House Rivals Read Free

doesn’t mean you won’t get rats.”
    â€œIt wasn’t a rat. It was a mouse.”
    DeMarco didn’t want to hear the word rat . Mice were cute little things. Some people even had ’em for pets. Rats were vicious-looking varmints with red eyes, bigger than squirrels, and they would bite your nose off while you slept.
    â€œAll they need,” Ralph said, “is a hole big enough to get their head through. If they can get their head through, then they can squeeze their whole body through. I’m talking a hole not even as big as a nickel.”
    Ralph begin his search down in the basement because, in his professional opinion, and considering the construction of ­DeMarco’s ­seventy-year-old home, that was the most likely point of entry. ­DeMarco’s basement was unfinished, with concrete floors and walls, and contained his washer, dryer, and furnace. Five minutes after walking down the steps, Ralph pointed at a couple of small black particles that looked like peppercorns. “There you go,” he said. “Rat turds.”
    â€œIt was a mouse,” DeMarco said.
    Ralph focused next on the insulation. The floor joists for the first floor of DeMarco’s house sat on the foundation and batts of fiberglass insulation were crammed between the joists to minimize heat loss. About a minute after Ralph found the mouse turds, he said, “Yep,” and tugged on an insulation batt and hundreds of mouse turds came tumbling out.
    â€œAw, Jesus,” DeMarco said.
    â€œThere’s your nest,” Ralph said, “or at least one of them.”
    â€œAw, Jesus,” DeMarco repeated.
    â€œI’m going to have to rip out most of this insulation.”
    â€œBut how did they get into the house?” DeMarco asked.
    Ralph ran his flashlight along the top of the basement walls and near the electrical panel he stopped and said, “See that?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThat hole where that one cable is coming through. Looks like it might be an Internet cable. You see how much space there is around the cable? Whoever ran it should have filled the hole with caulk. I’m not saying that’s the only entry point, but that’s one of them.”
    DeMarco’s cell phone rang. He was going to ignore it but then looked at the caller ID. It was Mahoney.
    â€œYeah, hello,” he said.
    â€œI need to see you,” Mahoney said.
    â€œCan it wait? I’ve got a big problem here at the house.”
    But Mahoney had already hung up.
    â€œLook, that was my boss and I have to go,” he said to Ralph, “but do whatever you gotta do. Wipe ’em out. Give me whatever I have to sign and I’ll call you later and you can tell me what the plan is—but wipe ’em out.”
    DeMarco passed through security, entered the Capitol, fought his way through a cluster of camera-wielding tourists to reach the stairs, and walked up to the office of the House Minority Leader: John Fitzpatrick Mahoney.
    Mavis, Mahoney’s secretary, was on the phone, chewing somebody out. From what DeMarco could hear it sounded like some kind of conflict in Mahoney’s schedule and Mavis was blaming the conflict on whomever she was talking to. She finally slammed down the phone and said, “Idiot.”
    Looking up at DeMarco, she said, “What are you doing here? He’s already an hour behind schedule and it’s not even ten, and right now he’s supposed to be in two places at once.”
    DeMarco shrugged. “He told me to come see him. I don’t know why.”
    â€œWell, he shouldn’t have done that,” Mavis snapped.
    â€œWhat can I tell you? He called. Hey, have you ever had mice in your house?”
    â€œWhat? Of course not. Now you just wait right here,” she said and marched over to Mahoney’s office, rapped on the door, and let herself in. She came out two minutes later and said, “You can walk with him over to