Crockett looked around again, weighing the wait time for a table. It was intimidating. He picked up his drink and accepted the offer.
Manning was noticeably excited. “I must say that life was not as much fun around here after you left. Your tenacity is still legendary. You were irascible, almost ruthless. For the Post, you were a media darling. You sold newspapers.”
Crockett smiled, ignoring the compliment. “So tell me Mr. Manning, how is life at the Washington Post these days?”
“Well, I no longer work there. I have a degree in finance and work for the CDC. I am based in Atlanta now. I am here on vacation, visiting some old friends. Please, call me Matthew.”
Crockett needed no explanation of the CDC. He used to sit on an appropriation committee for the CDC when he was a congressman. While everyone called it the CDC, the agency’s name had long ago changed to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention putting an emphasis on prevention. It was headquartered in Atlanta but had ten other locations in the United States and Puerto Rico. It was one of the two most powerful agencies in the US government. Only the Food and Drug Administration could match it in size.
As dinner progressed, Manning shared that he was thirty-five, divorced, had no children and spent his leisure time jogging. He also was up front about not being particularly enamored with his position at the CDC. His only complimentary offering about the organization was that the job paid his bills.
As dinner progressed, Crockett was running out of small talk. He couldn’t resist testing Manning with the same question he had been asking everyone else for the last week. “Matthew, I’ve been in DC doing a little research. Tell me, what do you know about autism?”
The look on Manning’s face told Crocket that he might as well have asked the wall. Crockett smiled. “That’s just about the same response I’ve gotten from everybody else around here. Please forgive me. I just took a chance.”
Manning waved off the apology. “No, no apology required. The only reason I hesitated is that it’s ironic that you mention it. My friend’s nephew was recently diagnosed with autism.”
“So you do know something about it?
“Just what my friend has told me, except...”
Crockett waited, but Manning’s hesitation lasted too long. “Except what?”
“It’s just a little ironic that you mention it. I heard some chatter around the lunchroom at the CDC about it a couple of weeks ago.”
“What kind of chatter?”
“I didn’t really understand much of it, something about a memo one of the drug manufacturer’s sent to the FDA.”
Crockett felt the adrenalin rushing through his body. He forgot all about how tired he was. “Why would a drug company have any interest in autism?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. I heard someone say it could have had something to do with the new Hepatitis-B vaccination schedules that were just added to the national vaccination program. Again, I am not in the loop, but there was a buzz on both subjects around the same time. I don’t see how one could relate to the other. It was probably just a coincidence.”
Crockett decided not to press his luck. Whether there was anything to Manning’s idle conversation or not, he intended to follow it up. Having a contact inside the CDC was a plus, even if he was a bean counter.
After dessert, Crockett reached into his pocket and pulled out Manning’s card to check his contact number. He offered one of his own to Manning. “Matthew, I’m afraid it’s a bit late in the hour for me. I have a plane to catch in the morning. If you will allow me to give you a call from time to time if I have any research questions, I would sincerely appreciate it.”
Five minutes later, as Crockett stood outside trying to hail a cab for the ride back to the Marriott. Two blocks away, a bellman was escorting an elderly gentleman to his room. The old man insisted on carrying his own luggage to his suite on the third floor of The Georgetown Inn. The bellman unlocked the door, turned on the light, looked about the room and determined all was in order.
“Welcome to Georgetown,” the bellman announced proudly. “If you need anything else, just call the front desk. We’re here to help you enjoy your stay.”
The man sat his bag down, waving his hand. “Please, wait,” he asked politely. He reached into his pocket and handed a bill to the bellman who promptly pocketed it.
“Enjoy your stay,” the bellman said, closing the door behind as he left.
Riding down the elevator, the bellman thought perhaps the old man’s insistence on carrying his bag was his way of minimizing the tip, but the designer-brand leather suitcase he insisted on carrying didn’t fit the mold of a man watching his pennies. He rationalized wealthy people were sometimes the most frugal, and it wasn’t unusual for them to be light tippers, but he was not concerned. At the end of the day, the tips all balanced out. Considered bad etiquette to look at a tip when received, he reached into his pocket for the bill the old man gave him. Benjamin Franklin was smiling at him. He had received hundred dollar tips before, but never from a man that wrote his name on duct tape and pasted it on both sides of a thousand dollar suitcase. He would make a personal commitment to see that Dr. Jeremiah Trent had an enjoyable stay.
Chapter 20
April 28, 1992
Angels Camp, California
Just after 7 P.M., Anna turned her 4-wheel drive Blazer around the final corner and pointed it up the driveway and into the garage. After a long flight home, Crockett was finally home, and it felt good to be back. His week in the nation’s Capitol had physically taken its toll. Tired wasn’t a strong enough adjective to describe how he felt. The fast pace could not compare to the peace and quiet of Angels Camp. A few days back in what he affectionately called the circus was all it took to convince himself that he had made the right decision not to run for a fourth term. Everybody had opinions, nobody had answers. Nothing had changed.
Crockett’s first priority that night was to catch up on his sleep. He failed miserably and knew why. He couldn’t resist rehashing his week. His search for information on autism had targeted many fronts, most of which turned into dead ends, but he took some comfort that, at best, he knew where not to look. The highlight of his trip was his meeting with a former golfing buddy. He didn’t know whether it was irony or fate, but a social visit meant to accomplish nothing more than catch up a bit while lying about golf scores from years past proved to be his most productive day.
As Chief of Staff at the U.S. Department of Education, Brian Furlong was not only inept at playing golf, his leadership ability wasn’t any better. He was a bit of an introvert with very few personal accomplishments, but he always shined when it came to gathering statistics. Problem was he never analyzed what he was presenting. Accurately compiling numbers and reporting them was all that was important to him. What others did with them was not his concern.
Crockett rolled over and fluffed the pillow, replaying once again the question he asked Furlong about special education classes for children in public schools. With a grandson with autism, it seemed an appropriate inquiry to ask the top dog in education. It was Furlong’s unemotional response that was keeping him awake. He remembered it verbatim.
“We have to plan and organize schools nationally for special programs. Since they are partially funded by the federal government, we have to know how many special needs children exist and how many to plan for in the future. We have a special category called Learning Disabled. We just provide the numbers. We let the bureaucrats do the rest.”
Crockett sat up in bed. A sick feeling in his gut wouldn’t go away. Learning Disabled was a term he had never given much thought because it had always applied to someone else. Now it was personal. While in Congress, he has voted countless times for various programs that provided for the needy or the disabled. His aye vote was usually because it was politically correct, not because he fully understood the legislation. A negative