by Robert Ellis
Hardly shuffled the bags and finally swung the trunk closed. Then they got into the car and drove off for the airport and what Frank assumed would be a work-love fest in Colorado. Once Linda spent a few days holding the campaign’s hand and putting out fires, she and Hardly would have the weekend to themselves….
“You’re fucked, Frank.”
He turned from the window and saw Dick Zain entering the room. Zain’s glasses were so thick, Frank had never been able to tell what color his eyes were. Fingerprint gray maybe, with a smudge of blue. He wore short sleeve shirts all year long and used the front pocket as a combination pen holder and toolbox.
After trying to convince Randolph and Grimes that they were on the wrong track, Frank had returned to the office for another look at Woody’s things. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, although he had to admit that he didn’t really know what he was looking for. When Tracy and the interns left for the day, he’d made the call to Dick Zain. Zain had been at it for less than an hour, with instructions from Frank not to say anything until Linda and Jason Hardly were gone. Now he was dumping two dozen bugs on Tracy’s desk.
Frank felt his spine shiver and popped two more caplets of Tylenol like they were candy. “All these came from Woody’s office?”
Zain shook his head. “No, Frank. The whole fucking place is wired like a Christmas tree. Every fucking office. Every fucking phone. I haven’t checked Linda’s yet, but I’ll bet it’s the same.”
Zain disassembled a pen, shook a part out the size of a pencil eraser and held it to the light so that Frank could see. Zain was clearly impressed.
“Wireless,” he said. “There’s a radio transmitter in the bathroom ceiling. State-of-the-fucking-art. Whoever’s been listening could be anywhere on the fucking Hill.”
The phone rang. Frank glared at it.
“Are we clean?”
Zain shot him a look and smiled. “I fucking hope so.”
* * *
Frank couldn’t see the Lincoln Memorial because of all the fog. He stood at the water’s edge, smoking and pacing as he waited for Mario. The night had become chilly. Frank gazed at the huge pool and could see his face reflecting on its surface. The image was cloudy and distorted, the result of the warm water meeting the cooler air and steaming its way into the sky. It was a misty face he saw staring back at him, drawn in blacks and dark grays.
When Mario finally arrived, they started walking along the water’s edge, away from the sounds of tourists hidden in the dense fog.
“Sorry I’m late,” Mario said. “Traffic was bad. None of the traffic signals are working.”
Frank nodded. It had happened before. The mayor of Washington was known for his use of cocaine rather than his ability to manage the nation’s capital. As a result, the city couldn’t afford to pay its electric bill on occasions and the signal lights shut down.
“Who did the sweep?”
“Dick Zain,” Frank said. “Now what have you got?”
“Randolph’s supposed to be a good detective. I don’t know why he’s giving you a hard time. Maybe he’s overworked.”
Frank was finished with Randolph and Grimes. “What else?” he asked.
“The Committee for the Restoration of American Values and Ethics. They use the acronym RAVE, like those drug concerts. They’ve got an office here and another one in Atlanta.”
Frank shook his head. Politics wasn’t the issue tonight. “What about Woody? You did his research. You sure there’s nothing there?”
“People don’t kill people over social security. Not yet anyway. Besides, we’ve got another problem right now.”
Frank gave him a look as they reached a street light. A young couple was passing within earshot—locals dressed in jogging outfits. As Mario stopped to wipe the mist off his glasses, Frank noticed the woman gripping her keys. A small canister of pepper spray was attached, her finger already in position for a possible attack. When the couple vanished into the fog, Mario cleared his throat and lowered his voice.
“There’s a rumor, Frank.”
“What rumor?”
“Your client’s having an affair.”
“Mel Merdock?”
Mario nodded, slipping his glasses back on. Frank got rid of his smoke.
“That’s all he needs. How good’s the rumor?”
Mario grimaced. “I don’t know yet. You know how Stewart Brown is, Frank. Maybe he started it. Maybe he made it up just for kicks.”
Frank thought it over. The Merdock/Kay race might have another issue after all, whether it was real or not. He knew Stewart Brown was capable of making anything up in order to get the win. Even more troubling was how Frank’s worried client would take the news. There seemed to be a limit to what Merdock could handle.
“What do you want me do?” Mario asked, not hiding his smile very well.
“Find out if it’s real,” he said.
Chapter 30
They were images of a Juliana Merdock look-a-like. She was about the same age and had black hair, only her naked body was fuller, looser, more voluptuous. And Mel Merdock, candidate for the U.S. Senate, looked like he was having a good time with her. He was holding her down on the bed, squeezing and biting her big tits as he rode her like an animal at the rodeo.
Ozzie Olson’s dick got hard as he paged through the series of sex shots on his computer. He tried to fight off his erection because he found the images so disturbing. Especially Mel Merdock wearing that stupid cowboy hat. Still, he couldn’t keep his eyes off those tits.
Olson had photographed Merdock with his girlfriend on three occasions—gone through the kitchen window with his camera three times. These images were part of the first batch when things were relatively tame. Olson had been surprised by how close he could get without being noticed those first two times. He was never in the same room with them, but he didn’t need to be. From the end of the hall, he had a clear shot of the entire bed, even the hot tub in the bathroom. Besides, they had other things on their minds. And both of them were moaners, Merdock even louder than the girl when she did certain things to him.
Olson grabbed his drink, wondering why he’d gone in that third time. That’s when it happened. That’s when it got ugly. He’d been overconfident and moved down the hall. He never should have moved down that hall.
He turned away from the monitor and looked at the phone, wondering if he should call her again tonight or not.
Every time he thought about it his body trembled. He knocked back his drink, resting the glass on a court summons and pouring another. Then he searched his desk for that legal pad. He’d written her number on the front page. Olson’s basement office was a pigsty. He had trouble finding it but remembered putting it in a safe place. When he spotted a stack of bills beneath a discarded bag from Office Depot, he saw the legal pad on the bottom and slid it out.
He looked at the number and read it to himself, still trying to decide. Then he grit his teeth, picked up the phone and dialed. He was calling Senator Helen Pryor, his opponent in the election that he’d lost two years ago. He was calling her in spite of the obvious risk that she might remember the sound of his voice. As he listened to the phone ring, he glanced back at the picture of Merdock screwing his girlfriend. Olson could feel his body raging and decided that it was worth the chance. Merdock and Frank Miles were one in the same thing and they could both eat shit.
Helen picked up the phone from her office in the Russell Building and said hello. The sound of her sweet, calm voice threw Olson off and he cleared his throat trying to regain his composure and sense of purpose.
“If you could only see what I see, Senator,” he said roughly.
“Who is this?”
Olson didn’t answer, noting that she hadn’t recognized him.
“How did you get my private line?” she went on.
A truck was idling outside. Olson closed the basement window and sat down.
“You gave it to me,” he said finally. “We used to be friends, Helen.
A long time ago. That’s why I’d hate to see you get hurt.”
She didn’t say anything after that. He could hear her breathing. Waiting. What could she be thinking as she listened from the other end?
It had been a mistake, he realized. He shouldn’t have called her. He’d fucked up and shouldn’t have taken the risk. What if she recognized his voice? What if she put it together and remembered?
He slammed the phone down and jumped to his feet, overcome by the shakes. When he guzzled his drink, he choked and spit most of it on the floor. He was tired of drinking cheap whisky and making big mistakes. Tired of thinking about the people who had knocked him down and put him here. It was their fault and he hated them for it.
He looked at the paint peeling beneath the window, his loser office eating him up from the inside out. He threw his drink against the wall and watched the glass shatter. Then he grabbed his jacket and walked out. It was too dangerous being a drunk right now. Things were too tricky. What he needed was hot, black coffee. A whole fucking pot.
Chapter 31
Frank pulled into the driveway, dropping his cell phone into his briefcase. He’d checked in with his service on the drive home. There were thirty-nine messages since he last checked an hour and a half ago. Campaign managers mostly. All in a panic and looking for advice as they faced the day-to-day crisis every campaign worked through this close to election day.
Frank’s goal was a decent night’s sleep. For the past few nights he couldn’t make it past three, tossing and turning until dawn.
He changed into a pair of jeans, slipped on a T-shirt and went downstairs to see about dinner. He made a salad and mixed a dressing together consisting of four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil to one tablespoon of red wine vinegar with a pinch of salt and imported Parmesan cheese. Then he nuked a frozen lasagna dinner, poured a glass of wine and carried everything over to the game table in the living room.
As he ate and Buddha pretended not to watch, he went through the files on Woody’s clients Linda had given him before she left for her trip with Jason Hardly. Six of Woody’s clients wanted to stay with the firm. Frank and Linda would each handle three. Frank told himself that he wanted to get a feel for their chances so that he could budget his time and interest. But he also knew that his motive was more far reaching than that.
Halfway through dinner he came to realize why Woody may have been so moody these past few months. Frank had always thought that Woody’s clients would lose because they couldn’t raise enough money to run decent campaigns. That was true, but now he understood that in each case the candidate’s problems ran deeper than that.
The first was a progressive candidate running in Alabama. Frank had predicted that the South would go conservative three cycles ago. When O.J. Simpson was acquitted in his criminal trial for the murder of his wife, the fate of the South was sealed, and Frank’s predictions had been proven correct. Acknowledging that there might be exceptions here and there, a progressive candidate had no chance in the South for perhaps another decade. Maybe even a generation or two. Frank wouldn’t waste too much time on this race. Two, maybe three spots to be made in the next few days and then forgotten.
The second race was a hard-fought congressional contest between two women in Portland, Oregon. Woody’s client had beaten her opponent in the previous election two years before. Now the opponent had returned with a new hair style, contact lenses, and a fashionable dress designer to accommodate her leaner figure. Her spots looked like feminine hygiene commercials complete with warm and fuzzy music. But there was nothing warm and fuzzy about the opponent herself. Along with her new image were charges of hiring private detectives to follow Woody’s client around and dig up dirt. There had also been a mysterious infusion of cash into the opponent’s campaign reported to be in excess of one million dollars. She was running a dirty race, and Woody’s client only had about two hundred thousand collected from small contributions to defend herself.
The race in Portland was over the moment the opponent cheated, receiving that mysterious one million dollars in cash. Frank knew that nothing he could do would change that. The opponent would win and her crimes would have to be sorted out after the election.
He ate another bite of lasagna and took a sip of wine, then opened the next file.
The last race was a woman from Michigan, running for an open seat in the House. Unfortunately, she had made the mistake of accepting her governor’s appointment to the state parole board ten years before. Crime was the big issue in the race, and she had the support of every police organization in the state. She was tough on crime and her opponent was a right-wing fanatic with no experience. In a rational world, she would have been a shoe-in to win the race. Instead, her accomplishments were the very thing that made her vulnerable, and as such, the district had been targeted by the opponent’s national committee.
The money and commercials against her weren’t coming from her congressional district or even her state, but directly from Washington.
Frank suddenly remembered Woody showing him one of their ads a few months ago. The opponent’s party had gone through every criminal legally paroled in the last ten years and picked out the four most vicious mug shots they could find. The spot had the subtlety of a sledgehammer and seemed to indicate that Woody’s client favored releasing rapists and murderers over jail time.
Woody’s client had been thrown into the weeds. She didn’t stand a chance.
Frank closed the files and returned them to his briefcase. Unfortunately, there was nothing there he hadn’t seen before. No one involved would have had a reason to harm Woody. In each race, Woody’s client was destined to lose.
Disappointed that he hadn’t found anything that even sparked his imagination, Frank carried his dishes into the kitchen and scraped morsels of leftover lasagna into Buddha’s bowl. As he watched the dog eat them with delight, he poured a drink and walked into the study. Linda had been over the other night, and he thought that he could still smell the light scent of her body lotion as he stood by the couch. He looked at his watch. It was only nine in Washington, but felt later. Considering the time difference, she and Hardly would be in their hotel room getting changed for dinner about now. He wondered if the room had a view of the mountains. If it did, maybe they would decide to order room service tonight and eat in….
Frank switched off the lights and returned to the kitchen, grabbing the bottle and stepping out onto the back porch. He slid a chair away from the table with his foot. As he sat down, he topped off his glass and sipped it. The vodka tasted smooth, warming his stomach as he gazed into the backyard. Heavily planted, the property had the appearance of almost being woods. The moon was out tonight, and he could see it floating through the leafless branches and misty clouds just above the horizon.
There were times when Frank could turn off the white noise of traffic and even ignore the sounds of police sirens hurrying to and fro. But not tonight. He needed a plan. A next move. Some way of finding the man with spiked gray hair.
Chapter 32
Frank packed up his laptop, threw it over his shoulder and headed out. Because it was Saturday, the phones were quiet and only Tracy came in. She was at her desk, updating TV buy orders on the master spreadsheet. As he passed her, she stopped working and gave him a look.
“Is there anything I can help you with, Frank?”
“Everything’s fine. If Juliana Merdock calls, tell her I’m over at the talk radio campaign. She’s already got the address.”
“Juliana?” she said with a devious smile.
He nodded, ignoring the tease and heading downstairs.
He’d spent the morning in Linda’s office, reviewing the three clients she would be handling on Woody’s behalf. When he couldn’t find a hint or clue pointing him in the right direction, he pulled the files on the two candidates who decided to leave the firm. Nothing stood out with them either.
Frustrated, he decided to spend the afternoon trying to keep busy. He’d been list
ening to the radio. Without new copy, his talk radio campaign might begin to sound stale.
In spite of the rain, he made the drive in fifteen minutes. The elevator opened onto a vacant floor, and he started down the hall. The real estate agent had been true to her word with Frank renting an office on a short-term lease because the floor was due to be renovated sometime after election day. It was quiet. They were the only tenants occupying the entire floor and had all the privacy they would ever need.
The entrance at the end of the hall was unmarked, the glass blocked with plain brown paper. Frank pushed the door open and walked inside.
Long tables filled out the large, open space with thirty volunteers, most of them seniors, listening to the radio on headsets and working the phones. Frank had brought them in from the Hilltop Rest Home and it was clear that they were glad to be working. He had provided them with cheat sheets detailing the points he wanted them to discuss. After a few hours, they understood the routine and their speech patterns began to relax. After a few days, their delivery sounded smooth and conversational. Even Frank couldn’t tell that he was creating the content for every talk radio station in Virginia.
He moved to the catering tray at the head of the room, grabbed a cup of coffee and set up his computer and portable printer beside an older woman who had just gone on the air.
“Am I on?” the woman said into her phone. “Great talking to you, Ollie. I listen to your show every day. That’s the kids in the background. I’m a housewife and I agree with the last caller. I’m tired of politicians like Lou Kay running negative campaigns.”
The room was buzzing. Frank noticed a man with short white hair seated at the next table taking notes. As he began speaking, there was a hint of anger in his voice, a real sense of frustration that Frank knew would play like honesty.