Damage Control

by Michael Bowen

  “New Orleans?” she asked, nodding.

  “Baton Rouge.” I gave it the Creole pronunciation, closer to French than English. “Carondelet Academy. Started every class with a prayer, and the senior final examination rooms had smoking and non-smoking sections.”

  “Then on to LSU, I’m guessing.”

  “Tulane.” Apparently she hadn’t exactly obsessed over my capsule bio on the website. “Majored in Communications slash Public Policy.”

  “When did you come to Washington?”

  Interesting question. The summer after I turned fifteen my uncle, Darius Zachary Taylor Barry, decided that a summer political job in Baton Rouge would be a mite fast for me. I was still learning multiplication tables when the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke, but as best I can remember no one in Baton Rouge could figure out for the life of them what the fuss was all about. So he pulled a string here and there and set me up with an internship in D.C. instead.

  I know Monica turned “intern” into a locker-room leer, but the gig Uncle D finagled for me was the real deal: actual work, and none of it required knee-pads, thank you very much. Staff of the Subcommittee on Sea and Ocean Law of the House Judiciary Committee. Yawn, right? Didn’t care. I was in the game, a D.C. insider—on the far outside fringe of that self-important club, maybe, but a member all the same.

  Loved every second of it: every quorum call, every sort-of-famous face in the elevators, every sly Beltway joke that none of my Carondelet classmates would have gotten. Loved knowing that Senator Charles Grassley, a rock-ribbed Republican from America’s heartland, nevertheless thought that “fraudster” should be the collective noun for government contractors; that Chelsea Clinton enjoyed an occasional cigarette and every reporter in town knew it and none of them would ever write a word about it lest their bosses get a nastygram up the keester from one of Hillary’s enforcers; that Grover Norquist, the anti-tax maven heading up Americans for Tax Reform, carried his own salt-shaker in his right trouser pocket when he ate out so that he wouldn’t have to rely on restaurant salt. I even loved knowing that the Budget Reconciliation Bill was going to pass fifteen minutes before CNN knew it. Bitten by the bug for sure. In September, my body headed back to Baton Rouge, but my heart never left Washington. I went back every summer and most term breaks. At Tulane, I gave up nine months in Paris so that I could spend my junior year in Washington instead, getting college credit for working with green- and tan-covered government reports in places that didn’t resemble the Louvre.

  So if I’d said that I’d been in Washington for ten years, it would have been a kind of truth. Having tabbed DeHoic for more of a literalist, though, I kept it concrete and told her I’d gotten my first full-time Washington job right out of Tulane, on the staff of a western Congressman named Temple.

  “That’s a lovely brooch.”

  “Thank you.” I realized that I must have touched it again—and DeHoic had apparently noticed. “My Mama gave it to me when I graduated from Carondelet.” I still remembered Mama’s little speech on the occasion: “Josephine, you aren’t a thief, you aren’t a bully, and you aren’t a snitch, so I guess your papa and I did something right bringing you up. But you are a rascal and a scamp. I couldn’t bring myself to beat it out of you when I had the chance, and before I knew it you were too old for the fouet. So I guess I’ll just turn you over to Saint Monica. When she was in her early teens, she’d slip down to her papa’s cellar and sneak some wine every chance she got, so that makes her the patron saint of scamps and rascals.”

  A nod, and DeHoic got down to business.

  “How much was your company hoping to get from Jerzy?”

  “A million. To start. Dollars, not euros.”

  “What was this million supposed to buy? And don’t bother telling me Jerzy gave a rat’s ass about conserving America’s vital natural resources.”

  Whoa. I decided my own cigarette was feeling neglected, so I gave it some attention. Then I responded.

  “Why would I tell you that?”

  “Depends on how much you want the million dollars.”

  That would be—a lot.

  “Okay,” I said. “My job was the part of the iceberg above the water.”

  “You mean the cover story.”

  “If you like.” I shrugged. “Jerzy supposedly had investors cautiously interested in a wind-power boondoggle if Jerzy could swing a federal subsidy for it. What with sequestration, there’s no new money from the government for anything except bombing terrorists these days, so we’d have to pull a switch-out.”

  “Whom were you thinking of switching out?”

  I took seven seconds off my life, or whatever a serious puff costs you.

  “We’re now officially above my pay grade. Have to talk to my boss.”

  She nodded with no hint of irritation.

  “When you talk to your boss, tell him I want to deal with you, not him. I’m thinking of engaging MVC to carry on the noble work Jerzy was doing. Admiration for his fighting spirit blah-blah-blah. A million is too much but I could see going two hundred thousand—if I like what I find when I audit the file. By ‘the file’ I mean the entire file: the original and all copies, digital and paper.”

  “Got it.” You want to buy the pitch-file from us and create a client relationship so that we can’t sell information to anybody else. “Just out of curiosity. I have a healthy level of self-esteem, but why are you so anxious to work with me?”

  She politely completed an exhalation before turning her head toward me. She smiled.

  “Because once a girl’s been fucked by Jerzy Schroeder, she knows what getting fucked is. I’ve found that to be useful knowledge for people I work with.”

  Chapter Five

  “So why is she insisting on working with you?” Seamus’ question.

  “Promote gender diversity, sisterhood is powerful, we gals have to stick together—that kind of thing. Or so she said.”

  “Well that’s bullshit. What do you think the real reason is?”

  “Just guessing, I’d say she thinks Jerzy and I were sleeping together.”

  “Were you?”

  “Anything for the team, Coach.”

  Seamus sucked on a Marlboro red in casual violation of a D.C. ordinance.

  “Why would that put you at the top of her list instead of the bottom?”

  “What’s at the top of her list is motivating me not to sell her out. She let me know that Jerzy told her about me, and who knows how much he told? Then came her little warning shot across my bow at the end. Trust me, I’m motivated.”

  “Wow.” Seamus crushed out the cigarette. Glanced out the window. Looked back at me. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  I’m fired? No sense saying that, so I shook my head.

  “This thing is worth way more than two-hundred-thousand dollars. We may get our million yet.”

  My “anything for the team” line to Seamus was a fib, if by “fib” you mean “bare-faced lie.” I hadn’t slept with Jerzy to lure him into MVC’s stable of power-player wannabes. Nor because his curly black hair and boyish smile paired perfectly with his nut-brown face, and with sky blue eyes that came from Heaven-knows-where. That stuff hadn’t hurt, and when he’d picked up his violin after I mentioned the Creole/Cajun thing and just tossed off “Jambalaya,” grinning like the captain of the football team at the homecoming dance, I’d decided he’d be something special even without the money. But I wouldn’t have hopped into bed with him. Wouldn’t have cheated on Rafe with him, which I’d never done before with anyone.

  No, I can remember clear as yesterday the first time my body didn’t just say “someone special” about Jerzy but whoa-Mama-WOW!

  It was my second visit to his estate in Maryland. In his oversized living room, prim talk (at least on my side), singing him the MVC gospel with follow-ups on what we’d talked about the week be
fore, taking notes on my laptop about questions and comments he had, all very professional. He’d thrown in a few suggestive remarks in a slight, charming accent that wasn’t quite German and wasn’t quite Slavic, but I’m used to that and I’d taken it in stride.

  Then his Droid had buzzed with a text. He’d given me an apologetic shrug and the screen a quick glance. Suddenly—Action!

  “My most profuse apologies, but I’m afraid we have to cut this short.”

  He’d rushed those words, spattering them at me like grease popping on a griddle while he’d whipped off his silk Armani sport coat. Five quick strides to a locked cabinet at chest level in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in the far corner of the room. Not a hint of wasted motion. Key out by the time he’d reached the cabinet, door unlocked and open in what looked like practiced movements. Then he’d pulled a shoulder-holster with a muscle-bound revolver in it out of the cabinet.

  Slipped his arms through the holster’s straps, pulled the gun out of the holster, snapped the cylinder out, checked it, snapped it back into place, re-holstered the weapon—all in about five seconds. Then he’d pulled the coat back on—and the shoulder-holster hadn’t bulged. He had to have had the coat tailored to fit over the holster without showing it, even to someone who knew it was there.

  He hadn’t looked at me once in the entire process. Then, at the very end, as he moved toward the front door and gestured to me to leave, mouthing apologies and telling me he’d e-mail me about our next meeting, he’d caught my eye and held it. And he’d smiled. I’d read the smile as saying Well, now you know.

  On the way out the door he’d said, “Nothing to get sideways about. Hundred to one against any drama. The gun is just in case.”

  “As the Boy Scouts say, ‘Be prepared.’”

  “A very sensible attitude. But I am not a Boy Scout.”

  In a way, of course, I’d already known before laying eyes on the weapon. Known he didn’t make an honest buck, that he trafficked in a gray, shadowy underworld where “illegal” was a relative term. But I hadn’t known it like I knew it at that moment. Jerzy Schroeder wasn’t just a crook, more or less. Jerzy Schroeder was a dangerous guy—someone you didn’t want to cross.

  And that had turned me on. I didn’t try to figure out why right then. I had plenty to chew on without bringing Freud into the discussion.

  Chapter Six

  I waited until Seamus was tied up with a couple of fracking enthusiasts before I closed my office door and used a phone that’s none of Seamus’ business to drop the Lexus-hustle story on Terry Fielding. Terry isn’t a total whore. He’s a freelancer who has stuff pretty regularly in the Times (the Washington Times, not the real one), the Examiner, Rotunda, the Daily Boot, and Impolitic. Plays things straight, doesn’t betray sources, and what more can you ask?

  He sounded studiously unimpressed at the bait, but that was just tradecraft. I knew when he asked me how I’d stumbled over the Lexus-scam morsel that he’d bitten.

  “Jerzy let it slip one time when he was trying to impress me. I didn’t think much about it at the time. Actually sounded pretty legal. After the murder, not so much. I’ve done a little checking and, sure enough. Court action last year.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to have the name of the U.S. Attorney leading the case, would you?”

  I gave it to him. I didn’t include the guy’s telephone number. That would have been showing off.

  “This is very public-spirited of you.”

  “I just want the murderer caught—and whoever it is, the police won’t catch him if they aren’t looking for him.”

  I got that line out with a straight face. Not that it would have made any difference over the phone, but I have my pride.

  “Then why don’t you just tell the cops about it yourself?”

  “Death-wishes are for Democrats.”

  “Citizen of the year, that’s you, Josie. Is this leak exclusive to me or are you shopping it all over town?”

  “Yours and yours alone.”

  “Scout’s honor?”

  “Have I ever lied to you?”

  “You’ve lied to me more times than I could count if my cock were an abacus.”

  I self-censored a crack and continued, “Exclusively yours, Terry—and may my blessed Uncle Darius Zachary Taylor Barry rap my knuckles if I’m lying.”

  My next call—this one on the cell phone Seamus knows about—went to the lady in gray. I expected voicemail but she picked up on the third ring.

  “DeHoic.”

  “Hi, Josie from MVC. Getting back to you.”

  “With good news, I hope.”

  “Mostly. Talked to the boss and we see a way forward here. Very promising. But we don’t think we can accomplish your objectives for low six-figures. We’re sort of a go-hard-or-go-home outfit. You know, do it right or don’t do it at all.”

  “How much?” The world-weary disgust that dripped from those two syllables could have filled Nietzsche’s quota for a month.

  “We’re thinking a million if you want the best.”

  “I don’t want the best. I want good enough.”

  Hmm. Set the hook or not? Go with your gut.

  “Maybe you and I should talk to the man together. Get all three of us with our legs under the same table, I’m thinking we can find common ground.”

  “I’ve just gotten back to New York, I have commitments here on Friday, and I hate flying commercial. That’s why I use the Mercedes between the Big Apple and D.C. I couldn’t get back down there until the middle of next week.”

  Two ways to go here. One, suggest that Seamus and I pop up to New York over the weekend. Very accommodating, but it would make us sound really anxious to make a deal. Two, push back a little and see how much of a hurry she was in. I opted for two.

  “How about next Wednesday afternoon, with a standstill ’till then?”

  Thoughtful pause. This is working!

  “That will do.” YESSS! “But the standstill has to be bullet-proof. The deliverable is one hundred percent of the file with nothing copied or transferred after this moment.”

  Gulp!

  “Understood.”

  “Expect me at two p.m. unless you hear differently before then.”

  I would have said goodbye, but she’d already clicked off.

  ***

  On my way to the parking ramp that evening—sorry about the carbon footprint, but the D.C. Metro sucks and it’s one-point-eight miles between work and home—I got paparazzied for the first time in my life. Guy had an actual camera with a lens and everything, not just his cell phone. Called my name, I gave him a startled look, and he triggered one of those motor drives that snaps off, like, eight shots in three seconds.

  Hmm. Rafe and I had a plan. Josie in the news wasn’t part of it.

  Damage Control Strategy,

  Day 2

  (the first Friday after the murder)

  Chapter Seven

  5:37 a.m.? Really? But it could be Seamus. Or a prospect.

  I picked my cell phone up from the nightstand and blearily checked caller ID: Uncle Darius. Groaned. Slipped out of bed and headed for the hall even though I didn’t have a stitch on so my impending frank and candid exchange of views with Uncle D wouldn’t wake up Rafe. Reminding myself that Darius had taught me a lot over the years, some of it legal, I started speaking slowly and calmly into the phone.

  “Unc, you do understand that it’s five-thirty in the morning here, don’t you?”

  “Which means you’ve been out of bed for an hour, right?”

  “No.”

  “Funny.” He was in full drawl—a bad sign. “Every profile I read about one of you Washington power types, it says he gets up at four-thirty.”

  He had a point. Washington seems perpetually caught up in a personal sleep-deprivation competition. If you’re not out of bed a
nd checking e-mails and blogs before five a.m., you’re a slacker.

  “That’s just not the way I roll, Uncle D.” I leaned against the wall and raised my right foot to knee level so that I could brace myself with my heel. “And anyway, I’m not looking for a profile.”

  “You might not be lookin’ for it, your serene highness, but that don’t mean you ain’t gonna find it. Take a glance at Rotunda.”

  With chilly goosebumps on a forced march along my arms, I hustled toward the dining room to fire up my computer. Remembered that paparazzo. I’d checked Rotunda and all the Beltway gossip sites last night, just before going to bed, without finding a thing. Hated the idea of anyone deciding I was important enough to generate pixels about me in the small hours.

  I’d booted up the laptop and was clicking on Rotunda when Rafe whizzed by, heading for the kitchen. He tossed a yummy terrycloth robe over my shoulders. While I snuggled into it I found the snippet Uncle D had called about:

  Congratulations to promising starboard money-bundler Josie Kendall (above, in an unguarded moment) on coming through the ambush slaying of shadowy one-percenter Jerzy Schroeder without a scratch. Well known for blowing smoke up media orifices, Josie is keeping uncharacteristically mum about the Schroeder deal because (according to her employer, Majority Values Coalition), the cops have asked her to. No confirmation of that from actual cops, so we’ll just have to take MVC’s word for it. Speaking of MVC, it’s been panting for years to suck at one of the NRA’s cash-cow teats. Maybe this is the opening it’s been waiting for: JOSIE (in medium close-up): “If only I’d been packing heat, Jerzy might still be alive. I’ll never leave home without my Colt again.”

  “Well,” I said after I’d worked my way through it, “they spelled my name right, and I might put the media-orifices quote on my resumé.”

  “Josephine Robideaux Kendall, you’re supposed to be a quick study.”

  “That’s what everyone has always said. You used to tell me that my mind was like the rapids on the Tangipahoa River: fast but not deep.”