Sweat

the IRS. In theory, anyway.”

“So if you wanted to do a wire transfer without notifying the IRS, you could send, say, nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine?”

“They call that smurfing. It was a practice popularized by drug dealers in the eighties and now used by myriad elements of the regulation-avoiding public. I would stay away from nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine. It’s an overly suspicious number.”

“So maybe eight grand here, nine grand there.”

“That’s what I would do,” Scott said. “From different accounts.”

The senator considered the advice before his chief aide continued. “There’s another option I can think of.”

“I’m still here.”

“I might know someone in banking who could arrange to do the wire transfer without the paperwork.”

Senator Day thought aloud. “How much would that cost me?”

“Monetarily…nothing. Politically, it would be a debt. We wouldn’t get it for free.”

The senator loved it when his chief-of-staff used the word “we.” As far as he was concerned, it was a term of endearment. Good help was hard to find.

The senator didn’t think long. “Make the call and see what your contact says.”

“I’ll get back to you later this evening.”

“And Scott…keep this quiet. No one finds out. I mean no one. Especially the staff.”

“Yes, sir.”

The senator read the letter and the explicit directions again. He drained his glass, filled another, and tilted the bottom toward the ceiling. Images of former presidential candidate Senator Hart with a blonde on his lap, sitting on a yacht appropriately named Monkey Business, flashed in his mind.

The sound of his wife’s footsteps on the floor above shook him from his momentary daze. He stuffed the pictures into his briefcase and reread the letter. One hundred thousand dollars to a bank account in Hong Kong. For a senator with ambition, a hundred grand seemed like a reasonable sum to pay to keep his career on track. Hiding a six-figure payout to a Hong Kong bank was easy. His wife didn’t keep track of the money. As long as the credit cards weren’t declined at Saks Fifth Avenue and the checks didn’t bounce, she would never notice. Calming the sea of revenge brewing in the senator’s head was more difficult. He would pay the money, and then he would see to it that the owner of the bank account in Hong Kong understood that John Day was not a person who could be squeezed without repercussions. He was a senator, a Harvard Man, and a member of one of the most influential families in the history of the Northeast. He had power, wanted more, and nothing was going to stand in the way of his ambitious plan to one day reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Chapter 3

Jake got out of his car and eyed the mailbox at the end of the driveway. It was only a ten second walk across a small patch of grass that masqueraded as a front lawn, but it was a trip that was growing more painful by the day. Jake reached the end of the yard, shoved his hand in the standard issue black box with its red flag, and pulled out the day’s torment. He carried the thick stack of mail across the grass, past the “For Sale” sign that he and the real estate agent had pushed into the soft ground a week ago, and up the four stairs of the front porch.

The days were numbered for the house where he had grown up. The sadness he felt added to the burden he now faced. For the majority of his life the house had been a source of good memories—the normal stuff of childhood and the teenage years. Birthday parties, holiday gatherings, pictures on prom night. He got his first kiss on the very porch where he now stood, the same porch where his mother had sat him down and broke the news of her cancer.

He fumbled for the key to the deadbolt, balancing the stack of mail in the crook of one elbow. He stepped across the threshold of the foyer, threw his wallet and keys on the small table resting at the foot of the stairs, and made his way through the living room. The mail went on the coffee table, next to the disaster area of bills that already waited for his attention.

He changed clothes in the laundry room off the back of the house, grabbed the last beer bottle from the fridge, and made his way to the sofa. He sipped the cold suds and stared at the pile of mail.

The stack of envelopes stared back.

His mother’s medical treatment, which ultimately failed, had cost a fortune. It was a fortune she didn’t have. Health insurance covered the initial diagnosis and treatment, but when she reached the maximum lifetime limit of the policy, the debt outpaced the ability to pay by roughly the speed of light. When the house sold, if it sold, it would bring in enough money to cover almost half her debt. The rest was unrecoverable. It was a deal his mother had agreed to, giving up everything she had worked for in exchange for more time with the only thing that mattered. The collectors were already on the hunt, and Jake hadn’t answered the home phone in three days.

With Who Wants to be a Millionaire on the TV, Jake dug through the stack of mail and pulled out a half-dozen, late-arriving condolence cards. He flipped through the stamped envelopes and answered the questions on the game show playing in the background without looking up. He set aside the bills for the gas, electricity, water, and phone without opening them. The bill from Georgetown University Hospital loomed large on the corner of the table, and Jake reached for the envelope cautiously as if it were booby-trapped. It seemed heavy to the touch. Jake sighed, opening the multiple-page invoice slowly, squinting as if it would ease the pain of the six-figure debt announced within. Three hundred twenty-two thousand dollars and change. Jake thought about the sum, shook his head, and reached for his beer.

He had five hundred twenty-seven dollars in his personal bank account, another forty in his wallet, and a ten-year-old Subaru station wagon in the driveway with a full tank of gas. The balance of the medical bill was out of his league. Way out of his league.

They had survived the last six months of his mother’s life on loans taken out against the equity of the sixty- year-old home. Jake wasn’t responsible for whatever balance the sale of the house wouldn’t cover, but he would be left with nothing, his mother’s life insurance policy long since cashed out. But he would need to come up with money for the bills and the monthly mortgage until the house sold. Not to mention whatever money he needed to live. Uncle Steve offered to help, but Jake couldn’t force himself to take money from an out-of-work roofer who was barely getting by.

The only thing certain about the future was that he would be facing it alone. He was looking for work and an apartment near the university, but things were slow on the job front. Before his mother had passed and reality set in, he had made a pact with himself to hold out for what he had taken to calling “meaningful employment.” No more working until two o’clock in the morning in the service industry. The race between dead-broke and waiting tables was one he wasn’t sure he’d win. After an eighteen-month hiatus, rejoining the Masters program in English Literature at American University was the only real plan he had. Three months of summer vacation and then ten months of serious studying until graduation.

He needed cash. School loans would come in September and provide enough to make it through the fall semester, but that was still three months away. If he limited himself to frozen TV dinners and skipped lunch, he would be broke in two weeks. He could forget about paying the mortgage for July. The prospect of a long hot summer made him sweat. He had exchanged the burden of taking care of his mother with the burden of taking care of himself. He wasn’t sure which was worse.

The refrigerator was barren and the thought of having a few more beers leached into Jake’s brain. Ten minutes later, he made the responsible decision to get drunk. It had been a long time since he had sucked down dollar drafts for Happy Hour at McFadden’s. And if he drank enough tonight, his stomach wouldn’t be in the mood for food tomorrow. With the money he would save by not eating tomorrow, he could afford a beer or two. It had been a year and a half since he had tied one on. He could use the temporary break from himself and his life.

He made some calls looking for drinking recruits, pounded out a few text messages, and then made the eight-block walk to the bar. ***

Jake showed his ID to the doorman and walked un-accosted through empty space to a stool at the bar. Georgetown, George Washington, and American University were on summer vacation, and the pub business in