The Nominee

by Brian McGrory

  “Mongillo here.”

  “Flynn.”

  “Where the hell are you? Peter Martin—” the bureau chief—“says you’re going to want to buy us dinner at the University Club.”

  Journalists. Always angling for a free meal. “Still on the Hill,” I said. “What do you have for tomorrow.”

  As I spoke, I looked up at Randolph, who was staring rigid back at me.

  “Not good, my man. I have a couple of nice leads on some other possible Randolph lies, but nothing I can turn over for morning. Pretty much all we have is a story quoting other officials in Boston and DC saying they don’t think this revelation alone will derail the nomination. I was hoping you’d give me the lead from your face-to-face.”

  Ordinarily I’d be furious that such a story didn’t go far enough. At this exact moment, I was elated. It would buy me another day—or more—to figure out how the hell I was going to address this hall of fame problem.

  I said, “I’ve got nothing. He wanted to talk about family and clammed up when it came to him. If we get any more, hit me on the cell immediately. Otherwise I’ll be in the bureau shortly.”

  I hung up, paused to collect my thoughts, and said to Randolph, “We’re running a story saying the existing revelations probably won’t hurt your chances for Senate confirmation—that according to various current and former officials. If you don’t like that, then go to hell. I’m not going to block it.”

  He seemed taken aback at my wording, but quickly composed himself and said, “That’s fine. But I hope we’re clear. If you follow it in any possible way, I’m going straight to theTimes. If you don’t, things will work out fine. It’s not an offer. It’s a demand.”

  As if on cue, someone rapped on the door, and Benjamin Bank poked his head inside. I swear to God, the guy was such a little rodent that if he grew whiskers, he could be a new Disney character. For all I knew, this whole grand plan, this intellectual extortion, was his idea.

  “Governor, your dinner with Senator Gillis is in ten minutes. It’s important we leave now if you’re going to make it in time.”

  Randolph nodded at Bank and replied, “We were just finishing up.” To me, he said, “It’s all up to you how this gets handled. We’ll give you Benjamin’s cell phone number if you have any further questions.”

  Just one: What the hell am I supposed to do now? And with that ringing in my ears, I staggered alone through the halls of Congress and gulped at the fresh night air outside.

  Thirty-Three

  AT TIMES LIKE THIS, you have to ask yourself why you got into the business of journalism in the first place, why you’ve spent a career, a life, in pursuit of truth and public enlightenment.

  Okay, I got into it because my father happened to work for a newspaper and the owner paid my way through school. So maybe I’m the wrong person to ask.

  But as I’ve said of Paul Ellis, and of John Cutter before him, they looked atThe Boston Record as their own form of public service, no less noble than a stint served in elective office, and I have to say, I more than agree, especially after my up close and personal with Governor Lance Randolph. And I don’t give a rat’s furry ass that Randolph accused John Cutter of covering up Fitzgerald’s fabrications. I know it couldn’t be true.

  I had some awful choices to make. I could well go public with suspicions that Robert Fitzgerald had been a recidivist fabricator for any number of years, and had knowingly written a false story about Lance Randolph’s record during the district attorney’s first gubernatorial campaign. But if I did, Randolph would levy his own accusations of a longtime, internal cover-up, and the paper would become the proverbial laughing stock in the city and in the industry. Even if we were right, it wouldn’t matter, because as we defended ourselves, the board of directors couldn’t meet fast enough to approve the sale and get the paper in the hands of Terry Campbell. They’re thinking of the stock price, not the reputation.

  Times like these, I had to prioritize: (1) Save the paper; (2) Save my life; (3) Find out who killed John Cutter and Paul Ellis, and why. I had a vague understanding that these things were in some way linked, but couldn’t yet figure out how.

  So would it serve theRecord ’s higher purpose, and in turn, that of the public, to drop the story of Governor Lance Randolph and his crime-fighting record? Would it be okay, in this most unusual circumstance, to look the other way when an ugly truth comes knocking on our newsroom door? Would it mitigate the unseen damage if the paper, in turn, quietly and quickly got rid of its star reporter, Robert Fitzgerald, without a public word? And is that even possible, or would too big a fuss be kicked up and the truth come pouring forth?

  These were the nagging—no, plaguing—questions I had as I took my first pleasant swig of an exquisitely icy Sam Adams in a little jazz bar just outside of Georgetown called One Step Down. I sat across a rickety table from Vinny Mongillo, who happened to be strumming an air guitar in sync with the band’s rendition of Ray Charles’s “What’d I Say?”

  Earlier that evening, Mongillo and I worked side by side in the bureau for about an hour, retracing Fitzgerald’s steps across a random sampling of his stories. Some of the people he quoted by name, we located. Most others we didn’t. I had little doubt that these stories contained egregious lies, made-up people, false premises. But the operative words there arelittle doubt. I still had some, and I needed to erase it.

  After that, the two of us bolted for the National Airport. Deadlines loomed over the landscape of my life like mines. Monday afternoon, theRecord board of directors had scheduled its full meeting to determine the newspaper’s fate. Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee would begin its expedited hearings into the nomination of Lance Randolph as U.S. attorney general. Before then, I would have to decide if my paper wanted to pursue the truth, or in the name of a higher purpose, avoid it.

  Meantime, I had to get back to Boston to meet with the ailing Hank Sweeney, to figure out how to push John Cutter’s death into the realm of a homicide investigation, and to confront Fitzgerald. I also wanted to make sure that Sweeney wasn’t taking any sort of legal fall for the gunman’s death. Unpleasant duties, all, but entirely necessary. Finally, I was waiting for a break in the murder of Paul Ellis, and wondering every moment if Ellis’s death was linked to Cutter’s, which is what I strongly suspected. Oh, and one other question: Was I slated to die sometime soon? Jack Flynn, this is your life. Let’s just make sure that it continues on for a while.

  At National, the last of the USAirways shuttles to Boston were cancelled because of rain somewhere along the route. It used to be, jets would land on snow-covered runways in all but blizzard conditions piloted by men who readSoldier of Fortune rather thanAndrew Harper’s Hideaway Report. Now, there’s mist over O’Hare and the entire national aviation system goes into three days of impenetrable gridlock. I was stuck in Washington overnight with nothing to do but have a beer.

  There were basically just two people in the world whose counsel I wanted (Paul Ellis, my father, and Katherine Flynn not being of this world anymore)—Robert Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Riggs. Fitzgerald, of course, was not exactly the best person to approach anymore, and Elizabeth, the last few crazy days aside, was no longer part of my life. I don’t think.

  I called Sweeney from the cab back into DC. He picked up his room phone, which was a great sign, and said he was feeling better, that Mary Mae was mad as hell at him for loping around like a rookie cop, and that we’d get some privacy in the hospital room the next day to go over what we had. He said he believed the cops bought his story about shooting the gunman, who was identified as Kevin Clancy, a.k.a. Mike Andrews, an ex-convict who got popped on parole a short time ago.

  The police, Sweeney said, couldn’t connect him in any way to the Cutter-Ellis family, leaving them to believe he was a hired hitman. Great. Basically the cops were no closer to an answer than before Paul’s murder was committed. Among other things, Luke Travers was an incompetent.

  Speaking of whom, when we got to the
jazz bar, I had an idea and I called him from the street outside. I couldn’t shake the thought of this inordinately decent man, Hank Sweeney, sitting alone in his tiny, mint-colored house hard by a Florida swamp, missing his life in Boston, furious at what the police and my newspaper did to his son, talking to a silver urn that held the remains of his beloved wife, a lone tear falling from his cheek onto the clip of a Fitzgerald story that lay on his lap.

  Travers picked up his cell phone on the first ring.

  I said, “I have proof that John Cutter was murdered five years ago and the police department has been covering it up.”

  “Where are you?”

  An ambulance roared by, its siren in full blare, heading, I’m sure, to the emergency room at the George Washington Hospital just down the street.

  I told him, “Don’t embarrass yourself. Just listen. A police toxicology test showed that someone poisoned Cutter with arsenic. His death certificate says he died of a heart attack. I have the toxicology test, a vial of Cutter’s blood, and a contaminated tissue taken from the crime scene, all in my immediate possession.”

  “So you have stolen police evidence?”

  “It would be police evidence if the police actually used it as evidence. Instead, you hid it away in a basement locker. It’s not so much stolen as rescued.” Touché.

  “How did you get it?”

  “I’m a reporter. Someone gave it to me.”

  “Sweeney?”

  “Again, don’t embarrass yourself. I’ve got a proposal for you.” Everyone seemed to be making proposals—or rather, demands—so I figured I’d get into the act. I needed to accomplish two things. First, I needed positive, definitive proof of Fitzgerald’s fabrications on a large story, not just Lance Randolph’s bony word. Second, I wanted to help Sweeney. This was what’s known as a double-bank shot. I said, “Give me the name of the informant in the botched drug raid five years ago that killed that minister over in Mattapan. I will personally guarantee you that this has nothing to do with Paul’s death, nothing to do with this case. And in return, I’ll give you these toxicology tests and tell you everything else that I know.”

  “You’ll tell me everything you know either way, in front of a grand jury,” he replied, tersely.

  I rolled my eyes and let it show in my tone. I asked, “Are you about to make an arrest in Paul’s murder?”

  The question was met with a long silence. I thought I could hear him exhaling in frustration on the other end of the line. “We’re not as close as we’d like to be,” he said. “We’ve gotten some breaks. The suspected gunman, I believe, is now dead. But I think he was for hire. Who hired him, I don’t know.”

  I said, “If you want to play tough guy, then go through all the formalities. Convene a grand jury. Send me a subpoena. I’ll file a petition to have it quashed. We’ll go to court. It’ll take forever. Meantime, you can read everything that I know every single morning on the front page of theRecord. Best half a dollar you’ll spend. By the middle of next week, you’ll be lucky if your bosses even let you answer phones for the Police Athletic League.”

  More silence—a blessed sound right now. Finally, he asked, “What do you need the name for?”

  “Lieutenant, if you don’t stop with the asinine questions, you’re going to be reading all the answers in tomorrow’sRecord, and you’ll also read about how the former publisher was poisoned to death, and how the police department has covered that fact up for five years. What’s it going to be?”

  More silence. He eventually said, “Give me your number and I’ll call you back in an hour.”

  An hour’s just long enough for a homicide detective to dig through old files to find the name of a secret street informant. I gave him my number and hung up the phone without so much as a good-bye.

  Inside the bar, Mongillo had taken the liberty of ordering himself a Grey Goose and tonic—whatever the hell that is—and me a Sam. The waitress brought them back and said, “You need anything else, Vinny, my name’s Ginny. We rhyme. Just let me know.”

  “You know her?” I asked, surprised, as she walked away.

  “I do now.”

  I knew I should have brought him to the University Club, where it would be me who knows people.

  The liquor flowed, the music played, Mongillo held an imaginary saxophone up to his face, contorting his body and puffing his cheeks. This was no time to get drunk, which probably meant it was every time to get drunk.

  “Do you play?” I asked, realizing how little I knew about a man who I counted as a pretty good friend.

  “Every once in a while,” he replied with a smile. He added, “By the way, I asked Peter Martin to join us. He said to give him a call if we go and get something to eat.”

  When the band went on break, the lead singer, a slinky brunette with a sonorous voice, stopped by our table and said to Mongillo, “You look like you know what you’re doing. Why don’t you join us for part of the next set.”

  Mongillo hit his right hand to his chest, flicked it out and said, “Word.” Okay, he didn’t do that, but I saw someone do it once onThe Simpsons . What Mongillo said was, “I’d be digging that.” He said it with the biggest, happiest, sloppiest smile I’ve ever seen. The singer gave me a coy look and left.

  Feeling the mild glow of a single beer in the boozy din of the narrow bar, I leaned across the table and told Mongillo, “I’m completely, inextricably screwed.”

  “We all are, babe, every one of us in our own unique way.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m really screwed.”

  He polished off the last gulp of his Grey Goose, sucked on an ice cube, and waved a hand at Ginny, who set off in pursuit of another.

  Mongillo looked at me and said, “Jack, you have it made. You’ve made a national name for yourself at a major metropolitan newspaper. You’re close friends with the ownership family, though ignore the fact that most of them are now dead and the remaining one in power hates your guts. All right, forget that whole point. Most important, you have a wonderful woman who’ll love you to the end of time.”

  A wonderful woman who’ll love me to the end of time? Yeah, me and who else? And why can’t I just love her back?

  I asked, “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about what matters.”

  “You don’t think the paper matters? You don’t think losing the paper matters?”

  “Oh, I do. I do. To me, it probably matters more than anything else, and that’s part of my problem.”

  I took a long pull from my bottle. He dipped deep into his fresh highball glass of vodka and tonic, gazing down at the table as he did. I looked at him silently, and he continued, “Jack, Fair Hair, look at me. I don’t have anyone like Elizabeth Riggs sitting at home, staring at a wall or a dark TV or the pages of a book that she’s not really reading, hoping against hope that she might have a slight chance of spending another night with me.

  “Jack, you have something I can only dream about—normalcy, a regular boy-girl relationship—”

  “It’s not that easy,” I interjected. “And I don’t have it.”

  He held out his palm to shut me up. “Here’s what I have. I have work. I have the ability to pull an on-the-record quote out of a fresh corpse, to spin a New England News Brief into a front-page story. That’s all. That’s it. Believe me, when I’m sitting at home all alone every night with a frozen pizza watching another inane sitcom, I don’t dream about writing more front-page stories. That’s not how it works.”

  I began to say something when the band suddenly began belting out a bluesy song from the small stage. We sat in mutual silence for the moment, both of us watching the singularly stunning lead singer with the flowing hair and the leather pants do her thing. And at the end of the first song, said singer beckoned Mongillo with an exquisitely alluring finger motion. He rose slowly out of his chair, as if attached to a string, drained his glass while standing, and ambled toward the stage.

  The saxophonist handed Mo
ngillo his instrument and he wrapped the strap over his back. The band struck into “Stormy Monday,” and Mongillo began to play along.

  He played what is inarguably the most beautiful saxophone I have ever heard. He played “Early in the Morning.” He played “Hootchy Kootchy Man.” He played after the band stopped and the crowd was on its feet in spontaneous applause and he walked about the room with his cheeks blown up like balloons and his eyes watering and music coming from his instrument that was like something created by a higher being. And when he put the sax down, he sat at the piano and began to play all over again.

  I was on my feet clapping my hands together until they hurt, the self-pity, the worry, the angst, gone for just a moment, courtesy of the amazingly multitalented Vinny Mongillo. I clapped so hard that I shoved my elbow into someone standing close behind me. I turned to apologize and saw something, in retrospect, that may well have changed the rest of my adult life.

  She was wearing an old pair of perfectly fitting jeans, a tight white tank top, some dangly earrings. She wore makeup, but not a lot, just right, and her hair flowed down beyond her bare shoulders. She looked at me without saying anything, and virtually without expression, close, her eyes set like headlights on mine, unmoving, just a pool of familiar blue. It’s the look she used to give me when I would lie on top of her first thing on a Sunday morning and we would begin yet another fit of slow and wonderful sex.

  Beyond us, Mongillo stopped playing. The room echoed with cheers and applause, then the noise finally died down. The band took another break and Vinny, glowing, walked to the bar with them.

  I said, “Hello, Elizabeth.”

  She didn’t move away, didn’t move any closer, didn’t move her eyes even a fraction away from mine. “Hello, Jack,” she replied.

  I was about to ask her how she knew I was here, but I flashed back to my conversation with Mongillo minutes earlier and realized I knew the answer to that already.