Jack processed it: it took an act of the state legislature to get compensation for wrongful conviction. Harry’s signature had approved the settlement that made it possible for Theo to buy Sparky’s Tavern.
“So,” said Theo, “with or without?”
“I’m meeting with about a dozen lawyers and the White House chief of staff first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Definitely without,” said Theo. He slid the brimming shot glass in front of Jack.
“Did you not hear me?” said Jack. “No tequila.”
“Dude, what did we do when your ex-wife turned into a fruitcake?”
“Tequila.”
“When your girlfriend Mia dyed her hair, changed her name, and left town?”
“Tequila.”
“When Rene chose relief work in Africa over a love life in Miami?”
“Tequila.”
“Exactly. We’re talking tradition here. You can’t break tradition.”
“You’re talking as if Andie dumped me.”
“Well, she’s going to-if you don’t get rid of this really nasty case of Washington-itis.”
“You talked to her?”
“Yeah. She likes Miami fuckup Jack. Not Capitol suck-up Jack.”
“You make me sound pathetic.”
“You are pathetic.”
Jack raised his glass. “I’ll drink to that.”
They belted back their shots together.
“Smooooth,” said Theo.
Jack winced, as if he were drinking gasoline. “I hope we’re not starting with the good stuff,” said Jack, and he belted back another shot. He slammed the empty glass on the bar and added, “Vice President Grayson had ED.”
It was a perfectly timed non sequitur that had Theo coughing on his tequila. “You mean…the guy…couldn’t-”
“Is there another kind of ED?”
“I don’t know. What do politicians get-electile dysfunction?”
“Stop being an idiot. He had ED.”
“How do you know this?”
“His widow told me.”
“When?”
“Right after his daughter asked me out to lunch.”
“You shittin’ me?”
“No.”
“Dude, you gotta let me come on that date. A mother-daughter thing is like my biggest fantasy.”
“First off, it’s not a date. She wants to tell me what it’s like when your father is vice president.”
“Sounds better than a date,” said Theo, as he slipped into an affected Elizabeth Grayson voice. “Oh, Jack, I’ve been so lonely. Greta Garbo lonely. Farmer’s daughter lonely. Lonelygirl 15 on the Internet lonely. Kiss me, you fool. Kiss me right now!”
The pucker was enough to make the businessman at the other end of the bar get up and leave.
Jack said, “And even if it was a date, Marilyn Grayson is fifty-one years old.”
“Damn. Old enough to be your…sister.”
“Shut up and listen. There was a perfectly legitimate reason for her to tell me about her husband’s condition.”
“I’m listening.”
“In addition to ED, Phil Grayson had atherosclerosis.”
“I dare you to say that after one more shot.”
“Focus. The thing is, you can’t take any of the ED medications if you have atherosclerosis. What’s the big warning you hear on all the TV commercials for ED medication?”
“If you have an erection lasting more than four hours, call your girlfriend’s girlfriends.”
“That’s not the warning I’m talking about. You can’t take the drug if you have atherosclerosis. It can cause a fatal drop in blood pressure and a heart attack.”
“And this is important because…?”
“The toxicology report from Vice President Grayson’s autopsy hasn’t been made public yet. But it will be released soon, which is why, I’m sure, Marilyn Grayson was so candid with me. The whole world will know this in a few weeks. It will disclose that the vice president had taken an unusually high dosage of ED medication a few hours before his death.”
“But the man died on a hunting trip with your dad.”
“So what does that tell you?”
“Your dad’s gay?”
“No, numb nuts.”
“Then Grayson probably had a honey on Miami Beach. Big deal. Doesn’t everybody?”
“That’s one interpretation,” said Jack. “Marilyn Grayson has another.”
“Two honies in Miami Beach? Maybe a mother-daughter combo.” Theo belted back another shot. “Lucky bastard.”
“Will you give that up already?” said Jack. “It comes down to two possibilities. One is that Grayson took a pill to have sex with a woman who was not his wife, knowing that the medicine could very well send him into cardiac arrest and kill him.”
“He wouldn’t be the first guy with a weak heart to take that risk.”
“True. But what if he wasn’t cheating on his wife?”
“Then why would he take the little blue pill?”
“What if someone gave it to him-without him knowing it?”
“You mean dissolved it in his food or slipped it into a drink?”
“Exactly.”
The proverbial lightbulb glowed over Theo’s head. “Dude, that’s it.”
“What’s it?”
“I swear that must be what Trina’s been doing to me. I’ll be walking around on three legs all afternoon, wondering where the hell Mr. Happy came from, and then Trina shows up at the bar all rarin’ to-”
“Stop. This isn’t about you.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m saying, what if someone knew that the vice president had atherosclerosis and pumped him full of pills for reasons other than having sex?”
“What other reason?”
“To kill him, genius. That’s why Marilyn Grayson has questions about her husband’s death.”
“Whoa,” said Theo. “The Viagra Assassination. It’s like Desperate Housewives meets 24.”
“Except it’s not a Kennedy-or Lincoln-like assassination. This assassin didn’t want people to suspect foul play.”
“So the question is, who wanted Phil Grayson dead, and who wanted it done in a way that didn’t look like murder.”
“I may know someone who can help me answer that-someone who hasn’t been telling me everything so far.”
“Does she have a hot mother?”
“No,” said Jack, turning very serious. “A dead sister.”
Chapter 17
Jack returned to his hotel room by 10:30 P.M. With the aid of Theo’s tequila, he was well on his way to dreamland-until the telephone phone rang at 10:47 P.M.
“Go to bed, Theo,” he answered, groaning.
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Jack?”
It was a woman’s voice.
“Andie?” he said, even though it didn’t really sound like her.
“No, this is Elizabeth Grayson.”
He sat up quickly. Head rush-tequila!
Sorry,” she said, “I woke you, didn’t I?”
“It’s okay, I had to get up to answer the phone anyway.”
She laughed, assuming that it was a joke, and only then did Jack appreciate that he’d had more than one shot too many. Theo, I’m going to kill you.
Elizabeth said, “Mother told me what the two of you talked about and-well, I wouldn’t do this if it weren’t important. I’m in the hotel lobby right now. Can you come down? We need to talk.”
Jack was suddenly feeling wide awake; this was the second time in two days that a woman had dropped the “we-need-to-talk” bomb.
“Uh, sure. Give me five minutes.”
He jumped out of bed and pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater. A splash of cold water brought color back to his face, but he couldn’t do much about the bloodshot eyes. He made it downstairs with thirty seconds to spare. Elizabeth was waiting on the couch near the grand piano. She apologized again for dragging him out of bed, which meant that he probably looked even worse than he felt. A waitress came from the coffee shop, and they ordered a couple of decafs. When they were alone again, Elizabeth said, “I suppose you’re wondering what’s so urgent that I raced over here at this hour.”
“Not at all,” said Jack.