The Means Page 25

  She stares at him. His expression is the same. “My, my, you’re a devious one. Hypothetically.”

  “Just like that, you bring down an innocent man.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. But that’s an interesting story.”

  “Then you sent me in like a military drone. I break the story.”

  “Ha. I like that.”

  “How do you think this doesn’t catch up with you?”

  “Let’s depersonalize this because, as I said, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. But in the context of your interesting story, how would anything catch up with anyone?”

  “You coerced false testimony. Conspiracy.”

  “In your fantasy land, let’s assume that happened. This is a fourteen-year-old incident. You’ve read everything about it that I have. There isn’t enough evidence to convict Mason and there isn’t enough to exonerate him. And so there isn’t enough to go after Monica, either. Nobody can prove anything so people just have to make up their own minds.” He smiles. “Anyway, you’re missing the point. Again. It’s not about going to jail, for anyone. That was never going to happen. It’s about politics, winning elections. If the other side could have made some of America think Tom Pauley is a bad guy who might commit a crime and doesn’t deserve your vote, of course they would do it. It’s their moral duty to do it.” He points at her. “You think Terry Stanton at the NEA wasn’t out to get Pauley? We’re all doing the same thing, Sam.”

  “And Reese Kinard?”

  “Are you suggesting I murdered her? Absolutely not. She took herself out of the picture all by herself.”

  “What about Monica? Isn’t she a loose end? You going to kill her?”

  “I suppose the character in your fiction could have been motivated by a number of things. Maybe hate, maybe money, maybe both. It’s all in public records that there’s a website set up to help her through this hardship. Maybe some big donations came in from people concerned that she was a victim of a man like Mason, but that’s all aboveboard and public information. There’s no lid to blow off, sweetheart.”

  Asshole. “What if she talks?”

  “So what? Her credibility is already on a cliff’s edge. Then she reverses her story? With no evidence to point in either direction?” He wants to say “sweetheart” again. “Would you unseat a sitting president on that?”

  Samantha is silent.

  “What’s done is done. In your little story.”

  Samantha doesn’t notice her friend until she leans into the space between Samantha and Connor and says hello. Barbara Conrad is still wearing her purple puffy coat stuffed with down that comes below the knee. She’s taken off a pair of earmuffs that wrap behind her head so her hair is still in good shape.

  “Barbie, hi.” Samantha draws herself and her energy back from Connor for a moment and decides not to introduce them. She decides that when Connor is gone she won’t tell Barbie about any of it. It would sound like an improbable conspiracy theory and a waste of time for a responsible journalist. A work of dark fiction.

  Barbara presses her cheek against Samantha’s to say hi and wonders what she’s just interrupted.

  “Barbie, I need one more minute. I’m sorry.” Barbara nods, not feeling put out at all. Unpleasant things happen with men all the time and she’s looking forward to hearing the details after this guy is gone. She walks to the other end of the bar.

  Connor watches her go, thinking of her as a civilian following a false god and that she’ll be happier that way. He knows Samantha is not a civilian anymore.

  Samantha watches Connor. He turns back to her and he says, “I told you I’m a fixer. Look it up. In the dictionary. It means to mend, repair.” He takes the last sip of his scotch. “It also means to adjust or arrange.” This is the part of the job he loves the most. Finding a person he can tell just enough about it. He says, “Don’t question the methods employed by Providence, Sam. You just need to know that it couldn’t be any other way.” His gloating is almost complete. “What’s done is done. Don’t you think Pauley is the better man anyway?”

  “Maybe what’s done is done and maybe not. Even I can name four people who know everything. Three of them were in this room tonight.”

  This sounds desperate and hollow. People with power don’t make vague threats. They let the power speak for itself. Samantha knows this. Connor knows this exactly. “Sure thing, sweetheart. You broke the story. What are you going to do, unbreak it? That wouldn’t look very good.” He puts down his empty glass. “By the way, I think you’re damn good on TV.”

  This is just how he wants to leave the conversation so he does and walks right off through the exit. Samantha refuses to watch him go. She stares through the space where he had been standing. She sips the gin and tonic which has too much tonic that is flat and tastes sweet, then looks at Barbara.

  Barbie is still in her unzipped purple coat, watching Samantha, knowing something is wrong and waiting for a signal about what to do. Samantha creates a story in her mind that Connor is a lobbyist for the NRA and was sharing off-the-record information about pending gun control legislation.

  She doesn’t want to talk about what Connor has done. Someone like Barbara couldn’t know from her far distance that the system that succeeds every time in the election of officials and the transfer of power is, from up close, so ugly.

  57

  Something Connor Marks said stayed with Samantha. Every media organization reported on the hit-and-run allegation. She doesn’t need to unbreak that story, she needs to break the real story.

  The mistake Connor made is the same that all narcissists make. Narcissists are capable of anticipating the behavior of another only by anticipating what their own behavior would be if in the other’s position.

  Samantha gets to work. She finds the Miami cop from the Delano Hotel who first introduced her to Connor Marks and who had been angry with her for her part in the Meadow Jones case. He can identify Connor Marks as a fixer but nothing more.

  She finds Charlie Keating, her driver and photographer in Miami, who relates the way in which Connor Marks manipulated the Meadow Jones interviews.

  She reaches the office of Kenny Landers who had been at the bar in Georgetown with Connor Marks the night of the inauguration, but he does not respond.

  Monica Morris does not respond. Samantha digs up all she can on the fund-raising website in support of Monica, and who the donors are.

  There are few tracks left by Connor himself. Samantha has cell phone records proving they spoke on several occasions, and she has contemporaneous notes that describe where Connor pointed her and the mission he gave her.

  There’s no smoking gun. It’s her interviews, supported by her notes and emails along with a few stories from people like Charlie Keating that fit a pattern.

  It’s not enough. There’s no story. There’s nothing for anyone to go on unless she can link Connor Marks with Monica Morris, and Monica has either been paid enough or is scared enough not to cooperate.

  Then Samantha has an idea.

  58

  “I need to vent.” Samantha sits across the unsteady wood table from Robin in Le Grainne Cafe in Chelsea. Her college friend is a safe person to share a load with.

  “I already ordered the bottle of Sancerre,” says Robin. Ethan Hawke is a few tables behind them in his usual place of prominence by the window, attracting gawkers. The café is the right amount of bohemian for his image.

  “It’s important that you know me this well.” The waitress pours the wine into two glasses that are spotty but clean enough.

  They touch glasses in a silent toast and Robin waits for Samantha.

  “I have so much to tell you. Some of it I should keep confidential. For now, because I’m going to report on it, but those are just small details.”

  “I hope you’ll start by telling me about Tom P
auley. You never mentioned that one to me before and he’s hot. Usually they don’t look like Harry Hamlin in real life.”

  “He’s a good man. It was just one of those things that happens when you’re working too hard and then drinking too much. I was his associate on a case so we had a few months of working those crazy hours together. It happened and it was over almost as fast.”

  “I don’t care about that. I want to know how the sex was.”

  Samantha laughs and drinks. “Nine.”

  “Pretty good for a head of state. And that was before he was head of state. The extra cachet could put him over the top.” Robin catches herself talking too loudly. She leans in and whispers, “Sorry,” then pours more wine.

  “This issue doesn’t have to do with Pauley. It’s Mason.” Samantha is whispering too. At 3:30 p.m. it’s between mealtimes so the café is only half full with coffee drinkers and a few crepe eaters. Nobody is near enough to hear a whisper.

  “Okay.”

  “He didn’t do it. The hit-and-run.”

  “I figured there’s a good chance that woman is a crackpot.”

  “It’s more than that. She was a piece in a plan. People organized a lot of pieces to make this seem credible.”

  “What people?”

  “That’s the confidential part, but they organized me. They gave me facts but all organized, secondhand information.”

  “But facts are facts.”

  “Presentation matters. It’s like wearing the preprinted T-shirts with the wrong Super Bowl champs on them.”

  Robin frowns. “It’s not like that. Those are factually wrong. We donate them to third world countries.”

  “Monica Morris is factually wrong. I put her story out without enough skepticism.”

  “Her story was going to get out no matter what. Everyone reported on it and nobody could show it was a lie. Still nobody can show it’s a lie.”

  “But I broke the story. I let it out with a bang but now I have an idea how to close it down with a bang.”

  The waitress comes back and they each order a Nutella crepe. Ethan Hawke is people-watching the people watching him. “He wouldn’t have settled on you for the leak if he’d ever seen you litigate a case.” Robin sips her wine with one hand. With the other hand the tips of her fingers caress her collarbone and she looks at Samantha, worried. “Don’t do anything dangerous.”

  “I don’t think I’m in danger. Any daylight would make these people go underground, not attack.”

  “Don’t be so sure you know who you’re dealing with.”

  “I’m not worried about danger from those people. They’re not part of my plan anyway. I just need to talk with Monica Morris, but to your point, I’m not sure I know who I’m dealing with.”

  “That’s easy. She’s crazy.”

  “She’s at least a little crazy, but I don’t know if she’s a malicious opportunist who knew what she was doing. If she is, that’ll make this easy. If she’s a broken woman who was exploited and didn’t understand the consequences of what she was doing, it’ll be harder. I don’t want to hurt her. I’ll have to weigh whether or not to use anything I get because right now I don’t know another way to set this right. I’m actually hoping she has no remorse. I’ll feel better about going after her.”

  Robin smiles. “I said you’d be right in the middle of it all.”

  “For better or worse.”

  “I know you. For better.”

  59

  “Round trip to Rye,” says Samantha. She had looked for thirty seconds for a ticket kiosk in the massive Grand Central lobby before doing it the old-fashioned way.

  “Track twenty-one.” The attendant hands her a credit-card-sized piece of paper.

  It’s fifty minutes on the local Metro North train to Rye. Samantha then walks Purchase Street to Boston Post Road and it takes her twenty minutes to get to Rye High School.

  She shows her press credentials to the administrator at reception, who recognizes her anyway and knows that about twenty-five years ago on Latch Key, Samantha played the younger sister of the Rye High drama teacher.

  “How fun. Melissa is in the auditorium now, finishing a class. I’ll take you over there.” Security at suburban schools is tight but a little celebrity goes a long way.

  They enter the auditorium from the back and look down the stadium-­style seating to the stage where Melissa Evers and about twenty students are sprawled in a cluster.

  “I’ll wait here and watch, thank you.” Samantha sits in the dim light of the back row.

  The students are reclined around Melissa on the stage. She reviews a rehearsal schedule then dismisses the class and all the bodies stand and move off the sides of the stage then up the steps past Samantha.

  Melissa is three years older than Samantha, both on the show and in real life. When Latch Key ended, Melissa was fifteen. She stayed around the loop of acting in L.A. for ten years trying to make her transition from child actor to actor. It was ten years of nervousness and rejection, of having to create an image of herself for herself, then picking up the pieces after each audition.

  Watching dozens of friends live the same reality, it became harder to rationalize an alternate reality for her own life. She moved to New York to find work in daytime soaps. She found unsteady work, did guest appearances on Law & Order, and tried stand-up comedy. Then the work stopped coming at all. She was banished from the dreams that used to nourish her and she took the job at Rye High. She became happy for the first time in two decades.

  Samantha claps from the back row. Melissa squints toward the noise and doesn’t recognize her. Samantha starts down the steps, still clapping.

  “Bravo.” The voice gives her up.

  “Samantha?”

  “You’re as beautiful as ever.” Melissa is blond with blue eyes and no less beautiful than any of the five hundred thousand other women her age that have wanted to be in the movies.

  “So are you. What a nice surprise to see you.”

  Samantha doesn’t want to ask the favor just yet. “It’s great to see you. It transports me back twenty-five years.”

  “Please. Don’t depress me.”

  Samantha holds up her arms. “This is beautiful.”

  “It’s suburbia.” This is not an endorsement.

  “I walked here from the train. Quite a town.”

  “I live in Port Chester. The town over. Much more affordable. This is a pretty wealthy set here, but nice-enough people.”

  Samantha says, “Do you have a few minutes to catch up?”

  “Sure. I have about an hour. Do you want coffee?”

  “No.”

  “Then let’s stay here. I usually hide down here most of the day.” She pulls two wooden chairs together on the stage. “I’ve seen you on TV a few times. You’re doing great.”

  “Thanks.”

  “The first time I saw you was on the Meadow Jones murder case. You were all over the place. And your reporting on President Mason and the hit-and-run caused a big stir. I haven’t followed that since the election. What’s happening with that now?”

  “He’s innocent.”

  “Really? I knew it! I hadn’t heard that yet.”

  “It’s not really out there yet.”

  Melissa frowns. “Why not?”

  “That’s why I’m here. I need your help.”

  “My help?”

  “I need a talented actress.”

  “For what?”

  “If I spring for JetBlue tickets, would you take a flight with me to Palm Beach? The whole thing is probably two days.”

  “When?”

  “How about next week?”

  “Is this for UBS?”

  “Sort of, but it’s unofficial, which is why I’m here.”

  “This has to do with President Mason?”

>   “I can’t guarantee there’s no danger to you.”

  Melissa would take a bullet for a great role. She brushes away the warning with a hand motion.

  Samantha believes her plan will pose little danger to Melissa. “If you’re in, I’ll give you the details.”

  “I’m in.”

  60

  “How is Connor?”

  “He’s fine. He’s doing well and he wants to make sure you’re okay too.”

  “When do you think I can see him?”

  “It may be a while, Monica. Maybe a couple years. Maybe more. I’m sorry.” Melissa does feel a little sorry for Monica Morris. The woman is alone and upset and though she must have known on some level what she was getting involved with, she couldn’t have known what it would feel like to have media stationed outside her condo for weeks, following her movements around town. The last she had heard from Connor was not to travel, not to do anything different, so she has stayed immobile in the center of chaos. “Connor wants everything to go through me for now,” Melissa says.

  “Okay.”

  “This must be so hard for you, Monica.” Melissa’s goal to start is to be sympathetic. Monica is scared and isolated. Melissa needs to be a shoulder for her, build trust, get her talking, and be vague about everything in return. Don’t go for anything until Monica likes Melissa enough that she wants the meeting to be longer rather than shorter.

  “It’s been horrible.” It feels good for Monica to be able to say that to another person. For someone to hear that and understand it. To validate her. Monica has another thought. “So I won’t see Alan anymore? Did something happen to him?”