Blood Money

She glanced at her husband, then at Jack. “Well, you know, we have-”

“Ellen,” said Bennett.

She pursed her lips, the words coming like a reflex: “We don’t know,” she said.

Jack let her response hang in the air, watching her, seeing her discomfort. “It’s a funny thing,” said Jack. “Going all the way back to day one as Sydney’s lawyer, I’ve never had a one-on-one conversation with Ellen. It’s always been me, Ellen, and you.”

“With good reason,” said Bennett.

Jack’s gaze remained fixed on Mrs. Bennett. He knew it would lead nowhere, but he wanted to plant the seed. “Do you think that would be possible-a conversation, just the two of us?”

“No,” said Mr. Bennett.

Theo was again on the verge of eruption. “Jack was talking to-”

“I don’t care who he’s talking to,” said Bennett. “Look, you two come into my house, acting like we have all the answers, like this is easy for us. Do you have any idea how many medications Ellen has taken over the last three years, Mr. Swyteck? Do you know what it’s like to be afraid to step outside your house, to have to run back to your car and get away from reporters every time you go to the grocery story?”

“It has to be tough, I know.”

“No, you don’t know. This has been more than Ellen can bear. So you can think whatever you want about why I do the talking. But you, Faith Corso, and everyone else in this screwed-up world who wants time alone with Ellen can just shove it. I am not going to let you take my wife into some back room, tear her down, and push her back into depression, all to serve your own agenda. At some point a man has to step in and protect what’s left of his family.”

“I just want to have a conversation,” said Jack.

“No, you don’t,” said Bennett. “Everyone in this room knows that this Brian Hewitt is going to point his finger at someone. Maybe your interests will align with ours, Mr. Swyteck. Or maybe they won’t. Tomorrow morning I’m calling an attorney to represent Ellen and me, and I’m sure the first thing he’ll tell us is don’t talk to anyone. I’ve been far more accommodating to you than necessary. This has gone on long enough, gentlemen.”

Bennett rose. Jack and Theo stayed in their seats.

“The conversation is over,” said Bennett, his tone firmer.

Slowly, Jack and Theo rose. Jack thanked Mrs. Bennett, and then he and Theo followed her husband to the foyer. They stopped before opening the screen door.

“Be sure to pass along to your girlfriend what I just told you,” said Bennett. “If the FBI wants to question us again, she should call our lawyer.”

“That’s your right,” said Jack.

Bennett opened the door, showing them out. The screen door closed behind them. “Might not be a bad idea for you to get yourself a lawyer, too,” Bennett said through the screen. “You just never know who Mr. Hewitt might implicate.”

It didn’t sound like a threat, but it didn’t sound like an idle observation, either. It was somewhere in between.

“Very true,” said Jack. “You never know.”

He started down the front steps, Theo at his side. The porch light went black before they reached the driveway.

“Scumbag liar,” said Theo as they got into the car. “Protect his family. Right.”

“Ellen Bennett is a mess. You can look at her and see it.”

“And we’re supposed to believe it’s all about fear of the media? Come on. Fear of sumptin’, but it ain’t the media. Those walls he put up around her ain’t for her benefit.”

“I know that.”

“Then why’d you just sit there like you’re buying into it. I told you, man. You gotta call a scumbag a scumbag. You can’t let him win.”

“He didn’t win.”

“He did by the count on my scorecard.”

“Theo, I came here with one objective: to throw a lifeline to Ellen Bennett, to make her want to reach out to me and talk, one-on-one. Trading insults with Geoffrey Bennett is a waste of energy.”

Theo dug his keys from his pocket. “Okay, if that’s your strategy, you may be right.”

“I know I’m right.”

“But you’re no damn fun.”

Theo started the engine, the headlights shining across the lawn as they backed out of the driveway. Alongside the house, behind a chain-link fence, Jack spotted the Bennett family’s swimming pool that had figured so prominently in the defense of Sydney Bennett.

“Lots of lies,” said Jack. “Lots and lots of lies.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Sean Keating watched the Faith Corso Show from BNN headquarters in Manhattan. The CEO of BNN couldn’t watch every show on his network, but Keating never missed Corso. Her show had all the markings of his next mega-success.

“Damn, she’s good,” said Keating as the show ended.

His bodyguard nodded in agreement. Roland Sharp had no official title at BNN, but he was known by most as the “Shadow.” Keating rarely set foot outside the building without the Shadow or some other trusted member of the security team at his side, or at least lurking in the background, ready to draw a concealed weapon in defense of one of the most hated CEOs in corporate America. It wasn’t purely paranoia. Hate e-mail arrived by the virtual truckload on a daily basis, and even some death threats had come since Al Jazeera’s profile of Keating and his network’s anti-Islamic bent.

“She’s the best,” said Sharp. They were alone in “the brain room,” a subterranean office that no one at BNN could enter without special clearance.

“Tell Faith I want to see her.”

The Shadow hesitated. The Faith Corso Show had been born in the brain room, but Corso herself had never been invited inside. Her set, however, was not far away, one of several in the windowless expanse below street level. The “BNN bunker,” as people called it, was the gloomy corporate expression of the CEO’s siege mentality, born of Keating’s oft-expressed fears that everyone from Islamic extremists to the Jewish Defense League was out to get him.

“Go,” said Keating. “Bring her.”

His bodyguard left the room, which involved bypassing an alarm and deactivating two electronic locks. Keating rose from his old leather chair to refresh his drink.

Keating loved scotch, and pouring his own glass or two every night was a ritual, his personal reward for another job well done. On the wall behind the bar, right above the bottles of Blue Label, were his two favorite portraits in the entire building. One of Don Corleone. The other, Don Rickles. An old Vanity Fair article about Keating’s creation of the BNN empire had called him a combination of the two. It wasn’t intended as a compliment, but like everything else at BNN, the insult was stripped of all original meaning and spun into something it was never intended to be, something that served the network’s purpose and agenda. In truth, Sean Keating was neither mafioso nor comedian. He was a frustrated political strategist whose on-air remarks in the first and only campaign he had ever managed were so racist that he was fired before the election, and no serious candidate from either party would ever hire him again. Four decades later, the more mature and refined ideology that oozed without apology from each and every one of BNN’s programs was his outlet for those frustrations.

There was a polite knock on the door. Keating checked the security screen and saw Faith Corso outside the door. He buzzed her in, and the door relocked automatically as it closed behind her.

“Faith, come on in,” he said. “Have a seat.”