Hot Ticket (39 page)

He was guzzling directly from the bottle. “Jesus! Don’t ask me to do that again! I’d rather shoot a nun!”

“Shut up and
get
dressed.” I went to the basement. Found the circuit box, killed the electricity. Then I brought Cecil back to the bathroom.
“See anything above that cabinet?”

He swore. “That whole scene was taped?”

“You got it.” We crossed to the bedroom. “There’s another camera. Let’s find the VCR.” The cables led to a locked closet down
the hall. Phone relay: someone had been informed that there had been action out here. I sent Cecil back to the basement while
I connected the VCR to a second unit I had bought that afternoon. When he got the power back on, I made a copy of our home
movie.

He finished the champagne. “Who’s the voyeur?”

“Don’t know.” Embarrassing.

“Polly knew tape was rolling when she got me in the bathtub?”

“Camera’s hard to miss,” I answered, packing everything up. “Of course, you had other things on your mind.”

He cringed. “Why’d you have me do it again?”

“Same reason she had you do it in the first place. I want someone to come gunning for me. Wrap this job up and go home.”

“What’s the copy for?”

“Insurance.”

He chuckled: no such thing in our business. “Am I done now?”

“Hell no. You’re going back to your room and work on elocution.”

Maybe he thought that was a new form of torture. “Anything the lady wants.”

I drove him back to his hideout for another siege with the adult film channel. Then I went to a pet store and bought an iguana.
Called my little friend, who had just returned from school. “Gretchen! I’ve got something for you. Can I bring it over?”

Another new maid, this one from Indonesia, answered the door. Maybe she and her charge had been fingerpainting with ketchup
and tapioca. “I’m here to see Gretchen,” I announced.

My playmate came sliding to the front door on the lid of a garbage can, gouging a ten-foot trail on the parquet floor. “Hi
Miss Frost!” she cried, springing off. “Did you bring my pet alligator?”

Opened the lid to the long box I was carrying. When the iguana stuck one taloned claw over the edge, the maid retreated with
a scream to the kitchen. “Let’s go upstairs.”

Dumped the box on Gretchen’s bed along with a care and feeding book. “You read that and watch your fingers. I’ll be right
back.”

Blew down to the first floor. Aurilla was at her conference in Baltimore, which meant so was Wallace. Had to gamble on Ben-dix’s
whereabouts but two to one he was with the team. Aurilla’s office was not locked for long. Stuck my head in. No surveillance
so I clipped a tiny microphone in a vase of roses on the corner of Aurilla’s desk: trite as
Mission Impossible
but they’d get chucked in another day or two and I planned to be in Berlin by then. Charged back upstairs, past the room
where Fausto and I had dallied before a concert. I thought I heard his voice and almost looked in.

Gretchen had put reptile and an old peanut-butter sandwich in her bathtub. “I’m going to name him Chopper,” she said. “Because
he has so many teeth.”

I gave Chopper’s new mistress a few tips on keeping him alive. Bendix could always eat him if things didn’t work out. “Do
you miss playing your violin?”

“No. I want a flute now.” Gretchen tried to tantalize Chopper with a raisin. “I can do whatever I want. Wallace said Mom’s
going to be president. I’m going to live in the White House.”

Obviously no one had yet told Gretchen she’d be living in Switzerland. I felt a tinge of pity: perhaps I should take her back
to Berlin, away from that monstrous mother. But compassion had its limits. “If you ever want to go back to the violin, give
me a call, all right?”

“Sure,” she sighed with an ennui that made me want to rap her knuckles. With the iguana.

I left. Planted receiver/transmitter beneath Aurilla’s mailbox then pulled into a park up the street. Sat in Fausto’s Corvette,
inhaling his ghost, for hours. Day faded into dusk, then night. Finally my headset clicked on: pickup from Aurilla’s office.
I pulled my ragged brains back to earth. Heard footsteps and an “Oof’ from the chair in the corner. “My feet are killing me,”
Gretchen’s mother bitched. “Wallace, bring some wine.”

More footsteps. “Would you like me to massage your calves?” the devoted aide asked. “You’ve been on your feet all afternoon.”

“No! Just get this goddamn thing working before I split a gut! Christ! Bendix! Get in here!” Short pause. “What were you doing
up there?”

“Your daughter’s acting very strangely,” Bendix replied. “The bathroom door is locked. God knows what she’s hiding this time.”

“Couldn’t be anything worse than a monkey,” Aurilla retorted. “You and your asinine bribes.”

Bendix wisely changed the subject. “Did you get a nibble, Wallace?”

“This afternoon. I just picked up the tape.”

“Bobby went out to the cottage? I thought he had business in town all day.”

“You know Casanova,” Aurilla snorted. “Wallace, what is the problem? I don’t have all night for this bullshit.”

“Hold on. Here we go.”

Silence as they watched Cecil and me cavort in the tub. “That slut,” the almost vice president said. “I thought she was fucking
Fausto.” Fifteen, fifty, ninety seconds went by. I felt my face burning.
Disinformation, Smith: part of the job.
Finally, in a voice nigh orgasmic with satisfaction, Aurilla said, “We’ve got the stinker by the balls now.”

Which stinker? Fortunately Bendix explained. “Marvel can’t talk his way out of two bimbos in a bathtub.” Footsteps, more clinking
glass. “Bravo, Aurilla. We did it.”

“I never had any doubts.”

In the background, a loud shriek. “Moooooommmm! Chopper bit me!”

Curses, shuffling, silence. I sat in the dark marveling at Aurilla’s ambition and my own stupidity. She knew Bobby too well:
dangle a female in front of his nose and he would always come charging. He had fallen for Barnard first. How had Aurilla lured
her to the house? Tutor for Gretchen? I had been the convenient violin teacher. I smiled acidly, remembering how Bobby had
happened to meet me the first time I had visited. As usual, the Queen had been correct: you don’t bump into the president
of the United States by accident. Aurilla’s plan was simple, perfeet, flawlessly executed. Become model senator and presidential
favorite. Clear Jojo out of the way with a few mosquito bites. Slide into scoring position. Then sayonara Bobby with a final
outbreak of bimbitis.
Balls!
Alas, pride went before a fall: seeing wasn’t always believing, Aurilla. And you put the wrong girls in the bathtub.

Through the headphones, seven almost imperceptible plastic clicks. Tape running again. Someone had returned to Aurilla’s office
to make a phone call. “We’ve got a problem,” Wallace muttered. “Meet me in an hour.”

I burst out laughing. Oh God! If only Fausto were here to enjoy this treachery! For a second I saw his round face, that mischievous
glint in his eye when the plot thickened: then all went dark and his absence cut through me like a bolt of lightning. I collapsed
over the steering wheel as something stole my guts.
Get up, Smith. Return serve.
Rolled the Corvette down Aurilla’s street as a Subaru pulled out of her driveway. Followed Wallace to the only cemetery that
had seen any action in this campaign and stalked her on foot to the public vault. The earth here felt alive, eager to swallow.
Things that went down the maws of that vault never came back. Soon I’d be bringing Fausto here?
No!

The night was warm, ruffled with winds and the scent of dead leaves. The moon was red. Wallace didn’t like waiting near that
great dark hole any more than I did. Three cigarettes and a few thousand paces later, a Lexus pulled up to the vault.

Vicky Chickering.

I sighed to an overhead airplane. Shouldn’t have been a surprise. I had stumbled on Chickie alone upstairs with Wallace at
Aurilla’s party. Hadn’t given them a second thought because Chickering acted more like pope than pol. Good trick: both Barnard
and I had fallen for it.
Someone on Bobby’s side,
Fausto had said. As always, he had been several layers of subterfuge ahead of me. Indeed Chickering was on Bobby’s side,
but that was because she was now and forever on Paula’s side. That union went back to bedrock in Kentucky. Whoever threatened
Bobby threatened Paula, the diesel behind this presidency. Bobby was only the cowcatcher.

“What the hell’s going on?” Chickering demanded.

“He’s back in the bathtub. This time with Frost.”

“That cunt! Wasn’t Fausto enough for her?”

Hey ladies, just doing my job. “Aurilla’s got enough ammo to bury Bobby now,” Wallace said. “You’d better tell Paula. She’s
got to deal with the problem same way as last time. We can’t afford any loose ends with this bitch, either.”

“I’ll tell Paula right away.” Chickering paced over rumpled graves. “The Frost problem will get fixed soon. You’ve got to
take care of the tapes tonight.”

“I’ll erase them, but that’s dangerous.”

“Please, Wally! Your job is nowhere near as dangerous as mine. We’ve got no choice. Aurilla and Bendix are not going to wait
with this.”

“Poor Paula,” Wallace said after a silence. “Maybe we should just take care of Bobby next time. You know there will always
be a next time.”

Chickering laughed caustically. “And here I thought Frost was after Rhoby.”

“Don’t be so sure she’s not. The bitch probably goes both ways.”

Wishful thinking, Wally. With a fervid embrace, the First Lady’s teammates parted. Wallace’s Subaru bumped past many headstones
out to the real world. Before leaving, Chickering took a ruminative stroll around the chapel, pausing now and then, as if
she heard a choir singing inside. I left quickly because that great gaping hole of the public vault just got darker with the
passing of night and each time the wind kicked up, I thought I heard it inhaling. Chickering was going to fix me tonight?
Let her try.

From the car I called Rhoby Hall at the FBI. “This is Leslie. Sorry I haven’t been able to reach you sooner.”

“No problem! What’ve you been up to?”

“The usual. Do you have a lunch break, or whatever it’s called on the graveyard shift? We’ll grab a bite.”

“Sure. But it’s at four in the morning.”

“That’s okay. I’m trying to get back on European time.” We arranged to meet at an all-night diner on A Street. “Oh, Rhoby.
I wonder if you could help. I met a fellow at Aurilla’s party last week. Tanqueray Tougaw. Remember him?”

“Jesus, how could I not? Chickie practically lives with the guy in our kitchen. They make all kinds of weird stuff for Paula.”

“Do you know where he lives? I’ll be needing something for my jet lag.”

“No idea. Call Chickie. She’d know.” Rhoby recited seven digits.

“What’s the area code for Annapolis?”

“This number’s Washington. She’s at the Watergate.”

I felt my hair rise.
Watergate?
“I thought you two lived in Annapolis.”

“That’s my apartment. Chickie lives in town. We switch from place to place depending on the state of our relationship.”

True? I couldn’t tell anymore. In this town, the worst thing you could do was declare whose side you were on. “Where are you
sleeping now?” I asked.

“Her place.”

I wandered to the Watergate complex, where I had fished a few keys out of a fountain several lifetimes ago. Stood for a while
at the three shallow basins, listening for that low, mysterious laughter that had so entranced me. Moon was round and ripe
as a melon, the Potomac burbled like a primeval spring … how could that laughter be gone? Another
zzzzt
as Fausto’s specter jolted through me and into the next galaxy before I could even raise a hand to stop him.
Finish the job, Smith.
With an effort, I located Chickering’s apartment. It was three away from Barnard’s.

Drove to the diner on A Street and dozed until four. Rhoby was waiting inside with coffee and crossword. Since our last meeting
she had lopped off another few inches of hair but made up for it with shoe leather: tonight’s boots laced almost to her crotch.
Perhaps the FBI relaxed its dress code for the phone operators. “So did you get Chickie?” Rhoby asked excitedly.

“Sorry. Lost my nerve.” Slid into the booth with seats the color of stale blood. “She reminds me of my first-grade teacher.
I’m always expecting her to reach into her back pocket and whip out a wooden spoon.”

“That’s so perfect! The old sow!” Rhoby sounded giddy, under the influence of something. I hoped it wasn’t love. “God, it’s
great to see you! You’ve been so busy! Tell me about it! I want to know everything!”

Oh, rehearsals, practicing, interviews…I made it vague enough that corroboration would be impossible. “How’s life at the FBI?”

“Over. I just quit.”

I barely swallowed my coffee. “What? Tonight?”

“My adviser didn’t want me to leave the building. So I told him to shove it.” Rhoby suddenly took my hand. “Let’s go dancing.”

Our first stop was a lesbian speakeasy on Rhode Island Avenue. Dark, crowded, humid with testosterone: not many lamb chops
in this mutton market. Rhoby didn’t even let me go to the bathroom alone. I kept her floating in champagne and screwdrivers
to celebrate her liberation from the FBI. We danced tità-tit until five, when a new band tried to blow out the windows. Next
we drove to a raunchier dive on Maryland Avenue, where all the rejects went for one last shot before heading home alone. I
had never seen so many deliberately grungy women in my life. But I was an anti-American bitch, incapable of realizing that
three-foot-wide asses and rotting tank tops were signs of gay pride rather than evidence of blatant self-indulgence. At least
in Berlin the lesbians tried to look like Marlene Dietrich instead of John Belushi.

Rhoby switched from screwdrivers to mai-tais after the third woman came to the table asking for Vicky. “Working,” Rhoby retorted
for the third time. “Just ignore them,” she muttered, as if I were offended.