“Which was?”
“Stalking, criminal threats, forcible rape, three counts of injuring a spouse, dissuading a witness — who happens to be the defendant’s four-year-old daughter — from reporting a crime. Seven felony counts. It was tough for a rat’s nest of reasons I won’t bore you with. But. I went seven for seven. That’s what happens when I get mad. And then? I eat mint chip ice cream.”
Mia popped the end of the cone into her mouth and came closer. She wore what he’d grown to recognize as her court outfit — shadow-striped slacks and jacket with a sleek silhouette, fitted blouse, no jewelry. Freckles were scattered across her nose in an undisciplined fashion, which he found unbearably charming. Her wavy hair was unbound and by all conventional standards should have been considered a mess but instead looked amazing.
“This was one of the ones that keeps you up nights,” she said. “I mean, the domestic-abuse photos alone.” She paused. “I interviewed the four-year-old. Dirty clothes, tangled hair, and she had this untreated rash covering one whole side of her torso. When the social worker asked her what her name was…” She shook her head, her eyes misting. “This beautiful little girl said it was ‘Idiot.’” She looked away, squinted the incipient tears into submission, took in an uneven breath. “Worst thing I ever saw.”
Evan gave her a moment. Then he said, “I’m glad it was you who caught the case. And that you’re good at what you do.”
“You don’t understand,” she said. “There’s always the next one. And the next one. Guys like that piece of shit, they think they’re above the law. You know what I mean?” She caught herself, smirked darkly. “Don’t answer that.”
She held out her arms, and he hugged her, and she leaned into him. He could feel her stomach against his, and it was the best thing he’d felt in a month and change.
There had been a time when their chemistry had quickened to the point that it seemed they might be on the verge of an actual relationship, whatever that was, but the conflict between her profession and what she knew of his made it impossible. There were whole swaths of his life about which she could make no inquiries, and if she had, he could offer no answers. If she learned anything about it, she’d be obligated to prosecute him. And she also thought correctly that if they were together, the dark underworld in which Evan operated — even the tiny bit she knew of it — could pose a threat to Peter. On that front Evan also agreed.
So they were stuck in the same residential tower, nine floors apart, making a continuous effort to fight off an attraction.
He could feel her breath on the side of his neck as he took in the delightful smell of her. He noted a different fragrance — not lemongrass but lavender.
“You changed your lotion,” he said.
She pulled back and looked at him.
Embarrassment swept through him, a hot tide.
To cover, he gave an uncharacteristic one-shoulder shrug. “I notice everything.”
She kept a straight face, but amusement filled her eyes. “Oh, do you? Like what?”
Like the birthmark by your left temple. Like that you chew your left cheek when you’re concentrating. Like that your eye color changes depending on the color of your shirt.
He stepped back from her.
“Like the seven security cameras on this side of the building,” he said. “Like your briefcase is unsnapped, showing the file tab inside, Oscar Esposito, case number PA338724. Like the make and model of the past dozen cars that have driven past.”
At the last, she raised her eyebrows.
“Reflection off the door,” he said.
She nodded, still amused. “So lemongrass to lavender might as well be a blinking neon sign. I’m surprised you could focus with your senses being assailed like that.”
The front door opened now, and Peter flew back out. “Mom, Mom—can I use the mail key?”
Evan took advantage of the distraction to slip away before Mia could continue her cross-examination.
16
A Bucket of Warm Spit
The President’s Dining Room was a quaint piece of shit. It had once been a bedroom where Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter Alice had lived; she’d even had her appendix hacked out beneath this pale yellow ceiling. After first daughter Helen Taft, the Coolidge boys, and a host of other presidential offspring had done whatever the hell kids do in bedrooms, it had been converted into a family room where Truman had lounged humorlessly behind his wire-rims, restrained and self-important. Then Jackie had overhauled the joint as Kennedys did, plastering the walls with antique wallpaper depicting battle scenes from the American Revolution. Johnson and Nixon, man’s men and assholes to the marrow, had left it untouched, but a passel of Fords, Carters, Reagans, Bushes, and Clintons had fought it out ever since until the room had lowest-common-denominatored its way into its present state, where bland cream wall coverings and frilly valances prevailed.
Jonathan Bennett had no kids, thank God, and no wife. He didn’t give a two-minute fuck about design, leaving such matters in the hands of his underlings.
In the few seconds per twenty-four hours he had alone, he wanted to use the dining room to dine. And that meant eating select meals procured from prescreened suppliers, transported to the White House by the Secret Service itself, unpacked and prepared by chefs and food handlers with security clearances.
The proverbial “they” said that Bennett was the most paranoid president since Nixon. Perhaps that was because he had accrued the most enemies since Tricky Dick flashed his preternaturally long fingers in the V salute and banged drunkenly around the Oval Office.
And besides, as the tired aphorism went, they can’t call you paranoid if you’re right. Given Bennett’s decades at the Department of Defense, he knew this better than the politician saps who’d occupied the West Wing before him.
He knew what was out there.
He’d played in those sandboxes.
Hell, he’d put the action figures into those sandboxes. He’d used them to play his own games.
He smeared foie gras onto crostini now and washed it down with a two-thousand-dollar Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Richebourg Grand Cru.
Orphan X was out there somewhere, living rough, holed up like the international war criminal he’d been designated as since he’d left the Program. That was all well and good. Bennett sat in his fortress at the nucleus of power in the known universe, enjoying the finest pleasures life could offer.
He heard high heels tapping and smelled the Hermès perfume before she stepped into view.
He took another bite, enjoying his last moment of solitude.
“Jonathan,” she said.
He closed his eyes, let the full-bodied burgundy burn a delightful trail down his throat. Then he turned to face his vice president.
Victoria Donahue-Carr was by most accounts a formidable woman, highly capable and — at fifty-four — in the political sweet spot as far as age was concerned. Old enough to be considered an adult with enough experience under her sensible pantsuit belt to lead the free world should the need arise. And young enough to preempt any charges of being too long in the tooth to run once Bennett had served out his second term.
She leaned against the chair opposite his but didn’t sit, her jacket bunching beneath her crossed arms. She’d sworn off horizontal stripes after their first term due to midsection spread. Once shapely, she’d turned into an obstinate block of a woman, which Bennett supposed was a fine metaphor for the deterioration of their relationship.
He read her face, her body posture, picking up a host of nonverbal tells that signaled discomfort.