Chasm

by James Bruno

  “So they say. Just got in myself.”

  “You a constituent?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not me. I’m from Iowa, but been living here for the past fifteen years.”

  “What brought you here?”

  “Pigs.”

  “Oh. I see.” He really didn’t see.

  “You here to see the Congressman?” the fat man asked. He looked Gallatin up and down, as if making an expert estimate of a hog’s weight.

  “Nope. Just here to see a staffer about something.”

  “Staffers. Yeah, well. They hold the Congressman’s bag and carry his water sometimes all right.” The man snorted loudly to clear out blocked sinuses. “Let me offer you some advice from an insider.” The chair creaked as he leaned over and planted his huge head just inches from Gallatin’s left ear. He half covered the side of his mouth with one hand to ensure confidentiality. “Staffers are the mannequins in the store front window. They hire these kids from good schools, pay ‘em peanuts and have ‘em sit here and look real good. They’ll smile atcha. They’ll talk real fine and make yah feel good to be within glint distance of the old man’s halo. Especially the girls. Why, your mind gets to racin’ with so many thoughts of pussy, you forget why you came here in the first place.” He laughed wheezily at his own wisecrack.

  “So, it’s the ‘old man’ or nothing. Is that what you’re saying?”

  The fat man winked and nodded solemnly. “For a constituent, you’re not so dumb, see?” He wheezed again, then snorted. Finally, he pulled out a red bandanna that served as a handkerchief and blew his nose, sounding to all the world like a porpoise with double pneumonia.

  The fat man reached into a side jacket pocket and pulled out a card. “Muhlhauser’s my name. Jack Muhlhauser. National Association of Hog Raisers. Glad to meetcha.” He extended a fleshy right hand. “Pork’s big on the Hill. You look like a smart fella. You ever want some part-time work, give me a call. We’re always lookin’ for new shock troops to lobby for pork.”

  “Mr. Gallatin?” A clean-cut male with horn-rimmed glasses, red suspenders and a starched white shirt appeared. “I’m Kevin Crandler. I’m a legislative aide for the Congressman,” he said cheerily.

  Gallatin rose and shook the young man’s hand. He looked down at the pork lobbyist. “See you around.”

  “Hey, and don’t forget what I said about the big ‘P’,” he said under his breath, cupping his mouth with one hand.

  Crandler brought Gallatin into a room with ornate wall molding which had been turned into a bull pen of improvised modular work spaces crammed with aides, computer equipment, filing cabinets and banks of beeping telephones and fax machines.

  “So glad you could drop by,” Crandler chirped with a plastic smile. “Unfortunately, the Congressman will be occupied on the floor all day. But I’ll be glad to help you. By the way, he’ll be in Cleveland on Memorial Day, if you’d like to meet him then.”

  “Uh, right. But the reason I’m here is that I’m investigating—”

  “Oh. This is Mary Chrisabelli.” Another attractive young woman appeared, also smiling broadly. They shook hands. “Mary’s helping out on special projects.” The phone beeped. Crandler took it and immediately got into a involved conversation about ‘conference discussions on the Riverine Commerce Bill.’

  “It looks like Kevin will be tied up for a while. How can I help you?” Ms. Chrisabelli said with affected sincerity as she led Gallatin to a nook near the supply cabinet. She commandeered two cannistered, secretarial swivel chairs.

  Ms. Chrisabelli, at most one score and one year, had a model’s face, straight dark hair which ended just above her ample breasts, and filled a black skirt with contours Michelangelo could have sculpted. Gallatin found his mind wandering, just as the pig man had warned.

  “Uh. Uh. Yes. I’m…I’m carrying out an investigation. I could use some pointers on how to get started with the government agencies.”

  The girl put just a little too much effort in expressing sincere interest in what Gallatin was saying. All of these smiling, ‘I’m here to help you’ people reminded Gallatin of first class flight attendants or theme park guides. They weren’t there so much to help you as to humor you and send you on your way.

  Gallatin explained that his insurance company had sent him to Washington to dig into the case of arson suspects, two recent immigrants from Croatia named Branko. He felt less guilty lying to people who looked and talked like they had just stepped out of a Pepsodent commercial.

  “That’s very interesting,” Ms. Chrisabelli said in a tone of voice one would use if told that Michael Jackson really was interested in grown-up women. “You know, I’ll call ICE — United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement? — and tell them you’re coming. They’ll be prepared to answer your—”

  “My God! No! If I can make a suggestion, Congressman Calloway should sponsor a bill to have the entire ICE gathered up and thrown into a nuclear waste dump in Nevada. Let me explain. There may be no records on the Brankos.”

  “Ah yes. I see. Illegal aliens. I’ll inform the Border Patrol that you want to speak to them.” Ms. Chrisabelli picked up a phone and was about to punch in the number.

  Gallatin blocked her hand. “Thanks. But that’s not necessary. You see, I’m not sure these guys are illegals exactly, but they probably don’t have visas. They seem to be criminals who—“

  “The State Department! I’ll find the name of someone you can contact—“

  Gallatin was at the end of his rope. He shook his head in frustration. “You people just don’t get it, do you? I’m trying to track down two criminals in this country under mysterious circumstances and you’re going to tell such-and-such an agency that I’m coming.” He stated the latter half of the sentence in a mocking tone. “I don’t mean to seem rude, Miss, but why do you keep on saying that you’ll call somebody to tell them I’m coming? I can do that myself. Anybody can.”

  Ms. Chrisabelli looked a little embarrassed. “It’s what they tell us to say to constituents,” she confided shyly.

  “Who?”

  “The staffers here.”

  “You’re a staffer.”

  “Uh, well. Not quite.”

  Gallatin looked at her sporting a question mark on his face.

  “I’m an…intern. Poli-sci major at AU. I work here in my spare time. Gives me work experience and doesn’t look too bad on the old resume.” She shrugged. “I answer routine correspondence, phone calls, stuff like that.”

  Gallatin smiled benignly. “And I’m sure you do a fine job. Thanks for taking the time.” He got up.

  “If there is anything I can do — really — please let me know,” she said, dropping the flight attendant demeanor.

  “I’ll keep it in mind, sweetie.” Gallatin winked at her as he walked out.

  The Metro ride from Capitol Hill to Foggy Bottom is a mere fifteen minutes, though the political cultural gap is infinitely greater. The State Department’s chief political players — the Secretary, his immediate deputies and the regional bureaus — fancy themselves Congress’s match on foreign policy issues. Truth be told, however, except for the rare President with enough balls to play serious chicken with the Kings of the Hill — Ronald Reagan, for example — State gets rolled every time. Too many eggheads, not enough chutzpah. In an I Can’t Believe It’s Not Testosterone bureaucratic culture, bullshit talks and power walks. On the Hill, power is everything.

  The good ladies in the Office of Refugee Affairs couldn’t care less about jockeying among self-styled power players. Situated cozily away from the mainstream foreign policy deliberations in an annex building, they devoted themselves diligently toward the protection, human rights, care and resettlement of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Afghanistan to Bosnia to Somalia to Cuba. Not unaware of the hot and heavy political foreign policy issues of the moment, their bag was maternal health, childhood disease prevention and family planning. Millions of escapees from totalitarianism, ethnic
strife and starvation owed their lives to the highly effective female functionaries of the Office of Refugee Affairs.

  Gallatin was steered their way by the information desk. In contrast to the hollow PR schtick in Congressional offices, these women really cared and wanted to help, even a citizen who just walked in off the street. The Office Director, Elizabeth Fitzhugh, personally attended to the visitor from Ohio.

  She listened carefully to Gallatin’s request and asked a subordinate to phone Catholic World Service’s main office in Boston to have them check their computer listings for the name Branko. Fifteen minutes later, they had the answer: nothing.

  “It’s not significant,” she said. “They may have come into the country with immigrant visas, in which case we wouldn’t be involved. Or they may have changed their names to aliases, or they violated tourist visas. Heck, they may even be illegal aliens, in which case it’s unlikely anybody has a record on them. We have whole shiploads of Chinese trying to crash the gates and, as you know, our southern border is a sieve. Two guys from Croatia could slip in with the flood and never be detected.”

  “But let’s say that they did come here under Uncle Sam’s auspices under their real names. Would you still not have information about it?”

  Fitzhugh and her deputy looked at each other, then back at Gallatin. “No,” Fitzhugh answered unequivocally. And no Serbs, Croats or Bosnians would be resettled in Cleveland through our refugee program without us and CWS’s knowledge. None.”

  Gallatin let out a deep breath. “I guess I’ve hit a brick wall then? Any other possibilities? FBI? CIA?”

  Fitzhugh pondered a moment, shaking her head. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll put a message out on the classified email along with your phone number and address.”

  Gallatin scribbled his temporary D.C. and Cleveland home phone numbers on his business card.

  A bulb went on inside Fitzhugh’s head. “There’s one other thing we can do. Not likely to show anything, but, what the hell?”

  Gallatin shed his dejected grimace for an expression of renewed hope.

  “The AVLOS.”

  “The what?”

  “The Automated Visa Lookout System. Our visa blacklist. Any alien who’s ineligible for a U.S. visa — anything from failing to meet the criteria for a tourist visa to murder. They get put into the system so that we’ll know to turn them down if they apply for a visa anywhere in the world.” She swung around to her computer terminal and banged a bunch of keys. A blue field appeared. In big yellow letters, “AVLOS” popped onto the screen.

  “Let’s see. Branko.” She typed the name. The screen changed colors. Instantly a list of names and other data flashed. She turned to Gallatin with a smile on her face. “Bingo!” She invited him to look at the screen.

  “There they are. Milan and Zlatko?”

  “Yes.”

  “Voila. They were entered into the system in 1998. By our embassy in Zagreb.” She scrunched her eyes. “That’s funny.” She turned to him with a puzzled look.

  “What is it?”

  “No reason is given for their entry. It just says, “Code 34.” She grabbed the phone and dialed. A friend in the visa office at the other end explained what it meant. She hung up and turned back to Gallatin with a pout on her face.

  “And?” Gallatin said eagerly.

  “And…it’s classified. Compartmented. Even I don’t have access.”

  Gallatin melted in his chair, covered his face with both hands. “Jesus. I’ll never get to the bottom of this.”

  Fitzhugh was struck by the intensity of his lament. “You’re really emotionally involved in this case, aren’t you? It must be an important one for your company. What did these guys burn down anyway? The state capitol?”

  Gallatin looked at her with an air of resignation. He spotted a portrait on her desk. It was of two adolescents, a boy and a girl. “Those your kids?”

  Fitzhugh eyed them proudly. “You bet. Justin and Hannah. They’re what keep me going.”

  “I have a little girl. She’s in the hospital. And the Brankos may be responsible for putting her there.”

  Fitzhugh turned dead serious. “Mr. Gallatin, you needn’t tell me more.” She quickly jotted on a pad. “Here, call this person. I don’t know many people at the White House, but this one helps us out on refugee policy. Very helpful. Say that I sent you. And good luck.”

  Peace Maintenance: Keeping America Safe in the New Millennium. Lisa put the final touches on her draft op-ed piece. As her new duties to “get the word out” on the Merriman Administration’s foreign policy successes, Lisa ghost-wrote articles on behalf of senior officials, drafted speeches and prepared talking points for the President’s use in appearances before the press. For her efforts, she had won a career position and renewed recognition from the other NSC staffers. It was all going so well that she refused to allow herself to wallow in self-congratulation. It was just all too good to be true. All it would take would be one screw-up to send her crashing back down into Wheeling-style obscurity. She couldn’t let up. The long hours and constant pressure in the White House were taking their toll. The supple contours of a figure with all the right proportions became a mite more linear with the loss of ten pounds. “Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who’s the palest, bedraggledest of them all?” she recited plaintively in front of her bathroom medicine cabinet one recent, predawn morning. And the fact that she hadn’t been on a real date since she broke up with Craig before leaving West Virginia didn’t escape her either.

  No longer an intern, but a full staffer, she now had her own, albeit small office, and supervised a secretary and two new interns. She was given a parking place between the OEOB and West Wing — in the finely tuned Washington pecking order, a spoils equivalent to an honorary knighthood.

  Col. Haley kept her busy with new projects, mostly of the PR variety. The more she produced, the more he gave her, it seemed. In a rare moment of reflection, she contemplated whether it was a way Marines tested others’ mettle. Intentional or not, she was determined to show that particular Marine and her other superiors that she could keep up with the best of them.

  Besides her looks, the punishing workload took a toll on her temper as well. She had inherited her Slovak grandfather’s hotheadedness. A diet of coffee, cokes and cafeteria food didn’t help matters.

  When she got a call from Michael Gallatin, she was finalizing two press guidances, reviewing suggestions for Presidential foreign policy speeches, browbeating four federal agencies to reach consensus on aid for Bosnia and starting to get serious about making an appointment with her hairdresser. She just didn’t have the time to deal with John Q. Citizen at this juncture in her busy life.

  “Uh, you’re investigating…some…immigrants?” She had one eye on CNN, the other on short-fuse briefing papers, while trying to finish the chicken sandwich she’d picked up at the lunch room three hours earlier. “I see, um…why don’t I give you a number at Homeland Security you can call—”

  “No!!”

  His loud, sharp negative gave her a start.

  “I mean, I’ve been there. Look Miss. I just need someone to help me on one small point. That’s all. It shouldn’t take much time at all.”

  “But, I really don’t deal—”

  His mind racing, Gallatin blurted, “Ms. Fitz—, Liz Fitzhugh at State told me to call you. She said you’d help me.” He held his breath.

  Lisa called Liz Fitzhugh up on her mental screen. Competent. Reliable. Friendly. She had delivered promptly on a couple of refugee-related requests Lisa posed to her on short notice. It had made Lisa look good to her bosses. And Fitzhugh took a motherly interest in the younger woman, having invited her to join the Washington Women’s Forum. She cleared Gallatin into OEOB.

  The lumbering Midwesterner didn’t make a great first impression. Terribly polite and self-effacing, he reminded her of men back home. Real gentlemen, but b-o-r-i-n-g. Slow on the uptake in a city where everybody fancied himself cleverer than the next pe
rson. A Gary Cooper character in a Dirty Harry set. And she just didn’t have time for slow yokels from the hinterland.

  She continued to munch on her sandwich as she motioned him to have a seat across the desk. She sipped cold, black coffee from a stained mug.

  “Hi. So you have a problem and Liz couldn’t help?” she said, getting immediately to the point.

  “My little girl was almost killed by people who shouldn’t have been allowed to enter this country. She’s in a near-vegetative state. To save her, I must find the culprits.”

  Gallatin was equally to the point. The Wheeling woman in Lisa sensed that this man didn’t like East Coast, big city people. But first impressions could be deceiving, she told herself. Perhaps the Buckeye visitor was quicker than she thought. He had a direct gaze, held his 6‘2” frame erect and, though courteous, came off as a no-nonsense man who didn’t give up. Furthermore, his synopsized story about his little girl and his mission penetrated her emotional armor. Lisa Valko the High Flyer momentarily became Lisa the empathetic woman.

  “How old is she?” Lisa asked, her face a picture of concern.

  “Thirteen. Just turned thirteen. Miss Valko, I’ve been to Homeland Security, to my congressman, to the State Department, the Ohio state police, Catholic World Services. My employer is ready to fire me. I need someone to get one fact, and quickly.” He leaned forward, placing one elbow on her desk. He proceeded to relate what he had gleaned about the Branko boys, including his close encounter with them and the Cuyahoga Militia, and the Brankos’ having been blacklisted for a U.S. visa. “Can you help me?”

  “Oh.” She leaned back. His intense blue eyes directed themselves at her like a lighthouse beacon. The handsome face, however, took the sharp edges off that intensity. She rang up Buckwheat Thompson and explained Gallatin’s search. In a minute, Thompson appeared.