George Pelecanos (29 page)

"We
can't be about this."

"We're
not! We're about us. This is about getting us free."

"It's
for you."

"Yeah,
it's for me. And you said you want me. I'll always be who I was, but this way I
have something to show for it. This buys me a getaway. Here."

"Not
enough," he whispered. "We're not worth enough to do this."

"What
other chance do we have? I'm changing my life for us. What about you?"

He
walked to his window full of night. Stared out at the city he'd chosen to make
his home. He searched the darkness outside. Faced what he'd never embraced.

"Only
one way we can do this," said Joel. "We need to make doing
what's
wrong be
for more right than just us."

After
he told her how, she said: "I'll set it up."

"Won't
work," he said. "Frank won't believe just you. Buy just you."

"I
don't want you touching--"

He
stroked her hair.
"Too late."

Joel
nodded to her cell phone. "Make the call."

"What
about the Senator?"

"Nobody
needs him," said Joel.

But
two nights later, Joel sat in his car with the bulldog in a Wall Street suit
who said: "Hey, fucko, I need the Senator."

Across
the street waited Capitol Hill's neighborhood ball-field-sized Lincoln Park
that 198 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence became
D.C.'s first public site for any statue honoring a woman or an
African-American.

"It's
not about what you need," said Joel. "It's about what I can do."

"You
don't get to vote in Committee.
Or on the Floor."

"Not
in the flesh, but I'm the spirit moving the man."

"This
town's full of people who died thinking they were somebody else."

"You
get close to him," said Joel, "the odds go up that we'll all get caught."

Frank
Greene drummed his fingers on Joel's dashboard.
"$100,000."

"My
price includes more than cash. There's a relief bill for Sudan that's come over
from the House on a wing and a prayer. You're going to angel that prayer.
Muscle that bill into a workable law."

"This
is a money town and you want me to save the world? What's the catch?"

"No
catch. But I get to deliver my guy to lead the charge in the Senate."

"One
hand cleans the other, huh?"

Yellow
headlights silhouetted them sitting in the car as a cop drove past two more men
sharing secrets in D.C.'s dark night.

"Believe
what you gotta believe," said the bulldog. "But deliver what you sell."

"Don't
you trust me?" Joel shook his head at the man's silence.
"Me
too.
That's why I have to see motion on your side before I deliver from
mine."

"What
do you mean motion? I call you in a few days, tell you which company, you lock
your man down, I deliver the cash through the babe."

"Never
call her again. If you see her on the street, walk on by. And make me see what
I need to see."

On
the following Wednesday, Mimi dropped a "Dear Colleague" letter on Joel's desk,
a mass mailing to all lawmakers on Capitol Hill from the Congressman who'd
authored the Sudan relief measure and was now proud to announce that a caucus
of business and labor groups had organized to support the bill.

Letter
in hand, Joel walked to the suite Mimi shared with Press Secretary Ricki.

Mimi
was on the phone. "Good to talk to you, Glenn." She mouthed the name Parker to
Joel. "The Senator will be sorry to have missed your call, but Joel's standing
right here."

Joel
took the phone. "Glenn, how are you?"

"How
I am is stuck. Not sure we should be talking--legally."

"The
law says there's no problem with a citizen calling his Senator's office--one
time, anyway. They let guys like us touch base for free."

"Free?"
Glenn laughed. "Then FYI, a bunch of the Senator's friends out here plus some
folks back in D.C. just formed an independent educational committee so voters
realize who to touch the computer screen for next time."

Dead
air filled the phone call between the Senator's D.C. office and the bank
president's phone back home in the capital of the Senator's state.

Until
Joel said: "That sounds like great news, but you're right, it's possibly of a
partisan nature, so we can't talk about it on this publicly funded phone, or
from this taxpayer-owned office."

Joel
gave him a phone number for the town house that the party's Senatorial Campaign
Committee rented across the street from the Senate, told Glenn to call him
there in an hour.

Mimi
said: "Is this one of those things I don't know about?"

Joel
knocked on the brown door to the Senator's private suite, didn't wait for a
"Come in" before he did, and closed the door behind him.

Senator
Carl Ness sat with suit jacket off, tie loosened, three cell phones and
BlackBerry on the massive desk, as he worked his way through a stack of papers.

"You
talk to Glenn Parker recently?" said Joel.

The
Senator shrugged. "Joyce ran into him at that Bay City pancake breakfast for
the Girl Scouts."

"And
I suppose they chatted about how things are and how they could be better."

"God
bless the First Amendment. People can talk." "Did you give Joyce her script?"

"She's
been at this a long time. She knows what to say." The Senator smiled. "What are
you upset about? None of us left any fingerprints."

"Don't
ever pull a stunt like that again without first running it by me."

"Hey,
I am the Senator." He raised his hand. "Point taken, but this is a done deal."

Joel
dropped the "Dear Colleague" Sudan letter on his boss' desk. "If you lead the
charge for that bill over here, you're going to make a lot of important people
happy."

"Who
will I make mad?"

"Nobody who can hurt you."

The
Senator leaned back in his chair. "We live in a brutal world. It's incumbent
upon us as Americans and human beings to do all we can to help innocent men
and--no: innocen children--who violence, evil, and greed have blah blah blah The
Senator raised a warning finger. "Don't get me in trouble on this."

"Me?"
said Joel. "Get you in trouble? That's not the way it's always been."

Later,
walking back from the Campaign Committee's house, Joel detoured to a Union
Station pay phone. He called the bulldog, said: "Yes."

"You
can still back out," whispered Lena that night in his bed.

"No
we can't," said Joel.

The
U.S. mail brought a package to his home the next day--a disposable cell phone
that buzzed in his pocket three days later. Joel put the cell phone to his ear.

A
bulldog said: "Is this
who
it should be?"

"Probably,"
said Joel.

"Z-Systems.
I repeat, Z-Systems."

After
work that night Joel arranged to go out for a beer with Dick and their
Committee staffer Trudy. They went to one of only four bars that survived the
deluge of ferns-and-cloth-napkins gentrification that laundered Capitol Hill in
the 1990s, a booths-and-stools joint with Hank Williams wannabe's in the
jukebox. A stuffed owl spread its wings above the bar mirror. Congressional
aides loved the bar: It reminded them of a blue-collar real world they imagined
they could still claim as their roots.

"Is
it just me," said Trudy, "or are we the oldest Hill staffers in here?"

"Congress
runs on the blood of twenty-five-year-olds," said Joel. "Guys two jumps up like
us are usually thinking about getting out, back to the real world and on to big
bucks."

Trudy
asked: "How many people on your staff are from D.C.?"

"One,"
said Joel.

"We
aren't like ordinary factory towns," said Dick.

"We
aren't like any town anywhere," said Joel.

They
drank cold beer. Joel let Trudy think it was her idea to meet with the Senator.
Those four playmakers huddled the next morning.

Senator
Ness said: "Give me your recommends."

"The
companies' planes are essentially equal," said Trudy. "But the future looks
best with United Tech. United's bird is more bucks per copy, but Z-Systems' bid
is a low estimate that they'll recoup in cost-overruns. Plus, Z-Systems
has
that GAO probe."

Dick
said: "Are you telling us that United Tech is more honest than Z-Systems?"

Even
Trudy laughed.

"I
say that the GAO investigation of Z-Systems means they're the best choice,"
said Dick. "They won't be so inclined to try a rip while the watchdogs are in
their shop. Plus, Z-Systems
is
the cheaper right now
and we pay for our pick with right now dollars."

The
Senator said. "Joel?"

"Read
the headline," said Joel.
"'Senator Ness Votes Against Low
Bidder on Jillion-Dollar Contract.'
It's hard to explain to the voters
why it looks like you chose to overspend their tax dollars. I say it comes down
to good politics married to good government. If you add up everything, your
best choice is Z-Systems."

"Makes
sense," said the Senator.

"Okay,"
said Dick. "Z-Systems it is. How about I draft a letter of commitment to the
Committee Chairman?"

Trudy
said: "Great idea."

"Yeah,
Dick," said the Senator, "except I'm voting for United Tech."

Dick
blurted: "You said Z-Systems made sense."

"But,"
said the Senator as Joel fought terror, "it makes more sense and better
government to build for the future. The political stuff's gotta take a
backseat."

Dick
said: "So do I draft the letter?"

Buy
time. Joel said: "Let's think that play through, hold off until tomorrow."

Joel
walked the Senator to a vote, then hurried through the tunnels honeycombing the
Hill beneath the Capitol to use the Campaign Committee phone and call back-home
banker Glenn Parker.

"Glenn,
our friends in your new group," said Joel. "Are they a bunch of guys from
United Tech?"

Glenn
said: "No. Are we expecting any?"

"Beats
me," said Joel. "It's a free country."

That
night, he sat on his living room couch with Lena. Streetlamps filtering through
his dirty windows cut across them with light and shadows.

"After
the Senator bucked me for United, knowing that committee had just formed out in
the state, I thought maybe I'd catch him having done his own side deal. He's
played cagey like that before."

Joel
shook his head. "But now he's choosing what's best for the country, the hell
with reelection. That's why I went to work for him. He may be a personal jerk,
but he stands up for what he believes.
The damn son of a
bitch."

"What
if you can't get the Senator to change his mind?" asked Lena.

"Then
we're fucked."

"You
could make it up to Frank Greene on some other vote some other time."

"There
is no other time," said Joel. "If I fuck him on this, he'll need to fuck me.
Plus more.
To keep his pride, his clout.
Keep
himself
safe."

"What
are you talking about?" she said.

"This
is a tough town."

Joel
woke up under a cloudy sky. He let Mimi play out the morning office rituals.
Then told the Senator: "Change your mind. Go for Z-Systems."

"Let's
get Dick in on this," said the Senator, pushing the intercom button.

After
Dick joined them, the Senator said: "Joel wants me to change my mind and go
with Z-Systems."

Dick
asked Joel: "Why?"

"United
Tech is the future, but today is tomorrow." Dick shrugged. "Whatever that
means, we agree."

Senator
Ness sighed. "Okay, I'll vote for Z-Systems. Let's get on to stuff we can give
a shit about."

"I
think I can get TV showing you rescuing starving kids," said Joel. He wanted to
shout for joy. He wanted to cry for shame. He did his job, called the TV
producer with "news" that prompted the producer to ask for a "deadline" chance
that Joel granted.

Joel,
Dick, Press Secretary Ricki, and the Senator huddled in his office.

"Just
because they film our guy doesn't mean they'll use it," said Ricki.

"Great
visuals have a better chance of making the news menu," said Joel. "Plus, if it
bleeds, it leads, but--I've got it!
The white sack.
The burial bag for kids from the refugee camp!"