Dead Man’s List. Mike Lawson
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Название: Dead Man’s List
Автор: Mike Lawson
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Триллеры
isbn: 9780007352494
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He had called Mahoney right after meeting with Marcia Davenport and convinced his boss to meet with him before he left town. Mahoney was on his way to San Francisco to give a lecture at some convention, meaning that he’d adlib a twenty-minute speech, pocket ten thousand dollars, then spend the rest of his time in California touring Napa Valley wineries. And it didn’t appear that he would be touring alone. When the Speaker’s driver opened the rear door of the limo, DeMarco caught a brief glimpse of a shapely leg encased in black hose.
DeMarco had decided it was time to get Mahoney’s advice. The connection between Terry Finley and Paul Morelli made him nervous. Morelli was not only a man in the political stratosphere, he was also a member of Mahoney’s party. DeMarco, therefore, thought it prudent to let Mahoney know what he had learned before proceeding any further.
Mahoney ambled from the limo to the outside table where DeMarco waited. DeMarco was sitting outside because he knew that Mahoney would want to smoke, and would whine if he couldn’t. He sat down heavily and reached across the table to take one of the two paper cups of coffee that DeMarco had purchased. He took a sip of the coffee, winced at the taste, and then dipped into his pocket for his flask, the small silver one embossed with the Marine Corps seal. The seal on the flask matched a tattoo on his right forearm, and when he spoke to veterans’ groups his sleeves were always rolled up. He smacked his lips in satisfaction at his laced coffee and looked a question at DeMarco.
“Dick Finley thinks his son may have been killed,” DeMarco said. If you didn’t start out with a headline, you lost Mahoney’s attention rapidly. DeMarco then told Mahoney about the napkin that had been found in Terry Finley’s wallet and all the other suspicions Dick Finley had about his son’s death.
When he told Mahoney what Neil had learned about the three men on Finley’s list, Mahoney looked at his watch, then over at the limo, and then he said something that surprised DeMarco. “Shit, everybody knows about that stuff. Before Morelli was elected to the Senate, there was an article in the Times, or maybe it was in one of them tight-assed New York magazines. Anyway, the article said how Morelli was so fuckin’ lucky that he oughta be buyin’ lotto tickets instead of workin’.”
“Maybe it wasn’t luck,” DeMarco said.
Mahoney snorted; not an attractive sound. “A guy gets in a wreck; another guy gets caught dippin’ his wick into a secretary; and a third guy is nabbed for porkin’ teenage boys. There’s an old saying, son: Never attribute to malice something that can be explained by stupidity.”
“Good point,” DeMarco said, but he was also rather annoyed that Neil hadn’t told him that everything he’d learned had been written up in a magazine.
“So you think I should drop this?” DeMarco said. “I can take it further, talk to some of these men, go up to New York and see this lady, but…”
“No, I’ll tell you what I want you to do. I want you to go see Paul Morelli.”
“You’re kidding,” DeMarco said.
“No. I may owe Dick Finley—he was a big help to me when I first came to this town—but I owe it to the country to let Paul know what’s going on.” Mahoney finished his coffee and said, “Morelli’s the best thing to happen to the party since FDR—or me—and he’s gonna be the next president of the United States. He’s a good guy—maybe a great guy—so he needs to know that some reporter was trying to dig up dirt on him. And if Terry Finley really was killed, which I doubt, he needs to know that too. So I want you to go talk to him and tell him what you’ve learned. I’ll call him and get you in. Now I got a plane to catch.”
DeMarco’s illusions had been mangled so often by politicians that he thought he should qualify for handicapped parking—but he had to admit that he was pretty impressed with Paul Morelli.
Morelli hailed from a blue-collar family, the youngest of five children. He attended college on a poor-boy scholarship and according to legend, obtained his law degree studying twelve hours a day and doing charitable work in the time remaining. He apparently never slept. Ambitious, brilliant, and charismatic, he took to politics as baby eagles take to the air and became one of the youngest occupants of Gracie Mansion. And as mayor of New York, he was a grand success: crime dipped; no ugly scandals marred his term; labor unions refrained from untimely, crippling strikes. Then off to the Senate he flew, and the Senate, all the commentators concurred, was but a pit stop on his race to the Oval Office.
Certainly the way he looked wasn’t a hindrance. He was a youthful forty-seven, his hair was a curly black crown streaked with just the right amount of gray, and he had a profile that plastic surgeons could use for a template. He was also tall and perfectly proportioned, and if he tired of politics he could model swimwear. But even his critics had to admit that he was more than a pretty face. He was a dazzling strategist, the consummate negotiator, and one of the most eloquent speakers to ever choke a microphone. And the things he spoke of, the causes he championed, the battles he fought were always so…right. The last Democrat with such magnetism had been a man named Kennedy.
When DeMarco rang his doorbell that evening, Morelli answered the door himself. He was dressed casually: an NYU sweatshirt, softlooking beige slacks, and loafers. The sleeves of the sweatshirt were pulled up on his forearms, exposing strong wrists matted with coarse, dark hair. DeMarco felt stiff and overdressed in his suit and tie.
Morelli led DeMarco to a comfortable den, commenting on the warm autumn weather as they walked. Already in the den was a man that Morelli introduced as his chief of staff, Abe Burrows. Burrows sat in one of the two chairs in front of Morelli’s desk and had a stack of paper in his lap that was six inches high. He nodded at DeMarco but didn’t rise to shake his hand.
Unlike Paul Morelli, Burrows wasn’t physically impressive. He was short and overweight, his gut spilling softly over his belt. He had fleshy lips, a lumpy potato of a nose, and thin sandy hair that was styled in a curly Afro in a vain attempt to disguise the fact that he was going bald.
“Abe and I were just going over a few things,” Morelli said with a tired smile. “There just isn’t enough time during the day and I’m going out of town tomorrow.”
Morelli pointed DeMarco to the chair next to Burrows then took a seat in the high-backed chair behind his desk. Even dressed in a sweatshirt, Morelli looked like a man who belonged behind a big desk, giving orders, and DeMarco couldn’t help but feel inadequate. Here was a guy just a few years older than him, yet while Joe DeMarco was a GS-13 in a dead-end job, Paul Morelli was going to be running for president.
“Would you like a cup of coffee, Joe?” Morelli said, and when DeMarco said yes, Morelli glanced over at Burrows. Burrows frowned at being drafted as DeMarco’s waiter, but put the stack of papers aside and left to get the coffee.
“John Mahoney asked me to see you tonight, Joe, but he wasn’t too clear on why. Do you work for John?”
“No, sir, not directly,” DeMarco lied. “I’m just a lawyer who does odd jobs for Congress.” To deflect Morelli from asking more questions about who employed him and what he did, DeMarco said, “By the way, sir, my godfather’s done some work for you.”
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