“The D.C. subcommittee?” Janowitz asked.
“Thirteen members of Congress,” Liberman answered. “Five Democrats, eight Republicans.”
“Why’re they in our knickers?”
“Two reasons. The subcommittee writes the checks that make the D.C. government work. There’s no way city hall could run on local taxes alone.”
“You said two.”
Liberman smiled cynically. “Publicity, silly boy. Democrat or Republican, don’t ever get between any of them and a camera or microphone. And Frederick Rhinelander’s no exception. Kevin Gentry was his chief of staff. Gentry’s replacement is Alessandro Salvani. Aka Al. Newark, New Jersey. Professional Italian-American, professional Democrat. Everybody says he’s related to Dean Martin. He never denies it. Looks like him too. One of those yummy Italian men who never age.”
“I thought he was dead,” Janowitz said. “Dean Martin.”
“He is dead, sweetie,” Liberman replied. She nodded toward the door on their right. A bronze plaque read “Subcommittee on District of Columbia Appropriations.”
Yes, Ms. Harman… No, Ms. Harman… Consider the alternatives, Ms. Harman.” The patient voice came in a bourboned baritone. Tanned, toothy, and flat-bellied, Al Salvani stood behind an ornately carved walnut desk, one manicured hand folded around the telephone, the other hooked in a suspender strap. Frank saw that the suspenders were embroidered with clowns. Salvani rocked back and forth slightly as he talked, a man in perpetual motion. A man who owned the ground he stood on.
Salvani’s office had the requisite view of the Capitol across Independence Avenue. Autographed photos covered the walls: Salvani with presidents, sports celebrities, Hollywood stars. Salvani with Pope John Paul II, and next to that, Salvani with Yasser Arafat. These clustered around a larger photo of Salvani standing shoulder to shoulder with Joe DiMaggio in Yankee Stadium.
“… of course, I’ll talk to the chairman about it, Ms. Harman.”
Salvani hung up and looked curiously at Frank, Janowitz, and Liberman as though they’d materialized out of thin air.
“Susan Liberman,” Liberman said, “Metropolitan Police Dep-”
“Oh, yes.” Salvani shifted gears. He shot a scowl at Frank and Janowitz, and dropped with a pneumatic gust into a leather swivel chair. “Sit, sit.”
Liberman made the introductions. “Detectives Kearney and Janowitz.”
Salvani took them in with a sour look that said he was having a difficult time somewhere in his lower digestive tract.
“How,” he asked, “could such a screw-up like this come about?”
“We-”
Salvani held up an impatient hand, then rooted among the papers and pamphlets littering his desk. He came up with a thick bound document in a tan official-looking paper cover. He thumbed through several paper-clipped sections. Finally he nodded and stuck an index finger on one page.
“ ‘Forensics,’ ” he read, “ ‘in which the sharing of responsibilities among agencies increases the possibility of evidentiary mishaps resulting from lapses in coordination.’ ”
Salvani closed the report and held it up. “A two-hundred-page study on the criminal justice process.” He looked at the book with respect, then at Frank, Janowitz, and Liberman in accusation. “The General Accounting Office did that report. Just last month.” He swung his big head sadly. “Lapses in coordination,” he intoned, dirgelike. “Lapses in coordination…”
He let it trail off, then his eyes flashed. “And we had your chief up here when we published the report,” he snapped. “And your chief, Chief Noah… Alton… Day”-he rolled out the name-“your chief threw out a bunch of stats and as much as told us we were full of shit.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Salvani,” Frank said, “you’ve got a beef. But we”-his gesture took in Liberman and Janowitz-“we’re just trying to find out who killed Kevin Gentry.”
Salvani paused a beat to bank that. “Okay,” he said. Apparently deciding he’d played enough hardass to set the newcomers’ impression of him, he settled back and asked, “How’re you going to do that?”
“We start with establishing Mr. Gentry’s timeline.”
“That was done, I remember-”
“I want it done again,” Frank cut in, playing hardass himself. He indicated Janowitz. “With a new set of eyes.”
Salvani studied Frank and the others.
Frank was about to say something when Salvani sighed. “People here thought that was all over. You gonna be flicking scabs off old wounds.”
“Wounds?”
Salvani laughed. “No shortage of walking wounded around here. This place’s a zoo of prima donnas. Each one, they look in the mirror in the morning, they see the next president of the United States. They eat breakfast, they plan how to get a leg up on the others. They elbow in the aisles, they backstab in the cloakrooms.”
“Nice place to work,” Janowitz said.
Salvani laughed again. “Hey! It’s the distilled essence of the human race, American politics is.” His smile went away.
“You replaced Gentry,” Janowitz said.
“Yes.”
“You weren’t aware of anything that could have made him a target?”
“Sometimes just walking down a sidewalk in this town’s enough to make you a target.”
“I don’t think it was walking down a sidewalk did it,” Janowitz said.
“Oh?”
Janowitz ignored the question. “Any subcommittee business?”
Salvani slapped his fingertips lightly on the edge of his desk. “Like I told your fellas two years ago, we were gearing up for the District’s annual budget hearings.”
“You make it sound like an everyday thing.”
“Annual event. Bills have to be paid, pork has to be handed out. Hearings are part of the process.”
“Mr. Gentry was in charge of the hearing?” Frank asked. “What’d that involve?”
“Kevin and a couple of his assistants would do research… define the issues, sell the members on them. Then they’d line up witnesses, schedule the hearing, work out the press releases”-Salvani spoke dismissively-“that sort of thing. Standard stuff.”
“He kept Congressman Rhinelander informed?”
“Of course.” Salvani said it with care. “I suspect he didn’t come in often. Word was, he was a good staffer. You got to remember, at the time the subcommittee was up to its collective ass in alligators with the Waco investigation.” A sour look again crossed Salvani’s face. “What a godawful mess that was.”
“The hearings took place?” Frank asked. “After Mr. Gentry was killed?”
Salvani nodded. “Pro forma… nothing sexy.”
“Gentry’s files?” Janowitz asked. “The background research and all? You’ve kept them?”
Salvani made a show of checking the wall clock. “Not here.”
“Where?”
“Procedure is they archive the stuff… over at the library.” He pointed in the general direction of the Library of Congress.
“We’ll be wanting to go back over everything… correspondence, calendars, e-mail.”
Salvani frowned.
Anticipating resistance, Frank said, “This’s getting high on the flagpole.”
Salvani’s frown stayed. “I’ll have to clear everything with Mr. Rhinelander.”
“When…?”
“I’ll talk to him this afternoon.”
Salvani stood, followed by the three visitors.
“If it’s not an imposition, I’ll call you,” Janowitz said.
Salvani eyed Janowitz, adding another dimension to his earlier measurement.
