The 14th... And Forever Read online

  Twenty minutes later, she turned off Wisconsin Avenue into Top Hat’s lot. Protected on the street side by a chain-link fence, the lot was shielded on the other three sides by tall buildings. The Chrysler slid to a halt with its front bumper a scant inch from a brick wall.

  “I’ll be right back. I just have to pick up the trip tickets and the keys. And our hats,” she added with a grin.

  “You sure having me ride shotgun won’t get you in trouble?”

  “Not with Gus,” she said simply. “He’s family.”

  A cold wind swirled her skirt as she swung her legs out of the car. The unseasonable February warmth had fallen victim to the early-evening shadows now creeping across the yard. Turning up the collar of her black wool tunic against the chill, Angela hurried toward the dilapidated metal shack that Top Hat’s owner pretentiously called the dispatch center.

  She was back at the Chrysler a few moments later, a clipboard and two flattened black silk disks clutched to her chest. Merritt joined her outside, his dark hair ruffling in the nippy breeze.

  “Here, try this one for size.”

  A smart smack on her forearm popped one of the flattened disks into its full glory. She handed it to Jack, who tilted it to a jaunty angle above his right eyebrow.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you look very—” she struggled for the right words “—very debonair.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  No, Angela thought breathlessly. That good. That incredibly good.

  Somehow, he managed to carry off the ridiculous headgear with a panache that Cary Grant might have envied. It gave him a decidedly aristocratic air, and drew Angela’s attention to the strong, lean lines of his face. His very attractive face.

  Good grief! What was the matter with her? She’d met this man for the first time this morning. Then, her sole concern had been delivering him into the senator’s clutches. Now, she was in serious danger of forgetting her primary mission tonight. Yanking herself back to reality, she plopped on her own hat and checked the keys clamped to the clipboard.

  “We’ve got 286. It’s a slug, but it’s clean.”

  A quick search of the lot located the silver Lincoln Town Car with the sixty-inch presidential stretch. Pulling a pen out of her purse, Angela anchored the fluttering trip tickets with her thumb.

  “Okay, our first gig is a deluxe package with dinner and a moonlight tour. I’ll read the options the customers have requested, you check to see if they’re in place.”

  “You’re taking my role as your trainee seriously, aren’t you?”

  “You might as well be useful, as well as decorative. One red rose in a silver vase.” She pointed to the limo with her pen. “Check it out.”

  Jack removed his hat and stuck his head in the rear door. “One red rose in a silver vase. Check.”

  “Champagne—Dom Pérignon ’83. On ice.”

  “Check. Not a particularly good year, by the way.”

  She ignored the editorial comment. “Four champagne flutes.”

  “Why four?”

  “In case of breakage. Are they there?”

  “Check.”

  “One cassette tape... Wait, it’s here on the clipboard. Oh, gag! Rachmaninoff. That’s about as fresh and original as used crankcase fluid.”

  “What would you consider appropriate to the occasion?” Jack asked curiously, slamming the rear door shut.

  She cocked her head, thinking. “Caruso, in his later years. Lanza in some of his earlier recordings. Pavarotti, anytime.”

  “I see. Italian tenors seem to have the edge in the romance department.”

  “In my family, they do,” she replied breezily, scanning the second trip ticket. Her face fell when she saw the name and pickup address on the ticket. “Oh, no! I can’t believe Gus stuck me with the Browser again!”

  “Who or what is the Browser?”

  “He’s a regular. Unfortunately.”

  “I don’t think I like the sound of this.”

  “Don’t worry. I can handle him...as long as I’m wearing gloves when I do it.”

  While her assistant pondered that one, Angela slipped into the driver’s seat and started the engine. The Lincoln turned over with a low, cultured rumble. Leaving the car in park, she performed a quick walkaround to check the tires, lights and directional signals. Then she buckled herself in and gripped the wheel.

  “Ready for your first gig as a semiprofessional chauffeur, Dr. Merritt?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  They were driving out of the lot when Angela caught a muted chuckle coming from the far side of the front seat.

  “What?” she asked, effortlessly adjusting the turn radius to the Lincoln’s extended length.

  “I was just remembering the complimentary package the travel agency put together for me for this trip to Washington. As I recall, the package included a limo, chilled champagne, and a moonlight tour of D.C. in lights.”

  “No kidding? Hey, Gus might have a trip ticket that says you should be sitting in the back seat instead of the front.”

  “I don’t think so. I instructed my assistant to make sure Gulliver’s Travels canceled the package.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t think it appropriate for the person responsible for Children’s fiscal resources to tool around Washington in a limo.”

  She smiled across the small space between them. “And here you are.”

  He nodded, his gaze settling on her face in a way that raised goose bumps on Angela’s arms. “Here I am.”

  By the time he’d seated her at a small table in a crowded, noisy basement cantina a few blocks from the elegant Georgetown restaurant where their clients were dining, Jack had begun to seriously regret his decision to accompany Angela on her gigs.

  He was hungry, rib-knocking hungry, and listening to Rachmaninoff played repeatedly all the way in from Bethesda had given him an acute dislike of a composer he’d always enjoyed before. He’d also discovered that being squeezed into Angela’s busy schedule left him wanting more. More of her time. More of her attention. More of the generous smiles she bestowed on clients, doormen and waiters alike...including the one who hovered over them now.

  “You want the usual, Angelina?”

  “Yes, please, Dominic. But hold the pine nuts.”

  “And you, sir?”

  “I’ll have the same.”

  “Primo! Two fettuccine con salsa di noci.” The swarthy waiter hurried off, beaming.

  “Do you have any idea what you just ordered?” Angela asked curiously.

  “No. Will I like it?”

  “You’ll love it. It’s the house specialty. Homemade noodles with pureed walnuts, ricotta and fresh Parmesan in a cream sauce. Dominic’s father guards the recipe like the family honor.”

  “Are Dominic and his father your cousins?”

  “Mmm...more like cousins-in-law, three or four times removed,” she replied, rummaging around in her purse. She fished out a black beeper, which she laid on the checkered tablecloth, presumably so that she could hear it over the clatter of cutlery and the animated conversations that buzzed through the cramped restaurant.

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re related to half the population of Washington?”

  Her mouth curved. “It certainly feels like it sometimes. My great-grandparents settled in South Philly when they first immigrated, but the Parettis spread like the plague up and down the East Coast. When I moved down here from Baltimore, which is where my folks live, my mother alerted all the aunts and uncles and cousins in the area to keep an eye on me. They still report back to her on a regular basis.”

  “Sounds like she takes her maternal duties very seriously.”

  “She does. Believe me, she does! If I don’t check in with her at least once a day, she activates a security alert system the Pentagon would envy.”

  The brown eyes across from Jack spilled over with an affectionate exasperation that didn’t diminish the love
behind it.

  “She refuses to accept the fact that her twenty-nineyear-old daughter has left the nest. She swears she won’t be able to sleep peacefully until I bring home a husband who meets with her approval, preferably one of Italian-American extraction.”

  “Have you brought any who didn’t meet with her approval?”

  “No.” She plucked a breadstick out of a group nestled in a tall glass and crunched off a tip. “I came close once, though. The summer I turned eighteen. I fell madly in love with a mechanic who’d just joined Tony’s crew.”

  A sudden image of an eighteen-year-old Angela, head over heels in love, her eyes luminous with pleasure, her body warm and pliant, sent a spiral of heat curling through Jack’s belly. Accompanying the heat came a fierce, unreasoning jealousy of the nameless, faceless mechanic.

  “Unfortunately, my brother discovered before I did that the jerk had a wife and a couple of kids in Cleveland. When Tony got through with him, he was not a pretty sight.”

  “Good for Tony.”

  She took another crunch, then propped her chin in her hands. “What about you, Jack? How many women did you bring home for your family’s approval?”

  “My parents died when I was a kid. I lived with my grandfather until I went into the navy, and we rarely saw eye-to-eye on anything, much less my taste in women. But I suppose that was covered in some detail in the senator’s report,” he added deliberately.

  She didn’t evade the issue. “Yes, it was.”

  The reminder of the unresolved business that lay between them killed their companionable ease. Jack regretted its loss, but he knew he had only these few hours to learn what he could of Angela’s role in the spiraling web that had ensnared him.

  “What else was in the report?” he asked her.

  “The basics.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Name, Jonathan Calder Merritt. Age, thirty-six. Height, six-one. Weight, 183 at the time of your last driver’s-license renewal. Divorced, no children. Three advanced degrees in accounting and business management. Several years’ apprenticeship at Price Waterhouse, specializing in health care consortiums and stock bundles. Comptroller at St. Joseph’s in Mobile...”

  “Birmingham.”

  The breadstick swooped through the air like a salty baton. “Birmingham. Then Children’s, and these audits, and Gromorphin.”

  “Right. Gromorphin.” Jack willed himself to keep his voice even. “How much do you know about the drug, Angela?”

  “I know—”

  Dominic interrupted, presenting two earthenware bowls with a flourish. “Your salad.”

  The question hung between them until the waiter had grated fresh Parmesan on the salads and plunked a basket of fresh bread on the table. Angela smiled her thanks, then returned to the issue at hand.

  “I know a treatment regimen of one shot a day costs sixty to seventy thousand dollars a year.”

  “At a minimum.”

  “I know that HealthMark, which distributes Gromorphin, took in over a billion dollars in revenues last year just from their drug distribution unit.”

  “So I understand.”

  She leaned forward, the half-eaten breadstick still clutched in one fist. “I don’t know, but I suspect that certain endocrinologists receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks for prescribing the expensive drug. Endocrinologists like the one Tony was referred to.”

  Jack went still. She didn’t know.

  She suspected, but she didn’t know.

  The high wire stretched before him, tight, quivering. He kept silent, letting her step out onto the wire as far as she would.

  “The doctor my brother was referred to prescribed a treatment regimen that would’ve lasted six months longer than Tony really needed, Jack. Six months.”

  The breadstick crumbled in her hands.

  “Tony refused the treatment. We didn’t find out until later that he based his decision on the cost of the drug, not his need. My father... Well, he came up with the money, but by then Tony had found another endocrinologist. This doctor didn’t actually admit it, but he implied that the first physician had a reputation for extending the treatment schedules beyond what might be requited.”

  “If that’s true,” Jack said slowly, watching her eyes, “it’s a matter for criminal prosecution, not congressional debate.”

  “Then why isn’t it being prosecuted?” she shot back.

  “How do you know it isn’t?”

  “Because I checked. I asked questions. I learned everything I could about Gromorphin.” She drew in a deep breath. “In the process, I discovered that your audits of prescriptions written for this particular drug were causing a quiet uproar in certain neuroendrocrinology clinics. That some people were getting very nervous about the results. We want you to tell us what you found, Jack.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not? Why wait until the senator pulls it out of you, bit by bit, in front of the subcommittee?”

  “That’s not good enough. Tell me why the subcommittee needs the data from this particular audit of this particular drug.”

  “All right. I’ll tell you why. Because growth hormones are among the most expensive drugs on the market. Which makes them prime targets for overprescription. Which leads to abuse and, we think, corruption. Which makes the case for tighter government controls on these and other high-cost pharmaceuticals.”

  Jack saw the passionate conviction in her eyes. Heard the absolute sincerity ringing in her voice. Every instinct he possessed told him she was sincere. Whatever Senator Claiborne’s motivation was for wanting the audit results, his driver was squarely on the side of the consumer.

  Muscle by taut muscle, Jack relaxed. He could more than hold his own in any debate on medical reform.

  “Increased government regulation won’t necessarily improve the health care system.”

  “It can’t make it much worse,” she retorted.

  “I have a good idea what you went through after your brother’s accident,” he began slowly.

  “This isn’t about me. Or Tony. Or my family. We managed. It was tough, but we managed.”

  For once, her hands were still as her curled fists rested on either side of her plate.

  “This is about a flawed system. From what we understand, you’ve found evidence that substantiates some of the most serious flaws. You. Not an outsider. Not a patient. Not an insurance adjudicator or a Medicare investigator. You found it, and your findings have credibility because they come from within.”

  “But that’s the crux of the matter,” Jack returned. “Isn’t it? I’m part of the system, flawed though it may be, and I’m not convinced that it can be fixed through more government regulation and control. So convince me, Angela.”

  “Have you read the senator’s proposed legislation?”

  “I’ve read a detailed analysis of it.”

  “Prepared by someone in the medical community, right?”

  He conceded the point with a nod.

  “Well, I just might be able to present a less biased anaylsis.”

  Jack sat back as she rooted around in the formless suitcase she called a purse, then flopped a dog-eared bound copy of Senate Bill 693 on the table. As she launched into a detailed summary of its key features, a fleeting sense of unreality gripped him. Here he was, sitting across from the most intriguing woman he’d met in years, debating the pros and cons of government oversight of the health care industry over homemade noodles and Caesar salad.

  There was something wrong with this picture, he thought wryly. Seriously wrong.

  “The senator wants the specific facts and figures, Jack. He wants to show instances of flagrant abuse to support his—”

  Her beeper sounded, cutting her off in midargument. She glanced at the digital readout and scrambled for her purse.

  “It’s the headwaiter across the street. Grab your hat. Time to get back to work.”

  He rose, reaching for both his hat and his wallet.

 
“No, no.” She waved his money away. “This is on the senator.”

  “I don’t think so.” He dropped two twenties on the table. “I’m the one who worries about appearances, remember?”

  “You can’t worry about them too much,” she tossed back with a quicksilver grin. “How many people do you see walking around town in a top hat?”

  By necessity, they suspended their discussion of medical reform during the deluxe moonlight tour of Washington.

  Angela proved an excellent tour guide. She was by turns cheerful and full of information when the couple in the back seat asked for it and discreetly quiet when they nestled in each other’s arms to peer out at the floodlit sights.

  Smiling, she offered Jack a percentage of their clients’ generous tip. When he declined, she picked up the debate where they’d left off an hour ago.

  Both her smile and her animated arguments faded when they picked up the Browser. Concave-chested and reeking of a noxious aftershave that barely disguised an equally noxious body odor, the man had more money than he did hair and, as Angela put it tersely, less personality than a crescent wrench.

  The client’s face fell to the knees of his baggy pants when he spotted Jack. Pursing his mouth in disapproval, he climbed into the back of the limo and instructed Angela to take it slow around DuPont Circle. The tinted panel separating the passenger compartment from the front seat whirred up, thankfully shutting out most of his overpowering scent. Angela took care of the rest with a few strategic squirts from a can of air freshener she fished out of the dash compartment.

  “What’s he doing back there?” Jack asked as the limo crept around the small, handsome park where three of Washington’s main thoroughfares and half a dozen lesser streets converged.

  “Browsing,” she replied succinctly.

  Forehead furrowed, Jack surveyed the wedge-shaped buildings constructed on the slices of property between the busy streets leading into the circle. One or two of the buildings retained traces of their former days of glory, when DuPont Circle had been lined with residential mansions, but most had given way to restaurants, off-beat shops and specialty bookstores. Even at this late hour, the shops and restaurants were filled with the after-theater set.