by Joseph Flynn
Not that Welborn didn’t love Kira. He was crazy about her. Their wedding day, postponed for almost a year after Kira’s mother had required emergency heart surgery, was swiftly approaching and he hadn’t experienced a moment of cold feet.
What bothered Welborn, though, was the growing feeling he was nothing more than a wind-up toy in games other people were playing. Older, wiser, more ruthless people pointed him in their desired direction and off he went. The thought chafed. He considered requesting a transfer out of the White House; he went so far as to think of leaving the Air Force entirely once his five-year obligation had been fulfilled.
But he was getting married. He and Kira both wanted children. He would need a reputable and substantial means of support — and there were few job opportunities that topped working for the president of the United States.
Though his cage was gilded, he felt trapped nonetheless, not even able to discuss his feelings with Kira. She’d think he was being foolish, and he’d have a hard time disagreeing.
Where else could he —
Welborn’s phone rang. He answered the call, “Captain Yates.”
The president had given him permission to bitly, i.e. abbreviate, his previous three-paragraph greeting.
“Welborn Yates?” a charming female voice asked.
“Possibly,” Welborn said.
He wouldn’t put it past Kira to play a trick on him.
“Who’s calling please?” he asked.
“Chana Lochlan.”
He knew the name: Chana Lochlan had been James J. McGill’s first client as a private investigator; formerly the “most fabulous face on television,” she was now the producer of a Peabody Award-winning news program.
“Captain Welborn Yates,” he elaborated. “How may I be of service?”
“I’m trying to contact Jim McGill. He told me if I were unable to reach him, and he’s not answering his phone, I should call Margaret Sweeney. She said if I were unable to reach her, and I got her voice mail, too, I should call you.”
And that was how Ms. Lochlan got his White House phone number.
“Good thing I get in early,” Welborn said.
“A very good thing. I have a warning for Jim.”
Welborn took down Chana Lochlan’s message word for word.
Thinking all the while: Okay, he worked for the president, and now he got to be her henchman’s henchman. Where else could he do that?
Washington, D.C., R Street NW
The speaker of the House of Representatives, Derek Geiger, Republican of Florida’s 13th congressional district, and his divorce lawyer, Brad Attles, planned to seize control of the United States government. They called their plan Super-K. It was a rework of former majority leader Tom DeLay’s K Street Project.
Geiger and Attles were putting the finishing touches on the plan at the Georgetown townhouse owned by the speaker’s third wife, Harlo, the managing partner of HG Designs, a furniture design atelier with offices in Washington, New York and Sarasota.
Geiger had accurately assessed the public’s tolerance for serial monogamy among politicians: three wives while in office. Despite having reached that limit and professing a love for Harlo unlike any he’d ever known, Geiger kept Attles on retainer. He had assured his third wife this was a mere formality.
Harlo had laughed and reminded him, “Honey, I’m the one who insisted on the pre-nup, and I’ll be the one who brings the curtain down on this little road show.”
Harlo’s sass always made the Speaker’s blood pressure spike.
That and a body that belonged on a pin-up calendar.
Geiger brought Brad Attles to Washington as soon as he got a seat on the Committee on Ways and Means, the place where tax bills and tax loopholes originated. His sponsorship was more than enough to land Attles a spot in the most important lobbying firm in town, Hetherington/Weems. New to lobbying, but possessing an intuitive understanding of human nature, Attles quickly mastered the arts of finding, grinding and minding.
Finding clients, grinding out a way to get language favoring their interests inserted into legislation, minding that the favorable wording stayed in place until the bill became law.
Attles’ professional achievements were supplemented by the fact that he was, in his own words, “A very large Negro you can introduce to polite society.”
Further adding, “It comes as a relief to people that someone like me would rather enrich them than rob them.”
Despite his many sterling qualities, Brad Attles couldn’t cook worth a damn.
The Speaker took six eggs and a pound of bacon off the griddle of the Viking range. He plated two meals and brought them to the kitchen table. Attles had already filled their coffee cups and two glasses with orange juice. They used the OJ to make a toast.
“To Super-K,” the Speaker said.
“Super-K,” Attles agreed.
Tom DeLay eventually wound up on trial in Texas and was sentenced to three years in prison. The judgment of the court was he had committed a felony by conspiring to launder corporate money and use it to make donations to preferred candidates running for seats in the state legislature.
DeLay had been released on bond pending appeal but it had been reported he’d had to raise — plead for — ten million dollars to pay his lawyers’ fees. Fighting prosecutors and going about hat in hand was not the way Derek Geiger wanted to spend his golden years.
But then DeLay had made so many mistakes. He’d issued ultimatums. He’d divided the pie along strict party line: the pie for Republicans, the empty pie plate for Democrats. In his dealing with colleagues and the media, he’d had the savoir faire of Yosemite Sam.
Speaker Geiger had learned from DeLay. He never issued threats to anyone; Brad did that for him. He never took a nickel in donations or gifts from anyone. He flew commercial, coach in his early years, business class now. He extended his largesse to friendly, i.e. tame Democrats. He spoke publicly in measured tones.
With Attles’ professional help, the speaker had managed to make lump sum settlements with his first two wives, holding on to his home in Sarasota and most of his stock portfolio. So he was able to make do with the $223,500 per year his day job paid.
He’d cash in big time after he left office.
By then he would be recognized as the man who had made the position of speaker of the House the most powerful in government. Super-K would see to that.
The plan called for organizing every lobbyist on K Street who mattered a tinker’s damn. If the capital’s lobbyists, the so-called fourth branch of government, wanted to advance any of their interests, they would have to see Brad Attles. He would talk to Geiger, and the speaker would tell the committee chairs whose interests would advance.
And whose would be ignored.
A flow chart of the plan would show money flowing in from corporate America and flowing out from the United States Treasury. At the confluence of these rivers of cash would be Geiger and Attles, but no prosecutor would ever be able to pry into their relationship. It was, and for many years had been, protected by attorney-client privilege.
There were limits and exceptions to the privilege, of course. It couldn’t be used for the purpose of committing a crime or to perpetrate a fraud. But if Derek Geiger were ever to claim he was only consulting the attorney of record in his two prior divorces about ending his present marriage, who would be able to say otherwise?
It would be a shame to relinquish Harlo before he’d taken his full measure of her, but letting her go would certainly beat finding himself in a fix like Tom DeLay’s.
Once they finished eating, Attles raised the subject of another woman who had to be taken into account, Patricia Darden Grant.
“You know,” Attles said, “the biggest threat to this plan is sitting over there in the White House right now.”
In an ideal world, the speaker thought, the president would have been just another politician on the hustle for campaign funds. But Patti Grant had made a small fortune from her mod
eling and acting careers and had been left billions by her late husband. She didn’t need anyone else’s money.
“She’s not going to stand for being one-upped by you,” Attles told the speaker.
The corporate money that would flood into Brad Attles’ accounts would find its way to PACs supporting candidates for House and Senate seats who pledged their allegiance to the speaker. If some cuss with an ornery streak, someone who leaned too far right or too far left, didn’t want to play ball, he would face a well-funded, well prepared, well behaved challenger in the next election cycle.
The same thing went for Patti Grant.
Howard Hurlbert wouldn’t be the only challenger she would face.
Funding, running, electing and owning his own broad slate of candidates for both houses of Congress and the White House was how Derek Geiger planned to become the most powerful man in the country.
His guiding principle was: If you control the dough, you run the show.
He told his divorce lawyer, “I’ll take care of the president.”
Darnall Hall, Georgetown University
The finishing touches had been put in place in Abbie McGill’s dorm room. Books filled shelves; posters adorned walls; a comforter, pillows and one stuffed animal from home dressed the bed; a rag-rug served as a yoga mat; the stereo was hooked up and ready to rock; two potted plants adorned a windowsill.
Even Caitie had to give a grudging nod of approval.
“It’s not the Lincoln Bedroom, but it’ll do,” she said.
“I think it’s charming,” Putnam Shady said.
Sweetie had brought her friend in and introduced him to the family. He’d assumed the job of setting up Abbie’s sound system and had proved deft at the task. Abbie and Caitie had both been taken with Putnam; Carolyn only slightly less so. Kenny had been content to shake Putnam’s hand.
McGill thought Sweetie’s landlord reminded him of some of the more slippery lawyers he’d known in Chicago, but if Sweetie gave the guy her stamp of approval, that was good enough for him.
Still, it did his heart good when Caitie, in saying goodbye, shook Putnam’s hand and let him know in no uncertain terms, “Sweetie is very important to all of us.”
Subtext: Don’t trifle with her affections, Bub.
“She’s important to me, too,” Putnam said.
“Stop it,” Sweetie said. “I might blush. Ruin my image altogether.”
McGill said, “Can’t have that. Let me walk the two of you out while there’s still time.”
He did just that, after Sweetie kissed all the McGill kids goodbye.
Outside the residence hall, the three of them stood next to Putnam’s Boxster and Sweetie informed McGill, “Putnam says someone is going to try to kill him.”
McGill played it straight. “Why would you think that?”
Sweetie’s landlord told McGill about the Metro cops finding Mark Benjamin’s body on K Street earlier that morning, and how Benjamin had been the third lobbyist to be killed in the past three weeks.
“I knew Mark, I knew Bobby Waller and I knew Erik Torkelson.”
“Personally or professionally?” McGill asked.
“Both. The four of us were thinking of starting our own firm.”
“Did you tell the Metro cops this?”
“I mentioned that Mark and I played squash.”
McGill revisited his opinion about Putnam being slippery.
He shot a look at Sweetie.
“Why not tell them everything you know?” he asked Putnam.
“I don’t deal well with authority.”
“Sweetie?” McGill asked.
“It’s true, he doesn’t. Neither do you or I, particularly.”
McGill couldn’t deny that. If he tried, he’d hear Celsus Crogher laughing somewhere.
Putnam saw McGill and Sweetie were going to have to work things out. Something best done without a third party present to inhibit the flow of the debate. He extended his hand to McGill.
“Thank you for your time. It was a pleasure to meet you and your family.”
McGill shook Putnam’s hand, ignoring the look from Sweetie.
The one that said he could go along or stay behind, but she was in.
“One thing, though,” Putnam told McGill.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“I hope I’m wrong, but your son, the way he looks reminds of someone else I knew. I think you should have a doctor look at him.”
The suggestion blindsided both McGill and Sweetie.
Giving Putnam time to get in his car and drive off.
United States Penitentiary, Hazelton, West Virginia
Reverend Burke Godfrey needed every ounce of self-control he possessed not to bristle as he was frisked — felt up, damnit — by the correctional officer. He had tried explaining to the warden who stood nearby, a deadpan expression on his bulldog face, that he was a man of God. He had come to the prison that morning, after not seeing his wife for almost a year, only to minister to her spiritual and emotional needs.
Godfrey thought they wouldn’t be treating him like one of the animals in the adjoining men’s prison — or even the harlots there in the secure female housing unit — if he’d had his lawyer with him. But visitors weren’t allowed to bring lawyers with them; legal counsel was presumed to be necessary only for those presently incarcerated.
Not for those who might become future inmates.
That was the way Godfrey read the warden’s eyes.
The correctional officer stood up, having made sure the minister didn’t possess a gun strapped to either of his ankles, and nodded to his superior.
Godfrey asked the warden, “Do you enjoy humiliating people, sir?”
A splinter of a grin lanced the man’s face.
“Reverend, what you experienced was a routine security procedure, done for the safety of all involved. You didn’t expect special treatment, did you?”
Burke Godfrey always expected special treatment.
It was an indignity when he even needed to mention it.
It was an affront when he didn’t get it.
And when a man laid a hand on his privates … he didn’t yet have the words for that.
But he would soon enough.
“May I please see my wife now?” he asked.
“Yes, you may. For the next thirty minutes.”
Burke Godfrey turned red. “That’s all?”
“That’s all the inmate — your wife — asked for.”
Erna looked far better than Burke Godfrey had ever expected. Being in prison, she’d had no choice but to let her hair go gray, but somehow she looked younger than the last time he’d seen her. Her brow was smooth, her eyes were clear, her face was a slender oval. Except for the gray, she looked remarkably like the girl with whom he’d fallen in love.
He wanted to take her in his arms — not in the gentle way a man already past his middle years might do, but with the passion of the brash young fellow he’d been the first time he’d seen her. He wanted to have her here and now. But the best he could do was place a hand on the slab of clear plastic separating them.
Erna put her hand opposite his.
“They could have let us sit across a table from each,” Godfrey said. “I was told they do that here.”
“Not for me, not after I hoodwinked a nurse. That poor woman in Terre Haute lost her job for giving me those sleeping pills.”
Godfrey had wanted Anna Lee put in a cell after it came out that she had smuggled sedatives to Erna. He still felt that way. But he wasn’t about to argue the matter now.
“Oh, Erna,” he said. “I almost died when I thought I lost you.”
Tears made Erna’s eyes glisten. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for so many things.”
“Why did you try to … do what you did to yourself? I had Benton Williams ready to appeal your case. I still do. We can —”
Erna dropped her hand and shook her head.
“No,” she said. “I don’t want an
appeal. What I thought I wanted was to become a martyr. After my sentence was commuted, I tried to kill myself because I couldn’t face being in prison for so many years. Now, I’ve accepted this is where I’m meant to be.”
Godfrey pulled back, trying to understand Erna.
He looked for a sign she wasn’t in her right mind or that she’d been coerced. Maybe even brainwashed. There was no way he could comprehend what he’d just heard.
Instead of explaining her own words, she repeated what Godfrey had said a moment ago. “You said you almost died when you thought you’d lost me.”
“I did. I thought my heart was going to stop beating.”
Erna nodded. “I believe you. I also know Patricia Grant felt a lot like that when I took, her husband from her.”
Now, Burke Godfrey pushed his chair back, not from lack of understanding, but having perceived a threat.
“She married again soon enough,” he said.
“I’m glad for that, but the hurt I caused her still hasn’t healed.”
“She told you that?”
“Andy Grant told me.”
Godfrey bounded to his feet. He stepped behind the chair, as if the plastic barrier between him and Erna was insufficient protection. He was unmoved by the tear he saw slide down his wife’s cheek.
Erna said in a quiet voice, “Burke, I’m trying to do what’s right. I’m trying to save my soul. You have to do the same. You have to do what’s right.”
Godfrey turned his back on Erna and banged on the door for the guard.
He wanted out, now.
Erna had been optimistic limiting the visit to thirty minutes.
They’d been together for fewer than ten.
It took only slightly longer for Galia Mindel to hear that the visit between Reverend Burke Godfrey and his wife had not gone well. But she’d save that information for later. The president had a busy day ahead and didn’t need any distractions.