by Sean Little
Duff sidled up to Abe. He spoke lowly into Abe’s ear. “Should we tell the blond over there her husband is railing her best friend?”
Abe squinted at Duff. The blond was the very woman who was angling away from her husband’s grasp. “How do you know?”
Duff pointed surreptitiously, angling his index finger toward a tall, brunette drink of water. “She slipped a spare room key into chappy’s back pocket a few seconds ago. They exchanged a wink. I’m pretty sure they’re gonna sneak upstairs when the politicking starts and get to practicing the act of making some future voters.”
Abe had missed the key exchange. He was too busy watching the blond and the tousle-headed guy across from her making goo-goo eyes. “I think we just let that fact lie tonight, Duff. As the Prince said in Romeo and Juliet, ‘All are punished.’”
“Well, if we don’t say anything, she could find out about her husband and it might lead to him becoming a grave man.”
“A pox on both their houses, I think.” Abe steered Duff away from the group. “Come, MacDuff. Lead on.”
“Wrong play.”
“It still works. Let’s boogie.”
AT ONE POINT in the evening, the string quartet put down their instruments and quietly filtered out of the room. It changed the dynamic of conversation in the room. People began to speak in quieter tones. A susurrus of whispers filled the room. The attendees of the fundraiser were waiting for whatever the evening had in store to begin. Most likely it would be speeches, empty promises, and a lot of self-serving glad-handing, but Duff and Abe expected that. Abe was not sure most of the people in the room were as cynical as they were, though. Abe and Duff meandered to the front corner of the room opposite the lectern and microphone on the stage. There was a table in the corner laden with displays of Robert “Even” Stevens in various stages of his personal life and political career dating back to when he ran for Eighth Grade Class President at Holy Angels Catholic Schools.
There was a fanfare of trumpets to herald the arrival of the senator. It was ostentatious and silly, but the gathered mass in the ballroom seemed to eat it up. A loud cheer rose from the group. There was thunderous applause. The crowd surged toward the stage as if the Beatles were about to reunite.
Duff was scowling at the display. “If there are strippers, I’ll immediately register as a Democrat.”
“I didn’t think Stevens was this popular.”
Duff was insouciant. “You don’t sit on a throne for thirty-something years without popularity on your side.”
A door behind the stage opened and the man of the hour, the Distinguished Gentleman from Illinois Robert “Even” Stevens himself emerged to a raucous cheer from the crowd and a blast of music that sounded like a Sousa march with a rap backbeat layered under it. Stevens stepped into a spotlight with a big, toothy smile plastered onto his face. His beard was white and bushy, but not unruly. His hair was mostly gone now, so he opted to shave down what did grow. Stevens, once tall and lean like a boxer, had enjoyed a comfortable Washington life and was showing the paunch of a man who ate a lot of free meals at nice restaurants while listening to lobbyists pitch big-money deals at him. He wore a tailored three-piece suit, a white waistcoat holding his stomach back in a manner reminiscent of everything William Shatner has worn for the last thirty years. His suit was a dark blue, formally cut. He had the requisite flag pin on his lapel and gold watch fob worn high across his belly. A white carnation was pinned high on his chest, just above the pocket where a scarlet pocket square stood out like a vibrant splash of blood. The square seemed to catch the light and sparkle.
Kimberly and Marcus Stevens emerged from the door after the senator had his moment to soak in the adulation of the crowd. “Even” Stevens stepped to the side and held out an arm to acknowledge his family. The cheers remained loud. There were whistles and stomping feet. It was like a rock concert. Abe caught Duff rolling his eyes so hard he probably sprained his ocular nerve.
Kimberly Stevens entered after her husband. Even at her age she still looked like she could run track at Marquette as she had in the ‘70s. Her muscles were toned, and she was still quite thin. She wore a tight LBD with black heels, a double string of brilliant pearls at her neck, simple pearl earrings set into gold pins on her ears. She looked elegant and minimalist. The minimalism enhanced her elegance. Her hair was coiffed in a simple style and had more than a few streaks of gray running through it, but it made her look powerful and confident. Kimberly Stevens gave the crowd a broad smile to match her husband’s grin. As a politician’s wife, she was well-practiced at plastering an unfailing mask onto her face. Project a confident image at all times, that was her duty.
Marcus Stevens entered after his mother. When Abe saw him side-by-side with his father, there was no question in Abe’s mind they were not blood-related. The bone structure, the skin tone, the smile, the eyes—they shared nothing. Marcus had more in common with his mother: angular faces and head-shape, but that was all. Abe saw plenty in Marcus’s face which reminded him of Mindy Jefferson, especially in the eyes. There was a smoldering intensity in Marcus’s eyes. His mouth might have been smiling, but his eyes were observing, watching, processing. Sometimes, you can look at someone’s face and realize their brain is basically little more than a hamster spinning on a wheel or a couple of lemmings chasing a butterfly. Marcus Stevens’s eyes showed he had a whole room of computers whirring and calculating in his head. His intelligence was not masked in the slightest. When Abe looked at him, he saw the face of a future leader, the face of someone who commanded instant respect. He was impressive. There was some of that intensity in Mindy’s face, too. It must run in the family.
Senator Stevens stepped to the microphone with arms still raised. He drank in the radiated adulation of his crowd until the cheers began to die down. Then, with the poise of a skilled and practiced orator, Stevens attacked the microphone and began to woo the donors with the panache and control of a televangelist. “Friends, I cannot tell you how grateful I am to see each and every one of you here tonight. You know as well as I, despite my long and storied career in public service, no election is guaranteed. We are facing a staunch challenge from my esteemed opponent, Mr. Joseph Post. Ol’ Joe Po!”
The crowd gave a loud, throaty boo. A lot of people gave a thumbs-down sign. The room felt more like the crowd at a professional wrestling match than a political fundraiser. Duff blew out his breath in a disbelieving huff. “Jesus Christ.”
“Friends, we’re having this fundraiser tonight because I need your help.” Stevens indicated his wife and son. “We need your help. We cannot defeat the Republicans and their billionaire lobbyists with their pet candidates without your support in votes, in volunteer hours, and in donations. Running campaigns is an expensive, dirty business, and without your assistance, I’d still be a struggling public defender trying to fight the good fight and free the wrongly accused. Without your help, none of this would have ever happened. The Republicans would have continued their stranglehold on the nation and run Chicago into the ground. They would have continued to reward their big-money donors and punished the working class. They would have taken away your healthcare, your retirement, and your right to marry whomever you see fit!”
There was another raucous round of booing. Duff cursed under his breath again. “For Christ’s sake.” He peeled away from Abe, busying himself with the big poster-board displays of Stevens’s life and accomplishments. Duff had zero patience for overt shows of ass-kissing or disingenuous adulation. Duff backed away from the speech and turned his attention to the large display of Stevens’s life.
Abe continued to watch the senator strut and preen on the stage, working the room and stalking the floor with practiced ease like a maestro. The politician hit all the standard Democrat talking points about health care, student loans, and gerrymandering. He scored major points by talking about abolishing the Electoral College so the president would be elected by the popular vote.
Abe scanned the room looking for
anything that didn’t sit right with him. There was a lot which bothered him. Part of his education and training was in Criminal Psychology. While he really didn’t get a chance to utilize his degree in any sort of formal capacity, it had trained him to observe people. He saw a lot in people’s faces, in their body language. If someone was acting in a way contrary to the rest of the crowd, to Abe they usually stood out like a sunflower amongst dandelions. Abe was always cognizant of how he stuck out in a crowd. He never felt like he fit in anywhere, and therefore he always felt like anyone looking at him would wonder why he was there. It was that feeling which made him hypersensitive to anyone else looking like they did not belong. At the moment, most of the crowd was fully behind everything Stevens was saying. Their eyes were up and focused. They were participating, giving feedback where appropriate, whispering between themselves when necessary. Except for one man. In the corner, just to the right of the stage, opposite the corner where Abe and Duff were situated, a hard-looking sixty-something year old man was hiding in the shadows in a black suit with a flag on the lapel and a red lanyard and security badge around his neck. Abe had to really think about where he’d seen the man before. The man was balding and thirty pounds heavier than he’d been in the pictures Abe had downloaded, but Abe quickly realized the man in the corner was Ron Tasker, the campaign manager, the man who had gone to the delivery room where Mindy Jefferson and Marcus Stevens were born.
Tasker looked like he did not want to be in the room. He was dour and stone-faced. He stared intensely at Stevens. Every few beats, he checked a palm-sized notebook in his hand and made a mark with a pen. To Abe, he looked very much like the engine that made the Stevens train run. He was probably marking off the talking points he had wanted Stevens to hit during his grandstanding.
Abe wondered about men like Tasker. What did a guy like that get out of handling a forty-year career in politics, but never running for office himself? Why didn’t he want the limelight? Why wasn’t his name ever on a ticket? Why didn’t he do more interviews?
As someone who had spent twenty years dealing with the more unsavory types in the world in his work as an investigator, Abe could not help but think Tasker’s position was one of convenience. He could do more and get more done without a face in the public. He might be influencing more policy and getting more done behind the scenes than Stevens could ever be allowed to do while his name was on the door of the Senate office.
Abe wondered how many boundaries Tasker pushed over the years. How much of the country was he able to bend and shape to his own will without anyone ever knowing? If the man was willing to more or less kidnap a minutes-old baby from its mother and pay the necessary people to keep it quiet for four decades, where would he draw the line? As usual when it came to politics, Abe wondered if Tasker had anyone killed. Was there a hidden trail of bodies? Abe often wondered that about every politician. How dark did they get in order to keep their cushy Washington D.C. lifestyle? Tasker was a political weapon. His age and years of life as a Washington insider had not dulled his edge. He was still dangerous on the campaign trail. Exactly how dangerous, though? That was a question Abe would have liked to have answered.
DUFF WAS CAPABLE of ignoring many things in life. Over the years of training himself to ignore classmates, teachers, his parents, and people surrounding him in malls, ballparks, or movie theaters he had a laser-focus which could not be broken. Once he realized Stevens’s speech was nothing more than an excuse to grandstand and get the sheep who actually buy his politician’s promises to heap unwarranted adulation onto the senator, Duff stopped paying attention. It wasn’t like the senator was going to suddenly stop in the middle of one of his practiced deliveries and confess. Hey—did you all know I illegally adopted a baby thirty-five years ago?
The pictures on the board were more fascinating to Duff. There was a very elaborate and well-composed display encompassing Stevens’s entire existence. It was professionally assembled and each little summary of each photo was museum-quality. Several of the photos were mounted on foam core so they jutted off the rest of the boards, but only the most important photos got that treatment. Duff did a little calculation in his head. The board would have cost the Stevens campaign at least five grand, maybe a touch more. Sure, they could use it at every event they threw, in which case it was probably a good investment, but it put a sour taste in Duff’s mouth. Every election cycle was literally millions, if not billions of dollars pissed away as advertising and useless things like pamphlets, mailers, and stupid things like that board. What could America have done with all the money instead of running useless campaigns? The way Duff looked at it, the election process should take less than a month. If you’re so uneducated you can’t figure out what you believe and stand for, and which candidate matches your structure the closest out of the only two who actually have a chance to win, then you don’t deserve to vote.
Duff inspected the chronology of Senator Stevens. There were baby pictures from the ‘50s, a chubby little boy in a red plaid jacket and black tie propped up on a little red pillow.
There were pictures of a young boy at work and play in the ‘60s, shots of the senator on his banana-seat Schwinn delivering papers, shots of him shooting basketballs in the park with his friends, and shots of him doing yard work—all the better to show his constituents he knows the value of hard work, of gettin’ hands dirty.
In the ‘70s, there are shots of the serious young man ready to take on the world, the soldier stage of life as Shakespeare would have called it. Stevens was a serious-faced young man, full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard. Only Stevens wasn’t bearded back then. He was clean-shaven. Not even a mustache. There were pictures of Stevens at college at Marquette University in Milwaukee, campaigning for campus political positions, protesting the Vietnam War, and assisting in the political campaigns for McGovern and Carter. Seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon’s mouth.
In the ‘80s, it was Stevens the young husband and father. The successful, charismatic, black senator on the cover of Jet and Ebony. He was on the talk show circuits, sitting with Carson and Dave, Charlie Rose and Joan Rivers. He was speaking in front of crowds at the Lincoln Memorial. He was meeting with world leaders at State Dinners. He was throwing out the first pitch at the White Sox game or flipping the coin at the Bears game as an honorary captain.
In the ‘90s and ‘00s, it was even more of that. He was an elder statesman, respected and adored. More talk shows. More celebrities. More high-level access to the lawmakers of this country and others. Pictures of Stevens with Mandela and Bishop Tutu, pictures with Bill Clinton and George W. A picture of Stevens with Angela Merkel at a State Dinner. He had made the German leader laugh until she had to wipe tears from her eyes. His opinion was valued by Republicans and Democrats alike. The picture of Stevens with one arm around John McCain’s shoulders and the other arm around Obama’s shoulders during the ‘08 election campaign was particularly telling of how much sway and respect he commanded on both sides of the political aisle.
On a few of the boards there were more candid photos of the senator, pictures taken by family and friends, pictures from behind the facade. There were even two boards dedicated to his family, one for Marcus Stevens and one for the senator’s wife, Kimberly. Each of the secondary boards had photos of Marcus and Kimberly when they were young. Kimberly in a yellow-and-black plaid dress with Mary Janes on her feet. Kimberly and a slightly older boy—probably a sibling or cousin—playing on a swing set at a very nice park, both looking overjoyed to be playing. Kimberly as a star point guard for her high school. Kimberly as a young go-getter at Marquette, where she and Robert would meet. There were photos of Marcus as a toddler in the snow. There were photos of him playing football in high school and at Northwestern. There was a photo of him giving a speech somewhere as a twenty-something barely out of college. All the photos were wholesome. Nice. They showed what could best be described as a sort of American version of a royal family. These people were the elite,
and they lived a life proving it.
In the myriad photos professionally laid-out across the twenty-foot long, five-foot high display of Senator Stevens’s life, one photo caught Duff’s eye. It was an eight-by-ten-inch crowd shot of the wedding of Kimberly and Robert. Something grabbed Duff’s imagination about that photo, but he wasn’t certain. That’s the way his puzzle-brain worked sometimes. It knew there was something in the picture his conscious, working mind needed to see. Carefully Duff focused in on the photo. He leaned across the table to get closer to it. He squinted. It was a shot taken during the couple’s first dance at the reception. His eyes traced the contours of Robert and Kimberly Stevens. Nothing caught him as unusual. His eyes followed the photo’s composition, drifting from the dancing couple in the foreground to the mass of guests in the background. Many of the guests were in shadow. Many weren’t. His eyes leapt from face-to-face trying desperately to figure out what he was supposed to be seeing. In the middle of the right-third of the photo, almost dangerously close to blending into shadow completely, there was a man who stood out just enough for Duff to home in on his face.
The man was wearing a black suit with what looked like a flower in the lapel. His hair was cropped military-close. He had a hard look in his eye. He looked like a veteran, someone who had seen action. On the lower right side of his face, from chin-to-ear, was a bold, puffy scar line. Duff’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. Jackpot.
Duff walked back to Abe and grabbed him by the wrist. Abe tried to protest. “Tasker’s over there.”
“This is more important.” Duff led Abe to the display and pointed out the man. “See anything?”
Abe leaned over the table squinting. “Looks like he was in the Army—” Abe’s words stopped short. His hand went to his chin in an involuntary fashion, tracing the line of the scar of the man in the photo over his own jawline. “That’s the guy, isn’t it?”
