Masked Prey (Lucas Davenport #30)(7)
Weather rousted the kids from bed and they all had cereal together.
The kids ignored them, mostly, when Weather pushed him on the Washington job: “I think you’re dealing with the devil here. Yes, Henderson, he might not actually be the devil himself, but they’re Facebook friends. Lucas, he could make you do something crooked.”
“No, he couldn’t.”
“Yes, he could,” Weather insisted. “You wouldn’t realize it at the time. It’s like the old boiling frog story . . .”
“I know that story,” Lucas said.
Weather went on anyway. “You put a frog in a pot in cool water and slowly heat it up until it’s boiling,” she said. “The frog never feels the change in temperature and winds up boiling to death. That’s what happens with politicians like Henderson. Or Porter Smalls, for that matter. You get in the pot with them and when you try to get out, you find out you’ve got a dozen felonies around your neck.”
Their son Sam asked, “Can I get a frog?”
In the end, Lucas kissed each of them and was out the door at 7:40, at the fixed-base operator at 7:55, where the jet was ready to roll.
* * *
—
LUCAS HATED TO FLY; was frightened of it. He knew all the numbers, how much less likely you were to die in a plane crash than an auto accident or even on a train, but it made no difference. It made no difference because he was not in control of the plane. A friend who was also a shrink had explained that to him, and he’d thought, kiss my ass, but hadn’t said it aloud because the shrink was also a nun he’d known since childhood.
In any case, after two hours and fifty minutes of abject fear, the plane had landed safely and he was climbing into a taxicab at National, across the Potomac from the capital.
“Watergate Hotel.”
The cabbie looked over his shoulder, checked his suit, shirt, and tie: “You a big shot?”
“No. I’m a flunky.”
“Huh. You don’t have that flunky look,” the cabbie said.
“I do carry a gun,” Lucas said.
“That’s disturbing. I don’t have much cash.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a U.S. Marshal.”
“Okay, then. Say, how about them Nationals?” the cabbie asked, as they pulled into traffic.
“I don’t want to hear about it,” Lucas said. “You make a living by beating up on teams like the Marlins. That’s like beating up on a troop of Girl Scouts.”
“Okay, so you don’t want to talk.”
“I don’t mind talking, but let’s talk about something interesting. How’s the President doing?”
“Ah, man . . .” Then he went on for a while, at two hundred words a minute, sputtering through the capital traffic.
* * *
—
SENATOR HENDERSON’S OFFICE had called the Watergate and had emphasized that an early check-in was no problem, and the hotel had agreed that it really wasn’t any kind of a problem at all. A desk clerk with a tennis player’s tan and perfect white teeth told Lucas that a car was waiting in the hotel parking garage and should he summon it?
“I’ll call,” Lucas said, and headed up to his room.
He unpacked, hung another suit and two sport coats in the closet, with five shirts, washed his face and hands, and called for the car, which turned out to be a Music Express limo—and he thought, as he climbed into the backseat, there’d be no government record of this pickup. The driver took him through a Starbucks on E Street, where Lucas got a blueberry muffin, a hot chocolate, and a Washington Post. A quick look at the Post suggested nothing that Henderson might want to talk to him about.
* * *
—
LUCAS HAD THE DRIVER drop him three blocks from the Senate Office Building and tipped him twenty bucks for his wait and the ride. The driver and limo would hover during the meeting and pick him up afterward.
The day was warm with an icy-bright-blue sky overhead, a good September midday in Washington, DC, heading toward a high in the low 80s. As he walked along Constitution Avenue, still sipping on the hot chocolate, the Post rolled and tucked under his arm, a couple of women smiled at him; or perhaps at his suit. Anyway, he smiled back. Joggers were out in force, and young women pushing strollers and boys with dogs.
One of the nannies tracked him with her eyes as they passed, and nodded.
Maybe, he thought, he wasn’t looking that bad.
* * *
—
THE RUSSELL SENATE Office Building did look bad, like America’s largest old post office, the aging limestone fa?ade now resembling poorly laid concrete block. Lucas checked through security, where he was met by one of Henderson’s staffers, the security process eased by the fact that Lucas’s .40-caliber Walther PPQ was back in the hotel safe.
The staffer, whose name Lucas thought was Jaydn, or possibly Jared or Jordon or Jeremy—he didn’t quite catch it—and who was wearing jeans, a nubby white-cotton shirt open at the throat, and cordovan loafers (no socks), led him through the building to Henderson’s office and then to the inner office, where Henderson was waiting with the other Minnesota senator, Porter Smalls, and an FBI agent named Jane Chase.
As Lucas was ushered in, Henderson looked at the aide and said, “Hey, Jasper, thanks—I’ll catch you later.”