“In what sense?” Hawke asked as Stoke turned into the underground garage. At the security booth, the guard leaned into the car, saw Hawke holding up his pass, and, smiling, waved them in.
“In the sense that you don’t ever understand nothing about women.” Stoke pulled the Hummer into a space and shut it down. “For instance, you got a perfectly good woman upstairs waiting for you, totally in love with your ass. Now, you chasing around with Vicky.”
“So?”
“I don’t know. What’s going on with Conch?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, well, maybe you still working in there, too, is all I’m saying.”
“I’d never do that, Stoke,” Hawke said, reaching for the door handle. “It wouldn’t be chivalrous.”
“Chivalrous? Oh, yeah. I forgot. Wouldn’t be chivalrous.”
“Are you coming in?”
“No, I ain’t coming in that building. That place spooks me. All them chivalrous white people running around wearing them little polka-dot bow ties and shit. Place is spooky.”
“Matter of fact, I’m meeting a couple of spooks. That’s why I’m here,” Hawke said, smiling at Stokely. “I’ll be about an hour, if you want to go get yourself something to eat.”
Stoke watched Hawke walk away.
Spooks?
Is that what the man said? Wasn’t very damn chivalrous, now, was it?
21
Spooks, here I come.
Hawke was still grinning at Stoke’s obvious misinterpretation of the word when the elevator arrived. He showed his badge to the stoic marine twins at the metal detector, and passed through into the elevator.
Reaching the top floor, the very kingdom of spookdom, Hawke returned the salutes of two more marines standing duty by the double doors to the secretary’s outer office. Both wore odd expressions, he thought, until he looked down at his own wardrobe.
Marines, apparently, were unaccustomed to visitors wearing flip-flops.
“Ah. Yes. Just flew up from the Bahamas,” he said as one of the marines pulled the door open. “Called the secretary from the plane. Wanted me to come directly from the airport. No time to change, you see.”
Entering the outer office, now feeling self-conscious about his appearance, he thought he saw a familiar face behind the reception desk.
“Sarah?” he said hopefully. Sarah? Sally? “It’s Alex Hawke. Remember me?”
A pretty, heavyset woman in her mid-forties looked up into his face. “Good Lord,” she said. “I mean, why, Lord Hawke! Well. What a surprise! I certainly don’t have you down in my book this early! Wonderful to see you, your lordship!”
Hawke started to say something, then bit his lip. He’d always found his title a little embarrassing and off- putting. He allowed no one to use his title except his butler, Pelham, who threatened to quit if he could not use his employer’s proper title. Still, this was hardly a time to press the issue.
“And you as well, Sarah,” Hawke said. “Now, look at you. You’ve changed your hair. It’s most becoming, I must say.”
“And look at you,” Sarah said, fighting the pink flush she knew was rising up her throat. “You look—”
“Dreadful,” Hawke said. “I know. Sorry. I just flew in, actually. Your boss insisted I come here straightaway so I had no time to, you know, tidy up.”
“They must be expecting you, Lord Hawke,” Sarah said. “Please go right in.”
The double mahogany doors swung open and Hawke strode into the secretary of state’s office.
“Hello, good looking! Bienvenidos!” the secretary said, moving toward him with her slender arms outstretched. She was tall and elegantly dressed. Something from Paris, Hawke guessed. Her glorious hair fell in a blue-black curtain to her shoulders.
Consuelo de los Reyes, only in office a few months, was already the most photographed secretary of state in history. You were just as likely to see her on the cover of W or Vanity Fair as on the cover of Time. Alex embraced his old friend and inhaled the familiar perfume.
“The new secretary, herself. You look absolutely gorgeous, Conch,” Alex said.
“And you look absolutely ridiculous, Hawke.”
Despite the wardrobe, she still found him impossibly attractive. Six-three and right around 180 pounds. The wavy black hair, going the slightest bit gray at the temples. The bushy black eyebrows over those intense blue eyes. The imperiously straight nose above the firm lips, the constant hint of mischief in the grin lurking around the mouth. In that cursory appraisal, she instantly remembered why she’d fallen so hard.
“Reporting as ordered, sir.” Hawke grinned, executing a snappy salute. “Straightaway from the airport. Your assistant said you told her to, quote, ‘get his ass over here.’”
“Yeah, well, pardon my effing French. I haven’t got all that bureaucratic protocol crap down yet, but I’m working on it.”
“Suggestion. Don’t ever get it down.”
Conch smiled. “Bingo. So you flew up here in that get-up?”
“The marines outside considered it quite a fashion statement. Not the foggiest what that statement is, nonetheless a statement.”
“Let’s see,” she said, rubbing her chin and eyeing him carefully. “I would call it Haute Margaritaville, as a matter of fact. Cute. Wildly inappropriate, but cute.”
The secretary was a huge fan of the American singer Jimmy Buffett. She’d gotten Alex hooked on him to the point where he now played Buffett CDs aboard his yacht and in his planes constantly. His current favorite, he noticed, was now playing softly in her office. “Beach House on the Moon.”
“Do me a small favor, Conch?”
“Name it.”
“Turn up ‘Beach House’ just a smidge?”
“No way,” she whispered. “And, please. I know it’s difficult but try and act professional. I’m the secretary of state now, Alex.”
Hawke smiled at her. “Oh, right. I forgot.”
“Yeah, well. Next time you see your pal the president, tell him to stop playing grabass with me every time I’m alone with him in the Oval Office, okay?”
“Yes, Madame Secretary.”
The secretary’s family, de los Reyes, was one of the oldest sugar families in Cuba. They’d lost thousands of acres when Fidel entered Havana, and the secretary’s father had moved his whole family to Key West. Bought a large Victorian just across the road from Truman’s Little White House. Consuelo had grown up a true citizen of the Conch Republic, bonefishing, drinking beer, swearing like a sailor.
After earning her doctorate in political science at Harvard, and before entering politics, Conch had taken a few years off. Returning to her beloved Florida Keys, she’d become one of the best bonefishing guides in the islands. Hawke had spent a week under her tutelage at Islamorada Key and fallen for her almost immediately.
In addition to being the most beautiful woman he’d ever known, she could spot the mere shadow of an elusive bone sliding over the shallows at sixty yards. After a glorious week in the Keys, fishing the flats, drinking beer, and listening to Buffett while the sun went down, he was hooked. That was all long ago, but it was a time neither of them had forgotten, nor were they likely to forget.
Conch took Hawke by the hand and led him across an expanse of richly colored Aubusson rug to the large windows overlooking the Lincoln Memorial. It was still snowing, but you could see the majestic structure where Lincoln sat.
“I see you’ve moved your office,” Hawke said.
“I did,” she replied. “To be able to see my hero over there. He helps me, Alex, I promise you. Now, let me introduce you to my colleagues.”
