The Residence of Senator James Buxton

Washington, D.C.

The balding man with the red suspenders continued his stalking pace around the room, stopping by the table to nibble some grapes, to grab a piece of cheese, to throw ice in a glass and pour some diet soda. Grazing like a nervous animal, his movements quick and sharp. The suit pants, belted below a burgeoning paunch, spoke of too many trips to the food table and not enough diet drinks, but the fabric had the soft drape of cashmere and the pinstripe was faint as old memory.

“All right.” He tilted the glass and drained it. “This campaign is for real now, Senator. You want it. We want it. The primary voters say they want it. So I’ve gotta know what’s going to come along and bite me in the ass, okay?” He slammed his glass down for emphasis.

He had a high, domed forehead, shiny in the overhead light, fair, receding hair, small, greedy eyes, and a loose, rubbery mouth. Not an attractive man but, despite his reputation as a user and abuser of female companions, women found his aura of power and control appealing. “I don’t like surprises,” he said. “Everyone has things to be embarrassed about. We know they’re coming, we can have a strategy. We don’t know they’re coming, we’re up shit creek. Getting sandbagged by the press or some loose-lipped bimbo isn’t my idea of a good time, so take a breath, look deep into your personal closet, and let’s have all of those skeletons out where I can take a hard look.”

He turned his back on the handsome man on the sofa and stared into the fire. His stance, splayed feet and hands clasped behind his back, suggested a stint in the military.

The Senator frowned. “Come on, Frank. I already told you. I’ve been married to the same woman for thirty years. I’ve never screwed a senate page, male or female. Never made an improper advance toward a member of my staff. I don’t take bribes. Collect child pornography. Beat my wife or kids. Wear women’s underwear. I’ve never drowned a staffer, fucked a stewardess, or admired a lobbyist’s boobs out loud. Never asked some big-haired honey manning a conference table to kiss my dick or give me a blow job.”

“Drugs or alcohol?”

“Alcohol in moderation. No drugs.”

From the doorway came the slow, mocking sound of clapping hands. The senator’s wife went directly to the bar and poured herself a generous scotch. She was a handsome, stocky woman in a soft green suit. Her hair was well-cut, well-colored and well styled, her jewelry classic, understated, and real. She sat down in an off-white chair across from the Senator and lit a cigarette. “Go on with your litany of non-sins, Jim,” she said. “Don’t let me stop you.”

The man at the fireplace turned. “Oh, Margaret. Glad you could join us. I thought you were off cutting ribbons somewhere.”

“Hoped I was, you mean.”

He gave her a bland smile. “I was just asking about—”

“Peccadilloes, scandals, and skeletons in the family closet. Bimbos, bribes, and bloopers. I heard. Sounds like Jim’s a candidate for sainthood, doesn’t it?”

The Senator twitched impatiently. “Maggie, please. We’re trying to work.”

She drained off a numbing portion of Scotch. “And I’m trying to help, dear. Did you tell Frank about your meeting with the Chinese businessmen, after which that envelope full of cash mysteriously appeared in your desk? What about when that S&L guy flew us all to Hawaii on a private plane, and later he didn’t get indicted?” She arched her eyebrows coyly and batted her eyelashes. “Frank is looking very confused.”

Then her face grew hard. “I don’t give a damn about the money stuff,” she said. “This is Washington. Everybody does it. No politician would have a pot to piss in if he followed the rules. I just want to know, like Frank does, whether any extra-marital affairs are going to crop up while we’re preaching about family values, the virtue of old fashioned ethics, and the revival of personal responsibility to a nation reveling in its victimhood. I want to know…”

She shoved the cigarette between her lips, sucked until the tip glowed scarlet, and then stubbed it out in an ashtray. “I want to know if I’m going to have to start wearing pink suits and dowdy hats and stare up at you adoringly when you speak. If we’re going to have to exchange passionate kisses on national television. I want to know if some fuckin’ bimbo is going to come crawling out of the woodwork and start describing your dick or your ass or your precious Marine corps tattoo on the national news.” She finished her drink and poured herself another.

“You ought to go easy on that stuff, Maggie,” her husband said. “You know you’re an unpleasant drunk.”

“I’m unpleasant sober,” she said. “I’m an unhappy, vindictive woman who has realized, too late, she should have had a career of her own; who has sacrificed a large measure of personal freedom to support her husband’s ambitions. Whose ambitious husband is now running for President, and who will, if he wins, be condemned to four years of smiling and nodding and worrying about what to wear. Of press scrutiny and disapproval. Much to my chagrin, Jim, I’m not willing to come this far and not go for the gold. I want to be First Lady. It’s a lot better than being Mrs. Senator Buxton. A whole lot better.”

She tasted her drink, made a face, and set it down with a thump. Amber liquid splashed onto the polished wood.

The Senator grimaced.

“Not that you’ve ever asked, but what I’d really like,” she said, some of the hardness and sarcasm draining from her voice, “is to return to Maine and open a little antique shop. Hire someone to work a few days a week so I could scout around at yard sales and auctions, poke through little towns and dusty shops and talk to people who do something real for a living. Buy submarine sandwiches teeming with oil and onions at small grocery stores. I want to sit in people’s kitchens and listen to gossip. Who is screwing who… and believe me, Frank,” she had caught the campaign manager’s twitch. “…none of those people say whom.”

The Senator grabbed a napkin and wiped up his wife’s spill. “Can you think of anything else I should tell Frank? Are there any skeletons in your closet?”

“My closet is full of proper suits cleverly cut to give me a waist, innocuous blouses that cover my flabby upper arms and soften the wattles in my neck, garden party hats like the Queen Mum, and the dust of crumbled expectations. As for affairs, it’s been so long since I’ve raised a cock… any cock… even yours, I’m not sure I’d recognize one.”

“Maggie, that’s not fair. You chose…”

She seemed about to say something, then cast a wary glance at Frank, and grabbed her Camels instead. She stuck another cigarette in her mouth and fumbled with the lighter. Her husband took it from her and lit the cigarette. “Thanks,” she said. “It’s probably not going to come up, since the press tends to go for fresh meat and not beef jerky, but what about that girl who used to work in your office. Back when you were Attorney General? That starry-eyed brunette? What was her name? Lana? Lily?”

The Senator didn’t have to look to know this had piqued Frank’s interest. He could feel the man’s eyes. Frank had pale, prying eyes the eerie blue of a Husky. He always felt like they saw too much. If he hadn’t needed the man, he wouldn’t have Frank around. All his other people were loyal and committed to the campaign. Frank was a hired gun who took his cool head and Machiavellian soul wherever the pay was best and the exposure would do him the most good, wherever his keen nose scented success. But Frank was the best. Frank could deliver a crippling blow without leaving a mark and charm birds out of trees. Frank was a chameleon. The Senator tried to remember that meant he belonged to the reptile family.

“So, Jim,” Frank asked, tired of the silence, “was there such a girl? And is there anything there to embarrass us?”

What do you mean, us? The Senator shook his head. “Nothing there, Frank. She worked for me. She had a little crush. She was a bright little thing. Dedicated. Idealistic. Workaholic. Everything you could ask for in an employee. But that’s all she was. An employee.”

“Maybe that’s all she was to you, Jim,” his wife said, “but you were a hell of a lot more to her. When you were around, she lit up. I’ve never been blind, however much you might have wished it.”

“Jim?” Frank’s eyebrows were up. He leaned forward like a pointer, the hand at his waist curled like a paw, as he waited for a response.

The Senator shook his head. “Lila,” he said. “Lila Friedman. She was a hell of an attorney. I know there was talk at the time. We worked together. She was young and pretty. She was also one of the smartest and most uncomplicated women I’ve ever met. She wanted to practice law to help people. As far as I know, she still does. I admired her, liked working with her. I never slept with her.”

He walked across the room and put some ice in a glass. He needed to face away from those two vultures for a minute. To shut his mind against the memories. God forgive him for such a lie. He’d never loved a woman the way he’d loved Lila. He slowly poured bourbon over the crackling ice, then returned to his seat.

His wife stifled a yawn, blinking as if being tired surprised her. “I give up,” she said. “Fascinating as this discussion is, I can’t keep my eyes open. I’m going to bed. Good night, Frank. Good luck cleaning the closets.” Her walk was more than a little unsteady.

Frank shut the door behind her and leaned against it. “She’s got to get that drinking under control, Jim, or she’ll be a real liability.”

“She’ll be fine,” the Senator assured him. “Maggie’s a pro. She only lets herself do this when she knows it’s perfectly safe. She wasn’t joking when she said she wants this.”

Frank nodded. “Well, you know her and I don’t, so I’ll take your word for it.” He grazed the food table again, shoving a fruit tart into his mouth, following it with a brownie, before coming back to the couch. An aide came in, handed him a sheaf of papers, and retreated. He scanned them and handed a sheet to the Senator. “Plane leaves at five a.m. I’ll have the car here by four.” He sat down across from his candidate and crossed his legs. “Tell me about your affair with this Lila woman.”

“I didn’t have an affair with—”

“Save your denials for the press. You caress her name when you say it. You savor it like expensive caviar.”

“Bull. It was over twenty years ago, Frank.”

“You were a married man, Jim. Who knew about it?”

The Senator shrugged. “I didn’t think anybody knew. We were very discreet.”

“What does that mean? You didn’t screw her on your office floor during working hours, or you only went to motels out-of-state run by blind men who spoke no English?”

“I never screwed Lila Friedman anywhere. I made love to her a few times at her apartment and in Kenny Bass’s trailer.”

“She had neighbors?”

The Senator nodded.

“Who weren’t blind?”

Another nod.

“So someone probably saw you. You said there were rumors?”

He didn’t want to talk about this. He’d always kept Lila separate in his mind from the world of politics. He loved the life, the power and glory, the chance to make big things happen, but she belonged in some sweet, sacred, innocent place where his professional life couldn’t intrude. Lila Friedman had possessed a special quality that even after two decades could lift his spirits. “I wanted to marry Lila. I was going to leave Maggie. Then Senator Fuller died. The party tapped me to fill the slot. I chose ambition over love. She married someone else, had a family. She’s made a good life, I hear. I haven’t seen her since I left Maine.”

“And if the press gets wind of this and asks you about it, what are you going to say?”

“Whatever you and my press secretary advise me to say. I will deny her three times before the cock crows, even without thirty pieces of silver, or I will admit to a brief mistake during a troubled time in my marriage. Whatever you want. I would prefer, however, that nothing hurt Lila, if that’s possible.”