Holy Rollers (35 page)

Jared’s head swiveled in Merribaugh’s direction. “You know him, too?”

Merribaugh’s back stiffened and he faced the podium. “Of course not.”

“But you called him Max!”

His jaw was the only part of his head that moved. “Well, I just…try to learn names.”

“Lead us not into temptation!”

Jared shook his head and said, more to himself than anyone else, “Everyone’s been tapping that ass. I do
not
feel special anymore.”

$ $ $

Dr. Oscar Hurley knew he was quite late, and he really didn’t care. He was good enough to grace the homos with his presence, so let them wait.

But now…
Now
it was time for his entrance.

After thousands of public appearances, he had it down to a science. He would walk from the rear of the room to the front alone; that conveyed humility, and it was important for people to know he was a humble man of God.

At first, only a few people would even notice him, but their smattering of applause would attract the attention of others, and theirs would attract others, and so on, until the hall was full of applause.

Then someone would stand, and that would also have a ripple effect across the audience. And they’d remain standing until he signaled they should be seated. His record was ten minutes, thirty-nine seconds.

It was extraordinarily predictable, and quite gratifying.

Sephora Girl almost swooned as he entered and proceeded to the center aisle. And then he began his entrance…

He stopped after two steps. Was someone screaming The Lord’s Prayer in the front of the room?

Then he realized no one—absolutely
no one
—was paying attention to him. They were all straining to see the commotion up front.

The Lord’s Prayer…someone hollering that he wasn’t gay anymore…someone else hollering that he didn’t feel special…

What the
hell
was going on?

$ $ $

Special Agent Patrick Waverly clicked off his phone. “They searched both their rooms, but there was no money.”

“None?” asked Special Agent Oliver Tolan.

“None. But they found a claim check for the hotel safe. It looked suspicious, though. Someone stuck it under Merribaugh’s door with what appeared to be the contents of his wallet.” That was odd, but Waverly had seen odder. It was part of the job. “He’ll call me back.”

Tolan leaned against a wall and said, “Y’ever stop to think maybe we’re on a wild goose chase?”

Waverly nodded. “Always. Every case.”

Tolan folded his arms, feeling the satisfying dig of the holster against his chest and the gun against his armpit. “Well, I gotta figure someone knows something. Between the IRS and the Bureau, they’ve put enough man-hours into it. I doubt they’d be doing that just to watch us chase our tails.”

“You’d think that,” said Waverly. “But we’re talking about Washington.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Tolan. “Gotta remember that.” He sighed. “I guess all we can do is hope your hunch is right and Price and LaMarca lead us to the cash.”

Waverly winked. “Trust me on this one, Ollie.”

Tolan looked at him. “Did you just wink at me?”

Waverly winked again.

“That’s sexual harassment, Patrick. Haven’t you ever heard that no means no? I could sue the Bureau for this…”

“Fifty-fifty?”

“Of course.”

$ $ $

Grant and Mary Beth tensed up as the elevator disgorged the half dozen FBI agents, who made another beeline to the front desk.

“They didn’t look around the lobby,” Grant said out of the corner of his mouth. No one more than a few feet away would have known he’d said a word. “That works in our favor.”

They watched while pretending not to watch until…

“Oh, shit,” Mary Beth said a half minute later, looking back at the copy of
The Washington Post
in her lap and pretending to care. “The clerk just handed them my bag.”

Grant finally took a breath and relaxed. “That’s a good thing.”

She mimicked him, talking out of the corner of her mouth. “How do you figure?”

“That means they’re looking for Merribaugh. Maybe Hurley, too. But not us.”

“Oh yeah,” she said, and looked back at
The Post
as six agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, kneeling on the floor, ripped open Mary Beth’s suitcase and began rifling through back issues of
Cosmopolitan
and
Vogue
.

$ $ $

“I figured I’d find you here,” said Dan Rowell, pulling Jared away from the uproar at the front of the room that had now been joined by at least two dozen allegedly ex- and hopefully-soon-to-be-ex-gay men.

“Hey!” Jared batted his eyes, flashed Smile Number Three, and felt just a little bit special again. Ignoring the chaos, he asked, “What’s going on?”

“I’m gonna get you out of here.” Dan took him by the hand. “Your father wants to see you.”

“My father?”
Why would my father…?
“Oh, right.”

While Jared had been the catalyst for the fight, which was growing out of control with every new recrimination, he’d been happy to retreat into the background as Louis Lombardo increasingly became the focal point. For a reformed sinner, Lombardo seemed to get around quite a bit.

Dan led Jared up the side aisle, past row after row of eyes staring at the growing turmoil.

“Ooooh!”
shouted the crowd, and they turned back to see Max, the Business Center Guy, slug Lombardo in the nose.

“They should sell popcorn at these things,” said Jared as they rushed out past Sephora Girl, who stood horrified in the doorway.

$ $ $

Still in the back of the room, still unnoticed, Oscar Hurley wasn’t quite sure what to do. He supposed a man of God should try to break things up, but, well…they were homosexuals. Maybe it was better to let them sort things out among themselves.

Then he saw Dennis Merribaugh in the middle of things. That seemed strange…

And then he saw their poster boy run out, holding hands with Senator Cobey’s aide, which was when he realized things were out of control.

It was one thing to have a debacle in the privacy of a hotel ballroom among a bunch of perverts who’d already paid their registration fees. It was quite another to have a public debacle—with its centerpieces a congressional aide and the man he’d introduced in front of the entire congregation of the Virginia Cathedral of Love—that would give a black eye to the Moral Families Coalition and his ministry.

“Dennis!” he screamed, and plunged into the fray.

$ $ $

Six FBI agents marched out of the lobby, and thirty seconds later two gay men ran in.

“What took you so long?” asked Grant.

“You should have seen it,” said Jared. “There was this big shouting match, and it was turning into a fistfight when we left.”

Grant rolled his eyes. “Okay, that’s great. So where’s the suitcase?”

“Oh, right!” Jared looked under the chairs, finally spotting it and pulling it out.

“Damn,” said Mary Beth. “I was practically sitting on it. I could’ve just…” She sensed Grant staring her down. “
We
could’ve just grabbed it and run.”

Grant took the suitcase from Jared’s hands and snapped the handle into position. “Mary Beth, go find Farraday. He’s circling the block. Flag him down and tell him to wait out front.”

She left.

“Jared, say good-bye to your friend.”

Jared looked at Grant and said, “Maybe I could stay for a few days. That’d be okay, right?”

“Absolutely not.”

“It’s okay.” Dan gently stroked Jared’s arm. “We have each other’s phone numbers, right?”

“Oh, right.”

“And I shouldn’t be in the way of your father and sister. They’re your family, and you should be with…” Dan stopped and dropped his head.

And then Jared was at his side, an arm wrapped around Dan’s shoulder. “Baby, don’t cry. It’ll be all right.”

But when Dan looked up, his eyes were clear and his jaw was firm. “I’m not crying, Jared. I’m angry.” He pointed at Grant. “Angry about what
he
is doing to you!”

Grant pointed to himself. “Me?”

“Yes, you! You may not be able to accept Jared’s sexuality, but that’s
your
problem. Not his.”

“Kid, lower your voice. People are staring.”

“Let them stare.” If people wanted to stare, he’d give them something to stare at. He turned to face the rest of the lobby and his voice boomed. “Attention, everyone!” Heads turned; attention was paid. “My name is Daniel Rowell, and I am a gay man! And I work for a Republican United States Senator!”

“Okay,” said Grant. “Now you’re
really
embarrassing me.”

“And this is Jared…uh…This is Jared! He’s a gay man, too! And he’ll always be gay, no matter how hard his father”—he pointed to Grant—“tries to change him.”

And then everyone in the lobby went back to their own business.

Dan looked slightly dejected. “I sort of thought a few people would applaud.”

“They never applaud the good lines,” said Grant, which caught Dan by surprise. “Nice try, though.”

Grant wheeled the suitcase a few feet and added, “For what it’s worth, you’ve got a few misconceptions. Which is good, because that’s what we wanted. In a few weeks when the smoke clears, maybe Jared will fill you in on an edited version of reality.”

That should have been the bittersweet, slightly ambiguous moment that ended the morning. Would Jared and Dan ever see each other again? Would Grant prove to be not quite as big of a homophobic asshole as Dan had thought?

And it would have been. Except that was also the moment Dr. Oscar Hurley and the Rev. Mr. Dennis Merribaugh burst into the lobby.

“There they are!” said Hurley.

Grant, having been in this sort of situation before, ducked his head behind a shoulder and found the nearest exit.

“That’s my suitcase!”
screamed Merribaugh, whose shirt was ripped and flapped open, fortunately exposing nothing more than a T-shirt.

Hurley turned to him. “Your
suitcase
? You mean…you mean…” He swallowed. “You mean
the
suitcase?!”

Merribaugh almost fell to his knees and rasped a
“Yessssssss”
that sounded like a deflating balloon.

$ $ $

The exchange between Hurley and Merribaugh had taken less than ten seconds, but that’s all the time Grant and Jared needed to cross the lobby and exit through a service door to the hotel loading dock. It had been one of Grant’s hiding spots during the long night before, so he knew it pretty well.

He counted on Jared to keep up and never looked back, passing a few trucks backed to the dock until he said, “I know this model. Get in.”

Grant tossed the suitcase through the door, climbed into the cab behind it, and was looking for a tool to break some plastic so he could rig the ignition when he noticed the keys dangling.

“That makes life easier.” He started the engine and threw the truck into gear.

“Did you just steal this truck?” asked a voice that wasn’t Jared’s in a tone that was a little bit too judgmental, as another voice outside the truck that also wasn’t Jared’s screamed and threw something that bounced off the frame. Grant figured the second voice belonged to the actual truck driver; he wasn’t quite sure about the first voice but he didn’t bother to look until he was out of the loading dock and onto the street.

Then he looked. It was the guy who gave gay-affirmation speeches in the lobbies of DC hotels.

He faced forward. “What are
you
doing here? Where’s Jared?”

“I’m here.”
That
was Jared’s voice, coming from the other side of the speechmaker.

“So who’s this guy?”

“Dan. Dan Rowell.” Dan was very polite and extended his hand.

Grant saw the hand out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah, and you work for a Republican senator. I got it. I don’t shake hands while I’m driving. Just tell me why you’re here.”

Dan puffed out his chest. “Because, Mr.…Mr.…” He looked to Jared, who—since he was unsure what to call himself in front of Grant at this stage of the job, as they pushed their way through stop-and-go traffic in a stolen truck—meekly shrugged.

Dan charged on. “Because, Jared’s Father, I don’t think you realize that gay relationships are every bit as normal as heterosexual relationships.”

“Shuddup, kid,” said Grant. “You’re boring me.”

Traffic stopped again. After twenty seconds of sitting in place, Grant got edgy.

“Get out,” he told them.

They did, leaving the truck abandoned in the middle of F Street, which meant when traffic
could
start moving again, it wouldn’t. Grant was okay with that.