years, but he had missed most of the major milestones. He never met his son’s dates, never went on vacation together, missed his son’s all-star dominance as the pitcher of the year for the high school city champions, and passed on an invitation to his son’s college graduation in favor of a week in Fiji with some floozy whose name he had long since forgotten.
For the first time in his life he felt a fleeting moment of remorse. Then it was gone. Peter Winthrop was a user, always had been. It was a by-product of his upbringing and the neverending chase for more money, more toys, and more women. People were objects, to be used as objects and discarded once their usefulness was exhausted. He didn’t set out to act the way he acted, it was just the way he was. Like a leg-humping dog that is never reprimanded, he didn’t know any better. When he was younger, no one ever told him there was another way. As he got older, no one dared to.
He knew he was a shitty father, as his own father had been to him. There was nothing he could do to make amends for the past, and he didn’t even bother to hope to repair the relationship with his only child. All he could wish for was that his son would have a child of his own and break the vicious cycle of poor fathers that ran through the Winthrop family tree.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Jake asked, breaking the silence.
“No thanks. I have to get going.”
“Are you sure? You’re welcome to stay,” Jake said, assuming the role of the adult.
“No, I’m sure,” Peter replied. He reached into his wallet and pulled out a business card. He plucked a Waterford pen from his breast pocket and scribbled some numbers. “If there is anything you need, I’m a phone call away. Anything at all. You can reach me at any of those numbers, day or night.”
Jake stared at the card pinched between his father’s thumb and index finger. Behind his father’s shoulder, Uncle Steve looked on at the business-like exchange of information between a father and son acting like complete strangers.
Jake accepted the card, slipped it into his jacket pocket and said, “Thanks.”
As always, Peter concluded the business deal with a handshake. A hug was out of the question for both of them.
“Maybe we can catch a Redskins game this season? I have box seats,” Peter said, his mind already out the door.
“Yeah, maybe,” Jake replied. He knew better than to wait by the phone.
Uncle Steve followed Jake and his father to the door. Peter smiled to the room of strangers, raised his hand slightly in a half-attempt at a wave, and exited the house. He hopped into his two-seater German roadster and drove out of the lower-middle-class neighborhood. He felt better as he worked his way home, back to a residential area with a population in a much higher tax bracket. His kind of people. ***
The Day residence was a meticulously restored townhouse on the corner of P and Thirty-Fourth Streets in Georgetown. The renovated home with a historic lineage had been on the market for over a year when the senator and his better half offered $6.5 million. Papers were signed the following week and by the end of the month, the Days moved in. The garage stored a Mercedes S-class sedan and a Lexus SUV. A distant cousin of the senator’s wife, a Georgetown University graduate student, rented the small apartment on the second floor of the carriage house overlooking the heated pool.
Mrs. Day was cooking spaghetti, one of her many “specialties,” none of which challenged the professionally accessorized kitchen. She hired a chef with an impressive resume who came twice a week to give the appliances a thorough running through. He made whatever was requested and ad-libbed a few other gourmet meals that he left covered in plastic wrap in the refrigerator. The ever-changing dietary whims of the senator’s wife kept the chef on his toes. She wasn’t picky by nature, and it wasn’t her fault that she was bossy and oversensitive. It was the third- trimester hormones.
The senator got out of the car and waved to his personal driver. Briefcase in hand, he stepped through the iron gate that enclosed the short brick walkway and made his way to the door. He passed through the small study, throwing his briefcase, the day’s
“Smells great.”
“You might want to wait until you taste it before you throw out too many compliments,” she replied.
The senator kissed her on the cheek and touched her protruding stomach.
“Any action today?” he asked, hand just above her stretched navel.
“No, he’s been quiet. Must not be in the mood to treat his mother’s bladder like a soccer ball.”
The senator bent over and put his ear on the top of the protruding mound. It was six weeks before the due date.
When dinner was finished, the senator cleared the table. The maid would take care of the dirty dishes and the laundry in the morning. Mrs. Day waddled upstairs for a shower.
The honorable senator from Massachusetts grabbed the paper and the mail off the chair in the study. He poured a double bourbon in a glass of the finest Austrian crystal and slipped out of his black Italian leather shoes. He flipped through the stack of mail he brought home and sorted the envelopes into three piles. The “must reads” went on his lap, a few letters from his constituents went on the corner of his desk, and the remainder went into the wastebasket.
He sipped his bourbon, read the paper, and opened his mail with CNN on in the background. He looked at the last piece of mail in his hands, an eight by eleven inch envelope with no return address. His full name and title was written in impeccable penmanship across the front.
He reached for his letter opener; a gold-plated blade with a bald eagle mounted on the end, and cut the top off the envelope. The neatly typed letter was short and to the point. It was also completely unnecessary. The photographs told him all he needed to know. A nice shot of his hand on the upper thigh of a beautiful Asian woman in the quiet corner of a classy restaurant. Another picture of the senator leaving the restaurant, his hand on his female companion’s ass.
The rules were clear. The price for silence was one hundred thousand dollars.
Senator Day picked up the phone.
From a mobile bed on the fifth floor of George Washington Hospital, the senator’s chief-of-staff tugged at the cord of the wall-mounted phone. His swollen knee screamed with pain. A tube ran from the IV stand to a vein in the crook of his right arm. The skin was raw, irritated. The adhesive used to keep the needle in place was a constant source of annoyance. Even more annoying was being out of the political loop, away from the schmoozing necessary to get things done. He had been in the hospital for over a week, and it was now nearly three since he had felt his ACL snap, an out-of-control water ski twisting his leg to an unnatural angle.
“Scott? How’s the knee?”
“Senator… The knee is fine, as long as I don’t move and the Oxycontin bottle still rattles when I shake it. The staph infection, well, that’s a different story.”
“Jesus.”
“He hasn’t been listening,” Scott replied, trying to lighten the mood.
“Any word on when you’ll be released?”
“Not yet. MRSA is a bit of a wild card. At least the doctors have stopped talking about the possibility of losing the leg.”
“I’ll take that as good news.”
“My leg seems to think so.”
The senator paused and then continued. “Business question for you. What do you know about international wire transfers?”
Scott took a pensive breath. “Wire transfers? From what angle? Got a bill in the works I haven’t heard about? The legislative director hasn’t mentioned anything.”
“No, it’s of a more personal nature. Hypothetically speaking, is it possible to do an anonymous wire transfer?”
“How hypothetical are we talking?”
“A hundred grand of hypothetical.”
Scott sat up in his bed and grimaced. “Well, the current statute flags the IRS for any wire transfer over ten thousand dollars. Meaning that if you wire an amount ten grand or over, you have to fill out paperwork that goes to
