THE PRESIDENT 2 Page 21

  He grabbed his briefcase. “I’ll keep that five-hundred grand,” he said, “for my expenses. But the second part of my payment?” He grinned. “I think you ought to hold on to that. Don’t want to be considered a greedy man.”

  He left the room, although Victoria, still reeling, didn’t even know he had gone.

  He was, in fact, just about to let himself out of the mansion’s front door when Nathan Riles, Victoria’s trusted manservant for over forty years, in additional to his other duties, met him at the exit. And handed him a DVD.

  “Give it to the press,” Nathan said.

  “What is it that I’m giving to the press?” Roman wanted to know.

  “The tape of that night in the White House. The one with the president and Caroline Parker. Not the doctored one, not the one with the missing scenes. This is the original.”

  Roman stared at Nathan, at this black man nearly thirty years his senior. “I just laid those photos on her, man,” he said. “She will most likely fire you when she discovers that you were the one who gave them to me. Not to mention when she discovers you gave me this tape.”

  “She won’t fire me,” Nathan said confidently. “She won’t even suspect me. She’ll believe somebody broke into this Fort Knox fortified mansion and snapped those photos, and then broke back out, before she suspects me. I’m an old black dumbass far as she’s concerned. Good for a little sex and a little cleaning, nothing else. What harm could little ol’ stupid me possibly do?”

  Roman stared at him. “Why do you put up with it, man?”

  Nathan hesitated, exhaled, and then looked away. “It’s complicated,” he said.

  And Roman knew that it was. This man, this servant, truly loved that hateful woman. And whenever her hate strayed too far from home and sought to destroy others, he would undoubtedly step in, behind her back, and right the ship again.

  That was why Roman never fell in love with any woman beyond Regina. You had to pretend that you were damn near blind to overlook all of their glaring faults.

  And Roman was too visual to ever do that.

  He shook Nathan’s hand, pocketed the tape, and left.

  ***

  When the story broke it broke big, becoming as sensational a worldwide media event as the original accusations. Allison, LaLa, and Christian, along with a slew of other staff and cabinet officials, jammed into the Roosevelt Room to watch the rapidly unfolding story.

  First there was the president’s mother. She didn’t stand behind any podium this time, didn’t have any standing room only crowd around her. She, instead, stood in the library of her home, a solitary figure, reading from a shaking piece of paper:

  “It is with a profound sense of conviction that I must come forward and tell the truth. No-one is coercing me to come forward; no-one is threatening me in any way. I come forward because I can no longer live with what I’ve uncovered. To my horror, I’ve discovered that I was used to get to my son. I’ve discovered that the accusations made by Caroline Parker, Jennifer Caswell, and Katherine Marris against my son, the president, are totally false.”

  She looked up from the paper when she said this. Then she looked back down. “They all made up these stories of rape to bring the president down. None of these stories are true in the least. None of them. They made them up because they wanted to destroy my son, and they came to me because they knew I did not approve of my son’s marriage to Regina Lansing. A marriage of which I still do not approve.”

  She looked up again, as if to add emphasis to her point. “I would hope, in time, that my son will be able to forgive me for believing these women. Right now, I just want to be left alone, to live my remaining years in peace and tranquility. That’s why I came forward. To clear the slate. To make it clear that what they did was horrible, and because I believed them, I deserve the estrangement from my son my actions have caused.”

  Then she folded up her little paper, continued to stare at the camera, and then the screen faded to black.

  “Oh, so she’s the innocent victim now?” LaLa said.

  “Who cares,” Allison said, grinning. “She came clean. And you know the media is going to play it up big.”

  “They’d better,” LaLa said, standing up. “Or I’ll be out there playing it up. Those women lied, that’s all they need to say.”

  And just like that the headlines shifted from the president’s certain guilt, to the certain guilt of the three women, known now as the Harber Three.

  First, Jennifer Caswell went before the cameras, insisting that everything Victoria Harber said was pure fabrication and her story, including her original cry of rape, was the honest truth. The president’s henchmen, she said, had gotten to his mother, had, in her words, “scared that poor old lady,” and that was why she recanted.

  Next hour came Kate Marris, as she went before the cameras to disassociate herself from Victoria’s remarks also. She never lies, she told the eager press, and this time was no exception. Dutch Harber had raped her, and she was sticking by her story.

  Then it was Caroline Parker’s time. She had no idea why Victoria Harber would have recanted the truth, but that tape didn’t lie.

  As she was speaking on CNN and FOX, however, MSNBC was playing the original tape, the one that showed Dutch Harber, not raping Caroline Parker, but waking up horrified that she was in his bed, and tossing her out of it.

  And that was when the coverage took yet another dramatic turn. As the days proceeded, the story became all about the women, their backgrounds, their lies. And then the authorities got involved as one by one they were led away in handcuffs, for lying to federal agents, for other high crimes and misdemeanors.

  Even the president’s mother, who many talking heads on the cable news channels had assumed would be given a pass, wasn’t given anything, and was also forced to do the perp walk to the jail house for all the world to see. She, too, had lied to federal agents, none of whom were buying her I was duped defense. Especially after that tape surfaced. She would be released on her own recognizance a mere few hours later, but it still made for must-see TV.

  The hours and days that followed had Kate Marris blaming the president’s mother, accusing her of taking advantage of her love for Dutch and paying her to lie.

  Caroline Parker complained that she was promised a million dollars by Victoria Harber also, but hadn’t seen a dime of that money. She, to the amazement of the press, was considering a lawsuit.

  Jennifer Caswell, who told one talk show that Victoria had promised her money too, although she insisted, on a different show, that she never said that, sold her story to the tabloids. Longer, Thicker, and Juicier Than Any I’ve Ever Had, was the headline, and it was such an incredible way to describe the President of the United States, that it made even the Financial Times of London.

  Then the story took yet another turn and the recantations turned into recriminations by the same commentators who had earlier judged the president guilty.

  “The Speaker of the House owes the president an apology,” one bellowed.

  “The Speaker should resign,” bellowed another one.

  Then the commentaries became all about how supportive of the president they were all along, with the truth of the matter buried by the weight of their own contorted realities:

  “I said from day one that we shouldn’t rush to judgment our great president.”

  “I knew that tape was doctored!”

  “What impeachment? Who said anything about impeachment?”

  And the CNN commentator who had declared the Harbers’ marriage over, said this: “That marriage is strong. I knew all along it could withstand any controversy.” And the same man added: “Why is the president still on vacation? Why isn’t he addressing the American people and thanking them for standing by him?”

  ***

  Far away from the maddening crowd, they lay in the hotel bed, with Dutch on his back and Gina on top of him, his penis thrusting into her in long slides along her saturated walls. Gina sat upright,
her hands behind her on his knees, her breast flapping against her chest as she began to ride him hard. Dutch grabbed her breasts and squeezed them, rubbed her bulbs and squeezed them, as his penis moved in deeper and deeper with her every gallop. Although the television was still on, and they could hear all of the chatter of the ever-breaking, ever-changing, shameless press accounts, they kept fucking; they kept moaning and groaning and enjoying each other, as if all of that hoopla had nothing to do with them.

  They were in Miami Beach, in the very hotel where they had first met eleven long years ago, in the very room where he first made love to her. Now she was making love to him, and he was so grateful to her for sticking by him, even before the release of that non-doctored tape, even before his mother’s recantation and even Jennifer’s first rape allegation to begin this madness, that he reached up, pulled her down on top of him, and wrapped her tightly in his arms. And his slow motion thrusts got fast.

  He thrust into her and thrust into her, his penis penetrating so deeply that was able to take swipe after swipe of the back of her vagina, causing her to nearly scream just from the intense feeling of it.

  For the longest time he held her, and fucked her, his penis so lubricated with her juices that he couldn’t help but hit her in just the right spot every time he moved in any direction.

  And then, just as Dutch had released and they were both in the throes of an electrifying orgasm; just as he had stopped thrusting to hold her tightly to his body; just as they both squeezed out the last of that incredible feeling of ecstasy, of romance, of love, and they collapsed onto the bed still in each other’s arms; just then, it came. The big news that stopped all of the other big news in its tracks:

  “Socialite and philanthropist Victoria Harber, the mother of the President of the United States, died this morning of a massive heart attack. She died alone in her mansion. She was sixty-four years old.”

  For a moment, Dutch and Gina stopped too. And then Dutch sat up, with Gina still on his lap, and turned the television set up louder.

  The newscast spoke of her years as the daughter of a millionaire, the heiress to a fortune in her own right, and then her marriage to the president’s father. They spoke of all of her charitable work on behalf of the poor, especially the poor in Africa. They showed her feeding the little black babies, fanning flies from the faces of pot-bellied children, standing in a hot warehouse giving Christmas gifts to America’s poor.

  And they showed various photographs of Victoria Harber throughout her life, from her youth onward, all pictures of a very beautiful woman whose once smiling eyes seemed to turn harder and colder with each passing winter. By the time of her death, the last picture they showed, she looked like nothing but a shell of the girl she used to be: hard, cold, and aloof.

  And then they showed her mug shot.

  Gina watched Dutch as he watched those photographs, as he saw the highlights of his mother’s life in sixty seconds. And he should have felt sad. He should have felt pain. He should have felt an emptiness inside of him that no-one in this world could fill. But all he could feel was remorse. Not for anything he did to her, he could honestly say that he never did anything that he shouldn’t have done to his mother. But his remorse was for what she, with her bitterness, with her hatred, had done to herself.

  “It’s as if she was already dead,” he said. “I think she died to me when I took you meet her and she showed me her true self for the first time. She showed me, not just her bad side, but all of the ugly layers of that bad side. And she froze in my mind. She ceased to be my mother at that moment in time.”

  “But at least she seemed to be trying to make amends,” Gina said. “She did confess that those women lied.”

  “After claiming she was duped, yeah, if you want to call it a confession.”

  “Maybe she was trying to gain a conscience.”

  But Dutch shook his head. “Nope, I don’t believe that.”

  “You don’t believe it?”

  “Not for a second. Not that woman. Somebody got to her. And from what I could find out, which wasn’t a whole lot, that somebody just may have been your friend.”

  “My friend?” Gina asked, puzzled. “LaLa?”

  “Roman Wilkes,” Dutch said and then looked at Gina, to see her reaction. Roman Wilkes was a very attractive man who was still, Dutch believed, very much attracted to his wife.

  “Wilkie?” Gina said in disbelief. “You think Wilkie got your mother to recant? But why? How?”

  “I haven’t worked out the how. But Nathan Riles tells me that he did indeed meet with my mother, and that, although he doesn’t know himself just what the Intel was, it was powerful enough that when Wilkes left, mother was quite shaken.”

  “Nathan Riles?” Gina asked with a frown. “Who’s Nathan Riles?”

  “He works for my mother. He’s been with our family for most of my life.”

  “And he saw Wilkie visit her?”

  “Yes. He saw all of them visit. Roman Wilkes, Max, all of the women too.”

  Again, Gina was puzzled. “Why would Max be visiting her? You told him to?”

  “He was scheming with her, no doubt. He has an ambition to run for some political office and mother probably intended to provide financial backing. Provided, of course, he did her bidding.”

  “But what could he do to help her?”

  “Provide the camera that filmed my encounter with Caroline, for one thing.”

  Gina looked at him. “Are you serious?”

  “I can’t prove it, but I certainly believe it.”

  “Then why haven’t you fired his ass?”

  “Because I can’t prove it yet. But when I do, I’ll take care of Max. But Nathan tends to keep me posted with the goings on around mother’s estate.” Then he exhaled. “It’s his now.”

  “The house in Nantucket?”

  “Yes. He had to deal with my mother for forty-some-odd years. He deserves it.”

  “Amen,” Gina said, unable to imagine anybody putting up with that woman that long.

  “And now she’s gone,” Dutch said, exhaling.

  Gina studied him. “It doesn’t hurt you on any level?”

  “It hurts. I did love her. Even respected and admired her once upon a time. But it just doesn’t sting the way it should. She’s gone. May God have mercy on her soul. But I don’t know what else I can say.”

  “You’ll need to get to Nantucket and make the arrangements.”

  “Or let Nathan do it.”

  “But you can’t ask him to arrange your mother’s funeral,” Gina said. “I think giving him that estate, and I would hope the finances to help him run it, is a great thing. But she was your mother, Dutch. You’re her only child. You have to do it. It’s only right.”

  Dutch smiled, pulled Gina into his arms. “And you’re right of course. Yes, I’ll take care of the arrangements. But I’m glad the truth came out before she died. And I’m also grateful to your friend. He may have saved my bacon.”