Ed, a little relieved, interrupted and spoke from experience, “Chile and Bolivia haven’t actually been the friendliest of neighbours…”
“Exactly,” said Gregory. “Dr Diaz was an official envoy who Chile dispatched to Bolivia for secret negotiations aimed at resuming diplomatic relations. Isabel, he met your mother… a local… and one thing led to another, and they married.”
“That’s it?” said Bill.
“All I can get so far,” Gregory responded, “but there’s obviously an angle to this that we’re missing. I’ve already put a team onto researching this guy… to see if there were any scandals.”
“Greg, so what are your thoughts?” asked Ed, nervously scratching his pinkie stump against a knuckle on his other hand.
Gregory was taken aback yet felt foiled at the same time. When it seemed he’d finally earned Ed’s respect, damn it, he didn’t have the answers to keep it. “I mean, sure, call in Isabel and tell her on camera. Human interest… ra-ra… but why ask Bill? Unless it has… you know, implications.” He said “implications” as if he’d put heavy quotation marks around it.
SATURDAY night marched up on them, yet nobody was any wiser. Isabel had packed for her flight to Detroit. Gregory was holed up in the campaign War Room to command the team effort. This would be his fifteenth call to her that day, according to the log he kept—for the eventual book—but this time it was to tell her to flick on her TV. Gregory already had Bill Edwards and Hank Clemens on the same line.
“Where were you when JFK was shot?” the crass voiceover teased with its text in white on a simple black screen. “Where were you on 9/11? And where will you be tomorrow night when Close-up reveals a story that will also shake the nation?”
The screen then cut to a clip of Isabel at one of her conquering rallies, and the announcer went on:
“Tomorrow night, Close-up’s new Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent Mike Mandrake… in a searing, groundbreaking report… will reveal presidential candidate Isabel Diaz’s real story. His report will fracture this election… it will change American history. Whatever you do, don’t miss it. Tomorrow night…”
Unilaterally, Ed punched the remote and switched off the TV. “Why would your mother lie to you? Makes no sense. But who really cares if he was a Chilean diplomat? At least he wasn’t a drug dealer!” Ed wasn’t particularly directing his questions and comments to Isabel or Gregory or Bill Edwards or, for that matter, Hank Clemens, but all of them were mentally saying the same things.
“Mothers lie all the time,” said Bill in an unusually flat, soft tone, as if he was trying not to remember something painful.
“Or maybe, Isabel, you remembered some things wrong?” suggested Hank.
“Gregory, I’m not doing the show,” said Isabel, standing again to make her point though it was an unseen gesture to those on the other end of the phone.
“But Ed said… and I promised them,” Gregory pleaded, brushing his hand over his bald head as if he had nowhere to hide.
“Tell them you misunderstood,” she said.
Ed smiled, but Gregory didn’t.
OVER in LA, Elia was pulling another piece off a quattro stagioni pizza. She and her boyfriend had just seen the Close-up promo. Simon muted the sound and finished chewing. “So?” he said, his eyes drilling into her.
Elia looked embarrassed and picked at a piece of olive. “Really, I don’t know. Mandrake flew back to DC for the shoot and no one’s talking. It’s like there’s a lockdown.”
“You’ve got to find out, Elia.”
“I can’t.”
Abruptly, Simon stood and stared down at her.
“Okay, I’ll try,” she said.
21
NIKI’S BUTTER-CREAM LEGS brushed against the green sheets, revealing her at her best…
Niki Abbott was no egotist. A hedonist, yes. A sybarite and a sensualist, absolutely. Tonight would be perfect. If you were going to do someone like Robert J. Foster, the presidential candidate himself, it needed to be momentous. Breathtaking. Tonight demanded far more than quickie sex in a vice-presidential hotel shower stall.
Tonight, Foster would receive more than he’d ever dreamed of, and given his track record that was saying something. In two hours, Candidate Foster would be on his own knees, praising the Lord.
She looked up at the ceiling mirror to ogle herself. Voluptuous. Niki loved how when you said that word out loud, your tongue did what it meant. Voluptuous. Loose lips sink ships, she smiled.
Niki’s fingers feathered herself, and the high gloss of her nails winked sparks back at the sun that was streaming in between the slats of the venetians.
Bobby Foster would indeed have his breath taken away.
22