The Presence (13 page)

On top of these he opened the half-size
City Paper,
a weekly local filled with little besides gossip. Having these tidbits of useless information at his command gave him a sense of security when making idle conversation with the locals and longtime residents. It made him feel a little less the outsider in this strange, big town.

At the bottom of the
City Paper
's inside cover was a quarter-page ad for erotic garments, featuring a woman in a leather and chain outfit. A white slash announcing a major sale discreetly covered her breasts. He read the description of rubber and leather items on sale and wondered who on earth would be willing to shell out good money for such trash. He turned the page, spotted Chuck Shephard's column, and read: “In May, a Yonkers, New York, eighth-grade boy broke his teacher's nose with a flurry of punches after the teacher demanded that he pledge allegiance to the flag. The boy said it was against his religion.”

Silverwood snorted his disgust and wished he had been there to defend the teacher. What the child needed was a taste of his own medicine. He imagined a snuffling, bloody-nosed kid being led through the Pledge of Allegiance by the threat of further punishment. Yes. Make the punk stand there and say it a thousand times.

His breakfast arrived, and he laid down the paper and dug into Eggs Benedict without the Hollandaise sauce—basically two poached eggs with cheese and Canadian bacon on two halves of an English muffin. An overpriced Egg McMuffin, he thought.

****

In the taxi on his way to the office, Silverwood opened his briefcase, spread out his work, and did his best to ignore the early-morning traffic snarl. The trip took over half an hour; thankfully this morning he was not required to share the cab, as often happened.

Politicos deemed it best to keep taxi fares as low as possible by doing away with the meter and allowing cabs to charge by the number of city districts they passed through. It was also agreed that the drivers could pick up a second fare, provided both passengers were going in the same direction.

Silverwood disliked the strange closeness of a shared cab. He was still new enough to become outright angry at the stone faces and cold silence of people sitting right beside him. Washington political staffers were the most arrogant, impolite upstarts he had ever met.

Three mammoth buildings of marble and granite and statues and pillars flanked Independence Avenue across from the Capitol. In Silverwood's opinion the most magnificent was Longworth, the middle building, where his suite of offices was located. It still gave him a thrill to pass beneath the massive columns and enter the marble portico, where the guards greeted him with a respectful nod, no longer needing to check his badge. As he stood and waited for the elevator with the small lighted sign “Members Only,” he felt he had really arrived—a member of the exclusive club of political power.

The rabbit warren that was his third-floor office was an entirely different matter. There was simply not enough space. There was never enough space in Washington. He had been warned of this before he arrived, but nothing could have prepared him for the cramped quarters his staff was forced to endure. They accepted it because they had to and ignored their working environment as much as possible. The only time he had heard them disagree was over space. Normally his office was filled with the good-natured cynicism of young staffers thrilled over the chance to stand close to the throne and help shape policy. But let anyone dare threaten their tiny fleck of floor space, and bombs began exploding.

His office was a suite of five rooms, counting the antechamber where two secretaries were separated by a sofa and two chairs. His personal assistant and secretary shared the room next to his own, while the other seven staffers hung themselves from coatracks and perched on the windowsills, as far as he could tell. With everyone seated at a desk—which was seldom—the air seemed too close to breathe.

The doors opened at his floor and he strode purposefully forward, almost colliding with a young woman walking down the hall. When she saw who he was the flash of irritation changed to eager friendliness.

“Good morning, Congressman Silverwood,” she said, giving him her number-one smile. Her blond attractiveness was powerful, and the message in her eyes was clear. “I'm Sally Watkins, Congressman Hesper's secretary? He's on the housing subcommittee with you?” A lilt made every sentence into a question. “I saw you at the hearing last week?”

“Of course, how nice to see you again.” Hesper was a crass old war-horse who habitually slept through all but the first five minutes of every hearing unless the press was out in force. Silverwood vaguely recalled seeing this breathtaking beauty at the subcommittee's opening session.

“I thought your comments were great, really super.”

Silverwood's appointment to the new subcommittee investigating the Department of Housing and Urban Development had been a mixture of chance, timing, and skillful maneuvering. He had overheard a couple of journalists at a Washington cocktail function discussing the HUD investigation, and one had predicted that it would be the Watergate of the new administration. At that time Silverwood had known nothing except that discrepancies had been found and an investigation was imminent. Misuses of federal funds were fairly common, and investigative subcommittees were burdens to be avoided at all cost—unless they could result in political mileage.

A few phone calls the next day uncovered the fact that what initially had been only a few questionable items was turning into an avalanche. As a policy analyst with the ultra-conservative American Enterprise Institute put it, the feds turned over a rock and the roaches scattered for cover. Is it big, Silverwood asked. Depends on what you mean by big, his friend replied. It won't bring down the government. But by the time the investigation's finished, HUD'll probably look like somebody let off a grenade in a dump truck.

So Silverwood visited with the Minority Whip and a couple of new allies and discovered that a seat was still open on the subcommittee. He jumped at it, and the day after his name was put down, the Washington papers exploded with front-page headlines on HUD improprieties. The Whip later said that his secretary fielded three dozen calls from various congressmen offering everything from their seats on the Finance Committee to their daughters for a place on the subcommittee.

Recalling that opening hearing, Silverwood glanced briefly at Sally Watkins's shapely form, then back to the long white-blond hair, sparkling blue eyes, and inviting mouth. She glowed with youth and good health and eagerness. He recalled the words of a senior senator who had told him about the Washington girls who chased after elected officials. Power groupies, the man called them, and mighty nice, if you get my drift. Silverwood laughed, thought the man weak for risking a life's ambition for a moment's pleasure.

What he had not realized was that they could be so beautiful. “Maybe we could get together for lunch sometime,” he found himself saying.

Her look made his toes curl. “I know how busy you are during the day. Why don't we have a drink after work?”

He agreed, and watched her sway down the hall, wisps of hair streaming out behind her like blond beckoning hands. With a shake of his head and a frown to cover awakened desire, he turned and walked to his chambers.

His assistant, Bobby Hawkins, was perched on the arm of the sofa in the outer office, listening to a man in sunglasses. Silverwood walked on through quickly, knowing that if the visitor was unimportant or had not made an appointment, Bobby would take care of it.

The second office was a tiny afterthought where his secretary, Marge Daley, and Bobby worked in claustrophobic circumstances. He stopped at Marge's desk to check the mail.

“Who's the guy with Bobby?” he asked.

“Your first appointment,” Marge said, handing over a typed copy of the day's schedule. She was gray-haired and efficient and a jewel beyond price as far as Silverwood was concerned. She had stood by him through the worst of the campaign, working impossible hours and proving herself time after time. She was married to her work and totally loyal to him. She was also prickly as a cactus with most other people. His staff had nicknamed her Miss Horney Toad and called her office The Little Shop of Horrors. Bobby was the only person she approved of completely, probably because he was as loyal as she was.

“I call it inertial advocacy,” came a dry voice from the outer office. Silverwood thought the man sounded three days dead.

“Not bad,” Bobby replied. “Did you key that one up yourself?”

“I did indeed. It means a lobbyist who's out to stop change of all kinds. I personally believe it's an idea whose time has come. Think of all the people out there who are terrified of change. The man who champions such a cause should reap enormous benefits.”

Marge rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, and Silverwood smiled. “Tell Bobby to come in alone first.”

Bobby Hawkins was a chubby cherub in wire-rimmed spectacles. His clothes were always wrinkled, his glasses always sliding down his nose, his tie always loosened and slung over to one side, his shirt pocket always full of pads, slips of paper, and numerous pens. He never walked; he slouched from place to place. But he had a photographic memory and an awesome ability to assess the political winds. He was indispensable.

Bobby slid himself into the chair opposite Silverwood's desk. “What do you think of our walking cadaver?”

Still glancing through papers, Silverwood asked, “Why does he keep his sunglasses on? He's twenty feet and three rooms from the nearest window.”

“Probably afraid of the light.” Bobby fished through his pocket, pulled out a calling card, and tossed it on the desk. “Anthony Shermann, senior partner with Shermann, Blinders and Bledd.”

“You're kidding. Is that really what they're called?” Silverwood dropped the papers and picked up the card. “You'd think with a name like that they'd have starved to death.”

“Ted Robinson set up the appointment.”

That made him look up. “Robinson called?”

“The man himself,” said Bobby. “I did some checking. Shermann and Company are one of the biggest corporate law firms in DC. The senior partners don't practice much anymore, though. They spend their time walking the halls of power.”

Silverwood gave a low groan. “Lobbyists.”

Bobby nodded. “Loyalty for sale. I've just about decided I'm in the wrong business, Congressman. Know how much that boy charges? A thousand bucks an hour. One of his assistants let it slip.”

“So what does he want?”

“He didn't say.” A steely glint appeared in Bobby's eyes. “But I can guess.”

“The HUD investigation,” Silverwood said.

“Too right. There must be a lot of guys out there who're not happy over having their honey jar taken away.”

“Maybe you'd better sit in on this one.”

“You kidding?” Bobby stood and dragged over a second chair. “I wouldn't miss this for the world.”

Anthony Shermann's handshake was as dry as parchment and as lifeless as his voice. “Such a pleasure to finally meet you, Congressman Silverwood.”

“Likewise.” Silverwood debated about whether to ask him to take off the sunglasses. “Take a chair.”

“Thank you so much.” The man eased himself down as though afraid a harsher movement would break something.

“So you're a friend of Ted's.”

“Oh my, yes. Mr. Robinson and I have worked together on a number of issues over the years. I have very few regular clients, you see. Too costly. Most people don't want to pay unless there's a crisis. But when there's an urgent problem, why, they come running to me.” Shermann laughed, a sound like dry husks rattling in the wind. He waved a hand vaguely, said, “And then I have need of good men like Mr. Robinson.”

“And you have a crisis now, I take it,” Silverwood said, thinking the man sounded positively reptilian.

“Rather a large one, I'm afraid. There's a construction firm that stands to lose a great deal of business from this HUD investigation.”

Silverwood resisted the urge to give Bobby a confirming glance. “I see.”

“Oh my, yes. Such a lot of business. And a great deal of it is in your district. They employ over a thousand people in eastern North Carolina, and all on HUD-related projects.”

“And you're afraid there have been some unlawful activities?”

“Not unlawful, no, such a harsh word. Nothing unlawful, I assure you. All we have here is a solid, respectable builder trying to make a living in a horribly competitive market.” Thin fingers raised to fiddle with his glasses. The lenses were clear at the bottom, darkening to completely opaque halfway up, hiding the man's eyes. “I wonder how many of us could come up squeaky clean under the microscope of a congressional investigation?”

Silverwood felt his hackles rise. Was the man threatening him? Whatever the case, he had heard enough. “Mr. Shermann, I can assure you that all of our investigations will be as thorough as the due process of law allows. And if your client is found to have been involved in criminal activities, I will personally see that he is prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

“Well, I suppose that's all I can do today, then, isn't it?” There was no change in expression or tone. His words had the depth and feeling of a machine. Shermann rose to his feet. “I just thought I should make you aware of the situation. Good day, Congressman.”

When he was gone, Bobby grimaced. “I wonder if he catches flies with his tongue.”

“That was too easy,” Silverwood said.

“He got what he was looking for,” Bobby agreed.

“But what good is that going to do him?” It worried Silverwood that the man had gone to all the trouble of making an appointment and then left without a fight.

“Maybe all he wanted was to be able to show his client that he could put the issue up before somebody on the committee. Show that his contacts are strong enough to justify his fee.”