by Ben Bova
“So that’s what you’ve been doing this past month,” Tami said, arching a brow at him. “You’ve been so busy, I was starting to worry you might have found another girlfriend.”
Jake felt truly surprised. “Another…?” Then he realized she was teasing him. “I told you I was working with Frank on his speech.”
“You mentioned it. That doesn’t mean I necessarily believed you.” But she was grinning as she said it.
Jake grinned back at her. “The only other woman I’ve been involved with in the past month is the senator’s public relations director, and she weighs close to two hundred pounds.”
“I’ll bet she had big boobs.”
“Like dirigibles,” Jake said. “But I prefer slimmer, sleeker women. Like you.”
He leaned toward her and they kissed. Then she disengaged and asked, “So the speech is finished?”
“Yes. And it’s good, Tami. It’s dynamite.”
“Says the author.”
“I’m not the only one involved in this. Frank contributed a lot himself. So did O’Donnell, and a couple of the speech writers on Frank’s staff.”
“They must have loved having you involved.”
“I’m not involved, not officially. I didn’t write one line of this speech. I just provided the information and the ideas that the speech is based on.”
“That’s what’s been taking up your nights,” she said.
As he reached for another helping of noodles, Jake said, “It hasn’t been easy, working with the senator without being seen in his office or in public with him.”
He managed to get most of the noodles into his mouth, but some slipped from his chopsticks to the carpeted floor.
“Damn!” Jake snapped.
Tami grabbed a paper napkin from the coffee table and picked up the noodles. “You’re getting better with chopsticks, Jake.”
“Better at decorating the floor, you mean.”
“No, really better. Those noodles are pretty slippery.”
“You haven’t dropped any.”
“I’ve been using chopsticks since I was a baby.” Pointing to the USB drive with the pair in her hand, she said, “So you want me to hand this out to the bloggers I know?”
“Yes. If we could get it on Power Talk, that would be terrific.”
Frowning slightly, Tami said, “Everybody wants to get on Power Talk.”
“Can you do it?”
Tami hesitated. Then, “A former boyfriend of mine had an in with Lady Cecilia. He should be able to help us.”
“Former boyfriend?” Jake growled.
“That’s all over with.”
“Forget it. I don’t want you giving him any ideas.”
Now Tami looked surprised. “You’re jealous?”
“Just being protective,” said Jake, reaching for more noodles.
“I can take of myself,” she said. “Besides, we went our separate ways more than six months ago.”
“Six months ago?”
“Last fall. When I met you.”
* * *
Jake couldn’t travel to Pennsylvania for Tomlinson’s speech, and there was no radio or television coverage of it, so he waited nervously that afternoon and into the evening for some mention of it among the bloggers.
Just before he left his apartment to have dinner with Tami, one of the political blogs popped up a couple of lines:
Senator Tomlinson (R, MT) connects energy policy to the cost of food. In a speech at Lehigh University today the senator said growing crops to produce ethanol fuel has raised food prices around the world.
Not much, Jake thought. He started to close his laptop, but—after a glance at his wristwatch—tried one more blog:
Ethanol starves Third World babies, says US Senator.
Then another:
US Senator claims growing crops for ethanol is an environmental disaster.
Feeling excitement growing inside him, Jake tried the Washington Post’s blog:
Senator B. Franklin Tomlinson (R, MT) links ethanol production to soaring food prices in Middle East and elsewhere.
“Is it fair, is it right, for us to literally take the food out of poor people’s mouths, when we can move to better energy technologies that will make America the world’s leader not only in energy production, but in helping the developing nations to feed their people?” the senator asked.
Proposing a sweeping new energy policy for the US, Senator Tomlinson said, “We have the brains and the skills to change the world. Do we have the heart?”
Jake was halfway through the Post’s rather lengthy piece when his cell phone buzzed. Yanking it from his pocket, he saw that the caller was Tami.
“Tami, I’m sorry. I got caught up—”
“I figured as much,” she said, her voice sounding cheerful, despite a lot of background noise. “I’m at the restaurant with an old friend. We’ll be at the bar when you decide to show up.”
“I’m on my way.”
Jake snapped his phone shut, turned off his laptop, and sprinted out of his apartment.
The Blue Lagoon
The Blue Lagoon was a popular seafood restaurant in Georgetown. It took Jake less time to drive there than it did to find a parking place. Finally he gave in and left his Mustang at one of the exorbitantly priced parking lots.
Stepping into the restaurant, Jake was hit by a wall of noise. The place was jammed, and everyone seemed to be talking at once; the music pounding through the ceiling speakers was unrecognizable through the clamor of conversations, except for a thumping bass beat.
People were crowded four deep at the bar, and it took Jake several minutes to find Tami sitting at the far end, deep in conversation with a young, good-looking blond fellow.
As he elbowed his way through the crowd, Tami looked up and spotted him. “Jake!” she called, waving. “Over here!”
She and her friend were at the very end of the bar. Jake worked his way back there and found a sliver of empty space to stand in.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, after pecking at Tami’s lips.
She gestured to her companion and said, “Jake, this is Bill Fairweather. Bill, Jake Ross.”
Fairweather looked youthfully handsome: pale blond hair combed straight back from his forehead, Nordic blue eyes. He looked solidly built, but Jake noted with some satisfaction that he was at least two inches shorter than himself.
“Bill’s with Norton and Ingels, the public relations consultants,” Tami explained, almost shouting to be heard over the din of the crowd. “We used to see quite a lot of each other back when I worked for Reuters.”
Fairweather grinned at Jake and said, “I’m just one of Tami’s fair-weather friends.”
Jake smiled weakly at the pun as he shook Fairweather’s hand.
Leaning closer to Jake’s ear, Fairweather said, “I read your senator’s speech. Good job.”
“I didn’t write it,” Jake quickly replied. “I’m not on the senator’s staff anymore.”
“So Tami told me.”
A waiter brushed past Jake, frowning, and Jake realized he was standing in the space that led back to the kitchen.
“Can we find a table?”
“Are you kidding?” Fairweather replied, with a patronizing smile. “We’ll be lucky if we can get another stool here at the bar for you.”
Tami said, “Bill knows Lady Cecilia.”
“Really?”
The harried bartender came up and asked Jake, “Whattaya want?”
I want to get out of here, Jake thought. Aloud he said, “White wine.”
“Chard? Pinot gris? What?”
“Sauvignon blanc?”
“You got it.” And the bartender hustled away, down the bar.
Fairweather said, “I’ve known Ceci since she started her blog, back during the Bush administration. Bush Dubya.”
Tami asked, “Can you get us to meet her?”
Before Fairweather could answer, the bartender came back and placed a wineglass
on a coaster. “You wanna set up a tab?”
Jake wanted more than anything else to get away from this noisy, crowded bedlam. But he glanced at Tami and nodded. “Yeah.”
“And bring us some dinner menus,” added Fairweather.
“Only bar menus here,” said the bartender.
“That’s fine.”
Tami touched Fairweather’s arm and repeated, “Can you get us to meet Lady Cecilia, Bill?”
“I don’t see why not.”
Jake knew he should be happy about that. But he didn’t like the idea of being grateful to Fairweather for the favor. He especially didn’t like the idea of Tami being grateful to him.
* * *
Despite a thundering headache by the time the three of them left the Blue Lagoon, Jake googled Lady Cecilia as soon as he got back to his apartment, after dropping Tami off at her Dupont Circle place.
Cecilia Goodlette was a lady by virtue of her third husband, some Englishman with a title. Born in upstate New York, Cecilia had gone through four husbands altogether, divorcing two and burying two, including the Englishman. She grew wealthier each time one of her marriages ended, either through a divorce settlement or an inheritance.
She had started her blog, Power Talk, as a sort of gossip column about Beltway society, a prurient peek at the antics of DC’s rich and powerful. Although she signed her write-ups “Lady C.,” everyone in the District immediately realized who was dishing up the dirt.
Instead of shunning her, the politicians and power brokers made her a celebrity and fed her choice tidbits about who was doing what to whom inside the Beltway. With fame came power, and everyone who was anyone strove to be mentioned on Power Talk as often as possible.
* * *
True to his word, Fairweather wangled an invitation for Jake and Tami to Lady Cecilia’s latest bash, a quiet little cocktail party at her home near Capitol Hill.
Wearing his trusty tuxedo, Jake drove to Tami’s apartment. Before he could get out of the Mustang she came hurrying down the steps, looking magnificent in a glittering silvery mid-thigh cocktail dress.
Tami offered her cheek as she ducked into the convertible. “Don’t smudge my lipstick.”
He gave her a peck and they drove off toward Capitol Hill.
“You’re awfully quiet,” she said as they inched through the early-evening traffic.
“It’s my shirt studs,” he said. “Sometimes they come loose.”
Tami looked at him for a silent moment, then said, “It’s not the shirt studs, Jake. What’s bothering you?”
In the shadows of the car’s interior, she looked so beautiful, so serious.
“Fairweather,” he admitted.
“Bill?” Tami said, surprised.
“What’s he want in exchange for getting us into this party?”
Tami’s face grew serious. “You’re thinking like a politician again, Jake.”
“Nobody in this town does something for nothing,” he muttered.
“That’s true, I suppose.”
“So what does he want?”
“Can’t you guess?”
Looking straight ahead, both hands gripping the steering wheel, he answered, “You.”
Her eyes went wide, then she giggled. “Me? Don’t be silly.”
Jake felt surprise, relief, curiosity all at once.
“Then what?” he asked.
“He wants Senator Tomlinson.”
“Tomlinson?”
“Of course,” Tami answered, matter-of-factly. “He wants you to use your influence to get the senator to meet with him, so he can pitch taking on Norton and Ingels as his public relations representatives.”
Jake felt slightly stunned. “But Frank’s already got a PR rep.”
“A small-timer, according to Bill. He thinks your senator is going places, and Norton and Ingels can help him.”
“That’s it?”
Tami answered smilingly, “That’s the way things get done in this town: I’ll introduce you to this one if you’ll introduce me to that one.”
Jake let out a relieved sigh. “I’ll be damned.”
Tami patted his knee. “Nobody’s interested in me except you. Now let’s meet Lady Cecilia.”
Lady Cecilia
From the outside, Cecilia Goodlette’s home didn’t seem to be all that special: a row house on a side street within the shadow of the Capitol’s dome. But the houses looked wider and in much better condition than the row houses Jake had known as a child. The sidewalks were clean, and each house on the block had a tiny square of grass in front of it. Compared to his old neighborhood, this was posh.
Once inside, the “quiet little” cocktail party turned out to be forty or fifty people, the cream of Washington’s power elite. Most of the men were in tuxedos, the women in sweeping gowns aglitter with jewels. Jake recognized several senators and members of the president’s cabinet, all sipping champagne or harder booze and chatting with each other amiably.
Jake marveled at the intricacies of Washington society. Politicians who were at each other’s throats in public were talking together here like long-lost friends.
Tami and Jake stood just inside the house’s front door, in the small entryway. A young woman in a cocktail waitress’s black short-skirted dress carried a tray of champagne flutes to them. Through the archway that led into the living room they could see that the party was already in full swing.
“That’s Senator Perlmutter,” Tami pointed out, “over by the fireplace with the secretary of agriculture.”
Perlmutter was obese, almost totally bald, his face florid and his hands gesticulating madly as he yammered into the agriculture secretary’s ear.
Bill Fairweather materialized out of the crowd, smiling pleasantly, a highball glass in one hand.
“Welcome to the zoo,” he said.
Tami lifted her champagne flute and smiled back at him.
Jake asked, “Where’s Lady Cecilia?”
“Kind of abrupt, isn’t he?” Fairweather said to Tami.
Still smiling, Tami replied, “Don’t play games, Bill. You said you’d introduce us.”
“I will. I will. Just hold your horses.”
Looking past Fairweather, Jake recognized Senator Santino in the crowd. And standing beside him, looking thoroughly uncomfortable in an ill-fitting tuxedo, was Jacobi.
Jake turned to Tami. “Come on. I want to talk to that guy.”
He tugged her through the crowd, leaving Fairweather standing in the entryway, looking nonplussed.
Santino was talking earnestly with a handsome elderly woman while Jacobi stood frowning uneasily with an untouched champagne flute in one meaty hand.
“Good evening, Senator,” Jake said, loudly enough to make the Little Saint turn away from the woman.
“Oh!” Santino seemed startled, but quickly recovered. “Dr. Ross. Imagine meeting you here. And Ms. Umetzu, isn’t it? Delighted to see you again.” Turning back to the elderly woman, he introduced, “This is Mrs. Larabee, one of the directors of the Smithsonian. Edna, this is Dr. Jacob Ross, formerly with Senator Tomlinson’s staff, and Tamiko Umetzu, formerly with the Reuters news agency.”
Both formerlies were your doing, you sneaky son of a bitch, Jake grumbled inwardly.
Barely holding on to his temper, Jake said, “Tami, meet Bert Jacobi, from Providence, Rhode Island.”
Jacobi forced an uncertain smile.
Santino resumed chatting with Mrs. Larabee, while Jake maneuvered himself next to Jacobi.
“You know,” he said, fingering the scar on his brow, “I got mugged a few weeks ago.”
“Yeah?”
“A couple of thugs from Rhode Island.”
“No kiddin’.”
“Did you send them?”
Jacobi grinned knowingly. “Me? Why would I do somethin’ like that?”
“You tell me.”
Jabbing a stubby finger at Jake’s chest, Jacobi said, “Lissen, kid. If you got mugged, you was probably in a place yo
u shouldn’ta been. You stay where you belong, you won’t get hurt.”
“I’ll decide where I belong,” Jake said tightly.
With a shrug, Jacobi said, “Then you’ll prob’ly get mugged again. Or worse.”
Senator Santino stepped between them. “Mr. Jacobi is right, you know,” he said to Jake in his soft, unpretentious tone. “You should be more careful, Dr. Ross.”
Jake realized that his free hand had clenched into a fist. Jacobi looked totally unconcerned, Santino almost amused.
Tami clutched at Jake’s arm. “Come on, Jake. Bill’s waving at us.”
Jake let her drag him away, wondering what he would have said next if she hadn’t.
Fairweather, looking pleased with himself, said, “You wanted to meet Lady Cecilia. There she is.”
Jake followed Fairweather’s eyes and saw, standing by the bar with a couple of other middle-aged women, a short, thickset woman with a painfully plain, thick-lipped frog’s face and a pageboy hairdo that seemed an obvious wig. This is the dynamo behind Power Talk? he wondered. Cecilia Goodlette was wearing some sort of Asian outfit, a knee-length tunic of brilliant red with black trim, over snug-fitting black trousers. No jewelry, except for a diamond ring that looked almost too big for her to lift.
She was dumpy and squat, her face far from attractive, but her eyes sparkled with intelligence and good humor. Four husbands, Jake thought as Fairweather led him and Tami toward Lady Cecilia. She certainly didn’t get them with her sex appeal.
She was showing off her stupendous diamond to the two other women.
“It’s like the Hope diamond,” she was saying. “It came with a curse. My second husband!”
The women guffawed and, as if on cue, Lady Cecilia Goodlette turned toward Fairweather just as he got within arm’s reach. She extended both her chubby little hands to him.
“Bill,” she gushed. “So glad you could come.”
Fairweather bussed her on the cheek, then turned and introduced Tami and Jake.
Barely as tall as Jake’s shoulder, Lady Cecilia took his extended hand in both of hers and said, “How come you haven’t brought your handsome boss tonight?”
Taken aback, Jake stuttered, “I … I don’t work for Senator Tomlinson anymore.”
“You don’t?” The little woman seemed shocked by the news. “What happened?”
