Tasker Volt

Part 1 A Rain Check on Key Largo

By Dan Zak, Washington Post Staff Writer

The flight to Miami was leaving in two hours. A brown leather suitcase was packed and waiting at the door of Tasker Volt's office. He watched the suitcase and willed the phone to ring. After he got the call, he'd fly to Miami, take a charter to Key Largo and empty his brain for a solid month. He'd be willfully ignorant of the double-crossing and cuckolding that defined his job as a private investigator in Washington, D.C. He would be in Key Largo.

With Lyla.

If she showed up at the airport.

He pulled open his desk drawer and fished for a cigarette, but instead his fingers found the photo. Her satiny red hair glistened.

They had not parted on great terms last week. "See you at the airport," he hissed.

"We'll see," she said, cold as iced tea on Neptune.

Lyla Hoover was the ex-wife of Sy Sugarman, a smug three-term congressman from Georgia and, worse, a former client of Volt's. He'd hired Volt to spy on Lyla, whom he suspected of having an affair. She was. With Volt.

Needless to say, it made for an interesting case. Volt followed himself for a good two months -- collecting checks from Sugarman and swan-diving into alcoholism -- before the congressman found out what was going on. Sugarman threatened to sue, but Volt only needed to wave a hint of the man's dirty laundry (bribe taking, intern chasing) to shut him up. Sugarman was still stewing, no doubt.

It wouldn't matter. The phone lit up. He let it go for two rings.

"Hello?" he said, expecting to hear the voice of P.T. Doberman, his latest client, a banana and mango lobbyist who owed him a heap of cash for a job that involved tapping the phone of the U.S. attorney general and swimming half a mile up the Potomac. (Personal peril surcharge: $1,500 per hour of danger.) "Tasker Volt?" the voice on the other end of the line asked. It was a deep, gravelly voice. Seagulls squawked in the background. At least, it sounded like seagulls.

"Yes, this is he." The phone clicked. "Hello? Hello? Gladys, did you happen to screen that call?"