15
Mark Stern left the
Main Street offices of the Washington
Post, a newly emancipated man. No longer would he have to
camouflage his trademark journalistic attitude or profile elite
moneychangers residing in modern-day temples where express
elevators went straight to the penthouse. He had enjoyed his stint
with the Journal, but he now wanted two
things desperately: renewed contact with ordinary people, and the
opportunity to dig deeply when he came across a potential
scandal.
His colleagues, who
did not yet know the details of his departure, said he was foolish
to give up his position at the Journal.
He was a regular guest on economic and political talk shows on PBS
and he was invited to weekly soirees where he mingled with
celebrities, senators, and CEOs. What the hell was he doing? Even
harsher critics maintained he would never regain his preeminent
stature in journalism, but Mark knew this to be rubbish. The
Post had helped bring down a president
and countless congressmen. Stern was still a bestselling author
with a loyal following. He was iconic, and he would, with
well-turned phrases and an engaging personality, work his way into
the mythos of Washington just as he’d done in New
York.
Not that second
thoughts were an option. No, they definitely were not.
Mark had called the
editor-in-chief at the Post to offer
his services only after he received a call from his lawyer saying,
“Welcome to the Millionaire’s Club, Mark! Your termination clause
with the Journal is finally being
enforced since you did that surreal piece on the privatization of
social security and how the ghost of FDR is giving our current
president nightmares. Your editor obviously didn’t read the column
before putting the paper to bed or it wouldn’t have been printed.
I’ll give you this much: you must have earned a helluva lot of
trust to sneak that one by. But let me ask you one question, my
friend. Are you crazy? You had to know—had to—that the Journal wasn’t going to swallow a fantasy piece on
the biggest hot-button issue in all of politics. Jesus—it doesn’t
take a brain surgeon to figure out that privatization is something
the Journal and its readers favor—and
favor strongly!”
Mark stopped
listening at this point, holding his cell phone at arm’s length
from his ear so that his lawyer’s voice sounded like the annoying
drone of a mosquito caught behind a microchip. Yes, he was crazy.
And yes, he most definitely knew that the Journal would invoke his termination clause before
the ink on page one had time to dry. He had finally done a mil’s
worth of damage by crossing a line big-time.
He couldn’t
understand his lawyer’s whining, though. It was a win-win
situation. He would get a cool million for saying what needed to be
said on behalf of aging boomers, and he would land on his feet
given his previous success. After all, Woodward and Bernstein
hadn’t achieved fame by being Boy Scouts.
The controversy, in
fact, would actually work in his favor. Naughty journalist goes
south … to Washington! The inherent curiosity of readers, coupled
with Stern’s recognizable moniker, would sell a lot of papers as
liberals and conservatives alike turned to his column to see what
he would tackle next. The Post was more
conservative than the Times—he probably
wouldn’t be drinking Shiraz with Tony Blankley on summer
evenings—but the paper’s management liked his moxie.
Controversy sold
papers and kept stockholders happy. Long live the free
press.
If anyone had asked
Mark whether his career move was prompted by thoughts of Gwen
Maulder living in Maryland, he would have vehemently denied it.
Hell, he’d denied it to himself a dozen times. He wasn’t a
homewrecker, and a friend of a friend had informed him that Jack
and Gwen seemed reasonably happy.
In point of fact,
Mark would have gravitated to the Post
even if Gwen lived in Peoria or Pretoria for that matter. He
nevertheless thought of her from the moment he made the decision to
live and work in D.C. It was, he reasoned, natural enough to wonder
what an old girlfriend was doing. He couldn’t help it if he still
had feelings for her, but that didn’t mean he was prepared to act
on his fantasies.
Garrett Park. There
was no harm in looking up where she lived, was there? Anyway, what
were the odds that he’d ever run into her.