“If you checked your e-mail, you would see that everything is fine. He’s going quietly. He’s ‘retiring early’ to spend more time with his family; he will not be moving forward on any future campaigns. That will be left to me. I’m being promoted in the meantime, which looks fucking great for you,” she says, but Doug’s not convinced.
“Christ, the press will catch on.” Doug runs his hand over his shiny head.
“They’ve already talked to me. It’s done.… But this isn’t the emergency, Doug.”
Doug flails his body, losing control over himself. “It all sounds like a fucking emergency—”
“The emergency is your daughter, and how she and Bunny both have a recording of you being blatantly racist—”
“That’s impossible.”
“—something about you needing your daughter to break up with her Black boyfriend because of the color of his skin.” Cate lets this sink in. “Mackenzie’s phone has it, she recorded it. Meaning: your voice is heard having a conversation with your daughter about how she had a person of color give her drugs, and something about if he doesn’t feel like home then he’s not love and basically that your parents would have been ashamed if she were ever to introduce him as part of the family. Believe me, I heard it.”
Sweat drips from Doug’s forehead, pit stains forming underneath his arms. He loosens his tie. “Well, I’m obviously not racist.…” Doug laughs manically, then pounds his fist into the air. “Betsy needs to get a grip on those girls. I knew it, I knew she shouldn’t be hanging out with that Bartholomew girl either.” Doug points his finger at Cate. “She’s the one responsible for General Montgomery’s son’s overdose, you know.”
“That’s my cousin you’re talking about.”
“Oh, right—sorry, but—”
“But you’re right, Bunny’s become a liability.”
Doug begins pacing across the room. “FUCK!”
“Look, we don’t have a lot of time. I have evidence of two devices with the video, and who knows who else Mackenzie sent it to—and if either girl decides to post it, I mean, we’re talkin’ viral.”
“Like Internet viral?” Doug asks.
The sound of creaking footsteps down the hallway prevents Cate from responding right away. Gordon Bay, the president’s lawyer—eighties, disheveled hair, black bushy eyebrows, a hunched back—comes thumping down the hall with his cane. Framed by the poker room doorway, Mr. Bay stops to zip his fly, then looks over at Doug.
“Senator Wallace!” he says, delighted to see him utilizing the space as a new member of the club.
Doug switches gears as if he’s fucking Jekyll and Hyde, a charming smile on command: “Sir.” He goes to shake his hand. A young brunette bobbles behind Mr. Bay with a glass of bubbly. She wipes the corners of her mouth with her acrylic nails.
“Uhh, this is Cat,” Doug says, looking at Cate. She looks back at him confused, irritated.
“Well now, don’t you forget to tip.” Mr. Bay winks. “You know the old blackmailing legend here, don’t ya?” He tries to hit Doug in the arm but misses and almost falls over.
Doug guides him gently back out to the hallway. “I do, I do. I’ll be sure to leave double the average, Counsel.”
“Thatta boy.”
“Make sure he doesn’t fall down the stairs,” Doug says to his mistress.
“I’m taking good care of him, Mr. Senator.” She winks as they move away.
Cate stands, hand on hip, an incredulous look across her face. “Did you just imply that I was your prostitute? What is this? A flophouse for retired White House cabinet members?!”
“Relax, I told you, you’re not supposed to be here.”
“But I am if I’m your prostitute.”
“Cate.” Doug goes to her, cupping his hands around her flushed cheeks. “That was the president’s lawyer, he cannot know about any of this. If it doesn’t look good for me, it doesn’t look good for you. Particularly in your new role as communications director,” he says in a manipulative tone.
Cate places her hands over his and pushes them off her cheeks. “Fine.”
“So I need to get Mackenzie’s phone and you need to get Bunny’s,” Doug says, forming a game plan.
“And we need to not only confiscate the recording, but we need to scroll through their messages, their apps, anyplace where they could have potentially sent the video,” Cate adds.
“Right.”
“Doug, do you know how to go through the apps?” Cate gives him a patronizing look.
Doug looks flustered.
“Just get her phone and bring it to the office. I’ll send for a fixer to clean it up,” Cate says.
“Great—and you’ll do the same for Bunny’s phone.”
“Yep. We don’t have a lot of time. Where’s Mackenzie now?” Cate asks.
“Christmas shopping with Betsy.”
“Get hold of it, and I’ll meet you at the office in the morning.” Cate wraps herself in her trench coat, and heads for the stairwell.
“Oh, and Cate?” Doug turns to her. “I’m really not a racist, I swear.”
Cate swings her purse over her shoulder. “You know, Doug, people who lie to others don’t bother me—it’s people who lie to themselves that end up getting completely fucked.” A stare-down, neither one knowing if they can trust the other; then Cate turns away, leaving Doug speechless. As Cate descends the wooden staircase, the sound of a turbulent landing of God knows what—shattered porcelain and wood maybe—comes from the downstairs drawing room. Startled, she pauses on her way to the front door and peers into the room. Gordon Bay is sitting in a Chesterfield chair, staring at the floor. Split-pea soup oozes across the floorboards near the frayed fringes of a snapped rope—the dumbwaiter broke. He picks up the crystal service bell, panicked: ding ding ding ding ding ding.
CHAPTER FORTY
A black Suburban makes its way down a dirt driveway lined with anemic weeping willows and scattered haystacks. As the vehicle carrying Billy, General Montgomery, and his attorney approaches the old millhouse, an American flag whips around itself. There
