And from that moment they owned that person, as surely as anyone can own anything.
It reminded Fowler of that line from The Godfather, which he considered the best movie ever made. Don Corleone had done a favor for a man, an undertaker, and he said to the grateful man, “Someday, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me.”
That is how Fowler saw his own situation, with one difference.
That day always came.
Lunch that day was with Joseph Chesney, congressman from the Fourteenth District in Central Kansas, one of Brett’s second-tier clients. Chesney was mulling a run for the Senate the following year. At least that’s the story he was putting out in the press; the truth was he was doing far more than “mulling.” He had already made the decision to go full speed ahead.
It was not an easy call. Chesney’s district was a safe one, and he probably could have remained in Congress for many, many years to come. But in the class system that is the U.S. government, the Senate is on a much higher level than the House, and that’s where Chesney wanted to be.
The problem for Chesney was that the incumbent senator that he would have to take on in the general election was Ben Ryan. Ryan was finishing his second term, and if anything his star was on the rise. He won his last election five years ago with an unheard-of seventy-one percent of the vote, and polls showed him at least as popular now.
Chesney’s own private polls showed him getting swamped in a proposed matchup with Ryan, and most people would consider his entry into the race to be political suicide.
Which is why he hired Brett Fowler.
The purpose of the lunch was for Brett to provide a report on “campaign operations,” but instead Chesney had to endure an hour of conversation, consisting mostly of political gossip about what was happening in Washington. Mostly it was a recitation of who was up and who was down, and the two always evened out. Washington is a zero-sum city.
It wasn’t until Brett asked for and received the check that he addressed himself to the one thing that Chesney wanted to hear. “Your senator just got back from Amsterdam yesterday. Another example of his tireless efforts to help the people of Kansas.”
Chesney was immediately on alert. “And how did his trip go?”
“Apparently he had a wonderful time,” Brett said. “I didn’t talk to him directly, but I spoke to a friend of a friend of his.”
Chesney cast a wary glance at the other people in the restaurant, in the unlikely event that this apparently bland conversation was being overheard. Satisfied that what they were saying was private, he asked, “So it went well?”
Brett looked at Chesney, who thought he was in the process of cementing a bright future. He had no idea that he was just a backup, to be used only in case Plan A went very wrong. Which didn’t bode well for him, since a Plan A in this operation never went wrong.
Brett just smiled and raised his water glass. “It went fine, Senator.”
The Tara Foundation is how I want to spend my declining years.
Which is just as well, since my body started declining a while ago, and it’s not like it started from that high a peak.
When I don’t have any clients to take up my time, I spend much of my day at the foundation building, located in Haledon. But I never put in the effort that Willie Miller, and his wife, Sondra, do. It is their sole focus, and for them it’s a total commitment and a labor of love.
We’ve been doing it for five years, and in that time have placed close to three thousand dogs in homes. It would have been more, but Willie has rather rigorous criteria for what constitutes a home worthy of having one of our dogs. I’m strict about it, but Willie is over the top.
The operation costs us a lot of money, but that is not exactly a major problem. I am the undeserving beneficiary of a very large inheritance, plus a few enormous financial victories on behalf of clients. Willie is also very well off, since he was one of those clients, earning ten million in a wrongful-imprisonment lawsuit. It’s a lot of money, but not worth his spending seven years on death row for a murder he didn’t commit.
Outside factors have caused Willie’s time commitment to the foundation to waver lately. Being a national hero can be a time drain, and that is what Willie has been for the last four months.
It was part of a case that I was working on. Willie insisted on helping out, and I reluctantly gave him minor assignments, since Willie can be a bit of a loose cannon. Not only did he wind up catching the bad guys, but he heroically thwarted what would have been a devastating terrorist attack on a natural-gas tanker.
Willie’s resulting national celebrity was very much deserved, and he became the target of every interviewer in America. If he turned one down, I’m not at this point aware of it.
I was supposed to be here this morning to spend the day working and hanging out with the dogs, but my involvement with Noah and his case prevented it. I characteristically forgot to call Willie and tell him, and I know he will just as characteristically think nothing of it.
Sondra is in the reception area when I get there. “Sorry,” I say, “I got tied up with some work stuff.”
She smiles. “No problem. It’s been slow here today anyway.”
“Thanks, Sondra. Willie here?”
“In the back. He’s anxious to talk to you about something.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll let him tell you. But after he does, please talk him out of it.”
Willie is somewhat volatile, and more than somewhat impetuous, so this could be anything from wanting to remodel the foundation offices to enrolling in astronaut school. I’m not going to know until I know.
When I get into the back, which is where the dogs are, I find Willie in his normal position, rolling around on the ground, playing with six of them. I love dogs in a way that most people consider well north of eccentric, but Willie makes me look normal.
When he sees me, he jumps up, gives each dog a chewie to occupy them, and heads over to me. “Big news,” he says.
“I’m ready.”
“They want me to write a book.”
“Who does?”
The question throws him. “I don’t know… some book guy.”
This is already not going well. “A book guy? That’s all you know about him? Was he a big book guy? An old book guy?”
“Hold on a second,” he says, and walks over to his desk, opening the drawer. “He gave me his card.”
Willie hands me the card, which was given to him by Mr. Alexander Downey, the managing editor at a publishing house in New York. It seems legit, but who knows.
“So what exactly did he say?”
“That I should write a book, like my life story, and they’d put it out there. You know, print it out and stuff.”
“Anything else?”
“That they’d give me a lot of money. And I’d get it as soon as I say I’ll do it, before I even write the thing. But if I don’t write it, I have to give the money back. He wants me to have my agent call him.”
“Who’s your agent?” I ask, dreading the answer.
“You.”
“Willie, are you up for writing a book?”
“Sure. What’s the big deal?”
“Well, just to make sure, maybe you should read one first, so you’ll know what you’re getting into.” The only reading I’ve ever seen Willie do are his own press clippings.
“Come on, Andy, I told you a million times, I can’t do that. I get bored real easily; I read a ketchup bottle and I fall asleep.”
“It’s a big deal, Willie, a lot of work.”
“They said they’ll give me somebody to help. He’s helped other, you know, writers… like me.”
“I’m sure they will.”
“Hey, I’m gonna need some pens, and a lot of paper. You think maybe the helper guy will get me all that?”