Murder on K Street - Margaret Truman [22]
“Pure.”
“Yeah, pure. Neil gave me the standard speech that lobbying in its purest sense was an important part of the political process, that lobbyists help elected officials understand different points of view about a pending bill, that they bring expertise to politicians that the pols don’t have time to research and understand. Poor Neil. He wants so much to be his own man, but he’s never been allowed to. Politics! Purity! What a bunch of hogwash.”
“Look, Polly,” Rotondi said, “this is not the time to argue it. You and your dad and Neil have to pull together in this.”
“To make it look like we’re the all-American family? We aren’t.”
“That doesn’t matter,” he said, standing with the help of his cane. “I have to go. I told Neil I’d call him once I hooked up with you. Take my advice. Cool your jets when it comes to whatever hasn’t been right between you and your father. Your mother deserves that.”
She walked him to the door. He kissed her cheek. She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed tight. “I’m so glad you’re my father’s best friend, Phil. I think you’re the only true friend he has.”
He left wondering whether she might be right.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Everything about the Marshalk Group’s offices was modern, including the support staff. Secretaries and administrative assistants had to possess the requisite skills—word processing, data input, filing acumen, and other routine office responsibilities. But they also had to be young, nicely made up, and with it—a 34-D cup wasn’t overlooked when hiring took place—or young and handsome, slim, well groomed, and impeccably dressed among the men. Dark, wavy hair seemed to prevail; anyone who might accuse the firm of age discrimination, however, had only to look at some of the principals to be disabused of that notion. Those men and women had been recruited from the senior ranks of House, Senate, and administration staffs with the allure of big salaries—the average starting pay for a midlist lobbyist was three hundred thousand. Those who’d been there longest, and who had the most clout with their previous government employers, enjoyed multimillion-dollar paychecks along with hefty bonuses. Some were short and pudgy, others sported shining heads. There were the tall, slender patrician types whose gray hair indicated that they were of the age to have their prostates checked regularly, and middle-aged women who could afford tummy tucks and Botox injections, and for whom visits to the city’s multitude of plastic surgeons were de rigueur.
What they all had in common was access to the most powerful of lawmakers in the House, the Senate, and the administrations. Access was everything in the lobbying biz. Those who had it—really had it—were aggressively recruited by the city’s largest firms like star college athletes being drafted by professional teams. Some received so many offers once they’d announced that they were leaving government service, they hired attorneys to act as their agents, sifting through the pay and benefits packages and negotiating their deals. There are more than thirty-five thousand registered lobbyists in Washington, and more than enough special-interest cash for all.
The Marshalk offices occupied three floors in a steel-and-glass building on K Street, which had become known as Lobbyist Boulevard. The décor and furnishings matched the contempo style of the support staff, all chrome and leather and vivid modern art on the walls.
But there was another Marshalk “office” that wasn’t quite as contemporary, a three-story row house on Eighteenth Street, a few blocks from the main office. The Marshalk Group had purchased it in 2004 for $2.6 million and turned it into a retreat in which to entertain clients and prospective clients, as well as lawmakers seeking to get away from the scrutiny of Capitol Hill. Decorated by a former girlfriend of Rick Marshalk who billed herself as an interior designer, it had what some in the firm said was the look of an eighteenth-century brothel, with its bloodred wall coverings and gold sconces, the