She leaned away from him and rested her back against the sissy bar,
pushing herself deep into the leather. And away from him. Her shining
white knight with the bedeviling blue eyes.
So much for memories. So much for dreams.
CHAPTER 26
DANNY SURVEYED A FAMILIAR SCENE. The event was typical of Washington:
a political fund-raising dinner at a downtown hotel. The chicken was
stringy and cold, the wine cheap, the conversation high-powered, the
stakes enormous, the protocol tricky, the egos often impossible. The
attendees were either wealthy and/or well connected, or underpaid
political staffers who worked long, frantic hours during the day and
were rewarded for these prodigious efforts by being compelled to work
these sorts of events at night. The Secretary of the Treasury was
supposed to have attended, along with some other political
heavyweights; ever since he had become engaged to a well-known
Hollywood actress with a thing about exhibiting her cleavage at the
drop of an intern, the secretary had been more in demand than the
keeper of the cash normally was. Then, at the last minute, he had
gotten a better offer to speak at another event, which was often the
case in the endless game of “where is the political grass greener?” An
underling had been sent in his place, a gawky, nervous person no one
really knew or cared about.
The event was another opportunity to see and be seen, to check the
ever-changing pecking order of a certain subgroup of the political
hierarchy. Most never even sat down to eat. They just dropped off
their check and then it was off to another fund-raiser. Networking
flowed through the room as though from a well-fed spring. Or open
wound, depending on how one looked at it.
How many of these events had Buchanan attended over the years? During
the frenzy of key fund-raising periods when he used to represent Big
Business, Buchanan would attend breakfasts, luncheons, dinners and
assorted parties nonstop for weeks. Exhausted, he had sometimes shown
up at the wrong event-a reception for the senator from North Dakota
instead of a dinner for the South Dakota congressman. After taking
over for the world’s poor, he had no such problems, for the simple fact
that he now had no money to give members. However, Buchanan was well
aware that if there was one truism in political fund-raising, it was
that there was never enough money. And that meant that there would
always be the opportunity for influence peddling. Always. After he
got back from Philly, his day had really started, without Faith. He
had met with half a dozen different members on the Hill and their staff
on a myriad of matters, and set up appointments for future meetings.
Staffs were important, particularly committee staff, especially
appropriations committee staff. Members came and went. The staff
tended to stay forever; they knew the issues and process cold. And
Danny knew that you never wanted to Surprise a member by trying to
dodge the staff. You might be successful once, but you were dead after
that, as the angry aides took their revenge by shutting you completely
out. A late luncheon followed, with a paying client whom Faith had
typically taken care of. Buchanan had had to make excuses for her
absence, * and he did so with his usual aplomb and humor. “Sorry, you
get the second string today,” he told the client. “But I’ll try not to
mess things up too badly for you.” Though there was no need to bolster
Faith’s excellent reputation, Buchanan had recounted to this client the
story of how Faith had once 4,”personally hand-delivered-in a gift box
with a big red ribbon, no less–to all five hundred and thirty-five
members of Congress detailed polling data that showed the American
public was fully in support of funding for global vaccination of all
children in the world. She’d included in the gift box accompanying
briefing materials and before-and-after photos of vaccinated children
from distant lands. Sometimes pictures were the most important weapons
Danny and she had. Then she had worked the phone for thirty-six hours
straight enlisting Support here and overseas and made exhaustive
presentations with several of the larger international relief