Murder Inside the Beltway - Margaret Truman [107]
“I know this is unpleasant for you, Jerry,” Ziegler said, a perpetual small smile on his lips, “but life takes funny turns.”
“I find nothing funny about it,” Rollins said.
“Poor choice of words on my part,” Ziegler said. “Of course, you’ve brought what we discussed.”
“Yes.” Rollins reached down, opened his briefcase, removed the envelope and placed it on the table. Ziegler looked at it, a quizzical expression on his malleable face. “What do you figure the cost of a couple of videotapes is, Jerry?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Surely not much. How much did you pay for them?”
“I don’t see where that’s relevant.”
“Just curious. They were brought to us first. I told you that.”
Rollins sat up a little straighter. He’d wondered why the tapes hadn’t been offered to the Pyle campaign. It was only logical. “Why didn’t you buy them?” he asked.
“Because there wasn’t anything tangible to buy. We were told that the tapes existed but weren’t provided with specifics. We decided it was a ploy, a scam, and told the seller to get lost.”
• • •
That hadn’t been the case with Rollins. He’d been offered the opportunity to actually view the tapes before committing to buying them, and had taken the seller up on that opportunity. He was stunned, of course, at what they contained, but kept his feelings to himself. “How much?” he’d asked.
“A quarter mil,” was the answer.
“How do I know you haven’t made copies of them?” he asked.
“You’ll have to take my word for it,” the seller replied, grinning. “I didn’t make copies. I don’t play games. We have a deal?”
“It will take me a few days to arrange for the money.”
The seller put the tapes back in the shopping bag he carried and told Rollins to call when he had the money.
“I don’t want to see you again,” Rollins had said. “Can we arrange to have the tapes and the money exchanged without actually meeting?”
“Sure. I’ll tell you where to come. But don’t let this drag on too long, huh? You’re not the only game in town.” Another grin. “Nice meeting you.”
Rollins manipulated campaign funds under his control—there was so much money, and so little oversight, that coming up with $250,000 and hiding it under miscellaneous expenses wasn’t difficult. He called the seller and it was agreed that the tapes would be left at a designated spot, and where Rollins could deposit an envelope containing the cash. It went smoothly, and Rollins had not heard from the seller again, to his relief.
• • •
“I do have something to ask of you, Kevin,” Rollins said.
“If I can.”
“As you know, there are two embarrassing episodes on the tapes. I suppose you can call them ‘episodes.’ While one will suit your purposes, to use the other will smack of nothing but the vilest of motives.”
“I understand what you’re saying, Jerry, and you may be surprised that I totally agree with you.”
“Good. Now, my daughter.”
“Before we get to the specifics of that, Jerry, you must understand that her abduction had nothing to do with me, our campaign, or the president and his people.”
“I don’t believe you, Kevin, but that’s irrelevant. I’ve delivered the tapes. I want my daughter back and I want her back now.”
“Of course. But you do understand that for you to sit here and think of me as being even remotely capable of such a heinous act is saddening. I’ve always known you as a man who could compartmentalize the personal from the professional. You and I are both professionals, Jerry. Neither of us have within us the level of evil necessary to use an innocent child to achieve political advantage.”
Rollins sighed. He didn’t want to hear this sort of self-serving lecture, this blatantly dishonest attempt to salve Ziegler’s conscience. Not that it was surprising. The Pyle machine had set the standard for lying away its misdeeds, a callous economic policy leaving millions behind, disastrous foreign incursions sold to the American public through out-and-out falsehoods, abject corruption in myriad agencies and departments, a litany