Maggie collected her things, digging into her bag for a tissue which she used to wipe away fake tears, thanked Frank and let the manager show her out. Upstairs, she surveyed for the last time the tables cloaked in darkness and the stage in a purple haze. Performing was a dull-eyed bottle-blonde, who held her hands over her head in readiness for a manoeuvre that would have her literally bending over backwards with her private parts thrust forward.
Maggie headed for the door. Following the lead set by Georgia, she kept her head down throughout so that no CCTV camera would catch her.
Once outside, she exhaled deeply, refreshed to be out in the cold and away from the stale, soiled air of the Midnight Lounge. She fought the urge to phone Stuart. Not yet; this was still not nailed down. She looked across the street, seeing a man in an idling car. He glanced directly at her, then away. Not a cab, then. Suddenly, desperately, she wanted to get out of here.
Maggie headed for the door. Following the lead set by Georgia, she kept her head down throughout so that no CCTV camera would catch her.
Once outside, she exhaled deeply, refreshed to be out in the cold and away from the stale, soiled air of the Midnight Lounge. She fought the urge to phone Stuart. Not yet; this was still not nailed down. She looked across the street, seeing a man in an idling car. He glanced directly at her, then away. Not a cab, then. Suddenly, desperately, she wanted to get out of here.
While the bouncer on the door called her a taxi, she began to pace, itching for a cigarette.
Surely what she had just seen could mean only one thing. The time stamped on the CCTV recording had been unambiguous: 23.05. Last night, Vic Forbes had been in a TV studio, then sat somewhere perhaps at home, maybe at an internet café, perhaps on a street corner armed only with a BlackBerry and issued his statement threatening to reveal a shocking aspect of Stephen Bakers past. And then he had come to his regular perch at the Midnight Lounge where he had picked up a girl. And not just some stripper, but an unusually beautiful woman. Who just happened to have started work at this place where Forbes was a known regular one day earlier and who had now disappeared off the face of the earth.
They had left together and, an hour or so later, he was dangling from a rope, trussed up like a drag queen with a Vitamin C habit.
There was only one way that could have happened, wasnt there? Or was it still conceivable that Vic Forbes had somehow come to his death alone?
All right, Maggie told herself. Think. Forbes went back to his apartment with Georgia, theyd fooled around a bit, said good night and then he not yet sated had got out his Rocky Horror kit for a bit of solo gasping, which then went horribly wrong.
Theoretically possible. But that was surely the less likely scenario. What was it the nuns had taught them in those moral philosophy lessons? Occams Razor: always go with the simplest explanation, the one that made the fewest assumptions.
And that version pointed only one way.
The gorgeous Georgia had started working at the Lounge on the very day Vic Forbes had begun his public and private blackmail assault on the President.
Maggie pictured Frank, the security guard, nodding when she asked if Forbes had been a regular. Had he been there a couple of times? Bit more than a couple.
Whoever had been watching Forbes knew hed be at the Lounge. Probably knew his tastes, too. So they sent in Georgia.
Forbes unable to believe his luck had taken the bait. Hed headed home, she did the job, then dressed his body to look like an auto-erotic suicide.
Was there another way? What if it was a real pick-up? She pictured Forbes at his front door, fumbling for his key, then tumbling inside with Georgia, ravenous for sex. He tells her of his fetish for dressing up and his penchant for breathlessness. She goes along with it, but something goes wrong. Worried shell be blamed, she flees
Again, possible. But what were the chances that a woman, who had just started working at the Midnight Lounge when Forbes got active, would go home with him on the very night he was about to strike his deadliest blow against the President, and then disappear immediately after his death what were the chances that all that was a coincidence?
Besides, Maggie remembered Telegraph Tim saying that the only fingerprints theyd found at the house had belonged to Forbes. If she had just been an unhappy hooker, in the wrong place at the wrong time, shed have left her prints everywhere.
No, there was only one plausible explanation for why Georgia had disappeared and it was the same explan ation for why she had appeared at the Midnight Lounge in the first place. It was a classic honeytrap though with a lethal sting.
The police were wrong. Tim and all the other reporters were wrong.
Forbes had not killed himself, by accident or design.
Victor Forbes had been murdered.
23
From The Page, Thursday March 23, 00.03:
Impeachment!
Republicans to table articles of impeachment through House Judiciary Committee in the am accusing President Baker of high crimes and misdemeanors. Opening step in a process aimed at making Baker the first president of the 21st century to be removed from office. Massive and developing story
Twenty-two minutes later, from Politico.coms Playbook column:
Im hearing that Senator Rick Franklin placed a call to the White House in the last hour or so, notifying the President personally of his intention to proceed with impeachment. Call was a courtesy born out of respect for the office of President. My source tells me that Stephen Baker pleaded with Franklin not to do it, arguing in an emotional phone call that it was against all the rules of natural justice to move against him so early in his presidency. Its certainly a record, thats for sure. Both Andrew Johnson in the 19th century and Bill Clinton in the 20th had their feet under the table for a good few years before they faced the mechanism that remains the Constitutions nuclear weapon: impeachment. Baker has been there just 62 days.
Its too late at night for me to file more than a few speculative thoughts about this, so here goes with two. First, this has only come about because of the death of Vic Forbes. Sure, that name wont appear on the charge sheet when it comes before the House Judiciary Committee in the morning. Franklin and his pals in the House will make the Iranian Connection the heart of the legal case against the President. They will say that the selling of influence to an enemy power constitutes the relevant violation of Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, which states: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High crimes and misdemeanors. But thats the legal case. Make no mistake, the politics has the name Forbes all over it.
His death changed the political calculus in Washington. The rumors, the suspicion at the undeniably convenient timing of Forbess passing, all that has created bad atmospherics for Stephen Baker, a climate of suspicion where senior Republicans think they can accuse him of anything.
And, if Franklin is serious, he must reckon he can peel off enough conservative Democrats to make this thing pass. Lets face it, theres no shortage of Baker-skeptics among the Democrats who never liked the President and all his idealistic talk of America showing an outstretched hand rather than a clenched fist to the world anyway. If I were in the White House tonight, Id be keeping a close eye on Dr Anthony Adams over at Defense.
Second, this will all move very fast. The Democratic majority is so slender, Republicans need only a couple of conservative Democrats to waver and the Judiciary Committee could agree to submit articles of impeachment for a vote of the entire House as soon as the start of next week. The clock is ticking on the Baker presidency. If there is even a shred of credible evidence that Forbes was indeed the victim of foul play, rather than a suicide, then the Baker presidencys future will surely be measured in days
24
New Orleans, Thursday March 23, 01.22 CST
Maggie was in the cab on the way back to the hotel, her breathing coming faster now, her mind racing through the implications. Only one question mattered, though the answer made her blood run cold.
Maggie was in the cab on the way back to the hotel, her breathing coming faster now, her mind racing through the implications. Only one question mattered, though the answer made her blood run cold.
Who would want Forbes dead?
In response, a single sentence kept repeating itself, a sentence she had repeatedly tried to banish.
I want him gone.
It was the most obvious explanation, the one that any cold-eyed observer would reach for. Cui bono? Wasnt that the first question the analyst was meant to ask: who benefits? And who benefited more from the death of Victor Forbes than Stephen Baker?
For the fifth time in two minutes, she hit redial on Stuarts number. Still busy. Situation grave, he had said. What the hell was happening over there?
They were driving past an empty plot. It looked like scrubland now but, given its location, it had almost certainly been a fully-inhabited residential block before the levees broke. There was a sign attached to the chickenwire fence, announcing a reconstruction project, with a photograph showing the gleaming faux-colonial houses that would arise on this spot. But it only made Maggie think how difficult it was going to be, breathing life into a city that had all but drowned.
Her BlackBerry, now set on silent, vibrated. She seized on it, thumbing the button frantically. Stuart? Is that you?
But there was only silence. The vibration had announced not a call but a message.
Stuart: Cant get hold of you. Things insane here. Franklin and the Republicans launching impeachment proceedings against us in the morning. You have to get us something fast. Anything. Maggie, were depending on you. HES depending on you.
She felt her throat dry. Impeachment. It seemed that Forbes was going to achieve in death what he had set out to do at the end of his life and bring down Stephen Baker.
The veins in her neck began to throb. How dare they? At long last, a truly decent, good man emerges from the swamp of politics, and what is their reaction? To tear him down, using the dirtiest, cheapest tricks imaginable. No wonder they couldnt stand a giant like Stephen Baker. He exposed the rest of them for what they were: dwarves.