You’ve got to give him credit — he was trying. His face glistened with perspiration.
Not a shred of proof,” he continued hoarsely. “Even if it’s true, it has nothing to do with us. Now get the hell out of here, and if I near a whisper about you being here tonight — from any of you people — the world is going to cave in on you.”
Dorsey continued to study Royston’s face. Sonnenberg put a hand on her arm to draw her away, and she brushed it off.
“I do have proof,” Jake Grafton said simply. “In the last few days we have done DNA testing. Michael O’Shea has living relatives. One of them is Jimmy O’Shea, a brother who lives in Brooklyn. With the help of his barber, we obtained samples of his hair. There is no doubt, Mr. Royston. You are Jimmy O’Shea’s brother and Dorsey O’Shea’s father. You, Ms. Sonnenberg, are Dorsey’s mother.”
Dorsey approached Zooey. “You never told me Dell was my father.”
Zooey couldn’t avoid those eyes.
“Your whole life has been a lie, Mom,” Dorsey continued, her voice cracking like old glass. “You helped him murder that woman! Everything you said, everything you did was a lie designed to get you elected to the presidency.”
“Dorsey, I—“
“Don’t touch me!” She backed up slowly, a step at a time. “All these years I thought my father was dead. You told me he was dead. But you never told me he murdered his wife and you helped him do it!”
She wheeled and slapped Dell Royston with a sound that cracked like a pistol shot.
“Royston,” said Myron Emerick, “you’re under arrest.”
“What’s the charge?”
“First degree murder of Kelly Erlanger. One of the admiral’s friends was listening to her cell phone conversations. That will do for starters, but I think by arraignment time we’ll have a couple dozen murders to charge you with. We picked up your executive assistant earlier this evening — he hasn’t stopped talking. Then two men broke into the admiral’s house tonight. They are now under arrest and are also telling everything they know.”
You could have knocked me over with a feather when Royston said, “Do you have a warrant?” I didn’t think he had any juice left at that point, but apparently he was tougher than I thought.
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Emerick removed a document from a coat pocket and passed it to Royston. He glanced at Sonnenberg. “I have one for you, too, Ms. Sonnenberg, charging you as an accessory.”
Zooey turned on Royston. “You could take care of it, you said. The presidency of the United States was—.” She held out both hands and closed them into fists. “You!” I had never in my life heard such venom in just one word.
She turned and stalked into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
I was hanging on to the bar by this time. My trousers were sodden with blood, the room was spinning, the faces were going in and out of focus. I knew it was loss of blood, not the cognac— which was mighty tasty — so I had another gulp.
On the bar beside me was a phone. I saw one of the two lines illuminate. I waited a decent interval — like maybe thirty seconds while Dorsey sobbed and one of the agents installed a set of handcuffs on Royston — then I picked up the phone and punched that line.
Zooey was talking. “… Emerick arrested Dell and — who is listening on this line?”
Of course they could hear the commotion going on around me. “Uh, Tommy Carmellini, Ms. Sonnenberg. Eavesdropping’s a bad habit, I know. Hope you don’t mind.”
Apparently the president didn’t care who else was listening. Before she could tell me to hang up and go to hell, he said, “Zooey, the attorney general is here along with the chief of staff. They tell me that if you are alive when Emerick is ready to leave that suite you’re in, he intends to arrest you as an accessory to murder. He has a warrant in his pocket. Tomorrow morning I am announcing a new choice for vice president. You decide how you want the headlines to read.”
“Those are my only choices?”
“Those two.”
“You bastard! All these years holding your hand and smiling while you tomcatted around and made me a laughingstock! This is what I get for all those years of humiliation! Well, I’m not going silently in a box so you can weep at the funeral and march bravely on. Oh, no! I’m going to tell the press everything — everythingF Her voice rose to a shriek. “When I get through you won’t be able to win an election for constable in any county in the country.”
“Good-bye, Zooey,” he said tightly, and broke the connection.
I cradled the telephone and drained the last of the cognac.
Emerick jerked his head at one of his agents. “Get him out of here,” he said, pointing at Royston.
They cuffed Royston’s hands in front of him. “Listen, Emerick—” he began.
“Can it,” the director shot back. “They’ll read you your rights down in the car.”
“For God’s sake — my wife! My kids!”
“You’ll get your telephone call after they book you.” Emerick again jerked his head at the agents, and they hustled Royston out of the room.
Dorsey shrank into a fetal position in one corner. I wondered if I ought to try to say something comforting, but the truth was I was in no condition to even walk over to her. Time passed — I don’t know how much — while everyone in the room stood around waiting… waiting for Zooey to slit her wrists in the tub or come strutting out of the bedroom dressed for a press conference, I guess.
How long they stood there looking at each other I don’t know. I remember thinking I should have said something to the president — I had missed my only chance to talk to a head of state. Somewhere in there the evening ended for me. I passed out about that time and did a header off the stool. Never did have much of a head for liquor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The ambulance crew was still in the suite loading Carmellini on a stretcher when Mikhail Goncharov whispered to Callie, “May I leave now?”
“Certainly.” Callie didn’t know what the CIA or FBI hon-chos would think of Goncharov’s departure, but she didn’t intended to ask them. They were huddled in the corner with Jake Grafton.
After catching her husband’s eye, Callie followed Goncharov out into the corridor and through the crowd in the hallway to the elevator. Secret Service, police, FBI agents, paramedics, and hotel executives — the crowd was beginning to thin now that the first lady and Royston had been taken away in handcuffs. Callie and Goncharov boarded the elevator, watched the door close. No one made any move to stop them.
They made their way through the lobby. People were whispering, watching the paramedics and police hustling about, speculating on what had happened.
Outside the main entrance on the Avenue of the Americas, un-
der the awning, Goncharov told Callie, “I don’t want to go back to the CIA or British intelligence.”
“I don’t think they really need you,” she said. “The British copied your files.”
Goncharov snorted. “I suppose I knew they would.” He laughed without humor. “I was very naive.”
Callie ignored that comment. “Where do you want to go?” she asked.
Goncharov took a deep breath as he considered it. He looked right, then left, looked up at the buildings, then back at Callie. “I don’t know. Somewhere. I don’t speak a word of the language, I have no money, but this is what I want. This—.” He gestured grandly with his hand.
Callie opened her purse, took out all her cash, and held it out to him. “Here.”
“No.”
“Yes.” She said the word in English. “Yes.” Then in Russian, “This isn’t much, but it will feed you for a while. Tens of millions of people have come to America and started over — thousands do it every day — and you can, too. A little money will help.”
