Pressure Group: A Mitchell Stone short story.

 

      

 

1

 

Senator Graham Farley (D. Tennessee) was staying for a week at the Kerry house on Hulbert Avenue – that was what gave Mitch the idea. The “centrist” lawmaker had been single-handedly stalling his party’s agenda in Congress for months, and you didn’t need a think-tank research paper to know that if all the big bills stalled out before 2022, the Republicans would take control of Washington again, and as far as a practical man like Mitchell Stone could see, that would more or less constitute the end of the world. The world was close enough to the edge as it was, with hairline congressional majorities that could be overturned by one ignorant southern cracker in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Mitch had become friendly with Police Chief Henry Kennis’ outspoken mother, and often visited her at the Island Home. She had put it best on his last visit: “You can’t get a decent education in the south, even if you’re white.” Farley was the ideal case-in-point: he seemed to think the filibuster was written into the Constitution. In fact, the Founding Fathers had required a supermajority for some matters – approving treaties, over-riding vetoes, voting for impeachment.

          But not for ordinary legislation. Hadn’t anyone told Farley that? They must have. But ordinary forms of persuasion had clearly not worked and people rarely changed their minds on any subject, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Medicine changed “one funeral at a time” because even so obvious an advance as scrubbing before surgery was fought literally to the death by the older generation of doctors.

          You couldn’t convince a doctor to wash his hands.

          How were you going to convince “Grappling Hook” Graham Farley to vote down the filibuster?

          You weren’t. You couldn’t.

          Mitch had other plans. He had toyed with them while doing easy mindless jobs, installing strip oak flooring, shingling a house. He liked to think that his active operations days were behind him … apart from breaking up the occasional bar fight or  performing an occasional bit of DIY mask enforcement. He wasn’t going to stalk Farley through Washington D.C., or break into the man’s Signal Mountain estate. Mitch had retired from intelligence work, he had a real job, he had a kid to raise. He wasn’t going out of his way to disrupt the life he had expended so much effort to construct for himself.

          But now Farley had come to him, spending the congressional recess at a friend’s house on Nantucket.

          The temptation was irresistible.

 

          Mitch did a couple of drive-bys in the next few days, once in Billy Delavane’s truck, once on a rental moped, once more in his adopted son Alex’s rebuilt Range Rover. He cruised the house on foot, both from the street and the beach. The doors and windows were alarmed and a detail of six Secret Service agents guarded the placee 24-7. They had taken over the mansion across the street for an observation post – Mitch could see the glint of cameras and rifle scopes from the upstairs windows.

          The house sported a “widow’s walk” a roof deck used for fighting roof fires in the whaling days, but now a luxurious venue for evening cocktails or a quiet afternoon with a book. The hatches that opened onto attic stairs were rarely wired against intruders; the sole Secret Service agent Mitch had seen on point up there confirmed the speculation. Even the man’s presence was a formality – you’d have to climb the house to access the widow’s walk, and the climb presented a sheer cliff of grey cedar shakes more than forty feet high, every inch of it visible from below.

          Of course, to see a human fly on that wall, you’d have to be conscious. Knocking out the sentries would be easy enough but the primary tactical asset was built into the house itself. The corner boards featured a rising series of rectangular blocks called quoins. Originally used as structural re-inforcements, they were primarily decorative now, but they made excellent hand and foot holds.

          Mitch had no idea how long Farley was staying on-island – the Senator could cut his visit short at any time and for any reason -- so he had to move fast. The next night was cloudy with a waning moon. At a little before two in the morning, when people were tired and attention was lax, Mitch dressed in black, grabbed work clothes for the next day, slipped his K-bar knife into a sheath on his belt and drove to Madaket, at the west end of the island. He borrowed Billy Delavane’s big paddle board; he’d done it many times before.

          Mitch drove back toward town, passing few cars and no police vehicles. He took the left on Eel Point Road and cruised past the boulder that marked the path to the public beach at Dionis. Two houses farther along, a giant mansion loomed above the street on low hill. Pat Folger was building an addition, to house the  the owner’s  absurdly elaborate model train set. The family was safely off island, self-quarantining in their Bel Air compound, three thousand miles away. No one would look twice at a truck in the driveway.

          He let himself into the house, tapped in the alarm code and set his work clothes – vintage Killen construction “Death and Resurrection” t-shirt, jeans, steel-toed boots, socks and underwear, on top of Pat Folger’s tool chest in the great room. Mitch was always the first person on the job site, so no one would be surprised to see him banging up crown moldings when they arrived.

          The job-site was an hour’s walk from Hulbert Avenue. It would have been quicker to launch from Children’s beach or even Steps; but Mitch wasn’t planning to be anywhere near town when he was making his getaway. Too much could go wrong. Town was a trap.

          He closed up the house, hauled the big surfboard out of the truck bed and started back toward the beach. The walk took ten minutes, including a scramble over the high dunes that blocked the Sound. Then the real hike began. Jogging on the packed sand near the water for part of the time, he closed the distance in just forty-five minutes. fifty yards from the mansion, he settled in to study the place, setting the board on the sand and sitting on it among the over turned kayaks and canoes and row-boats, a darker shadow among the other shadows.

After half an hour one of the guards walked out to check the beach, lighting a cigarette and looking out over the still, inky harbor to the breakwater. When the cigarette was finished, he turned back to the house. Mitch picked up the board and followed.

          He had to decide: take out all the guards or try not to disturb any of them. The corner of the mansion was in shadow. The one camera mounted on the building was pointed at the street. He saw no one nearby.

He chose stealth.

A quick dash to the south side of the shingled chateau, then he had his first hand-hold. He pulled himself up from quoin to quoin, a four-legged spider on a drainpipe. As he came level with the second floor he heard a movement below him, and he froze, finger joints aching, check pressed to the damp glossy paint. A pale breeze carrying the hint of rain touched his face. The guard below spoke into a walkie talkie. Mitch heard the static rush of the connection but couldn’t make out the words. Footsteps crunched over the shell driveway toward the front entrance. Another minute and then Mitch resumed the climb.

          He reached the gutter and moved hand over hand along it, dangling over the second-floor deck. When he judged he was below one of the big dormer windows, he pulled himself upright, got his feet under him and balanced on the wooden lip. He straightened up and leaned forward until his palms brushed the edge of the dormer roof. With a firm grip on the rake, he walked up two steps up the pitch, mounted the dormer and hoisted himself to its peak. Standing there, he shoved off to grab one of the widow’s walk supports. A moment later he was peering through the spindles.

          The Secret Service agent snored softly, stretched out on a teakwood beach chair. Mitch expelled a long breath. This was a violation of article 113 of the UCMJ. The guy wouldn’t be executed, we weren’t at war, but he could face some serious time in the stockade if they caught him snoozing.

          Mitch eased over the railing, ghosted past the guy, eased open the hatch and poured himself down the ladder to the third floor hall.

          Mitch guessed Farley would be in the guest suite one floor down. He eased the door open a crack and slipped into the living room. A couch, two chairs, a flat screen over the fireplace; a door to the master bedroom and a short passage showing two more doors. A  bathroom and a smaller bedroom. A quick peek: a woman in her late fifties was sleeping alone. That would be Sandra Farley, the wife. Separate bedrooms. Maybe Farley snored. Maybe he hogged the bed; maybe something worse. Happily married couples slept together, that was Mitch’s experience. Even his own parents, however much they fought during the day, wound up in bed together at night.

          He back-tracked to the master, entered and closed the door behind him. It was Farley, all right, and the snoring had been another good guess.

          The Senator woke up with Mitch’s K-bar knife-blade pressed against his throat.

“What the --”

“Shhhhhh.”

          The eyes bulged but the old man kept his voice down. “Who are you? What do you want? How did you get in here?”

          Mitch patted the air in front of Farley’s head. “Whoa, whoa. One question at a time. In order – I’m a patriot. And I want you to act like one. Getting into places like this is one of my specialties.”

          “You’re KGB! Putin sent you to kill me!”

          Mitch had to choke back a startled laugh. “Are you kidding? I’m sure Putin is thrilled with you, Senator. His bots made two million robo-calls during your last campaign. They accused your primary challenger of wanting to disband the police, force women to get abortions and turn Tennessee into a Socialist gulag. Once all the bibles and guns were confiscated.”

          “That’s not far from the truth.”

          “Are you kidding me? It’s not even related to the truth enough to be a lie.”

          “Now you listen –”

          “What is socialism?”

          “What?”

          “Just define it for me. It’s all you talk about on the campaign trail. So what is it?”

          “It’s communism with a smiley face! It’s mob rule.”

          “Wrong, sorry. The word derives from the Latin – Sociare. To share. It means Government oversight over corporations, and workers having a say in the businesses they work for, and a security net like the Medicaid expansion you voted against last year. It’s capitalism with a leash on.”

          Farley thrashed himself to a sitting position. Mitch pulled the knife away before it could cut the old man. “This is insane! It’s almost three o’clock in the morning. I have to be in Washington tomorrow. I have an early plane to catch. I can’t be debating politics with some random lunatic. I demand --”

          “You’re in no position to demand anything. Raise your voice and I’ll cut your throat.”

          He subsided against the headboard. “What do you want?”

          “Tomorrow you’re going to inform Nancy Pelosi that you plan to vote with her to end the filibuster.”

          “So, you’re a lobbyist!” He laughed and Mitch laughed with him. “It’s satisfying to meet an honest authentic thug who comes at you with a knife instead of bag of cash. I’d rather be mugged than bribed.”

          “So don’t take the money.”

          “I have to take the money. You might as well say don’t breathe the air.”

          They stared at each other for a few seconds. “Just vote down the filibuster.”

          “Or what? You’ll kill me? And my wife? Oh yes, you’d have to kill her too because she would just take over my seat and she believes in the filibuster and the glory of bipartisan legislation even more than I do. You’ll turn us into martyrs. They’ll say we died to save Democracy. Can you allow that to happen?”

          “I’m willing.”

          “But are you able? If I tell you that I’ll vote the way you want, you’ll have to believe me or this whole fantastic charade would be futile. And if I am lying -- and  by God, young man I most certainly would be! -- you’d never get this close to me again. I’ll be a hundred times better protected than I was tonight, with a detailed memory of your face to give the FBI.  The manhunt for you will flood this island like a storm surge. They’ll hound you to the ends of the earth and crucify you as a traitor.”

          “I can take that chance. Can you?”

          “It doesn’t matter. Because I can see looking into your eyes that you’re not a killer. Oh, you talk a good game. I have no doubt you’ve taken a life or two, on the battlefield, on some secret mission or other, maybe in the street, in self-defense. But not in cold blood. You’re not an assassin. Not anymore.”

Mitch stood up and sheathed his knife. Farley was right.  He was shrewd and he was tough. It made sense. You didn’t become a Democratic Senator in a state like Tennessee if you didn’t know how to read people – and call their bluffs.

          Mitch stared down at the jowly, sleep-rumpled face. “So what can we do? You can’t be bullied and you can’t be threatened. And nothing will change that stubborn, still-born mind of yours.”

          Plus, time was running short. Mitch knew he couldn’t linger here much longer. Was that a footstep from beyond the door? One of the Secret Service people? He held his breath, listening. Farley squinted up at him, baffled – too deaf to catch the creak of a floor board in another room. A  minute passed; then another, with no sound but the freshening wind murmuring in the leaves outside. A car growled past, heading for town. A cop, no doubt.

          The creak must have been the house settling. It was an old house, probably built at the end of the eighteenth century. They made their own noises in the night, just like old people did.

          Farley cleared his throat. “If you leave now, I won’t report you. There’s a French word – I studied a year at the Sorbonne, you know— desmesure. Are you familiar with it?” Mitch shook his head. “It translates, roughly, as an unfortunate excess of passion. We have a lot of it, in America, we always have, from the John Birch Society to Occupy Wall Street to the ‘Black Lives Matter’ and ‘Stop the Steal’ rioters.”

          “And me.”

          “And you.”

          Farley smiled, thoroughly in control now. He was famous for taming rowdy Town Hall assemblies, ‘a cool cloth for the fevered brow’ he liked to call himself. Mitch felt like a high school kid who had broken into the local Judge’s house on a dare. He had actually been that kid, once upon a time. And the Judge had caught him, and the Judge had let him go with a finger-wag and a warning.

          Mitch felt his will deflating, a punctured tire losing air fast. He’d be driving on the rim soon. But there had to be something he could do or say, some leverage he could exert. He looked around the shadowed bedroom – chair and desk, shelves and end tables.

          Nothing.

          But wait. Farley had shifted towards Mitch as he looked at the desk, some little defensive movement that Mitch recognized from decades of dirty work in the world’s dark corners. The Abu Sayyaf operative in Mindanao who had twitched into an unnatural stillness when Mitch approached the hollowed-out television where had had hidden the bricks of C-4; the Al Nusrah assassin in Damascus who had flinched when Mitch stepped on the floorboard that concealed his stash of  Ak-47 assault rifles. The body had dozens of small tells, and even if you could control your face, the clench of your shoulders or the bracing of your knees could give you away as clearly as a signed confession. Mitch turned back to the desk.

          The computer.

          There was something on Farley’s MacBook Pro that he didn’t want Mitch to see – most likely his search history. Mitch took a step toward the desk.

          “Wait!” Farley’s hoarse whisper sounded like a shout smothered by a pillow.

          Two steps and Mitch was at the desk. He reached under the flower-patterned shade to turn on the light, then opened the slim computer, revealing the screen and keyboard. He laughed – a low grunt of appreciation. Boomers! They made it so easy. Farley had a post-it with his pin numbers and passwords stuck to the screen.

          “Stop – don’t – you can’t --”

          Mitch turned on the computer and the chime of the apple chord silenced the old man behind him. The pin numbers and passwords were correct; the search history was damning. Farley didn’t even know how to clear it! Mitch could have tracked the old man’s web searches anyway, but it would have taken longer, and he would have needed some expert help.

          There was a rustle of sheets and then heavy footfalls on the floor. Still typing with his left hand, Mitch reached around behind him and caught Farley at the throat. The Senator’s frantic lunge stopped short as if he’d walked into a wall.

          Mitch read the website names aloud. “Pouting Pixies? Sweet Sixteen, Horse Girls? Jesus, Graham. This is disgusting.” He opened the Horse Girls site. It was exactly what he’d thought it would be. “You didn’t even cover your tracks. Ever hear of the Tor network?”

          Farley gagged against the hard circle of Mitch’s thumb and forefinger. “Thas private. You cann ook aaa it.”

          Mitch eased his grip. “Nothing’s private any more, Senator. You ought to know that by now.”

          The old man gaped at him. “What … what … are you going to do?”

          “I’m going to keep this computer. And you’re going to go back to Washington and start voting like a real Democrat, starting with the filibuster. Your glory days are over. You’re not the most powerful man in America any more, you’re just part of the team again. And I will bench your ass in a heartbeat if you ever forget that.” He gave a short push and Farley staggered backward. The edge of the bed caught the back of his knees and he plopped down on the tangled sheets.

          “This is where I should ask if we understand each other,” Mitch said. “But I know we do. Try to get some sleep, Senator. I want you to be fresh tomorrow. You’re going to have a busy day.”

          Mitch grabbed the computer and the charger, stuffed the cord in his pocket strode to bedroom door and opened it.

          Farley’s wife was frozen at the threshold in her nightgown and curlers, her face as white as her hair. She had obviously been standing there since that floorboard had creaked under her slippers.

          She had heard everything.

          Sandra Farley gaped at Mitch, wild eyed, her mouth moving silently, as if dozens of questions were crowding there, like desperate fans at a festival seating rock concert. Someone was going to be trampled to death before the first outraged question got through the door, but Mitch didn’t have time for the carnage. Farley’s ruined marriage was his own problem. The woman held out her hand to him in the sudden stillness and silence – to implore him, to stop him, to ask some impossible question?

          It didn’t matter. He had to go.

          Mitch spun and bolted for the door to the guest suite.

          One of the security detail was moving up the hall. He must have heard something – Farley’s heavy footfalls, or their voices. He froze when he saw Mitch. The man running up behind him already had his gun out.

          “Halt! Larry, get down!”

          Larry dove for the floor. Mitch lifted the MacBook as the guard squeezed off a shot. The round slammed into the computer and knocked it out of his hand. He twisted to catch it as it fell,  and threw it hard, like a rectangular frisbee. It hit the shooter in the forehead – an axe blow that crumpled him. Mitch launched from his kneeling position and slammed into Larry as he scrambled to his feet, whipping a knife hand edge strike into the guard’s neck at the carotid artery. The blow was a guarantee – like pulling the master switch on an electric panel.

          Larry was out, and Mitch was dashing for the back stairs before the body hit the carpet. He could hear footsteps on the front stairs, more agents following the first two. There would be a moment of confusion when they realized he was gone. He emerged into the kitchen, crossed to the French doors and slipped out onto the patio that faced the beach. The cigarette smoker’s walkie-talkie crackled to life and Mitch could hear the timbre, if not the exact words, of the desperate orders shouted from the second floor landing.

          He looked up and saw Mitch as a moving shadow. Then he was down and Mitch was bounding over the body to the beach. He grabbed the surfboard, slid it into the water, pulled himself onto sticky fiberglass surface and started to paddle, angling out into the dark water, before setting his course parallel to the shore.

Arc lights came on and scoured the beach, but the beach was empty. Mitch heard sirens in the distance. The Secret Service would never involve the local police, but some neighbor must have heard the gun shot and dialed 911.

          He paddled hard, every stroke taking him closer to safety and farther from the blast radius of his mission. But the mission had failed. He windmilled his arms, digging out the mild water, lurching him forward, an efficient engine of passage, watching the nose of the board skim the surface, gritting his teeth in frustration. It wasn’t just that the gunshot had destroyed the computer, or even that he had been forced to use it as a weapon and abandon it. He hadn’t planned for the MacBook, and there was no way he could have carried it on the paddle board without drenching it in brine. That improvisation would have hit a dead end no matter what happened. Even abandoning the computer in the Sound would have been preferable, though. The wrecked laptop would let Farley know his secrets were safe. The old man’s luck was famous – he had won the Tennessee Powerball lottery twice and famously been bumped off flight 93 on 9/11.  The “Farley Good Fortune” had come up three cherries again. Despite Mitch’s best efforts, the Senator was in the clear, free to pontificate and preen in the spotlight while the country burned and the entire Democratic party from the President on down kneeled to kiss his ring.

          It was maddening – to come so close. And Farley was right – with the inevitable increased security, Mitch would never get another chance. He’d had just one shot, and he’d blown it.

          One minor consolation --- the getaway plan worked. While police blocked the choke points on the island roads and threw a dragnet over the town, Mitch was first on the job as usual, cutting trim with a miter box,  Billy’s surfboard resting in the bed of his truck, his wet clothes stuffed into a contractor garbage bag. Mitch was unusually quiet at work that day, in a foul mood that not even Billy Delavane tried to lighten. The Op was burnt, life was hopeless and the world was doomed.

Or so it seemed.

          Then he went home and watched the evening news.

 

Mitch was sitting on the old stained canvas sofa – still solid and comfortable after thirty-five years, unlike the pricey love-seat he his sister Susie had bought from Marine Home Center three years before, which was already falling apart – watching The Situation Room on CNN. Vicky was tucked in under his arm, Alex sat at the far end of the couch, splitting the difference with his ubiquitous iPhone. Susie was slumped down in her Dad’s old leather arm chair.

          They all sat forward when Wolf Blitzer began his lead story, and even the somber news-anchor’s face showed an unguarded amazement at the text he was reading. Was it a prank? Had someone hacked into the teleprompter?

          But no, it was just the news – good news, at last, after weeks of super storms,  Congressional gridlock, Delta variant carnage, and wild fires:

          “In a startling and as yet unexplained change of direction for the Tennessee Senator, Graham Farley has agreed to join with the Democratic majority, voting to end the filibuster for basic legislative priorities. This is a crucial step for the enactment President Biden’s ambitious first term agenda, potentially clearing the way for both the 3.5 Trillion dollar infrastructure bill and the voting rights bill H.R, which would solidify and strengthen the voting rights act of 1965, weakened by a series of Supreme Court decisions in the last decade. Jim Acosta is at the Capital building with more on this breaking story. Jim?”

          In bed, later, Vicky rolled over onto Mitch’s stomach, and braced herself on her forearms to look into his eyes. “I don’t get it.”

          “I know.”

          “You lost the evidence.”

          “I know.”

          “Then how …? Did he have a change of heart?”

          “No way.”

          “You talked him into it.”

          “I didn’t.”

          “Then …”

          Mitch thought of that strange, beseeching look on Sandra Farley’s face, that outstretched arm in the shadowed room, in the darkest hour of the autumn night.

“There’s only one possible explanation. But it makes no sense.

 

          Graham Farley and his wife stood in the third floor living room of the C Street Center, a red brick townhouse behind the Madison Building of the Library of Congress. The building was crowded with other Republicans when the Senate was in session, none of them very happy with Graham Farley tonight – but it was a five-minute walk from the Capitol and Farley hated to drive.

          At a little after midnight, they had the residence to themselves. Farley stood at the window looking down at the rainy street. Sandra followed him and stood at his back. A taxi with the new design – red with that funnel shaped stripe long the side – rolled past. A couple walked arm in arm toward D Steet. The woman laughed and the man pulled her closer. Sandra watched them stroll out of sight. Had she and Farley ever been like that? She couldn’t remember.

Finally she asked, “Who was he?”

          “I have no idea.”

          “There must have been an investigation.”

          “Of course, there was an investigation! I made sure Ted Mandler shut it down.”

           “He’s one of six Deputies. The AAG would never --”

          “Ted has his ways. And he understands the Big Picture.”

          Graham was very much a student of the “Big Picture”. It usually showed him making the proper, principled choices, no matter how corrupt and self-serving they were. You just had to stand back far enough. With enough decorative shade trees, a suburb could look like a forest from the proper height, when the leaves were out in summer. But it was still a miserable set of tract houses where kids used to pick raspberries.

          Sandra expelled a tired breath. “And what exactly is the ‘Big Picture’ here, Graham?”

          “And investigation serves no one. It’s a lose-lose. It makes the Secret Service look bad. It makes the Nantucket cops look bad. That guy was some kind of self-styled hero. He probably wants to get caught! We don’t need to turn some fanatic into a media darling. It would just bring out the copy-cats. Every wild-eyed Marxist  break-and enter artist would be crawling out of the woodwork to terrorize anyone they disagreed with! No one would be safe.”

          Sandra waited out the rationalizations, as she has waited out the airplane noise when she had lived in Playa Del Rey. When Graham had landed his 747, she said quietly, “And then there’s the search history on your computer.”

          “Sandra --”

          “If that comes out it, will ruin you.”

          “I have the computer. The idiot left it at the house.”

          “With a bullet in the hard drive.”

          “Exactly!”

          “You don’t think people will wonder why exactly he was stealing it in the first place? Once reporters get a sniff of scandal, they don’t stop, they just keep coming. Those sites you … visit – they use cookies. Then can trace you, they can find you, and then --”

          “That’s what I’m trying to say! That’s the whole point, Sandra. We don’t let them start. Nothing happened, no one was hurt. It’s a non-event.”

          He turned from the window, walked to the armchair across the room and sat down heavily. Sandra listened to the speckle of rain against the glass and let it soothe her. She had always loved the sound of rain outside a warm house where she was dry and safe.

          “I still want to know who he is. There must have been finger prints on the iBook.”

          “There were.”

          “So?”

          “So, there were no matches. On any database. The guy never had a brush with the law, never had a job that required a security clearance, never served in the military.”

          “But he did. That was what you told me.”

          “I said he acted like some kind on intelligence operative. I said he had the kind of skills you’d learn in the Seals or a Marine Recon unit. But that doesn’t mean anything. There’s plenty of dangerous people out there who never got a form 214. You can pick most of that stuff up on Youtube! The internet is incredible.
          She gave him a thin smile. “You should know.”

          “Hey, come on, honey, please --”

          It was a mean-spirited jab, and off-topic. She forged ahead. “If this intruder was some sort of spy, his organization could have wiped his records. The NSA can do that. They probably do it all the time. My bet is that this guy worked for some CAD splinter group.”

          “Okay, maybe. That could be true. But what makes you think anyone at the Clandestine Action Directorate would talk to me? They don’t even talk to the President.”

          “You know Jerry Skinner.”

          “He hates me.”

          “You got him his funding last year. How many department budgets did you have to skim to make that happen?”

          “Fine, yes, he uses me. But he still hates me. He thinks I’m a worm. He said that. A worm! Actually, he said I was the worm in the apple. Everything in front of me white and fresh, everything behind me brown and rotten.” Sandra laughed – it was so perfect. Graham glared at her as he went on. “The miserable little prick even told me I don’t deserve you. Can you believe that? As if it was any of his business! Said I was punching above my weight. I was tempted to show him a thing or two about punching!”

          “But you didn’t.”

          “Of course, I didn’t! I’m a U.S. Senator! I can’t be involved in street brawls with every little creep who makes a remark.”

          “He’s not a ‘little creep’, Graham. He’s actually quite a gentleman. And he stands over six feet tall. He’s had a little crush on me for years. I got him a table at the Anchor Foundation gala, remember? I danced with him that night, and we flirted a little. He does quite a respectable Rumba.”

          “Jesus Christ.”

          “Call him tomorrow, Graham. Tell him we need to talk.”

 

Mitchell Stone and Billy Delavane were pulling the clapboards of a house on Gardner Street when the limousine pulled up at the curb. The job was a favor to local painting contractor Mike Henderson. The paint was peeling, and he knew it had to be water penetrating the wood from inside the house. Clapboards were supposed to be “encapsulated”, sealed with paint front and back, but contractors often skipped the crucial step of back-priming the siding boards. Mike’s guess was right. The strips of wood were bare against the house, completely saturated and heavy as iron.

          “We dry these puppies out for two weeks, they’ll be light as balsa wood,” Billy said as they pulled the last one loose. “Then Mike can soak em in a couple of coats of good oil primer and bingo. Problem solved.”

          Mitch grinned. “And Mike gets paid.”

          “Maybe. But the bitch who owns this place is notorious for stiffing people. And least she’ll have to find another excuse.”

          Mitch jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Is this her?”

          Billy turned to see a woman climbing out of a black Chrysler 300. “Erica Haddon?,” he said. “ No way. She drives an old Subarau. She’s tight as a tick.”

          The woman was clicking across the street in high heels. “Mitchell Stone?”

          Billy shot him a look. “You know her?”

          Mitch nodded, though Sandra Farley looked very different, coiffed and made-up in the morning sunlight.

          “Could I have a word with you, Mr. Stone? It will just take a moment. Perhaps you could ride with me?”

          “Sure.”

          Mrs. Farley turned to Billy. “He’ll only be a moment. Can I could buy you coffee and a scone? It’s that time of the morning. How do you take your coffee?”

          Billy smiled. “Black. Thanks.”

          Mitch crossed the street behind the Senator’s wife, and climbed into the dry cool air of the leather back seat after her. He was a dirty sweaty mess, but she didn’t seem to mind.

          “Where’s good?” she asked.

          “There’s a new bakery on Centre Street. Born and Bread.”

          She smiled “Clever.” She leaned forward, “Find a place to park near Center street, Harris.”

          As they took the right turn onto India Street, she said, “I’m sorry to disrupt your day, but I very much wanted to thank you.” She twisted around to extend her hand. Mitch shook it. “Sandra Farley.”

          He smiled. “Good to see you again, Mrs. Farley.”

          “Sandra, please.”

          “Sandra.”

          “I imagine you’re wondering how I found you, since the incident on Hulbert Avenue was effectively hushed up, and there’s been no local or Federal investigation of the break in.”

          “The thought crossed my mind.”

          “Jerry Skinner directed me to you.”

          “Hold on -- ”

          “No, no, no … he instructed me to tell you that neither your actions, your … ‘Quixotic shenanigans’ he called them, nor this meeting, have any effect on your … arrangement. He said that would reassure you. Does it?”

          “Quixotic shenanigans. That sounds like him, anyway.”

          “You have nothing to fear from Jerry Skinner.”

          “For the moment.”

          “Yes. I cannot speak to the ultimate disposition of your association with Jerry. But for now, all of that is off the table. We’re just two people talking, this morning. Two citizens. With a common goal.” They had reached bakery. It had a line out the door, and the only open parking space on Centre Street was handicapped reserved. “Go around the block, Harris,” Sandra told the driver. “I’ll run in. Black for you?”

          Mitch nodded and she was out the door. The big car pulled away and turned down Broad Street.

          “Nice lady,” Harris remarked.

          “Yeah.”

          “I take my coffee with cream and two sugars. She gives me shit about that with my weight and all. But she always remembers. Hell, she even remembers my daughter’s birthday. She got Kelly a Lego Harry Potter set last year. All I could think was – wish I’d thought of that. Kelly’s mom passed two years ago and … I’m not picking up the slack that great. I was just figuring out how to do it with a partner. Anyway … Sandy doesn’t say much. She just helps out.”

          “I like that.”

          “She says you do the same thing.”

          “Not as much as I should.”

          Harris grunted a laugh. “Join the club, brother.”

          When Sandra climbed back into the limo, she handed out the cups and napkins and treats, took a sip, nodded her approval and said, “You’re puzzled.”

          “You husband told me the two you agreed on everything.”

          “Did he?”

          “But you obviously made this happen. You talked him into changing his mind.”

          “I wouldn’t put it that way, Mr. Stone.”

          He smiled. “Mitch.”

          “I blackmailed him, Mitch. Just as you were planning to do.”

          “That’s cold.”

          “Well, things have been cooling between us for quite a while.”

          “And you don’t agree on everything.”

          “I never did. I listened and smiled. There’s a Frank Loesser song – ‘Marry the Man Today and Change His Ways Tomorrow’.”

          “Maybe he’s leaving town.”

          She laughed. “A millennial who knows Guys and Dolls.”

          “We did it in high school.”

          “Who did you play?”

          “I worked the light board.”

          “How appropriate.”

          They drove in silence for a while, down the long straight stretch that led to Jetties Beach, past the big mansions standing on reclaimed wetlands with their perfect landscaping and their flooded basements. Those houses would all be gone in a few years, as the waters rose. A hundred more years, it would all be a swamp again. Reality was a tenacious motherfucker.

          “So why did you come here?” Mitch asked as they started up cobblestone hill toward Lincoln Circle.

          “Just to see you for myself. And thank you. So … thank you.”

          “My pleasure.”

          “We need to get your friend his coffee, before it gets cold.”

          Before Mitch climbed out of the car he said. “Are you going to divorce him?”

          Her smile was bright and dangerous. “Heavens no, Mitch. We have a lot of work to do! And so do you. There’s still that repellant little shrew in Colorado to de-program.”

          Mitch grinned. “I bought my plane ticket last night. ACK to BOS to DEN. JetBlue flight 266.”

          “Good for you. Get home safe.”

          Harris tipped his cap, and the big Chevy pulled away. It was good to have an ally. He handed Billy Delavane his coffee and scone as the limo disappeared around the corner of India Street He felt an exotic lightness of heart so strange it took him a moment to identify it.

          He was feeling hope and hope felt good.

          He drained the last of his coffee and got back to work.