Murder on K Street (7 page)

“Yup. And I’ll never understand why you won’t be coming with me.”

“Money, Lyle. Just that simple. Maryland Law is giving me a free ride. The U of Chicago won’t.”

Simmons shook his head. “I told you I’d pay your tuition if you came with me.”

“Yeah, I know, Lyle, but buying me a cheeseburger when I’m short of pocket money is one thing. Paying for law school is another.”

“That’s false pride, Phil.”

“Call it what you will. I’m just not comfortable taking a big handout from a friend—from anyone for that matter.”

Simmons sat back in the booth and flicked a piece of lint from the front of his argyle sweater. “You resent me, don’t you, Phil?”

Rotondi had just taken a swig of beer and laughed, causing some to dribble down his chin. He wiped it with the back of his hand and said, “Why would I resent you, Lyle? You’re my best friend.”

“My money,” Simmons said. “That I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, as they like to say. I didn’t choose that, Phil, and I’m not about to go to confession to ask for forgiveness.”

“Cut it out, Lyle. You know I don’t feel that way.”

“Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. But I want you to know, Phil, that I really admire you. I admire what you’ve achieved despite some pretty high hurdles.”

“Thanks,” Rotondi said. “I admire you, too.” He laughed. “You say you want to be president of the United States some day, and I wouldn’t bet against that happening.”

“When I am, buddy, you’ll be my attorney general.”

“The hell I will. Politics turns me off, always have.”

“We’ll see,” Simmons said, tossing bills on the table. “Let’s go. I’ve got a date, a freshman, looks hot as hell.”

As Rotondi was getting out of the Thunderbird in front of the Kappa Phi fraternity house, Simmons asked, “What did you say her name was?”

“Who?”

“The chick you were with last night. Jeannette something?”

“Jeannette Boynton.”

“Yeah, that’s it. Have a good night, buddy. Hit the books for me.”

“H
i, Phil,” Polly Simmons chirped as she crossed the lobby in Rotondi’s direction. “No, don’t get up,” she said, seeing him struggle to extricate himself from the chair’s soft cushions. He stood and they embraced.

“I’m sorry about your mom,” he said.

“Thanks. I’m still in shock.”

“Good flight?” he asked.

“Of course not. There aren’t any good flights anymore unless you’re a fat cat who flies first class. Pretzels and soft drinks. Ugh!”

Rotondi laughed. McTeague joined them carrying a small overnight bag.

“That’s it?” Rotondi asked.

“She flies light,” Walter McTeague said.

“Only way to fly,” Rotondi said.

Polly looked around the lobby. “Fancy digs,” she said.

Rotondi didn’t bother replying. He knew that much of any conversation with her would involve swipes at the privileged class. He basically agreed with her on that issue, only he wasn’t nearly as vocal or committed.

McTeague excused himself. Rotondi said to her, “Come on, let’s get you checked in.”

As she provided the desk clerk with the necessary information, Rotondi used the moment to take in the daughter of his friend, the senator from Illinois. He knew she was a dedicated vegetarian and exerciser; nothing other than “Certified Organic” passed her lips. Her figure reflected her healthy lifestyle. Her jeans were skintight, her blouse a little too small, which caused her breasts to strain against the silky blue fabric. She wasn’t wearing a bra. One day, she might have to struggle with weight gain, but for now she was female perfection. Rotondi had always found the game of deciding which parent a child looks like, especially infants, to be, well, infantile. But he silently played the game anyway. Polly Simmons didn’t look very much like either of her parents. She had her father’s height, and there was something about her eyes that testified to being his daughter. Her nose and cheekbones were like Jeannette’s, although not quite as refined. It was her hair that said she might have been adopted, which wasn’t true. While Jeannette’s brunette hair had had a hint of copper in it, Polly’s was the color of cinnamon, and curly.
Where did
that
come from
?

They rode the elevator to her floor and entered the suite.

“Wow!” she said, doing a pirouette. “What does this go for a night?”

“Not your concern,” Rotondi said as he opened the drapes and turned down the thermostat to make the room cooler.

“On Daddy’s tab,” she said absently. “Or some lobbyist’s.”

“He’s trying to clean up some pressing business in the Senate, Polly, so he’ll be free to—”

“Free to spend time with me in my moment of grief?”

“Yes.”

She sat heavily on the couch and stared at Rotondi, who leaned on his cane in the middle of the room. Her mouth opened and she started to say something, but instead of words there was a torrent of tears. Rotondi put his arm around her.

“She’s dead?” Polly said over and over. “Some bastard killed her?”

His answer was to pull her closer. He said nothing, allowing this outpouring of pain to run its course.

“I’m sorry,” she said once the tears had subsided. Rotondi pulled a tissue from a small pack in his jacket pocket and handed it to her.

“I guess now that I’m here in D.C.,” she said, “the reality has set in. Is there anything new? Have they found Mom’s killer? Do they have leads? Anything?”

“It’s too early in the investigation, Polly. I’ve been in touch with the police and they’ve promised to keep me informed. When was the last time you spoke to your mother?”

“Just yesterday.” She shuddered. “The day she was murdered. In the afternoon, about four.”

“Did everything seem all right? Normal?”

“Uh-huh. She…”

Rotondi waited.

“She sounded like she’d been drinking.” Polly turned to Rotondi. “She had that problem, you know, Phil. I mean, not always, just the last couple of years. Don’t misunderstand. Not falling-down drunk or anything like that. But I could always tell when I called.”

Rotondi’s silent nod said that he wasn’t hearing anything he didn’t already know.

“She’s been so unhappy,” Polly said.

“Do you know why?” he asked, already knowing but wanting her input.

“Everything. Getting older, I guess. She’s been so disappointed in him.”

“Disappointed in whom?”

“Dad, of course.” She said it with a fleeting smile. “And Neil, too, for that matter.”

“Disappointed in what?”

“What they’ve done with their lives.”

“I’d say they’ve done quite well with their lives,” Rotondi said. He got up and approached the minibar. “Like something, Polly? Soft drink, something stronger? Bloody Mary?”

“Bloody Mary mix, no booze.”

“You’ve got it.”

“I know what you mean,” she said as she unlaced her sneakers and kicked them off. “Dad’s a United States senator, a really big guy, huh? Neil’s a lobbyist. Tell me, Phil, what does either of them do to make this a better world?”

“Well,” he said as he handed her the drink—he poured one for himself from a can of lemonade—“your father has been behind some important legislation over the years that has made a difference in some people’s lives.”

“And how many deals did he have to cut to get that legislation through?” she asked angrily. “How many bad bills did he have to sign on to get what
he
wanted?”

“That’s politics, Polly,” said Rotondi, pulling up a chair on the opposite side of a glass coffee table. “Compromise and negotiation. In its purest sense, it’s—”

“Purest sense?” she said. “Come on, Phil, you know there’s nothing pure about politics. My mother really respected you, maybe even envied Kathleen for having you as a husband. You did what you wanted on your own terms, no compromise, no negotiation, just honor.”

“You give me too much credit, Polly. There’s been plenty of compromise in my life.”

She ignored what he’d said. Instead, she said, “Look at Neil. All you have to do is pick up any newspaper on any day and read about the lobbying scandals, the payoffs to politicians, the fancy junkets, the sleaze. I don’t think Neil ever wanted to take that job with Marshalk, Phil. It was Daddy who pushed him into it because it would help feather his own nest on Capitol Hill.” She paused, head raised, index finger to her lips as though a sudden thought had come to her. “When Neil was a little boy, he wanted to be a garbageman.” She laughed.

“Did he?”

“Yeah. Looks like he got his wish.”

Rotondi let it go and sipped his lemonade. “Mind a bit of a history lesson, Polly, about lobbyists?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Lobbying—in its purest sense—I know, there’s the purity thing again, but many things start out pure and get corrupted along the way. Back when Ulysses S. Grant was president, he’d stroll over from the White House, sit in the lobby of the Willard hotel, enjoy a brandy and a cigar, and—”

“And be approached by men who wanted something from him,” Polly said. “Grant called them lobbyists because they hung around the lobby waiting for him. Neil told me that when he took the job at Marshalk. I think he was trying to justify what he’d done, make it sound, well…”

“Pure.”

“Yeah, pure. Neil gave me the standard speech that lobbying in its
purest
sense was an important part of the political process, that lobbyists help elected officials understand different points of view about a pending bill, that they bring expertise to politicians that the pols don’t have time to research and understand. Poor Neil. He wants so much to be his own man, but he’s never been allowed to. Politics! Purity! What a bunch of hogwash.”

“Look, Polly,” Rotondi said, “this is not the time to argue it. You and your dad and Neil have to pull together in this.”

“To make it look like we’re the all-American family? We aren’t.”

“That doesn’t matter,” he said, standing with the help of his cane. “I have to go. I told Neil I’d call him once I hooked up with you. Take my advice. Cool your jets when it comes to whatever hasn’t been right between you and your father. Your mother deserves that.”

She walked him to the door. He kissed her cheek. She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed tight. “I’m so glad you’re my father’s best friend, Phil. I think you’re the only true friend he has.”

He left wondering whether she might be right.

E
verything about the Marshalk Group’s offices was modern, including the support staff. Secretaries and administrative assistants had to possess the requisite skills—word processing, data input, filing acumen, and other routine office responsibilities. But they also had to be young, nicely made up, and with it—a 34-D cup wasn’t overlooked when hiring took place—or young and handsome, slim, well groomed, and impeccably dressed among the men. Dark, wavy hair seemed to prevail; anyone who might accuse the firm of age discrimination, however, had only to look at some of the principals to be disabused of that notion. Those men and women had been recruited from the senior ranks of House, Senate, and administration staffs with the allure of big salaries—the average starting pay for a midlist lobbyist was three hundred thousand. Those who’d been there longest, and who had the most clout with their previous government employers, enjoyed multimillion-dollar paychecks along with hefty bonuses. Some were short and pudgy, others sported shining heads. There were the tall, slender patrician types whose gray hair indicated that they were of the age to have their prostates checked regularly, and middle-aged women who could afford tummy tucks and Botox injections, and for whom visits to the city’s multitude of plastic surgeons were de rigueur.

What they all had in common was access to the most powerful of lawmakers in the House, the Senate, and the administrations. Access was everything in the lobbying biz. Those who had it—
really
had it—were aggressively recruited by the city’s largest firms like star college athletes being drafted by professional teams. Some received so many offers once they’d announced that they were leaving government service, they hired attorneys to act as their agents, sifting through the pay and benefits packages and negotiating their deals. There are more than thirty-five thousand registered lobbyists in Washington, and more than enough special-interest cash for all.

The Marshalk offices occupied three floors in a steel-and-glass building on K Street, which had become known as Lobbyist Boulevard. The décor and furnishings matched the contempo style of the support staff, all chrome and leather and vivid modern art on the walls.

But there was another Marshalk “office” that wasn’t quite as contemporary, a three-story row house on Eighteenth Street, a few blocks from the main office. The Marshalk Group had purchased it in 2004 for $2.6 million and turned it into a retreat in which to entertain clients and prospective clients, as well as lawmakers seeking to get away from the scrutiny of Capitol Hill. Decorated by a former girlfriend of Rick Marshalk who billed herself as an interior designer, it had what some in the firm said was the look of an eighteenth-century brothel, with its bloodred wall coverings and gold sconces, the furniture heavy, the artwork on the walls fox hunts and bistro scenes usually associated with restaurants attempting to establish a period mood. Interior design aside, it served its purpose.

This day, it was the scene of what Rick Marshalk hoped would be the final, definitive meeting with representatives of Betzcon Pharmaceuticals. Six months ago, the drug company had fired its D.C. lobbying firm and made it known that it was shopping for a new one. Although considerably smaller than Merck, Lilly, or Pfizer, Betzcon had aggressively carved out a larger and larger niche in the intensely competitive pharmaceutical industry. Its commitment to, and funding of, research was well acknowledged, and had paid off recently in a breakthrough drug for the treatment of high blood pressure that was already changing the medical landscape. Once the FDA had approved it, Betzcon launched a multimillion-dollar campaign to win over physicians. A TV and print advertising blitz had patients pressing their physicians to prescribe the drug for them. The campaign succeeded. The drug, Aorstat, was rapidly becoming the prescription of choice for cardiologists, turning Betzcon from a midsize upstart to a company with bulging profits and a bright future.