House Arrest

by Mike Lawson

  Leary’s boys drove him to his home in Georgetown, but when they arrived there, DeMarco saw three TV vans parked in front of his house. He told the driver not to stop and to go around the block. They dropped him off at a neighbor’s house whose backyard abutted DeMarco’s. Fortunately, the neighbor was at work, so DeMarco crept through his backyard and scaled the six-foot cedar fence that separated his own yard from his neighbor’s. He entered his house through the back door—and got another surprise.

  It looked as if someone had broken into his house and trashed the place—and someone had, the culprit in this case being the FBI. The FBI had just ripped his house apart, searching for more evidence to convict him of Canton’s murder, and they hadn’t bothered to put anything back in its proper place. Cereal and rice and pasta boxes were sitting on the kitchen counter, and he knew that agents had stuck their big hands into each box to see if something was hidden there. All the drawers in the house—bedroom drawers, kitchen drawers, bathroom drawers, desk drawers—were open, the contents removed and not replaced. The clothes from his bedroom closet were lying on the box spring of his bed. The mattress had been flipped off the bed to reveal whether he’d stashed anything beneath it. And that was just the first floor of his house; he knew the second floor and the basement would be in similar states of disarray. Fucking FBI. The only good news was that the blinds were closed, so the reporters outside couldn’t see that he was home.

  He noticed that the telephone answering machine was blinking with about twenty messages—or as many messages as the machine could hold. Almost all the messages were from newspaper and television reporters asking for interviews. One of the callers was Scott Pelley asking if he’d like the opportunity to tell his story on 60 Minutes. Fuck you, Scott.

  Up to this point in DeMarco’s life, no one outside a small inner circle that included Mahoney, Mahoney’s secretary, Emma, and Neil really knew what he’d been doing for a living since graduating from college. His neighbors and his friends knew only that he was a lawyer and had some boring job at the Capitol that he never discussed. His photograph, to the best of his knowledge, had never appeared in a newspaper. Now he knew if he googled himself, he’d get about a zillion hits.

  They’d photographed him at his arraignment, and he’d seen the photos on the front page of the Washington Post and how they’d made him look like the murderer he was accused of being: his hard, unshaven face; his hair in disarray; the intense, jittery eyes of a maniac. The photos had somehow made him look brutal and guilty, as opposed to terrified, which he had been at the time. Now there would be photos of him leaving the hospital, looking gaunt and haggard, as he’d lost about ten pounds, and there would be a startled, wary expression in his eyes, like the eyes of a road-crossing animal caught in the headlights. And the Internet would retain forever everything the media had managed to learn about him: why the FBI had arrested him for Canton’s murder; stories dredged up from the past about his Mafia hit man father; and—the worst thing, when it came to his future—all the speculation that he worked for John Mahoney.

  DeMarco was almost positive that he couldn’t continue to work for Mahoney, at least not in the way he’d done in the past. The whole point of DeMarco’s job had always been that it gave Mahoney deniability. That is, if DeMarco had been caught doing something shady, Mahoney would have been able to claim he had no connection to DeMarco—which is exactly what he’d done when DeMarco was arrested. But now things had changed dramatically, because the press had shone a spotlight on his civil service position—the one that failed to define exactly what he did and whom he worked for. All the rumors, however—rumors Mahoney had vigorously and repeatedly disavowed—were that DeMarco worked for him.

  What this all meant was that the Republicans, who almost certainly didn’t believe Mahoney and would enjoy causing him pain—just as Mahoney would enjoy it if the shoe were on the other foot—would insist that DeMarco’s job be eliminated. That is, they’d eliminate it unless Mahoney could stop them, and DeMarco doubted that Mahoney would make any attempt to do so, even if he could. How could he after all the denials?

  DeMarco didn’t like his job, but he needed his job. And what he really needed was that golden federal pension he’d get if he survived long enough to get it. If he’d had a normal civil service position, he wouldn’t have been so concerned. The way civil service worked was that if a position was abolished, the person who held the position would be placed in some similar, vacant position for which he or she was qualified. The problem, in DeMarco’s case, was that there was no similar position. Political fixer/bagman was actually a very common occupation in the U.S. Capitol—but it was not an accepted federal job title.

  DeMarco was about to join the ranks of the unemployed.

  DeMarco couldn’t think surrounded by all the clutter, and he spent the next two hours putting the first floor of his house back in order. He didn’t have the energy at the moment to tackle the second floor and the basement, so he poured himself a shot of bourbon and took a seat in his den. As he sat sipping bourbon in the dark room—he couldn’t open the blinds because of the lurking reporters—he continued to ponder his future. His landline phone rang several times. He ignored the calls, certain they were more interview requests.

  He checked his watch: four p.m. Mahoney should still be at work. He pulled out his cell phone and called Mahoney’s office. He needed to find out where things stood.

  When Mavis answered, he said, “I have to talk to him.” He didn’t have to identify himself. She knew his voice and had probably been expecting the call.

  Mavis hesitated before saying, “Joe, don’t call here again. But the congressman will get back to you. Be patient. Oh, and he told me to tell you to stay away from the Capitol.”

  “I wasn’t planning to go there until after I talked to him,” DeMarco said. “And I’m going to have to find someplace to stay. I have reporters camping on my front lawn. So tell him to call me on my cell.”

  Again Mavis hesitated; then she said, “He won’t be calling you on your cell, Joe. But just … just hang in there for a while.”

  “Hang in there?” DeMarco said. But Mavis had hung up.

  An hour later DeMarco, now on his second bourbon, was still contemplating his options when it came to finding another job. He wondered whether Walmart still hired greeters. You’ll find toasters in aisle ten, ma’am, and they’re on sale today.

  His cell phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number on the caller ID. So far no reporters had called him on his cell; they apparently hadn’t been able to wheedle the number out of Verizon yet, but he was sure they’d get it before long. He decided to answer the call in case it was Mahoney calling from a phone in the Capitol. It wasn’t.

  The caller said, “Joe, my name is Melissa Monroe. A mutual friend asked me to call you.”

  DeMarco knew who Melissa Monroe was. She was a famous Washington socialite, and if you weren’t invited to a Melissa Monroe dinner party, it meant that you were a nonentity, unworthy of her attention. People’s careers had actually been ended by a snub from Melissa Monroe.

  Melissa was in her fifties but didn’t look a day over forty. Think Zsa Zsa Gabor: a woman who never appeared to age until one day she just died of old age. Melissa was now a widow and a rich one, her last husband, a man thirty years her senior, having left her with about four hundred million dollars. DeMarco suspected that sometime in the past, Mahoney had had an affair with her.

  “I have a beach place near Lewisetta,” Melissa said, “and you can use it for a while. Get a pen, darling, and I’ll give you the address and the security code and tell you where I hide the keys.”

  DeMarco waited until it grew dark outside, then peeked through the blinds. The reporters were still on his lawn, streetlights shining down on them. They were all eating pizza and drinking beer, yukking it up, having a good old time as they laid siege to his house. It was like watching vultures at a block party. His car was in the garage, but if he tried to use it the reporters would
certainly follow him. His mind flashed to Princess Diana and her tragic flight from the paparazzi. Okay, comparing himself to Diana might be a stretch, but he could still see himself sharing her fate.

  DeMarco packed clothes and a toilet kit into a knapsack, slipped out his back door, climbed the fence, and scurried through his neighbor’s backyard like a cat burglar. From there he walked a couple of blocks, and then Ubered his way to Reagan National, where he rented a car.

  55

  DeMarco was sitting beneath a poolside umbrella, wearing nothing but swim trunks and holding a cold beer in his hand. He was on the vast deck of a house with a two-million-dollar view of Chesapeake Bay. As it was July, the temperature was about a hundred degrees, but there was a breeze coming off the bay that made sitting outside tolerable. In addition to the deck and the view, Melissa Monroe’s beach house had an Olympic-size swimming pool, a Jacuzzi, a refrigerator stocked with enough food to last through Armageddon, and a rec room with a pool table and the largest television he’d ever seen.

  He’d been at the house for a week, eating Melissa’s food, drinking her booze, and sitting on her deck soaking up the sun. He was tanned and well rested—and miserable.

  He still hadn’t heard from Mahoney.

  He still didn’t know whether he had a job or not.

  DeMarco heard—then saw—a helicopter pass right over the deck where he was sitting, stirring up the water in the pool. It was a U.S. Navy helicopter, and it landed on the beach in front of the house. What the hell?

  A moment later, Mahoney walked down the chopper’s steps, dressed in a navy flight jacket. On his head was a baseball cap that said USS Gerald R. Ford. The Gerald R. Ford was the latest nuclear aircraft carrier built by Newport News Shipbuilding. DeMarco figured that Mahoney had been visiting the shipyard, and the navy had given him the flight jacket and ball cap after giving him a tour of the carrier. And when he asked for a lift in a chopper to Melissa’s place, what could anyone say? You didn’t tell the highest-ranking Democrat in the House that the navy didn’t give rides to hitchhikers.

  Mahoney strolled up to the deck. DeMarco didn’t rise to greet him. A normal person would have asked DeMarco how he was feeling; Mahoney was too self-centered to care. Mahoney’s opening remark was, “It’s fuckin’ hot out here.” He stripped off the flight jacket and cap, exposing his white hair and a blue polo shirt stretched tight by his big gut. He flopped down in a lounge chair next to DeMarco’s and said, “Well, are you gonna be polite and offer me a beer?”

  DeMarco took a beer out of a nearby cooler and handed it to Mahoney—then got right to the point. He was in no mood for beating around the bush.

  “Do I still have a job?” he asked.

  Before answering his question, Mahoney drained half the beer in the can and belched. “Right now, you’re on paid administrative leave. You’ll remain on paid administrative leave until the end of November.”

  “How did you manage that?” DeMarco asked.

  “I didn’t. Your lawyer did, although she got a little advice from me. She talked to the Speaker—that little fuckin’ weasel—and to OPM. She said if they abolished your job or tried to fire you, she’s gonna sue everybody she can think of. The House of Representatives, OPM, the FBI, the Alexandria jail. But if they keep you on until after November, then she won’t raise a ruckus. And, by the way, the hundred thousand that was stuck in your bank account? She’s told everybody that they’re not to touch that money. Everybody knows it came from Sebastian Spear to set you up, so it’s yours as partial compensation for all your mental anguish and suffering. But she said if they fire you or take the money, then you’re gonna go on every TV show that wants you and complain about everything the government’s done to screw you over, and she’s gonna start suing people, asking for millions in damages.”

  “Maybe I should just let her sue,” DeMarco said. If he could win a few million in a lawsuit he wouldn’t need a job.

  “You could,” Mahoney said, “but she might not win, and the lawsuits will drag on for years, and during that time you’ll be out of work. It’s not easy to sue the federal government.”

  “But what happens after November?” DeMarco said.

  “It’s not what happens after November,” Mahoney said. “It’s what happens in November.”

  “What do you mean?” DeMarco said.

  “In November there’s a midterm election, and the way things are going, with this idiot we have for a president, there’s a chance the Democrats might take back the House. And that means I’ll be the Speaker again and can do any fuckin’ thing I want. But if we don’t take back the House … Well, you could be in the shits.”

  “You’re telling me that my future depends on the Democrats winning about thirty seats in the House?”

  “You remember what O’Donnell said right after the president was elected?” O’Donnell was the Republican Senate majority leader. “He said, ‘Elections have consequences.’”

  “Are you shitting me?” DeMarco screamed. “‘Elections have consequences’!”

  “Aw, calm down. Think of this as a vacation. Play some golf, keep your head down, stay out of sight, and come November, we’ll go from there.”

  Before DeMarco could respond, Mahoney said, “You got something besides beer in that cooler? Maybe you could go up to the house and make me a rum and Coke.”

  “And maybe you could kiss my—”

  “Watch your mouth.”

  56

  Melissa Monroe informed DeMarco that it was time for him to find new lodgings. She would soon be holding her annual summer gala at the beach house, and attending would be witty people, Hollywood personalities, politicians (not so witty), and superstar athletes. Had DeMarco actually murdered Lyle Canton she might have wanted him on the guest list, but since he was now just a common innocent man—the key word being common—she didn’t want him lurking around.

  DeMarco had no idea where to go. He doubted that after two weeks the press was still camped outside his house, but he was sure that enough time hadn’t yet passed for reporters to have completely forgotten about him. They’d be keeping tabs on his place, and as soon as he showed up they’d start asking question again. He figured it would take at least a month or some enormous scandal—like maybe the president getting impeached—before DeMarco became a story too old to bother with.

  He couldn’t even stay with his mother in Queens. He’d called his mom three times since Canton’s death: once from the jail after he’d been arrested, to assure her that he hadn’t killed anyone; a second time from the hospital, to assure her that he was going to live; and a third time after he was exonerated, to tell her he was doing fine but couldn’t stay in his house because of the media. That’s when she informed him that the jackals had been hounding her, too, wanting to ask about his dad, the hit man; and her son, the man almost framed for murder. The media had been so persistent that she’d fled to Albany to stay with DeMarco’s godmother.

  The only good news, as far as DeMarco was concerned, was that he still had Sebastian Spear’s hundred grand in his bank account. So far the government appeared to be taking his lawyer’s threats seriously and hadn’t absconded with the money. He thought about flying to someplace where the summer temperature was tolerable, renting a place on a golf course, and spending a month or two playing golf. Normally, if he’d had the opportunity to take a vacation like that, he would have been ecstatic.

  Not now. Now he was too angry and worried to enjoy himself. The thing he was worried about was, of course, that he had no idea what lay on the road ahead when it came to a job. But more than the anxiety over his future, he was pissed because the guy who had ruined his life had gotten off scot-free. The FBI might not be able to prove that Sebastian Spear had ordered Canton’s death, but DeMarco knew that he had, just as Bill Brayden had said.

  DeMarco had done a lot of thinking about Spear and about everything else Emma had told him, and he had zeroed in on something that Emma, as smart as she was, apparently ha
dn’t considered.

  “How are you doing?” Emma said, when she answered DeMarco’s call.

  “Good,” he said. “Healthwise, anyway. But we need to meet.”

  “Why?”

  “Not over the phone.”

  Emma laughed. “You think someone might be monitoring your phone?”

  “I think someone might be monitoring your phone.”

  “What?”

  “You remember that place where Christine almost got bit by a snake? I had a date, and we met you and her there and had a picnic.”

  DeMarco was talking about Wolf Trap, a center for the performing arts located on over a hundred acres of national park land in Fairfax County. Part of the facility included an outdoor amphitheater, and Emma’s musician girlfriend had wanted to see an opera being performed there. DeMarco had no interest in the opera whatsoever, but at the time he had been dating a woman he was trying to impress by pretending he cared about something other than golf and baseball. During the picnic that he’d mentioned to Emma, a copperhead had slithered out of some nearby bushes, scaring the shit out of everyone, but particularly Christine, who’d almost put her wineglass on its head.

  “Yes, I remember,” Emma said. “I’ll meet you there at nine p.m.”

  “Leave your cell at home and make sure you’re not followed.”

  DeMarco did everything he could think of to make sure he wasn’t followed from Melissa Monroe’s place to Wolf Trap.

  He wrapped his cell phone in six layers of aluminum foil to keep anyone from tracking him with the phone. He had no idea whether the foil would do any good; it was something he’d seen a guy do in a movie. He wasn’t worried about the car he was driving having a tracking device on it, as it was a rental and had been parked in Melissa’s three-car garage ever since he’d arrived. During the two-and-a-half-hour drive from the beach house to Wolf Trap, he made frequent, erratic turns, constantly checking behind him, stopping twice to see if there was a helicopter or a drone flying overhead. He suspected that none of these measures were really necessary and that he was being paranoid—but in this case, paranoia was good.