CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
For the first time in four decades,
Clayton Albricht seriously considered just staying in bed. The
press had been assembling on his front lawn all night, as he worked
feverishly with his staff to figure out a way to control the
damage.
He cringed as he heard the clip on the
morning news of his press secretary telling the assembled
reporters, “The senator vehemently and categorically denies that he
has ever engaged in homosexual or pedophilic activities . .
.”
Christ, even the denial was
damning.
No one could prove, of course, that
Frankel had anything to do with this, so it was out of the question
even to suggest such a thing. That left Albricht with lame,
paranoic claims of unidentified conspiracies to defame him. Every
excuse he offered sounded comically defensive.
His wife, Alba, believed him, though.
She’d seen too many careers plummet at the hands of others to think
that any act of deception or cruelty was out of the question. At
least the children were grown, she reasoned, and there was some
comfort in that.
Still, Clayton and Alba had spent
hours together on the phone with the kids, explaining what the
media was about to release and assuring them that their father was
not a pervert. By the end of the conversation, both kids agreed
that it was a good time to take a quick vacation. Come eight
o’clock tonight, Clay Jr. would be in Denali Park with his wife and
two kids, and Amy would be basking in the sun in St. Thomas. Of the
two, everyone agreed that Clay Jr. was less likely to be followed
by the press. Alaska could get pretty chilly in
October.
“This is the Big One, isn’t it, Clay?”
Alba asked as he hung up from his thousandth conference call with
his senior staffers.
The instant the handset touched the
cradle, it rang again. It had been like that all morning, with
calls pouring in from all over the world. Apparently, it was an
otherwise slow news day. The senator lifted the receiver and put it
right down. Three seconds later it rang again. They both
laughed.
Clayton made room for her next to him
on the well-worn bedroom lounge chair. Countless stories and
good-night kisses had been issued to the children from this very
spot. He called it his thinking chair. “Not yet,” he said, putting
more levity in his voice than he felt in his soul. “Not as long as
the supposed pictures stay out of the media. If they get released,
then yes. This’ll be the one that brings us down.”
Alba rumpled his sleep-twisted hair,
relieved that he’d finally been able to log forty-five minutes or
so before dawn. “How are you holding up?”
He gave a wan smile. “I guess I’ll be
okay.”
“Are you sure it’s Frankel?” Alba
asked.
The senator nodded as he rubbed his
eyes with the heels of his hands. “It sure smells like him. It has
to be.”
“Can you beat him?”
He shrugged. The thought of sleep was
particularly pleasing to him right now. “Well, I won’t be charged
with any crimes, if that’s what you mean. You can’t prove a case
from receipts—or even from pictures—and even Frankel can’t invent
witnesses.”
Alba stood and stepped behind the
chair to rub her husband’s shoulders. “He won’t stop, you know.
Even if you let him waltz through the confirmation hearings, he’ll
still have you under his thumb. It’ll never end.”
The senator leaned all the way back in
his chair and grabbed both her hands, pulling them down to his
chest, until she was hugging him from behind. “You know me better
than that,” he said. “I’ll fight him underground for as long as I
can. If I can expose him for what he is, we’ll win. If not, then
maybe it’ll be time to move back to Chicago. Time to go
home.”
Deep down inside, Alba wondered if her
husband hadn’t grown tired of Washington, anyway. Life as a target
for every bleeding-heart special interest was tough. Certainly,
they could swing the financial aspects of retirement. Maybe this
was all an omen that the time had come to quit.
“So what happens first, do you
suppose?” she asked.
Clayton sighed again and pinched the
bridge of his nose. “Well, the way I figure it, nothing happens
until I want it to happen. The press will let this run its course
for a couple of weeks, running my daily denials and the president’s
daily suggestions that I retire from office. After that, it’ll get
pretty hot, as the papers start collecting quotes from my own
party, condemning me for godlessness and sanctifying you for your
willingness to stand by such a horrible creature as
me.”
“Maybe I can go on Oprah,” Alba teased.
Clayton laughed. “Pedophile
Legislators and the Women Who Love Them,” he added in his best
announcer’s voice. “If it goes the way these things usually do, we
won’t be invited to a single Christmas party, but come Easter,
we’ll be back on the A list. Then I announce my retirement at the
end of the term, and in a few years we’re back in Chicago, and I
get to live off speaking fees and book advances.”
“Sounds like you have it all planned,
Senator,” Alba cooed, rubbing his stubbly face gently with the back
of her hand.
“Oh, I do,” Clayton confirmed. “And
best of all, I’ve got five full years left to figure out a way to
break all of this off in Frankel’s ass.”
“Jake, you’re crazy.” Carolyn seemed
outraged that he would even mention such a thing. She turned her
back on him and stormed into the trailer.
Jake followed, with Travis close
behind, despite his father’s warning to stay out of it. “Why am I
crazy? This is a way to get our lives back.”
“Bullshit! This is a way to get our
lives ended!” She seemed close to tears.
“Like this isn’t death?” He swirled his arms to
take in the whole scene. “Christ, Carolyn, we’ve got to take a
chance.”
“Why now?” she insisted. “Last time we
discussed it, you said yourself it was a stupid idea. What suddenly
makes it any less stupid now?”
“You’ve been caught,” Travis said
evenly, stating the obvious.
“You stay out of this!” His parents
said it in perfect unison.
Carolyn thrust her fingers into her
thick hair, a gesture of ultimate frustration. “It’s too late,” she
insisted. “The evidence is gone, and we’re too old.”
Jake tossed his hands in the air.
“Okay, we’re pushing forty,” he conceded. “But you know what? Next
year we’ll be another year older. And so will the evidence. Now is
a bad time only because we should have done it
sooner!”
“And what about Travis?” She was
grasping at straws now.
“What about me?”
“Stay out of this!” Another perfect
chorus.
“What about him?”
“He’s just a boy, Jake. We can’t get
him wrapped up in something like this. It’s illegal.”
“I’ll just tell them that you forced
me to do it at gunpoint,” Travis offered helpfully, bringing the
argument to a dead halt.
“Thanks a lot, buddy,” Jake said,
planting his fists on his hips. “With family like you, who needs
prosecutors?” With just this glimmer of hope, Travis had become
Jake’s ally; albeit a conditional ally.
Carolyn worked her jaw muscles hard as
she considered her husband’s plea. “There’s a million things that
could go wrong,” she said. Her voice had softened, and even Travis
recognized it as the time to tread carefully. The right words now
would make it a go. Say the wrong thing, though, and the option
would be shut down forever.
“We only need a couple to go right,”
Jake countered. He moved closer. “Think of it. It’s this for the
rest of our lives, or we can take a shot.”
She absorbed the words, looking first
to Travis and then to Jake. “Suppose no one wants to
help?”
Jake shrugged. “We’ll never know
unless we ask.” He was careful to smile.
Closing her eyes, she sighed deeply
and thrust her hand into her hair one more time. “This is insane,”
she moaned.
Travis cheered, “Yes!”
They jammed themselves into the
mildewed kitchenette and discussed the details for a good hour,
re-creating long-forgotten logic paths and mapping out the
logistics of what had to be done and in what order.
With the initial plans complete, they
headed back for the van. Jake started to lock the trailer’s door,
then paused, recognizing the futility of it. “My contribution to
young love,” he mumbled, and he put his key away.