Part 12 (1/2)
They were night and day, black and white, but they made an excellent team. Tom the brains, Vince the muscle. The perfect combination to run a global security company. They were co-CEOs, and they'd doubled the company's revenues since Everest Capital had bought the company three years ago.
Bill Donovan had been chairman of McGuire & Company, and now Gillette was taking over. It would be one of the fifteen chairs Gillette would keep. He'd been the other Everest board member since the beginning, so he'd known the McGuire brothers since the beginning.
McGuire nodded subtly to the bodyguard peering back at them over his shoulder from the pa.s.senger seat. ”You're meeting with Senator Stockman, right?”
”Yes.” Gillette glanced from the bodyguard to McGuire, catching the exchange. ”You dig up anything else on Stockman?”
McGuire winced.
”What's wrong?”
”I hate this c.r.a.p.”
”What do you mean?”
”It's so predictable.” McGuire reached for the console on the limousine door, and pushed the b.u.t.ton that raised the panel between the front and back seats. ”I found out this morning that Stockman's having an affair with a woman who works for him. Her name's Rita Jones. She's twenty-four and pretty,” McGuire stifled a chuckle, ”in her own way.”
”What's so funny?”
”She's black. It kills me when these lily-white guys like Stockman get the jungle fever because they-”
”Enough,” Gillette interrupted. McGuire didn't air his prejudices publicly, but once in a while he let loose with a comment Gillette didn't appreciate. And there were no African-American senior executives at McGuire & Company, a situation Gillette was going to change now that he was in charge because there were plenty of deserving candidates in middle management. ”Just tell me what's happening.”
McGuire rolled his eyes, irritated. ”The affair's been going on for six months. Stockman uses an apartment in Queens a couple of nights a week. One of his aides pays for it so there's no direct money link. He's also brought Jones down to Was.h.i.+ngton a couple of times. His wife has no idea what's going on, not, at least, from what we can tell.”
Good. It was something he could use, especially if Stockman's wife didn't know. ”How do you find this stuff out, Tom?”
”Hang out in the gutter long enough and eventually all the garbage flows past you.”
The McGuire network was broad and deep. Gillette had checked on that before Everest made the investment. He'd found that the brothers knew a lot of people in a lot of different places, not just the gutter. ”Take me through Stockman's background one more time, will you?”
”Sure. He's from upstate New York, near Albany. Cornell undergraduate, then the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania after two years as a Chase Manhattan corporate banking trainee. After business school he worked as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley for ten years, then went into politics. Served a couple of terms as a state senator before moving on to the big time in D.C.
”Wealthy?”
McGuire shook his head. ”Not really. No major money in his or his wife's family. Both families belong to all the right clubs, but that's because they settled in the area two hundred years ago, so they know everybody. Stockman made some bucks at Morgan Stanley, but he put a lot of that into his campaigns. And his investment portfolio got dinged pretty bad when the tech stocks got crushed in 2001. It hasn't come back.”
”Anything else?”
”No, but we're still looking.”
”What about Donovan?” Gillette asked. ”Any more news there?”
”Yeah, one of Vince's guys spoke to somebody he knows at the coroner's office in Connecticut. There were bruises on Donovan's body consistent with a struggle,” McGuire explained. ”No heart attack, either. Bill's ticker was fine, but the cops are still calling it an accidental drowning. They aren't following up. We don't know why.”
”Could they be involved? Paid off, maybe?”
”With the stakes as high as they are, anything's possible at this point.”
”But who would want Donovan dead?”
McGuire ran a finger inside his collar. His s.h.i.+rts always hung loosely around his thin neck. ”I might have an idea.”
”Talk to me.”
”Well . . .” McGuire hesitated. ”I don't know if I want to-”
”Come on, Tom.”
McGuire gazed out the window for a moment. ”For starters, how about the guy you're having lunch with?”
”Stockman?”
”Yeah.”
”Why would Stockman want Bill Donovan dead?”
McGuire flashed Gillette an odd look. ”You don't know?”
”No.”
”Oh.”
Gillette cleared his throat, making certain McGuire heard his frustration. ”Tom.”
”I just a.s.sumed Bill told you this stuff. After all, you were his partner.”
”Don't a.s.sume anything.”
”Look, here's the thing. Bill told Stockman a few months ago he'd do whatever he could to keep him out of the White House, said he'd spend a ton of dough on negative ads himself. Call people. Anything.”
”Why?”
”That I don't know. Bill told me he'd found out something about Stockman that really p.i.s.sed him off, but he wouldn't tell me what.” I don't know. Bill told me he'd found out something about Stockman that really p.i.s.sed him off, but he wouldn't tell me what.”
”You think it was the affair with the Jones woman?”
McGuire chuckled. ”Ah, no.”
”Maybe it was just that Stockman's a Democrat and Donovan was a big Republican.”
McGuire shook his head. ”I don't think that was it, either.”
”Well, it seems like a stretch to me that Stockman would go as far as having Donovan killed.”
”I know for a fact that Donovan was going to try to derail Stockman's campaign.”
”Yeah, but who knows if he really could have.”
McGuire smirked. ”You're selling Bill short. Even though he was a Republican, he was very very connected on both sides of the political aisle. He could have made things tough for Stockman, and he had the economic muscle to get his message out. Particularly with that network of radio and television stations Everest owns.” McGuire hesitated. ”Believe me, they hated each other from a long time back.” connected on both sides of the political aisle. He could have made things tough for Stockman, and he had the economic muscle to get his message out. Particularly with that network of radio and television stations Everest owns.” McGuire hesitated. ”Believe me, they hated each other from a long time back.”