The First 48

by Tim Green

  Jane ran for the guardrail and peered over. A steep concrete embankment. A sidewalk along the bending road. He was walking down it, moving fast. Looking back. She waited until he rounded the corner of another building. He was headed for the Mall. Jane scrambled down the embankment. She slipped and landed on her bottom, scraping the palm of her left hand. She sprang up, tasted blood and dirt, and sprinted off after him, into the night.

  CHAPTER 5

  Jane watched him go back down Independence. He crossed at the Smithsonian, disappearing into its shadows. It rose like a gingerbread fortress from the street. Red stone. Turrets that reached into the night sky. Tall ornate windows, arched and gothic. She followed, pushing through a group of tourists shuffling along the brick pathway. Shorts and sneakers. Bags full of souvenirs. He looked back and she ducked behind a massive urn. She could smell the fresh-cut grass and just a hint of the flower beds glowing red and orange under the lighting along the sidewalk.

  She stalked up to the path that encircled the park. Cinders crunched beneath her feet. To her right was the Capitol, a glowing white marble mountain. Mark went the other way. The Washington Monument lanced the sky. She passed it, then the Reflecting Pool. He cut across the front of the Lincoln Memorial, outlined black in its blue glow. Jane passed a group of teenagers sitting on blankets with a guitar and smoking pot. She began to jog, afraid she was losing him.

  Suddenly, he glanced back and broke into a run. Jane followed. He darted down the path that led to the Vietnam Memorial. When Jane got there, she stopped and looked down into the space in front of the jet black wall. Flowers lay in clusters. Flags. Photos. Half a dozen small groups of people stood quietly. No one moved. Jane studied them, one by one, from her vantage point. He was gone.

  She turned and ran toward Constitution Avenue. When she got there, she sat down on a bench and scanned the sidewalk up and down the street. Her breathing came in short shallow gasps. A bum stumbled out of the darkness and asked her for some change.

  She heard the honk of a horn. Two blocks up a cab screeched its brakes.

  A single figure dashed out from in front of the cab for the other side of the street. She sat and waited. When he got across, he leaned up against a tree and waited. After a few minutes, he came out of his shadow and turned up 21st Street. Jane paused for just a few seconds, then sprinted across the street herself.

  She followed him up 21st. He went left on G Street. Halfway down the block, he went into an elaborate building. Italian Renaissance. White stone and a green bronze cornice. Jane crossed the street. When she saw the sign, she gasped.

  DUFFY & MCKEEN, LLP

  One of the most powerful law firms in the capital. She had seen McKeen at some of the bigger Senate fund-raisers. A little red-faced rooster of a man. She’d even shaken his hand once. He said hello, never taking his eyes off the senator from Michigan who was on the other side of the room.

  Jane mounted the thick marble steps and peered through the glass door. Mark Allen—it had to be him—stood there having a small laugh with the aging guard behind the front desk. Allen looked early thirties. His dark hair was neat, but longish and wavy. His high cheeks were tan and his skin contrasted sharply with the brilliant green of his almond eyes. A strong wide chin and white teeth.

  She thought about going in, but instead waited across the street in the shadow between a van and a locust tree. It was only a minute or so before Mark Allen emerged. Jane felt her heart double its pace. When he was halfway up the block, she followed. In Monroe Park he stopped and bent over between a trash can and a park bench. Jane ducked behind a tree.

  She squinted her eyes and craned her neck. He was lifting something up from the shadows. It looked like a big rug, but then she realized it was a person. A bent and wrinkled woman. Her long gray hair was kinky and matted. Mark Allen guided her by the arm across the street to a small coffee shop. Jane crossed also and watched from behind a car. She could see them inside the diner. He sat her in a small booth by the window and put something into her hand—money—before appearing back on the sidewalk and continuing on his way.

  Five blocks later he entered a three-story brownstone. A small wooden sign hung above the door: THE TABARD INN. As groups of people came and went, she realized it was a restaurant as well as a small European hotel. She paced the sidewalk for nearly ten minutes before she decided just to go in. To the left of the small entryway was a sitting room lined with books and small table lamps. People sat in clusters, dressed in slacks and summer skirts. Jane looked down at her Levi’s and gave them a cursory dusting.

  There was no sign of Mark Allen so she moved on into the dining area, past a narrow lively bar. Each of the small linen-covered tables was full. The air was scented with saffron and rang with banter. She scanned the room twice. Nothing.

  Jane walked through a narrow doorway and out into the aging redbrick courtyard. It was quieter there, the sound muffled by two trees and the vines that blanketed the brick wall. Mark Allen sat at a wrought-iron table by himself, looking at the menu.

  Jane slid into the seat across from him.

  “So you want to tell me why Duffy & McKeen is so bent on ruining Senator Gleason?”

  The menu dropped to the table and Mark Allen peered up at her. His eyes went past Jane, flickering as if he expected others to be there as well. Then he took a deep breath.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m a reporter,” she said. “I report.”

  “On me?”

  “If it’s a story I do,” she said. She was sitting on her hands, but leaning forward. It was hard not to look at his eyes. “You ever heard, ‘Consider the source’?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “You considering me?”

  “Perhaps.”

  The waitress set a menu in front of Jane and asked if she wanted a drink. Jane said she didn’t.

  “Have something,” Mark said. He smiled.

  “No, thank you. What’s this all about?”

  He shrugged. “It’s about a corrupt senator.”

  “Blah, blah, blah,” she said. “What’s new? What do you know about my father?”

  “Did anyone ever tell you you have a beautiful neckline?”

  “My father, please.”

  “I really can’t say,” he said. “Hey, if you don’t want it, just give me back the credit card statements. I thought you’d be interested. I thought you’d be following Gleason, not me. No offense, but you’re not the only reporter in this town.”

  She stood up.

  “My father,” she said.

  “Good. Ask him about Gleason. Ask your father why he went from a respectable young prosecutor to representing old ladies slipping on grapes.”

  “My father fights for people,” she said. “He has more balls than anyone who works at McKeen.”

  “He used to put people in jail,” Mark said, his face grim. “Remember? He could have ended up a judge the way he was going. Then there was one little regular person he didn’t help, and after that . . . Well, people do talk. They say he’s a little off.”

  “You say that about my father again and I’ll call a friend in the IRS. She’ll give you and your friggin’ law firm an enema. You hear me?”

  Mark Allen let out a snort.

  “Look. I didn’t mean it like that. We’re on the same side here. Talk to your father and call me.”

  “Whatever, Mr. Allen,” she said. “I’m tired of playing games.

  “I look forward to more of your consideration.”

  CHAPTER 6

  The next day, Jane skipped the committee meeting she was supposed to write a ten-inch daily about and left a message for Don—she was working on a story project he’d love. Instead, she drove herself out to the edge of town near the old RFK Stadium. It was a strange place to headquarter a charitable foundation, and she was a strange sight. A white girl in a skirt. A small red convertible. A rough part of town.

  If it was true, then Gleason was writing off millions of dollars each year b
y funneling money through something he called the Good Samaritan Foundation. He was then using the funds to finance his own weird adventures. The foundation had a Web site complete with pictures of smiling children and their mothers, claiming it built homes for impoverished single-parent families in the capital area.

  She couldn’t seem to reach her father.

  Even his secretary said he hadn’t been in. Some kind of problem with the local police again. At a Friendly’s. What could you mess up at a Friendly’s Ice Cream?

  She found the building. Three stories. A board on one window. Spray paint on the door. She looked at the address again. It was correct. She got out of her car and looked around. Smoke and laughter floated up from a group of young men on the sidewalk. They wore sports jerseys, baggy pants, and crooked hats, and they stood underneath a half-dead cherry tree that strained against its metal collar. There was a stain on the sidewalk and the wall of the building. Jane smelled stale urine. She turned her head to the side and took a breath.

  She focused on the painted door. It was unlocked. She glanced at the group of young men. They stared. She went in anyway. The first office on the right was open. An olive-skinned man with a thin beard sat talking on the phone. He had a cigarette in his free hand, and a cloud of smoke eased out into the hall. He glared up at her. She went on. The address said suite 102. Two doors down on the left. It was locked. Jane knocked softly. No one came.

  She walked down the hall. Other than the man on the phone, there was no sign of anyone. She looked one way, then the other as she removed the driver’s license from her satchel. She slipped it between the frame of the door and the lock and jimmied it open. She looked around once more. Her heart pounded. She went in.

  No one. A bound stack of magazines in the corner of the cracked linoleum floor. Broken glass. Cardboard taped on the missing part of the dirty window. It smelled like an empty can of tuna.

  She stopped at the smoky doorway on her way out. She waited there while the man talked in Spanish and glared at her through the gray cloud.

  Finally, she held up her hand and said, “Can I ask you a question, please?”

  The man put his hand over the receiver and said, “What?”

  “The Good Samaritan Foundation,” she said. “Are their offices here?”

  The man gibbered something quickly into the phone and hung it up. He rose and started to come out from behind the desk.

  “And who the hell are you?”

  “I’m with the Washington Post,” she said. “My name is Jane Redmon.”

  The man was almost toe to toe with her now. She smelled cigarettes and mouthwash.

  “You got no business coming here,” the man said. “This is private property.”

  Jane stifled a laugh.

  “I’m looking for the Good Samaritan Foundation offices,” she said. “Their Web site gave this address.”

  “So what do you got to do with them? You don’t work for them.”

  “I want to ask some questions about the foundation,” she said. “Do you know the people involved? Are they tenants here?”

  “I think maybe you should just mind your own business,” he said, frowning. “That’s what I think.”

  “Unfortunately,” she said, “that’s my job.”

  He moved even closer to her. His voice became throaty.

  “Well, maybe you ought to think about changing jobs.”

  Jane felt his hand brush her hip. She slapped it down and stepped back.

  “What’s your name?”

  The man began to laugh.

  “Get your hands off me, you cockroach,” she said. “I know about twenty ways to knock your nuts into the back of your throat.”

  He stepped back and unconsciously blocked his crotch with a fist.

  Jane turned and left, hurrying to her car. Tires squealed as she pulled away from the curb and blew through a yellow light.

  The summer air warmed her face and hair. The broken glass and graffiti began to dry up and she raised her face to the sun, inhaling the green bloom of the trees. She rolled past the Capitol Building and felt a twinge of guilt for the story she’d missed. She kept going. There was a spot for her car down the alley behind her apartment. She went up the rusty iron stairs in the back. The slider was unlocked.

  She had to have all the angles covered before she took this to Don Herman. On-line, she got corporate records for the foundation and Gleason’s tax returns. She called a handful of people she knew back in New York, constituents; she got their comments. Finally, she picked up the credit card statement off her desk and began to call the businesses where Gleason had spent the foundation’s money. Strip clubs. Escort services. Limousines. Private jets. Luxury hotels. Jewelry. Cigars. Fine wine. A Madison Avenue furrier. Custom-made suits. It was all right there. Some weren’t helpful, but enough of them were.

  She had what she needed, so why were her hands sweating? More. She needed another day. Everything in a tight package for that tight-ass Herman.

  The phone rang.

  She let it ring. But for some reason, her voice mail wouldn’t kick in, and she picked up the receiver. “Talk to me.”

  “Didn’t I teach you better manners?”

  “Dad?”

  “Sarah said you’d called.”

  “You going to be around tonight?”

  “Sure—there’s this piece on A&E about the Trojan War. Did you know that Helen of Troy was the daughter of Zeus himself? That’s a lot of weight.”

  “Dad, please. Yes or no?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll take you to Madeline’s.”

  “I’ll cook. I have two fillets in the freezer that were made by the gods, and I’ll make my special steak sauce. You know Redmon’s Best. Makes A-1 seem like motor oil.”

  “Sounds great,” she said. “But before we eat, we talk.”

  “About?”

  “The past.”

  CHAPTER 7

  By the time Jane drove through Ithaca, the sun was ready to disappear behind the clouds. They had congregated in a thick cluster above the western ridge of Cayuga Lake. Jane drove up and out of town, climbing the massive ridge to the east until the rooftops and the water lay below.

  The top to Jane’s red Mazda was still down. A silk band held her hair in a single soft whip and it dashed away at her long neck. The air was beginning to cool now. She struggled into her dark blue denim jacket without bothering to slow down.

  Home was an old white farmhouse on a hill. Fields stretched in every direction. Russet. Green. Yellow. Colorful even in the diminishing light. Hundreds of acres before the lush woods staked their claim. The house’s gables were somehow majestic in the auburn light. The windows were tall and rounded at their tops. Narrow, with gingerbread shutters. Columns, carved in the Corinthian style, supported the broad front porch. As Jane drove through the thin stand of large oak sentries, she narrowed her eyes, looking past the house at the magnificent view, purposely ignoring the peeling paint and the rotten gray joints that she knew were still there.

  The old house had been her mother’s bane. Tricky plumbing. Fickle heat. Mice. And five massive fireplaces that attracted a slew of swifts year after year. Her father was always going to fix it. All of it. Just as soon as he had a windfall of cash. He promised. Jane and her mother both knew in their hearts that he really meant it. But the money never came, and then the promise died alongside her mother.

  Jane walked up the front steps, avoiding the third from the top, where rusty nail heads stood proud amid the horde of soft jagged planks. The screen in the door was torn. A dark furry fly bumped against it twice before finding its way in. Even before she crossed the threshold Jane detected the scent of steak and charcoal. The door opened with a creak.

  To her right, the parlor of the original owner, a gentrified farmer, opened like an Egyptian tomb. Beneath the gilt crown molding of the spacious room, she saw a huge castle built of empty beer cans.

  “Xanadu,” said her father in his Tabasco apron.
He stood there in the hall, in his hand another Labatt brick for the fortress.

  “You named it?” she said.

  “Why not?” he said with a shrug and a smile. “I’ll have grandkids one day. Maybe. Can you imagine them running through that thing?”

  “That’s a long way off, Dad,” she said.

  “A man without dreams is a man without hope,” he said. “How about a hug?”

  Jane hugged him, turning her nose away from the smell of alcohol. Out on the deck she saw a platoon of empty beer cans mustered on the glass-covered cocktail table. The deck was the one improvement he had made. Pressure-treated wood with thick lag bolts. Nearly two centuries removed from the rest of the house. Smoke boiled from beneath the cover of the grill. The day was fading fast. The sky pink. The clouds scarlet trimmed with charcoal wisps.

  “Want a beer?” he asked.

  “Okay.”

  Her father’s dark eyes glimmered in the soft light. He bent down and dug into a green cooler that he’d set up next to his chair.

  “God, the view,” she said, opening the beer.

  He turned and looked out at the long dark lake. To the north, it stretched clear to the horizon.

  “Sometimes I sit here and I feel like it belongs to me,” he said. “All of it. Then your mother reminds me that only five acres came with the house.”

  “Dad?”

  “What?”

  “What do you mean she reminds you?”

  Her father turned to the grill, picked up his fork, and lifted the lid. A great cloud of smoke hurried away.

  “In my mind,” he said. The steaks hissed and spat until the grill clanked shut.

  He sat down in an old folding chair and brought the beer can to his lips, looking out over his kingdom.