The Washington Lawyer

by Allan Topol

  “This does look promising,” Zahava said to Allison.

  “That’s a good way to put it. We still have a long way to go.”

  “Let’s take a look for ourselves.”

  Zahava walked quickly toward the location where Jonathan had found the object, with Allison two steps behind. Suddenly, Allison felt a powerful jolt in her body as if she were struck by electricity. She had an incredible pain in her stomach, causing her to double over, gasping for breath.

  Zahava spun around. “What’s wrong?”

  “It just hit me. A blow to my stomach.”

  “You better sit down.” Zahava led Allison to a chair under an olive tree.

  She bent over to ease the pain.

  “We should get a doctor,” Zahava said. “Call one to come here. Or I can take you into town.”

  The pain was easing. Allison gave a sigh of relief.

  “Let me call a doctor.”

  “No need to. I’m feeling better.”

  “At least rest for a while.”

  “Okay. I’ll sit here. You go to Jonathan and the others.”

  Even as the pain abated, Allison had a sick feeling. She knew what caused it. Something terrible had happened to her twin sister, Vanessa.

  Allison didn’t want to tell Zahava because her colleague, the quintessential rational scientist, would have laughed at her and told her she was being ridiculous. But Zahava wasn’t a twin. She didn’t understand about twins. Allison had gotten jolts like this twice before, precisely when something had happened to Vanessa.

  The first time was when they were twenty-two. Allison was playing field hockey, in training for the US Olympic team during the year she took off from archeology, after getting her undergraduate degree from Maryland and beginning graduate school at Brown. She had to call time-out and go to the sidelines. An hour later, she received a call from a hospital in Switzerland, telling her that Vanessa had broken her leg skiing.

  What was it now? Vanessa had to be in trouble.

  It was 10:30 now, Sunday night in Washington, DC. Allison didn’t even know whether Vanessa was there. When they had spoken a few days ago, her sister was vague, no, evasive about her plans for the Veteran’s Day weekend. Allison replayed their conversation in her mind the last time they spoke. Allison had asked:

  “So what are you doing this weekend?”

  “A little of this and a little of that.”

  “Will you be in Washington?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “The weekend starts tomorrow.”

  “I’m not as organized as you are.”

  Vanessa plainly didn’t want to tell her. “Listen, I’m not judging you and I won’t. That’s not why I’m asking. I’m just worried about you.”

  “Allison, you live the way you want, and I’ll do what I want. In Israel, you should hook up with an Israeli soldier. They’re tough. You could run each other ragged doing your judo and end up in bed. When I was on a shoot once in Tel Aviv I met this guy, a colonel or a captain. He stayed hard all night.”

  They both laughed. Allison never pressed Vanessa about her weekend plans. She was sorry now. Vanessa could be anywhere in the world, and Allison had no idea with whom. Damn, damn, damn. I should keep better track of her. I can’t let her get into trouble again.

  Frantic with worry, she took out her cell phone and dialed Vanessa’s cell. The call went into voice mail. She tried Vanessa’s apartment in Washington, but just received more voice mail.

  She made up her mind to keep trying both numbers every half hour until she reached Vanessa.

  Washington

  Andrew Martin ate a piece of Saint-Nectaire on dark bread as he sipped some of the fabulous 1990 Clos de la Roche from Dujac, the third spectacular wine he had served this evening, and looked around the dining room of his Foxhall Road house. He could barely control his excitement. This was one of the best days of his life. This morning’s Sunday New York Times had reported that Chief Justice West had prostate cancer and was planning to retire shortly. While he felt sorry for West, Martin was thrilled that the article named him as one of the people being considered for chief justice.

  It wasn’t official, but Martin, the powerful Washington lawyer, knew that when the Times carried an article beginning, “The New York Times has learned that … ” it was generally conveying information from an official leak by the Braddock Administration. This was a trial balloon to gauge public reaction. Being on the Supreme Court had been Martin’s dream from his first year at Yale Law School. Now it might be a reality. And being the chief justice certainly elevated the prize. He closed his eyes for a second and imagined himself sitting in the center of the bench with four black clad justices on each side of what would become known as the Martin court.

  When he opened them, he turned his attention to the elegant dinner table. Martin was seated at one end; his wife, Francis, of thirty five years, looking lovely and radiant in a lavender Valentino sheath, sat the other end of the table of eight. The three other couples, no one sitting next to a spouse, were Secretary of State Jane Prosser and her husband, Philip; the Speaker of the House, Hugh Dawson, and his wife Louise; and Drew and Sally Thomas from New York. Martin’s friendship with Drew spanned more than thirty years, since the first day they’d both arrived at Queens College, Oxford, on a Rhodes scholarship. Drew now ran a successful private equity firm.

  Drew tapped a spoon on a glass to gain everyone’s attention. “To enhance Andrew’s candidacy to be chief justice,” Drew said, “he needs a song. Now Andrew, you’ve argued in the Supreme Court forty-eight times and won forty of them.”

  “Actually, only thirty-nine,” Martin said.

  “Don’t nitpick. So when you enter the court to take your seat on the bench, the other justices will sing … ”

  Taking the cue, Sally, Drew’s childhood sweetheart, a good-looking, vivacious gray-haired woman who had aged gracefully, began singing to the tune of Hello Dolly, “Well, hello, Andrew, it’s so good to have you back where you belong … ”

  The others laughed. “Hey. That’s great,” Louise said. Then in good spirits from the free-flowing wine, they all joined Sally in the singing.

  “You’re looking swell, Andrew …”

  “Bear with me everybody,” Martin said after they finished the song. “I desperately want to talk about something else. That’s a prerogative of the host, to change the subject. Isn’t it, Drew?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Good. Francis and I saw Verdi’s Luisa Miller at the Kennedy Center last evening. It was fantastic. Anybody else going?”

  “We have tickets for Tuesday,” Jane said.

  Hugh added, “Did you know that Verdi’s parents were dirt-poor peasant farmers?”

  As the discussion about Verdi continued, Martin stole a quick look into the mirror along the side wall above the black marble topped credenza. He looked damn good for fifty-eight. Hadn’t gained a pound in the last thirty-five years. Still a hundred and seventy-five on his six-one frame, thanks to lots of exercise. And he had the same sandy brown hair.

  “Wrong.” Drew spoke up. “They kept a little inn combined with a village shop. But what always struck me about Verdi was that he was rejected by the conservatory in Milan.”

  “Ah, but with talent you always succeed,” Hugh said.

  “Not always, unfortunately,” Philip retorted.

  “Speaking of music,” Louise said, looking at Francis, “Andrew told me that you performed on the violin several summers at Aspen. What was it like?”

  “It was so long ago.”

  “Please tell us.”

  Francis gave a tiny nod to a tuxedo-clad waiter in the corner of the room, who then began clearing the Limoges plates with the cheese and salad course. Next would be a cold Grand Mariner soufflé that Francis had made.

  As Francis began talking, Martin felt a vibration in the vest pocket of the jacket of his Lanvin suit. What the hell? Then he remembered. Concerned that he’d miss a call from Art
hur Larkin, the White House Counsel, about the chief justice nomination, Martin had broken his rule of never leaving his cell on during a meal. He yanked the phone out and glanced at caller ID. It was a number he didn’t recognize with a 202, Washington area code. It might be Arthur. He better take it.

  Not wanting to interrupt Francis, he quietly left, walking rapidly toward the study. “Hello,” he said.

  Expecting it to be Arthur, he was startled to hear another man shouting, shrill and hysterical. “She drowned. Goddamn it. She’s dead.”

  He recognized Wes Jasper’s voice. But his brain was fuzzy with alcohol, his feelings caught up in the euphoria of the evening. Jasper … where was he? Why would he be calling?

  “Andrew, it’s Wes. You’ve got to help me.”

  Slowly, it came to him. Thursday Jasper had called and asked to use Andrew’s house in Anguilla for the weekend. “Just a short getaway, he had explained.” Andrew assumed Wes and Linda would be flying down. So he’d said, “Sure.” Now Jasper must be calling him on a cell phone with a Washington area code. What was Wes telling him now? Linda had drowned. “What happened?”

  “Andrew, weren’t you listening. She’s dead. She drowned. And I’m fucked! Don’t you understand? Don’t you get it? Totally fucked.”

  Martin felt in a fog. If Linda drowned, why was Jasper fucked? “Now calm down, Wes. Go back to the beginning. Tell me what happened to Linda.”

  “It’s not Linda!” Jasper was shouting. He sounded delirious. “Linda’s in Denver visiting her mother. The woman’s name is Vanessa.”

  “Who’s Vanessa?”

  “She came down here with me.”

  “Why’d she do that?”

  “For Christ’s sake, Andrew. Why do you think? Focus.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “On the bed, in the master bedroom of your house. I carried her up from the beach.”

  What in tarnation is this? “You’re sure she’s dead?”

  “How stupid do you think I am?”

  Martin took some deep breaths.

  “You have to help me,” Jasper pleaded. “You’re my best friend. You have to help me.”

  While Martin tried to think of what to say, Jasper kept ranting. “I’m screwed. If this comes out, my reelection is in the toilet. My marriage will be history. My kids will never talk to me. I might as well go out and drown myself.”

  “Stop.” Martin commanded.

  “Then you tell me what to do?”

  “Call the Anguilla police. Tell them what happened. I assume it was an accident.”

  “Of course it was an accident. She was swimming and went out too far. Stupid, crazy bitch. I almost drowned trying to save her.”

  “Tell the police all that.”

  “You don’t get it, do you? I can’t go to the police. I’m a senator. It’ll all be on TV. I’ll be ruined. You know that’s what’ll happen.”

  Jasper, he was sure, had been drinking. “You have to do it, Wes. It’s the only way.”

  But then as the mess sunk in, Martin began to see ramifications. Disclosure in the media, he realized, could have a devastating effect on his becoming chief justice. He could imagine the Post’s headline: “SUPREME COURT NOMINEE RUNS CARIBBEAN LOVE NEST FOR INFLUENTIAL SENATORS.”

  No, there still was only one right way to handle this. “You must go to the police.”

  “That is not an option. You have to find a way of making this go away. You’re my friend. You can’t let me be destroyed for one little indiscretion. You know I’m right. Friends help each other when one gets into trouble.”

  Martin didn’t know what to do. If stone sober, he thought, finding a way around this would be almost impossible. But with his mind clouded with alcohol, he felt as if he’d been submerged into a tank.

  “Please help me.” Jasper raved on. “We’ve been friends forever. Don’t let me go down.”

  Hearing the sounds from the dining room, he wanted to tell Jasper he’d call him back. But he couldn’t do that. Wes had been his friend for decades, and Wes sounded too miserable. But should Martin be responsible for Jasper’s life going up in smoke? It was his own damn fault.

  “You’ve got to do something.”

  The only right thing was for Jasper to call the police and report the drowning. But that would ruin Jasper’s life and most likely derail Martin’s Supreme Court nomination.

  Martin stopped dithering and decided. “I’ll help you. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Oh my God, I’ll be grateful forever.”

  “Does anyone else know what happened?”

  “Not a soul.”

  “Stay where you are. I’ll call Gorton. He’ll tell you what to do.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  Martin had to get back to the dinner, he realized. But first, he had to call Gorton, a mover and shaker on the island whom Martin had befriended over the years.

  He called Gorton at home, waking him. “I need your help,” Martin told the groggy-sounding Gorton. “The man using my house is a good friend. The woman he’s with drowned tonight. And she’s not his wife.”

  “Oh my.”

  “Yeah. Right now they’re both in the house. This could be bad for him. And very bad for me.”

  It was a blessing, Martin thought, that his closeness with Gorton enabled him to make this call.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  As if preparing to leap off a high diving board, Martin took a deep breath. “Move the woman’s body to another location. Make certain no one will be able to tie my friend or me to her death.”

  There was no response.

  “If this worries you and makes you too uncomfortable, you shouldn’t do it. Please tell me.”

  Finally, Gorton said, “I’ll do it.”

  “I’ll be seriously grateful. My friend’s waiting for you at the house with the body.”

  Saying those last words made Martin cringe. Feeling lousy, he put away the phone, returned to the group and slipped into his chair, all shook up. Francis was staring at him.

  Sally sitting next to the him, said, “No rest for the weary. The price of fame.”

  Thank God Philip, on Sally’s other side, asked her, “Do you have children?”

  She launched into a tale of her children and grandchildren. Martin tuned them out. On the table he noticed a glass of sauterne as well as the dessert. He had no appetite for the cold soufflé, and as he picked up the wine glass, his hand was trembling. Perspiration dotted his forehead. His striped shirt felt soaked under the arms. Why in hell did Wes use his house with another woman? Jasper certainly led Martin to believe he was going with Linda. Wes, he recalled, slept around at Yale. But that was thirty-five years ago. He put down the sauterne and drank ice water to steady himself.

  At that moment, it was as if a cloud covering Martin’s eyes suddenly lifted. He could see clearly and understood what he had just done—committed the greatest blunder of his life!

  He had an acute sense of right and wrong. The rationalization he had been feeding himself about his friendship with Jasper and helping a friend disintegrated. That couldn’t possibly justify what he had done. It was wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

  As for the impact on his nomination to be chief justice, if he hadn’t agreed to help Jasper and instead had called the Anguilla police, the consequences for Martin might not be so bad. He had let a longtime friend use his house. Unknown to Martin, he took a woman there who accidentally drowned. Martin couldn’t be blamed for that, particularly if he had called the Anguilla police. Sure, Jasper would be hurt, but Wes had played a high-risk game, taking this Vanessa to Anguilla. In life there are no free fucks.

  But if the story of what Martin had done, arranging for the movement of Vanessa’s body, came out in the press, then Martin’s chief justice nomination would sink faster than a heavy rock in a pond of water.

  I made the wrong decision.

  In his anguish, his legs shaking, Martin thought about trying to undo it. He could race
into the study and call Gorton back to tell him not to do a thing. Then he’d call Jasper and tell him he changed his mind. Martin’s cell phone would show the number Jasper had used to call him. He’d give Wes the choice of calling the Anguilla police or doing it himself. Yes, that’s what he should do.

  But he couldn’t get himself to move to undo what he had done. It’s too late, he told himself. Everything is already in motion. I’ll have to live with the consequences.

  An hour later, their guests had gone. Francis came up to him with a huge smile. “Everybody was so complimentary. They all had a great time. Drew called it an evening he’d never forget.”

  “The food was incredible. Especially the lamb.”

  “You don’t think I overcooked it?”

  “Nope. Perfect. And they loved hearing you talk about performing at Aspen.”

  Isabella and Juan, he noticed, were picking up dishes and straightening furniture.

  Francis kicked off her shoes. “Who called?”

  Martin couldn’t bring himself to tell Francis about Jasper’s call. He was so ashamed of what he had done that he couldn’t possibly let anyone know about it. Not even Francis.

  Their marriage was based on the mutual respect and admiration they had for each other. What he had done was so stupid that he was afraid she’d think far less of him. He couldn’t bear that. Not right now.

  Looking away, he said, “A client from the Midwest. His son shot and killed someone. He wanted to know what to do.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Go to the police. I put him in touch with a local lawyer.”

  He hated himself for lying to Francis, which he had never done before. But he had to. He felt like a boat pulled away from its mooring in a storm.

  * * *

  Though it was almost two in the morning, Xiang Shen was fully awake in his Connecticut Avenue apartment watching Seven Days in May, one of the endless in a stream of American movies that the insomniac, with the title of Assistant Economic Attaché at the Chinese Embassy, watched most nights.

  Xiang particularly liked political thrillers, although he would watch just about any drama or action film. Hitchcock and James Bond were among his favorites. He couldn’t explain his obsession with American movies. Perhaps it was the forbidden fruit. Most of them would be blocked from showing in China. Or, more importantly, they portrayed the sense of freedom that Xiang longed for. And they also helped him pass the long and lonely night hours.