The President Is Missing(29)

What the hell was wrong with me? I’d taken every smoke session Sergeant Melton could dish out. I’d been waterboarded, beaten, strung up, and mock-executed by the Iraqi Republican Guard. Suddenly I was tongue-tied?

“Right now? Well, I…” She nodded to one side. For the first time, I focused on the door she’d been about to enter—the ladies’ bathroom.

“Oh, you were gonna…”

“Yeah…”

“You should, then.”

“Should I?” she said, amused.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s not good to—to hold it in, or—I mean—if you gotta go, you gotta go, right?”

What in holy hell was wrong with me?

“Right,” she said. “So…it was nice meeting you.”

I could hear her laughter inside the bathroom.



A week after I first laid eyes on her, I hadn’t been able to get her out of my mind. I scolded myself: the first year of law school is the year to buckle down, the year when you establish yourself. But no matter how hard I tried to focus on the minimum-contacts doctrine of personal jurisdiction or the elements of a negligence claim or the mirror-image rule of contract law, that girl in the third row of my federal jurisdiction elective kept popping into my head.

Danny gave me intel: Rachel Carson was from a small town in western Minnesota, went to Harvard undergrad, and was at UNC Law on a public-interest grant. She was editor in chief of the law review, first in her class, and had a job waiting for her at a nonprofit organization that provides legal assistance to the poor. She was sweet but quiet. She kept a low profile socially, tended to hang out with the older people in school who didn’t come straight from undergrad.

Well, shit, I thought to myself. I didn’t come straight from undergrad, either.

I eventually mustered my courage and found her in the library, sitting at a long table with several of her friends. I told myself again that this was a bad idea. My legs had a different notion, though, and suddenly I was standing by her table.

When she saw me coming, she put down the pen in her hand and stared.

I wanted to do this in private, but I was afraid that if I didn’t do it now, I’d never do it.

So go on, you dumb ass, before someone calls security.

I removed the piece of paper from my pocket, unfolded it, and cleared my throat. By now I had the entire table’s attention. I started reading:

The first two times you heard me speak, I sounded like a fool.

I made about as much sense as a top hat on a mule.

I wasn’t sure a third attempt would do me any better,

So I decided that I’d put my thoughts down in a letter.



I peeked at her, an amused smile flirting with her face. “She hasn’t walked away yet,” I said, getting a chuckle from one of her friends, a good start.

My name is Jon. I come from here, a town near Boomer.

I have good manners, listen well, a decent sense of humor.

I have no money, have no car, no talent as a poet,

But I do possess a working brain, though I often fail to show it.



That line got me another chuckle from her friends. “It’s true,” I said to Rachel. “I can read and write and all that junk.”

“I’m sure, I’m sure.”

“May I keep going?”

“By all means.” She swept her hand.

You’re here to study, says my buddy. Remember Professor Waite?

But for some reason I just can’t concentrate.

I’m reading the section on equal protection, the law and racial quotas, But instead I’m thinking of a green-eyed girl from Minnesota.



She couldn’t suppress her smile, her face coloring. The rest of the women at the table applauded.

I bowed at the waist. “Thank you very much,” I said, doing my best Elvis imitation. “I’ll be here all week.”

Rachel didn’t look at me.

“I mean, if nothing else, the fact that I rhymed Minnesota…”

“No, that was impressive,” she agreed, her eyes closed.

“All right, then. Ladies, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pretend that this whole thing went well, and I’m going to leave while I’m ahead on points.”

I walked slowly enough for her to have caught up with me if she wanted.





Chapter

17



I snap out of my reverie and slide into the parking space, just where I was told it would be, not three miles from the White House. I park the car and kill the ignition. No one else is in sight.

I grab my bag and get out. The back entrance looks like a loading dock of some sort, with steps up to a large door that has no outside knob.

A voice through an intercom squawks at me. “Who is it, please?”

“Charles Kane,” I say.

A moment later, the thick door pops ajar. I reach in and pull it open.

Inside is a freight area, empty of people, cluttered with UPS and FedEx boxes, large crates and wheeled dollies. A large elevator is to the right, the doors open, the walls covered with thick padding.

I press the top button, and the doors close. I draw a sharp breath as the elevator reacts clumsily, dropping for a moment before lifting me, the grinding of the gears audible.

Another moment of light-headedness. I put my hand against the padded wall and wait it out while Dr. Lane’s words echo in my head.