After Midnight

Kane’s head was hurting. He didn’t have time for this infernal runaround. He’d ask Nelson when he got back to the office the following week.

“All right, Jurkins. Go ahead and make the switch. I’ll approve it, if there’s any flak,” he said. “Just make sure they do what they’re supposed to. Put Jenny back on the line.”

“Yes, sir! Have a good vacation, sir, and don’t you worry, everything’s going along just fine!”

Kane made a grunting sound and waited for his secretary to come back on the line. When she did, he began shooting orders at her, for faxes to be sent up to his machine, for contract estimates, for correspondence. He hadn’t a secretary here and he hesitated to ask for Jenny to join him, because she had a huge crush on him which he didn’t want to encourage. He could scribble notes on the letters for answers and fax them back to her. Yes, that would work.

While Kane was debating his next move, a relieved Will Jurkins pushed back his sweaty red hair and breathed a long sigh, grinning cagily at the man standing beside him.

“That was a close one,” he told the man. “Lombard wanted to know why I made the switch.”

“You’re getting enough out of this deal to make it worth the risk,” came the laconic reply. “And you’re in too deep to back out.”

“Don’t I know it,” Jurkins said uneasily. “Are you sure about this? I don’t want to go to jail.”

“Will you stop worrying? I know what I’m doing.” He slipped the man a wad of large bills, careful not to let himself be seen.

Jurkins grimaced as he counted the money and quickly slipped it into his pocket. He had a child with leukemia and his medical insurance had run out. He was out of choices and this cigar-smoking magician had offered him a small fortune just to switch sanitation firms. On the surface, there was nothing wrong with it. But he was uneasy, because Burke’s sanitation outfit had already been in trouble with the environmental people for some illegal dumping.

“Burke’s is not very reliable,” he began, trying again. “And I already made one major mistake here, letting that raw sewage get dumped accidentally into the river. If they catch Burke putting anything toxic in a bad place, it will look pretty bad for Lombard International.”

“Burke’s needs the business,” the raspy-voiced man said. “Trust me. It’s just to help him out. There’s no way it will be traced back to you. You need the money don’t you?” When Jurkins nodded, the man patted him on the shoulder and smiled, waving the cigar around. “Nobody will know. And I was never here. Right?”

“Right.”

Jurkins watched the man leave by the side door. He went into the parking lot and climbed into a sedate gray BMW. A car like that would cost Jurkins a year’s salary. He wondered what his benefactor did for a living.

Clayton Seymour had gone down the roster of Republican representatives over a new bill which affected cable television rates. He and his legislative committee—not to mention part of his personal staff—were helping his friend, the minority whip, gather enough representatives together for a decisive vote on the issue. But he was going blind in the process. He looked out his window at the distant Washington, D.C., skyline and wished he was back home in Charleston and going fishing. He maintained only two district offices, whereas most of the other House members had anywhere from two to eight.

Each of those offices back home in South Carolina had full-time and part-time staffers who could handle requests from constituents. In addition, he’d appointed a constituent staff at his Washington office, along with his legislative, institutional, and personal staff. It sounded like a lot of people on the payroll, but there were actually only a handful involved and they were eminently qualified. Most had master’s degrees. His district director had a Ph.D. and his executive legislative counsel was a Harvard graduate.

He was ultimately satisfied with the job he’d done. During his term in office, he’d remained within his budget. It was one of many feathers in his political cap. In addition, he had seats on the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Ways and Means Committee, among others. He worked from twelve to fourteen hours a day and occasionally took offense at remarks that members of Congress were overpaid layabouts. He didn’t have time to layabout. In the next congress, over eleven thousand new pieces of legislation were predicted for introduction. If he was reelected—when he was reelected—he was going to have to work even harder.

His executive administrative assistant in charge of his personal and constituent staff, Derrie Keller, knocked on the door and opened it all in the same motion. She was tall and pretty, with light blond hair and green eyes and a nice smile. Everybody was kind to her because she had such a sweet nature. But she also had a bachelor’s degree in political science, and was keen-minded, efficient, and tough when the situation called for it. She headed the personal staff, and when she went to Charleston with Clayton, that position also applied to whichever of the two district offices she visited.

“Ah, Derrie,” he said on a long-suffering sigh. “Are you going to bury me in paperwork again?”

She grinned. “Want to lie down, first, so we can do it properly?”

“If I lie down, three senators and a newspaperman will come in and stand on me,” he assured her. He sat upright in his chair. He was good-looking—tall, dark-haired and blue-eyed, with a charismatic personality and a perfect smile.

Women loved him, Derrie thought; particularly a highly paid Washington lobbyist who practiced law named Bett Watts. The woman was forever in and out of the office, tossing out orders to anyone stupid enough to take them. Derrie wasn’t. She was simply biding her time until her tunnel-visioned boss eventually noticed that she was a ripe fruit hanging low on the limb, waiting for him to reach up and…

“Are you going to stand there all day?” he prompted impatiently.

“Sorry.” She put the letters on his desk. “Want coffee?”

“You can’t bring me coffee,” he said absently. “You’re an overpaid public official with administrative duties. If you bring me coffee, secretarial unions will storm the office and sacrifice me on the White House lawn.”

She knew this speech by heart. She just smiled. “Cream and sugar?”

“Yes, please,” he replied with a grin.

She went out to get it, laughing at his irrepressible overreaction. He always made her laugh. She couldn’t resist going with him to political rallies where he was scheduled to speak, because she enjoyed him so much. He was in constant demand as an after-dinner speaker.

“Here you go,” she said a minute later, reappearing with two steaming cups. She put hers down and sat in the chair beside his desk with her pad and pen in hand.

“Thanks.” He was studying another piece of legislation on which a vote would shortly be taken. “New stuff on the agenda today, Derrie. I’ll need you to direct one of the interns to do some legwork for me.”

“Is that the lumbering bill?” she asked, eyeing the paper in his lean hands.

“Yes,” he said, mildly surprised. “Why?”

“You’re not going to vote for it, are you?”

He scowled as he lifted his cup of coffee, fixed with cream just as he liked it, and looked at her while he sipped it gingerly. “Yes, I am,” he replied slowly.

She glared at him. “It will set the environment back ten years.”

“It will open up jobs for people who can’t get any work.”

“It’s an old forest,” she persisted. “One of the oldest untouched forests in the world.”

“We can’t afford to leave it in its pristine condition,” he said, exasperated. “Listen, why don’t you meet with all those lobbyists who represent the starving mothers and children of lumbermen out west? Maybe you can explain your position to them better than I could. Hungry kids really get to me.”

“How do you know they were really starving and not just short a hot lunch?”

“You cynic!” he exclaimed. He sat forward in his chair. “Hasn’t anybody ever explained basic economics to you? Ecology is wonderful, I’m all for it. In fact, I have a very enviable record in South Carolina for my stand against toxic waste dumps and industrial polluters. However, this is another issue entirely. People are asking us to set aside thousands of acres of viable timber to save an owl, when people are jobless and homeless and facing the prospect of going on the welfare rolls—which is, by the way, going to impact taxpayers all the way from Oregon to D.C.”

“I know all that,” she grumbled. “But we’re cutting down all the trees we have and we’re not replacing them fast enough. In fact, how can you replace something that old?”

“You can’t replace it,” he agreed. “You can’t replace people, either, Derrie.”

“There are things you’re overlooking,” she persisted. “Have you read all the background literature on that bill?”

“When I have time?” he exploded. “My God, you of all people should know how fast they throw legislation at me! If I read every word of every bill…”

“I can read it for you. If you’ll listen I’ll tell you why the bill is a bad idea.”

“I have legislative counsel to advise me,” he said tersely, glaring at her. “My executive legislative counsel is a Harvard graduate.”

Derrie knew that. She also liked Mary Tanner, an elegant African American woman whose Harvard law degree often surprised people who mistook her for a model. Mary was beautiful.

“And Mary is very good,” she agreed. “But you don’t always listen to your advisors.”

“The people elected me, not my staff,” he reminded her with a cold stare.

She almost challenged that look. But he’d been under a lot of pressure, and she had a little time left before the vote to work on him. She backed down. “All right. I’ll work my fingers to the bone for you, but I won’t quit harping on the lumber bill,” she warned. “I don’t believe in profit at the expense of the environment.”