by Rick Pullen
He pulled on the top drawer filled with pens, notebooks, notes on various scraps of colored paper, and old files. Even after the stories disappeared, the files outlining his labor remained and brought life to his old investigations. On occasion, maybe every three or four years, he would open a file and reread it, reliving one of his greatest stories. They did not get lost in the unending grind of daily deadlines. His stories lived on in his memory and his notes—triumphs of his cunning and unbending tenacity.
Beck sighed, regret and nostalgia rushing through his body. He was like a dog with a buried bone. He couldn’t let go. Not just yet.
He thought of his book publisher, and the regret intensified. Would he still be interested in a book after reading this morning’s headline? Would Judy, his agent?
Most of his life had been off the record. Now it was a headline. This morning, as the world awoke to its morning coffee and newspaper on the front stoop, it would learn much more about him. He cowered at the thought and tried to think of something else.
Beck filled two banker’s boxes with a handful of books, two coffee mugs, various notebooks, pens, and an old pocket calculator. His desk lay clear except for a battered company dictionary, used long before online dictionaries and spell-check were the norm. He had found it under a pile of loose papers on the corner of his desk.
There were also a couple of paperback mysteries Nancy had loaned him that he had never returned. He walked across the newsroom to her desk and left them on her chair.
By nine o’clock, long before most reporters arrived for the day, his desk was as empty as his career. He glanced at the newsroom one last time and hefted the contents of the last box. Seventeen years, he thought. He would never be here again.
The elevator doors opened, and he turned and pressed the button for the rooftop parking lot. The doors merged, forever sealing off this view of his old life. His newspaper career, like his old stories, had disappeared into the inevitable ether. Another deadline had passed.
WHEN HE RETURNED TO HIS condo, Beck didn’t bother emptying the trunk of his Volvo. He grabbed his morning papers and went upstairs, locking his front door behind him. He laid the papers out on his dining room table for the full effect, then took several deep breaths before opening the first one.
The News-Times story was as bad as it could get. An Associated Press photo taken of him when he was heading into the federal courthouse was splashed near the top of the page. Next to his mug was Geneva’s picture. God, this was bad.
Rabidan got a “no comment” from Harvey’s presidential transition team, and there was nothing from Geneva. Obviously, she knew this story was coming, and still she hadn’t called. Perhaps she was under such close scrutiny in the bubble that she couldn’t contact him—at least that’s what he wanted to believe.
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think of something else. Then he grabbed the Post-Examiner. Nothing about him, but a story at the bottom of page three caught his eye. Jackson Oliver had resigned as assistant attorney general for the criminal division.
“I can’t believe it. That bastard. They got him.” But unlike himself, it appeared Oliver would get to go quietly, his reputation intact. Welcome to Washington, Beck thought. Someday, he would expose Oliver. And then he caught himself. He would never get the chance.
He read on. The administration considered Daniel Fahy the leading candidate to replace Oliver at Justice. Shit. He couldn’t even blow the whistle on Fahy for leaking his affair with Geneva. He had not only lost his career and his girlfriend, but his standing and the power that went with his job. The gravity of his loss was beginning to seep in, and he was struggling to figure out what he could do about it.
66
“You son of a bitch,” Beck said when he approached Fahy at their usual table in the back of the restaurant. “You told the News-Times.”
“Told them what?”
“About Jen and me.”
“Are you nuts? We have a pact. The last thing I’d do is provoke you.” You’re a liar too, he thought. “Then who did?” “Who do you think?”
Beck sat down at the table. Without prompting, the buxom waitress brought him a cup of black coffee and asked if he’d like something to eat. He declined. And this time, Beck barely glanced at her ample bosom, her cleavage screaming for his attention.
“If it wasn’t you, then I haven’t a clue.”
“Last week, I got a call from a very old friend seeking advice on how to place a story in the News-Times about you and Geneva.”
“Who?”
“Her husband, Mike Harvey.”
Beck almost dropped his coffee cup. He couldn’t believe it. “Harvey? He wouldn’t do that to his own wife.”
“He said you pushed him to it. Geneva told him months ago about the two of you.”
“But they had an arrangement. He okayed our relationship.” Beck leaned on the table, closing the distance with Fahy.
“I know nothing about that. All I know is what he told me. Geneva apparently told Mike she didn’t want to live in the political fishbowl with all the guards, the handlers, and the sycophants. She told him if he took the job, she would leave him. Obviously, the vice presidency meant more to him than she did. And now events have overtaken both of them. If she thought being the wife of the vice president was life in a fishbowl, imagine what she faces as first lady.”
Beck shook his head, still not believing. “How do you know all of this?”
“I was one of his law school students thirty years ago. He taught a few classes at Georgetown at night. When I graduated, before I even passed the bar, he helped me get my first job at Justice. We’ve been friends ever since, and I was his personal Justice Department source for information. He also knew Oliver was blocking my advancement at Justice.”
“You mean this was all a setup?” Beck leaned back. He eyed Fahy, looking for any hint of the truth.
“Are you kidding? No one knew how this would all play out.”
“What was that whole business in the courtroom? That property manager in Cayman never told me about the government investigation.”
“You know that, and I know that, but the rest of the world doesn’t. The FBI came to me about the Oliver connection before you and I ever met. Oliver did his best to block the investigation, but he wasn’t too subtle. And when the FBI told me his half brother was involved, I had every right to secretly investigate my boss. So I sent the FBI to Cayman before you ever got there. We interviewed the property manager. I remember the agent—”
“Was that McCauley? Jen told me about McCauley.”
“Sorry. I can’t say. Let’s just say you have good instincts. The agent told me about that Agee fellow—the property manager. The FBI said he was reliable, but scattered and tended to mix up things.”
“Yeah. I found that out too. I had to document everything he told me.” Beck looked at the full cup of coffee in front of him and realized he badly needed a caffeine fix. He took a swig.
“So I told the agent to drag him back here for your hearing, threaten him if he had to. But that wasn’t necessary. He was more than willing to take a free trip to the States, especially after I told him we would put him up in the W Hotel for a week. So I met with Mr. Agee the day before your hearing and reminded him several times about how the FBI agent had told him of our investigation of Senator Bayard. He said he only remembered the agent telling him about our investigation of Oliver, so I told him they were the same case, and he bought it. It was that simple.”
“You mean the agent never told him about the Bayard investigation?”
“Of course not.”
Beck shook his head in disbelief. “You manipulated the witness.” “It’s all part of the job. We call it justice.”
“That’s what scares me. Behind the scenes, justice is twisted and manipulated. My case could have gone the other way.” “Not a chance.”
They stared at each other in silence.
Beck shook his head. “You lawyers amaze me. An
d to think I wanted to be one when I was a kid.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask, whatever happened to your source in Venezuela? The one that linked Oliver to Lamurr. We’d like to follow that lead.”
“He completely disappeared.”
“That means they got him.” Fahy bit his bottom lip. “You mean someone killed him?” The idea made Beck cringe. “Probably. Or he’s fled. Their tentacles are everywhere. Caracas is a very violent place. Another murder there could easily go unnoticed.” “What about the Cayman murders?”
“Oh, that’s been mothballed. A bunch of fools down there running the place.”
Beck said nothing about his conversation with Inspector Tomlinson. He assumed the gardener had been apprehended, which meant Fahy was either uninformed or lying. He suspected the latter. Beck seesawed from believing him to not trusting him.
The Boy Scout had said nothing about the taped conversation enabled by the burner phone. Obviously, he knew that Beck had figured it out. Yet would either of them confront the other, or would they continue to play this game?
The waitress eased a heavy plate of food onto the table in front of Fahy. She warned him it was hot. The smell of cheese and refried beans tempted Beck’s nostrils, but he wasn’t hungry. He would stick with his black coffee.
Fahy took an indifferent bite of his tamale smothered in chili. He wiped his chin with his napkin and continued with his mouth half full. “You might be out of a job, Beck, but you should count your blessings you’re alive. You never knew how close you came. But you’ve done all the damage you can do now. Harvey made sure of that. I’ve no doubt there was some spite in his decision to expose you and Geneva, but he told me he wanted to protect her at all costs. He doesn’t want either one of you in danger. The only way to assure that, in his mind, was for you to no longer be a reporter for the Post-Examiner, no longer chasing the drug money stories. So he embarrassed himself and his soon-to-be ex-wife to save you both.”
“Ex-wife?” Beck’s heart leaped.
“They are secretly getting a divorce. It will be announced after the inauguration. She wants nothing to do with Washington anymore.” Beck sat in silence. If that was true, why hadn’t she called? The waitress came by again and asked if they wanted more coffee. “Black,” Fahy said.
Beck watched as she also filled his cup, then looked at Fahy as she walked away. “Did Harvey have anything to do with this whole affair? I mean going back to the very beginning? Did the two of you hatch a plan to give Harvey the vice presidency—or the presidency—and use me to deliver it?”
Beck paused, brain spinning, and then pushed forward. “Of course you did. As soon as you tied Oliver to Bayard, the two of you conspired to bring me into the loop to carry out your plan. You needed outside help to make it all happen. The Justice Department couldn’t do it, but I sure could. What an incredibly brilliant scheme.”
Beck was searching, not sure what the truth was anymore. Fahy smiled. “Not even I could pull that off.”
Beck eyeballed Fahy. He was craftier than his aging government bureaucrat persona let on. The guy seemed to always be one step ahead of him. Beck kicked himself for taking so long to realize that. He thought of himself as the master of the inside play, yet this midlevel government bureaucrat had outmaneuvered him.
67
Geneva balanced the Harvey family Bible on her upturned palms on a bitterly cold Monday under a gray January sky as Harv stepped forward on the platform on the western front of the Capitol to take the oath of office. Later, after a luncheon with Congress and a long, colorful inaugural parade that lasted into the evening, Jen and Harv attended several inaugural balls and danced late into the night. As much as she enjoyed dancing, being on display for thousands at each ball was grueling. She and Harv would take a turn around the stage to one song at each event. She felt like a circus act. All Geneva could think about was never having to perform again.
Afterward, the Secret Service delivered her unnoticed to the condo. Harv slept alone in the White House.
THE NEXT MORNING, GENEVA stepped out of her condo and into the hall. The Secret Service agent stationed outside her door sat on a chair, reading her morning newspaper. When she appeared, he quickly folded it and handed it to her, feigning a sheepish look, as if he had committed some crime. While his role was different from her political aides, his behavior reminded her of the obsequious nature of Washington minions who coddled the politically significant every day, prostrating themselves just to be within arm’s reach of power. Harv was right, she thought, power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
And it hadn’t changed even when her affair with Beck made the front pages and evening news shows of America. It was just one more scandal of many out of Washington. But this was the one time she had been
thankful for the trappings of power. The Secret Service had kept the press at bay. Harv had arranged for the Secret Service to guard her until she left town. In moments, she would be persona non grata in Washington’s social strata. To walk away was unheard of. No more aides and no protection. Many Washington insiders spent their entire working lives clawing to reach her social status, while Geneva couldn’t wait to leave.
She stepped back into the penthouse and walked into her living room. It felt different without Harv there. She dropped her robe on a chair and stood naked in the middle of her living room. Then she picked up her phone and called Keith.
“Hey, hun, it’s Jen. Are we all set?”
“Everything is in order,” Keith said.
“Then I’ll meet you at the airport.”
“I’m so looking forward to this. I never thought this day would come.”
“That makes two of us. You have saved me from this crazy world. See you soon.”
She showered and dressed quickly. She felt giddy, as if a whole new world was opening up to her. Geneva wheeled a couple of suitcases over to the front door of the condo and opened it to the hallway. The limo driver was waiting and asked if he could assist. Without her having time to answer, he took her bags.
She checked her watch. She told the driver she needed to make a phone call and would be down in a few minutes. The Secret Service agent eyed her from his perch in the hallway outside of her penthouse, but he said nothing.
The driver expertly wheeled his black SUV across the Fourteenth Street Bridge. Through her tinted window, Geneva saw frost on the marsh and barren trees lining the George Washington Parkway. The morning sun had yet to melt it away. She fingered her leather jacket. She couldn’t wait to ditch the coat for a more accommodating climate. She could hardly wait to get there. But first, she had one last difficult phone call to make to someone special.
68
Beck walked alone on the beach near the pier on Fort Myers Beach, squinting at a couple of bikini-clad women jogging his way on the hardened, wet sand near the edge of the gentle lapping waves. He fumbled in his pocket for sunglasses.
He had flown in yesterday to escape the hoopla of the inauguration, as well as his fellow reporters who were still hounding him for comment. Back at the condo, his answering machine was full of their messages seeking details of his affair with Geneva.
Beck wondered what happened to all of the newsroom colleagues who had celebrated with him after the drug money story. Not one had called. Journalism was almost as cynical as politics, or maybe, he thought, it was just a different form.
This was the first leg of his resignation tour, Beck decided. Florida first, and then wherever the tide took him. Someplace warm, he promised himself. It was still January.
Just before lunchtime, he sat at the near-empty bar at the pier, ordered a beer, and unfolded his USA Today. The headline screamed at him: “President Harvey Divorcing.” Just as Fahy had said. He wondered if they still had a chance or if he and Geneva were just victims of incredibly bad timing. Yet Beck had to acknowledge he had brought it on himself, or at least his ego and his investigation had.
The story said the president and First Lady Geneva Kemper had officiall
y divorced the day before the inauguration but decided not to disclose it until after the festivities were over. Beck pored over every word,
though the only part that interested him was a sentence near the end about Ms. Kemper leaving Washington. Her future and final destination, the story said, were not disclosed. A spokesman for President Harvey said Geneva was seeking a “new beginning” and sought privacy away from Washington.
“I wonder,” he said under his breath. He placed his elbow on the bar; his chin rested in his right hand. Beck smiled, remembering their time in Grand Cayman and their conversation about Geneva’s favorite getaways. He was mulling over the idea when his phone rang. He fished it out of his shorts and read the display.
“Nancy, how are you?”
“I should be asking you that.”
“I’ve been better.”
“I can imagine. Look, I know this is too late to do you any good, but I thought you would want to know. My source finally came through on your license plate. The government car was checked out to an FBI agent named Patrick McCauley.”
Beck closed his eyes. It all made sense. All the pieces finally fell into place. “That confirms my suspicion,” he said.
“How so?”
“He fit Geneva’s description. He tried to use makeup to hide his true age. Tried to make himself look much older.”
“So now you know the FBI was involved.” Nancy sounded hesitant.
“And he’s tied directly to Fahy. When McCauley met with me down here in Florida, he already knew I’d discovered the fraudulent land deals were actually used to launder drug money. I was alone the day before in my home when I made that discovery. The only way he could have known was to have access to the listening device inside the phone Fahy gave me.”
“So Fahy was using the FBI to plant his version of the story to assure you were on it and would bring down Patten. Yet you already had it figured out.”