Mistress

But I’ve seen the sun rise another day. That in itself is a major victory.

With the few remaining minutes on one of my three remaining prepaid phones, I make the call and set up an appointment. They tell me I’ll have to wait until after lunch, so I have some time to kill. I should probably hide in the hotel room, but it’s so crappy that I think I’ll take my chances on the open streets.

Or at least in a coffee shop, where I pull my baseball cap low and nurse a small coffee and pick at a blueberry muffin. I grab a Post that someone left on the next table over and go to the headlines. I’ve missed being a reporter and vastly prefer it to fugitive life. The pay’s better and nobody tries to kill you.

“Shit!” I yell when I see the lead story above the fold: RUSSIAN LEADER ESCAPES ASSASSIN’S BULLET.

I quickly whip through the article. Russian prime minister Yuri Mereyedev narrowly escaped assassination last night when a man opened fire on him while he was speaking at a rally outside Moscow. Russian police captured a man who is believed to have ties to-surprise, surprise-the Georgian secret police. The US State Department is said to be “closely monitoring” the situation.

I throw down the newspaper. Andrei Bogomolov anticipated this very thing. A terrorist attack, he predicted, that would be blamed on the Republic of Georgia. This is close enough. Certainly close enough for provocation’s sake.

Russia is moving closer to an invasion of her southern neighbor. The plan to reconstruct the old Soviet empire is already under way.

Chapter 80

I lock my bike to a parking meter, visit a fast-food bathroom so I can change into some presentable clothes, and enter the building a block away. I show my press credentials at the sign-in and the next thing I know, I’m in a plush waiting room. It reminds me of my visit to Jonathan Liu’s offices. It didn’t turn out so well for Jonathan. Let’s see how this turns out for Edgar Griffin.

“Mr. Griffin will see you,” says an elderly woman who doesn’t think much of my appearance. Apparently one of the principals at the law firm of Griffin and Weaver isn’t accustomed to people of my ilk crawling in.

“Yes, Senator, I agree.” Edgar Griffin is speaking into a headset while waving me into his lavishly appointed office. This is corporate chic at its chicest, if that’s a word. It probably isn’t. Anyway, this office is the size of a tennis court. It has a wall full of fancy books, another wall full of diplomas and framed photographs of Mr. Griffin, Esquire, interacting with important people, and a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking K Street. The decor is walnut and brass. Money and power. And helping people with money and power get more money and more power.

Mr. Griffin, Esquire, is wearing a striped shirt, a power-red tie with a tie clip, silk braces over his shoulders, and gold cuff links. His hair is full and greased. He has a thin, narrow face and neatly trimmed eyebrows.

“Senator, I couldn’t have said it better,” he says into his headset with a laugh.

I’ll bet you anything there isn’t anybody on the other end of the line. He just wants me to see his importance. That’s why I’m here, after all-at least in his mind. I called earlier today and said I was a reporter doing a piece on the “top ten movers and shakers in the capital,” and he was going to be numero uno, with his mug plastered on the front page of our humble website.

Suddenly he found that he could spare a half hour in his busy schedule.

“Edgar Griffin,” he says to me, removing his headset.

“Ben Casper.” We shake hands. I make sure he can see my press credentials sticking out of the pocket of my sport coat. I hope they will distract him from its myriad wrinkles, given that said sport coat has been balled up in my gym bag for several days.

“There was going to be a photographer?” he says.

“There was. There will be,” I say. “We’ll try to schedule something for tomorrow.”

“Fine. Just talk to Cheryl.”

I look around the office. “Wow,” I say. “You’ve done quite well for yourself. I’ve done my homework, Ed, and I’ve gotta say, when I ask around about the powerful people in this city, your name comes up a lot.”

“Edgar,” he says.

Are we reintroducing ourselves?

“Ben,” I say.

“No. I mean-you called me Ed. It’s Edgar.”

“Sorry. I have a lawyer named Ed. Actually, it’s Eddie. Eddie Volker. You know him?”

He wrinkles his nose. Apparently, Mr. Edgar Griffin of Griffin and Weaver doesn’t know Eddie Volker, a lawyer several notches below him on the elitism ladder who defends criminals and helps journalists.

“I knew an Edward Verrill in Cambridge. Not Vogel, I don’t think.”

Annnnnd there. It took him less than five minutes to tell me he went to Harvard Law School.

“That’s a family name, isn’t it?” I ask. “Edgar.”

“Yes, it is.”

I nod. “And that law degree from Harvard? I’ll bet you weren’t the first in your family, were you?”

Edgar seems slightly offended. “My father attended as well.”

Okay, he didn’t go to Harvard. He attended it.

“Grandpa, too?” I venture.