Hot Ticket (17 page)

“Unlike victims of measles or chicken pox, who develop antibodies that prevent them from getting the disease again, people
who suffer dengue once are
more
likely to get it worse the second time around.”

“Why?”

“It’s a little complicated. It has to do with overstimulated immune systems.”

I scribbled away. “What’s hemorrhagic dengue?”

Furman deliberated a moment as I rearranged my ponytail. “Your heart pumps blood through the arteries. Those are the main
highways in the circulation system. The highways get smaller and smaller until, in the capillaries, they’re only wide enough
for one blood cell to pass through. When you’ve got hemorrhagic fever, the dengue virus bores holes through the capillary
walls so that the platelets leak out.”

“So you have a billion microscopic hemorrhages?”

“Exactly. Your capillaries become sieves. Tiny red spots appear all over the skin as the subdermal bleeding continues. Eventually
the virus overwhelms the circulation system. You’ll drown in your own blood.”

“How horrible! There are no vaccines?”

“Not yet. But we’re working on it.”

Good luck, honey. “Was Louis Bailey involved with the vaccine?”

“No, ma’am. He never came anywhere near that lab.”

I chewed the tip of my fountain pen, as if it were a tiny, tasty penis. “My editor’s never going to buy this dengue business.
It’s just so … African! Do you know where I could get in touch with Dr. Bailey? Maybe he’s working on something more cool
now.”

“You won’t find him,” Furman said. “And you’re not the only one looking.”

I tried to shrug. “He doesn’t have an assistant?”

“No, ma’am! Bailey works completely alone.”

“Why’s he so paranoid?”

“Researchers get that way, especially if they’re on to something.” Furman leaned over my ear. Maybe he was just getting a
better angle on my blouse. “Last semester, just before he went on sabbatical, I saw him muttering to himself. You’ll never
guess what was in his hair. A fat orange caterpillar. At first I thought it was a Cheez Doodle. Then it moved. I nearly passed
out.”

“Come on, Furman, I can’t write about this.” Perturbed, I brushed a few crumbs into the grass. “Is anyone around here working
on something my readers care about? Like waterproof mascara?”

“I’m researching the mating habits of catfish,” he said.

I looked at my watch: get inside
now,
Smith. “That’s more promising. Could you show me just a little bit?”

Behind the security desk sat a corpulent guard with fingernails as intricately painted as Fabergé eggs. She munched a doughnut
hole as I signed in. Furman kindly showed me Louis Bailey’s locked office on the second floor. A dozen memos were taped to
the professor’s door, as if the university weren’t certain whether he was really gone or just working antisocial hours. Little
traffic, zero surveillance here. Bailey’s lock would resist me for about ten seconds. I oohed/aahed at Furman’s catfish then
excused myself to begin writing my new article. He walked me to the door with exhortations to call any time.

I hugged him. His neck smelled of soap and youth. “Thanks so much.”

Circled the building before returning to the front desk. The guard was studying the box on her lap as if it contained doubloons
rather than doughnut holes. “I must have left my car keys upstairs,” I told her. “Should I sign in again?”

“Just change your Out time.”

Across campus, a clock chimed eight as I entered Bailey’s office. Weak, fuscous light seeped through drawn blinds. More drivel
about the Nobel Prize and some blank grant applications crowded his desktop. Forgotten cardigans drooped from every chair.
As I was studying one of his honorary doctorates, I stepped on something about the size of a bullet. Held it up to the light
and gasped: I had just crushed one of Louis’s button microphones. He had been here. I hit redial on the phone.

Eleven digits, two rings. “You’ve reached the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” answered a machine. “If you know your party’s
extension, you may enter it at any time.”

I unscrewed the mouthpiece. There lay a tiny mike and a transmitter. Wonderful!

“Find your keys?” asked the guard downstairs, tossing her empty milk carton into the trash.

“Right where I left them.”

As I was editing my sign-out time, another guard appeared behind the desk. “Leave me any doughnuts, Cheryl?”

Her chair squeaked as she abandoned it. “Not this time. You’re late.”

We left the building together. Within two steps Cheryl had freed shirt from belt. Now it fluttered like a tablecloth in the
breeze. “You have the graveyard shift?” I asked. “I did that once in a restaurant. Only lasted two months.”

“You get used to it after a while.”

“I guess this building goes twenty-four hours a day.”

“Yeah, those scientists never know when to quit. They’re all crazy. Ask them how to fly to the moon, no problem. Ask what
they had for breakfast, forget it.”

“I know what you mean. I had an appointment with Dr. Bailey.”

“Bailey? He’s the worst.”

“I came all the way from Atlanta and he’s been gone for months.”

“Give me a break,” Cheryl said, peeling a Mars bar. “He was here about three weeks ago.”

“You saw him?”

“Sure. Four in the morning, middle of a thunderstorm. He looked like the Unabomber. Scared my pants off. Hey, have a good
one.”

She cut into a parking lot. I wandered to a phone inside the gym. “Maxine? Trivia question. Did Jojo ever have dengue?”

“Hold on.” Heavy clicking. “Never. Why?”

“The chance of getting hemorrhagic fever first time out is practically zero.” I smiled at a guy wearing sweat pants, no jock.
Pecs smooth as pears and a soft mound between his legs. “I’m at Louis’s lab. He’s been here. His phone’s bugged. Any reason
why he’d be calling the FBI at four in the morning?”

“Give me a date.”

“About three weeks ago, during a thunderstorm. Security guard saw him. I was at his house this morning.” I told Maxine about
the lingerie. “Looks like Barnard finally got her man.” That earned a derisive laugh so I skipped to the videos of Bobby Marvel
and the gun.

“I hope you left everything there.”

“I left the videos.”

Silence, then a sigh. “Whatever.”

A jogger puffed up to the phone. His tiny, erect nipples made my tongue ache. “Check out the thunderstorm, would you?” I hung
up.

“Mornin’,” said the boy. His sweat smelled like apple juice. That body would stay hot and hard all day. I saw myself slung
over his shoulder, carried off to a sunny room with white sheets. Ah, for just a few hours with this sweet, unsullied creature
… but that would be vampirism, wouldn’t it. Handed him the phone and drove back to Washington, where I spent the afternoon
practicing Bendix Kaar’s thorny sonata. When that turned rancid, I stared at the old recital program that Fausto’s mother,
once upon a time, had tucked into the violin part. Her boy had played Beethoven, Liszt, and Scriabin … then jumped into the
Thames.

Wished I could have been there.

I arrived at his house promptly at five. Fausto eyed my outfit with wry dismay. “Who died, darling?”

“What’s the problem? We’re going to a fund-raiser, not a nightclub.”

“I don’t see much skin,” he lamented.

No kidding. Too many bug bites and scratches. “I’m a modest girl.”

“Aha.” We began a long, rather unnecessary rehearsal. The only piece that still needed work was Bendix’s sonata. Fausto’s
part sounded better than mine, but he had probably given it more thought. “Get yourself a drink. I’ll be right back.”

I went to Fausto’s kitchen, opened a few cupboards. Found the phone box in the utility closet: his wires were red and white.
Glass in hand, I returned to the music room. My host appeared minutes later in a green linen suit. He drew what looked like
a handful of marbles from his pocket. “Just so we don’t disappear into the woodwork. Turn around.” He draped a rope of black
pearls around my neck. “That should help.”

Help what? “They’re stunning.”

“They were my mother’s. So was this. Don’t move.” He combed my hair with three lascivious fingers before snapping a diamond
barrette into place. His body was close, warm, enormous as the sun: for a depraved instant, I wanted him. “I love dressing
women. Go freshen your lipstick and we’ll leave.”

The air was thick and hot, sick with rain. Street was clogged with cars, students, and beggars with just enough appendages
to simultaneously smoke and hold a tin cup. Fausto drove. I found myself staring at his round hands, wondering if he liked
to undress women as well as dress them. Ah lust, fallout from that errant .38 this morning at Louis’s. Fausto’s silence only
aggravated my curiosity. “Why are we going to this fundraiser?” I asked finally.

His round eyes flickered absently to my face; his thoughts had been elsewhere. “I promised the hostess.”

“Really? I think you’re just looking for trouble.”

Fausto cornered smoothly onto Pennsylvania Avenue. “I never look for trouble, dear. Diversion, maybe. Trouble, never.”

“Isn’t trouble more gratifying?”

“Trouble is far too easy. Diversion takes finesse. It’s like the difference between playing Chopsticks and
Clair de lune.
”

“I see. Do it right and no one ever knows what hit them.”

Fausto’s cool eyes met mine. “You seem to know a lot about diversion.”

“Not really. I’m more familiar with delusion. This town’s got plenty of it.”

“That’s what makes the diversion so much fun.”

“Cut the word games, Fausto. I think you’re just a gambler who likes to play with everyone else’s chips.”

His plump hand patted mine as we pulled in front of a suburban mansion. Its owner was famous for parties and ex-husbands.
“The chips are all mine.” He braked under the portico. “You say the word, we leave.”

First a little touchie-feelie with the metal detectors at the front door, then air kisses from the indebted hostess, an elf
in a blue jersey gown. All that cling looked slightly obscene on a bulimic seventy-year-old. “Fausto! I’m so glad to see you!”

“Wouldn’t let you down, Judith. Not for ten grand a plate. This is Leslie Frost.”

Fausto hadn’t mentioned violins, therefore Judith didn’t either. As her eyes breezed over my half million bucks of jewelry,
a sixth sense told her that whatever wealth I had, little of it would end up in Bobby Marvel’s coffers. “Hello.”

My date sniffed a white rose from a gigantic arrangement. “When do you expect the guest of honor?”

“He’s on his way.”

“My God! We’d better find the oysters before he does!” Fausto took me to the rear salon, where a hundred guests clustered
buffet and bar. The men looked corporate, the women excited: Marvel the Magnificent was about to touch them. Another calcium-deficient
septuagenarian approached. “You’re the violinist, aren’t you? We saw you in Paris. You wore a divine St. Laurent.”

“Really! What did I play?”

Her eyes bulged, as if I had just asked her age. “I love classical music.”

She loved being seen at events with exclusionary ticket prices. Fausto downed two glasses of champagne as she castigated the
government for abandoning the arts. America was becoming a nation of barbarians.

“Correct,” he agreed, spearing a strip of smoked salmon and dangling it high above his mouth before swallowing it whole. “There’s
no self-control in this country anymore.” Four olives went down the hatch. He sidled his leviathan stomach inches from the
woman’s plate of hors d’oeuvres. “Thank God Bobby’s in charge.”

She hesitated: even his most adamant supporters knew Marvel was one of the lamest presidents in memory. “Think of the alternative.”

“I do! Every day!” Fausto delicately harvested three chicken livers from a passing platter. Suddenly he stopped chewing. “Look
what the wind blew in!” We left the woman floundering with a mouthful of tapenade. “If only money bred class,” Fausto sighed,
waving to friends. “Or even wit. Hello, Justine. That dress is absolutely volcanic.”

Duncan’s beloved, attired in a spin of red feathers and red spandex, glared back. “Thank you.”

“How’s your wrist, Duncan?”

“Mending,” he scowled.

Justine wrested her eyes from my necklace. “Shouldn’t you two be home practicing for your little concert?”

“You know how it is. Every so often you’ve got to give the digits a rest.” Fausto swallowed his last chicken liver. “I hope
Bobby’s oiled his tongue tonight. Judith’s packed the place with horny women. Yourself excepted, of course.”

“Oh for God’s sake!” Duncan interrupted. “I need a drink! Come on, babe!”

We watched them huff away. “Isn’t he on his high horse,” Fausto said. We circled the room, garnering many sidelong glances:
were we or weren’t we, and if so, how? Fausto seemed to be enjoying our degenerative game of Beauty and the Beast. I played
along, clinging to his arm, curiously shielded by his girth and wealth. Nothing got to me without first passing him: tonight,
I was grateful for that. But there was not much call to even open my mouth here. Fausto’s jewels did all the talking for me.
That was the up side of consorting with the rich.

After a while we retired to the backyard, where the air was dense with camellias and imminent rain. A harpist swished Ravel
in the corner of a tent as white-jacketed waiters fussed over silverware. “You’ve got to see Judith’s orchids,” Fausto said,
leading me past a dozen round tables. “They’re the only reason for coming here.”

At the edge of the lawn stood a conservatory about the size of the Jefferson Memorial. Through the huge panels of glass, beneath
yellow lights, I saw a riot of green: into a jungle again, damn him. At once I began to tremble and sweat. “Do you garden?”
Fausto asked, turning a brass doorknob.

“No.”

“You should.” He closed his eyes as air gravid with perfumes enveloped us. “Ah. Smell that chlorophyll. Beautiful.”

Heart lumbered against rib: last time I had been in a place like this, death had stalked half a pace behind. I followed Fausto
along the narrow flagstone path, shuddering as palm fronds swished my sleeve. Where was the cacophony of insects, the screech
of unseen birds, the sweet smell of decay? This jungle, like everything else in Washington, was a fake. Fausto greeted many
plants by their Latin names, bending over them to sniff and fondle. Finally we got to the orchids. Judith grew dozens of varieties,
from waxy, prom-date white to droopy pink to the frilly purple I had received in a bouquet three times now. Again, Fausto
knew each by name and again, as I watched his fingertips caress their voluptuous, hooded splendor, I wanted him. Strange.
“Mother adored orchids. The house was always full of them,” he said. “But I prefer roses. Hyacinths.”