Hot Ticket (26 page)

Lulled by the rain and my soft belly, the leader of the free world lapsed into gentle snores. Poor guy should have become
a car salesman, not a president. He just didn’t know what it was all about. In forty years he still wouldn’t know, because
at heart Bobby Marvel was a people person, not a leader. He lacked a cold, hard core and the fangs to bite popularity in the
face. Joke was, he’d get reelected for those very reasons. Ah, America. Maybe this lump in my lap was the best it could produce.

We rolled along the watery highway. My thoughts became diffuse and runny as the windows of my glass cage. I wondered why Fausto
had been so distant tonight. I wondered if Barnard had driven around in circles like this with Bobby Marvel and how she had
handled him. I wondered why I hadn’t found Louis yet and why Bendix’s opera kept bobbing like a cadaver to the surface of
an oily pond. And those purple orchids…

A sudden cataract sprayed the side of the limousine. Looked out the window just in time to see the Chevy float insolently
past.

Maybe, through his ears, Bobby sensed my elevated pulse. He awoke with an erection and absolutely no memory of the previous
fifty minutes in our mobile confessional. “Must have dropped off,” he said, drawing my hand to the storm in his pants. “Feel
that, sugar. It’s all for you.”

Next he’d be swearing he’d had a vasectomy. “Tell me something,” I said. “Does Paula know about this kind of stuff? Or doesn’t
she ask anymore?”

“Paula’s needs and mine are very different.”

“That wasn’t the question. Does she know?”

Bobby tried another tack. “I try to protect her feelings.”

“That’s big of you.” I squeezed tumescence. “Did she know about you and Polly?”

“God no! Blondes make her crazy!”

“Did Justine know?”

“Of course. She arranges everything for me.”

“How does Justine feel about your ongoing harem? Sometimes you’re not too bright, Bobby.”

He sat up. “I take good care of Justine. Always have. She knows where she stands with me.”

I fiddled a little with his belt buckle. “How many times did you see Polly?”

“See her?” Bobby thought about it. “Six.”

“I said see, not screw.”

“Six is the answer to both your questions. She wasn’t quite the puritan you are.” Bobby nosed under my pink halter and kissed
my stomach. “Not that I’m complaining.”

Six. They must have gone at it every night. “Where did you two get together?”

“We met once at the White House. Four times at the country place. Once right here. She was fantastic.” Bobby rushed me to
the cushions. “All this talk is making me horny.” He rolled on top of me. “I want you, sugar.”

And I wanted one more piece of information, for which I was willing to get a little saliva on my nipples. I held Bobby’s ass,
which felt surprisingly mushy, considering what I had seen in Barnard’s bathtub video. He weighed a ton. “Who owns the country
place?”

“Aurilla,” came the muffled answer.

Aurilla?
Damn.

Bobby’s mouth left my breasts and headed south. Failing to master the zipper in my pants, he took care of his own. “Get these
off,” he whispered, digging under my waistband.

I locked my knees around his neck and flipped both of us to the floor. Luckily the president ended up on bottom. While he
was staring at the ceiling like a stunned fish, I bit his earlobe. “I never fuck in backseats.” Rolled to my banquette and
tucked the boobs back into the halter. “Put that poker back in your pants. Your hour is up.”

He put a few fingers to his ear. “You bit me,” he cried when they came back bloody.

I rapped on the partition. Nothing happened. I picked up the intercom phone. “Pull over, please. I’ll be getting out here.
Thank you.”

Bobby was still flat on his back as I unlatched the door. “Meet me in the country house,” I said. “Next time, try to stay
awake.”

Slammed the door and blew a kiss, as if my companion rode upright in the backseat like a gentleman. As the caravan pulled
away, I started walking. Seconds later, Chevy reappeared. License unreadable, of course. Driver the same white male, alone.
Sign at the first intersection put me at Sixteenth and Florida, not too far from the zoo.

For effect I looked a few times over my shoulder before ducking into a long woods that led to the lions and tigers. City lights
reflected off the clouds, mitigating the darkness: if my tail lost me here, I had nothing to worry about. Stayed close to
Rock Creek for half a mile, listening for the occasional snaps and thumps in my wake. He was stalking all right. When we were
deep in the woods, I bolted into the bushes. Let’s see how well you kept up now, pal.

Wilder terrain, heavier night. Rock Creek Park was no jungle; it was no golf course, either. My tail was not only keeping
up, but getting closer. I went faster, fueled by the first little licks of panic. Forests were my specialty. In my entire
career no one had bested me on this turf but Ek, who was more animal than human … and Simon, who had cheated by wearing heat
scopes. If the man behind me were wearing those, he was probably carrying a gun as well. Damn, I should have screwed Bobby
and called it a night.

Craggy rocks ahead: closing in on the zoo. I scrambled up twenty feet and waited behind a sharp, very opaque boulder. Heard
footfall, calculated distance to target, dove. Big bastard but I bowled him over. The fool wore a ski mask. We wrestled over
a patch of soggy earth. No amateur but he was rusty, a millisecond dull, like an outfielder on opening day. He saw my nail
file just before the tip of it disappeared beneath his collarbone. Not too deep: I didn’t want to kill the guy. Just deface
him a little.

Realizing I was about to yank off his mask, he clicked into overdrive. I got tossed to the rocks hard. Lost my wind, balance,
nail file. Spun into a tree, saw comets behind my eyes: instantly I was on the receiving end of this fracas. As I dropped
to my knees, head spinning, he reached into his jacket. I expected gun, knife, oblivion: instead he tossed something at my
feet and ran off. I finally reached over: an orchid.

With a soft
whoosh,
rain returned to the forest. Hauled myself to the top of the rocks and waited. Nothing. He was gone. Odd fight. Nonfight.
Why the mask? God, my shoulder hurt. So did my tattered thigh. I was deeply tired, perhaps defeated, no longer invisible,
no longer free. Why had he walked away without naming his price? What had he gained by revealing his existence? In my line
of work, that was an incredible blunder. I could have led him to bigger fish, richer blackmail … evidently not what he wanted.
What did he want, then?

I dragged over to the zoo, to my pocket in the rocks. Stared at that crushed flower for a long time. It was my death warrant.
Why should I be surprised? No one expected to last long in this profession. That was why most of us had joined in the first
place: death by old age was proof of cowardice. Strange that the older I got, the more I saw of the sun, the more I played
Bach and loved men, the more an early death seemed … proof of cowardice. The real heroines tried to live, to keep playing
one last card against a dealer who always won in the end. Like that unseen woman laughing by the fountain the other night.
I had desperately wanted to laugh like that again. The odds against it had just skyrocketed.

Switched on my computer. If nothing else, I knew I was getting closer to Louis Bailey. Tonight Rhoby had said that rather
than meet her deranged caller, she had notified the police. Outside her FBI window she had seen three men hauled into a paddy
wagon: her caller and two assailants. The date, according to Maxine and thunderstorms, would have been September 5. I tapped
into the D.C. police rap sheets. Bingo: at 0822 hours, Figgis Cole, Mohammed Jones, and Donelle Boozer had been booked for
aggravated assault, willful destruction of a federal building, and resisting arrest. No one had posted bail but everyone had
pleaded not guilty. The judge busted them to the district jail to await their case. I cut to the prison files. Three arrivals
duly noted, but within the hour Jones and Boozer had become violently ill and had to be removed to the hospital down the street.

I accessed hospital records for September 5. The ER had admitted two black males, both in cardiac arrest, at 0935 that morning.
This being an unusual coincidence for a pair of twenty-somethings, the warden had thought they were faking and had delayed
calling an ambulance until it was nearly too late. Once the paramedics got their hearts pumping again, the victims had developed
fever, mumps-size thyroids, and acute diarrhea. Doctors eventually blamed a tic carried by bats and ferrets, although neither
victim had been near such animals. They had just been discharged from the hospital two days ago. Having coughed up bail, they
were allowed home until their trials. Mohammed Jones may have bolted to Detroit, his listed address. Presumedly Donelle Boozer
went to nurse his ragged rump in an apartment on Florida Avenue.

I cut back to Figgis Cole at the district jail. The fool had flashed a Guatemalan passport but hadn’t demanded to speak with
the Guatemalan ambassador about his incarceration. He hadn’t asked for a lawyer or a translator. He hadn’t gotten sick.

Welcome to Washington, Dr. Bailey.

I moved to another keyboard, this one connected to transmitters, receivers, Fausto’s phone tap. I was calm enough until I
heard his voice. Then a virulent case of stage fright kicked in: didn’t know what I was about to hear. The next few minutes
could kill me.

For a man about town, Fausto spent remarkably little time on the phone. I caught him speaking with tailor, banker, landscaper.
Then Justine Cortot called.

“He’s becoming impossible,” she said, voice cold and edgy. “I can’t control him much longer.”

“Your usual method isn’t working?” Fausto replied with equal warmth.

“Do something fast. He’s losing it.” She hung up.

Who was losing it? Duncan? Justine had made the call yesterday, late afternoon, just before I’d showed up to take Fausto to
our concert. Maybe it hadn’t been nerves at all. His next call was to me at the hotel, around six in the morning. “I missed
you,” he said. My stomach rolled all over again. “Terribly.”

“Couldn’t wear my gown to breakfast, could I?” I had replied. Ball breaker! I replayed our conversation about Rhoby, breakfast
guests…and Justine, who had just walked in. Fausto asked why she never brought Duncan with her to breakfast. “He thinks you’re
trying to steal his job,” I had told him.

“Duncan’s got nothing to worry about.”

I had hung up in a huff. Stupid, but that’s what happened when you became too fond of your major suspects. After speaking
with me, Fausto had made a few more inconsequential calls. Around lunchtime he’d dialed a number in Belize.

“Koko’s,” a woman answered.

“Eh, Florita. Is Simon there?”

“I look.” Short pause. “No. We have not seen Simon in a long time.”

“Did he leave a message for me?”

“No. He just stopped coming here. His friends worry.”

“Put one of his friends on, would you?”

Please, oh God please, not James.
“James here,” said a familiar voice. “That you, Fausto?”

“Lost track of Simon, eh?”

“He disappeared. I think he’s shacked up with a bird. That’s the only explanation.”

“How so?”

I nearly threw up as James said, “Last week some hot babe walks in at dinnertime. Simon takes one look and bets me a hundred
bucks that her name is Leslie something or other and she plays the violin. I go to her table, chat her up. Not exactly a friendly
sort, if you know what I mean. Anyhow, Simon’s wrong. Her name’s—shit, I can’t remember. It’s not Leslie, though.”

“What did she look like?”

“Long dark hair. Green eyes. Little mole above her lip. Great body. Looked like she needed a bath and a good fucking.”

Long silence. Maybe Fausto was throwing up. “Did you see Simon leave with her?”

“No, but he followed her out. Couldn’t take his eyes off her ass. You know how he gets once that happens.”

Another silence capped with a dreary sigh. “If he turns up, have him call, will you.”

“Sure. Everything okay up there?”

“Fine.”

End of conversation. End of my life: of all people on the planet, Fausto was the last one I would want to know about my trip
to Belize. I cringed, remembering how he had stared at the stitches on my thigh last night. What had I told him? Biking accident?
He hadn’t pressed the point then, but he sure as hell must be reconsidering now. I should have known the moment I walked into
that trio charade that something was off. Fausto hadn’t said two words to me. Why should he? I had betrayed him. But then
he had asked Rhoby questions that would lead me directly to Louis in jail. Why hand over that priceless information? Why the
hell was everyone giving it away tonight?

I sat very still, trying to digest the frozen watermelon in my gut. Nothing moved. Finally, with a mammoth shiver, I reconnected
to the phone tap. After calling Belize, Fausto had dialed a number in Panama. “This is Fausto Kiss. Is Krikor in?”

Tuna eventually came on the line. “Everything’s on schedule,” Fausto reported. “I’ll keep you fully informed.”

“Thank you, my friend.”

No further calls of significance. Fausto had probably spent the afternoon practicing Brahms, concocting retribution. He knew
my secret. So did my masked assailant.
Last stop, Smith. All out.
I called the Queen. “I found Louis. He’s in jail under the alias Figgis Cole.”

“Doing what?”

“Chilling out until his hearing.” I got Maxine up to speed on the amazing detective work required to locate him, neglecting
to mention that Fausto had fed me clues like pablum.

“If Louis was willing to go to the FBI about a purported assassination of his brother, why is he hiding under an alias, in
jail of all places?”

“Before he even left Belize, he was spooked that someone was after him. Used a Guatemalan passport to enter the country. He
didn’t go to jail on purpose. That someone attacked him in broad daylight in front of the FBI building would confirm his fears
that he was a target. I say he’s lying low, trying to figure out his next move.”