Mark Gilleo - Sweat

The nurse didn’t get out of her seat. “Last bed on the right, next to the window.”

Peter walked past the curtains that divided the eight-bed room and stuck his head around the corner.

“Jake?”

“Dad.”

“How are you, son?”

“I’m fine. Caught a little airbag in the face, but nothing’s hurt except my pride.”

“And the car?”

“It may need a little work,” Jake said, putting on his best look of shame.

“You know, I was on a six-month waiting list for that car,” Peter said, switching concerns.

Jake didn’t know if his father knew about the note on his chest, and he wasn’t about to volunteer that small detail. He kept up the charade as he got out of bed, and stood. “Dad, I’m sorry about the car. You were right. It was a little more power than I was ready for. I should have been more careful.”

“I’m disappointed, son.”

Peter was disappointed, and not just because he would be without his favorite toy for a while. He was disappointed for another reason. In the midst of the standard hospital formaldehyde scent, he smelled bullshit. The same bullshit he was famous for shoveling. This time it was coming from his son.

He hoped he was wrong.

Chapter 28

The old apartment was an orchestra of creaks and squeaks, groans and moans. The steps, the banister, the doors, the windows, all kept rhythm. The pipes to the sink, shower, and toilet hit all the high notes in various pitch. When the infamous D.C. summer thunderstorms blew in during the late afternoon and early evening, the whole building rattled and rolled. Jake had been there a month, and had yet to sleep uninterrupted until morning. Even when Kate wasn’t there and he didn’t have an excuse for being up half the night. There were hundreds of haunted jaunts in D.C., a winding trail of supernatural leftovers through the city, and Jake accepted that his building should have been an official tour stop.

Sex usually put him to sleep the moment his head hit the pillow, but between the thunderstorm raging outside and the noise from his apartment inside, he was wide awake. Post-sex dry mouth led him to the refrigerator where he quickly changed focus from thirst to hunger and choked down two pieces of cold pizza while standing barefoot in the kitchen in his underwear. He washed the pepperoni slice down with milk, straight from the carton, as usual. By the time Jake returned to the bedroom, Kate had taken the pole position on visiting Mr. Sandman. The remote control sat on his pillow, a considerate gesture from someone who was too busy studying how to save lives to watch TV.

Jake turned on the late news, the last edition of headlines for the day in a town with a neverending supply of new ones. Local news focused on the planned development of the Anacostia River front, a filthy stretch of land on the banks of water so polluted, one could do a Jesus impersonation on the cans and dead bodies floating on the surface. The second news story was even worse, and Jake cringed as he listened to the report on the re-entry of an infamous former D.C. mayor into the political fray—a man who once went to jail after being caught smoking crack on an FBI sting video. Framed by a hooker, the former mayor had won his second term, after serving his prison sentence, with the election slogan of “The Bitch Set Me Up.”

And D.C. wondered why it had problems.

The local news broadcast switched over to Rock Johnson, exposé reporter extraordinaire, on camera in front of the Senate Hart Building. He was flanked by a small but vocal crowd, screaming improvised chants and pumping homemade signs into the air. When Senator Day’s face flashed onto the corner of the screen, Jake inched up the volume. Kate, slipping toward sleep, moved closer to him, her head now resting on the edge of his thigh. Jake stroked her hair and turned the volume up one more notch.

The news clip started with glorious views of the surroundings—palm trees swaying in the breeze, seagulls floating in a cloudless sky. It wasn’t until ten seconds into the report that Jake sat up at attention and adjusted the volume yet higher. Standing against a wall, just off-center from Senator Day, was one Peter Winthrop—tall, broad, and smiling like the politician he was with. The camera moved around to another view of the building, followed by excerpts of video taken during a quick tour of the inside and the facilities. Jake was mesmerized. Lee Chang, the face from the file Jake had stolen from his father’s office, was shown shaking hands with Senator Day and good ol’ Dad. Next to Lee Chang, crystal clear, was another Asian man whom Jake immediately recognized. Jake’s pulse jumped and his mouth went dry again, this time from panic. The eyes, the ponytail, the sheer size of the man.

Jake almost choked on the desert in his throat. “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” he rasped.

“Nice language, Jake,” Kate murmured through closed eyes.

“Sorry,” Jake said, followed by a much cleaner “Dear God.”

“What is it?” Kate asked, picking up her head and staring at her panicking boyfriend.

“You don’t want to know.”

“What is it?” Kate asked again. “You’re freaking me out.”

“Kate, I think I may be in real trouble.” ***

The break-room in the First District was the oldest room in a building of old rooms. Brownish tiles that were once white ran four feet up the wall. The original plaster walls bulged and cracked, a relief map without a designated region. The sink in the corner dripped water steadily, and the a/c unit in the window screeched when it ran. If you wanted to have a conversation in the break-room during the summer, lip-reading skills didn’t hurt.

Detective Wallace and Detective Nguyen sat around the wooden table in the middle of the room. Wallace, the big-bellied detective with an infectious laugh, smoked a cigarette, tipping his ashes into the small ashtray that rested on a tabletop with so many scratches it looked like it had been caught in a cat stampede. Detective Nguyen, bored by an incredibly slow week, drank a bottle of water, a rare break from the coffee that kept him alive during the graveyard shift.

“A quick game of five card?” Detective Wallace asked, blowing a cloud of used nicotine, tobacco, and tar across the room in the smoke-free building.

“What are we playing for?” Nguyen asked.

“A gentleman’s bet. Gambling on the premises is against policy. You know that,” Detective Wallace answered, taking another drag from his menthol to conceal his laughter.

“Right, no betting unless the captain is at the table.”

“You young guys catch on quick.”

The senior detective slid the deck toward Nguyen who shuffled the cards without protesting. Detective Wallace flipped the channel to the news and tuned in to the local stories. He picked up his hand of cards, looked at the two aces and pair of jacks, and wished he had money in the pot. He glanced back at the TV at the end of the next news story and for a brief second, he stopped breathing. Detective Nguyen watched the cigarette droop from Earl Wallace’s mouth, and he wrenched his neck around to see a picture of Rock Johnson in front of the Hart Senate Building.

“Forget the game and grab your keys,” Detective Wallace said, throwing his two pair on the table.

Detective Nguyen looked at the cards, and then back up at the TV. “Taking me on a date Sergeant?”

“Yes, and you’re driving. Meet me in front of the building. I’ll be down in a minute. I gotta make a phone call.” ***

The D.C. affiliate for the ABC network, WJLA-TV, is housed in the old USA Today building in Rosslyn. The twin glass towers stand on the Virginia side of the Potomac River and are regular recipients of unintended near misses with airplanes landing at Reagan National Airport. Restricted flight patterns over the capital city make the approach at Reagan National one of the trickiest in the nation, and the USA Today buildings are the highlight of the pilot’s dexterity test. Planes bank left and right as they follow the Potomac, the flight path a slalom course a stone’s throw from CIA headquarters, the White House, and the Pentagon. Passengers with window seats were known to get close enough to read the computer screen on the reporters’ desks.