The McMillan Plan was an optimistic vision to tear down old government buildings and clear the way for a huge national park around which new cultural and administrative buildings would be erected. Everyone she knew, including most of the people at the Department of the Interior, thought the McMillan Plan was an extravagant waste of money. That was why she’d been assigned to photograph the existing architecture and how people used the public spaces.
“The entire McMillan Plan is a misuse of taxpayer funds,” Congressman Dern said. “It’s all so that Washington can compete with the great capital cities of Europe. I say the business of our country isbusiness. Not lavish green spaces.”
“I agree,” Clyde said as he wandered over to her collection of images of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station. “This one is okay,” he said after a pause.
It was faint praise. Her father was no artist, but he had keen instincts, and she trusted his judgment.
“What’s wrong with it?” she asked.
He continued frowning at the picture as he studied it. “Do you have any others of the train station?”
“I haven’t enlarged them, but I’ve got a dozen or so other shots.”
“I’d like to see them.”
The other pictures were only three-by-five inches in size, the standard format of the Brownie camera. After she developed the film, she selected only the best photographs to enlarge. The eight-by-ten-inch pictures would be added to the government repositories that would document the city for future generations. Even without the McMillan Plan, Washington was undergoing a state of regeneration as the red brick buildings of the colonial era were torn down and replaced by monumental buildings in the neoclassical style. She’d been hired to document the process as old buildings were torn down, the land graded and levelled, and the skeletal frameworks of new buildings were erected.
She brought over the other pictures of the Baltimore and Potomac and handed them to her father, who flipped through them quickly, identifying three and setting them on the dining table.
“These might make your case better,” he said.
“Why?” she asked. The three close-up photographs seemed boring and didn’t capture the gothic beauty of the station. The B&P was only thirty years old and a masterful example of Victorian gothic architecture. It was made of red brick and featured three towers with slate roofs and ornamental ironwork. Its beauty made it one of the most popular images on the postcards bought by tourists. It was only three blocks from the Capitol and was the primary railroad station used by everyone serving in Congress.
“If the McMillan Plan passes, the B&P is slated for demolition,” Clyde said. “Congressmen see it every day, but your close-ups highlight the expense that went into creating the hand-carved entablatures and the ornamental ironwork. There’s value in that. Roland? What do you think?”
The younger man nodded. “If the government tears down a perfectly good railroad station for the benefit of a public park, I think the nation should know what we stand to lose.”
Clyde walked over to the sideboard to return the smaller pictures, then paused. “What’s this?”
She stiffened. Her father held Luke’s photograph in his hands, and his face was a mask of disapproval. True, Luke wore no shirt in the picture, but it wasn’t a lewd photograph. A coat was draped over his shoulders, and Bandit covered most of his torso.
“That’s the man who got Bandit out of the ice,” she said. “I couldn’t resist taking a picture.”
“Thisis the man who rescued Bandit?” he asked in a surprised tone.
“Yes. He was very heroic.” She was about to say that he had even sent her roses afterward, but the grim look on Clyde’s face made her reconsider.
After a moment he set the picture back on the stack. “It’s probably best you don’t see that man again,” he said stiffly.
He gestured for Congressman Dern to follow him into his private office, leaving Marianne to stare after him in bewildered confusion.
Luke’s jaunt beneath the ice turned out to be more troublesome than expected. He didn’t catch pneumonia or anything drastic like Gray had feared. It simply sapped his strength beyond all reason. He spent the next few days buried underneath a mound of blankets in his bedroom, as it seemed each time he emerged from beneath the covers, he got the shivers again.
What an irony. For fifteen months he’d been locked up in a Cuban jail cell, sweltering in the relentless heat and tormented by fantasies of a tall, ice-cold glass of water. God must have a strange sense of humor, for now Luke never wanted to experience ice water again.
By Monday he was ready to take possession of the new office. The faster he could get the Washington bureau forModern Centurymagazine established, the quicker he could launch his bid to knock a handful of congressmen out of office. The November elections seemed a long way off, but researching these men’s weaknesses and beginning the subtle campaign to take them down would need careful planning.
His desk, the meeting table, and the shelving had already been delivered to the new office, but the books, typewriter, telephone, and office equipment all needed to be lugged in. The most difficult item to navigate up the twisting stairwell was the six-foot bulletin board. Luke banged his shin three times on the journey to the third floor.
“Where do you want it?” Gray asked when they finally got the bulletin board inside the office.
“On the wall behind the desk.”
It was a large room with two windows overlooking a working-class part of town. The desk was on one side of the office, the table in the middle, and the hip-high bookshelves lined the walls beneath the windows. There was a separate table for a telephone and typewriter. For now Luke was the only reporter, but if the Washington bureau proved fruitful, there might someday be more.
The board was soon hung, and the first thing Luke tacked onto it was a list of five congressmen’s names. Beside it he pinned a postcard of the Philadelphia skyline.
Gray cocked a brow as he studied the list of congressmen. “I already know why you want Clyde Magruder out of office, but what’s wrong with the guy from Michigan?”
