“And were they open all night, too?” I said a little ham-handedly. Asking about Nana’s health is like trying to slip vegetables into the kids’ mac and cheese. You have to be sneaky, or you don’t get anywhere, and usually you don’t get anywhere anyway.

Sure enough, she raised her voice to make it clear that I’d been heard and would be ignored.

“Here’s another nugget of wisdom for you. Why is it when we hear about people getting killed in this city, they’re always poor and black, or rich and white? Why is that, Alex?”

“Unfortunately, that’s a longer conversation than I have time for this morning,” I said, and pushed my chair back.

She trailed a hand after me. “Where are you going this early? Let me make you some eggs — and where are you taking that paper?”

“I want to do some digging at the office before my first interview,” I told her. “And why don’t you stick to the entertainment section for a while?”

“Oh, because there’s no racism in Hollywood — is that it? Open your eyes.”

I laughed, kissed her good-bye, and stole one more chocolate chip cookie off the table all at the same time.

“That’s my girl. Have a good day, Nana. Love you!”

“Don’t be condescending, Alex. Love you, too.”

Chapter 10

BY MIDMORNING, I was facing down Sid Dammler, one of two senior partners at the L Street lobbying firm of Dammler-Mickelson. Craig Pilkey had been one of their biggest rainmakers, as they’re called in the biz, pulling down eleven million in fees the previous year. One way or another, these people were going to miss him.

So far, the firm’s official comment was that they “had no knowledge” of any wrongdoing among their staff. In the Washington playbook, that’s usually code for covering one’s behind without actually getting backed into a legal corner.

Not that I was prejudiced against Dammler to begin with. That came after forty minutes of waiting in reception, and then another twenty of monosyllabic noncommittal answers from him, with an expression on his face like he’d rather be getting a root canal about now — or maybe like he was getting a root canal about now.

This much, I’d already pulled together on my own: Before joining the staff at D-M, Craig Pilkey, originally from Topeka, Kansas, had spent three two-year terms in Congress, where he’d earned a reputation as the banking industry’s mouthpiece on the Hill. His unofficial nickname had been the “Re-Deregulator,” and he’d sponsored or cosponsored no fewer than fifteen separate bills aimed at extending the scope of lenders’ rights.