Drummer In the Dark (6 page)

7

Wednesday

T
HE BRITISH EMBASSY was a brick-and-glass wart rising from the leafy expanse of Massachusetts Avenue. Everything wrong with sixties architecture had been gathered together and planted amid the massive oaks and sycamores. Wynn passed through the metal detector and gave his name to the receptionist. An older woman standing alongside the table responded instantly, moving forward, offering her hand. “An honor that you would join us, Congressman. I am Audrey Portman, the ambassador’s personal aide. I know he is anxious to meet you.”

She did not lead so much as direct him from alongside. Midway across the floor, she murmured for his ear alone, “Perhaps I should mention, Congressman, the two ladies and the gentleman in the far corner, the ones watching us.”

As far as Wynn could tell, every eye in the room stalked their progress. “Yes.”

“British journalists. The two ladies represent the
Guardian
and the
Independent
respectively. The gentleman, however, represents the
Sunday World.”

He caught the warning tone. “I should avoid him.”

“We refer to such tabloids as the rags, Congressman. And with good reason.”

She managed to insert herself into the group surrounding the ambassador, drawing Wynn along with her. “Excuse me, Lord Vinson, might I have the pleasure of introducing Congressman Wynn Bryant.”

The gentleman was as polished as his aide, and as well briefed. “Of course, Congressman. What an honor to have this opportunity to add my own personal welcome. You are recently arrived to this fair city, I believe.”

“Just yesterday.”

“Then you are even more the newcomer than myself. Perhaps you have not had the pleasure of meeting our esteemed companions.” Lord Vinson made swift progress around the circle. Wynn shook a dozen hands, met as many measuring gazes, felt himself invariably coming up short.

“I see you have not yet found yourself refreshment.” The ambassador steered him away from the others, a single step taking them beyond earshot. He signaled a passing waiter and said, “I have long been an admirer of your predecessor. Had the occasion to meet him, twice in fact, when Graham was over attending symposiums in the City.”

Wynn accepted a glass, sipped at a liquid he did not taste, and guessed, “The Jubilee Amendment.”

The ambassador’s eyes gleamed. “So nice to know you share our interest, Congressman. So very nice. Perhaps you would be so kind as to join us at the residence for dinner. I assure you, the chancellery is a far more pleasant environ than here. And more private.” A hint of a smile, a nod, and the man was lost in the swirling throng.

Before the crowd could sweep Wynn up again, however, another man was standing in front of him. He appeared so smoothly he revealed a lifetime’s practice at slipping into tight spots. “Congressman Bryant, I am Father Libretto. We spoke this afternoon by phone. What a pleasure it is to meet you, sir. A pleasure indeed. Sybel speaks so fondly of you.”

Though Wynn was surprised to face the slight man in the dark suit and Roman dog collar, this time he was also ready. “Before we get started on whatever you came to say, first tell me about the Jubilee Amendment.”

Father Libretto smiled, revealing teeth as neat and compressed as the rest of him. “Sybel warned me not to make the world’s mistake of dismissing you as inconsequential. She said you had been a fighter all your life. Once you locked down on a goal, she told me, you were satisfied with nothing less than the ultimate prize.”

“The Jubilee Amendment,” Wynn pressed.

“Read your files, Congressman. They have far more information than what I can give you before someone else walks over and sweeps you away. Read the pages neatly typed by your staff. Resist the temptation to dismiss this as nothing more than the ramblings of a passionate and tragic brother in Christ.”

“You mean Hutchings?”

“I mean, Congressman, that this is more than a question you have presented here. This is a
choice.”
The priest noticed someone coming up to join them, and adroitly moved up alongside Wynn, turning them together so that the newcomer met a wall of two joined backs. “We are a group wanting to do more than just survive, Congressman. We are joined by the call of God. We seek to hear the voice of those who have been robbed of speech. We seek to give life to ourselves by giving hope to others.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“Of course not. And so long as you continue to ask the wrong questions, Congressman, so long as you seek to remain safe and observe everything from the comfortable distance of power’s mountaintop, you will not understand anything. You have ears, but will not hear; eyes, but will remain safely blind.” The gentle voice had not risen in tone, yet there was a new passion at work, as forceful as it was gentle. “I am not here tonight to answer your questions, Congressman. I am here to beg you to
wake up.”

“I don’t understand a word you’ve just told me.”

“Do not permit yourself to lose this opportunity to find true wealth. Do not.” A small hand gripped his arm, a hasp locking out all but the gentle words. “When you wake up at night, Congressman, alone and desperate despite the world’s assurance that you have everything anyone could ever dream of, I urge you to heed the unheard voice. Sybel assures me that you can be the one we need. We seek another fighter, Congressman. We need another friend. And in return, all we can offer you is work and strife and possibly a lifetime’s worth of frustration.”

The priest made to turn away, then added quietly, “Oh, and passion. I neglected to mention that, did I not. The passion of a quest worth the day and the night and the day, until the moment when the day is no more.”

W
YNN WANDERED AIMLESSLY through the room, shaking innumerable hands, mulling over the priest’s mystery, until he spotted her. This particular woman could not have approached unseen. Not a beauty like this. If he had been comatose and she had advanced from behind, he would still have noticed. She was that striking.

Serious hair. That was his first thought. A rich cinnamon, and long enough to tease her shoulders like caressing fingers as she walked. A designer suit whose skirt was cut high to show off million dollar legs. Body undulating smoothly, almost hidden by the cutaway jacket. Eyes huge and a mere shade browner than her hair. She stopped before him and announced, “I believe I’ve waited long enough, don’t you?”

“Excuse me?”

“I couldn’t possibly race up the first moment you arrived and fling myself at your feet.”

He smiled. Not at her words, but her accent. It was English and Oxbridge and rich, as perfect a match as her jewelry, understated and utterly appealing. “Why not?”

“Oh, come now, Congressman. Even a newcomer like yourself is aware of the dire situation facing a single unattached woman in Washington. Nine to one is the current ratio. Appalling situation, really, they should pass a law. I was considering some awful act, like flying to New York for a wanton weekend. And then here you come, sauntering in all by your lonesome.” She had a way of framing the words as if she were tasting them. “That sounds utterly brazen, doesn’t it. I’m so ashamed I really should turn and flee. But I dare not. I might never have another such occasion.”

Wynn waved his glass at the room. “It doesn’t bother you that the entire hall is watching us?”

“Well, of course they are. The latest addition to the Washington power set is a handsome widower and as unattached as a prince from my childhood fairy tales. His first night in Washington, and already he’s snagged by a K Street lobbyist.” She offered a long-fingered hand. “I’m sorry, I’ve not even introduced myself. Valerie Lawry.”

“A pleasure.” And a relief. The priest had already been relegated to the realm of unwelcome night visitors. “What did you say you were?”

She gave a delighted laugh. “Oh, Congressman, this is just too rich.”

“Call me Wynn.”

“Wynn. I had heard the name, but it was too perfect to be real. It sounds positively drawn from the days of President Hoover. I can see the caption now, Win With Wynn, all draped with bunting and patriotic balloons.”

Wynn wished for something intelligent to say. But her perfume and her looks and her eyes were a potion that robbed him of what little sense he ever had. “You’re a lobbyist.”

“Indeed so. K Street is home to the most expensive of our breed. The hottest guns for hire.”

“Who are you representing tonight?”

“No one, good sir.” She reached out a hand, as though wishing to touch his arm, then thinking better of it. Instead she traced a finger down the outside of her sweat-beaded glass. “Tonight I am merely hunting prey.”

A senior official of the British embassy inserted himself at that point. Wynn did not hear the name, scarcely saw him at all. The man’s flushed cheeks and fruity laugh revealed he was as hard struck by Valerie as Wynn. She took the opportunity to move a single step closer to Wynn, permitting him to feel a trace of her heat, showing the intruder the unified front of a couple together. The man got the message and, with a diplomat’s ease, passed over a card and departed.

Valerie stepped back a little, but not as far as before, using the intruder as an excuse to draw them slightly closer. “I confess to an ulterior motive.”

“Name it.”

“Oh, you should never be so swift to agree to anything in this town, good sir. Tit for tat, that’s the name of the Washington game. Work everything to your ultimate advantage.” She grazed his arm with her jacket, scalded him with a look. “Whatever I ask, you should ask for more in return.”

He watched her take a slow sip from her glass, eyes never leaving his. “Information.”

This was not the response she had been expecting. “I beg your pardon?”

He started to ask about the Jubilee Amendment, decided he would first read the file. Besides, the priest and his words did not fit into this scene. “My staff.”

She lowered her glass. More guarded now. “Yes?”

“I can’t get a handle on their response to my appointment. They were respectful, alert, and didn’t seem to care.”

“Not the least bit worried about impressing the new boss, you mean.”

“That’s it exactly.”

“They are power addicts.” The diction more precise now. “Washington draws them like the mother lode. They will do their job, work eighteen-hour days, and if you don’t get along, just move on. I know of numerous unfilled places among the two Houses, chiefs looking for experienced staffers. There is no time to train newcomers, you see. No time for anything.”

“So all my staff have worked in other congressional offices?”

“Congress, committees, two have pulled stints in the White House. All but one are Washington old-timers.”

“Carter Styles,” he guessed.

“Very good, Congressman. I must be very careful not to underestimate you.”

“How do you know these things?”

“It’s my job. I have a file on every congressman, senator, senior staffer, cabinet member, and White House flunkey. Every one of them needs to be tracked and identified. What they are passionate about, which issues they could be flexible over, where they go, who their allies are.”

“It sounds like I could learn a lot from you.”

“So much. So very much indeed.”

Wynn was intrigued by the way this woman switched from business to intimacy with a look, a word, a tip of her tongue tracing the edge of her teeth. “You had some request of your own?”

“Graham Hutchings was a professional acquaintance. I have long wanted to go by and pay my respects, but it’s not a journey I wish to make on my own. I was wondering if I might possibly impose.”

“You don’t want me.”

“Oh, Congressman . . .” Valerie finished with a very pretty smile.

“No. Really.” Utterly serious now. “Esther Hutchings and I are enemies from way back.”

“Then this is the perfect opportunity for you as well. You must go by and pay your respects, Wynn. Listen to me. I know this town. You’ve been appointed to replace a man who has been debilitated by his work. A visit is required. It is the absolute minimum in decorum. What is the worst that could possibly happen?”

“She might gnaw my head off.”

“I doubt that very much.” This time the hand did come to rest upon his arm. “Now you really must regale me with the tale of this bad blood. I positively thrive on such gossip.”

“Not a chance in this world.”

From coquettish to serious in the span of one breath. “Go, Wynn. Do this thing. Or you will be buried by people unearthing the tale and spreading it far and wide. Embellished, inflamed, and made immeasurably worse.”

He accepted his defeat by finishing his drink and setting the glass on the tray of a passing waiter. “All right.”

“Excellent. Shall we say six-thirty Friday?” She graced him with a full-wattage smile. “Come now, Wynn. It won’t be that bad. And afterward I’ll offer you a fine dinner somewhere. My treat.”

As she walked away, Wynn caught sight of the priest slipping through the exit. The little man did not necessarily look his way, perhaps he just glanced at the room as a whole. But it was enough to repaint the evening a darker shade and turn Wynn’s idle longing to dust.

8

Thursday

J
ACKIE AWOKE to a skyless dawn. She stretched muscles made doubly tired by hours of frustrated cleaning, and stepped onto her tiny balcony. Somewhere close overhead the firmament was swallowed and gone, replaced by a seamless gray nothing. No wind, no sound, nothing to mask the humid heat or the din already rising from the awakening city. One look was enough to confirm that the weather perfectly suited her plans for the day ahead.

Her reflection in the single remaining fragment of her bathroom mirror looked grim and weary. She prepared camp-style coffee, boiling water in a battered pot, then pouring it directly over the grounds in her only intact mug. As she sipped the bitter brew, Jackie surveyed the final three bags of formerly precious trash.

The apartment was utterly bare. Every scar and yellowed seam was revealed, every fray and stain in the carpet, every fabrication of a life precariously stitched together. Jackie felt more than exposed. She felt violated.

Jackie dressed in her standard mourning garb—black calfskin boots, black jeans, black T-shirt, black velvet hair ribbon. She did not need her shredded wall calendar to know the date. The monthly routine was branded upon her soul with a lifetime’s acrid heat.

She closed her flimsily repaired door and carried the last of the trash bags downstairs. As she walked down the drive, a voice called from out front. Jackie carried the bags with her, both because they were in her hands and because it would be a genuine excuse to leave.

Millicent’s doctor asked her, “You all right?”

“Fine.” At least she was not damaged where it showed.

“Millicent said something about wolves in gray jackets.”

“I was burglarized.” She glanced at her watch, not because she was late, but merely to show she had things to do.

The doctor gave no indication he had noticed. Now that he was semiretired, Dr. Crouch fought to slow all the world to his own pace. He was old enough to remember when house calls were expected, and too stubborn to change. “You call the cops?”

“There wasn’t anything stolen. Just wrecked. And you know Millicent.”

“She didn’t want to open the door for me, thought maybe a social service type was hiding behind a tree.” He frowned at the bags. “You still ought to file a report.”

She gave a noncommittal shrug. “How is Millicent?”

“Crazy as a loon. But other than that, not too bad. You still doing her shopping?”

“Twice a week. Today, in fact.”

“Get her some Cream of Wheat. Had to hide her bottom dentures. Looks like her gums are infected again.” He stared at the sagging empty porch. “She moved her mattress and bedsprings into the front parlor.”

“All by herself?”

“Sure didn’t get any help from me. Millicent says there’s less moonlight on the street side, which means the beasts don’t howl so loud.”

“She told me the burglars were cursing something awful,” Jackie replied, hating how she had caused the old lady to worry.

“She keeps the downstairs rooms clean as a whistle, is all I know. She takes her medicine and she dresses herself, in a manner of speaking. ’Course, the way things are now, yellow leg warmers with a neon green cocktail dress and black sneakers might be high fashion.”

Jackie started toward the curb. “Let me know if I need to do something for her.”

Crouch called after her, “Know what Millicent told me this morning? You’re a good daughter. I said she could take that right to the bank.”

Jackie dumped her load with the other bags and lengthened her stride back to the Camaro. Crouch’s words merely darkened the day’s already bitter cast. She backed down the drive, ignoring the doctor’s hesitant wave. The motor rumbled deep-throated taunts all the way to her mother’s nursing home. Good sister, daughter, student, fiancée—all the lies she had watched crumble, all the energy lost to pretending it didn’t matter.

The nursing home’s front door expelled the harsh scent of industrial cleanser. The place was extremely Catholic and packed with religious ornaments and nurses in the white headdresses of the full-on devout. Jackie had come here because it was the only Medicare bed available when her mother had suffered the stroke. Now she counted it as one of the luckiest days of her life. Nobody else would have put up with her mother for this long.

Like many of the home’s staff, the manager was Ghanaian, stoic, and quietly sympathetic. The heavyset woman rose from her desk and beamed a welcome far too genuine for this place. “Miss Jackie, what you doing here so early? I didn’t expect you before lunchtime.”

“I’ve taken a couple of days off work. Thought I’d come over before things got busy.”

“If I had me a day free, sure to goodness I wouldn’t be spending it here.”

Jackie started grimly for the stairs. “How’s Mom?”

“She’s drinking her own bile and dying just as fast as she knows how. Same as always.” Knowing dark eyes followed her departure. “Don’t you go be doing the same, mind.”

A
FTER JACKIE’S FATHER had dumped them, her mother had gone through a series of bad jobs and worse men, finally landing as a waitress at a HoJo’s on Route 50. The place had been so rough she would seldom let her children come in for the free meals offered to all employees’ families. And there she remained, right up to the moment Preston struck it rich and rented her a fine little place on a lake. Their mother had never acknowledged the gifts, for that would have meant also accepting that a man in her life had done something good.

Jackie let herself into her mother’s room. The upper half of her mother’s bed had been slightly elevated. Evelyn Havilland lay there inert and pale. Eyes closed. Chest hardly moving. Face slack. Taking revenge on life and everyone she had ever known by shutting them out. Jackie carried the chair over from its station beside the opposite wall, seated herself by the bed, and waited.

“These people do everything they can to hurt me.” The mouth scarcely moved. The eyes never opened. “You satisfied now? You should be.”

“Hello, Mom. Would you like something to drink?” Jackie picked up the plastic cup from the bedstand and saw it was empty. “Let me get you some water.”

Evelyn Havilland said nothing more until Jackie had fitted the plastic straw into her mouth and let her sip. “A decent daughter’d have gotten me out of here. Found me a place with people who know how to do things right. But not you. Oh no. Too much trouble, finding your own mother a decent place to breathe her last.”

Evelyn turned her head then, just a fraction. Far enough to shoot her daughter a glimmer from shadow-filled eyes. “Probably just as well you didn’t try. You’d only have made a mess of it anyway.”

Jackie found a fly buzzing about the room to focus her attention upon. It was a trick she had used since childhood. A dust mote in sunlight would do. A sound from beyond the room. Anything to keep from being opened and penetrated.

“I always knew it would come to this. Lying here waiting for the end, looking at a daughter who’s wasted every chance she’s ever had.” Pausing now, building up the venom. “And every man.”

A bad day. Sometimes Jackie could slip in, spend an hour beside the inert figure in the bed, exchange no more than a few words. Converse only with her memories and all the old pain. Such days were a delight compared to these, when she was forced to remember how she never had the chance to be young.

“Not a day goes by, I don’t regret the horrible mess you made with Shane. I adored him, you know.” Another pause to refill the fangs. “Didn’t even learn about it from my own daughter. Oh no. Shane had to be the one to come and tell me you’d run away. I couldn’t believe it even then. Told him no daughter of mine would be that stupid.”

Jackie rose and picked up the chair. Deliberately she placed it back against the wall. There to wait another month for the only visitor her mother had. She masked her movements as she did her thoughts. Wondering what her mother would do if she lifted the chair and swung it down upon her head. Thank her, probably.

“You’re going to see your brother’s grave now, I suspect. What a loser he turned out to be. The ultimate disaster. Just like his father. Hung around just long enough to ruin my life. Never could take the bad times, neither of them.” Evelyn swiveled her head back up, closed her eyes. “Don’t have a daughter, don’t have a son. All that sweat and worry for nothing. Might as well not have lived.”

“Bye, Mom.” Jackie left the room without a backward glance. Her work here was done.

J
ACKIE SPOTTED THE TAIL while she was buying flowers. It was mostly the way the man stood and stared at her. Then she noticed the car, and something sparked inside her brain; he had been following her since the nursing home. She’d never been involved in a surveillance job, but while working around the office she’d learned the signals. Jackie checked in both directions but could not identify another suspicious car or tracker. She glanced back in time to see the man lock his car and hurry across the street. That was definitely an amateurish move, letting her spot him beside his wheels.

She paid for the flowers and headed through the cemetery gates. Just inside she turned and faced him full on. The man knew he had been spotted, there was no disguising it now. But to her surprise, he did not duck back or head down a side lane. Instead he merely stood there, hands bunched together by his belt buckle, and waited. She continued along the gravel path, warmed by the thought that this might be one of the men who’d trashed her apartment. It was enough to grant the day a momentary reprieve. She would love to meet those guys, give them a piece of whatever was available and heavy.

The cemetery was packed with mourners and gardeners. Jackie made the turning down the now-familiar lane and glanced back. He was still there, yet showed nothing to suggest either hostility or threat. What he looked like was a Latin hunk. Olive complexion, early fifties, extremely well groomed. Clothes with a European cut, shoes so well polished they reflected like black mirrors. The day was an oven set on wet-bake, yet he walked in jacket and tie. He held to a respectful distance, a professional mourner waiting for her to show him the proper place to grieve.

The problem was, she had no interest in sharing this part of a lousy day. So she checked to make sure there were a couple of gardeners nearby, then walked straight up to him. “You want something?”

“Forgive me, Ms. Havilland. I have no wish to disturb you in this hour of communing with your brother.”

She recognized the voice instantly. Not Latin at all. Arab. But just as handsome up close. “You’re that guy. The Arab on the telephone. Esther’s emergency contact.”

“That is correct.” He bowed slightly, a gesture as formal as his tone. “Nabil Saad is my name. I am Egyptian. Again, forgive this intrusion. But we needed to meet. And the contact required someplace more private than your apartment.”

She took a moment to inspect him, trying to get a handle on this sudden appearance. Nabil Saad was not tall, standing only a few inches above her own five-seven. Flecks of silver decorated the dark hair at his temples and crown. He wore a jacket of tiny gray-and-black herringbone. It looked incredibly expensive, probably silk. White-on-white shirt, black gabardine pants, perfectly knotted silk tie. Face both hard and soft, eyes liquid and black as night. And calm. Standing and accepting her inspection in silence.

Jackie said, “Excuse me, I’m a little confused here. Last night I got the impression you didn’t want to have anything to do with me.”

“My objections had nothing to do with you personally. But Esther Hutchings had no right to hire you as she did, without our approval. Nor did she ask permission to give you my name.”

Jackie hoped her confusion did not show. “But she did.”

“Indeed so. Esther has never been prone to listen to anyone when her mind is made up. And now you have been attacked, and you have my name. Esther needed to make contact with you. Esther’s file spoke of this monthly pattern. I elected to come meet you myself.”

“So there’s this file on my private life that’s been passed around?”

“You must forgive us all, Ms. Havilland. Such intrusion is not excusable.”

“I totally agree.”

“And yet we are faced with an impossible situation. Lives are at stake.”

“That friend you mentioned on the phone last night?”

“She was like the daughter I do not have.” Nabil Saad’s features opened to reveal an ocean of sorrow. “Our cause was her life’s work. Yes. Her passion. And it killed her. Of that I have no doubt.”

Jackie found herself unwilling to press further. Not when his pain so closely resembled her own. She found herself wondering what it would be like to care so passionately about a cause, or have someone else carry such grief for her own passage.

She used her flowers to gesture along the lane. “You mind excusing me?”

He gave another of his gracious half-bows and showed the incredible wisdom to say nothing further. Instead he merely walked to an empty stone bench.

Jackie pretended she did not feel his presence as she rounded the curve and halted by the all-too-familiar patch of green. She settled her flowers into the stone vase rising beside the simple plaque. Preston’s name had been carved into the dark granite, nothing else. No need to add the burden of those too-brief dates. She would never forget the day of his departure or his age. Or how she had failed him.

As ever, the mirror to past mistakes remained imperfect and depressing. She endured it for a respectful period, then allowed herself to turn away. As dissatisfied and aching as ever.

The Egyptian rose at her approach. He seemed to reflect her own tumult, a gift of understanding so potent she found herself unable to remain at a safe distance. The deep melodious voice said, “My family is Coptic. An ancient Christian church, so old it is hard to know where truth ends and fable begins. Forty days we spend mourning over those gone ahead. People gather from all over the globe for the day of burial, then remain for a week and more at the side of those seeking either to heal or drown in grief. Both responses are acceptable to families such as mine.”