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followed Mahoney to a table where Mahoney ignored him until his drink arrived—a double bourbon on the rocks. He opened his mouth to speak but then stopped and looked away, as if he was embarrassed about whatever it was that he was going to say. And this surprised DeMarco. Mahoney was a man who was rarely embarrassed by anything he did or said.
    “Sometimes,” Mahoney finally said, “a guy’s dick can lead him into real trouble.”
    For a minute DeMarco wondered if Mahoney was talking about the congressman from Arkansas but swiftly concluded he wasn’t. Mahoney was talking about himself.
    “There’s a reporter named Sandra Whitmore…”
    “You mean the one…”
    “Yeah. That one. When she was younger, she had a body that could stop traffic and I tossed her a story that almost won her a Pulitzer. She’s never had a story as big as that since. Anyway, I got a letter from her yesterday saying that she’s going to talk to her pals in the media about her love life if I don’t help her.”
    “She’s blackmailing you?”
    Mahoney shrugged. “Go see her. See if something can be done to get her out of jail.”
    “From what I’ve read there’s no way she’s going to get out unless she gives up her source. I mean, what she did…”
    “Yeah, well, go see if there’s another option. She doesn’t have the temperament to sit in a cell for very long.”
    “Okay,” DeMarco said. He knew from past experience that arguing with Mahoney over the feasibility of an assignment was a waste of time.
    “There’s something else,” Mahoney said. “LaFountaine’s up to something.”
    “Like what?”
    “I don’t know. He came up to the Hill that day to give us an update on intelligence stuff, just like he told the press. But the thing is, he’s always hated talking to us about what his guys are doing. We usually have to force his stubborn ass to brief us and then he’ll tell us as little as he possibly can, and he’ll make us just
drag
the information out of him. Well, that day he acted the way he always did, not saying shit about anything important, but right there at the end he tossed out that bit about Diller. He was casual about it, letting us know Marty Taylor was up to something illegal but that he wanted to hold off on arresting Diller and Taylor so it didn’t screw up whatever operation he was running. And when he brought up the thing about Diller, the meeting was behind schedule, as usual, and so nobody even asked any questions.”
    “I don’t understand,” DeMarco said.
    “What I’m saying is that LaFountaine telling the committee about Diller was completely out of character. So I think he’s up to something but I can’t figure out what.”
    “But what do you want me to do about it?” DeMarco asked. “I mean, he’s the director of the CIA.”
    “Yeah, I know.” Mahoney sat there brooding a moment, then said, “Ah, forget LaFountaine. You’re right, there’s probably nothing you can do. Maybe Emma could, but you …” Mahoney didn’t completethe sentence but DeMarco knew what he meant. His friend Emma had once been a high-ranking member of Washington’s intelligence community and she could do things in that arena that he couldn’t even come close to doing—but even if that was the case, Mahoney’s comment still stung, implying that DeMarco was, and always would be, lacking in so many ways.
    DeMarco was a lawyer who had never practiced law, and if he continued to work for John Mahoney he never would. Mahoney had hired him only as a favor to an old friend, but because of the notoriety of DeMarco’s father, Mahoney refused to give him a legitimate staff position. Instead, he buried DeMarco in a closet-sized office in the subbasement of the Capitol and made sure that no organizational chart connected him to the Speaker’s realm.
    DeMarco liked to think of himself as a political troubleshooter but that was a face-saving illusion. In reality, he was the guy Mahoney used whenever he wanted