The Washington Lawyer (9 page)

Xiang was preparing to go to the other rooms when a copy of
Vogue Magazine
from fourteen years ago on the coffee table caught his eye. On the cover was a picture of a strikingly beautiful blonde. The caption read: V
ANESSA
B
OYD
. A
MERICA
'
S NEW
S
UPER
M
ODEL
.

Xiang sat down and read the profile. It contained a family photo of Vanessa, her twin sister Allison, and her mother, Claire, taken at a Paris show. Allison was an attractive brunette but nothing like the beautiful blonde bombshell Vanessa.

Xiang went to the other side of the apartment. He saw a study and two bedrooms. The larger was Vanessa's; the other one must have been a guest room.

He began in the study, sitting down at Vanessa's desk and opening the center drawer. Inside, he saw a bulky diary. Not wanting to waste time reading it, he placed it in his briefcase. He found a date book calendar. It had several entries including one for last Friday. “Anguilla with W.J.” He tucked that in his briefcase as well. No sign of a CD or bank vault key.

Based upon what Jasper said, he ignored Vanessa's laptop.

He checked the side drawers. No CD. In one of them, he saw a stack of Verizon phone bills bound by a rubber band. Those might show calls with Jasper, he decided. So he took those as well. He leafed through Vanessa's bank statements. No point taking those.

He checked all the other drawers in the room. No CD. No key. He looked under the oriental carpet on the wooden floor. Nothing.

Next, he searched the small bedroom and didn't find a thing of interest.

He went into Vanessa's bedroom and looked in the large walk-in closet. He was amazed. He had never seen so many clothes, shoes, and handbags in his life. He looked everywhere in the closet, opening each bag and reaching inside, even opening zipper compartments. No CD. No bank vault key.

In the large bedroom, he saw on the bureau several pictures of Vanessa with a woman he now recognized from the
Vogue
article as Allison. One was taken on a boardwalk along a beach, possibly Rehoboth. He was struck by the fact that Vanessa, not all dressed up for a shoot but casual in shorts and tank top, looked pretty, but not drop-dead gorgeous as she did in
Vogue
.

He was also struck by how similar the twins looked when both were in shorts and tank tops.

Xiang began opening drawers in Vanessa's bedroom. He couldn't believe what he saw in the underwear drawer. Must have been two dozen silk bra and matching panty sets in different colors. All neatly arranged. He looked underneath for a CD or key and came up empty. He tried to restore them to the original arrangement.

As he did, his hand stopped on a pale yellow set. Yellow was his favorite color. He carefully removed the silk panties and held them up to his face, trying to draw in her scent.

It infuriated him that Jasper, that disgusting old fool, had been having sex with Vanessa. She should have had a younger man, someone like Xiang. He closed his eyes and imagined what it would be like to make love with Vanessa. He felt his cock stiffening. Later, he told himself as he slipped the panties into his briefcase.

He checked the two bathrooms. Nothing. Satisfied it wasn't in the apartment, Xiang pulled the hat down close to his eyes, took off the latex gloves, and left the apartment. Fortunately, no one was in the corridor.

He stepped out of the elevator and looked anxiously at the reception desk. It was deserted. Perhaps the African student had gone to the bathroom. He crossed to the front door and exited the building.

On the street, he walked at a normal pace toward his car. No one called to him. He was confident he hadn't been seen.

Back in his apartment, he placed the encrypted phone on the desk and waited for Jasper to call with the results of his search of Vanessa's office. With time to kill, he undressed and stretched out naked on his bed with the briefcase next to him. Merely pulling out Vanessa's yellow panties and fingering them gave him an erection. He wrapped them around his hard cock, closed his eyes, and imagined it was Vanessa's moist pussy. He touched himself lightly. That's all it took. His semen wet the panties. He closed his eyes and relaxed.

Thirty minutes later, Jasper called on the dedicated cell. “Negative,” the senator said tersely.

That was bad news. Xiang desperately wanted that CD.

What to do now? Call Liu and fly to Beijing? Or continue searching for the CD here, hoping to avoid a disaster?

He paced on the living room carpet, trying to decide. Both held risks. If he told Liu now, Liu might blame him for not having better control of Jasper. But how could he have blocked this from happening? The fault was Liu's. The spymaster had made an amateur's mistake by not making certain his July conversation with Jasper wasn't being overheard or recorded. Liu would never accept responsibility. He'd find a way to blame Xiang.

But staying in Washington and not telling Liu was risky as well. To be sure, the CD might be buried somewhere and never surface. But if he didn't find the CD and it ended up in the media, Liu would severely punish him for keeping the information to himself. And at this point he had no way of finding the CD. Liu might have some ideas.

Neither was a good choice.

He was leaning toward calling Liu and flying to Beijing. At least that way he wouldn't be hanging out alone.

Then one of the cell phones on his desk rang. The secure phone Liu had given him.

Xiang raced over and grabbed it.

“I want you to fly to Beijing immediately,” Liu said.

“Yes sir. I'll get the first plane.”

Xiang was terrified. Had Liu found out about the CD? Had it already surfaced? Is that why he was calling?

After showering and hiding the yellow panties, he got back into his car and headed to Dulles Airport. While driving, he used his cell to book the first flight to Beijing.

He hoped he'd be returning to Washington.

* * *

At seven thirty in the morning, barefoot, Martin walked down the four cold flagstone stairs in front of his house. In the heavy fog, he could barely see the street.

After stopping to retie his robe, he picked up the morning
Washington Post
and
New York Times
. He was tempted to tear into them on the spot to see if they had any stories about the chief justice appointment. No, don't go crazy, he cautioned himself. A few minutes won't matter. Francis wasn't up yet. He'd sit down with coffee and do this calmly.

First, the
Times
said nothing about the Supreme Court. He turned to the
Post
. On the upper right-hand corner was a picture of Chief Justice West and an article quoting unnamed medical sources as stating that West's prostate cancer had metastasized and he would be stepping down as soon as Braddock selected a replacement. The article went on to name Corbett, Butler, and Martin as the three candidates on the president's short list.

Profiles of the three were on A-10. Martin flipped to that page.

“Oh … Oh,” he said when he saw that his profile was written by Rick Potts, the
Post's
legal affairs correspondent.

Martin knew that Potts disliked him because he refused to talk to Potts about legal matters he was handling. Martin strongly believed that when lawyers spoke to the press, it wasn't good for the lawyer and it wasn't good for his client. As a result, he never discussed his cases with any reporters. Potts took umbrage at that. And they argued about it from time to time, including once on an ABA panel.

As Martin read his profile, he realized that Potts was now getting even with Martin. The reporter depicted Martin as a greedy lawyer who charged clients excessive rates. He was, “The quintessential Washington insider and a wheeler-dealer … Lyndon Johnson appointed someone like that in Abe Fortas, and we all saw how it ended.”

Martin was enraged, but he knew he couldn't do a damn thing about it. He just hoped Larkin and Braddock wouldn't pay much attention to Potts's profile.

Martin sipped some coffee and turned to the sports section. Nothing good there. Lots of agonizing about why the Washington lost to Dallas.

He flipped through Metro. On the obit page, a good-looking woman with long blonde hair caught his eye. “Vanessa Boyd, Senate Committee Staffer.” His heart began pounding. Studying the picture, now he remembered Jasper introducing her in the committee's offices. A knockout. Jesus, she was the woman Jasper took to Anguilla.

His hand unsteady, he placed his cup down and began reading:

Vanessa Boyd, Senate Committee Staffer

by Harriet Olsen

Washington Post
Staff Writer

Vanessa's obit worried Martin. He had hoped her death would pass without notice. He thought some more about what had happened Sunday night. Suppose someone who knew she was going to Anguilla with Jasper, maybe a fellow staffer, saw the obit. Would the staffer raise questions about how Vanessa died?

He started cursing himself. Moron. Imbecile. Stupid idiot. Sure, he had a lot to drink, but that didn't justify what he did. Was there some way he could undo it? Turn it around? Couldn't Jasper still tell the police in Anguilla what happened? He could concede that a mistake had been made. No harm done. It was an accidental drowning.

Yeah, but awkward, he realized. Still, far better for him and Jasper than if the facts got discovered by someone else and they were charged with a cover-up. But Wes could be a brick wall. Advising him in his two senatorial campaigns, Martin had nearly come to blows with Jasper. Once, he'd wanted to take a two by four and whack him.

He ran through the day's schedule in his mind. On Tuesday evenings Francis had her chamber music group at the home of the first violinist with the National Symphony and she ate with them. So, of course, she'd be there. Tuesday evenings were sacrosanct, he thought with resignation. It didn't matter what else came up. Even when Fred Glass had arranged an important client dinner with spouses, he had uselessly pleaded with her, “Can't you make an exception just this one time?” She not only refused, but they ended up in a shouting match, he recalled. “I must have my own life, Andrew. I'm not just your little helper,” she claimed.

So Tuesday evenings he made plans for himself. During baseball season, he loved going out to watch the Nationals. He always bought the cheapest ticket and sat in the outfield bleachers with a beer and a hotdog, a carryover from his boyhood when all he could afford was a bleacher seat for the Pirates. If his father wasn't working, they'd go together. If not, he'd hitch a ride into Pittsburgh and go himself.

Francis laughed at him for not sitting in the expensive box seats the firm bought for client entertaining. But she didn't understand. It was a way of remembering his childhood. And sitting out there with a beer, even on a hot, muggy Washington evening, he tuned out his weighty legal problems.

No baseball in November, though. This evening he had planned to go to the Caps game against the Bruins. But the hell with that. He'd invite Jasper over for dinner. It wouldn't be easy, but one on one he'd persuade the senator to tell the Anguilla police.

He yanked out his cell phone. “Listen, Wes, you and I have to talk. How about my house for dinner this evening? Francis will be out.”

“Not tonight, Andrew, I have something on.”

“This is important, dammit.”

“What are you talking about?” The man's voice had a snarly edge.

Damn you, don't turn hostile on me, Martin thought. You dragged me into this. “I don't think I should spell it out on the phone. This cannot wait. Issues we hoped were resolved may not be concluded.”

“What in hell happened?”

“Take a look at the obit page in this morning's
Post
. And please come at seven thirty.”

Francis walked in and poured a cup. “Anything about the Supreme Court in the papers?”

“You don't want to read the
Post
.”

“Darling, give it to me straight.”

He showed her the Rick Potts's profile.

“That stinks.”

“I should have found a way to placate that asshole years ago.”

“I doubt if it will carry much sway.”

“I hope you're right.”

“Maybe I'll go back to bed.”

“Wait. There's more. The
Post
ran an obit on the woman Wes was with in Anguilla.”

She closed her eyes and scrunched her face. “That won't go away. Will it?”

“I invited him here to dinner this evening. We can still straighten it out. If he gets obstinate, I'll put arsenic in his food.”

“Better yet, cut off a certain part of his anatomy.”

They both laughed.

“This isn't funny,” he said. “Why are we laughing?”

“Because if we don't, we'll be crying.”

Oxford, Ohio

A
llison was driving a rental car along Route 27 from Cincinnati to Oxford over flat land past farms that looked desolate after the harvest. She took her eyes off the road for an instant to glance at the finger she'd pricked when she and Vanessa had sworn a blood oath to stick together. The grim, gloomy, gray morning matched her mood.