Nature of the Game Read Free Page B

overcoat pockets.
    â€œDon’t we know it?” replied the man, with a smile, grateful for the professional recognition. “Go on in.”
    Wes opened the door.
    Warmth rolled over him like a wave. A smoky fireplace burned somewhere amidst the babble of voices. A woman screeched in delight: late thirties, cigarette in one hand, white wine in the other. She wore wedding rings, but her male companion with graying sandy hair, tweed suit, and bow tie looked not of the marriage persuasion. A Latin maid bustled past Wes, a tray of Swedish meatballs and bite-sized crab cakes clutched in her hands. She’d fled El Salvador after the right-wing death squad La Mano Blanca gang-raped her. On the interior stair landing stood another man with a suit and a tube running from under his jacket to his ear. The carpet beneath Wes’s feet was thick, the air rich in perfumes: rose and lilac and musk.
    â€œYou must be Major Chandler!” A woman in her fifties stepped from the crowd. “You’re our only Marine. I’m Mary Patterson.”
    As she shook his hand, Wes felt her eyes soak him up.
    In a roomful of quality men, Wes might not be the first man you’d notice, but he was the man you’d remember, even if he wasn’t wearing his Marine uniform. He was six three and well muscled. He gave an impression of strength rather than size, of energy contained rather than exuded. He was handsome, though nothing about his face was magazine-ad pretty. His brown hair was cut military short and brushed flat, but with style beyond any Marine barber. His nose was big, but not prominent, his mouth wide with even teeth and full lips. Time had etched a furrow across his brow, in the corners of his mouth, and shrapnel had nicked a scar on his chin. His eyes were black, wide, and large, but so deep set they looked like hooded slits.
    Mary led him into a crowded living room. Wes spotted a Navy commander, wife on his arm, laughing with a man who Wes didn’t know was a counsel for the Senate Appropriations Committee. A glassy-eyed Army captain with routine ribbons on his chest and broken veins on his nose grinned anxiously at the silver star on the shoulder of a fellow Army officer. The general caught Wes’s gaze, nodded, then returned to his discussion with a man in a three-piece blue suit who headed a downtown firm of only ninety-three lawyers and the lean, bearded carpenter husband of the former secretary whose screech first attracted Wes’s attention.
    â€œHave you met Mrs. Denton?” asked Mary Patterson.
    â€œI’ve never had the chance,” replied Wes.
    Across the room, a woman whose beauty had matured into elegance shook the hand of a Washington editor for a Florida newspaper chain. His wife, who’d gone from congressional aide to solid waste management specialist at the Environmental Protection Agency, nervously made the introductions.
    â€œI’m so glad you were able to make it,” Mary Patterson told Wes as they waited for journalist and bureaucrat to move on.
    â€œLucky, wasn’t it?”
    â€œMrs. Denton,” said Mary, and the elegant woman beamed at Wes.
    Behind her, Wes saw a beefy man leaning against the fireplace mantel, a glass of amber liquor swirling in one fist. The man’s horseshoe-bald head glistened, and his knotted tie dangled below an open white shirt collar, but he stayed by the flames. And kept his beady hazel eyes on Wes.
    Mary said, “This is Major Chandler.”
    â€œSo very nice to meet you,” intoned Mrs. Denton.
    â€œThank you for inviting me,” said Wes.
    â€œWhy, dear, we couldn’t have had the party without you.”
    â€œMrs. Denton!” A man grasped Mrs. Denton’s reflexively offered hand. “Do you remember me? I was assistant press aide for the congressman in his second term. Bill. Bill Acker.”
    â€œOf course, Bill! Who could forget you?”
    â€œI’m working with N double-A RE now,