by Joseph Flynn
“Filet mignon’s in the fridge, ready to broil,” she said. “Salad’s ready to be dressed. If you really want fries this early in the morning, that’s doable. If you want to be a little more sensible, you can nuke an Idaho in the microwave.”
Hugh thought that was a sensible idea. His taste buds might think it was dinner time but he didn’t want to be weighted down through a full day’s work. He was beginning to like Ms. Booker. She’d studied his preference and … probably made notes what they were.
“Might we have any beer in the house, Ellie?” he asked.
Just one wouldn’t hurt.
She told him, “Epic Armageddon, Wild Thing and Little Creatures.”
He pulled the fridge door open and saw she wasn’t having him on. Two pale ales and a stout. Kiwi, Aussie and Yank. All of them among the best money could buy. Restraint would not be easy. He shifted his gaze to the filet mignon and the salad. Think food first, cobber, he told himself.
He put the steaks on to broil and dressed the salad with spices and a sprinkle of brown rice vinegar, no oil. He sat across from Ellie, thinking she would make a wonderful catch for a bloke inclined to sheilas. He looked at her jottings as he took his first forkful of salad. He couldn’t make out what she’d written, but he clearly saw her nose wrinkle.
“Too much garlic?” he asked.
“Or too little salad.”
He smiled, glad she wasn’t a suckup. He moved to the chair on his right, giving her more breathing room. He said, “What sort of hieroglyphs are you using there?”
She smiled at him, showing a beautiful arrangement of sparkling Yank teeth.
If his younger brother weren’t such a miserable sod, just like their old man, he might have arranged an introduction.
Ellie told him, “It’s a variation on Pitman shorthand my aunt taught me. She worked at the Pentagon. Doing some sort of secret stuff.”
Hugh seized on the most interesting part of what he’d heard.
“How many people know this variation?”
“Well, there’s my aunt and me, and she’s dead.”
Hugh got up to turn the steaks with a broad smile on his face.
He wondered if an experiment in bisexuality might be in order.
“How many people might suss out your secret writing?”
“Some, but they’d have to be code specialists with a secretarial background.”
“How much is Uncle Edbert paying?”
She told him. He awarded her a fifty percent increase, saying he could do such things.
“So, this McGill bloke, this president’s henchman, is he an odd fellow like me?”
“You mean gay?”
“I do.”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“He’s forty-eight years old. Absolutely nothing I’ve found on him, and I’ve looked everywhere, indicates he’s anything but heterosexual.”
Hugh took the filets off the broiler pan and put them on a plate. They were browned and sizzling outside now, but would be a cool red in the center. Just the way he liked his beef. He grabbed an Epic Armageddon from the fridge, didn’t need a glass.
“That’d be a bloody long time to stay in the closet without even poking your nose out,” he told Ellie. “So we’ll have to find some other way to embarrass James J. McGill — and his wife, the president.”
Ellie said, “McGill has an ex-wife, but they get along better than most married people I know.”
Hugh cut into the first filet: perfect. He didn’t like to speak while eating, but he didn’t mind listening. So he prompted his new colleague.
“You have found something else, though, haven’t you, Ellie?”
She smiled. “There is this one old girlfriend.”
Washington, D.C., GWU Hospital
Kenny McGill may have been a VIP patient, but he had to cough up health insurance information like anyone else. Fortunately for him, his mother handled the chore and she arrived at the billing department well armed. The primary carrier was McGill’s policy. After kissing Kenny goodbye at the hospital door, McGill had given Carolyn his insurance card. He had coverage for himself and all three of their children.
Secondary coverage was provided for Kenny by the policy Lars provided for his wife, his step-children, and the employees of his drug stores.
In case there were any gaps left by the primary and secondary policies, the president had taken out a tertiary policy on Abbie, Kenny and Caitie. After all, they were her step-children, too.
The lady at the billing department smiled when she learned how swaddled in health insurance young Kenneth McGill was.
“Everyone should be so well covered,” the woman told Carolyn.
“I’ll take it up with the president,” Carolyn told her.
She rejoined her children, Lars and Nick.
The president had kissed Kenny goodbye, too.
He had insisted that she, like everyone else, had to keep up with her work.
There had been a discussion on the way to the hospital whether Kenny should be treated on the pediatric or adult oncology floor. Nick said it was a judgment call best left to the patient. Kenny chose the adult floor. Unspoken but understood by all, Kenny was determined to face his treatment and his fate like a man.
Nonetheless, he took his mother’s hand when he saw how many medical professionals were waiting for him. There were a dozen doctors and an equal number of nurses.
Washington, D.C., Offices of McGill Investigations, Inc. P Street, N.W.
McGill made room for Lieutenant Rockelle Bullard. In fact, when the building’s owner, Dikki Missirian, brought refreshments, McGill saw to it that she got the first bottle of sparkling water.
The man definitely had a way about him, Rockelle thought.
Charmed people without half trying.
Rockelle saw that Margaret Sweeney was the most important person in the room to McGill, but Welborn Yates, Deke Ky, Putnam Shady and even her own sweet self were made to feel valued. She almost felt as if she’d been inducted into some secret society. No application necessary. No spooky initiation ceremony required.
McGill asked Putnam to tell his story one more time.
The lobbyist said, “Congress is for sale, has been forever, but since the Supreme Court did away with limits on political spending things have gotten a lot worse or better, depending on your point of view. However you look at it, the amount of money spent on political campaigns has exploded. Naturally, everybody who makes a substantial contribution to a successful candidate expects a return on his investment, and for the most part the rate of return beats anything you can buy on the stock market.”
McGill, a Chicagoan born and bred, knew all about pay-to-play politics.
He asked, “So what are you saying, Putnam, the sheer amount of money has changed the game?”
“Money plus organization,” Putnam said. “Right now, Speaker of the House Derek Geiger is about to put a plan into effect that he calls Super-K. He’s laid down the law to the heads of all the big K Street lobbying firms. Hire Republicans, fire Democrats. Make contributions to preferred candidates in the amount specified or your pet legislation will go precisely nowhere.”
Welborn said, “Wasn’t that tried before? And didn’t the idea bomb?”
“Yes and yes,” Putnam said. “But an Air Force guy like you has to remember that quite a few early airplane designs flopped before the Wright brothers got their flyer off the ground. Learn, improve and implement, that’s the idea. From what I’ve seen, Geiger’s refinements could work … if they were left undisturbed.”
“How do you know all this?” Rockelle Bullard asked. “How is it you’ve got all this information?”
Good cop, McGill thought. He’d been about to ask the same thing.
Putnam Shady took a deep breath and let it out audibly.
“Mark Benjamin, Bobby Waller, Erik Torkelson and I were all rising stars in our respective firms. Each of us was on his way to becoming his shop’s biggest rainmaker.�
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“Money maker,” Rockelle clarified.
“Yeah. We were all on our way to becoming big rich.”
“You had a problem with that?” Welborn inquired.
“Left to our own devices, probably not.”
McGill made the right call. “Someone close said the personal cost was too high.”
Putnam nodded. “My friends all married well. The kind of women who made them better men. I’ve even met someone who’s … undertaken a heck of a reclamation project.”
Sweetie wasn’t given to blushing, especially not when she was in cop mode.
She said, “You know about Geiger’s plan because you were told about it, taken into the big boys’ confidence.”
Rockelle nodded. The shape of things was becoming clear.
“We were told,” Putnam said. “We were trusted and proved untrustworthy.”
McGill said, “Because you came up with your own plan. One that would sit better with the women in your lives.”
“We did. We saw the flaw in Geiger’s plan and figured out how to exploit it.”
Deke spoke for the first time. “But you didn’t cover your tracks and look what happened.”
Putnam nodded again, the pain of losing his friends clear in his eyes.
“Yeah, just look.”
McGill wanted to keep things moving. He had worries of his own, and now he could see more coming.
“So what’s your plan,” he asked Putnam, never doubting that Sweetie’s landlord would do his best to make the plan work, if only to honor his lost colleagues. “How are you going to seize control of the United States government?”
Putnam asked him, “You know how Mutual of Omaha works?”
Putnam’s explanation was so simple, so elegant and so compelling that everyone in the room sat or stood in stunned silence. The implications of his plan for the future of the country were profound. It gave the old G.W. Bush notion of an ownership society a whole new meaning.
Deke, given his duties and his discipline, was the first to come back to the here and now. He looked out a window. Turning to McGill, he said, “TV van just pulled up outside; people getting out. Man with a camera, another with a microphone.”
From his tone, the Secret Service agent might be describing a coming armed assault. Metaphorically, he was absolutely right. Deke had relayed to McGill the warning Chana Lochlan had passed to Welborn.
McGill told Deke, “Go downstairs, find out who the talking head is, let him or her up alone, no camera, no microphone. Have your colleague …”
“Elspeth Kendry,” Deke said.
“Yes, please have Special Agent Kendry set up a security perimeter to keep the rest of these people far away.” Deke started for the door, but McGill held up a hand. “Them or any other media people attempting to do an unscheduled interview.”
Deke gave McGill a look. McGill read it accurately.
“I know, keeping the paparazzi at bay isn’t your usual chore, but think about it. Someone wanted to pop me or, say, Putnam, it’d be pretty good cover.”
Deke said, “The Secret Service has thought of that.”
“I hadn’t,” Putnam said.
“How far away do you want Special Agent Kendry to keep these people?” Deke asked.
McGill said, “For WorldWide News, the other side of the Continental Divide. Anyone else, West Virginia will do.”
Climbing footsteps sounded on the staircase. Deke moved quickly out the door to turn them around. Air Force Captain Welborn Yates followed, providing close support.
Washington, D.C., R Street NW
Harlo Geiger gave her husband a shove, not hard enough to be mean but forceful enough to remove his spare, gray-haired, permatanned frame from atop her. He flopped onto the satin sheet next to her. He reached over and put a hand on her arm.
“Give me a minute,” he said. “We’ll try again.”
She reached a hand over to him, found what she was looking for and shook her head.
“Honey, a minute’s not gonna be near enough time.” She let go of him. “Maybe next week, if you get yourself some of those pecker-upper pills.”
That was mean, she knew. Derek prided himself on his ability in bed. But she knew the dawn always came when the cock just refused to crow. She was surprised, though, that the day had come with her in the bed.
It was almost enough to make a woman think she’d lost her allure.
Harlo had returned early from a sales trip to Europe. Her latest furniture designs had been well received in Amsterdam, Helsinki and Berlin. Less so in Milan and London. After those chilly receptions, she’d canceled her stop in Paris. She’d decided to come home early and surprise Mr. Speaker.
She hadn’t worried that she might catch him carrying on with some floozy, someone younger and less accomplished but with a backside that perched just a half-inch higher than her own. Like any other man, like every politician, Derek Geiger wasn’t beyond being tempted. Unlike most of his colleagues in government, though, he had a more adult sense of restraint. That was, ambition came before rutting.
Harlo had taken a room at the Mandarin upon her return. Not merely to spend the night but to have a pleasant place to shower, to have the opportunity to buy some new clothes, perfume and intimate apparel that Derek had yet to see her model. She would sneak in on her husband before dawn. Launch her own commando raid.
He was still sleeping — alone, smart boy — when she sneaked into their bedroom. She stripped down to her cut-out halter teddy and stood next to where he lay. Let him inhale the scent of Clive Christian No. 1 she’d applied a bit heavier than usual. Took him less than a minute to catch hold of the fragrance and flutter his eyelids open.
That was the moment of truth.
Would he get her name right or think she was someone else?
“Baby,” he said with a sleepy smile.
Leave it to a politician to fudge things.
She slid under the top sheet with him and started doing things to him that had always made him stand to attention in the past. But that morning nothing she tried produced results, and she went at him like a hooker working on commission.
Mr. Speaker leaned over and kissed her in a fairly sweet way.
He hadn’t taken offense at her gibe.
He told her again, “Just give me a minute.”
But he was asleep a heartbeat later, his breath coming in a buzz too soft to be called snoring. Sounded more like a muted guiro. The man was sleeping peacefully. Almost as if he’d been hauling some harlot’s ashes most of the night and had sent her packing shortly before his dear wife had come home.
Traveling inside the veil of her own perfume and adding the smell of her perspiration to the bedding, Harlo was unable to detect another woman’s odor. But her suspicions had been aroused all the same. Because Mr. Speaker was justified in taking pride in his bedroom prowess.
Maybe she’d just caught him after he’d been tapped dry.
That could explain why he hadn’t take offense at her insult.
He knew he didn’t need to spray starch his thing.
Harlo got out of bed and took a shower. She put on a pair of Plain Jane panties and a T-shirt from her alma mater: SCAD, the Savannah College of Art and Design. She stepped barefoot past her sleeping husband and went to search the rest of her residence: the title to the townhouse was in her name; she’d bought it with her own money. Maybe she’d find a wine glass in the kitchen sink with lipstick on it.
She didn’t. The place was as neat as the proverbial pin. With one exception.
In Derek’s office, a faxed message lay on the machine’s reception tray.
It was from Brad Attles, her husband’s personal lawyer.
The caption on Attles’ message was Re: Divorcing Harlo.
The sonofabitch. She’d told Derek she would be the one to make that call.
She picked up the phone to call her D.C. lawyer.
The White House, the West Wing
Following Deke Ky’s directio
n, Welborn Yates made contact with Elspeth Kendry and asked her to enforce McGill’s wish to keep the media, especially WorldWide News, at a far remove. He’d slipped past Deke and the crew from WWN that the Secret Service special agent had bottled up on the stairway leading to McGill’s offices.
Welborn had waved to Deke and said, “Reinforcements will be here soon.”
Deke gave a minimal nod but said nothing. He was busy staring down a burly guy at the head of the interview/ambush team. The guy was handsome enough to be a talking head, but he looked as if, under other circumstances, he might be willing to dance a few rounds wearing sixteen-ounce gloves.
Trying to push your way past a working Secret Service agent, though, that was just plain crazy. It made the departing Welborn recall Mr. T’s signature caveat. “Pity the fool!” Welborn called out, giving the caution as much bass rasp as he could muster. Looking back, Welborn saw the camera operator, the sound guy and a thin woman look his way and appear to take his warning to heart. The woman followed him out the door to the street.
Welborn stopped before getting into McGill’s Chevy.
“Would you care to introduce yourself?” he asked the woman.
“Ellie Booker, producer, WorldWide News,” she said.
“A pleasure,” Welborn said, “but I must be going.”
“I don’t get to know your name?” Ellie asked.
“Not at the moment, but I can tell you I’m a federal officer. So is the fellow blocking your friend’s way, who, if he doesn’t take a step back and mind his manners, is closing in fast on a very unpleasant experience.”
Welborn opened the Chevy’s door. Leo turned the engine over.
“What kind of reinforcements are you going for?” Ellie asked.
“The kind with very little patience.”
Elspeth Kendry’s face had lit up when Welborn told her what McGill wanted.
Screwing with the media was every cop’s dream job.
Now, Welborn sat in his office wondering what new turn his work would take.
No doubt something he never would have dreamed of when he’d entered the Air Force Academy with the goal of flying fighter jets. His reverie led him to the times he’d actually lived his dream, flying high and oh so fast. Until the car crash in Vegas had taken that away from him. Had taken the lives of his friends Keith Quinn, Joe Eddy and Tommy Bauer.