Born to Run js-7

by James Grippando

  “They call this the church of presidents,” said Paulette, as they approached.

  Four homeless men were resting on the front steps, two of them either sleeping or passed out.

  “These must be the vice presidents,” said Jack.

  She smiled and said, “Are you making fun of your father or my church?”

  “You go to church?”

  “Does that surprise you?”

  “Only because most of the Washington reporters I’ve met so far think they are God.”

  “And I suppose monster egos would be something completely new to you, being a trial lawyer and all.”

  “Touche,” said Jack.

  As they climbed the granite stairs, the sun poked through the clouds and brought a springlike glow to the golden cupola and exterior walls of yellow stucco. The morning air was still quite cold, however, and Jack wondered how many nights these homeless men had spent shivering outside church doors just a block away from the White House.

  “I started coming here when I was assigned to White House coverage,” said Paulette, “though, to be honest, on my first visit I was just curious to see who might be here. That’s how I found Juan.”

  “Juan?”

  “My source.”

  “Princesa,” the man said, rising from the top step. “Como estas?”

  “Muy bien, gracias.”

  Jack shot Paulette another look of surprise. “You speak Spanish?”

  “Not really. But Juan doesn’t seem to care.”

  Jack was suddenly reminded of the embarrassment it caused his abuela to have lady friends compare her grandson’s Spanish to Speedy Gonzalez’s English.

  Paulette made the introductions, but instead of shaking Jack’s hand, Juan hugged Paulette and said, “She’s beautiful, no?”

  It was apparent to Jack that Juan wasn’t just a source.

  “Sit,” he said, inviting them to take a place on the church step. “Mi casa es su casa.”

  Juan’s smile was short on teeth but not on sincerity. He wore a Washington Redskins cap, black mittens, and Easter-egg-blue golf slacks that the embarrassed wife of a lawyer must have thrown into the Salvation Army box. Juan was a large man with a non-threatening manner, and the scar on his forehead made Jack guess that he was probably one of those gentle giants who got provoked into bar fights by short, drunk guys with Napoleon complexes.

  Paulette said, “Juan and I have been sitting next to each other every Sunday for about six months now.”

  “We met at La Casa,” said Juan.

  “La Casa is a homeless shelter,” she said, “mostly Hispanic men. I volunteer down there.”

  Jack tried not to look too surprised, but Paulette was turning out to be very unlike the person he had expected. And yet she hardly knew her sister.

  The world is a weird place.

  “Got good news for you,” said Juan.

  “You found our man?” said Paulette.

  “Si.”

  “Can you take us to him?” said Jack.

  “No.”

  “Why not?” said Paulette.

  “He is hiding.”

  “From who?” she said.

  “Todo el mundo.” The whole world.

  Jack said, “My guess is that he knows the FBI is using him as bait. That’s why the bureau released him-to see if the man who hired him as a decoy comes looking for him again.”

  Paulette didn’t disagree. “Did you talk to him, Juan?”

  “Claro. Turns out he’s a friend de un amigo of a friend.”

  Jack calculated that as a friend, once-Hispanic and twice-gringo removed. “Did he tell you anything about the man who hired him to meet me outside the museum?”

  “Un viejo.”

  “How old of an old man?” said Jack.

  “In a wheelchair.”

  “A wheelchair?”

  “Si. A chair. With wheels. Tu sabes? Or you no speak English?”

  Paulette swallowed her laughter.

  “Yes,” said Jack, “I know what a wheelchair is.”

  “Did your homeless friend tell you anything else about the man?” said Paulette.

  “He like Anthony Hopkins.”

  “He’s like Anthony Hopkins?” she said. “Or he likes Anthony Hopkins?”

  “He is him. That character in the movie.”

  “You mean he’s a Hannibal Lecter?”

  “No. The other one.” Juan started dancing, arms up over his head, humming to the tune of Zorba’s famous Sirtaki.

  “You mean Anthony Quinn,” said Paulette.

  “Si, si. El Griego.”

  The Greek.

  A volunteer from a local shelter passed by with cups of hot coffee. Juan called to her and was about to bolt. Jack needed to get to his morning meeting anyway, so with Juan’s assurance that he wasn’t forgetting to tell them anything, Jack and Paulette bid him good-bye and walked back toward the White House. At the corner, facing the Executive Mansion, Jack and Paulette exchanged glances.

  “What do you think?” said Jack.

  “I think the man who sent that e-mail to you also sent that e-mail to Chloe. I think if we find out what was actually inside Chloe’s e-mail, we’ll find out why he shot her.”

  “But that was your theory even before we talked to Juan.”

  “Right. A theory. Now I’m convinced it’s fact.”

  “How’d you make that leap?”

  “It makes perfect sense that the shooter would be in a wheelchair.”

  “Why?”

  “Something broke down between him and Chloe. He needed to eliminate her and deal with you instead. He instructed her to walk to a bus stop where he could drive by, make the hit from his car, and make a quick escape. A clean job and a clean getaway for an old man who can’t walk.”

  Jack considered it. “That actually makes some sense.”

  “Of course it does. You factor in the way the FBI has shut down the flow of information to both you and me, and it makes even more sense. The guy has something on President Keyes. Maybe he told it to Chloe, and she didn’t pay him for it. He killed her before she could go public and make his secret worthless. Now he’s looking to sell the same information to you-with the promise that, if your father is confirmed as vice president, it will make him president.”

  “I don’t follow that last part. If he has some dirt on the president, why not just blackmail him or his supporters? Why come to me, the son of the vice presidential nominee?”

  “I haven’t figured that one out yet. But this much I can compute: right now the FBI is pulling out all the stops looking for an old Greek man in a wheelchair. We should be, too.”

  “How many of those can there be in Washington?”

  “No idea,” she said.

  “Me neither,” said Jack. “But something tells me we’re going to find out.”

  Chapter 15

  Jack was surrounded by lawyers.

  He counted thirteen in all. They were gathered in the walnut-paneled courtroom on the ninth floor of the law offices of Carter and Brooke, the high-powered law firm that would be the Washington muscle behind Jack and Harry at the confirmation hearings. It was a moot courtroom, used primarily for dress rehearsals of important trials, and Jack could only imagine what kind of corporate skulduggery had been tested here. Yes, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client did routinely fly its crop dusters while the migrant workers were in the tomato fields, but surely those company-issued sombreros offered more than enough protection from any cancer-causing pesticides. Theories abandoned, cases settled, egotistical corporate executives convinced not to testify at the real trial only after being shredded by their own lawyers in mock cross-examination.

  Today was the mock grilling of Harry Swyteck, as eight-hundred-dollar-an-hour lawyers played the role of congressional representatives and White House chief of staff Olivia Thompson ran the show.

  “For the last time,” she said, groaning. “Please frame your responses to avoid open disagreement with the
administration. President Keyes supports a complete ban on assault weapons.”

  “I don’t,” said Harry. “I’m against any law that pushes us closer to becoming a nation where only criminals have guns.”

  “Dad’s right,” said Jack. “Imagine if this country had laws against obscenity. Only prostitutes could have sex.”

  And so the tap dance began-and it continued well beyond dinnertime.

  Daylight was short in December, and it felt much later than 7:30 P.M. as the limo carried Jack and his father back across town. The driver dropped Harry first for dinner with Agnes at a Moroccan restaurant. Jack was dead tired, but if he returned to the hotel and hit the sack now, his eyes would probably pop open at 3:00 A.M., and he’d be left staring at the ceiling until sunrise.

  “Could you take me toward Massachusetts Avenue?” he told the driver.

  “Sure. Whereabout?”

  Jack removed a business card from his wallet. “Number One Observatory Circle.”

  “The vice presidential mansion?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  Jack knew from the news coverage that the late vice president’s widow was in town packing up the Grayson family possessions. Jack had not spoken to Marilyn Grayson since the post-burial gathering at her home in Georgia. He’d kept her business card, however, and in light of the past several days’ events, her unsettling words to him about the circumstances of her husband’s death seemed almost prophetic: “With the direction your father is headed, you might have some questions too. If you do, call me.”

  He dialed from the backseat of the limo, the tinted windows turning even blacker as they sped away from the lights of downtown, through the nighttime in Dumbarton Oaks Park. The call went to her cell, and when she answered, he introduced himself as “Harry Swyteck’s son Jack.”

  “How nice to hear from you again, Harry Swyteck’s son Jack.”

  Perhaps he was reading too much into her joke, but it felt like a friendly warning never to fall into the trap of giving up your own identity in this town-a reminder that he was Jack Swyteck first, not someone’s son.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’ve been thinking about the conversation we had at your home, and I have-”

  “Questions?” she said. “So soon?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “When would you like to talk?”

  “I’m actually in your neighborhood right now, if that’s not too short notice.”

  “I’d be pleased to have the company. I’ll tell the Secret Service to let you in.”

  Built originally for the superintendent of the naval observatory, the Vice Presidential Mansion had all the hallmarks of late-nineteenth-century Queen Anne architecture, from its signature round turret to the broad veranda wrapping the ground floor. Jack was cleared at the gate, and the limo took him up the long driveway to the entrance. Marilyn Grayson greeted him at the door, and Jack stepped into a foyer that was large enough for a piano and its own fireplace. It was filled with corrugated boxes.

  “Excuse the mess,” said Mrs. Grayson. “We’ve been packing all day.”

  She led him directly across the foyer to the first-floor library. A portrait of the first vice president stared down from over the fireplace. Jack thought that Mr. Adams looked to be on the verge of sneezing. The bookcase and end tables were already devoid of family photos and other personal touches, and not a Christmas decoration was in sight.

  She was as gracious as Jack had found her in Georgia, and even though the mourning period was not yet over, she looked more rested and relaxed than on their first visit. She asked about Harry, and Jack kept up his end of the pleasantries by asking about her daughter, who at that moment entered the room, as if on cue, still quite striking even in blue jeans, a sweatshirt, and no makeup.

  “You remember Elizabeth?” said Mrs. Grayson.

  “We met briefly,” said Jack.

  Elizabeth wiped her palms in her sweatshirt and then shook Jack’s hand. “Excuse the way I look,” she said. “We’re in a packing mode.”

  “Totally understand,” said Jack. “Moving is never pleasant, and I’m very sorry for the circumstances of yours.”

  “Yeah, it pretty much sucks.”

  “Elizabeth,” her mother said.

  “Mother, please. That word no longer has the sexual connotation that your generation thinks it does. Right, Jack?”

  Jack fumbled for a response. “I think I’m kind of the transition generation on that one.”

  “Cute,” Elizabeth said, smiling. “How long are you in town?”

  “As long as it takes to get my father through the confirmation process.”

  “I’ll be here helping Mother another week or so. We should have lunch. I can fill you in on all the secrets.”

  “Secrets?”

  “The kitchen and the dining room are on separate floors. The ghost dresses in buckskin, but he’s been spotted only by the Mondale children. That kind of thing.”

  “I’m sure Jack is quite busy,” said Mrs. Grayson.

  “He looks old enough to decide for himself.”

  “Indeed. Which is precisely-” Mrs. Grayson stopped herself this time, as if to steer away from a sore subject.

  “Mother thinks I’m asking you on a date, which scares her. My ex-fiance was in his forties. She didn’t approve.”

  “Forties?” said Jack. “Heavens to Murgatroyd.”

  “So, lunch?” said Elizabeth.

  Jack didn’t even want to test Theo’s theory that this Georgia beauty had thus far in life dated only Generation Y porn addicts and desperately needed her own personal Clark Gable. And then, of course, there was Andie.

  “I think-”

  “If you say no, I’m going to short sheet the beds before your father moves in.”

  “Well, if you put it that way.”

  “Good. I’ll call you,” she said.

  She smiled and left Jack and Mrs. Grayson in private. The former Second Lady settled into the armchair, and Jack took the chair opposite her.

  “That Elizabeth,” said Mrs. Grayson with a shake of her head, “she certainly has her father’s spirit.”

  “That’s a good thing, I’m sure,” said Jack.

  The widow didn’t answer.

  “How can I help you, Jack?”

  He wasn’t sure where to begin. “It’s been a strange week.”

  “I’ve been following it all in the news,” she said.

  The news. If that was her only source, she knew nothing about Sunday’s e-mail from the man who claimed to be able to make Harry Swyteck president. That wasn’t Jack’s focus anyway. “When you say you’ve been ‘following it all,’ does that include the death of Chloe Sparks?”

  “Who?” she said.

  “You’ve never heard of her?”

  She shrugged. “Should I know her?”

  “Last year she was a White House intern assigned to the vice president. She was fired for-”

  “Ah, yes. The druggy.”

  “She was murdered Saturday night.”

  Mrs. Grayson paused to absorb the news. “I hadn’t heard about that.”

  “From what I’ve gathered on the Internet, it was much bigger news in her hometown of Chicago than it was here. What little media attention it got in Washington was couched in terms of Chloe being the younger stepsister of White House reporter Paulette Sparks.”

  “How awful for Paulette. I’ve always thought she was such a class act. And her sister-well, what a terrible downward spiral for a young person with so much promise.”

  “She was a reporter for the Inquiring Star when she was shot.”

  Her arms folded in a defensive posture. No one among Washington’s elite escaped the Inquiring Star. “Now that you mention it, I think I had heard that somewhere.”

  “Chloe was having discussions with an anonymous source who claimed to have information that could bring down President Keyes.”

  “Now that sounds like something
I would have heard on the news.”

  “It’s not public information. I heard it from Paulette Sparks. She also told me that Chloe was trying to communicate with the vice president-trying so hard that the FBI contacted Paulette about possible stalking issues. Do you know anything about that?”

  “No.”

  Jack paused, expecting her to say more. But she was finished.

  “You don’t seem to believe me,” she said.

  “I do. But honestly, I came here expecting you to say that Chloe’s anonymous source and her attempts to contact the vice president had everything to do with the questions you have about your husband’s death.”

  “Well, I didn’t know about those things, so they obviously could not have raised any questions in my mind, could they?”

  She seemed to be closing that door pretty tightly. “Obviously not.”

  “But I’ll make a deal with you, Harry Swyteck’s son Jack. I will tell you what makes me question Phil’s death, if you’ll tell me what the FBI doesn’t seem to want anyone to know: What caused you and the FBI to arrange that meeting with a homeless man outside the museum on Sunday morning?”

  Jack paused. Telling her about the anonymous e-mail was no small step, even if Paulette Sparks-a member of the media-did already know about it.

  She said, “Naturally all of this remains between us. You have my word on it.”

  Jack was still considering it. She was a curious woman, the widow Grayson. But for reasons he could not fully explain-perhaps it was the way she had reached out to him at the funeral-he trusted her.

  “You’ve got yourself a deal,” said Jack, and then he fell silent.

  “I’m listening,” she said.

  “Former Second Ladies first. Please.”

  She smiled thinly, as if she liked his style. And then she told him.

  Chapter 16

  “With or without training wheels, dude?” said Theo.

  Theo Knight was the last person Jack had expected to run into at the hotel bar at the end of the day. A flight of tequila shots was set up before him. “Training wheels” were lemon and salt.