The Camel Club Part 18

Wyatt brightened. "Now, that's a good man. I told you after Kitty died and I had pneumonia he came to my house to check on me almost every day he was in town."

"I remember."

Stone moved one of his bishops forward and said, "I saw Carter Gray land at the White House yesterday."

"Secret Service don't like that one bit. Chopper coming in should only be Marine One with the man on it and that's all."

"Carter Gray's status allows him to make his own rules."

Wyatt grinned, hunched forward and lowered his voice. "Got some scuttleb.u.t.t on him you'll get a kick out of."

Stone eased forward. Their chess matches sometimes included s.n.a.t.c.hes of relatively innocuous gossip. White House domestic staff tended to have long tenures at the White House, and they were famous for both meticulous attention to their duties and, more important for the First Family, their discretion. It had taken Stone years to get Wyatt comfortable enough to discuss anything that happened at the White House, however trivial.

"The president asked Gray to go up to New York with him on 9/11, you know, for his big speech at the memorial site." Wyatt paused and looked around at a pa.s.serby.

"And?" asked Stone.

"And Gray flat turned him down."

"That's a little brazen, even for Gray."

"Well, you know what happened to his wife and daughter, right?"

"Yes." Stone had met Barbara Gray decades ago. She was an accomplished woman even back then, with a compa.s.sion that her husband had never possessed. Stone had instantly respected her, later faulting the lady only for her poor choice in husbands.

"Then the president asked Gray to go up with him to that town in Pennsylvania, the place that changed its name to Brennan."

"And is he?"

"You don't turn down the man twice, right?"

"No, you don't," Stone agreed.

Both men fell silent as Wyatt studied the board and then made his move, edging his rook toward Stone's knight.

While Stone considered his options, he said, "I see that Gray has some problems of his own to deal with. This fellow Patrick Johnson who was found dead on Roosevelt Island, he worked for NIC."

"Oh, yeah, that's been making the rounds at the big house."

"The president's concerned?"

"He and Gray are real tight. So dirt hits Gray, it's bound to splash on the president. The man's no dummy. The president's loyal, but he's not stupid." T.J. glanced around. "I'm not telling tales out of school. Everybody knows that."

"I'm sure NIC and the White House have been working the media hard, because there wasn't much in the morning news about it."

"I know the president's been ordering a lot of late-night snacks and coffee. Man's going into the homestretch on the election, and he doesn't want nothing to upset the applecart. And a dead body can upset a lot of things."

After their chess match was finished and Wyatt had left, Stone sat and thought for a bit. So Gray was going to Brennan, Pennsylvania? That was interesting. Stone had thought it a little gutsy of the town to pull a stunt like that, but apparently, it had paid off.

He was about to leave when he saw Adelphia walking toward him, carrying two cups of coffee. She sat down and handed him one. "Now we have the cafe and we chat, chat," she said firmly. "Unless you have meeting meeting to go to," she added drolly. to go to," she added drolly.

"No, no, I don't, Adelphia. And thank you for the coffee." He paused and added, "How did you know I was here?"

"Like that is big secret. Where do you come when you have the game of chess? It is here you come, always it is. With that black man who works at White House."

"I didn't know I was that predictable in my movements," he said, his tone somewhat annoyed.

"Men, men are always predictable. Do you like your cafe?"

"Very nice." He paused and then commented, "You know, these aren't cheap, Adelphia."

"It is not like I drink the cafe a hundred times all of the days."

"But you have money?"

Adelphia eyed his new clothes. "So? And you, you have the money."

"I have a job. And my friends, they help me."

"It is no one that helps me me. I work for money, all of it."

Stone was surprised that he'd never asked her this before. "What do you do?"

"I am seamstress for laundry place. I work when I want. They pay me good. And they give me good deal on room," she said. "And then I can buy the cafe when I want."

"It must be very rewarding to have such a skill," Stone said absently.

They stopped talking, and their gazes idly took in other people in the small park.

Adelphia finally broke the silence. "So your match of chess, you were victor?"

"No. My defeat was based on equal parts lack of concentration and my opponent's considerable skill."

"My father, he was very excellent at the chess. He was a, how you say . . ." She hesitated, obviously searching for the right words in English. "My father, he was a, how you say, Wielki Mistrz Wielki Mistrz."

"A grand champion? No, you mean a grand master master. That's very impressive."

She glanced at him sharply. "You speak Polish?"

"Just a little."

"You have been to Poland?"

"A very long time ago," he said, sipping his coffee and watching the breeze gently move the leaves on the trees overhead. "I take it that's where you're from?" he asked curiously. Adelphia had never spoken about her origins before.

"It was in Krakow that I was born, but then my family, they move to Bialystok. I was just a child, so I go too."

Stone had been to both those cities but had no intention of telling her that. "I really only know Warsaw, and, as I said, that was a long time ago. Probably before you were born."

"Ha, that is nice thing you say that. Even if it is a lie!" She put her coffee down on the bench and gazed at him. "It is very much younger you look, Oliver."

"Thanks to you and your wizardry with scissors and a razor."

"And your friends, do they not think so too?"

"My friends?" he said, glancing at her.

"I have seen them."

He looked at her again. "Well, they've all come to visit me at Lafayette Park."

"No, I mean at your meetings meetings I have seen them." I have seen them."

He tried not to look concerned at her stunning words. "So you followed me to my meetings meetings? I hope they weren't too boring." What has she seen or heard? What has she seen or heard?

She looked coy and, as though she'd read his thoughts, said, "It might have been things I hear, or it might not."

"When was that?" he asked.

"So finally it is I have your attention." She edged closer to him and actually patted his hand. "Do not worry, Oliver, I am not spy. I see things but I do not hear. And the things I see, well, they stay with me always. Always they do."

"It's not like we have anything worth overhearing or seeing."

"It is truth you seek, Oliver?" she said, smiling. "Like your sign say, it is truth you want. I can tell. You are such a man who seeks this."

"I'm afraid as the years go by, my chances of actually finding it are fewer and fewer."

Adelphia suddenly glanced over at a person who was staggering through the park. Anyone who had been on the streets of Was.h.i.+ngton over the last ten years had probably seen this pitiable sight. He had short stubs of bone and skin where his arms should have been. His legs were so horribly twisted that it was a miracle he could even remain upright. He was usually half-naked, even in winter. He had no shoes on. His feet were scarred and covered with sores, the toes oddly bent. His eyes were largely vacant, and a steady current of spittle slipped down his face and onto his chest. As far as anyone knew, he could not even speak. A small pouch hung from a string around his neck. Written across his tattered s.h.i.+rt in childlike scrawl was one word: "Help."

Stone had given money to the man on numerous occasions and knew that he lived over a steam grate by the Treasury Department. He'd tried to help the man over the years, but his mind was simply too far gone. If any government agency had stepped in to help, Stone was unaware of it.

"My G.o.d, that man, that poor man. My heart, it bursts for his suffering," Adelphia said. She raced over to him, pulled out some dollars from her pocket and placed them in his pouch. He babbled something at her and then staggered off to another group nearby, who also immediately opened their pocketbooks and wallets to him.

As Adelphia was returning to her spot next to Stone, a large man stepped in front of her, blocking the way.

He said gruffly, "I don't look as s.h.i.+tty as that guy, but I'm hungry and I need a drink bad." His hair was ratty and in his face, but he wasn't dressed that shabbily. However, the stench coming off his body in waves was overpowering.

"It is no more I have," Adelphia answered in a frightened tone.

"You're lying!" He grabbed her arm and yanked Adelphia toward him. "Give me some d.a.m.n money!"

Before Adelphia could even cry out, Stone was beside her.

"Let her go now now!" Stone demanded.

The man was a good twenty-five years younger than Stone and far bigger. "Get out of here, old man. This doesn't concern you."

"This woman is my friend."

"I said get out of here!" He followed this with a vicious swing that caught Stone flush on the chin. He dropped to the ground, clutching his face.

"Oliver!" Adelphia screamed.

Other people in the park were yelling at the man now, and someone was running off, calling out for a policeman.

As Stone struggled to get to his feet, the man pulled a switchblade out of his pocket and pointed it at Adelphia. "Give me the money or I'll cut you bad, b.i.t.c.h."

Stone made a sudden lunge. The man let go of Adelphia and staggered back, dropping his knife. He fell to his knees, every muscle in his body trembling, and then he collapsed onto his back on the gra.s.s, writhing in agony.

Stone picked up the switchblade and then palmed the weapon in a very unusual way. He reached over and ripped open his a.s.sailant's collar, exposing the man's thick neck and throbbing arteries. For an instant it seemed that Stone was going to slice that neck open from ear to ear as the knifepoint edged very near a pulsing vein. There was a look in Oliver Stone's eyes that virtually no one who had known him over the last thirty-odd years had ever seen. Yet Stone abruptly stopped and gazed up at Adelphia, who stood there staring at him, her chest heaving. At that moment it was not clear which man she feared more.

"Oliver?" she said quietly. "Oliver?"

Stone dropped the knife on the ground, rose and wiped off his pants.

"My G.o.d, you are bleeding," Adelphia cried out. "Bleeding!"

"I'm fine," he said shakily as he dabbed at his b.l.o.o.d.y mouth with his sleeve. That was a lie. The blow had hurt him very much. His head was bursting, and he felt sick to his stomach. He picked at something in his mouth and yanked out a tooth the man's punch had loosened.

"You are no fine!" Adelphia insisted as she watched him.

A woman came running up to them. "The police are coming. Are you both okay?"

Stone turned to see a patrol car, its lights flas.h.i.+ng, pull to a stop at the curb. He quickly turned to Adelphia. "I'm sure you can explain everything to the police." This came out a little garbled because his lip was swelling.

As he staggered off, she called out to him but he didn't turn around.

When the police came up and started asking her questions, all Adelphia could think about was what she had seen. Oliver Stone had dug his index finger into the man's side, near the rib cage. This simple move had caused a very large, angry man to drop to the ground, helpless.

And the way Stone held the knife had struck her deeply, for a very personal reason. Adelphia had seen a man grip a knife that way only once before, many years ago in Poland. The man had been a member of the KGB, who had come to forcibly take her uncle away for speaking out against the Soviets. She had never seen her uncle alive again. His gutted body had been found in an unused well in a village twenty miles away.

As Adelphia glanced around, she gasped.

Oliver Stone had disappeared.

CHAPTER 30.

"THIS IS WHERE PATRICK JOHNSON worked," Carter Gray said, sweeping his hand across the room. worked," Carter Gray said, sweeping his hand across the room.

Alex slowly took it all in. The s.p.a.ce was about half the size of a football field with a large open area in the middle and cubicles along the perimeter. Computers with flat screens were on every desktop and servers hummed in the background. Men and women dressed in business attire either sat at their desks totally focused on their work or else walked the halls speaking into phone headsets using cryptic jargon that not even Alex, with all his federal time behind him, could understand. The sense of urgency here was palpable.

As Gray led them over to a set of corner cubicles, Alex caught images of people's faces flas.h.i.+ng across some of the computers, most of them Middle Eastern, with data, presumably about each person, flowing down one side of the screen. The thing he didn't see was a single sc.r.a.p of paper.