The Heir

12

I was up early Saturday to explore the neighborhood. The meeting was at ten.

No wonder Melvin had been drawn here. This was a place for the powerful. It was written in every storefront and every discreet, elegant facade. He’d had equals here who weren’t natural enemies, as well as many other powerful people who had been less than equal. Only a handful had been higher.

I walked to Capitol Hill. Melvin often had. Five blocks to the head of Pennsylvania Avenue, then four miles to the Capitol. The only thing that kept it from being a straight shot was the White House smack dab in the way, and what thoughts that must have put in his head. But he was a realist; he only owned one state, not the whole country. Ultimately he’d come back home, where his reign was unquestioned. Caesar or nothing.

And one of the few men who could question his position back home was Bob Forrester. So Melvin had lured him away, to where Bob could build his castle and Melvin owned the sand it was built on.

I came to the senate office buildings and was expected. Then I was accepted into the outer office of the senator. The greatest man is still only a man, so his wealth and power have to be visible in other ways. Big Bob was only a man-but through the window was the Capitol, and beyond it the Mall and the monuments and the departments and the great city. A man in that office would know he was very powerful.

The man stood as I entered his inner temple. “Jason Boyer,” he said, standing taller than me. “I remember meeting you before, at your father’s house.” He stood very still, like a monument himself. It made him seem unmovable.

“I remember it, too,” I said, choking back the sir. “It was after the election, at the end of his last term.”

“Long ago.” He turned to the window to make sure I had noticed the spectacle. “I want to offer you my sympathy concerning him. I didn’t have an opportunity at his funeral.” I was trying to remember. He hadn’t been at the cemetery, only at the church. He’d sung the hymns off-key.

“Thank you.” There are many shades of gray. Nathan Kern’s hair, for example, was the discreet color of rain clouds. Bob Forrester’s was light, marbled with darker veins. Each strand either black or white.

“I’ve entered a resolution in the Senate honoring his memory. There are still people here who remember him.”

“Thank you again,” I said. Since the first greeting he hadn’t faced me. “Senator, I don’t need to take much of your time. I wanted to meet you because your association with Melvin goes back a long time and was important to him.”

He turned just his head toward me for a moment, and then away. “Yes. Although I’m afraid I didn’t know him well personally.”

Then he sat, and did not ask me to.

That made me angry. This was rudeness without reason unless there was a reason. My agenda was only to introduce myself and attempt to toss in the governor’s name. The senator had his own agenda.

“I didn’t mean socially. I’ve inherited his estate and his responsibilities.”

“Indeed.” It was a dismissal! He’d accepted the meeting for the purpose of snubbing me.

I did not accept it. It was a measure of the five days since my meeting with Clinton Grainger that I was not feeling at all intimidated in this conversation. As long as I was standing and he was sitting, I was taller. “You understand what I mean, Senator.” If he would look at me at all, he’d have to look up.

He did look up and saw that I was still there. “Then take responsibility for your father’s embarrassment in the governor’s mansion. So far you haven’t been able to.” He had taken up his reading glasses. “And now, if you could excuse me. It has been a pleasure.”

“I doubt that,” I said. I walked out, but this time it was not a retreat, just a strategic move into camp, where I could begin my siege.

I sauntered back toward Georgetown, and it was an irate saunter. Melvin’s kingdom was not passing to his heir easily.

I was back well before noon. I ate at an Indian restaurant, the hottest meal on the menu, and then I took a cold shower. Afterward I was still angry.

More walking finally helped, and I was civil enough later in the afternoon to call for a progress report from Katie, of which there was little, and to give a progress report to Fred, of whom there was much.

“Did you discuss the governor?”

“The senator brought the subject up.”

“Did you suggest that Bright was ineffective?”

“It was not necessary to use that word. Bob supplied a much more pointed one. He’s going to be a problem, Fred. He used the meeting to insult me.”

“Bluntly?”

“We didn’t even make it up to blunt,” I said. “Do I have another war going?”

“Not necessarily. He has no reason to take any action against you, and we need nothing from him at the moment. It is just his opening position.”

“For negotiations. Right. Would he attack if he had a reason?”

“No. He is not offensive.”

“I’d say he is.”

“No less than he finds you. Hopefully he will continue to find Governor Bright the same.” Fred was bemused. “No, he usually is defensive rather than offensive. It is intriguing. It may mean he feels vulnerable.”

“He didn’t act like it. Who did Melvin use to control the state parties?”

“There are several people. That will be another set of meetings when the time comes.”

“Kings have lots of meetings. I think I’d rather march an army into battle, the way kings used to do it.”

“They probably had meetings back then, too. Some things are basic to the human soul.”

I wandered the streets that evening and contemplated the basics of the human soul. The streets were crowded with Saturday merrymakers. It was a warm evening for October, but of course, I was in the South.

I mingled with them but I was not merry. These were basic human souls. They lived without what I had but they still lived, so it must be possible. Why would they want to? What were they doing here? Even without a billion dollars, they would still have the compromises and conflicts.

But I was not part of them. I was above the crowd, or outside it at least. There wasn’t a correct preposition. What was the wall? The money? I was richer than all of them together, yet I was the one on the outside. What would it be like to be one of them?