Mistress

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.

Now he is offended. “My grandfather as well, yes.”

So he basically just had to make sure he didn’t wet his pants at the interview. He was in before he submitted his application. But better I don’t say that to him. Not yet, anyway. Maybe on the way out.

I raise my hand, a sign of peace. “It’s my resentment showing. I tried for Harvard and didn’t get in.”

That’s not true. I didn’t apply to Harvard. In fact, I didn’t even apply to American University. My dad just informed me one day that my days of private tutors were over and that I was going to American the following fall. But I’ve made Edgar feel just a little bit more superior than he already felt. If that’s possible.

“So, Edgar, you’ve managed to build up quite a list of clients,” I say, looking over a sheet of paper that does not contain a list of anything whatsoever. In fact, it’s blank. “Ah, Alexander Kutuzov, I see here. The billionaire?”

Now we’re back in Edgar’s comfort zone. “Alex has been wonderful to work with.”

That’s one way superior people try to act more superior-using famous people’s nicknames to show their familiarity. Yeah, I was having lunch with Jenny Lopez the other day, and who was sitting at the next table but Bobby De Niro and Marty Scorsese.

“Here in the States,” he says (people refer to the United States as “the States” when they want you to know they’re world travelers), “we’ve helped Alex with licensing and some related litigation over his soccer franchise.”

I point to the same piece of paper that has absolutely nothing on it. If this guy didn’t have his head so far up his ass, he might notice that.

“I see here you helped Mr. Kutuzov with the negotiations on that oil pipeline in Russia. The one that feeds oil to Russia’s neighbors.”

Actually, it was Griffin and Weaver’s London office that handled it, but I’ll bet all my frozen assets that he’s going to take credit for it.

I certainly hope he does.

“Could we chat about that for a minute?” I ask.