The Perfect Candidate

by Peter Stone

  As Lena gulped down her small bite of pie, she commented, “I hope you’re grateful for your freedom, by the way. I used up pretty much every ounce of goodwill I have with Oscar to bail you out. And then to get him not to tell my parents that I’m dating an underage drinker who can’t even get a functioning fake ID . . .”

  “I swear it has worked every other time!” I protested.

  “Oh, I’m sure.” She nodded condescendingly. “But let’s avoid the alcohol-serving establishments in the near future, okay?”

  “Fine with me,” I said.

  “Anyway, I hope you aren’t too shaken up from your brush with the law,” she said to me as my eyes followed a tall man who briefly made eye contact with me and then disappeared into the cooking aisle. Meteer? I had suddenly found myself wary of anyone taller than six feet. I leaned forward to see the man disappear down the aisle.

  “Are you interested in gourmet food now?” asked Lena, seeing my abrupt fascination with what was going on in that part of the bookstore.

  “No.” I looked back at her and let out a nervous laugh.

  I thought about a version of this night where I didn’t mention anything about the Other Summer I was having, which Lena didn’t know about. A conversation where I didn’t tell her what could be my last words. A version of the night where we just sat and listened to some hipster covers of light ’80s R & B and got a second helping of pie and went on a long stroll home instead of taking the metro.

  But it couldn’t be that version of the night.

  “Lena.” I looked her in the eye as she looked back at me with a faux-serious glare. “Something else happened after you left the bar that night.”

  She shot me a confused smile.

  “Someone chased me,” I said.

  “Are you kidding me? What are you talking about?” she said, loud enough for Crack Is Whack to shoot her a disciplinary glare.

  “Shhhh,” I replied. “I just need you to listen right now and not draw attention to us.”

  “You’re scaring me,” she said.

  “Can you just promise me that you’ll listen and keep this to yourself and not do anything based on what I tell you?”

  “Sure, sure, whatever,” she responded and pulled her hands back into a crossed-arms formation. “What is going on?”

  I told her everything. The interrupted Capitol tour, researching Wade Branson, the briefing at Ben’s Chili Bowl . . .

  “This has all been going on since we met?” she asked, incredulous.

  I continued with the trip to Virginia Beach, the Ariel Lancaster connection, and then my not-so-smooth call to Russell Meteer. Everything I had told Katie over a week ago. Except talking with Katie felt like fessing up to an authority figure—comforting but anxious, fumbling for the right words. Talking with Lena felt like writing in a diary—easy, calming, in a shorthand we both somehow understood.

  “Wait, so Ariel died because she was investigating some evil, suicidal CEO? But it was an accident. . . .”

  “I don’t know, Lena,” I said. “And I don’t think it was suicide, and I don’t think Ariel’s death was an accident. Because the next thing that happened is I got busted by a bouncer for the first time this summer and then got chased through half of Georgetown.”

  “Well, you did give this hitman your name . . . ,” she explained. “What are you going to expect?”

  “Okay, I get it. I shouldn’t have given him my name,” I exclaimed.

  And then I described the meet-up on the softball field. And my appointment at The Awakening, which was less than twelve hours away.

  “I’m going with you,” she said. I had expected a more cautious response, along the lines of Katie’s or that of a normal person. She added, “This is amazing.” I was both impressed and concerned at her willingness to help. Impressed that she’d want to join my investigation. Concerned that she’d actually do it, regardless of my caution.

  “No, you are not,” I insisted, even though it would have been nice—even fun—to have her there. “Remember the part where you couldn’t act on anything I say here, just listen?”

  “Cam, do you realize what you’re looking into?” she marveled. “A congressman who is about to be the next Speaker of the House, who had a donor killed in a cover-up six years ago, and then did away with a staffer whose proactive work ethic proved a little inconvenient. This is huge.”

  “Yes, I am aware,” I said, lowering my voice in an attempt to get her to do the same. “I’m just wondering if I’ll be the third person BIB makes disappear.”

  “But you’re not going alone, you’ll be there with the FBI guy, right?” she clarified.

  “Yes, he’s coming with me. But I’m just saying that if you don’t hear from me by tomorrow night, here’s the phone number for my dad and my best friend back home.” I passed Lena a piece of paper with the contact information. She nodded and slipped it into her purse. “And keep the embassy doors locked at night. And maybe have Oscar do a little digging.”

  Lena’s eyes darted around in a combination of intrigue and worry. And disappointment. That she couldn’t do more.

  Or maybe Oscar could do a little digging now.

  I remembered Lena’s guard friend from the Washington Monument. And the guys from the embassy, who monitored all of the security cameras. Lena knew people. Who knew other people. She could help. She wanted to help. I realized I had been stupid not to ask for it sooner.

  “Unless,” I continued, “you’re interested in doing a little research yourself?”

  “Yes!” she exclaimed. “Yes”—quieter this time—“I want to help.”

  “Research,” I stated. “Nothing more. I don’t want to pull you into this. But you do seem to have a disproportionate number of friends who are also security guards and have access to street camera footage. Or know people who would.”

  “Okay, so I guess it’s an unusual group of friends for a teenage girl,” she admitted. “But they are bored, so we had that in common. Until I met you. Anyway—they’re bored. They get paid to be bored. So I’m pretty sure they would be very excited about any kind of . . . investigation. . . .”

  “But you can’t tell them that part,” I said, starting to worry about keeping things confidential.

  “What can I tell them, then? Where do we start?”

  “Ariel Lancaster. Her last days—who she met with, where she went. Everything leading up to that night at Capitol Sinny,” I said. “Look, this could be a bad idea. I don’t even know if you’re going to find anything. . . .”

  “If there is something to find, my guys and I will find it,” she assured me.

  “Thank you,” I told her. “And if I don’t see you again, please tell your parents I really wasn’t that bad of a guy.”

  “Are you already speaking of yourself in the past tense?” she asked. And then laughed to herself. “And I thought my life was interesting with dorm room accessory shopping. I’m going to miss you when I go to school, Cam.”

  “Humbertonius” called me again. I declined the call again. Like an athlete wanting to avoid distractions the night before an event, I told myself I’d call him soon. After the main event.

  She added, “That is, assuming you’ll still be alive after your romantic sunrise meeting.”

  “Well, you could always transfer to Lagrima Junior College,” I offered. “They have some phenomenal vocational programs. I see construction management in your future. . . .”

  “All of the gossip blogs in DF would eat that up.” She contemplated. “Ambassador’s daughter ditches Princeton to head to some hillbilly junior college in . . .”

  She stopped, because I think she realized that she was calling my future educational institution a “hillbilly junior college.”

  “Cam, I didn’t mean that,” she apologized. “I’m sorry. That is gross. I’m a terrible person.”

  Crack Is Whack boldly started their encore: a strangely samba-infused “I Will Always Love You.” What appeared to be their only fan l
oudly cheered them on from a few tables away.

  “Saved by a song.” I smiled to Lena.

  We silently took in the full song in both horror and wonder. I sported a very thoughtful look, which made Lena cover her mouth to block her laughter. When the duo finished the song and bowed multiple times through their heavy breathing, Lena and I gave them a standing ovation.

  I paid the bill, and we walked toward the front door. I saw the tall man purchasing a stack of books at the counter. Once I heard him gushing to the clerk about how “okra is the new kale,” I confirmed that he was definitely not my hitman stalker.

  “I’m dating the modern-day Woodward and Bernstein,” teased Lena.

  “Can I at least be Bernstein?” I requested. “He always looked cooler, with the long hair and everything.”

  I opened the door as we both felt a blast of warm night air and saw the cars whooshing around Dupont Circle.

  “You’re Cameron Carter,” she said, as she put my hand in hers. “And that’s cool enough for me.”

  “So,” I responded, “you’re not worried? Because I thought you weren’t going to let me go through with this. Maybe that’s what I secretly wanted you to say. . . .”

  “I’m not worried at all, Cam,” she said. “You’ve got it—you’re so close. And you have to go through with this.”

  Her confidence in me felt more empowering, more real than any flattery Katie had imparted from BIB. As I started to walk toward the metro station, Lena pointed at the black SUV that was waiting for her around the corner. A security guard waved at us from the driver’s seat, with an unnerving smile that told me not to try anything with Lena. Not there, not now.

  “That’s my ride.” Her smile was apologetic as we both realized that the night would be ending with an audience and a chaste hug.

  At least it was a long one. I reached forward and held her closely, each second of the hug somehow building my courage for the next morning.

  “Thank you,” I whispered into her ear.

  She rubbed my back with her hands and responded with a hushed “Thank you.” They were the first words she had spoken that evening that sounded worried. She climbed up, popped into the back seat of the gargantuan SUV, and closed the fortress wall of the car door.

  As the car took off, I walked extra slowly toward the metro station. As if I was somehow slowing down the seconds that remained between me and Memo and Meteer and whatever he was going to say or do to us when the sun came up again.

  22

  Memo was surprisingly calm as he drove south on the 295 freeway—shooting out of DC along the Potomac River. A steady rain began to fall. I thought about the Honda he had lent me—where it was and if it was really an undercover FBI car (if so, well done, FBI; you had me fooled). But aside from a “You will let me take the lead” when I got in his car, we didn’t say a word to each other. The questions and scenarios in our minds were too loud to say or hear anything else. Like whether Meteer wanted to talk to us or silence us. And how Memo could handle a former black-ops guy, if it came to that (one glance at Memo’s office belly, and my money was on Meteer. . . . ). It was just before six a.m., and the opposite direction of the road barrier was already clogged with type A commuters getting their days started. Far fewer people were headed in our direction.

  Even fewer were at the National Harbor, a touristy shopping center situated on the Maryland shores of the Potomac River. Dim lights, closed storefronts, and empty restaurant patios lined the walkways—like the mall was some sort of sea anemone that had closed up and didn’t want to be disturbed.

  “We’re here,” said Memo as he parked in a loading zone across from a glowing row of CLOSED signs.

  “We’re meeting BIB’s hitman at a Rosa Mexicano franchise?” I asked.

  “Down there.” He pointed to a small strip of sand by the docks. Emerging from the beach was a huge, cast-iron sculpture of a man, mostly buried by the sand and straining to get up. Only a hand, an arm, a foot, a raised knee, and his head remained visible. In the gray-blue light of the early morning, I could almost see the poor giant moving—making progress with his escape from the sand that covered him.

  “The Awakening,” Memo added.

  We flopped open a couple of pocket umbrellas from the back seat of Memo’s car and jogged across the deserted street. After stepping down a few broad steps, we walked toward the center of the sculpture, muddy sand caking our shoes. It was just us and the 85 percent buried giant—no Russell in sight. I walked over to the massive, sand-coated head of the statue—his mouth frozen in an angry shout, and his eyes locked in a desperate glare. Tiny drops of water flicked at his face, and as I leaned in just inches from the gaping mouth, I could have sworn I heard his labored, defeated exhale.

  “He’s not here,” called Memo from twenty feet away. “Guy got cold feet, dammit.”

  I turned to look at Memo, whose back was to the giant’s foot and upraised leg. As I trudged over to him, I could see that Russell Meteer had not been scared away after all. I walked past Memo and heard the crunching of his shoes in the sand behind me.

  The man was standing under the makeshift triangular shelter provided by the giant’s bended knee—similarly frozen and somehow bursting with rage like the giant was. We approached him slowly, both probably thinking the same thing: that this man could suddenly burst to life, like one of those seemingly sedentary scarecrows in a haunted house. The closer we got, his extraordinary height became more apparent. Well north of six feet. His silhouette against the gray sculpture was identical to the one that chased me along the C and O Canal. I felt a flicker of relief that I had survived that encounter, followed by a pang of panic about the current rendezvous. He wore only gray sweatpants and a thin white T-shirt, which grew increasingly transparent with the falling rain. A complicated geometrical tattoo snaked its way up his entire right arm. I looked more closely to see odd, squeezed, drooping distortions in the design—indicating that this guy had gotten inked at the bulging height of a since-atrophied physical condition.

  I moved forward to cover him with my umbrella.

  “Don’t,” barked a protective Memo.

  I stopped short and put the umbrella back over my head.

  The first and only things that moved were his lips: “I don’t want it anyway.” The intensity of his eyes belied his immobile stature. Only his eyes looked alive. The more I looked at him, I felt less physical danger. And the more I could tell he had dangerous things to say.

  “Are we alone?” asked Memo.

  Russell started to talk but got caught up in a coughing fit—a bout of superficial, unsatisfying hacks that went on for half a minute. “Don’t worry, this isn’t an ambush,” he finally said after clearing his throat.

  Memo’s eyes darted around the empty, hazy predawn pathways and buildings.

  We were completely alone.

  I looked at Memo with uncertain eyebrows; he was staring straight into Meteer’s eyes. Meteer wouldn’t look directly back at either of us, his eyes fixated on the small waves in the river. “Some people say this thing is a symbol of hope—this giant emerging from a sandy grave.”

  We stood in silence as Meteer fought off a twitch of emotion in his cheek.

  “But now I know better. He’s not emerging from anything. He is sinking. He’s going, going . . . almost gone,” he added, his voice as fragile as damp tissue paper.

  All we could hear was the incessant dings and thwacks and bips of the raindrops against the cast-iron kneecap. Meteer’s shirt was now completely drenched and revealed his surprisingly skinny body. The air was getting slightly brighter as the sun was rising, somewhere. Memo shifted his weight back and forth on his feet. Nervous. Impatient. Hungry.

  “What are you going to tell us?” he asked. “Why are you stalking my friend and why are we here?”

  His questions seemed assault-like, given Meteer’s weak state.

  Meteer obliged the interrogation. “Nothing like a fresh Navy SEAL retiree to get the donations flowin
g,” he said, focused and disconnected all at once. “There I am onstage, lung cancer—the nonsmoker kind—just my luck. All these folks eating their stuffed chicken. Standing next to the smiling congressional candidate Billy Beck.”

  “What are you talking about?” I slowly asked.

  Memo raised his hand to silence me.

  “You see, Billy—I still call him Billy. Always will. Billy was a philanthropist before he got elected. Raised money for all sorts of causes—and he needed a mascot for this cancer fund-raiser event he did with his pharma friends. Enter the strapping, tragically afflicted serviceman. Got everyone all excited. Raised a few hundred thousand in just that night.”

  Meteer’s voice grew stronger as he went on.

  “But I never saw any of it. Coverage ran out, insurance vipers wouldn’t listen to me, got thrown out of the VA when I had a little disagreement with my idiot doctor. Didn’t have enough money for this experimental treatment. Still looked and felt pretty fine, but the system just turned the other way.”

  Memo held his umbrella between his chin and his shoulder as he brought out a pad of paper that he wrote on.

  “And that’s when Billy calls me again. I thought he wanted me to raise more money for him. But this time, he wants to give me money. For my treatments. I just needed to do one thing.”

  “Wade Branson . . . ,” uttered Memo.

  “ ‘Take care of him,’ ” blurted out Meteer. “That’s what he said to me. Take care of this guy I didn’t even know. With my ‘unique set of skills.’ I guess he was in a bad place, about to rat out Billy and a bunch of other people who knew about a drug that was rushed to market. Made people’s brains mush . . .”

  “You’re telling me Congressman Beck paid you to kill Wade Branson?” asked Memo.