Naked Ambition

by Rick Pullen

  Publicly, Fahy remained silent. Privately, he opened a back channel to President Bill Croom through Jackson Oliver to keep abreast of the Democrats’ plans. The issue was so sensitive, Fahy knew Croom could not risk even the hint of collusion on a deal to shove Republican Patten aside and give the presidency to his friend Michael Harvey.

  Congressional Democrats, however, had nothing to lose, Fahy realized. They couldn’t win the presidency, but they could guarantee the man who beat them didn’t win either. They could shift their electors’ votes to Harvey. Fahy monitored the situation calling his various Washington contacts for updates and quietly passing along the details to Harvey’s people. Harvey needed only a handful of Republican electors to make it work. Fahy quickly saw a deal emerge. Patten was out, and Harvey was in. The electoral college could do that, and no one could stop them.

  Patten fought the movement, calling electors across the country. But it quickly became apparent to Fahy and others that there was enough public opposition to his dirty money path to office that he would never again reach the two hundred and seventy electoral vote plateau he had won on election night. Republican electors were loyal, but not legally bound to their candidate. All of them were being pressured in their states to vote against Patten to save the party. Fahy was amazed at how quickly it all came together.

  Fahy talked to Democrats working behind the scenes. They knew they could not only swing a deal with disgruntled Republicans to elect Harvey, but they made it clear to Republicans they probably had the votes to kill Harvey’s choice for vice president when he sent his nominee before Congress to be confirmed. So in return for the Republicans agreeing to oust Patten, the Democrats agreed to rubber-stamp Harvey’s choice for the number two spot.

  The deal was sealed. Harvey would become the first modern president ever elected with a large swath of both Republican and Democrat electors—and you couldn’t see Fahy’s fingerprints on any of it. Fahy preferred it that way.

  Nearly a month later, the electoral college did its work, electing Harvey with more than three hundred votes. The Congress would vote on Harvey’s choice for vice president when it convened for a new session in January. There was plenty of time before the inauguration.

  GENEVA AND HARV’S LAWYERS worked quickly. The divorce was friendly, since they had no heirs and splitting their assets was relatively easy. They each knew what the other wanted, and ultimately, they agreed they would keep the penthouse together. Perhaps there would be evenings in the future where they could capture some time together over a bottle of wine and cigars, Geneva told him.

  She turned in her resignation to Serodynne. She had already collected her bonus check—a full year’s salary—after the Pentagon awarded the drone contract to her company. It made her smile. If they only knew, she thought.

  She and Harv used their influence to expedite their divorce. A local judge agreed to handle the situation discreetly and quickly, and a day before the inauguration, they met at the condo with the judge and their attorneys to sign the papers. The Secret Service stood outside in the hallway.

  After the papers were signed, they asked everyone to leave. For a few moments, they talked about their life together and how they both wanted something different now. Harv said he understood her need for privacy.

  “Nothing like having it handed to you on a silver platter.” He laughed.

  “For both of us,” she replied. “Who would have thought?”

  They hugged. After one long, passionate kiss, they looked into each other’s eyes and smiled. They were both getting exactly what they wanted. They didn’t need each other anymore.

  Geneva felt a sense of relief. Everything was finally falling into place. She promised to stay through the inauguration and then they would jointly announce their split. She would be gone before the news media even knew—leaving Harv to deal with the chaos and tabloid headlines. There was only one thing left to do. She would check in with Keith to make sure everything was going as planned with her money. Once she had her share, she would be home free.

  64

  Beck sat at his desk with his legs propped up, reading the paper. It was thinner now that the holidays were over. He turned to the style section and saw a picture of Geneva at some charitable fund-raiser with the president-elect. Every time she showed up in the newspaper, it felt like someone punched him in the stomach. He hadn’t spoken to her since their brief conversation more than two months ago on election night. She would soon be the new first lady. Their relationship hadn’t even lasted the requisite two months, and yet he thought she might be the one.

  Beck had spent the last six weeks outlining his new book on the fall campaign, Bayard’s money game, and the drug money flooding into American politics. He’d actually taken two solid weeks of vacation to write and decompress. His publisher wanted a first draft by April.

  He had tried to call Geneva, but her cell phone had been disconnected—no doubt at the request of the Secret Service, he suspected. He didn’t understand why she hadn’t called him. He even called their mutual friend Ellen Elizabeth, who said she couldn’t reach Geneva either. Beck found that hard to believe.

  He knew it was over, and he had to move on. Yet he was struggling to let go. No woman had ever sunk her claws into him the way Geneva had.

  A phone rang, then stopped. It rang again, and Beck realized it was his. He grabbed the receiver buried under a stack of papers on his desk.

  “It’s Rabidan,” said the voice on the other end.

  “Kerry, how are you?” Beck nuzzled the telephone under his neck as he sipped his morning coffee—the black crud he’d grabbed from the cafeteria downstairs. He looked around for a reporter’s pad and stole one from Cheryl Rose’s desk next door. “Hey. You’ve been covering everything lately. I’ve been meaning to call and congratulate you. You taking on the political beat?”

  “No. Just general assignment.”

  “Well, your byline is everywhere. Congratulations. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many front page bylines.”

  “Thanks, Beck, but this is not a social call,” she said.

  What possibly could be business between them? Beck wondered. “Oh? What’s up? You need help with something?”

  Taking another sip of coffee, he thought about their past. When Rabidan first worked at the Post-Examiner, Beck had flirted with her. After a couple of times in the sack, he’d called it quits, although she admitted she would have done the same if he hadn’t. They agreed they lacked chemistry. By some miracle, they managed to keep the fling quiet and maintained their friendship, helping each other on stories from time to time before she was downsized and immediately snatched up by the competition.

  Beck adjusted the receiver closer to his ear so he could hear over the white noise of the newsroom. There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “What’s up?” he asked again.

  “We’re running a story tomorrow that says you were sleeping with the future first lady, who was a lobbyist for Serodynne Corporation, at the same time you were investigating Serodynne’s competitor, Lamurr Technologies, and its ties to Senator David Bayard. Care to comment?”

  What did she just say? Beck’s mind was scrambled, struggling to focus. Did Kerry just say that? He was stunned. How did she find out? Why was she writing this story? He realized his private life was about to become public fodder in a town full of gossips and enemies.

  “Beck? Are you there?”

  “Ah . . . shit. Kerry, why are you doing this to me?” He slammed down the phone, then buried his head in his hands. Immediately, he thought better of what he had just done.

  He called Kerry back. “Off the record. Please don’t run this story. You’ll ruin my life.”

  “Beck, don’t you think you had just a slight conflict of interest helping your girlfriend take down her competition?”

  “It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that at all. She didn’t know anything about it. At least at first. You can’t run this story. It’s complicated.”
/>   “Sorry. So seeing that I’m your friend, I’ll ask again. Care to comment for the record?”

  “Wait a minute. What about you and me? You’re writing a story about a guy you slept with. Remember?”

  “This is different, Beck, and you know it.”

  He looked at the telephone receiver and placed it quietly in its cradle. His life, as he knew it, was over. He could see it in his mind, the public humiliation that was about to come. He was about to become a laughing stock, a late-night punch line.

  What was he going to do? Who told her?

  Fahy. It had to have been Fahy. He must have called the News-Times. That son of a bitch. He was going to pay. Beck slammed his fist on his desk spilling his coffee on a stack of papers. No one was close enough to notice. Most reporters had yet to arrive.

  Beck picked up his office phone and called Fahy’s cell. He didn’t care if it was traced to his newsroom landline. Fahy would probably be in his office, but this couldn’t wait.

  “Meet me at noon. We gotta talk.”

  “Tomorrow,” Fahy replied. “Can’t today.”

  “You son of a bitch, I need to talk to you now.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t. It’s impossible. I have meetings with the new administration all day today starting in a half hour. What’s got your tit in a ringer?”

  “You know perfectly well.” Beck slammed down the phone. That S.O.B. It had to be him. Fuming, Beck made a slow walk to Baker’s office. He told him the entire story.

  “Christ. You didn’t see this possibility? Are you thinking with your dick? What the hell did you think you were doing?” Baker pulled out a cigarette from the pack in his breast pocket and lit up. Beck had never seen him smoke before.

  “I’ve got to go to Cunningham with this one,” he said as he puffed. Beck stumbled back to his desk. He didn’t know how he would survive this. He eyed the back of Nancy’s head at her perch across the newsroom but said nothing. An hour later, he saw Baker glance at him as he returned to his glass-enclosed office. He watched Baker pick up his phone, and he knew instinctively who he was calling. He stared as Nancy walked into the managing editor’s office.

  Fifteen minutes later, she emerged and strode sternly back to her desk. She did not look at Beck. Then one by one, each top editor’s phone rang, and one by one, each marched into the boss’s office. Every time an editor emerged, there would be a furtive glance in Beck’s direction and then a swift turn of the head when their eyes met.

  He felt disgraced. Everyone would soon be snickering at him behind his back, and he was helpless to do anything about it.

  Little remained private in a newsroom for long. By midafternoon, it was apparent a good proportion of the staff knew the situation. Finally, his phone jarred him out of his funk, and he trudged into Baker’s office.

  “Kid. I hate to tell you, but I think you’ve done it this time. We need to do as much damage control as possible. Cunningham is not happy. She’s already been on the phone to the publisher of the News-Times. The story is running front page above the fold tomorrow. Our friend Kerry has the byline.”

  Baker paused and rubbed his forehead. “Man, what were you thinking? Cunningham put her neck on the line for your stories. And look what you’ve done? It all looks suspect, like your motive was to screw Lamurr and help Serodynne win the contract for your girlfriend, the future first lady. Tomorrow, your reputation, and the reputation of this entire paper, will be under a cloud. Bayard supporters will be howling we were out to get their man, and I can’t blame them for thinking that.”

  Beck hung his head, staring at the gray fibers in Baker’s office rug. Cigarette ash slowly melted black spots in the synthetic fibers. He lifted his gaze. Two half-smoked cigarettes lay mashed atop Baker’s desk in an ashtray Beck had never seen before.

  “Senator Bayard may not be able to sue us for what you’ve done, but you may have just resurrected his political career. Tomorrow, he finds out he has a fighting chance at reelection in two years.” Baker pushed the ashtray aside. “You know better. Reporters need to be unbiased, or at least appear to be.”

  Beck knew Baker was right. Why had he let it get so out of hand? The whole relationship just sort of happened before he got a grip on his own investigation. He felt his eyes glisten. He needed to keep it together in front of his boss.

  “I’m sorry, kid, but you give us no choice. We’ve got to let you go. Go up to HR, and they’ll help you with the paperwork. Cunningham has agreed to give you six months’ severance, plus your unused sick leave and vacation. Pretty generous, if you ask me, but we want to recognize the good things you’ve done for the paper over your seventeen years here.”

  Baker rounded the desk and stuck out his hand. “Kid, I wish it didn’t have to end this way. You’re probably the best I’ve ever seen. Come in around seven tomorrow morning before the place gets busy and clean out your desk.”

  Beck couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He’d just lost the best job in the world. He had nothing left.

  After finishing up with human resources, Beck said his good-byes to several newsroom colleagues and editors. So many memories came to mind about so many good times working together. His relationship with each one would change. He knew that. They would still be part of the newspaper’s family. And even though they were friends, he would now be the outsider, never sharing the same camaraderie again.

  Nancy gave him a big hug. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “We did a lot of good together,” she said. “Don’t you forget it.”

  And then he broke down and sobbed softly, hugging her tightly with his cheek against the top of her head. He had disappointed his mentor, the woman he admired most—the woman who had backed him and trusted him and fought for him for so many years. He had failed her, and yet she was still trying to reassure him of his own worth.

  BECK DIDN’T REMEMBER driving home. He stepped into his condo and lost it, sobbing uncontrollably, like never before in his life. He’d destroyed his career over a woman. How could he have been so stupid? It wasn’t intentional, he told himself. It just happened. Tomorrow, he would be a worldwide laughing stock. “Oh, Jesus. What have I done, Red? The entire world will soon know. They’ll never understand.”

  He placed his head in his hands. He remembered an aging bottle of sleeping pills left by an old girlfriend in the medicine cabinet. He could mix it with some alcohol. He had plenty of booze in the house. It would ease his pain forever. He wouldn’t have to deal with tomorrow’s wrath and eating humble pie for the rest of his life. He didn’t see how he could ever get through the oncoming tidal wave of disgrace.

  He walked to the cabinet above the kitchen sink where he kept his liquor. Behind the leaded glass in the carved oak door stood nine bottles of booze. Bourbon? Gin? Scotch? Vodka? They glared at him, inviting him to forget his problems for the moment. He grabbed the bourbon by the neck. He knew he didn’t hold his bourbon well.

  The pill bottle stood, short but stoic, in the medicine cabinet. He reached for it and read the label. “Do not take with alcohol.” Why the hell not? No more Red. No more Nancy. No more . . . Geneva. No more . . .

  He stepped into the kitchen and paused. “Why not?” he asked himself out loud. He looked at the bourbon bottle now standing alone on the countertop beckoning him, and then he glanced down at the bottle of pills, still grasped firmly in his hand. He quietly sighed, and his shoulders slumped. He unscrewed the bottle cap and slowly dumped the pills down the garbage disposal. He flipped the switch, and the whine of the motor crunching dry pills reminded him to turn on the water. Who was he kidding? He would take no chances. He would take his lumps. He’d figure out a way. He always had.

  Beck smoked three Churchills before he drained the bottle. He tried to sleep in the dark on his balcony under two thick wool blankets, the empty bottle and an empty bourbon glass still on the floor by the daybed. With the last of the autumn leaves swept away by a thunderstorm long ago, he was fully exposed to the neighborhood—his only refuge, an emp
ty bottle of booze.

  In his haze as he surrendered to the alcohol, he thought of Geneva standing naked on the balcony in Cayman and forgot all about what tomorrow would bring.

  65

  Early the next morning, Starbucks black coffee in hand, Beck stepped into a near-empty newsroom. His head pounded mercilessly. Grumbling, he tossed most of his old story files in the janitor’s fifty-gallon wheeled trash barrel, conveniently left next to his desk by the night crew. An appropriate burial site for his work, he thought.

  It surprised him how few of his files he wanted to preserve. Seventeen years of labor, meticulously filed in cabinet and desk drawers, now lay pitched in a heap in one large trash bin—quite a showing for a lifetime of hard work.

  Going forward, everything he ever did or said, including his obituary, would be accompanied by an asterisk. One mistake—one stupid mistake—and his career was over. His life was permanently labeled. Here he was, the sole heir to his legacy, presiding over the wake of his career in an empty newsroom with no one else in attendance. He’d been single all of his life, yet he had never felt so alone.

  The newsroom outlaw was now an outcast. When you get fired, you learn quickly who your friends are, Beck thought. The phone hadn’t rung once last night.

  He remembered the dinner with Geneva in the diner near Winchester. He had wondered then if anyone outside the Beltway even cared about his work. Today, he knew. The evidence lay in a pile on the city desk—today’s editions of major newspapers from all across the country waiting to be read. He could not bear to go near them.