Blood Trust by Eric Van Lustbader Page A

spilled.”
    “Yes,” Carson said through gritted teeth. He did not nod or move his head in any untoward way. “That’s why I want him gone. By the time he does figure it out, it’ll be too late. The only way to him that wouldn’t cause suspicion was through Dennis Paull.” He clamped down on the migraine but, as always, it was getting the better of him.
    “Still, I worry.”
    “The American people pay you to worry.”
    Carson turned, fumbled in his trousers pocket, opened the silver-and-gold pill case, shook two pills into his mouth, and swallowed them with the little saliva he had left. The migraines seemed to suck him dry, until his tongue felt as if it were as big and unwieldy as a zeppelin.
    The president eyed his Secret Service detail, circling the garden like a murder of crows. He took a hesitant step toward his friend. “Hank, I think you’d best sit down.”
    Carson waved him off. “I’m fine.”
    “Of course you are. But, you know, I find I’m a little peaked.” He sat on a stone bench. “Here, sit down beside me so we can continue our private talk uninterrupted. I haven’t much time before the budget meeting.”
    Carson came and sat, holding his body as delicately as if it had turned to glass, which, in a way, it had.
    Crawford looked away for a moment, out over the grounds to Washington itself. The White House was like a pearl sitting in the middle of an oyster, peacefully protected. However, today the president felt anything but peaceful.
    “I knew this job was going to be difficult,” he said after a time, “and I prepared myself for it.” He stared down at his hands, folded priestlike in his lap. “But as for the complications…” He allowed his voice to drift off like mist off the Potomac.
    “Life is complications, Arlen. The higher you climb the more they pile up, until you have one cluster-fuck after another.”
    “Well, then, this must be the mother of all cluster-fucks.” Crawford took a breath. “Then again, maybe we’re not speaking of complications at all, maybe it’s compromises .”
    Carson said nothing; he was too busy trying to keep his thoughts from being shredded by the cyclone of his migraine.
    “Maybe it’s selling the house down the river without even a wave good-bye.”
    Suddenly, the president’s words flooded into his brain, and he turned his head ever so gently. “For the love of God, do not tell me that you have cold feet, not at this late date. Fuck, Arlen, I moved heaven and earth with both the party caucuses and Eddy to get you the vice president’s position. We had a plan, from the very beginning we had a plan.”
    “No, Hank, you had a plan.”
    “Have it your way.” Carson massaged his temples, slowly and methodically. “What mattered then is the same thing that matters now. You hitched your name to my star. You rose as I rose.”
    “You need me, Hank.”
    The laugh caused Carson some pain. “Are you trying to convince me, or yourself? The truth you keep avoiding is this: You need me far more than I need you. If you bail on me now there will be dire consequences. You knew from the very beginning, when you’re in, you’re in for life. Your decision is irrevocable.”
    The president shook his head. “That was then. From where I’m sitting now—”
    “You’re sitting in the perfect place for what needs to be done. Fate had a hand in this, the same fate that took Eddy from me. Scales of justice.”
    Now it was Crawford’s turn to laugh. “What a hypocrite you are, Hank. There is no justice in this world. It’s men like you who see to that.”
    *   *   *
    O UT ON the street, there was no sign of O’Banion or Willowicz. Jack called in to the Metro detectives’ unit. Willowicz and O’Banion existed, Carson’s lawyer had been read their jackets, but the real Willowicz and O’Banion were on temporary leave. So who were these two masquerading as the Metro detectives, and who were they working for? The only way to find out was to ask