Sweat (6 page)

“Senator, pleasure to see you again.”

“Peter, please call me John.”

Round robin introductions followed and the senator offered Jake the seat next to his dinner guest, Dana. The senator explained how Dana was helping out in his office on the Hill until his Columbia University alumni aide, a victim of a waterskiing accident in Saipan, recovered. Dana glowed as if she had just been introduced onstage at a beauty competition. Jake thought of Kate and wondered what she was doing this evening.

Dinner lasted three hours. Jake was bored after the first ten minutes. He read the paper, followed politics, and listened to NPR. He knew what was going on in the world, but he was lost in the incessant name dropping of Senator X, Congressman Y, and Special Committee Z. Senator Day and Peter Winthrop were engaged in an unspoken battle of who could talk the longest without being interrupted. It was neck-and-neck heading into dessert.

Jake's main entertainment for the evening was the senator's office assistant. A short conversation with the young blonde told Jake all he needed to know.

“What are those?” Dana had asked pointing to the capers on Jake's plate.

“Raisins,” Jake had answered.

“Nasty.”

The girl was eye candy, perhaps a senate office toy, nothing less, but certainly nothing more. She was a disaster at conversation and in dire need of table etiquette. Jake was mesmerized, though not by her looks, which had probably caused a few geezers on The Hill to order oysters for lunch. She was a study in human behavior, and in wasted real estate between the human ears. She reapplied lipstick after every course, fidgeted in her chair endlessly, and twice Jake saw her lift one cheek and casually pull at what he hoped was a wedgie.

“Jake, the senator and I have some more business to discuss. We're going to head over to the Presidential Club on Fourteenth Street for cigars and brandy. My driver will take you and Dana home.” It wasn't a question or a request, and Jake didn't care. He was looking forward to falling asleep on the sofa in front of ESPN's SportsCenter.

“That's fine. I'm tired. It's been a long day.”

“That's what the working world will do to you,” his father answered. His father looked at the senator and the blonde bimbo who was chewing a piece of gum with vigor. “I forgot to mention, Jake started working for me today at Winthrop Enterprises.”

“That's great. Good for you. If you feel like getting an early start on a political career, I can always pull a few strings for you,” the senator said with a wink. “Good looking young man like yourself could go far in politics.”

“Thank you, Senator. I appreciate the offer. I'll let you know if things don't work out where I am,” Jake said, winking back.

Peter paid the check and the four stood and pushed in the high-back wood chairs. The restaurant was still full, families and dates stuffing their faces with the best Italian food in the city. The waiters, cooks, and busboys wouldn't get off for hours. For at least two of the patrons, the heartburn from overeating would last well past closing.

As Peter and the senator walked out the door, a platonic couple in matching his and her suits watched through the window of the restaurant as the two men got into the politician's car.

“Now what?” the woman asked, her red hair glowing under the recessed ceiling lights that ran along the front of the restaurant.

“For today, we let him go,” her date said before cursing under his breath.

Half a world away, the good doctor's morning routine rarely changed. He was up at dawn, downed two cups of coffee with the morning paper, and was out the door with a banana in hand forty minutes later.

It was a half-mile walk to the beach and another quarter of a mile to the small marina where he rented a boat slip for a hundred dollars a month. The walk took a little over ten minutes, no slower than driving his red Jeep convertible down the winding roads. When the weather didn't cooperate, the doctor used the time on his boat to clean his fishing equipment and tidy up the cabin, which was immaculate most of the time anyway.

It was a brilliant summer day on Saipan and the doctor walked down the beach at a leisurely pace, eating his banana in slow bites and greeting familiar faces of expats who, like himself, couldn't force themselves to leave the island. He could see
The Sea Nurse
from a point on the beach where the currents from the south headed further out to sea. The twenty-five-foot, twin-engine boat was among the largest in the marina. She was a beauty and the good doctor loved her more than he loved any woman in his life. Sure, the boat was more expensive to take care of than any woman, but it also gave him a lot less shit.

He climbed on board and checked the moorings, pulling firmly on every line. He unlocked the door to the cabin and stepped down the three stairs into the small but comfortable one-room suite. He changed into his swimsuit and grabbed his mask, snorkel, and fins off the floor before heading back into the light of the world outside. He untied the boat and started the engine with a single turn of the key.

The Sea Nurse
never let him down.

It was a fifteen-minute ride to his favorite spot off the coast where he alternated days between snorkeling and spear fishing, depending on whether he wanted to catch the night's dinner. The Cortez Reef area was one of the most beautiful on the island. Its status as a protected marine-life zone kept most of the tourist boats away. The restriction on boats in the protected area made it nearly impossible to get a permit, and the few who were lucky enough to have one tried to influence local powers to keep others from getting theirs.

The doctor spit in his mask and washed it around like fine wine in a glass. He jumped overboard and forced the water from his snorkel with one mighty blast. He checked his watch and set the bezel on his Rolex Submarine for forty minutes. He had to be at work in an hour. He held his breath and went under.

The two men on the stolen speedboat looked at the map again. The compass read due north and, according to their best guess, the Cortez Reef was nearby. They putted along carefully, trying to maintain an equal distance between the boat and the shore. The one thing they didn't want to do was get lost. The driver knew boats. The navigator knew neither boats nor how to read a map. The chance of getting truly lost at sea was near zero, but running out of gas was a possibility. Their possession of the boat, and the dead body of its owner lying in the small hull, would be impossible to explain. The fewer people they had to interact with on the island, the better.

They had arrived the night before, stayed in a cheap hotel, and paid with cash. They had walked out of the hotel lobby down the street and caught a cab in front of the Hyatt. It was easier to be anonymous among the crowd at a hotel with three hundred rooms. But the major hotel chains asked for identification and that was something the men weren't willing to flash around. Catching a cab from the busy hotel would at least provide another step of mystery for the police, should it be needed.

The good doctor swam without incident for thirty minutes. There was surprisingly little activity in the reef for a day with ideal weather conditions. He saw the usual assortment of reef inhabitants—triggerfish, clown fish, sea urchins, and crustacean representatives from every family. No octopi, no reef sharks, no moray eels. It was odd not to see the bigger fish, but every day was different, and the good doctor knew that no matter what he saw, a bad day spent on and below the water's surface in a life-size aquarium was better than a great day on land.

The speedboat on the water above cut directly between the good doctor and
The Sea Nurse
. Tourists. As required, the doctor had marked his diving spot. On the surface of the water, four orange buoys bobbed on the calm sea. Not even a quiet corner of Saipan was insulated from the occasional asshole. The good doctor was willing to give twenty-to-one odds that the boat ignoring his safety was being driven by Americans or Australians—the two most offensive tourist nationalities on God's green earth.

The doctor surfaced for air in the wake of the speedboat's pass. He kicked his legs hard and propelled his body out of the water just enough to see the boat turn around. He waved his hands frantically in the air as the boat completed its turn and made a beeline for his position. He removed his mask and snorkel and waved them above his head, yelling at the top of his lungs. The driver of the speedboat glared ahead, pushed the accelerator forward, and gave no indication he was going to steer clear. The doctor wasn't about to wait to see if the boat would change course. Without his snorkel or mask, he took a deep breath and dove. It was a hundred yards to
The Sea Nurse
, and he was going for it in one breath.

The good doctor heard the boat make one pass and then another. His lungs were on fire and his eyes burned as he headed toward the submersed white outline of the hull of
The Sea Nurse
. Twenty yards away, he knew he wasn't going to make it. He stopped himself three feet below the surface and swiveled his head to the left and right. He saw nothing. He heard the muffled sound of the motor somewhere above and made a judgment decision. One more quick breath. He broke the surface of the water for the most oxygen-deprived breath of his life and gasped for air. The thud of the speeding boat against the side of the physician's skull was the last sound the good doctor ever heard.

Peter Winthrop's car pulled up to the curb and picked up his passengers. A large black man in a dark black suit got out from behind the wheel, introduced himself as Shawn, and shut the door behind his patrons as they settled in the back seat. Ten minutes later, Dana got out of the car, hit her head on the doorframe, and stumbled on her high heels.

“Cute girl,” the driver said to Jake in the back seat as they both watched Dana walk toward her apartment building's entrance.

“You didn't have to sit through dinner with her.”

“That bad?”

“Let's just say that she was fine when she was chewing her food.”

The driver laughed. “Where to?”

“Twenty-Seventh Street NW. Two blocks from Nell's Café.” The small restaurant was a mainstay for quick cheap meals and Jake was sure the driver knew where it was. “Have you been driving for my father long?”

“Off and on for a few years. Your father is one of a handful of regulars.”

“You see a lot of these black sedans for hire here in D.C.”

“Yes, you do. My company runs over fifty, but I would put the total number for the city around two thousand.”

“A lot of congressmen?” Jake asked.

“Yeah, sure. And a lot of lawyers, diplomats. Your father is the rare businessman.”

“What do you think of him?

“Who?”

“My father,” Jake answered. “And you can tell me how you really feel. I don't know him that well to be honest, and I'm sort of trying to figure him out.”

“I don't know if I can answer that question.”

“Sure you can.”

“Then let me rephrase it. I don't know if I should answer that question.”

“I'll make it easy on you. I'll go first. My father ran out on my mother and me when I was too little to remember. From what I have seen, he is a both a schmoozer and a bully.”

The light at the intersection of Twenty-Fourth Street turned yellow, then red, and the car pulled to a halt. The driver looked over his shoulder at Jake in the back seat.

“Your father expects me to show up on time and drive him wherever he wants to go, without spilling his coffee on him or his newspaper. That is my official answer.”

“What is your unofficial answer, off the record?”

“Persistent, aren't you?” the driver said with a smile.

“I'm just looking for some clues. I'm getting the idea of who my father is when I am around him, but you never know.”

“Okay, Jake. Off the record, your father is the moodiest person I have ever driven. You know, these days they have all these medical terms—bipolar, manic-depressive, chemically unbalanced, whatever. Some people are just mean and nasty until they need something, and then they are sweet as pie. Now, mind you, I'm just the driver, so our relationship consists of him sitting in the back seat and me driving. But I hear him on the phone, and drive him with his business acquaintances. This isn't a limo, there's no privacy window, so I hear it all. He can be nasty or sweet. And I know most of the time which it's going to be before he even gets in the car.”

“Thanks for saying so.”

“I didn't say anything, if you know what I mean.”

“I hear you.”

The car pulled up to the front of Jake's mother's house. The light from the kitchen cast a faint yellow hue into the living room.

“I'll see you around, Shawn.”

“Take my card, Jake. If you ever need a ride, give me a ring.”

“Only if I can charge it to my Dad's account.”

“Hey, he's your father. That's between you and him. I just drive the car.”

The Presidential Club was
the
place for Washington's elite to quench their thirst. Groups of large leather chairs huddled around small marble-top tables, the thick burgundy carpet reaching up to grasp the bottom of the table legs. Cigars and glasses of brandy kept each other company on the tables as the power circles drew and redrew their political lines in the sand.

Senator Day made his way through the room, nodding at colleagues, acknowledging familiar faces through the dim light and thick cigar smoke. The Presidential Club was Washington's version of Las Vegas. What happened in the expensive lounge stayed in the lounge. It wasn't called a club by accident. Wives of members were permitted but frowned upon. Lovers were a different story. Call girls made the occasional guest appearance.

Senator Day directed Peter to a table near the rear of the club, and a waiter with a small humidor appeared as the two sunk into their respective leather chairs. Peter selected two Dominican cigars wrapped with tobacco grown from the finest Cuban seeds and handed one to the senator. The waiter placed a cigar cutter and a box of oversized matches on the table before disappearing in search of the senator's favorite brandy, stored on the private shelf behind the full bar.

“How is business, Peter?” the senator asked. Peter understood that dinner with Jake and the senator's blonde aide was merely a preamble to the discussion at the club. A meal for the sake of a meal before real conversation could take place.

“Very well, Senator. Thank you for asking. If all goes well, I may have some upcoming business in Brazil.”

“Brazil?”

“Yes. Have you been?”

“No, I'm afraid not.”

“The women are beautiful.”

“I'm sure they are.” Inside, the senator cringed at the thought of another international tryst.

Peter continued. “The Brazilians understand the balance between work and life's other pleasures. They don't let one interfere with the other.”

“An admirable quality.”

“Indeed.”

The senator inhaled as he ran his nose along the length of the cigar. He reached for the cutter on the table, snipped off half an inch, and put the unlit cigar to his lips.

“How did your filming efforts turn out?”

“Very professional. We completed editing last week. All told, our trip produced thirty solid minutes of footage.”

“When is the film scheduled for its big screen release?”

Senator Day squirmed slightly in his chair. His thoughts turned toward the photographs he had received in the mail and the wire transfers that vanished without a trace into a bank in Hong Kong. The senator lied. “I'm planning to work it into the schedule this month with the Special Committee on Overseas Labor. We are at a critical juncture and need to make our recommendation to the Senate.”

“I'm sure your constituents will be pleased with your recommendation.”

The senator flashed his best smile. He knew all too well how deep Peter kept his hand in Congress's pocket. His guest understood that the senator had a vested interest in the garment industry. Peter personally knew many of the businessmen with manufacturing interests in the senator's home state—businessmen with thick briefcases and thicker wallets that pushed, coerced, and bullied for status quo and the ability to overlook a little human suffering in the name of making money.

“I would love to see the footage from Saipan,” Peter said.

If you only knew what I know, the senator thought. That tape and those photos could ruin my life.

The senator lied again. “That can be arranged.”

“Please let me know. Of course, I'd also be happy to testify before the committee in any way that you see fit.”

Now there is an idea.
“That may be very well received, Peter,” the senator said, his mind churning.

“I'm at your disposal.”

Peter took a sip of his brandy and a pull from his cigar. The senator looked around the room to keep tabs on the night's list of who's who.

“How is your chief-of-staff?”

“Scott? Took a few weeks before they could even do surgery due to swelling and internal hemorrhaging. He was scheduled to be back at work this week, but that was before he developed a staph infection. The doctors aren't saying when he will be released. In the meantime, the rest of my staff is floundering to cover for him. Twenty employees who can't get out of each other's way.”