American Sextet (7 page)

"Hell, I'd be bringing coal to Newcastle."

"Even when it's bad, it's good. The important thing is
to get it. Hell, what's all this power for anyway but more and more
pussy."

The line, of course, was familiar. Arthur jumped to the
bait like a hungry fish.

"I thought of you immediately," Jason said. He
had managed to get Arthur out for a quick drink at the Press Club. At first
they had talked politics, issues, gossip. Both knew it was a keeping-in-touch
situation. Jason was not lunch material in Washington power terms. Arthur was
simply throwing him a bone.

"I can set it up," Jason said, after Arthur
dropped the facade. He looked about him to be sure no one was listening.

"All she has to be is ready, good looking and
safe." Arthur cleared his throat. "Above all, safe."

"Above all," Jason assured him. It was an
accepted fact that men who wielded power accepted such perks. For a
newspaperman, the unwritten trade-off was that one day Arthur could again be a
"source."

Thinking about Arthur did not summon up any pangs of
conscience. Behind his thin veneer of probity, Arthur was a grasping climber
like the rest. He was also clever and knew how to survive in the jungle.
Besides, the horny bastard would wind up making ten times his salary as a
parasitical Washington lawyer. Jason would be doing him a favor.

An hour later Arthur came out of the townhouse, wearing the
look of the self-absorbed Washington lawyer. Who could possibly guess what he
had just done?

Jason's explanations about Arthur to Dorothy had been
deliberately vague. She would never have understood his real motives.

"We live on favors in this town, baby." He had
reiterated the point to be sure she hadn't changed her mind.

"I understand, Jason."

He refused to question her own value system--he didn't need
any extra baggage for his conscience.

He'd let her decorate the apartment in her special way, an
expression of her own fantasies.

"But why don't we live here, Jason?" They still
stayed at his Capitol Hill apartment.

"Some day. If you do exactly as I say."

"Of course, Jason." She thought for a moment.
"I'll make sure he returns the favor."

"Oh he will, baby. That's been settled."

"Better be."

"It'll all be perfect in the end. You'll see."

"Sure, Jason. Anything you say."

When Arthur had disappeared around the corner, Jason
crossed the street to the townhouse. The outside door worked on a buzzer
system, but he let himself in with his own key. Dorothy was in the shower.
Getting out of the sooty coal area had increased her passion for cleanliness.
She had shined and primped the apartment until its floors and furniture were
honed to a fine gloss. Everything was tucked neatly in place.

Dorothy came out of the shower, scrubbed and sweet
smelling, wearing a flouncy white negligee. Seeing him sitting on the couch,
she smiled brightly. He forced his expression to match hers, surprised at the
brief stab of jealousy. Watching her now, fresh from another man's arms,
oblivious in her innocence, made him feel uneasy.

"He was very nice," she said, insinuating herself
next to him, locking her fingers in his.

"Didn't I tell you," he said hoarsely.

"And you're not jealous?"

"Not a bit."

"As long as he helps you, Jason, it's okay with
me."

Her nearness made his concentration falter. He had the
sudden urge to explain it further to her, to justify it, but gazing at her
perfect face, it didn't seem to matter anymore. Her malleability was a
phenomenon.

From his pocket he took his small tape recorder and locked
in a blank cassette. Standing it upright on the cocktail table between them, he
tested it, checking its range and pitch. She watched him with childish
curiosity, emitting the inevitable "gosh." He had toyed with the idea
of wiring the place, but that would have required bringing another person in to
do the job. Debriefing was second best, but far safer. The type of
"visitors" he had in mind would all be paranoid about security. As it
was, he would have to have Dorothy offer them elaborate assurances. The
slightest hint of a "setup" would scatter them like frightened geese.

"Remember. It's like a game," he explained.

"Okay."

"Everyone to his own aberration," he said,
caressing her shoulders.

"Aber what?" she asked, laughing, her eyes fixed
on the running recorder.

"Never mind."

He'd already assumed that the first time would be the most
difficult. "Just tell me how it was." Her eyes narrowed in confusion.

"Tell you? I don't understand."

"It excites me," he whispered, biting at her
earlobe. He wondered if it really would.

"It does? But I thought..." He observed her
mulling it over in her tortuous plodding way. It was contrary to her
experience. She looked at the recorder and frowned.

"I'm not sure, Jason."

"Just trust me," he whispered. "It's
important to us."

"To us?"

"Go ahead," he coaxed.

"What?"

"Just tell me what happened. What he said. What you
felt."

"He smelled nice," she giggled.

"What else?" He kissed her forehead. "How
did he do it?"

"You want to know that?"

"Yes."

"Just like he was starving to death." She smiled
and turned to face him. He chuckled benignly, and it gave her courage to
proceed. What he wanted was facts, bits and pieces, the juicy stuff. He
continued to coax her.

"He liked to talk dirty when he was doing it. Usually
like dogs do."

It came out like an instruction sheet for elaborate sexual
exercises, boiled down to their ultimate simplicity. Wanting to please him, she
relayed each movement with as much detail as could be hoped for. And then he
did this and then that. It became more clinical than pornographic.

"It felt good," she said. Knowing her reactions,
it was always an obvious conclusion. To her, it always felt good. As she
talked, staring at the recorder, obediently offering the mechanics of Arthur's
technique and reactions, she reached out to caress him, stopping finally when
she discovered no response.

"It doesn't do what you said," she said, turning
away from the recorder.

"It will when I replay it," he said.

"Did he talk about his job?" he asked. Where he
worked?"

"He said it wasn't far. A big southern mansion not
far."

A good line, Jason thought. Meant to ridicule. He felt
better about what he was doing now. The bastard had played on her naiveté. He
was tempted to tell her what Arthur had meant but held off. She mistook his
long silence for disapproval.

"You're not sorry?" she asked. "I did it
because you wanted me to."

"I know, baby," he said, patting her shoulders.

"He was very nice."

"Yes, he's very nice. Did he ask to see you
again?"

"Next week. I gave him the new number." He had
already hooked up an answering machine.

"Should I?" she asked.

"Of course."

"As long as it will help you, Jason. I wouldn't do it
if you minded. I would never do it on my own."

"I know that."

He turned off the recorder and put it back in his pocket.
The apartment was beginning to stifle him. He took a five dollar bill from his
wallet and handed it to her.

"Take a cab home tonight," he said abruptly.
"I'll be late. Another zoning meeting in Fairfax County."

He had worked it out very carefully, both the rationale and
the plan. Simple justice was too tame for today's new world. Lasciviousness was
the bitch goddess now, a paradox since the sexual revolution was supposed to
have made a simple exercise of the genitalia uninteresting as news. The irony
was that a few years back when sex was merely a dirty little secret, reporters looked
the other way. Deviates could ply their persuasions without fear, provided they
didn't violate other norms.

Now, he knew, the peccadillo brought to light could send up
a national leader like a Roman candle. People cluck-clucked and said it was too
bad, but an aggressive woman with a good body and a photogenic face could turn
a good buck out of sexually exploiting someone with even the remotest shred of
power. There was a hot market out there for that--books, serial rights, foreign
translations, photos in the flesh slicks, movies, television. A well placed
fuck could bring notoriety, fame. That kind of spectacle sold. It was
disgusting, Jason thought. America had become vulgarized.

What was needed was one good overdose of it. Enough to
revolt even the most prurient. It would smash the taste for it in the public
mind. And it amazed him that he, Jason Martin, had stumbled upon the instrument
to do it. Dorothy. All that was needed now was a manipulative intelligence, the
right targets and the courage to act. The former was already in his possession,
the latter took a bit of research, and the guts to put the honeypot near the
flies.

Money alone was not his motivation, he assured himself,
although an up-front investment was already straining his finances. He had
begun to fall behind on his payments to Jane for Trey's support. Decorating the
apartment had been expensive.

As for Dorothy...

She was the perfect weapon, an innocent with an uncanny
talent. She had easily transferred her dependency from Jim to himself. It was
almost
too
easy, Jason had thought. Yet he was comforted by the
knowledge that what he was doing would benefit her as well, at least in
monetary terms. Hadn't she once told him that money was also one of her goals?

He had already calculated the split, giving her the lion's
share of all proceeds. Such gestures assuaged any pangs of guilt. The tapes
would be his principal documentation. Maybe he'd even take the chance on video
or, at the least, photo stills. He'd have to be extremely cautious. None of his
potential victims had reached these heady precincts without developing antennae
for this kind of scam. He looked upon them as adversaries, an appropriately
journalistic posture.

Naturally, they would all cry entrapment. It would be their
principal defense. More raw meat for the media mill. Even if they chose
confession, which was the latest strategic vogue, it would only increase the
after-play, making the titillation even more valuable.

After their moment in the lurid glare of scandal, after the
anguished breast-beating, the protestations and confessions, they would all
land on their feet. Some would also write books themselves. Maybe sell the
rights to a movie. Hell, it was a great growth industry. One or two might even
take refuge in religion. Ambition, he was certain, also had its genetic base.
The kind of boys he had in mind would make out anywhere. For most, it would be
a good excuse to change direction, find a new track. Some would even use it to
dump their wives. They would all have to be lusty boys with heavy appetites.
That sort should be easy to find, he reasoned. Sexual discipline wasn't much of
a virtue in today's world.

To do it right, though, it had to be massive, not just a
single isolated exposure, not just Arthur Fellows. It had to be bigger in
scope, touch the untouchables, the high and mighty of government and society.
By God, he wanted to bring them all to their knees. He would become the P. T.
Barnum of sexual scandal, a three-ring virtuoso, touching every point on the
American power compass. The White House, the Senate, the House, the Military,
the Diplomatic Corps, and, if he could pull it off, the Supreme Court. An
American Sextet. With Dorothy as his instrument, he'd singlehandedly send up
the entire checks and balances system.

The tension in the office had the tautness of a violin
string. They had brought in a suspect in the teenage murders. The man was a
Marine sergeant stationed at the barracks on Sixth Street. Worse, he was white,
and had been observed trying to pull a young black woman into his car.

Picked up swiftly, he had been booked and hustled into the
interrogation room under tight security. Grim-faced media people hung out in
the corridors. The newspaper and television reporters were having a field day
over the murders, focusing on the lurid sob stuff. A fund had been started for
the illegitimate children of the victims.

After a round-the-clock grilling, the man continued to
maintain his innocence. He insisted that he'd accosted the young woman because
he was certain it was she who had stolen his wallet two weeks previously.

"The chief's chewing carpets," Lieutenant Brooks,
the number two said. Known, not without affection, as one of the eggplant's
stooges, Brooks was the eggplant's huge but gentle sidekick who was always
happy to fob off both authority and blame on someone else. Like many policemen,
he had a side trade, house painter, which he plied in his spare time. Since he
was making more off the books than he could hope to draw from the public
payroll, he wasn't up for rocking the boat.

"Muvva had to be a honky," he groaned. "Set
the juices going. Bad for the boss. They're really pushin' upstairs..."
His manner was furtive; his eyes darted from side to side.

"...and he's got orders to crack the bastard or it's
his ass."

Despite her own feelings about the eggplant, stories like
that triggered compassion. Somebody was always about to have the man's ass.

"He could be the wrong man," Cates stage
whispered. Brooks heard him and smiled.

"If he has to, he'll make it right."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Cates
asked Fiona on the way to their car.

"Police bravado. The myth that everybody's guilty of
something. Sometimes a false confession with good circumstantial evidence can
provide a good breather."

"You mean a deliberate frame-up?"

"Tsk. Tsk. We're being quite a boy scout this
morning."

She knew immediately she'd made a mistake. His skin cast
turned slightly yellow. Was it the "boy" reference? Or had she
gratuitously flaunted her knowledge of the way things worked?

"It happens sometimes," she said. She'd noted
that in him before, the taut sensitivity, the smoldering inner life.

"I suppose I'll find out when I'm older," he
said.

"Touché!"

Even later, as they investigated the "naturals,"
all of which were routine, something was still awry between them. Part of it
was her own uneasiness. She hadn't told him about her conversation with Dr.
Benton, a violation of the partnership code. That was police business, not
secret thoughts. It nagged at her all morning. It wasn't until they were having
a cup of coffee in Sherry's, a staticy radio crackling between them, that she
found the courage to broach the subject.

"I asked Dr. Benton to take a vaginal smear of the
jumper," she said.

"You did? I thought you had lost interest."
Sipping his coffee, he squinted at her over the rim of his cup.

"Whatever gave you that idea?"

"I figured you told the eggplant and he put you down
for it."

"You think that would stop me?"

"It had to be something. You had been so turned
on."

"I still am," she said flatly.

"Good." He reached into his pocket and threw a
metal object on the table. She looked at it, then back at him. The object was a
tiny pin, less than an inch long, four silver stars on a silver bar. After
inspecting it, she put it back on the table.

"For me?" she asked facetiously.

"For someone."

"Are we playing games?"

He seemed to enjoy her confusion, then wiped away his grin,
and looking around him, spoke in a whisper.

"I went to her place again. I found this pinned to a
panty. In an odd place. Right at the Y." His throat caught and he cleared
it. "I wasn't sure what the hell it was at first. Anyway, there it
is."

"Sly little bastard," she mocked.

"You were making such a big deal about it."

She fingered the object.

"A general," he said.

"I don't know what it means," she admitted.

"Sure you do. She had a general for a boyfriend. Four
stars."

"That's no crime," she said, watching him.
Finally, she asked, "Why did you go back?"

"Pissed off," he said, making it sound like a
genuine confession. "You were blowing hot and cold. I thought you put me
down for what I'd found out ... the man in the woodpile. I thought that was
pretty damn good detecting."

It was, she supposed, fingering the pin. She hadn't found
it, although she had looked in the drawers, not thinking to disturb the neat
pile of panties. It told her something about male curiosity, but he had plowed
fertile ground.

She held the pin up to the light, inspecting it. Taking it
as a signal to proceed further, Cates took a notebook from his pocket.

"The lease was in her own name," he said,
referring to his notes. "The rent was $575, and she paid three months in
advance. Her take home from Saks was $800 a month. Figure that out. They said
she was good when she worked. Sporadic attendance, but they liked her. No close
friends with employees. Very close-mouthed. A little slow on the uptake, but
good with the customers. One of her co-workers thought her job seemed like a
hobby."

He rattled on, his handsome, light chocolate features
infused with an excitement she found distressing. The implications, of course,
were obvious. They had been obvious from the beginning. The girl had been
someone's mistress, just like herself. The coffee became acidy in her stomach
and she was suddenly nauseated.

"The basic question is still foul play," she
said, gulping air. "We're not the Moral Majority."

"No," he said. "The basic question is
you."

"I don't understand."

Was she that transparent? she wondered. Had he investigated
her personal life as well? She had studiously avoided discussing with him any
private references to her life. But he hadn't volunteered much about himself
either, as if their lives began and ended with their work.

"Frankly," he admitted, "I couldn't see why
you were so interested at the beginning. Then I decided you must have had a
theory in mind, something I'd missed. So I went to see for myself. I wasn't
going to tell you. Then you told me about the smear."

Once she had gone rafting in white waters at Harper's
Ferry. She recalled the sense of powerlessness when the raft was caught in a
downward surge, bobbing in the unpredictable eddies. Listening to him
replicated the same sensation.

Maybe he was trying to foreclose on it before it got out of
hand. It happened sometimes. A case comes up that pushes a detective beyond
logic. It becomes an obsession, crowding out all other considerations. A theory
becomes faith. Like being sure beyond doubt about the existence of God.

"She was kept by some married cat. He wanted to end
the deal. She balked, threatened to blow the cover. He flung her over the
bridge."

She wanted to protest. Would Clint do that to her? She
looked at Cates, surveyed his chiseled features, imagined his tall muscular
lithe body. He reminded her of Harry Belafonte.

"You think that's my theory?" she asked.

"Or a variation thereof."

"And what do you think?"

"I think it was the other way around. He gave her the
boot. She couldn't take it, saw all exits closed, then jumped."

"You know that much about women in love?" she
asked. It was a challenge more than a question.

"Enough," he said, sipping his coffee.

"Machoman," she said tartly.

"I've made you mad."

Agitated, she wanted to say. He had indeed stirred her up.
To avoid his eyes, she again looked at the little pin, forcing her
concentration.

"Your man in the woodpile?"

"A reporter," he said. "For the
Post
."

"That makes two men in the woodpile."

When she looked at him he was frowning, searching the dregs
of his cup for a response.

"A triangle," he said.

"Which blows your theory about my theory." It was
getting out of hand now and she hadn't the power to stop it.

"We could find out," he said, after a long
silence.

"Why not?"

She wondered who was goading whom.

Jason Martin was easy to find, a dry throat at the other
end of the telephone line. It was nearly noon. Apparently, her call had
awakened him.

"I'm terribly sorry," she said politely.

"One of those late County Council meetings. They were
arguing about where to put the new dog pound."

She imagined he was expecting her to laugh, which she
politely did.

"Routine police business," she explained, waiting
for a reaction, a subtle breathing ripple. There was the barest hint of
hesitation.

"A story?" he asked, emitting a distinctive yawn.

"Could be."

His apartment was not far from Sherry's, from where she was
making the call. They were there in fifteen minutes.

"It's a mess," he apologized.

It was an apartment in a still unrenovated townhouse, the
halls of which stank of stale pizza. For a newspaperman, he seemed to be living
in penury. A glance into his bedroom told her he'd made a half-hearted attempt
to make his bed, but the telltale lumps under a stained comforter belied the
attempt.

Although his brown stringy hair was still damp from the
shower, his bodily cleanliness seemed negated by a torn, stained seersucker
robe under which two hairy legs protruded like stilts. Cool brown eyes shifted
in their almond-shaped sockets, peering over an aquiline nose with flared
nostrils and thin tight lips. His chin was cleft, square and strong, investing
him with an overall look of quick-tempered pugnaciousness. The caged animal
image clung to him like body odor. The predatory, repressed anger was palpable,
the air of casual cynicism contrived. He was a relic of the rebellious sixties,
Fiona decided. It was one of her dead certain instant judgments, but she wasn't
condemning the man for it; it had been her era as well.

Clearing a battered couch, he offered them seats, taking a
place opposite them on an upholstered chair that had seen better days.

"You were a friend of Dorothy Curtis, formerly
Zcarkowiz," Fiona began, watching his face.

"Were?" he snapped, a bit too quickly. Then he
corrected her pronounciation, shaking his head, and let out a long gasp of
breath, more like a deep sigh. "She in trouble?"

Fiona ignored his question. "You brought her to Washington from Hiram, Pennsylvania?"

"Hey," he said. "I know the game plan. Just
tell me what's come down."

"We know you did. Her aunt told us," Fiona said.

"I'm not denying that." He withdrew a long leg
from across the chair's arm, showing a swath of white jockey shorts. "Do
me a favor, guys. Don't go by the book. Just tell me what's happened to
her."

"Why are you assuming that anything has happened to
her?" Cates interceded.

"Amateur night," Martin muttered. "I'm also
trained to interrogate."

Surely, Fiona thought, surveying the man, Dorothy hadn't
died for him.

"We found her in the creek under the Duke Ellington Bridge."

She watched him carefully. His lips trembled.

"Found her..." He turned his face away.

"She was not a pretty sight." Fiona was
deliberately harsh. Sometimes shock value could be very useful.

"Christ," he muttered, standing up. From the
litter of his dresser, he found a cigarette and lit it with a Zippo lighter.
For a moment, he looked at himself in the mirror and, after a deep inhale, blew
smoke into his image. He seemed shaken, but was holding himself together.

"What the hell did she do that for?" he said,
turning to face them, showing a burst of anger. The veins in his neck stood
out.

"We've classified her death as undetermined,"
Fiona said.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It's just routine, Mr. Martin."

"Routine?" he said with raised eyebrows. "I
used to cover the police beat. You think someone threw her over?"

"Have you any reason to think that?" Fiona asked.
"Since you mentioned it first..."

Puffing deeply, he paced the room. When he finally sat on
the chair again he rested his elbows on his knees, still in deep thought.
"She gave me a lot of happy moments."

"And you?" Fiona asked. "What did you give
her?" To cover her embarrassment, she took out her notebook.

"When did you last see her?" Cates asked.

"A couple of months ago, maybe." Martin shrugged.
"We lived together for awhile. Apples and pears. She wasn't exactly an
intellectual giant. We shared our bodies." He looked at Fiona, almost as
if he were searching for understanding. You've come to the wrong pew, buddy,
she told herself, thinking of Clint. This must be depersonalized, she
admonished herself silently.

Thankfully, the recall set him off and he rambled on. She
wanted to get out of Pennsylvania, find a new life in the big city. Her dreams
smacked of typical media myths.

"She was an innocent, without guile. She wouldn't hurt
a fly," he concluded.

"Not even herself?" Fiona asked.

"Who knows?" For the first time he appeared
genuinely confused. "Something must have set her off. Frankly, I can't
believe it."

There was a long pause as Martin sucked the end of his
cigarette down to a glowing butt, finally smashing it in an ashtray on the
floor. "What makes you think it was something other than suicide?" he
said without looking up.

"Did you know any of her other male friends?"
Fiona asked. He looked up suddenly, laughing.