given time, he’s gonna find the sonofabitch. And a guy looking at life
in prison or maybe the ultimate penalty will talk his head off, believe
me. I’ve seen it happen too many times’ ”
Russell felt a sudden chill. What Burton said made absolute sense. The
President had sounded so convincing. Neither of them had even considered
this line.
“Besides, I don’t know about you, but I don’t plan on spending the rest
of my life looking over my shoulder waiting for that shoe to drop.”
“But how can we find him?”
It amused Burton that the Chief of Staff had fallen in with his plans
without much argument. The value of life apparently did not mean much to
this woman when her personal well-being was threatened. He hadn’t
expected less.
“Before I knew about the letters, I thought we had no chance. But with
blackmail, at some point you gotta have the payoff. And then he’s
vulnerable.”
“But he’ll just ask for a wire transfer. If what you say if true, this
guy’s too smart to be looking for a bag of money ira Dumpster. And we
won’t know where the letter opener will be until long after he’s gone.”
“Maybe, maybe not. You let me worry about that. What is imperative is
that you string the guy along just a bit. If he wants the deal done in
two days, you make it four. Whatever you put in the personals make it
sincere. I’ll leave that up to you, Professor. But you’ve got to buy me
some time.” Burton got up. She grabbed his arm.
“What are you going to do?”
“The less you know about it the better. But you do understand that if
the whole thing blows up, we all go down, including the President?
There’s nothing at this point I could or would do to prevent that. As
far as I’m concerned you both deserve it.”
“You don’t sugarcoat things, do you?”
“Never found it useful.” He put on his coat. “By the way, you realize
that Richmond beat Christine Sullivan up bad, don’t you? From the
autopsy report it looks like he tried to turn her neck into a spaghetti
loop.”
“So I understand. Is that important to know?”
“You don’t have any children, do you?”
Russell shook her head.
“I’ve got four. Two daughters, not much younger than Christine Sullivan.
As a parent you think about things like that. Loved ones getting messed
up by some asshole like that. Just wanted you to know the kind of guy
our boss is.
That is, if he ever gets frisky, you might want to think twice.”
He left her sitting in the living room contemplating her wrecked life.
As he climbed into his ‘car, he took a moment to light a cigarette.
Burton had spent the last few days reviewing the preceding twenty years
of his life. The price being paid to preserve those years was heading
into the stratosphere. Was it worth it? Was he prepared to pay it? He
could go to the cops. Tell them everything. His career would be over, of
course. The police could get him on obstruction of justice, conspiracy
to commit murder, maybe some bullshit manslaughter charge for popping
Christine Sullivan and other assorted nickel-and-dime stuff. It would
all add up, though. Even cutting a deal he was going to do some serious
time. But he could do the time. He could also endure the scandal. All
the shit the papers would write. He’d go down in history as a criminal.
He’d be inextricably linked to the notoriously corrupt Richmond
administration. And yet he could take that, if it came to it. What the
hard-as-rock Bill Burton could not take was the look in his children’s
eyes. He would never again see pride and love. And the absolute and
complete trust that their daddy, this big hulk of a man, was,
indisputably, one of the good guys. That was something that was too
tough even for him.
Those were the thoughts that had been racing through Burton’s head ever
since his talk with Collin. A part of him wished he hadn’t asked. That
he had never found out about the blackmail attempt. Because that had