The Book of Fate - Brad Meltzer [123]
Lisbeth shook her head to herself, trying hard to stay focused. “Violet, I know this is hard for you—I know what it takes to tell the story—but I just need— Before we do anything, I need to ask: Do you have any way of proving this . . . anything at all . . . videotapes, physical proof . . . ?”
“You don’t believe me,” she insisted.
“No, no, no . . . it’s just, look who you’re fighting with here. Without a way of verifying—”
“I have proof,” Violet said, clearly annoyed as she caught her breath. “I’ve got it right here. If you don’t believe me, come get it.”
“I will, I’ll come right now. Lemme just . . . hold on one second . . .” Pressing her cell phone to her chest and hopping out of her seat, Lisbeth grabbed the uncrumpled art award notes, darted out of her cubicle, and ducked into a blond reporter’s cubicle directly across the hall. “Eve, can I borrow your car?” Lisbeth asked.
“First my phone—which I still haven’t gotten back—now my car—”
“Eve!”
Eve studied her friend, reading her expression. “This’s the one, isn’t it?”
“Column’s on my computer. Here’s the last item,” Lisbeth said, tossing her the art award notes. “Can you—?”
“On it,” Eve said as Lisbeth said thank you, took off up the hallway, and pressed her cell to her ear. “Violet, I’m on my way,” she said, doing her best to keep her talking. Sacred Rule #9: Never let go of the big fish. “So . . . how long were you two actually together?”
“A year and two months,” Violet replied, still sounding angry. “Right before the shooting.”
Lisbeth stopped running. “Wait, this was when he was still in the White House?”
“Of course. Every President goes home for vacation. Besides, he couldn’t pull this off in Washington. But down here . . . I’d get the phone call and he could—”
“Violet, no bullshitting anymore—you’re trying to tell me that despite all the security—despite dozens of Secret Service agents—you were sleeping with and got beat up by the President of the United States while he was still in office?”
“President?” Violet asked. “You think I was sleeping with Manning? No, no, no . . . the other mention—about running for Senate . . .”
“You mean—”
“The little animal who mauled me. I was talking about Dreidel.”
74
Think he’ll go through with it?” Dreidel asked, readjusting his wire-rim glasses as he read from Boyle’s personnel file.
“Who, Wes? Hard to say,” Rogo replied, still sitting on the floor and flipping through the documents in Boyle’s requests. “He was talking a tough game, but you know how he gets with Manning.”
“You’ve obviously never been on the receiving end of Manning.” Looking down at the file, Dreidel added, “Y’know Boyle spoke Hebrew and Arabic?”
“Says who?”
“Says here: Hebrew, Arabic, and American Sign Language. Apparently, his sister was deaf. That’s why they moved to Jersey—had one of the early schools for the hearing impaired. God, I remember filling this out,” he added, reading from Boyle’s National Security Questionnaire. “According to this, he won a Westinghouse prize when he was in high school—plus a Marshall Scholarship at Oxford. Guy was scary smart, especially when it came t— Hold on,” Dreidel said. “Have you been over 180 days delinquent on any debts? Yes. If yes, explain below . . .” Flipping to the next page, Dreidel read the single-spaced page that was stapled to the application. “. . . to a total debt of $230,000 . . .”
“Two hundred and thirty thousand? What’d he buy? Italy?”
“I don’t think he bought anything,” Dreidel said. “From what it says here, it was his father’s debt. Apparently, Boyle volunteered to take it over so his dad wouldn’t have to declare bankruptcy.”
“Boy loves his daddy.”
“Actually, hates his daddy. But loves his mom,” Dreidel said, reading even further. “If Dad declared bankruptcy and the creditors swooped in, Mom would’ve been kicked out of the family restaurant