the tube in his arm.

Landry adjusted the drip upward. “No one understands what it takes to protect this country.”

“That’s certainly true. Most people don’t know half of what it takes. Not a quarter of what it takes.”

Landry said, “You know what my dad’s favorite Bible quotation was? The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. You’re like that shepherd.”

Haddox pointed at Landry. “Exactly! That’s it, exactly!”

Too much triptascoline. The man would be singing beer hall songs if Landry kept it up. He dialed it back.

“The scope of what you’re doing,” said Landry. “It’s breathtaking.”

“You know about it?”

Landry shook his head in admiration. “Brilliantly audacious.”

Haddox winked. “No one’s supposed to know about it. It’s our little secret.”

“No one does. Just you, me…” Landry ticked their names off on his fingers as Haddox watched.

“The executive director of the CIA,” Haddox said, then frowned. “He’s not executive director anymore. He left, and then I left later, almost two years to the day.”

“A lot of money to be made,” Landry said. “But that’s not the reason.”

Haddox nodded sagely. “That’s not the reason. But you’re right, a lot of money. This kind of thing is expensive—specialized—and there aren’t many people in the world who can do it. But it’s worth it! To protect this country, to make sure we’re free.”

“So the executive director—help me out here—what’s his name again?”

“Cardamone.” He spat the name. An adrenaline spike. Landry turned down the juice, jotted down the name, and led Haddox away from that subject and back to safer ground. “What did you say the name of your island was?”

“Indigo. It was named after a plantation we had in East Florida back in the early eighteen hundreds. Before my great-great-grandfather made his fortune in paper, our family grew indigo. Stinking stuff, killed everybody. The slaves—killed ’em in five years, on average. Not the proudest moment in Haddox history.”

Now that Haddox had calmed down a bit, Landry led him back to where he wanted to go. “But this. The scope of the operation, it’s breathtaking. How did you do it?”

“What?”

“How did you stay under the radar?”

“You mean what I think you mean? We’re not supposed to talk about that. I told Grace—”

He stopped. His eyes fearful. “Oh God.”

Landry remained stock-still.

“Nobody knows Grace knows.”

“It’s our secret,” Landry said.

For the first time, Franklin Haddox started to struggle. “What’s this in my arm?”

“It’s the cord to the blind, see?” Landry said quickly, turning up the drip. Talk him down. “What’s it like, living in an octagon house?”

“We don’t live there.”

Testy.

“My mother wanted it kept a certain way, preserved. No kids playing cowboys and Indians on her expensive old moth-eaten oriental carpets. She and my father built two freestanding houses to live in, back in the fifties. Painted ’em yellow to match the Wedding Cake. That’s what we call the…octa.” He paused. “Octagon…al. House.” He looked up at Landry, seeking approval. “I bet you don’t know about the secret passageway.”

“Secret passageway?”

“It was built in the twenties, during Prohibition. Those were wild days—my great-grandfather knew a lot of movie stars, had an affair with one of them. Can’t remember who. Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks came down here for R and R. Lot of people came down here to let off steam. Valentino. Clark Gable, in the thirties. They wanted to get away from all that scrutiny.”

“Tell me about the passageway.”

“It’s a secret.” He winked, a broad stage wink. Landry didn’t like the wink, and he didn’t like Haddox.

“Passageway?” Landry reminded him.

“Goes from the Wedding Cake to the cabanas and comes out by the old boathouse. The pool was built in, oh, 1922? They’d bring the booze out on boats and take it through the tunnel. Just a precaution—my great-grandfather bought off the local constabulary, used to hunt ’gators with the sheriff. Ironic, huh? Sheriff probably enjoyed Great- Granddad’s bootleg booze on a number of occasions. Now one of the family’s in the sheriff’s office, did I tell you that?”

“Your niece?”

“Don’t really know her—long story. Her only claim to fame was being the Petal Soft Soap Baby. Her mother—” He stopped himself. Got that sly look in his eye. Something there. Landry doubted it was relevant to what he needed to know, but he asked anyway. “Her mother?”

“She’s dead.” He focused on Landry. “Long, long story. Her daughter… Did I tell you we have a cop in the family? A detective. Real small potatoes—my guess is she spends all her time investigating bicycle thefts, things like that.”

Landry turned the subject to security. Specifically, what kind of security they had on the island.

“You won’t believe this, but when I left? They said I was on my own—no more security detail. Just like that.”

“But you have security now?”

“Rent-a-cops. But the place is secure, you’d better believe it. The VP comes down here a lot, so everything’s in place, paid for by the U.S. government—motion sensors, cameras, all sorts of stuff. You should see it when Owen comes. Snipers on the roofs, Coast Guard, one if by land, two if by sea. It’s like a traveling circus, only real buttoned-down, you know? All those guys in suits talking into their wrists. Reminds me of when I had my own motorcade. Nobody appreciates how important I was to this country.”

Diatribe time. Landry let him ramble. Finally he wound down. “I did a lot for the people of the United States.”

Landry held Frank’s wrist up and checked his pulse rate. He said, “I know you did. The average American Joe doesn’t understand that, but I do. I admire you.”

“You admire me?”

“I like the way your mind works. But I’m curious. What gave you the idea?”

“The idea?” Haddox looked at him, confused.

“Aspen. Brienne Cross. It was brilliant.”

“Oh, that. Aspen wasn’t the first, and it won’t be the last, either. You remember the Mexican singer? What’s her name? And a bunch of others—you wouldn’t believe how easy it was—how well it’s worked. Talk about ‘thinking outside the box.’ Simple but brilliant. Brienne Cross is just the tip of the iceberg.” He smiled.

Landry smiled, too.