Hair of the Dog, Gordon Carroll [top 100 novels of all time TXT] 📗

the findings. It had been a long night and she still had to clean up, but first she had to call Gil.

Well, at least this might help end whatever he was doing in Chicago and get him back home. At the thought of seeing him again, her fatigue vanished. She picked up her cell and called him. She thought about FaceTiming him, but she looked a wreck, so instead settled for mere audio.

The phone rang and rang.

The first of the press calls started at about seven the next morning, and by eight, at least fifty reporters were waiting outside.

Senator Marsh put on his best smile as the horde barged into his office. He’d had Keisha, and the couple playing her aunt and uncle, brought in on rush notice. They were standing with him as reporters started asking questions.

He was upset because he hadn’t been able to get hold of Clyde since last night, but he kept it well hidden. This wasn’t the time to let the press get wind that anything was amiss.

Gil Mason had alerted the press to the rescue before he’d landed with the girl in Chicago. He’d managed to hold them off for a time, but it was too big a story for them to lose interest. So now both he and Keisha were being put in the spotlight for the world to see.

It put a hitch in his plans, but only a little. He’d turn this to his advantage, just as he had everything in his life. He’d started as a Blood, something that should have kept him out of politics from the beginning. Instead, he’d used it. First, to rise in power, then, as a pity card; poor boy from the hood makes good, isn’t America great? All while running the entire gang effort to take over the town from the inside. He’d been an OG for decades, having never left the Bloods, simply playing the game and learning how to best take advantage of the system. And then, once becoming a senator, using the clout and authority to have access to when and where the police were going to be so that his men could be elsewhere. He was able to move the police and DA’s office to crack down on the other gangs, keeping the Bloods quiet and playing it on the down low. Eventually, the others were beat down to where it was easy for them to sweep in and take everything over.

It also gave him the tactical advantage of having his own private army. And Alvin Marsh never missed a chance to use his advantages, but always from the shadows. There was only a select handful of people that knew who the boss really was. Clyde, with him from the start, was his second in command and his greatest enforcer.

The only glitch in his rise had been his one weakness… women. Clyde constantly chided him about it, but Clyde was never a man for the ladies. Alvin had always had a way with women. They loved him and he loved them back. Always discreetly, he’d never hurt his wife that way, not if he could help it anyway. In all the years that they’d been together, she’d only been suspicious that one time, and he’d managed to charm her out of her fears like he charmed everyone. But Alvin knew himself to be a great man, destined for great things. And great men were too big for any one woman. How could a man as intense as he was be content with just one woman? Even Baskin Robbins understood the truth. They served the greatest taste treat in the world, ice cream, but did they offer just one flavor? No, they offered thirty-one. All the great men knew this truth. Gandhi, Muhammad, Kennedy, Clinton. The important thing was not to hurt the woman you loved most with your excursions. That, and not allowing your tastes to ruin your career. And in politics, that was something very dicey indeed. Money helped, of course, and the power, but even then there were sometimes complications, and that was where Clyde came in.

Alvin Marsh was anything but stupid. He understood that there were consequences to actions, and so today, he would face those consequences. Keisha James would have her moment in the sun. She would appear before the cameras and hear how brave she was and afterward he would pat her on the head, kiss her goodbye, and she would leave with the man and woman Clyde had picked out to be her aunt and uncle, the Claytons. And they’d turn her over to Clyde, who would take her somewhere safe and kill her. No one would find her body. That, of course, was supremely important in this day of DNA and ultra science. They would take her to a local crematorium and her ashes would be spread out over the Chicago River. The consequences would be over on that particular chapter of his life.

The Claytons walked into the room with little Keisha by their side. He saw her eyes searching the room and understood she was looking for the man that had killed her mother and taken her. Jerome Larkin was dead, but she didn’t know that. He saw no reason to burden her with the information. The fire in the projects and subsequent collapse of the building had been ruled an accidental fire, started by an addict too high to know better. His contacts in the upper echelons of government would make sure that no one looked into the details and so it would stay that way.

All that remained was to finish this press conference. In a way it was funny, because as always, Marsh would use this to his advantage. Gil Mason had intended this to cause a problem for him, and in one way it had. He’d had to delay getting rid of the evidence, that is Keisha James, but in the most important way, it would actually help