The woman stepped back. But not nearly fast enough.
61
Here you go,” the cabdriver says as his bright pink Key West cab jerks to a stop. He’s got thick white sunblock caked all over his nose, and a ratty Shrek beach blanket with the words Can I Get a Whoop Whoop draped over the back of his seat. “Three twenty-seven William Street.”
“You kidding? We barely went three blocks,” Lisbeth barks from our seats in the back. “Why didn’t you just tell us we could walk?”
“You got in the cab,” the driver says, not the least bit riled as he turns up the dial on the Paul & Young Ron radio show. Standard Key West — everything’s sunny. “That’ll be two bucks,” he adds, poking a button on the meter.
“I shouldn’t pay you a single—”
“Thanks for the ride,” I interrupt, tossing three bucks into the front seat. When our helicopter touched down on another private yacht in Key West’s Historic Seaport, we decided that the rest of the trip should be low-key and untraceable. The driver studies my face in his rearview mirror, and I realize we’re already well off course. Fortunately, we’ve still got a few tricks left.
Kicking the door open and hopping outside, we watch as the cab disappears up the lush but narrow residential street. We’re standing in front of a modest two-story conch cottage at 327 William, but as the cab turns the corner at the end of the block, we cross the street and trace the house numbers to our actual destination: the pale peach cottage with the white shutters and gingerbread trim at 324.
Grabbing the wooden railing that leans slightly when you put weight on it, Lisbeth bounds up the weather-beaten front porch like she’s racing home for lemonade. But before she reaches the front door, her phone rings. Or rather, her colleague’s phone rings, since they switched back at the paper. “Lemme just check this,” Lisbeth says as she pulls the phone from her purse. She told her friend to only call if it was life-or-death. I look over her shoulder as we both check caller ID. The number is Lisbeth’s work line. Here comes death.
“Eve?” Lisbeth answers.
“Oh, thank God,” her colleague from the gardening section says, loud enough that it’s easy to hear. “Hold on, I’m patching her in right now.”
“Huh — patching who in?”
“Your phone call. I know you said not to pick up, but when I saw who it was… I mean, how’m I gonna say no to Lenore Manning?”
“Wait… what? The First Lady?”
“She asked for you — says she wants to talk to you about your column this morning.”
I nod, telling her it’s okay, and with a click, Eve announces, “Dr. Manning, you’re on with Lisbeth.”
“Hi, there,” the First Lady opens, always first out of the gate.
“H-Hi, Dr. Manning.”
“Oh, dear — you sound busy,” the First Lady says, reading it perfectly as always. “Listen, I don’t mean to waste your time — I just wanted to thank you for the generous mention for cystic fibrosis. You’re a darling for that.”
Lisbeth is speechless as she hears the words. But for Lenore Manning, it’s standard fare. She used to do the same thing in the White House — anytime a mention ran, good or bad, she’d call or send a thank-you note to the reporter. It’s not out of kindness. It’s a trick used by nearly every President. Once a reporter knows there’s a person on the other end, it’s twice as hard for them to tear you down.
“No, happy to help,” Lisbeth says, meaning every word.
“Ask her if Manning went into the office,” I whisper in Lisbeth’s ear.
“Ma’am, can I also—?”
“Let me let you run,” the First Lady says, sidestepping with such grace, Lisbeth barely realizes she hasn’t even gotten the question out. With a click, Dr. Manning is gone.
Lisbeth turns my way and shuts her phone. “Wow, she doesn’t miss an opportunity, huh?”
“She’s just happy you called her an icon.”
“She actually cares abou—?”
“Let me tell you something: On days like today, when the wires are filled with Nico’s escape, and old clips are running from the Manning administration, she misses it more than anyone.”
Lisbeth races back across the sun-faded porch, where a hand-painted wooden crab on the front door pinches a sign that says Crabby on more than just Mondays. She tugs on the screen door and reaches for the doorbell.
“It’s open!” a throaty, cigarette-stained voice calls from inside, awakening a flush of old memories.
I reach over Lisbeth’s shoulder and give the door a shove. Inside, the bitter acidic smell of chemicals drills through my sinuses.
“Sorry, been airing out the darkroom,” a short, overweight man with a spotty gray beard and a matching head of brushed-back thinning gray hair announces. Wiping his hands with a baby wipe, he rolls up the sleeves of his creased shirt and steps a bit too close to Lisbeth. That’s the problem with White House photographers — always overstepping their limits.
“You’re not Wes,” he says to Lisbeth with no hint of irony.
“You must be Kenny,” she says, shaking his hand and taking half a step back. “Lisbeth. From the President’s library.”
He doesn’t even notice. He’s far too focused on me as I step inside. Never taking his eyes off his subject.
“The Boy King,” he says, whipping out my old nickname.
“Popeye the Photographer Man,” I say, whipping his right back. He taps his pointer finger against the crow’s-feet of his left eye. After years of looking through a lens with his right eye, Kenny’s left is always closed a hair more.
“C’mere, Bluto, gimme a kiss,” he teases, embracing me with the kind of hug you get from an old camp friend — a deep-tissue squeeze that brings with it a flush of memories. “You look fantastic,” he says, believing every word.
During trips on Air Force One, Kenny ran the press pool’s poker game in back. As I step inside, he’s already searching for my tells.
“Still can’t leave it behind, can you?” he asks, tracing my glance to the New York Times on his painted Arts and Crafts-style kitchen table. On the front page, there’s a huge picture of current President Ted Hartson standing at a podium, his hands resting just below the microphone.
“Who took that? Kahan?” I ask.
“Arms resting flat… no motion… no reaction shot… of course, it’s Kahan. President might as well be a corpse.”
In the world of podiums and White House photographers, the only real action shot comes when the President moves. A hand gesture. Raised eyebrows. That’s when the firing squad of cameras pulls its triggers. Miss that and you miss the shot.
Kenny rarely missed the shot. Especially when it mattered. But after thirty-five years of running city to city and country to country, it became clear that even if it’s not a young man’s game, it’s not an old one’s either. Kenny never took it personally. Even the best horses get put out to pasture.
“So how’re the twilight years?” I joke, even though he’s barely pushing sixty.
Cocking his Popeye eye, he motions us into his living room, which is clearly more of a welcome area for his studio. Centered around a pine cocktail table surrounded by four Mission-style armchairs, the room is covered almost to the ceiling with dozens of black-and-white photographs, all displayed in sleek white matting and museum-quality black frames. As I step toward them, I’m surprised to see that while most of the photos are in the candid journalistic style that White House photographers are famous for, the shots themselves are of young brides throwing bouquets, and well-clad grooms being fed mouthfuls of cake.