WASHINGTON, D.C., October 1996
I ENJOYED MY FIRST MONTH OF LAW SCHOOL. I PLAYED PICKUP basketball in the gym three afternoons a week, met some guys who asked me to join a flag football team that played on Saturday mornings, drank with classmates at the 21st Amendment on Friday afternoons, and tried never to miss a lecture or homework assignment. And then Mr. Andrews found me.
I was living in an apartment a few streets from the National Law Center at George Washington University. I had not been there long, had not given anyone my new address, but there was Mr. Andrews, looking taut and wired in jeans and running shoes and that same gray jacket he had worn in Philadelphia six months before.
“George,” he said, and stood there, silently demanding that I invite him in.
My place was on the third floor of a building that sacrificed comfort for character. I had a small living room that led to a smaller dining room, off of which was a kitchen that was just big enough for one person at a time. The living room converted to a bedroom at night. The dining room was used full-time as a study. I had yet to have anybody there as a guest, and so my computer, my books, and my desk lamp were all positioned on the dining room table. When I ate, I simply moved to a different part of the table. I had two chairs.
I looked at the chairs, looked at the couch that had been left by the previous tenant, and wondered where I would put Mr. Andrews. I wondered why I had to put him anywhere at all. I said, “What do you want?”
The man stared at me long enough and hard enough that I somehow knew what he was going to say before he said it. My lower lip began to tremble. I bit down on it to make it stop. He didn’t even blink. I put my hand on the door frame and gripped it tightly so that I could lean forward and not use all my willpower just to stand up straight. And still Mr. Andrews did not say anything more. I had to ask him.
“What happened?”
“Drug overdose.”
“Is she all right?”
“She’s dead, George. Is that all right enough for you?”
I stepped away from the door. Fell away, ended up on the couch. I lost a small segment of time, but then Mr. Andrews was standing over me and I was leaning forward, my forearms on my knees, my hands dangling. “I’m sorry,” I said. I may have said it multiple times. I wondered why I was saying sorry to him—he was just a messenger, an employee, a hired hand—but I had to say it to someone, and he was there.
“They got to you, didn’t they?”
“I went to see him. I did what you asked.”
“Oh, you went to see him, we know that. I doubt very much you did what I asked.”
“I answered his questions.”
“So what are you saying, George, the fucking state attorney for Palm Beach County didn’t ask the right questions?”
“He asked what happened that night. I told him there was a party at the Gregorys’ and a bunch of us had gotten completely drunk—”
“Very bold of you. Went way out on a limb, did you?”
“It was true. I had, Kendrick had, some of the cousins had. What he kept asking about was the Senator. Whether the Senator had gotten drunk. Whether I had seen him with Kendrick. Whether the Senator had done anything inappropriate.”
“He didn’t ask about Peter and you didn’t tell him.”
“It was the Senator he wanted to know about.” I sounded as if I was whining. I didn’t mean to whine. I wasn’t going to whine. If he was here to punish me, then I was going to take it. Go ahead, Mr. Andrews. Smack me. Beat the shit out of me, if that’s what you’ve come here to do.
But Mr. Andrews did not do that. He didn’t slap me, he didn’t kick me, he didn’t grab me by the shirtfront and throw me through the dining room window to the sidewalk fifty feet below. He just stood over me and waited for me to explain.
I had time to gather my thoughts. Gather them up, have them split apart again. “Look, Ralph Mars, the state attorney down there, told me it was a very sensitive matter because of who was involved. He said he had to be careful the claims weren’t just politically motivated. That was all he seemed to be interested in.”
It was not good enough. Mr. Andrews twisted my words in his mouth and spit them back at me. “Politically motivated? A girl gets violently raped and you claim that all the prosecutor cares about is whether her complaint is politically motivated?”
“He wanted to know if the Senator had come into the library when Kendrick was in there with us. He wanted to know if the Senator had participated in any way.”
“Participated?” He was twisting again, making everything I said sound foolish.
“I told him the Senator just stuck his head into the room and I didn’t think he really could see anything other than, you know, there was a girl in there with a couple of guys.”
“A girl who was being raped.”
“Well, see, it wasn’t all that clear. Even to me.”
“What wasn’t … clear … Georgie?” He used the diminutive like I was a child. Like I was an idiot.
“Like whether she was …” I didn’t want to use the word again.
“Participating?”
“The thing is, she wasn’t saying anything. She wasn’t doing anything to stop them.”
“She was passed out, you perverted little creep.”
“She wasn’t passed out,” I argued, my voice rising. And then I cut it off.
“What was she doing, Georgie, while people were shoving things up her vagina?”
It was a candle. I had stopped Peter from using the candlestick … Peter’s dick maybe, although I hadn’t seen that for sure. And his finger. And Jamie’s finger.
“Look, I didn’t get Kendrick drunk. I didn’t invite her into the library, and I didn’t get her to lie down on the couch, take her shoes off, put her leg up.”
He bent at the waist, moved his face close to mine. “And you didn’t do anything when those scumbags began shoving shit inside her, did you?”
Don’t say a word. Don’t say anything, George. Let him hit you if he wants. Whatever it is he does, just take it. Take it and keep your mouth shut.
Mr. Andrews, however, still did not hit. He straightened up instead, pivoted as though he could not stand breathing the same air I did, and walked to the dining room table, where he looked at my books and my notebook. “Quite an accomplishment, you getting into this school, Georgie. How do you suppose that came about?”
“I had good boards.”
The man kept his back to me. “That so?” He picked up my notebook and flipped through it. “I happen to know that before you went to see Ralph Mars, you and your good boards had been turned down by every law school you applied to. You had given up any thought of going anywhere and all of a sudden, after a half-hour talk with a state attorney, there they were, acceptances from Boston College and GW, one school where the Senator lives and one where the Senator works. Pretty remarkable coincidence, don’t you think?”
“What I think is remarkable is that you seem to know so much about my life.”
“Oh, you can bet on that, Georgie.” Mr. Andrews turned with deliberate slowness. He held my notebook as if he were calculating its weight, and then tossed it behind him, showing no sign of caring when it hit on the edge of the table and slid to the floor. “Mr. Powell has lost his only daughter. Mr. Powell is one pissed-off, vengeful, resourceful sonofabitch who can buy things that aren’t even for sale. And Mr. Powell is going to burn your life down around you, my fatuous little friend.”
He put his hands behind his waist and rocked forward onto the balls of his feet as if he were very much going to enjoy the fire. “I can guarantee you that things are going to start happening now that never would have happened before. And they are going to keep happening in every aspect of your life until you get to the point that if you so much as buy a losing lottery ticket you’re going to think Mr. Powell rigged the game against you.”
Mr. Andrews kept his eyes on me as he walked to the door. He stopped when he got there. “You’ve gotten yourself caught up in a very nasty war here, Georgie. And I daresay, I think you’ve chosen the wrong side.”