Murder in the White House (Capital Crimes Book 1) by Margaret Truman Page B

with the death of Lansard Blaine? Because if you are, I want to talk to—”
    “He was killed in the White House.”
    “
Never
been in the White House.”
    “I believe it. So you didn’t kill Blaine… but you can help us find out who did—”
    “I don’t know anythin’ that’s got to do with his being murdered—”
    “Did you ever pay a girl to sleep with him?”
    Johnson glanced at Jill. “Yes.” He said it quietly.
    “Buy him liquor, meals… entertainment?”
    Johnson nodded. “I represent a company with important business interests in this country. I wine and dine a lot of people—”
    “We know. Why Blaine?”
    Johnson sighed. “The bloody multilateral trade agreements, of course. They’ll destroy my comp’ny—or could.”
    “You wanted Blaine to do what for you?”
    Johnson shrugged. “To make us an exception. If he couldn’t kill the damned agreements outright maybe he could have got us out of them anyway. Your President… well, you know, he set up the agreements to takecare of his friends in Detroit, at the expense of European and Japanese companies like mine.”
    It was plain to Ron that Johnson only played at being the cockney fool, that in fact he was a shrewd operator who used his East End accent (turned off and on at will) for all the advantage he could gain from it. He was, on the other hand, frightened by this investigation. Keeping him off balance with questions was a useful tactic…
    “Winning an exception for British automobile manufacturers would be worth millions, wouldn’t it?” Jill said.
    “I’d say so.”
    “So you spend your company’s money,” Ron said. “You’re not a registered representative of a foreign government, though, are you?”
    Johnson grinned. “Representative of my government? Hardly. That’s the last thing in the world I am—”
    “Blaine,” Ron said, “was murdered, as you may recall. Millions of dollars—”
    “Wait a minute ’ere—”
    “If Lansard Blaine was worth millions to you, alive, then he was worth as much to someone else dead. Or, if he was on the other side, then he was worth all that to you dead. It depends on whether or not you’re telling me the truth about where your real interests lay—”
    “Blaine,” Johnson said, “was
against
the damn trade agreements your President wants…‘E could’ve been
our
salvation.”
    “Spell it out.”
    “By convincin’ Webster—who knows
nothin
’ about foreign relations…”
    “Was Blaine going to do what you wanted?”
    “He was against the damn treaties, he was on our side.”
    Ron glanced at Jill. “What did it cost you to get him there?”
    Johnson drew a deep breath. “’E believed we were right,” he said more weakly.
    “And?”
    Johnson let out his deep breath. “And we paid him. So you see”—he rushed—“it would have done
us
no good to kill him. ’E was on
our
side. ’E was against the damn treaties.”
    “You paid him
what
, Johnson?”
    Johnson shrugged. “
Money
. What more?”
    “You’re saying you bribed the Secretary of State…”
    “Bribe…” He rolled the word around on his tongue. “Bribe… well, that there presupposes a
quid pro quo
, does it not? I’m not sure we ever got our money’s worth—but, yas, goddammit, we paid him. We paid your precious Secretary of State to push our side of the argument with the President. We knew his relationship was a whole lot more than just Secretary. He was a personal friend of Webster, of long standing… he could argue our side of the thing the way no other man could, and we paid him to do it. We paid him a lot of money. We promised him more if he won the case. Yas, we did. But we didn’t kill him, he was workin’ on our side of the case, on our payroll, as you might say.”
    “How did you pay—?”
    “Girls, wine, food, but all that was a pittance.
Cash
, like I told you… your Secretary of State sold his influence for cash. You mean to tell me you didn’t know that? We paid him cash