by Stephen Frey
A strange, almost inaudible alarm triggered deep within Robinson’s brain. Roth was pushing too hard, too fast. “I need to see your identification,” he said firmly.
Roth reached inside his suit coat, removed a large black leather wallet, and flipped it open so Robinson could see the heavy gold badge and photograph inside. “As I said over the phone, I am special detail to the Assistant Attorney General.” Roth flipped the wallet closed and replaced it inside his suit pocket.
For a moment Robinson considered asking for another look at the identification. He was suspicious because Roth had snapped the wallet shut so quickly. But the badge had seemed official enough, and how in the hell was he going to tell if it was authentic, even if he did get another look? The second request would only irritate Roth, and Robinson wanted no part of that. Within the federal government the Justice Department had the reputation of being hard-nosed and vindictive.
“Let me ask you something, Gordon,” he said. “Why are you so interested that I’ve pulled a few tax returns?”
Roth nodded. “That’s a fair question.” He tapped the arm of the chair with his fingers before answering, as if carefully considering how much to reveal. “As you know, Elbridge Coleman is running as the Republican Senate candidate against the incumbent Democrat, Malcolm Walker, in the upcoming November election.” Roth automatically lowered his voice as he noticed the waitress returning with their drinks. “We think we may have uncovered some irregularities with Coleman’s campaign. Therefore, we want to know what, if anything, you have. We assume you aren’t pulling those tax returns just for something to do.”
Robinson sat up in his chair. “Irregularities?” That sounded interesting. Perhaps this was going to confirm what he had found.
The waitress finished pouring beer into Robinson’s chilled glass and walked away to take another table’s order.
“Yes, irregularities,” Roth said, after the woman had gone.
“The nature of your suspicion does interest me, I have to admit.” Robinson tried to contain his enthusiasm. “What do you have?”
Roth deflected the question for a moment by raising his glass. “To cooperation by different units of government.” He took a long drink of scotch.
“Right.” Robinson took a sip from his beer as well. “But what do you have on Elbridge Coleman?” He was becoming impatient.
“No.” Roth shook his head. “First I want to know why you are pulling Coleman’s tax returns.”
The alarm intensified. Listen to it, Robinson told himself. “So much for cooperation within the government, I guess.” He grimaced and took another swallow of beer.
For a moment Roth said nothing, just stroked his beard. Finally, he pointed a finger at Robinson. “You’ve done very well for yourself. IRS branch chief—that’s a nice position for a man who grew up in the projects of Jefferson Heights.”
Robinson nodded warily. He had pulled himself out of the predominantly black ghetto with a great deal of hard work. But why did Roth know so much?
“And from what my superior tells me, they have bigger and better things planned for you. I wouldn’t think you’d want to jeopardize all of that.”
“How am I jeopardizing anything?” Robinson was annoyed by the other man’s arrogance.
Roth rolled his eyes, as if the risk should be clear. “Mr. Robinson, I didn’t know it was standard procedure for an IRS branch chief to perform an audit completely on his own, especially an audit of a man running for the United States Senate. I thought that duty fell to the revenue agents. From what we understand, you haven’t assigned this audit to any of the agents reporting to you. You have requested the returns very quietly. You haven’t told anyone else about it at all.”
Robinson felt his temper rising. Roth probably had the office bugged and the phone tapped—it was the only way he could be so well informed. And Justice could put those things in place very easily. “That’s correct. I haven’t told anyone.” Robinson was angry, but uneasy too. It was far from common practice for a branch chief to pull tax records on his own. Revenue agents were supposed to initiate audits, and only with justifiable cause—unless the audit was part of an authorized random program. The senior people were constantly worried that the ACLU would uncover an example of an IRS employee using the tax code to carry out a personal vendetta.
“I doubt you’d want your senior people in Washington to know you were initiating audits of Senate candidates without their prior approval.” Roth launched another missile. “That could become a political nightmare for you if anyone just happened to find out.” The insinuation was clear.
Robinson had met only a few Justice people, but they were all the same—arrogant and full of information. Unfortunately, in this case, the information was accurate. If his superiors in Washington were to find out what he had done, it would become a political nightmare. One that could damage the solid reputation he had worked for many years to build.
The missile had found its mark, and the effect was etched into Robinson’s face. “So why have you pulled the returns?” Roth asked triumphantly, as if there was no doubt the question would finally be answered.
The alarm was screaming at Robinson now. Tell Roth nothing. “I had a gut feeling.”
“What do you mean?”
“Elbridge Coleman came from nowhere. He showed up back in the spring, started burning a whole lot of money on ads, and walked all over the other Republican candidates in the primary. Some of them were seasoned politicians with name recognition, and he crushed them. Now Coleman is running strongly against Malcolm Walker in the general election because he continues to buy advertising and, in my opinion, votes. Malcolm Walker is a popular man in Maryland. Coleman must be spending a lot of dollars to do as well in the polls as he is. Maybe there’s something else going on.”
“There’s nothing wrong with spending one’s cash, Mr. Robinson. Coleman made a great deal of money when he took his software company public. If he wants to spend it on a Senate campaign, I think he’s allowed to do that. It was a free country last I heard.”
“Coleman started that company less than four years ago knowing absolutely nothing about software. Now he’s sold sixty percent of it to the public for fifty million dollars and suddenly he wants to move Malcolm Walker out of the Senate. Walker is an outspoken critic of the Defense Department, and I’ve ascertained that Coleman Technology quietly does a great deal of business with several large defense firms. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the Pentagon brass and the senior executives at the big defense firms wouldn’t mind seeing Walker defeated and Coleman take his place.” Robinson showed his cards. The alarm went eerily silent.
Roth leaned forward. “So you think Coleman is the tip of some sort of conspiracy.”
“It’s possible.” Robinson paused. “And I intend to find out.”
“Sure it’s possible.” Roth laughed sarcastically. “Seriously, if people were going to go to so much trouble to get Walker out of the Senate, why wouldn’t they just kill him? It would be much easier and cost a lot less money.”
“Maybe they will.”
“You thought this up yourself, did you?”
“Yes, I did.” Robinson glanced around uncomfortably.
Roth lowered his voice. “Does your interest in Coleman have anything to do with the fact that you are black and so is Malcolm Walker? That you want to see Walker beat a man like Elbridge Coleman who represents the establishment?”
“What?” Robinson almost spilled his beer.
“Malcolm Walker is a respected man in Maryland, a man blacks hold up as a role model. Maybe you just want to do your part to see him stay in the Senate. To see him remain a role model for your people.” Roth hesitated. “Or maybe it runs even deeper than that.”
“Look, I’ve had just about enough—”
Robinson was interrupted by a scream from the bar. He turned quickly in his chair to see what had happened.
“You’re an ass!” a young woman yelled
at a man wearing a charcoal suit and red tie. “You aren’t going to talk to me like that and get away with it!”
The man shrugged nervously as the lobby went silent and he became the focus of the crowd’s attention. Suddenly the woman reached toward the bar, picked up her glass and splashed its contents in his face, then ran for the exit.
Robinson watched the commotion a moment longer, then turned back to face Roth, who seemed to have found the incident amusing. Robinson picked up his glass. He was irritated and took a long swallow. “Gordon, I don’t appreciate your accusation that I would use my position at the IRS to investigate Elbridge Coleman because he is white and Malcolm Walker is black.” Justice Department or not, Robinson wasn’t going to put up with a comment like that.
Roth waved a hand. “I’m sorry. It was an inappropriate remark. You have every right to be angry. Look, the truth is that we suspect there might be something strange going on in Coleman’s campaign. I don’t think we at Justice would go as far as to suspect conspiracy, but we want to do some more digging.” Roth placed his glass down on the table. “Are you all right, Mr. Robinson?”
Robinson felt his pulse suddenly racing out of control, his heart beating as if it would burst. “I don’t know. I’m feeling a little light-headed.” He loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. “God, my tongue!”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s so dry I can barely feel it.” He slurred his words as his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.
“Maybe I should call a doctor.”
“No, I . . . God!”
Roth stood, deliberately knocking over Robinson’s beer glass. “What is it?”
Robinson grabbed his chest. “My heart,” he gasped. “Jesus Christ, it feels like somebody’s stabbing me with a knife!” He stood up, wavered for a moment, then stumbled forward and fell to the carpet.
Roth turned to the crowd. “Help us here!” he yelled. “Is anyone a doctor?”
A man from a nearby table jumped up and raced toward them, dropping to his knees as he reached the stricken Robinson. A waitress ran to call 911. People stood, pushing forward to see what was going on. And without attracting attention, Gordon Roth slipped through the onlookers to the outer edge of the crowd, then walked calmly to the escalators.
Robinson gazed up at the young man about to administer CPR. The table in the corner of the lobby had been available because Roth wanted a secluded place in which to operate. Roth had made certain the waitress brought a glass for Robinson’s beer because it was easier to drop poison in a wide-mouth glass than a thin bottle. And the woman throwing the drink in the man’s face had been the diversion. It had given Roth the opportunity to slip the drug into the glass undetected. Everything made so much sense now. If only Robinson had listened to his instincts, to that alarm screaming at him from within.
The young man bent over to breathe oxygen into Robinson’s lungs. It wouldn’t make any difference, Robinson knew. They were too efficient, too careful. There would be no second chances. Then his eyelids fluttered shut, and he was gone.
A few moments later, Gordon Roth climbed into the passenger side of the white Explorer parked on a side street near the hotel.
“So, how’d I do?” The young woman who had thrown the drink in the bar smiled at Roth from the driver’s seat.
“An incredible performance.” He leaned across the seat and kissed her, pausing to stroke the pearl necklace he had purchased for her earlier in the day. “Oscar potential.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
The young woman giggled. “Now what?”
“Let’s have some dinner.”
The police officer moved slowly toward the Explorer, parked beneath a light near the loading dock of a deserted warehouse. His senses were on alert, but he wasn’t overly concerned. It was probably nothing more than a drunk couple fooling around. It happened here in the Fell’s Point area all the time. Probably just a man and woman who had met at a nearby bar and couldn’t go home because they were both married and were too cheap to rent a hotel room. The policeman shook his head. What a wonderful world.
He flashed his light inside the truck and instantly realized the situation was much more serious than he had anticipated. A young woman sat behind the wheel, hands at her sides, head back, eyes wide open but unseeing, her throat slashed from ear to ear.
Gordon Roth watched the officer from the darkened window of an abandoned building overlooking the loading dock. As the officer trotted back to his squad car to radio for assistance, Roth removed the wig, beard, and mustache, stuffed them into a bag already containing the bloodied clothes he had worn to kill the woman, and headed toward the stairs.
Chapter 2
One day was much like another to an IRS revenue agent. There were audits, reviews, and paperwork today, just as there had been yesterday, just as there would be tomorrow. Jesse sighed as she surveyed the mess covering the top of her desk. It never got any better. No matter how hard she worked there was always more to do.
She leaned back in her chair and scanned the front page of the Wall Street Journal. A short article about the initial public offering of a high-tech company caught her eye. The company had raised $400 million dollars yesterday by selling 40 percent of its stock to public investors. The entrepreneur who had started the firm ten years before could retire forever if she so desired. And the investment banking firms managing the transaction—Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch—had earned almost $25 million in underwriting fees.
Jesse shook her head as she surveyed her small, drab office. Investment banking in New York City. Now that would be exciting. Her $28,000-a-year government salary would be a drop in the bucket to those people.
It wasn’t that she was greedy. It was simply that she knew what it meant to go without, and it wasn’t any fun. She had grown up in Glyndon—a rural town north of Baltimore—with her nine brothers and sisters. While her classmates had spent weekends buying clothes, records and tapes, she had worked at a local stable making money to help put food on the family table. Her father—a lineman for the phone company—worked hard, but with so many mouths to feed a lineman’s pay didn’t go far, even with the overtime. And her mother had stayed home to care for the children and pursue her lifelong dedication to the Catholic Church.
Jesse reread the article. What would it be like to earn several hundred thousand dollars a year? Was it such a bad thing to want that?
“Jesse?” Sara Adams leaned into the office and knocked on the open door.
“Hi, Sara. Come in.” Jesse put the paper down. She disliked being interrupted during her morning perusal of the Journal, but her expression gave away no hint of irritation. She made it a practice to be as polite as possible. Treat others as you would have them treat you, her mother had always said. Jesse had always followed that advice.
“Reading about investment bankers again?” Sara pointed at the Journal as she sat down in a chair before the desk.
“How’d you know?”
“I saw the article on Goldman and Merrill taking that high-tech firm public. I know how much you want to do that.” There was distaste in Sara’s tone.
“Is that so wrong?” Jesse sensed the resentment.
“From what I’ve heard, the people working at those investment firms in New York are driven by nothing but money. It’s a dog-eat-dog world in a dog-eat-dog city.”
“So you don’t think I’d survive?”
“Forget about survival, I’m talking about quality of life. All they ever do is work. Fourteen hours a day, seven days a week. They’re miserable, even if they don’t realize it. Just as you would be if you got a job up there.” Sara adjusted an earring. “And any free time you had would be spent in that cement jungle called the Big Apple. You were raised in the country, for crying out loud. In Glyndon, Maryland. You’d hate New York City.”
“I could do it,” Jesse said quietly.
“You’re one of the nicest, most genuine people I’ve ev
er met. Why would you compromise yourself? Just for the money?”
“Is it so bad to want comfort? To want a few nice things? I’d like to be able to help my mother out, too. She’s getting old, and it’s hard for her to stay in the house now that she’s alone. She needs to be in a retirement community, but she doesn’t have the money. God knows I can’t provide that for her on twenty-eight thousand a year and take care of myself too.” Jesse’s frustrations rose to the surface.
“How are you paying for school?” Sara was relentless. “It’s got to be costing a lot of money.”
“Loans.”
“So you might be making more money when you graduate, but you’ll have all those loans to pay off.”
“It’ll be worth it in the long run.” Neil’s words from last night.
“Be happy where you are with what you have. Take the time to live a little.” Sara’s face brightened. “Speaking of which, I want you to come with me tonight to the Mount Washington Tavern. This new guy I’ve been dating has a cute friend. I told him all about you, and he wants to get together. He’s a banker, Jesse. You know, stable with money. The type you ought to be dating these days.” Her tone grew maternal.
“I’m sorry, Sara. I’d like to come out with you, but on short notice we’re having a guest lecturer tomorrow night in one of my classes. The woman is a legend in the financial community, and I need to prepare. I don’t want to look foolish in front of her if I’m asked a question.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You never have time for yourself. It’s rush, rush, constantly. You’re going to drive yourself crazy going to business school three nights a week just to make it to New York. It can’t be worth all the stress.”
“I think it is.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. You couldn’t leave the branch.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You wouldn’t be able to tell Neil Robinson you were resigning. You’re his golden girl.”
