The Accomplice: A Novel - Hardcover

1
 
THE DANCE
 
 
Henry Hatten shifted on the anteroom sofa, the dog-eared sheaf of printouts in his lap beginning to blur, a picture of Senator Tom Peele coalescing in his head from excited blue underlines, arrows, and phrases. The warm leather grudgingly released and then reclaimed his suit pants, and Henry was about to begin another pass through the folder when a mass flashed toward him. He looked up to see Mike Sterba take two final bounds. Before Henry could shield his papers, Sterba lifted him off the couch.
The chief of staff nearly crushed him in a bear hug, then dragged him past a receptionist who shot a distracted glance. Sterba pulled him down the corridor into an office that looked like a combination tea parlor and trophy room. Dodging the doorframe, Henry brushed an accent table, rattling framed photos of a younger Sterba in a West Point football jersey, in camouflage fatigues, and on the ski slopes with a blonde. He settled against a barrister bookcase, beneath a bill with the President’s signature.
Sterba was sizing him up again, wondering whether this had been a good idea, after all. Henry could tell. He’d seen that look before, of hope, forced kindness, anxiety. He first saw it fifteen years earlier on James, a dean’s list student who had volunteered, maybe been assigned, as his escort when Henry applied to Trinity. Henry had been so proud that day, arriving at the Manhattan prep school in the new outfit his father had bought him, a slate-blue windbreaker with fabric so crisp it swished when he walked, a white dress shirt, brown EZ-Waist poly-blend trousers, and white Pro Keds low-tops. He had gotten a haircut the day before on Steinway Street, a short pompadour. James had swallowed at meeting him, then tried to cover it with schoolyard gusto. Other kids came up to them, James was popular and Henry was a curiosity, and James introduced him repeatedly as a “prospective.” The others took the cue, became oh-so-polite ambassadors for Trinity and the next generation of übermensches. A girl in a cable-knit sweater pointed at him and grinned, then cupped her hand over her mouth, eyes wide, when she realized he had seen her. Still, somehow, Trinity had taken him.
And now he was a prospective again, this time a refugee from the House of Representatives and a busted campaign trying to crack the big time, maybe with the stench of small-time sorrow and failure soaked into his best gray suit.
Sterba, posted by the door, watched the corridor. “Boss is about to file paperwork at the FEC to form an Exploratory,” the chief of staff said. “You do the interview walking to the garage. You get, maybe, two minutes with him.”
Henry nodded. His temples throbbed and the pulse at the hinge in his jaw pounded, the way they had half a lifetime earlier as a Trinity wrestler, when his name blared across a gym and he snapped on his headgear and trotted onto the mat. “Talk about getting in on the ground floor,” he said, just to say something. He had been ready to gamble that Tom Peele would run for President. The Nebraska senator was the only moderate Republican positioned for a serious bid. Hell, Peele was about the only moderate Republican. But he hadn’t expected action so soon; the first voting, the Iowa caucuses, were fifteen months away. Forming a presidential exploratory committee would give Peele license to raise money and hire staff.
Sterba leaned in, inches from Henry’s face, the azure eyes studying him, searing him. Sterba had a stake in this now, too. The chief of staff had interviewed Henry a few days earlier, and apparently recommended him. If Peele nixed Henry, or he got the job and flamed out, Sterba would catch the heat. “If he takes you on the ride to the FEC, that’s the second interview,” Sterba said. “He invites you into the FEC, you own the job.”
Henry nodded again. So two minutes would spell his destiny; whether he got profiled in “up-and-comer” Washington Post and Politico columns and helped shape history, or crawled back to his father for a bridge loan.
A Bronze Star medal glinted at Henry from a triple-matted frame. Sterba’s ego wall, even the photos with Peele, revolved around the chief of staff, a howl of “I am!” in a world where aides’ identities subsumed into the boss’s. Nothing here or, for that matter, in the anteroom to suggest Peele’s earlier on-screen persona as keeper of America’s Marlboro Man idealism. Not a magazine cover or even a photo from the TV show Parkland.
“Game on,” Sterba called.
Henry felt a hand clamp between his shoulder blades and shove him into the corridor. To his right, a column was closing on him. The Senator was in the lead, head forward. For an instant, Henry froze. Peele, in person, exuded an aura that the photos didn’t capture. Henry’s eyes caught first on the chin, broad with a deep cleft, vintage Hollywood. Then the hair, thick and graying progressively down the sides, the top still mostly dark; just the way Henry had hoped his own locks would one day gray, before they began thinning. Under a forehead that looked plains-etched, Peele’s intense blue eyes scanned the corridor above a chiseled nose and dimpled cheeks. Tom Peele looked like a senator, with a mien that said “Trust me, I’ll save you.”
Squinting to erase the gray and the lines, Henry pictured a younger Peele, as TV’s Ranger Roy, flashing an aw-shucks grin as he fought forest fires, rescued tourists and bears, and made a generation of teenage girls swoon.
Then, for a moment as Peele advanced, Henry met the blue eyes. Despite himself, he wilted. He’d met plenty of senators, sometimes over big stakes, and some of them pulsated with power, while he didn’t notice others until he was introduced. It’s something inside that a senator either has or doesn’t. Size can augment the effect, but can’t create it. With Tom Peele, it seemed to flow from the eyes. Peele wasn’t that big, a shade under six feet and maybe 190 pounds, but he seemed massive stalking the corridor, even with a giant behind him.
The bald giant’s double-breasted suit, a lustrous charcoal with beige chalk stripes, looked like it cost Henry’s House press secretary salary. As the man swaggered, a gold cuff link glinted. Henry glanced down at his steel-gray Jos. A. Bank two-button, which used to make him feel cool, with its pinstripes that met at sharp angles where the lapel sections joined. His tie was creased, a gash across the meat of the silk.
Henry fell in behind Sterba and the bald man, Sterba’s lineman’s shoulders shifting in cadence before Henry’s nose. Did Peele schedule meetings when he planned to dash, posse in tow? Maybe stagecraft picked up in Hollywood.
They cleared the anteroom and passed into a corridor, a herd of cap-toes and pumps slapping marble. Sterba trotted up on point and made the introductions.
Up close, Henry noticed that Peele hadn’t shaved the back of his neck, leaving stubble that extended from hairline to collar. The guy wasn’t perfect.
“I’ve been a fan, Senator, since your speech about the fringe turning the Republican Party into a regional right-wing cult,” Henry said, sliding between Peele and the bald man. He focused on forming the words flat, not slipping into a Queens accent.
Peele nodded. “I’m looking for true believers.” The Senator eyed the bald man. “Too many mercenaries in this town.”
The giant scowled. Cass, the man’s name was, Sterba had said. Henry had seen the name before, maybe in a news story.
“Senator,” Henry began, but Cass stepped between them and whispered to Peele.
At the elevators, Henry studied the metalwork, the way the brass molding blended into the marble frame. He had a month to land another Capitol Hill gig, before the sergeant at arms locked Tyler’s House office and seized the staff’s I.D. cards. After that, he’d be just another outsider trying to claw in. For now, fellow Hill rats were helping, like Tyler’s health-care aide, who had tipped him about Peele’s job opening. They all knew that the guy down today might be up tomorrow. They all knew the stories, like Kansas congressman Dan Glickman, unseated and shunned, and then Clinton named him secretary of agriculture, and all those guys who hadn’t taken Glickman’s calls were begging him to take theirs. Henry had fantasized about landing a top spot on a top-tier presidential campaign, once nearly missing his Metro stop. And now it might actually happen.
The brass doors parted and Peele’s crew marched in, Henry last. The descent and a short march took them to the Russell Building garage, where a silver Lincoln was waiting, a grim young aide at the wheel. A Buick SUV idled behind the Lincoln.
Sterba jumped in the Lincoln’s shotgun seat. The rear door opened, and Peele stepped toward it. The word “Senator” formed on Henry’s tongue, but no breath came to expel it. He tried to make contact with the blue eyes, but Peele was angling into the cabin.
“Take a ride, Henry,” a high, nasal voice said. He spun toward the sound and found Cass. The voice seemed too small and tinny for the big frame.
Henry squeezed between Cass and Peele in the backseat, his feet on the driveshaft, shins pressed together. Cass scowled. The glare suggested deep secrets, that Cass knew how the game was played, and could invite you in or throw you under. Cass’s talc and aftershave scent both singed and soothed his nostrils.
As the Lincoln flew up a ramp into daylight, Peele propped on a pair of reading glasses and plucked Henry’s résumé from a leather briefcase. Up close, Peele had pretty good skin, but a few tiny purple blood vessels scored a cheek, like lines on a map. Henry realized he was playin...