“I am.”
He shook his head in dismay. “Sorry to hear that.”
“Sorry that I’m carrying?”
“No,” he said, finally zippering up his coat. “No, not that. You see, Lewis, there was a time when I could tell you were carrying. You were so conscious of the fact that you were armed that I had no problem seeing through you. But now I can’t tell. Which means you’ve changed, and not in a good way.”
He turned, and I lost him in the crowd.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Nearly twelve hours later, the next morning, I got off a Greyhound bus at the company’s terminal in Washington, a few blocks north of Union Station. I was stiff and felt grimy and greasy after spending so many hours sitting down or dozing. The bus had lumbered its way down the Northeast corridor, and it was full of people either like myself — wanting no official record of their travel — or those who couldn’t afford anything quicker, like a train or airplane. There were a crying baby or two, an old man who snored loudly, and a couple of soldiers going home on leave, still wearing their camos. They kept to themselves and stared a lot out of the windows as they passed through the country they had sworn to defend.
I strode out to the street, which had a lot of traffic and taxicabs backed up. Eventually I got in the back seat of a Diamond taxi with an older African-American male driving. He had on a cloth jacket and cap, with a beefy arm and hand draped over the steering wheel. I got in, and he murmured, “Where to?”
I handed him a fifty-dollar bill. “If you don’t mind, just drive around, show me the sights. It’s been a long time since I’ve been here.”
He grunted, put the cab into drive. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Over the next half hour, I sat in the rear of the clean cab as we drove around the city, passing Capitol Hill, the Supreme Court building, the National Archives, and the Smithsonian along the Mall. The Air & Space Museum, the Museum of Natural History… so many beautiful buildings with beautiful and historical objects within. The monument park to World War II veterans, then a swoop and drive past the Jefferson Memorial. The Washington Monument, the reflecting pool, and Old Abe, staring out at the Union he had sacrificed himself to save.
And a drive at a distance from the White House, once upon a time called the People’s House. Lots of memories and thoughts and melancholy swirled through my mind in that taxicab.
At a stoplight, my quiet tour guide swiveled around and said, “You satisfied?”
“Pretty much.”
“We could go across the river, check out the Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery if you’d like.”
“No, I would very much not like,” I said. I passed over another fifty-dollar bill. “How about a motel or hotel that’s near D.C., safe and clean and reasonably priced? Can we go there?”
He deftly pocketed the bill. “We can do that.”
A few minutes later, he pulled into a small lot adjacent to a two-story motel called Lincoln Arms, just on the edge of D.C. “This will suit you just fine, mister.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I owe you any more?”
He laughed, a pleasing sound. “Shit, man. No, we’re doin’ fine.”
“Feel like earning a bit more?”
“Why the hell not?”
I opened up the door. “Come back in an hour, all right?”
“You payin’, I’m comin’.”
“Thanks.”
An hour later, I was back outside, freshly washed, shaved, and dressed, wearing a nice fall uniform of slacks, shirt, tie, and blue blazer. My Bianchi leather holster kept my 9mm Beretta in place. Right on the dot, the Diamond cab pulled up and the driver looked me up and down and said, “Man, you clean up nice.”
“Thanks, that was my plan.”
Back into the cab, and he said, “More monuments, museums?”
“How about a cesspool?”
That made him pause. “Plenty of places to choose from.”
I gave him an address on K Street. A chuckle from him. “That’s a good choice.”
In the K Street area of D.C., my guide drove around and found an empty spot to park for a moment. The buildings here were large, some fairly new and built with clean stone and glass. He kept the cab idling, looked around him. He suddenly spoke. “My boy came back from Afghanistan last year. Body didn’t have a scratch but something’s going on inside of him, know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“He’s not crazy, mind you. He’s just changed… real, real quiet. Used to go out clubbing, hanging with his boys… now all he wants to do is sit in his bedroom and read. That’s all he does, read old, old books, about spaceships and trips to the moon, and he eats three meals a day and sleeps twelve hours a night. He’s back, but not really back.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut. He sighed and I slipped over two twenties. He waved the two bills up at the gleaming buildings. “Think anybody who works there has a boy like mine?”
“Not for a moment.”
“Don’t think that’ll change anytime soon, right?”
“Afraid not.”
Another sigh. “We can dream, I guess.”
I liked my cabbie but I also liked keeping things quiet, so I walked two blocks until I got to the address I was looking for, that of Munce, Price & O’Toole, Professional Associates. Before I made the long bus ride down to D.C., I had spent a few minutes at the Tyler Public Library, using one of their computers to do research on Munce, Price & O’Toole. And my research came up pretty thin. They had been in business for nearly two decades, were considered one of the most influential lobbying firms in the capital, and had a range of interests from agriculture to energy to pharmaceuticals to arms dealers and about everything else in between.
What I couldn’t find out was who they specifically represented. Their client lists were very confidential and, unlike other lobbying firms whose reach exceeded their grasp, they rarely made the pages of the Washington Post and The New York Times, and in those appearances there was never any mention of scandals, arrests, or payoffs.
Meaning they were either very lucky or very good, or a combination thereof.
On this part of K Street, the buildings were a mix of old eight-story brick buildings, next to eight- or ten-story newer office buildings. There were four lanes of road in the middle, two local lanes on either side, with median strips and lots of trees. The sidewalks were quite busy with well-dressed men and women, striding along, doing their business, most of them with cell phones pushed up against their ears. So much power, so much money, so much wrong. For decades, both parties had declared this particular street the source of all evil in government, but neither had done very much about it. It was like two sets of mechanics, facing a car that wouldn’t start, with one set insisting that a new windshield would make it all right, with the other set equally insisting that four new tires would do the trick.
I missed the address of Munce, Price & O’Toole and had to circle back to find it. It was a simple glass door with gold lettering. I tugged open the door and walked into a lobby.
A small lobby.
A very small lobby.
It had a light-blue luxurious carpet, indirect lighting, and a curved counter where a receptionist sat. She was in her late twenties, early thirties, and excuse my old-fashioned observation but she was drop-dead gorgeous. A mane of blond hair that was expertly done, soft red lipsticked lips, and a clinging black dress that showed off a very taut and curvy body. She had a wide smile as I approached, and she was wearing a Bluetooth headset in her left ear.
Before her was a telephone that struck me as very odd. There was no keypad, no buttons, nothing. Just a handset. To her right was a plain wooden door that had the firm’s name in gold letters, along with a doorknob with a keypad lock.