A SENATOR WALKS INTO A BAR.
The amazing sight of Senator Francis Truscott IV walking into a joint like Bubba’s seemed so surreal to Kyle that it could only be the setup of a joke.
A senator walks into a bar. He orders ten martinis lined up in a row. “What’s the occasion?” says the bartender. “I’m celebrating,” says the senator. “I just raised a million dollars for my reelection campaign.”
Truscott, a tall man in his late forties, wore a pair of jeans, a leather jacket, and a baseball cap, trying hard to hide his senatoricity. But the jeans were pressed, and the leather of the jacket was butter soft, and it was a Phillies cap he was wearing, which was like a sign saying not from here. And of course there was the gaunt and severe face, chiseled by the gads of press coverage he had garnered over the years into something like a monument.
“Congratulations,” says the bartender as he lines up eleven martinis side by side. “Have another on the house.” “No thanks,” says the senator. “If ten don’t wipe out the taste of all the dick I’ve been sucking, I don’t think eleven will either.”
Or something like that.
Kyle was waiting for the senator in a booth, alone. But not entirely alone. There was Skitch at the bar, throwing dice with Old Tommy Trapp while keeping an eye on things. And Kat was parked in a car across the street, ready to call the police if something looked fishy. And there was Bubba Jr. himself, unhappy as hell that Kyle had volunteered his place for the meeting, but behind the bar all the same, with his shotgun oiled and loaded. They were all there just in case the senator had ideas of being a bit too clever.
And of course when did a senator ever not think himself a bit too clever?
The senator walked into the bar with a hesitant step, like a tenderfoot walking into a Wild West saloon, ready to duck if a spittoon were hurled at his head. While he looked around, Bubba and Skitch made an effort not to stare, but Old Tommy Trapp couldn’t help himself.
“Pussy,” said Old Tommy, in a whisper loud enough to have been heard in Cleveland.
Kyle raised a hand and nodded Truscott over to his booth. The senator swiveled his head guiltily, before slipping into the bench seat across from Kyle.
“Are you Kyle?”
Kyle nodded.
“Pleased to meet you, Kyle,” said the senator, smiling and holding out his hand as if the bar were a campaign stop. “I knew your father.”
Kyle looked at the proffered hand for a moment. It was the hand that had burned down his mother’s house. It was the hand that had tried to kill his father, sending him into exile and Kyle’s life into a tailspin. That it had also raped Colleen O’Malley and killed both her and Laszlo Toth were other, less personal reasons to let the hand hang there, its offer of reciprocal respect unreciprocated. “Can we get to it?” said Kyle.
“A man of purpose, is that it? Not unlike your father in that. Though not as I expected. Malcolm said you were—how did he put it?—‘a slacker dude.’ ”
“I slack with purpose, too,” said Kyle. “You k now that my mother’s house was burned down just two nights ago.”
“No, I didn’t. I’m sorry.” Pause, the fake political concern in his eyes replaced quickly with real concern, maybe even a touch of fear. “Wait, not that thing in Havertown with the fireworks?”
“That’s the one.”
“My gosh, I didn’t know it was yours.”
“Tell me about it,” said Kyle. “Before it burned down around me—”
“You were inside?”
“Can we not play our little games?” said Kyle. “The ‘My gosh’ and the ‘I didn’t know’? Before you set the fire—”
“You have it wrong,” said the senator, interrupting him calmly. “I didn’t set any fire, or have any fire set. I wasn’t involved, and I’m sorry about what happened. Was it arson? Are you sure? The papers said it might have been an accident. That maybe there was a cache of fireworks hidden in the property.”
“It wasn’t an accident. Check it out if you want to be sure. But what I’m trying to say is that before the fire I found an old file cabinet of my father’s hidden behind some drywall in the basement. And in the cabinet I found the file. The one you’ve been running from most of your life.”
“You mentioned the O’Malley file to Malcolm. Is that what you’re referring to?”
“That’s right. The one that shows conclusively that you raped the O’Malley girl when you were eighteen.”
Tr uscot t w inced.
“The one with her notarized affidavit inside,” said Kyle. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To make the file disappear?”
“No, actually.”
Kyle tilted his head. “It’s not?”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Kyle, but you can keep the file. Do whatever you want with it.”
Kyle examined the senator carefully, trying to find the trick. Because there had to be a trick. All the uproar and death over the file had to be coming from this one powerful man. So his nonchalance had to be a trick. But there was something in the senator’s face, a sort of rueful weariness that seemed to belie the possibility that any confidence game was going on. It was as if he really didn’t care.
“You don’t want the O’Malley file?”
“No.”
“But if I turn it over to the press . . .”
“Then I probably will be seen by the world as a rapist unless I challenge the affidavit. Which I won’t.”
“So it’s true.”
“No, it’s not true.”
Kyle just stared at the man. Nothing was making sense. “If it’s not true, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t contest it.”
“Let me ask you something, Kyle. Was your life ever planned out for you? Did you have dreams that you were supposed to fulfill, even though they weren’t your dreams?”
“My mom wasn’t the type to plan anyone’s life, even her own, and my father wasn’t around.”
“Then you were lucky.”
“Screw you. I didn’t have a father because of you.”
“Because of me?”
“That’s what I said.”
“I think you’re gravely mistaken. But what you did have, Kyle, was a clean slate. A chance to invent yourself. I never had that. You know what I always had? A future. Italicized and with a capital
F
. My
Future.
It was a beast that consumed everything. Every school I went to, every course I took, every girl I dated and job I accepted was only fodder to be fed to the beast. No youthful folly allowed, no mistakes. ‘Think of your
Future,
’ I was told over and again. ‘Consider your
Future.
’ And now I’m in the middle of it all, with the brightest part yet to come, and it doesn’t seem so damn capital anymore.”
“You want me to be sympathetic, is that it? You want me to feel pity for the poor rich senator?”
“No. I want you to be a little grateful for what you did have. And I want you to show at least a little respect.”
“Go to hell.”
“Yeah, well, it’s happening sooner rather than later. You asked for this meeting, and now here I am. Tell me, Kyle, what were you going to ask for?”
Kyle looked carefully at the man across from him and saw something in his eyes. Concern? For Kyle? Son of a bitch must be a hell of a politician, because Kyle almost believed it.
“I was going to . . . you know . . . I was going to trade it for . . .”
“Money?”
Kyle nodded, and at that moment—even sitting across from this man who he was certain only a few moments before was a rapist and a murderer, and even believing that it was all just a ruse on his part—at t hat moment he felt ashamed. A ll t he more so when t he senator laughed. But it wasn’t a mocking laugh. It was gentle, and almost appreciative.
“You can’t even spit the word out of your mouth,” he said. “Money’s not what you want, son. And you have no idea of the price you’d end up paying. Though the affidavit isn’t true, I paid to keep it quiet twice already, paid to stop it from infecting my glorious future. And I’ve regretted both acts ever since. I’m sorry, but I’m not paying again.”
“No money?”
“Nope. Sorry.”
“If it wasn’t true, why did you pay before?”
“Because I had my future to think about. Lies always stick around longer than the truth. But I’m sick of my future, sick of the price I’ve paid for it, so I’m going to think about yours. What do you want to do with your life?”
“I don’t know.”
“Isn’t it time to figure it out?”
“God, I’m getting it now from an asshole like you.”
“If I let you turn yourself into a blackmailer, that’s exactly what I would be,” said the senator. “I did that once, I won’t do it again. I’m going to tell you a story, Kyle. About an arrogant little prick and a sweet girl who loved him and that file of yours. I’m going to tell you because I’ve been wanting to tell someone for years. And I’m going to tell you because it involves your father, and I think you have the right to know.”
ONE OF MY GREAT-GRANDFATHERS was a crony of Morgan’s,” said
Francis Truscott IV. “Another played golf with Rockefeller.” “Bully for you,” said Kyle.
“I’m not bragging here, Kyle, I’m explaining. The Truscotts were a
family of grand ambitions. My father could never live up to them, and eventually they broke him. He had once had the grandest of Truscott dreams. He was going to be a titan of industry, a poker champion, a pilot, the president, something big, something great, maybe even a race-car driver. While still a young man, he disappeared into the West to make his own way. But in his forties he returned to his dour family, with nothing to show for his time away except for a raging alcoholism and a pregnant wife. But his megalomania wasn’t completely burned out of him by his failures, he transferred all his thwarted hopes onto his only child. Me.
“How did you handle the pressure?”
“With a purposeful nonchalance. I was always the star of my sports teams, I was the class president. My grades were only adequate, but I had a confident manner and the Truscott name. By my senior year at Haverford Prep, I was already accepted into Yale. Let me tell you something, Kyle, no one feels more atop the world than a high-school kid on his way to Yale. There were girls, parties, trips to Cabo. Life was brilliant, and my future, the one that had been lined up for me since birth, was well on track.
“But this is a love story, first and foremost, and I found it at a homeless shelter, on Christmas Eve, where, at my mother’s shrewd request, I was helping serve dinner to the city’s least fortunate. It was something for the résumé, something to polish my image and show I could give as good as I got. I had started it two years before I applied to Yale, had featured the experience in my application essay, and I continued after my acceptance only because my mother convinced me that to stop would appear churlish. It was as I was dishing out the mashed potatoes that I noticed the girl beside me pouring the gravy.
“Blond hair, blue eyes, a slim figure, all standard enough as far as I was concerned. But there was a sweetness there, too, and an innocence, two traits sorely lacking in the girls I dated. I almost believed that she was at the shelter because she wanted to do good for others, not for herself. The idea was so foreign to a Truscott as to be revolutionary.
“That was Colleen O’Malley.
“I didn’t think she would be much of a challenge, and truthfully, she wasn’t. She was swept away by my charm, my ease, maybe even my money, as I arrogantly expected she would be. But it wasn’t long before I was swept away, too. It was her unaffected goodness, her purity of intention, the way she stared at me with so much love. Looking into Colleen O’Malley’s eyes was like peering out of a tunnel and catching a glimpse of transcendent sunlight in an otherwise dark, monochromatic world.
“We dated in secret—neither of our sets of parents would have approved, she was poor, and I wasn’t Catholic—and we fell in love in secret, and we made love in secret. But sex with Colleen wasn’t about getting something, a piece or an advantage or a prestigious date for Saturday night, it was about giving, not just pleasure but the whole of ourselves, one to the other, together. One heart, one breath, our souls twining together like the braided candles stuck in the silver holders in the dining room at our estate, the ones that burn down so prettily until they are mere sputtering heaps of blackened wax. Like the pair that was lit one evening when I was summoned to that very dining room by my mother.
“ ‘Francis,’ said my mother, sitting at the head of the table, her mouth pursed like the painting of my father’s mother on the wall above her. She was eating her dinner alone. A bowl of consommé. My father was away at the club, where he would spend the night after another evening of hard drinking, as had become his custom. ‘We need to talk about this nonsense with the O’Malley girl.’
“ ‘How do you know about her?’
“ ‘Francis, dear, we are your parents. It is our job to know.’ She lifted the spoon to her lips, lapped up the broth like one of her prized Burmese. ‘Now it is time for you to prepare for Yale. You need to concentrate on getting ready, not on dillydallying in the sun. And it is not fair to string that young girl along through the summer. It is time to end it.’
“ ‘I’m not stringing her along.’
“ ‘Francis, please. She goes to a Catholic school in Darby.’
“ ‘She’s different from the other girls I’ve dated.’
“ ‘I know she is, dear. The exotic young Catholic-school girl with her plaid skirt and saddle shoes. It is a ready-made fantasy for a young boy. Trust me, I know.’ She lifted the spoon to her lips. Lap, lap. ‘Which is why we didn’t stop it when it first broke out. But it has grown beyond what is tolerable. Now we’ve already spoken to the O’Malleys, and they are fully in agreement.’
“ ‘What did you do? What the hell did you do, Mother?’
“ ‘Watch your tone.’ Lap, lap. ‘Francis, they have plans for their daughter, just as we have plans for you. And she is rather young.’
“ ‘You had no right.’
“ ‘You didn’t say that when we promised a wing for that science building at the university. And you’ll happily accept our tuition payments and the money you’ll need to live in New Haven in the style you’ve grown accustomed to here. So, dear, I think we have every right to ask that you respect our wishes when it comes to this one minor matter.’
“ ‘It is not a minor matter.’
“ ‘But that’s exactly what she is. Have you read the penal code lately? Do you know what you are risking?’
“ ‘I love her, Mother.’
“ ‘Yes, yes. And I love chocolate. But I have learned to do without to maintain my figure. As you must learn to do without to maintain your future.’ Lap, lap. ‘Now, think of the right way to break it to her. Young hearts are often so fragile, and we wouldn’t want to see such a precious flower unduly bruised.’
“It was the first real test of my life, Kyle, my first chance to stake out my own path. No one should be surprised that I failed. Along with the ambition that had been instilled in me from birth, there was a tendency toward acquiescence, too, which allows ambition to find the simplest way to rise. It does no good to fight the man when being the man is your deepest aspiration. So I broke it off, ignored the wailing of my heart as I delivered the news over the phone, and found some solace in the long-legged, straight-haired girls in the groves behind my classmates’ pools.
“I was already at Yale when I heard the news. A lawyer named Liam Byrne had contacted my family before going to the police. Colleen had accused me of rape.
“It wasn’t true, of course. But Colleen had discovered she was pregnant after I’d broken it off. She didn’t know what to do. She was alone and scared, and abortion was out of the question. When she told her parents, they were so hurt and angry, both, that the word ‘rape’ just slipped out. It was perfectly understandable; it was a direct result of my cowardice. But once it was out, her parents seized upon the accusation, and it snowballed. And soon the charge had taken on a life of its own, and she was unable to take it back. I called her from Yale, and the conversation didn’t go well. We were both hurt and angry and scared, and I said some things I should never have said. It was going to get ugly, I could feel it. But your father gave everybody a way out.
“He went to my family before going to the police. Once the police had it, it would be part of the public record forever. But your father promised to make it disappear, for a price. There would be money exchanged, of course. But also custody of the child was to be considered. In light of the accusation, and the phone call, I had to agree to counseling and to never try to contact Colleen or the child, ever. Under the circumstances it was a price my parents were only too happy to pay. One of my mother’s relatives handled negotiations on our side, to make sure it all stayed quiet, and the agreement was signed and the money transferred.
“ ‘Let that be a lesson to you, Francis,’ my mother told me. ‘Always be careful with whom you associate. And never underestimate the brutal dishonesty a woman is capable of, despite her gleaming surface. I know, dear, believe me, I know.’
“And it was a lesson I took to heart. Seeing my future suddenly imperiled and then revived, I began to cultivate it avidly, as if it were a rare orchid that needed constant care. I excelled at Yale, was inducted into Skull and Bones, married into an old-line Boston family, went home to Philadelphia and claimed my place in the family business. It was only a matter of time before I would take the next step. And so, in 1994, with the Republicans poised to gain control of Congress, and with the financial backing of both my wife’s family and my own, I declared my candidacy for the United States Congress.
“I won the nomination in a hotly contested battle, determined by an onslaught of hard-hitting television ads, and looked to be a lock in the general election, when I was approached by a figure from my distant past.”
“My father,” said Kyle.
“It felt like a ghost had come back to haunt me,” said the senator. “The ghost of my own desertion of Colleen. He told me that he couldn’t, in good conscience, allow a rapist to waltz into Congress without the public becoming aware of what had happened. He told me it was a matter of national interest. Despite the nondisclosure clause in the agreement, despite the injury it would cause to his client, Colleen, who had started life anew in Ohio with her son and a husband, despite its being a violation of his code of professional responsibility, he said as a patriot he had no choice. He was going to give the file to the press if I didn’t pull out of the race.”
“So what did you do?”
“I panicked,” said the senator. “It wasn’t just my future I was trying to protect, it was Colleen’s, too. And my son’s, the son whom I had never met but still thought about frequently. My father had drunk himself to death by then, so I went to my mother. She told me to offer him money. I told her that Liam Byrne wasn’t interested in money, and she gave me one of her smiles, like I was nothing more than an innocent fool. I didn’t think it would matter, but I gave it a shot. I was ashamed to broach the subject, just as you were today, but I did it. And to my surprise, that’s when the negotiation started.” “Negotiation?”
“Yes. We bought off your father. We bought the file.” “How much did you pay him?”
“A lot. Enough for him not to have to worry about money for a long time. Half a million dollars.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No. The transfer took place in a deserted lot by the river. A suitcase full of cash. And he took it, and that was the end of it. But it felt wrong, it felt rotten. I was disgusted with the whole thing, and I was thinking of quitting the race. But then your father died. And later I learned about Colleen. It was too much. My mother told me to forget it all, that it was over. ‘Think of your future, dear,’ she told me. ‘All that remains is your future.’ And so I stepped into it.”
“Half a million dollars?” said Kyle.
“Yes. But it always rankled, not the money, but the denial. And I was disappointed in your father, too. Maybe because I secretly hoped he would release it, and then my future would go down the tubes and I’d be free in a way I never had been before. Things would have changed, that’s for sure. I would have had to deal with Colleen and my son. Who knows what would have happened? But I always regretted that I never found out. And I won’t do it again. Colleen’s gone, my son is a now a doctor in Cleveland; he can take the truth. Do what you want with that file, Kyle, and do it with my blessing.”
“But if you didn’t want the file, then why did you come?”
“I came because of something Malcolm said. By the way, have you been in touch with him today?”
“No.”
“He seems to have disappeared. Strange. Anyway, he told me you knew what really happened to Colleen.”
“And you don’t?”
“No. But I’d like to know.”
“She died.”
“I know that. She drowned accidentally in a lake.”
“No, she was murdered.”
His eyes widened. “By whom?”
“I thought by you.”
The senator shook his head. “I loved her,” he said. “Even after everything that happened, I still do. She was the love of my life. I could never have hurt her. How do you know she was murdered?”
“Because after she drowned, somebody tried to kill my father.”
“When was this?”
“Nineteen ninety-four.”
“How do you know that someone tried to kill your father?”
“I just do.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll believe you.”
“But whoever killed her and tried to kill my dad, it didn’t end there. I believe that the same person killed Laszlo Toth and then burned down my old house.”
“Because of the file?”
“Why else?”
Francis Truscott IV sat there and thought for a bit, and then he closed his eyes, put his hands over his face. “My God,” he said softly.
“What?”
“No matter how sharp we think we are, Kyle, the only ones we’re able to fool all the time are ourselves.”