Seated on the platform behind him, President Turnbull entertained himself with the thoughts sure to be chasing each other through David D. Castle’s mind. He knew all the arguments pro and con, all except the important one, for he had no suspicion whatever that David D. Castle had been recruited as a Russian agent during his days at Yale. He might have doubted it even had it been proved to him, for he was of the old school, a man who took for granted that even his most rabid opponents shared his patriotism, love of baseball, and tendency to shed a tear on hearing the national anthem or the mention of mother.
Sure enough, Castle finally came through. He would, he told the vast assemblage of indifferent Texans, be honored to serve his country as the running mate of the Honorable Horatio Francis Turnbull and work with him toward the greater prosperity of all Americans.
And so forth and so on, for although David D. Castle kept on talking, Horatio Francis Turnbull had ceased to listen. It was enough that Castle had agreed to follow in the footsteps of Daniel D. Tompkins, William R. King, Henry Wilson, Levi P. Morton, William A. Wheeler, and so many others who had been vice-president and then vanished utterly from the American political scene. Castle had obviously forgotten the inelegant but deadly accurate appraisal of the job by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s vice-president, Texan John Nance Garner, to the effect that the vice-presidency was “about as useful as a bucket of warm spit.”
Turnbull wondered when the other shoe would finally drop: 2009, 2010? How long would it take the poor dumb son of a bitch to realize that the medical report had been a plant, that there was absolutely nothing wrong with Turnbull’s health, that his doctor had given him another good twenty years to live?
Well, as Barnum once said…
39. FORTE VS. CASTLE
21 JULY 2008
“FOR A MAN DYING OF LUPUS ERYTHEMATOSUS,” SAID Mansour, “you look extraordinarily fit.”
“Habit. I die every morning before the coffee comes, but then I recover fast.”
Ripley Forte eased himself into one of the rickety period chairs in the salon of the Linno and made a mental note not to make any sudden moves. Outside the snow was falling gently on the deck of the yacht, anchored in the Rio de la Plata off Buenos Aires; inside, in deference to Joe Mansour’s thin Mediterranean blood, it was over-heated. Forte pulled off his necktie and draped it across his sport jacket lying on an adjacent chair. He opened the collar button of his shirt and breathed easily for the first time since he had arrived in Argentina.
“I suppose,” continued the dapper little Lebanese, “that you want an accounting, and rightly so, since I have rendered none since January.”
“That’s not what I came down here for, although it wouldn’t hurt. I wouldn’t want to overdraw my checking account.”
Joe Mansour laughed.
“My dear Ripley, you couldn’t do that if you worked at it forty hours a week. And since you’re recovering from a severe illness and shouldn’t tax your heart, if it’s all the same with you, I’d rather not tell you what you’re worth. It’s a frightening sum and in two or three years, according to my projections, will be absolutely obscene.”
“Yes, please, no obscenity. Remember, I’m an ex-Marine. Anyhow, I’m more interested in what Jennifer Red Cloud is worth.”
“How do you like similes? In speaking of the finances of Raynes Oceanic Resources, you have a wide choice: not worth a tinker’s dam, a brass farthing, a hill of beans, two cents, a row of pins, or a continental. Take your pick.”
“As bad as that?”
“Just say the word, Rip, and I’ll turn loose the bears. We’ll eat Raynes alive.”
“If you bought in today, how much would Mrs. Red Cloud’s stock be worth?”
“Today? About 1.8 million.”
“Next week?”
“What exactly do you want, Rip?”
“I want to bankrupt her. Put her out of business.”
Joe Mansour pursed his lips and leaned back in his chair. He studied Ripley Forte’s grim, weather-beaten face.
“I’d say you loved that woman a lot or hated her a lot.”
“That’s close enough. Answer the question.”
“Oh, we could bankrupt her, all right, if that’s what you really want. Instead of squirreling away some of her
profits years ago in annuities or real estate, she plowed it all back into the company. Her stock represents everything she owns. But I’d need two weeks to set up everything and cover our tracks.”
Forte nodded.
“That’ll be just fine.”
Japan was about as far as Jennifer Red Cloud could get away from the Alamo, and it was to her home in Kyoto that she repaired after she left the iceberg once it had become apparent that neither she nor the mysterious enemy who had thrice tried and failed to sabotage it was going to succeed. She needed the cultural isolation that Japan offered–she spoke not a single word of the language–and the tranquility of the rustic atmosphere of its ancient capital to think things out and decide how best to save Raynes Oceanic Resources.
David D. Castle made Jennifer Red Cloud’s decision simple, for he brought with him proof that he was, after all, the man of her dreams.
“David, how lovely to see you again,” she said warmly, taking him by the hand and leading him down the two steps into the salon. “How long has it been?”
“Too long,” said Castle.
“I’ve missed you.”
“And I’ve been counting the minutes until this moment, my darling,” said Castle, unaware that they were in grievous danger of turning their meeting into a cliché contest.
She saved them by ringing a little silver bell for Manuel.
“A Bloody Mary for Secretary Castle,” she instructed the white-jacketed Filipino, “and–”
Castle coughed apologetically.
“I’m actually drinking Campari and soda these days,” he said, the memory of William S. Grayle’s little pleasantry still fresh.
“Campari, then, Manuel. And the usual for me.”
The butler bowed and left the room.
Jennifer Red Cloud was, Castle observed, as beautiful and desirable as always. She wore a simple, ankle-length black silk gown with a rope of pearls entwined in her upswept raven-black hair and a single pear-shaped diamond on a golden pendant around her neck.
“I’ve brought you a little present,” said Castle, reaching into his inside breast pocket.
That was a novelty. Not since his gift of flowers at their first and only meeting when he had been a freshman congressman had he brought a gift. Since her proposal, especially, he had been relentlessly businesslike. She wondered what it would be. A diamond bracelet? An emerald brooch? Or pearls–a woman could never have too many pearls.
He drew out three Xeroxed pages stapled together and handed them to her reverently across the coffee table.
She took them, the sour taste of bile rising unbidden to her throat. She looked at Castle cryptically and then began to read the medical report.
Castle watched as her hard-set features softened. An expression of anticipation gave way to positive pleasure as she began page three. By the time she had finished it her face was glowing.
“But is this true? Can it be trusted?”
“A great deal of money was paid for that copy, and it’s the only one which isn’t under lock and key in the White House. You will note that it is signed by the President’s personal physician and Bethesda’s chief oncologist. They give him no better than a one in four chance of surviving through 2009. Which is another way of saying that come next summer, I will be the occupant of the Oval Office.”
“And I?”
“You will be at my side.”
“But what about Raynes Oceanic Resources?”
David D. Castle leaned back in his chair and made a steeple of his long, lean fingers. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve been giving that some thought. Naturally, when we marry, you will have to divest yourself of all interest in Raynes. You can, of course, leave your shares in a blind trust. But there is, I think, a better way. Have your trustees liquidate completely and–yes, I know all about the depressed state of your stock,” he went on hurriedly as Jennifer Red Cloud was about to protest. “Get out of the company altogether. It will work out better in the long run.
“Now, here’s the way we’ll handle it. Let your company continue to slide gracefully toward bankruptcy, meanwhile divesting yourself of all your stock. That will obviate any suggestion of ethical impropriety, which would be fatal to my campaign for a second presidential term. While this is going on, a second company will be formed, headed by an old and trusted associate of mine and prominent investment banker, Gideon Sorrow, to purchase Raynes’s assets at, say, ten cents on the dollar. For that privilege, which you will accord him, and for my working behind the scenes to ensure that Sorrow’s new company gets a solid grip on iceberg imports to the United States, he will set aside a large block of stock for us. By the end of my second term, the stock will have soared in value, and we will retire with more money than we could possibly spend.”