Power Failure Read online

  “Very good.”

  Jake held back the instinct to thank Manstein. He heard a click and his dashboard panel flashed CALL TERMINATED. Feeling as if he needed to wash his hands, Jake swerved around a limousine and pulled across the avenue, onto his building’s driveway.

  * * *

  The first thing Jake did upon entering his apartment was go to the bathroom. After washing up, he phoned Tami in New Mexico. Two-hour time difference, he thought as he heard her phone ring. She’s probably having dinner.

  “Jake!” Tami sang out cheerfully. “Did you get my message?”

  “I just got in,” he replied, dropping onto his desk chair. “Haven’t checked the messages yet.”

  “Oh?”

  “I got an emergency call from Amy.”

  “Oh?” Tami’s voice changed register.

  Jake spilled the whole story to his wife, hardly taking a breath between sentences. She listened in silence.

  At last Tami said, “So you’re meeting with this Manstein character?”

  “Breakfast meeting. Tomorrow morning, nine thirty.”

  “Kind of late for breakfast.”

  “He picked the time and place.”

  Tami was silent for several heartbeats. Then she asked, “What are you going to say to him?”

  “I’m going to tell him that it would be better for all concerned if he kept his damned mouth shut.” And Jake felt surprised at the anger in his tone.

  Patiently, Tami replied, “And what are you prepared to offer him to keep his damned mouth shut?”

  “Offer him?”

  “The man’s after something. Money probably. You said that Cecilia told you he knows how to spend money, didn’t she?”

  “You mean he’s trying to blackmail Amy?”

  “Sounds that way to me,” said Tami.

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Find out what he wants, Jake. Don’t make any commitments, but find out what he’s after.”

  * * *

  Jake slept fitfully that night, his dreams vaguely menacing. He awoke at sunrise and was in his office at the Hart building just after seven a.m. When his executive assistant showed up about an hour later, he told her to cancel his morning appointments.

  “I’ve got to attend a meeting, out of the office,” he said.

  She nodded, but pointed out, “The senator is due to land at Reagan at 10:10. He’ll be coming directly to the office from the airport.”

  He’ll be groggy from the red-eye flight, Jake thought.

  His assistant wasn’t finished. “Mr. O’Donnell has scheduled a luncheon meeting in the senator’s office. Himself, Mr. Lovett, a couple of campaign aides. And you.”

  “Luncheon meeting?” Jake asked.

  “Twelve noon.”

  “I’ll be back in time.”

  * * *

  Capitol Grill was a long-standing favorite of the K Street crowd, where corporate reps and congressmen could hash out their problems and opportunities, their goals and obstacles, over the best hamburgers in town.

  The place was half empty at nine thirty: just a few guys in their gray suits at the bar, and a half-dozen tables filled. Jake asked the maître d’ for Mr. Manstein’s table and got a blank look.

  “There’s no reservation for Mr. Manstein,” said the slick-haired maître d’.

  “Dr. Ross?”

  Jake turned to see a man his own height, well built, handsome in a polished, continental way: pinstriped dark blue suit with a white flower in the lapel, no less. He was smiling, but it looked faintly condescending to Jake. Dark hair, combed straight back.

  Almost hesitantly, Jake extended his hand. “Mr. Manstein.”

  “Herb.”

  “And I’m Jake.”

  “Very good.” With a nod to the maître d’ Manstein started confidently toward the tables. “There’s no need for a reservation at this hour, Jake,” he said. “Is there, Mickey?”

  “Not usually,” said the maître d’, pushing to get ahead of Manstein.

  Once they were seated in a booth at the rear of the restaurant and a waiter took their drink orders—cabernet sauvignon for Manstein, iced tea for Jake—Manstein asked, “To what do I owe this meeting, Jake?”

  “Your conversation with Lady Cecilia.” What else? Jake added silently.

  “Oh. That.”

  Jake said, “That.”

  Manstein smiled across the table, but Jake thought it was cold, calculating. The man’s handsome face looked as if it had been carved out of ice.

  Waving one hand in the air, Manstein said, “I thought Cecilia might be interested in the dinner Amy and I had. A little social note for her blog.”

  “It puts Amy in an awkward position.”

  The waiter arrived with their drinks. Once he left Manstein said, “I suppose it does look a little … awkward, as you say. She invites me to her home while her husband’s away and the servants are out.”

  “People might draw the wrong conclusion,” Jake said.

  Folding his hands prayerfully beneath his chin, Manstein replied, “My dear Dr. Ross, I have no control over what conclusions people might draw.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Do I?”

  “You can call Cecilia and tell her not to run the story. Tell her you’ve changed your mind.”

  Again that cold smile. “But I haven’t changed my mind.”

  “You should.”

  “Why?”

  “The story will hurt Mrs. Tomlinson terribly. It will hurt her husband—”

  “The senator from Montana,” Manstein said. “The senator with the plan for a new space program. Your plan, actually, isn’t it, Dr. Ross?”

  He’s done his homework, Jake realized. Aloud, he asked, “Do you think it’s fair to have that plan destroyed by gossip and innuendo? To have the senator’s career destroyed?”

  This time Manstein raised both his hands, palms up. “What can I say? She invited me to dinner. I arrived on time to find her husband was out of town and all the servants, except for the cook, were not in the house. We had a pleasant dinner together.”

  “But if Cecilia puts that on her blog her audience will leap to the conclusion that you two went to bed afterward.”

  “As I said, I’m not responsible for what people imagine.”

  “But you are!” Jake countered.

  “That’s your opinion.” Manstein pulled one of the menus from the clip in the middle of the table. “Do you want to order something to eat?”

  “No.”

  “I thought not. Cecilia tells me you and Mrs. Tomlinson had quite an affair a few years ago.”

  “That was before she married the senator.”

  “And she invited you to a quiet little dinner a few weeks ago. Just the two of you.”

  Jake fought down the surge of fury that boiled up inside him. He stared at Manstein’s smug, grinning face.

  “All right,” he said, almost snarling. “What do you want?”

  Manstein sighed a great melodramatic sigh. “I would like,” he said, “someday to retire to my ancestral home in Austria.”

  “Austria.”

  “Yes. Not far from the old von Trapp estate. You know, ‘The hills are alive with the sound of music.’”

  “I saw the movie.”

  “Yes. It’s very expensive real estate. I could never afford it on my Rockledge salary.”

  His damned smug smile was rubbing Jake raw. Not trusting himself to hold his temper much longer, Jake started to slide out of the booth.

  Manstein looked surprised. Alarmed. “You’re leaving?”

  “I don’t think we have much more to talk about.”

  “But we haven’t settled anything.”

  “I’ll call you,” Jake said. “As soon as I’ve had a chance to talk to Senator Tomlinson.”

  His expression hardening, Manstein said, “It will have to be today. I won’t wait longer.”

  Jake nodded once, got up, and left the Capitol Grill.
<
br />   A Finger in the Dike

  As Jake entered the lobby of the Hart S.O.B. he saw B. Franklin Tomlinson heading for the marble stairs that led to the second floor, with half a dozen campaign aides around him.

  “Frank,” he called, shouldering through the people waiting for the elevator.

  The senator turned, his eyes pouchy, his usual smile wilted. “Jake. Waiting for me?”

  “Sort of. We’ve got to talk.”

  Tomlinson started up the stairs, Jake beside him.

  “Yes. Amy phoned me when I got off the plane.”

  “Oh.”

  “She told me all about this Manstein character.”

  Jake glanced at the aides climbing the stairs with them, then said in a near whisper, “He wants money.”

  The senator shook his head. Keeping his voice low, too, he grumbled, “How could she be so stupid? I mean, inviting a single guy to the house. With all the servants out.”

  “Except the cook,” Jake pointed out.

  They pushed through the double doors of the senator’s suite, into the outer office. The receptionist smiled out, “Welcome back, Senator.”

  Tomlinson flashed a quick smile at her and breezed past, with Jake right beside him, step for step. The campaign aides peeled away, heading for their own desks.

  The senator’s executive assistant was standing at the door to his private office with a coffee mug in one hand. “Noon meeting is all set, Senator. Tuna salad, plus liverwurst and cheese sandwiches.”

  “Fine,” Tomlinson said. “Hold all my calls, will you?”

  “Senator Zucco wants to talk with you.”

  “Not now.”

  Tomlinson ducked into his inner office, Jake at his heels. As the senator pulled off his suit jacket and tossed it onto a chair, Jake stood tensely in front of the desk.

  “Sit down, Jake,” the senator said. He looked and sounded tired.

  Jake plopped onto one of the padded chairs in front of the desk. “This could be real trouble, Frank.”

  “You talked with Cecilia?” Tomlinson asked.

  “Yeah. She says if she doesn’t run the story somebody else will.”

  Shaking his head, Tomlinson said, “Amy swears nothing happened. It was all very innocent.”

  “But it won’t look that way once it’s out in the blogosphere.”

  “This isn’t the first time she’s done this, is it? I know she invited you over a couple of weeks ago. At least you had the good sense to leave.”

  “She told you about that?”

  “Yep. She was amused about it. Said you bolted like a scared rabbit.”

  Very funny, Jake thought. The two of them must have had a good laugh about me.

  Then the senator muttered, “I wonder who else she’s invited.”

  Oh god, Jake groaned inwardly. Are there more, waiting to be interviewed by the news media?

  Trying to make a smile, Tomlinson said, “Well, from now on Amy travels with me wherever I go.”

  Locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen, Jake said to himself.

  “What do you want to do?” he asked the senator.

  “Do? I’d like to blow this fucker Manstein’s brains out!”

  “Something more practical,” Jake said.

  The intercom buzzed. “Mr. Lovett is here.”

  Tomlinson tapped the button and replied, “Get O’Donnell. Tell him to drop whatever he’s doing and come in here. With Lovett.”

  He added, “Then call my wife and tell her I’m in the office, safe and sound. I’ll call her in an hour or so.”

  * * *

  Lovett and O’Donnell sat in stunned silence as the senator told them about Amy, Manstein, and Lady Cecilia.

  “And that’s it,” Tomlinson concluded.

  Looking uncomfortable, Lovett asked quietly, “All of it?”

  “All of it.”

  O’Donnell, his lean face looking even more pinched and scowling than usual, asked, “You’re sure that’s all?”

  “My wife says nothing happened. I believe her. That’s all.”

  “It won’t look that way once the news media gets hold of the story.”

  “There isn’t any damned story!” Tomlinson snapped. “They had dinner together. Nothing more.”

  Looking at Jake, Lovett asked, “You met with this Manstein character?”

  “A couple of hours ago.”

  “What’s he want?”

  Jake huffed. “He wants to retire to his native Austria and live like a movie star.”

  “We’re not going to pay for that.”

  “We’re not going to pay for anything,” Tomlinson said through gritted teeth.

  “Now wait—”

  The senator waved his campaign manager to silence. “If we give the son of a bitch anything—a penny or a million dollars—he’ll come back for more. He’ll have us by the balls.”

  “So what do we do?” Jake asked.

  “We tell him what J. P. Morgan said: ‘Publish and be damned.’”

  “That was the Duke of Wellington,” Lovett corrected. “Somebody tried to blackmail him.”

  “I’m in good company,” the senator grumbled.

  “Wait a minute,” O’Donnell said. “Jake, you said this Manstein guy works for Rockledge Industries?”

  “Yeah.”

  O’Donnell shifted his focus to the senator. “Rockledge does a good deal of aerospace work, don’t they?”

  Jake answered, “They’re a major prime contractor.”

  Raising his fingers as he made his points, O’Donnell said, “One: Rockledge stands to gain if our space plan goes through, right?”

  Nods of assent.

  “Two: If Manstein’s story gets out, Frank’s campaign for the nomination goes down the drain.”

  “Very likely,” Lovett replied, in an unhappy whisper.

  “Three: If Frank’s campaign goes down the drain, the space plan goes down with him.”

  Senator Tomlinson muttered, “Right.”

  O’Donnell continued, “Four: If somebody informs Rockledge about this, the corporation suits might tell Manstein to keep his big mouth shut.”

  The senator sat up straighter. “You think so?”

  Smiling like a magician who had just pulled a rabbit out of a hat, O’Donnell said, “I know Rockledge’s top Washington rep. We play golf together now and then.”

  “Do you think…?” Tomlinson asked.

  “Let me talk to him,” O’Donnell said, pushing himself up from his chair. “He’s a reasonable guy. He’ll put two and two together.”

  “Go talk to him,” Tomlinson said, really smiling for the first time.

  As O’Donnell hurried out of the office, Jake said, “It might work.”

  But Lovett shrugged his shoulders. “Even if it does, it’s just a finger in the dike.”

  Tomlinson grinned at his campaign manager. “A finger in the dike is better than being ass-deep in a flood, Pat.”

  Job Opportunity

  By the time Jake got home that evening he felt completely wiped out, physically and emotionally drained.

  O’Donnell had talked with Rockledge’s senior Washington representative and reported that Manstein would be told to stay quiet. Senator Tomlinson promised that from now on his wife would travel with him wherever he went.

  “Even to the bathroom,” he said, with some fervor.

  Lovett insisted that the senator concentrate on preparing for the first debate, which would take place in two weeks.

  “This will be your first real opportunity to let the voters see you on national TV, and hear what you’ve got to say, Frank,” the campaign manager stressed. “First impressions are the most important.”

  Tomlinson nodded agreement, a little grimly, Jake thought.

  Late that afternoon, as he was getting ready to leave the office, Jake received a call from Lady Cecilia.

  “I ought to be very irate with you, Jake,” she said. In his desktop phone’s tiny screen, Cecilia looked a
s if she was trying to appear irked, but not quite making it.

  “Me?” Jake replied, trying to sound innocent.

  “Yes, you. You got Herb Manstein to back off on his story.”

  “Cecilia, I just had a brief meeting with him. We didn’t come to any conclusions.”

  “Somebody got him to clam up.”

  “Maybe he got an attack of conscience.”

  Cecilia barked out a single, “Hah!”

  Trying to think like a politician, Jake said, “Listen, Cecilia, suppose I get Frank to sit for an interview with you. Would that please you?”

  Her expression turned crafty. “Before the debate or afterward?”

  “Take your pick.”

  “Before the debate.” Then she added, “And if he does well, another one, afterward.”

  Jake swallowed visibly, then replied, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  So as he closed the front door of his condo Jake slumped tiredly and let out a long, sighing breath. Safe at home, he thought.

  “Is that you, Jake?” Tami called from the bedroom.

  “No,” he hollered back. “It’s the iceman.”

  She stepped into the sitting room, looking warm and lovely in a checkered red and black tunic over a black miniskirt. But puzzled.

  “Iceman?” she asked.

  “It’s an old line, from back in the neighborhood where I grew up.”

  Tami nodded, satisfied. Then she asked, “You never did play the phone message I left for you last night, did you?”

  Suddenly feeling embarrassed, Jake said, “No, I guess I didn’t. What with this business with Amy and—”

  Smiling, Tami came up to him and placed both her hands on his shoulders. “That’s okay. Now I can tell you face-to-face.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “I got a job offer! Anchoring the evening news on TV!”

  “Really?” Jake felt a thrill of excitement for his wife. He knew that Tami was a newswoman at heart. “Anchoring the evening news? Which station?”

  “KSEE-TV. It’s one of—”

  “KSEE?” Jake asked. “Where the hell is that?”

  “Fresno!” Tami exclaimed. “My hometown!” Her smile was utterly happy.

  “Fresno,” Jake echoed. “In California.”

  “It’s a very progressive station,” Tami bubbled on excitedly. “Two of their anchors have gone on to national TV shows.”