The Plan

Chapter 46.

HAZE RICHARDS AND A. J. TEAGARDEN LEFT THE MEMphis Hilton at four-forty-five A. M., before anybody was awake. They rode in silence in the back of the hotel limousine in a dense fog, traveling down mist-wet streets toward the Memphis International Airport. They had a bi g p roblem to solve.

They arrived at the private jet terminal a few minutes before five and were let out onto the field. The limo parked under the wing of their rented 737 and Haze and A. J. climbed the steps into the back of the empty plane.

"This is fucked," Haze finally said when they were alone.

A. J. was not sure how much to tell him. "How badly do you want to be President?"

"Cut the shit." Haze slumped down in his window seat. "If she drags you through a divorce, it's over."

Haze said nothing.

"She doesn't think you're fit to govern… Her words, not mine. This is a public relations nightmare. The press will feed on it. She'll get forced onto TV. She'll be angry, she'll accuse you of stuff, your female demographics will drop lower than a midget's balls."

"Get off it." Haze glowered.

"I'm not kidding. Your divorce is gonna make Burt and Lonnie's seem like a pillow fight. She's gonna rip you open. The gender gap it creates will be impossible to close."

"Get to the point."

"How bad do you want this? How far are you willing to go?" A. J. could feel his heart beating in his chest. He was powered by high-octane ambition. A. J. knew they were going to win the Democratic nomination, it was as good as secured. They had twenty-three states and two caucuses in Haze's pocket. With nobody left in the race, the nomination was theirs, unless Anita gave hope to the vanquished. If she filed divorce papers, A. J. knew that the four defeated candidates would be tempted to wait him out, to see how the polls reacted. Anita could kill his nomination. They had to stop her.

"You gotta talk her out of it, like you did before," Haze said.

"I'll try, but I lied to her and now she knows it. I probably used up my one ticket."

"So, whatta we do?"

"Delay her."

They sat in silence as the steward stuck his head in the back. "Are you gentlemen buckled up?"

"Yeah, let's go," A. J. said while the engines started and the plane taxied onto the runway.

In minutes, they were thundering past the tower and climbing up, out of the low morning fog and breaking into the sunlight, heading east with the orange ball riding low off the starboard wing.

"We delay her… Why? What good does that do?" "I called Mickey," A. J. said, flatly.

Haze looked at him, not sure what the ramifications of that call might be.

"He said if we couldn't take care of it, he would." Haze was looking at the man he'd grown up with, wondering if it was possible they were talking about the same thing.

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"He said he'd take care of it. That's what he said. I can't stop him from doing whatever he wants."

"And I said, what does that mean?" Haze's voice was rising.*

"Keep your voice down, will you?" A. J. said, glancing around, but they were alone in the empty cabin.

"You telling me he's gonna kill her?" Haze was whispering.

"I don't know what he's gonna do… Put the fear of God into her, make her do what we want, shake some sense into her. How do I know?"

They sat in silence for a long time.

"Haze.."

Haze was looking out the window at the rising sun. "Look at me, will ya…?"

Haze finally turned, but there was no expression on his handsome face.

"This is what we dreamed of, man. This is what it's been about since grade school. You and me… getting where we want to go… in the White House, Haze, the Oval Office."

Haze said nothing, his expression hard to read in the orange light coming through the window.

" 'Member what we said when we were kids?" A. J. went on. 'Me higher the monkey climbs, the more his ass is exposed. Our ass is exposed. We gotta do whatever it takes. The White House… that's the prize. Maybe a man can't win a prize like that unless he's willing to step up and take it."

"How does Mickey take care of it, huh?"

"I don't know, Haze, but if you want to be President, we have to stop her. These guys are spending heavy bread. They won't stand around while your wife flushes it down the toilet."

Haze knew A. J. was right. And after the initial shock had worn off, he wasn't sure how upset he felt about it.

The plane touched down in Providence at nine-fifteen and taxied to the executive terminal. Haze and A. J. had not spoken in almost an hour. They got in A. J.'s Land Rover and drove to the governor's mansion. The streets of Providence were still clogged with morning traffic. When they parked in the garage under the mansion, it was almost ten.

"Anita's car isn't here," Haze said as they moved toward the elevator.

Upstairs, the Providence mansion was quiet. Anita's press secretary wasn't in yet. They moved down the hall and into Anita's suite. As soon as they entered, it was obvious Anita had left. Clothes were strewn everywhere, discards from a furious packing session. A. J. went into the bathroom to check the cosmetics counter.

"Gone," he said flatly, as he walked out of the dressing room.

"Whatta we do now?"

"I'll go to the pay phone downstairs and call Mickey. He's gotta stop her." He started digging in his pocket for a quarter. "You got change?" he asked.

"Use this," Haze said, taking his AT amp;T card out of his wallet.

"You really stink in a crisis, you know that?" "What?" Haze said, angry and confused.

"You wanna call the head of the Alo Mafia family and log it on your AT and T account? I'm never gonna pull a bank job with you, homey."

A. J. dialed Mickey's private number on the pay phone in the lobby.

"This is AJ., lemme talk to Mickey," he said to an unfamiliar voice on the phone. After a moment, he heard the slightly mechanical sound of Mickey's voice. The tinny quality, he assumed, was caused by the scrambler.

"Yeah?"

"She's not here," A. J. said.

"She's in good hands," Mickey said.

"It wouldn't be wise if she were hurt. I don't think it would look good for the man to win the nomination today and then lose his wife, all in twenty-four hours."

"You and I must be having the same thoughts. We might still need her."

"Exactly," A. J. said.

"Tell your friend, I'll take care of everything." And the line went dead before A. J. could say anything more. As he hung up, a strange revelation hit him. He had somehow become involved in a conspiracy to commit a kidnapping. In his wildest dreams, he could never have conceived of a set of circumstances that would lead him to such a venture.

A. J. had always thought of himself in a certain way-gentle and funny, a good friend who always looked for the best in people. His keen mind was his secret weapon. Albert James Teagarden, the little boy who grew up at 2341/2 Beeker Street, would never hurt anyone. That just wasn't part of the plan. Yet here he was, standing in the lobby of the governor's mansion, having just called the head of the Jersey mob to discuss the kidnapping of Anita Farrington Richards, a woman he liked and respected.

A. J. moved to the elevator and pushed the button. He stared at his distorted reflection in the polished brass door. He looked wider-wider and shorter, with shiny, yellow skin. The reflection made him look a lot like Mickey Alo.

"Talk about your defining moments," he said to himself.

The door opened and A. J. stepped into the elevator. It swallowed him like Jonah, into its mahogany, brass-railed stomach, where he wondered, for the first time in years, what had happened to that little boy from Beeker Street.