At all costs

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

For the first time in four decades, Clayton Albricht seriously considered just staying in bed. The press had been assembling on his front lawn all night, as he worked feverishly with his staff to figure out a way to control the damage.

He cringed as he heard the clip on the morning news of his press secretary telling the assembled reporters, “The senator vehemently and categorically denies that he has ever engaged in homosexual or pedophilic activities…”

Christ, even the denial was damning.

No one could prove, of course, that Frankel had anything to do with this, so it was out of the question even to suggest such a thing. That left Albricht with lame, paranoic claims of unidentified conspiracies to defame him. Every excuse he offered sounded comically defensive.

His wife, Alba, believed him, though. She’d seen too many careers plummet at the hands of others to think that any act of deception or cruelty was out of the question. At least the children were grown, she reasoned, and there was some comfort in that.

Still, Clayton and Alba had spent hours together on the phone with the kids, explaining what the media was about to release and assuring them that their father was not a pervert. By the end of the conversation, both kids agreed that it was a good time to take a quick vacation. Come eight o’clock tonight, Clay Jr. would be in Denali Park with his wife and two kids, and Amy would be basking in the sun in St. Thomas. Of the two, everyone agreed that Clay Jr. was less likely to be followed by the press. Alaska could get pretty chilly in October.

“This is the Big One, isn’t it, Clay?” Alba asked as he hung up from his thousandth conference call with his senior staffers.

The instant the handset touched the cradle, it rang again. It had been like that all morning, with calls pouring in from all over the world. Apparently, it was an otherwise slow news day. The senator lifted the receiver and put it right down. Three seconds later it rang again. They both laughed.

Clayton made room for her next to him on the well-worn bedroom lounge chair. Countless stories and good-night kisses had been issued to the children from this very spot. He called it his thinking chair. “Not yet,” he said, putting more levity in his voice than he felt in his soul. “Not as long as the supposed pictures stay out of the media. If they get released, then yes. This’ll be the one that brings us down.”

Alba rumpled his sleep-twisted hair, relieved that he’d finally been able to log forty-five minutes or so before dawn. “How are you holding up?”

He gave a wan smile. “I guess I’ll be okay.”

“Are you sure it’s Frankel?” Alba asked.

The senator nodded as he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “It sure smells like him. It has to be.”

“Can you beat him?”

He shrugged. The thought of sleep was particularly pleasing to him right now. “Well, I won’t be charged with any crimes, if that’s what you mean. You can’t prove a case from receipts-or even from pictures-and even Frankel can’t invent witnesses.”

Alba stood and stepped behind the chair to rub her husband’s shoulders. “He won’t stop, you know. Even if you let him waltz through the confirmation hearings, he’ll still have you under his thumb. It’ll never end.”

The senator leaned all the way back in his chair and grabbed both her hands, pulling them down to his chest, until she was hugging him from behind. “You know me better than that,” he said. “I’ll fight him underground for as long as I can. If I can expose him for what he is, we’ll win. If not, then maybe it’ll be time to move back to Chicago. Time to go home.”

Deep down inside, Alba wondered if her husband hadn’t grown tired of Washington, anyway. Life as a target for every bleeding-heart special interest was tough. Certainly, they could swing the financial aspects of retirement. Maybe this was all an omen that the time had come to quit.

“So what happens first, do you suppose?” she asked.

Clayton sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Well, the way I figure it, nothing happens until I want it to happen. The press will let this run its course for a couple of weeks, running my daily denials and the president’s daily suggestions that I retire from office. After that, it’ll get pretty hot, as the papers start collecting quotes from my own party, condemning me for godlessness and sanctifying you for your willingness to stand by such a horrible creature as me.”

“Maybe I can go on Oprah,” Alba teased.

Clayton laughed. “Pedophile Legislators and the Women Who Love Them,” he added in his best announcer’s voice. “If it goes the way these things usually do, we won’t be invited to a single Christmas party, but come Easter, we’ll be back on the A list. Then I announce my retirement at the end of the term, and in a few years we’re back in Chicago, and I get to live off speaking fees and book advances.”

“Sounds like you have it all planned, Senator,” Alba cooed, rubbing his stubbly face gently with the back of her hand.

“Oh, I do,” Clayton confirmed. “And best of all, I’ve got five full years left to figure out a way to break all of this off in Frankel’s ass.”

“Jake, you’re crazy.” Carolyn seemed outraged that he would even mention such a thing. She turned her back on him and stormed into the trailer.

Jake followed, with Travis close behind, despite his father’s warning to stay out of it. “Why am I crazy? This is a way to get our lives back.”

“Bullshit! This is a way to get our lives ended!” She seemed close to tears.

“Like this isn’t death?” He swirled his arms to take in the whole scene. “Christ, Carolyn, we’ve got to take a chance.”

“Why now?” she insisted. “Last time we discussed it, you said yourself it was a stupid idea. What suddenly makes it any less stupid now?”

“You’ve been caught,” Travis said evenly, stating the obvious.

“You stay out of this!” His parents said it in perfect unison.

Carolyn thrust her fingers into her thick hair, a gesture of ultimate frustration. “It’s too late,” she insisted. “The evidence is gone, and we’re too old.”

Jake tossed his hands in the air. “Okay, we’re pushing forty,” he conceded. “But you know what? Next year we’ll be another year older. And so will the evidence. Now is a bad time only because we should have done it sooner!”

“And what about Travis?” She was grasping at straws now.

“What about me?”

“Stay out of this!” Another perfect chorus.

“What about him?”

“He’s just a boy, Jake. We can’t get him wrapped up in something like this. It’s illegal.”

“I’ll just tell them that you forced me to do it at gunpoint,” Travis offered helpfully, bringing the argument to a dead halt.

“Thanks a lot, buddy,” Jake said, planting his fists on his hips. “With family like you, who needs prosecutors?” With just this glimmer of hope, Travis had become Jake’s ally; albeit a conditional ally.

Carolyn worked her jaw muscles hard as she considered her husband’s plea. “There’s a million things that could go wrong,” she said. Her voice had softened, and even Travis recognized it as the time to tread carefully. The right words now would make it a go. Say the wrong thing, though, and the option would be shut down forever.

“We only need a couple to go right,” Jake countered. He moved closer. “Think of it. It’s this for the rest of our lives, or we can take a shot.”

She absorbed the words, looking first to Travis and then to Jake. “Suppose no one wants to help?”

Jake shrugged. “We’ll never know unless we ask.” He was careful to smile.

Closing her eyes, she sighed deeply and thrust her hand into her hair one more time. “This is insane,” she moaned.

Travis cheered, “Yes!”

They jammed themselves into the mildewed kitchenette and discussed the details for a good hour, re-creating long-forgotten logic paths and mapping out the logistics of what had to be done and in what order.

With the initial plans complete, they headed back for the van. Jake started to lock the trailer’s door, then paused, recognizing the futility of it. “My contribution to young love,” he mumbled, and he put his key away.