Death of a Political Plant (20 page)

T
HE STREETS OF DOWNTOWN
Washington on this late Friday morning were filled with hurrying people dreaming of the approaching freedom of Friday night. Most were yuppies, with a few unhurried, sun-saturated homeless folks mingling in the crowd and inexorably slowing it down. Louise had taken the subway downtown, staring out the blank train windows into the gray half-light and brooding about Jay McCormick. Now, as
she walked the few blocks to the Capitol, she trudged the streets with the memory of her friend’s murder dragging on her like an anchor dragging on a boat.

After what seemed an hour but was only minutes, she reached the hulking, graceless Rayburn Building where she was to meet Tom Paschen. Jay’s death had thrown a pall on what otherwise would have been an exciting and memorable day: luncheon with the chief of staff for the President of the United States. And she was late, because when the police had come that morning to search her house and yard, she had found it awkward to leave. Finally she told Morton where the key was in the fake rock if he needed to reenter the house. Disapproving of the rock, naturally, he bade her a gruff goodbye and she hurried off to the subway station.

She was approaching her meeting with Tom Paschen not with a sense of anticipation but with grim determination. It would be a fair swap: Paschen would press her for a progress report on the environmental show, and she would pump him for leads to Jay’s killer, without revealing that this was her intention, of course. She meant to find out everything she could about the Goodrich campaign and about Lannie Gordon.

Tom was an authority on political campaigns and what happened behind the scenes; “behind the scenes” was where her friend Jay had met the people who probably killed him. And he undoubtedly knew something about Lannie, since she was a Washington player with a high-stakes hand.

She went to the second-floor hearing room to which he had directed her, and saw that she was late: The proceedings were just breaking up in the high-ceilinged chamber. Paschen looked like a small figure, standing behind a table facing the elegant curved wooden dais at the front of the room. Two uniformed police hovered near, apparently to protect the chief of staff
from harm or the intrusions of the public. Half a dozen members of the House Budget Committee were gathering papers and getting ready to leave. The banter between the chief of staff and the congressmen was familiar and without rancor. No one was fighting or delaying action, Louise realized, in this week before Congress adjourned. Members were anxious to hit the campaign trail, seeking money and votes.

Tom turned. His eyes searched the big room and he spotted her. Smiling, he strode over, checking his watch as he approached. “A little late, aren’t you? But it’s okay; well go right over to the cafeteria.” He gave her a once-over. Like a lot of other women in Washington today, she was wearing a linen suit with flats, her suit a pale green that she always thought brought out the color of her eyes and hair.

“You look very nice.”

“Thanks.”

They took the elevator to the basement and followed the sign to the subway. “I’ve always wanted to ride this subway,” said Louise.

“I usually walk alongside. Better exercise. But if you want to ride, let’s ride.”

They came to the open blue-and-gray cars with their high Plexiglas sides, and sat in the front one on a seat facing backward. Louise noticed there were only four cars, so some people indeed had to walk the distance. Sitting across from them was an elderly congressman with a lithe young woman, obviously his aide. They sat close together, bodies touching, while she talked straight into his ear about something: a bill he had to vote on, perhaps; or what they were going to do later tonight. Even from four feet away, Louise could smell the young aide’s intriguing cologne and wondered at its effect on her companion: It must be breathtaking.

The woman was giving a verbal massage. Louise could tell from the expression in the congressman’s eyes. He looked happy and victorious, like a puppy having its stomach scratched.

She looked at the other cars behind them, and saw that they, too, were occupied by congressmen with their staff members in somewhat more pedestrian attitudes. Yet the women were attractive if not beautiful, the male aides dapper in suits and expressions of deep self-satisfaction. It was all told in the expressions: the interchange of glances back and forth between congressmen and aides. Louise could practically smell the sex, arrogance, and power that permeated the place.

The congressman in the opposing seat came out of his agreeable reverie for a moment and recognized Paschen. Louise was amused to see that the chief of staffs presence brought him to immediate attention. In an instant, the congressman had adopted a sycophantic air and opened a conversation about a piece of pending legislation. Paschen mostly just smiled and listened. Some of the walkers alongside the train wanted Tom’s attention, too; they had to be content with a waved greeting.

They got off the train, and Louise was amazed when person after person continued to seek out the President’s man, this man with the uncontrollable sixth-grade-boy’s cowlick, and pipeline to the most powerful leader in the world. It continued even as they went up a ramp, its low head space causing tall men to hunch but no problem for the diminutive Paschen. As they traveled through a warren of low-ceilinged passages, she felt a sense of awe: They were in part of the original Capitol building, most of which was destroyed by fire during the War of 1812.

They reached the elevators, and went up two floors to the
members’ dining room. All the way, Paschen fielded questions and comments with good grace. “Yep, that’s right, we’re down in the polls, but not for long. Look for a significant news release in about five days.” “You liked the President’s speech last night? Wait until the convention; he’s got a dynamite acceptance speech. He’s going to outline a future for the country that will make sense to you and every other American.” “Doubt the President can help you with that right now, but give it a few months. Let’s talk about it after the first of the year.” “Terrific idea. Call the appointments secretary—we’ll get together on it next week.”

Ironclad confidence and self-assurance, like an old dreadnought from the turn of the century. But the dreadnoughts, if she recalled correctly, were not impervious to being sunk; she wondered if that wasn’t what was going to happen to President Fairchild, along with all of his people, including Tom.

When they were seated at a table, one of the better ones in the room, they were suddenly left alone, as if they had acquired a communicable disease. Tom explained this phenomenon. “It’s an unspoken rule that once you arrive here with your lunch guests, you are given privacy while you eat. So don’t worry. We’ll have a chance to talk. You can order the classic bean soup if you want to, or anything else you want, fish, roast beef.”

He looked at his watch. Louise could read the Rolex label. But of course he would have a Rolex watch. Again, she was reminded of the harried rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. “We don’t have a lot of time. You already know that, right?”

“I understand, Tom.” She smiled at him, wishing he would relax; it was a strain being in the presence of a busy man whose right eye tic was now in full operation. He was beginning to make her feel both nervous and guilty. “Tom,
I’m honored to have been invited here, and I promise I won’t overstay my welcome.”

“Now, now,” he said, with an embarrassed grin, “you know I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes, you did, and it’s all right, believe me. As a matter of fact, I don’t have much time, either. You probably don’t know this, but I lost a friend yesterday.”

“A friend.”

“Actually, it was on last night’s news. Jay McCormick. Or, as they called him, John McCormick.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Paschen. “Heard about that. Speech-writer. Used to be a reporter for some California paper. Gashed his head and fell in a fishpond, didn’t he?”

“That’s what the reports are saying.”

“That’s not what happened?”

“I don’t think so. I’ll tell you about it.”

Her stomach was churning, just thinking about the fact that her ship had left the dock, so to speak: She was launching her own private probe for Jay McCormick’s killer. Or maybe the launch was yesterday, when she sat in the gloom of her family room, the storm threatening outside, and decided to withhold evidence from the police. “Maybe we had better eat first. I’m feeling awfully hungry.”

His gray eyes lit up. “Want fast service? A girl after my own heart! Let’s go get in the buffet line.”

The buffet table was sumptuous and she loaded her plate. Tom looked over at it with approval. “I can tell. You’re the kind who doesn’t come back for refills, right? Me, neither.” At the table, he piled food onto the back of his fork, continental style. In between bites he lifted his head to say, “Thought if we hurried, there would be time for a quick tour around the White House gardens. Would you like that?”

Surprised, she stuttered, “I—I’d love it,” Louise began to feel better in spite of herself, the pain of her friend’s death yesterday being diminished by the very fact that she could look forward to the adventures of today.

But she needed to handle things right. As she delicately cut into her rare roast beef and added a dollop of horseradish sauce, she realized the luncheon mood would be soured if she came right out and told Tom that the environmental show was in doubt. Instead, she started out by pumping him about the opposition campaign.

He gave her a vignette of the various players and where they came from, with the focus on Rawlings and Upchurch and his men. There was no doubt in his mind that Rawlings, though buffered from direct contact with the more outrageous campaign charges, was the author of these charges.

Although she had seen at close hand how tough Rawlings could be, she couldn’t buy it. Her expression apparently revealed her skepticism, for he said, “You don’t believe me, Louise, but you should. That guy is an old street fighter who knows every dirty hold and sucker punch in the repertoire. I told you, he’s orchestrating this whole goddamned thing, and it’s going to fly in his face in no time at all.”

She must have looked dubious, for the expression in her companion’s gray eyes had hardened. “Okay, I’ll prove it. I’ve researched Rawlings, right back to when he was a little thug in grade school. Talk about early criminal records of presidential children: This guy had a long rap sheet by the age of twenty, when just by accident some pol saved his ass, got him into college and then into politics. Huh. Shows you how close crime and politics have always been. What gets me is that everyone thinks he’s such a pleasant, straight-up guy.”

Tom even knew something about Goodrich’s campaign
headquarters and about Nate Weinstein, the man who ran the office; Tom apparently respected Weinstein, regardless of their party differences, as a hard-working and honest political worker. At that, she put down her fork and pulled a little pad out of her jacket pocket and jotted down a couple of notes.

Paschen paused with a forkful of food midway to his mouth and looked at her curiously. “Now, just what the heck are you going to do with that information?”

“Oh, probably nothing. I just like to know what’s going on and who’s involved.” She smiled. “You know better than most other people that being in the know is important in Washington.”

“Hmm. Well, Louise, just remember, as I give you this primer on national campaigns: Not all the people involved in them are running on the same wavelength. There are the Indians and the chiefs. And in the Goodrich campaign, there are other distinctions to be made as well. For instance, between the seasoned professionals and the crazies. That’s what I call Upchurch and his gang. In fact, if I know some of the campaign workers there, and this probably includes the man who heads the office, they’re ashamed to be involved in the disgraceful stories those guys have been peddling.”

She was afraid he wouldn’t answer her questions regarding the murder charge against Fairchild. But he did. His face colored with refreshed anger and his voice was low. “Right now, we have a lot of people working on that one. The evidence they purport to have is from over thirty years ago, and it’s these army records that supposedly contain the investigation of the President’s involvement in the murder of this file clerk. Well, hell, Louise, it’s a pack of lies. We know records can be faked, and this is a good job of fakery, no doubt. That’s why we need to get hold of the records themselves. We’ve
demanded to see them, and I think it will happen”—he raised his arm and consulted his watch again—“about two hours from now.”

“That’s great; I hope you find out the truth. Tom, can I ask you another question about the Goodrich campaign office? Would they hire anyone that they didn’t know well?”

He looked at her speculatively. “I don’t know why the devil you want to know all these things, Louise. But the answer is maybe. They’re just like our campaign office, and I’m sure you know there’s always a main office downtown, with subsidiary offices around the metro area. We’d take on a hotshot outsider, a speechwriter, advance man, somebody like that, whom we didn’t know. He’d have to have a dynamite rep and we would vet him well, believe me, and so would they. There’s nothing worse than having unreliable people in your national campaign office.”