Drummer In the Dark

by T. Davis Bunn

  Jackie waited long enough for the silence to press down on them both, then asked, “What do you want me to do?”

  “There’s a seminar at the University of Maryland tomorrow,” Esther replied. “I was supposed to represent Graham. Now I’ll have to be at the hospital. But somebody needs to go and observe the enemy’s movements.”

  “You mean the congressman who was just here?”

  “Wynn Bryant. Yes. A terrible man.”

  “I’ll go,” Jackie said. “It’s no problem.”

  But the offer only left Esther more sorrowful. “I’m counting the hours and watching the sand fall. And I’m helpless to do anything that matters. Everything my husband fought for is threatening to unravel, unless I can find someone to champion his cause.”

  14

  Saturday

  WYNN AROSE LATE and took the day’s paper and several files downstairs with him. He ordered a full breakfast to make up for the dinner he had not eaten the night before. The Willard’s main dining room was a beaux arts masterpiece, the chamber’s sweeping scope magnified by rich colors and gold leaf. People came and went, waiters bustled in hushed efficiency, daylight traced a silent timeline across the carpeted floor and linen-draped tables. He reread the Jubilee Amendment file but found it impossible to understand. The file assumed a background knowledge that he simply did not possess. When the lunch crowd finally began to trickle in, Wynn went by the front desk to request a car, then returned upstairs to call his sister. He got the Saturday switchboard operator at the governor’s mansion, a recorded message on Sybel’s cellphone, and no answer at all on their private number. He returned downstairs to find a new Lincoln and driver waiting by the front doors.

  At his request, the driver took the Rock Creek Parkway, where Wynn was surrounded by a mint green world and the fragrances of springtime and rushing waters. Along both sides of the highway, dogwoods and tulip poplars offered cloud puffs of childlike peace. Wynn rolled down his window and set his face to the breeze, but found himself unable to shut out Esther’s echoing tirade. His mind probed with the precision of a tongue moving across an aching tooth.

  College Park was an aging middle-class town located out beyond the Goddard Space Center. The university itself was big and flat and sprawling, composed of redbrick buildings with white-pillared porticoes whose former gentility was sliding into urban seediness. As they drove through the university campus, Wynn used his cellphone again to try and raise his sister. Sybel was usually fastidious about remaining in touch. Wynn let the private upstairs phone ring at least a dozen times. Nothing. As they pulled up in front of the assembly building, Wynn called back to the main switchboard. The operator claimed to know nothing of Sybel’s movements and said only that Governor Wells had left strict instructions not to be disturbed. Wynn rose from the limo with yet another unanswered question for his collection.

  He climbed the stairs and entered a large outer chamber filled with people and coffee-break clatter. If the gathering found anything incorrect in his arriving six hours late, they did not show it. As soon as Wynn gave his name, he was surrounded. Eager faces and outstretched hands pressed in from all sides.

  A beefy man in a wrinkled suit finally pushed his way forward. “Congressman Bryant, did I get that name right? We only heard yesterday you’d be coming. Couldn’t believe it, to tell the truth. Reverend Dan Freedburg. Great to have you.”

  Wynn allowed the guy to pump his hand, then spotted a blond woman cruising in close behind the pastor. It was the young lady from Esther’s living room. The wince gathered in his gut and rose slowly. But the woman did not speak. She merely stood there and watched.

  “Really great you’d take the time to be here, especially your first week in office. But I guess we shouldn’t have expected anything less from Graham’s replacement. Only wish you had been elected earlier.” The pastor grabbed Wynn’s arm and turned back, saying to the crush, “Give us a little room, people. We’ll all have a chance to speak to the congressman soon enough.”

  Wynn was distinctly aware of the blond woman trailing his movements. “Why earlier?”

  “Because of his first stroke. The doctors warned him if he didn’t slow down he’d be done for. We begged him to resign. But he wouldn’t let the cause go. No surprise, I suppose. You know how Graham is.”

  “No,” Wynn corrected. The blond woman was so close he could smell her, fresh soap and something natural. Lavender perhaps. “I don’t.”

  That halted Freedburg. “Don’t what?”

  “I hardly know Graham Hutchings,” Wynn said, determined to enter this without pretense of any kind. “And I know nothing about his cause.”

  The pastor did not look surprised so much as stricken. Wynn went on, “Two White House staffers asked me to come today. I’m here to listen and to learn. If you’ll let me.”

  The gathering gave off a single unified sound, somewhere between a sigh and a lament. “Then you don’t know anything,” the pastor said slowly, “about the Jubilee Amendment?”

  “The name, nothing more.”

  “So you’re not here to address us.”

  “To be honest, I’d just as soon you not introduce me at all.” The pastor looked so wearied by his words, Wynn repeated, “Like I said, I’m here because I’m interested in learning more.”

  “I’m sorry, Congressman. If you don’t already know, I doubt seriously you can be brought up to speed fast enough to do us any good.” He waved toward the main hall. “You’re welcome to sit in, of course.”

  The pastor and most of the others trickled away, leaving Wynn standing by the entrance to the assembly room. People continued to drift by, giving him bitter looks. Only the blond woman remained close by. Despite the surroundings, Wynn found himself captivated by the young woman’s gaze. The thought in his head was, Cop’s eyes. Wide and absolutely alert. An expression that said no matter what he might do, no matter how deranged, she would not be surprised.

  Wynn asked, “Esther told you to shadow me?”

  The woman said merely, “That’s right.”

  “Esther will be pleased to hear I’ve disappointed another crowd.” He walked to an aisle seat midway back. The woman hesitated, then came over and seated herself beside him. Wynn offered his hand. “Wynn Bryant.”

  Small fingers with an almost masculine strength took hold swiftly, then released. “Jackie Havilland.”

  “You’ve known Esther long?”

  Her gaze was steady and unyielding. “I’m not worth your worrying over, Congressman. And I hate small talk worse than anything.”

  “Take your seats, if you would, please, let’s get restarted.” The beefy pastor stood by the podium and waited for the din to subside, then continued, “I’ve just spoken with the hospital. Graham’s operation is scheduled for seven this evening. I know a lot of you will want to be praying for him and Esther.”

  Wynn asked the Havilland woman, “Surgery?” But she waved him away like a buzzing pest.

  The pastor went on, “Congressman Wynn Bryant, Graham’s replacement, is here with us today. Raise your hand, please, Congressman. There he is. I’m sure some of you will want to go by and make him feel welcome.” The announcement brought the pastor no pleasure. “You know we had hoped for Esther to be here with us this afternoon, to speak on her husband’s behalf. But that’s not going to be possible. So we’ve arranged to close with a recording from an earlier assembly, one a lot of us here won’t soon forget.” He craned and searched the back of the room, asked, “We ready yet?”

  An unamplified voice called back, “Thirty seconds.”

  “Fine. Most of us consider Graham Hutchings a fallen hero, a martyr to the cause. He is also a dear friend. I’m sorry he’s not here with us today, more sorry than I’d ever be able to express. But perhaps this video will help instill in us the fire we need to go on.”

  As the pastor stepped away from the podium and walked to an empty seat on the front row, Wynn leaned over and asked, “Any chance you can tell me what thi
s Jubilee thing is about without biting my head off?”

  There was nothing halfway about this woman, not even the way she studied him. “You don’t know?”

  “All I know,” Wynn said, not wanting to risk anything but the truth, “is a lot of people want to see this thing go away. I’ve got a whole pile of questions and not a single answer.”

  “The Jubilee movement has been around for a couple of years,” Jackie replied quietly, facing front. Giving him a profile of hard angles and blond-tinted skin. “It’s a worldwide effort to reduce the debt carried by third-world nations. Over two dozen countries currently spend more on interest payments than they do for education and health care. American banks have fiercely resisted any attempt to write down these debts. Legislation has been enacted, but the appropriations have remained tied up in committee. The banking lobby has fought tooth and nail to kill these bills. The politicians have gone along with it, since they can point to the laws and claim they’re doing something to help out. But without funding, the laws remain empty promises.”

  Wynn declared softly, “This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  But the screen lit up again, and Graham Hutchings’ face appeared. The lights dimmed, and Wynn asked his question to the shadows. Something wasn’t right here. He was being struck from all sides—the governor, a senator, his own aides, White House flunkeys, the party chief, and for what? How much money could they be talking about here? A billion in debt relief? Okay, it was a lot, but less than what America spent on defense in a day. A billion or even twice that wasn’t enough to generate this kind of heat.

  The image that flashed on the screen was of a very different Graham Hutchings from the man Wynn had seen the night before. One not so much younger as energized, a world away from the living corpse trapped on the bed. “I am not going to mince words. I have come to the cause of financial reform from a completely different direction than most of you here. My intention has never been to serve the unwashed hordes of other nations. I am here to serve the people who elected me, and the nation I love and call my own. But it so happens that our aims coincide, yours and mine. You say we stand on a financial precipice. I agree. You speak of nations far beyond our shore. I speak of the here and the now. Our problem, ladies and gentlemen, is the same. Our foe is identical.

  “Today, all ten of the largest U.S. banks receive more than half their profits from dubiously named ’investment banking’ divisions. In truth, these divisions have nothing whatsoever to do with investments in the classical sense. They are paper traders. They deal in currencies, commodities, options, bundled mortgages, interest-rate spreads, corporate tax write-offs. Any number of such deviant aberrations of the banking industry’s original purpose. The name given to this and a myriad of other high-risk actions is derivative trading.

  “After the horrors of the 1929 Wall Street crash, our nation enacted laws to ensure that the level of risk taken by banks would be tightly controlled. But during my time in Washington, I have watched the banking industry and their sister organizations, the fund managers, use every trick in the book to subvert the will of the people and their elected officials. Through carefully worded amendments slipped into crucial pieces of legislation, the banking lobby has stripped away virtually the entire system of checks and balances set in place after the crash of twenty-nine.”

  Wynn cast a swift glance around him. The rapt audience came from every walk of life. There were numerous priests, pastors, and nuns. The hall itself was tawdry and as unimpressive in Washington terms as the people. He recalled the derisive comments of the White House lackeys and felt anger and agreement both.

  “The worst risk takers of them all, ladies and gentlemen, are known as hedge funds. Hedge funds operate on very thin margins and take huge gambles, particularly within the currency markets. When they are successful, they make enormous profits. When they fail, the losses can be catastrophic. Why? Because the investors are not only liable for whatever amount they have invested in the fund. They are liable for everything the fund loses. There is no limit to their total exposure. Does that sound correct to you? Does that sound sane? Of course not. So up until a few years ago, hedge funds could not operate within the United States. Investors had to track them down in places such as the Bahamas or Bermuda or Liechtenstein or Singapore. But our banks watched these potential profits going elsewhere and had their lobbyists press Congress for another one of these little amendments. So now, lo and behold, not only are hedge funds operating within our borders, the largest of them are now owned by our banks. Only they don’t call them hedge funds. Oh no. They are known as ‘private equity funds,’ and are operated within these investment banking divisions. As if that would make them safe. As if the risk is not still catastrophic.

  “The dangers of such institutions are enormous. When Long Term Credit, a Wall Street hedge fund operated by two Nobel Prize winners, collapsed recently, nobody even knew how much outstanding debt they carried. Do you hear what I am saying? Nobody knew. And who was their largest investor? One of the country’s biggest consumer banks. One of the cornerstones of our financial community had given a credit line to this group, and suddenly found itself facing a mountain of debt. How much? At the critical point, when the LTC meltdown was at its peak, it is said they faced sixty billion dollars in assumed liability. Enough to bring it crashing down. And that was just one hedge fund. Six of our top ten banks now operate hedge funds in-house. There are over fifty within our borders. Carrying how much risk? Who knows? Our federal reserve system certainly doesn’t. Why? Because at this point the hedge fund industry and the derivatives trading industry are both totally uncontrolled.”

  Wynn could see now why Hutchings had suffered his strokes. The man did not speak, he raged. He flailed his arms and he pounded the podium. He shouted his ire. The longer he spoke, the more furious he became. It was the performance of a man on the edge.

  “Banks have utterly forgotten their creed to serve the clients entrusting them with their money. Banks are no longer there to serve the local community. Profits from such ventures are too small, too regulated. Banks are responsible first and foremost to their shareholders, most of whom could not care less about the banks’ traditional role. So banks spend hundreds of millions of dollars, not just in America but all over the developed world, subverting the laws established after the first Great Depression. In the minds of many people far more knowledgeable than myself, it is only a matter of time before a second depression strikes.

  “My premise, ladies and gentlemen, is simple. International hedge funds have become the demons of the globalization process. Those banks that have become mired in derivatives and hedged operations are time bombs waiting to explode. They threaten to demolish our entire economic well-being in the process. Globalization is good only so long as it serves. Globalization must earn its place in the world. How? By improving and stabilizing economies.”

  The speech was then interrupted by loud cheers and applause. It took Wynn a moment to realize the tumult was both recorded and live. Hutchings’ response was interesting. He showed a great impatience as he waited through the interruption. The applause was not his intention here. He burned with the need to go on.

  “But these so-called investment bankers don’t want stability. Stability means balance and predictability, and this kills any chance for extreme profits. Hedge funds and derivatives traders all hold one point in common: They feed on instability. They want chaos. They want dramatic swings. And where they can, they will foster even greater swings. These so-called investment bankers act with utter disregard for the effects of their conduct on the small and the defenseless. It is a replay of the Roaring Twenties, now performed on a global scale. They are the barbarian hordes, threatening the empire with oblivion. They have to be reigned in. They must be tamed.”

  Wynn’s final view of Hutchings was cut off by the people in front of him rising to their feet. As the lights rose over the assembly, Wynn caught sight of many faces sta
ring into the now-blank screen with a tragic sense of lost hope and failed dreams. Yet they applauded still, shaming him with their sad fervor.

  He turned to the woman beside him and asked, “What does all this have to do with third-world debt?”

  But Jackie Havilland rose and left without a word or a backward glance. And the others applauded still.

  15

  Sunday

  JACKIE’S SUNDAY MORNING began with a surprise all its very own. Kay Trilling called and asked if she wanted a ride to the hospital where Graham was recovering from surgery. Jackie’s precoffee brain had difficulty wrapping itself around both the words and the woman’s tone. Trilling did not sound friendly, but she certainly had lost her hostile edge. Jackie said, “Recovering?”

  “Apparently Graham didn’t have a stroke at all. The doctors are now calling it a subdural bleed. The important thing is he might recover. Graham is still with us. For the moment, that’s enough.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Outside in the hotel lot. Are you dressed?”

  “Five minutes.”

  “I’ll get you a coffee. How do you take it?”

  “Black.”

  “I’m driving a gray Buick.”

  Jackie was down in three. Kay Trilling stepped from the car, handed over the cup, said in greeting, “I woke you up, didn’t I.”

  “It’s no problem.” She peeled off the top, took the first welcome sip, and scouted the empty lot. “Where’s your entourage?”

  “You were expecting the senator to have a dark limo and a few Secret Service in tow?” Today Trilling was dressed in a pastel silk knit suit. She had the sleek look of a woman who battled daily against her age. “That just happens in the movies. In real life, senators and congressmen don’t rank so high. Only presidents and cabinet members get such perks.”