Summary

Chapter 1 opens on Friday, March 5, 1954, at dawn on Rock Creek Park, Washington, D.C. Congressman Charlie Marder is lying on the side of the road in the mud. He is still drunk and wearing a tux. He discovers a wrecked truck nearby but has no memory of getting here. His thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of Davis LaMontagne, a lobbyist whom Charlie knows fairly well. Charlie “was hit with a whiff of his smoky, woody cologne” (5). LaMontagne says he has not seen Charlie since the party they both attended the previous evening. LaMontagne says they need to leave, but he then discovers the body of a young woman in a ditch nearby. She was apparently thrown from the wrecked truck. Charlie vaguely remembers her from the party the previous evening. LaMontagne orders Charlie to help him move the woman, but Charlie refuses...