American Sextet (15 page)

"Clint," she said. "Leave it alone."

"She said that someday she'd let me have a divorce.
After the last kid leaves the house."

"It's none of my business."

"I wanted you to know, Fiona," he said, valiantly
trying to hold himself together. "I love you. I want..."

"Stop it please...

He was obviously hurt, on the verge of some inner hysteria.
Was this his way of lashing back? "Are you trying to hurt me?" she
asked gently.

"Hurt you?" he sighed. "I'm not in control,
Fiona. I even owe my job to her. Maybe..." he paused, "I'm testing if
you really love me."

"And you expect me to fall at your feet, beg you to
come back?" She moved her head from side to side. "Uh uh." What
she really wanted to tell him was that indecisive little boys disgusted her.
"It's your trap. Not mine. I'm out." She hoped she sounded
deliberately cruel. He had no right. Not now.

At that moment, the door buzzer rang.

"It's Cates, my partner. We're having Chinese food.
Care to join us?"

He seemed startled and she realized suddenly that he
seriously believed his confession would bring them together again. The buzzer
became insistent. When she opened the door, Cates walked in holding two brown
paper bags.

"Still hot," he said. Clint stood up awkwardly
and put out his hand.

"This is Clinton Chase. I asked him to join us.
Timothy Cates."

"Really, I can't. I've got to get going," he
said, fiddling with his keychain. She directed Cates to the kitchen.

"I'm sorry," Clint said, handing her the key.

"So am I." A sob caught in her throat. Cates came
back into the room.

"Believe me. I bought enough for four. I always
over-order this stuff."

"Thanks," Clint said. "But I really..."
His voice caught as he hurried through the door. Behind her, Cates clattered
plates, feigning normality. As the sob burst, she leaned against the wall in
the little entrance alcove. She struggled to pull herself together, thankful
that there was someone in the room, another human being. Hurrying into the
bathroom, she splashed water on her face, observing herself in the mirror. Life
has hardened you, little Fiona, she told her image as she pulled herself
together, taking a secret pride in her strength.

"Look at that," Cates said pleasantly, pointing
to the neatly set dining room table, taking pains to avoid any reference to
what he had just seen.

"You like soap operas?" she said, sitting down.

"It's none of my business."

"Damned straight," she said, reaching for one of
the concoctions, wondering if she could generate an appetite.

Before she could take a bite, the apartment buzzer rang
again.

"Maybe I should go," Cates said.

"No. Stay."

Perhaps Clint had left something, she thought.

"I'll hide in the bathroom," Cates said,
disappearing quickly. This is a farce, she thought, as she went to the door,
expecting to find Clint. Instead it was Tom Gribben. He came in without a word,
tight-lipped, his face flushed. A nerve palpitated in his neck; the anger was
obvious.

"I can't believe you'd do it deliberately."

"Do what?"

He paced the room like a tiger. From his pocket he withdrew
the plastic fingerprint envelopes and tossed them on the couch.

"This," he said. "I stuck my neck out, very
nearly got my head chopped off." Taking a bottle of Scotch from the little
glass pushcart that she used as a bar, he poured a heavy shot into a glass and
drank it swiftly. "I wouldn't even trust the damned phones. I was lucky. I
think. I had a buddy working the computers. He nearly shit when they coughed up
those names." He looked at her and shook his head. "When you take
advantage, you take advantage."

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about,
Tom."

"Them." He pointed to the prints. "Don't
tell me where you got them. I don't want to know. I want to forget about the
whole thing."

"Whose were they?" she asked, expectant now, the
illusive professionalism returning.

"You owe me, baby," Tom said, eyes narrowing.

"Who, for Christ sake?" She was growing
impatient.

"The good set belongs to Tate O'Haire, majority whip
of the House. The fucking House of Representatives."

She sucked in a deep breath. It whistled through her teeth.

"And the other is a goddamned associate justice of the
Supreme Court. Orson Strauss." He shook his head and poured himself
another drink. She sat down on the couch stunned. A moment later he was next to
her.

"I don't want to hear about it," he said.
"All I know is you nearly got me into a bind. I'm not even sure whether or
not I've had it. Who knows if I can trust my buddy?" He looked at her.
"Or trust anybody?"

"I didn't know."

"It's heavy, Fi. Whatever it is."

He put his drink down on the floor and turned toward her.
"I really stuck my neck out for you, baby." He started to stroke her
arm. She felt little goosebumps spread toward her shoulder.

"Are you sure about the names?"

"Listen. Me you gotta trust."

"I didn't question that."

He moved his hands up to her shoulder and caressed her ear,
moving closer, embracing her.

"I stuck my neck out for you, Fi." He said it
again, this time gripping her shoulders. He bent her backwards and lumbered
over her. She could smell the whiskey on his breath.

"Don't, Tom," she said gently.
"Please."

"I'm entitled."

She squirmed in his embrace. He pushed himself forward,
pinning her with his body.

"I said no," she shouted.

Cates was instantly at her side, glaring down at Gribben,
who flushed scarlet with embarrassment. He stood up quickly.

"Spades now." He shook his head. She saw Cates's
fists tighten.

"No," she said, getting up to restrain him.

"You fucked me, lady," Gribben said, livid with
rage. He rushed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him.

A windswept April rain pounded Jason's car. He leaned his
head against the edge of the seat and smoked a cigarette. Through the smoke and
the droplet-dotted side window, he squinted toward the lights of the apartment.
She was with Tate O'Haire. Big Teddy Bear Tate, she called him. He hated the
implication of warmth and security.

All of them now bore her special labels. Templeton was her
little toy soldier. Once she had brought a little wooden soldier doll from the
store, painted in a shiny blue uniform and a flat pink face with rosy cheeks
and round black eyes.

"Little Eddie," she had giggled, showing it to
him. It offended him now, staring blankly from the highest bookshelf in their
Capitol Hill apartment.

She called Arthur the "duck," buying a cheap
little Donald Duck charm, an image that belied what Jason knew of him, which
was that of a hard, selfish, conniving man. Her perception of all of them
seemed distorted by a peculiar prism in which she saw these frenetic, ambitious
men merely as mischievous little boys. Could that be what they really were?

She called her Czech "Checkers," a pseudonym he
must have enjoyed, donning alternately red and black bikini shorts in honor of
the color chosen. Somehow they made what passed between them into a game of
checkers, of sorts.

"Tonight we do a triple jump," he would tell her,
dutifully reported later in a chorus of giggles. Apparently he was able to
execute the move as well.

Senator Hurley was "the whip," hardly an
appellation of irony although when she explained it, she became so bent over
with laughter she couldn't continue.

"Whip it out. Whip it in," she mimicked. When she
repeated it, he didn't laugh. No. He had discovered that he was definitely
enjoying it less, somehow losing control.

As for "Sally," he could only summon disgust.
Sally! How was it possible to weather that impending storm? The man would have
to disappear from the planet.

Enough, he had decided finally. It was time to stop the
game, convert the material into commercial forms. The
Post,
of course,
would be the clarion. Webster would watch him, bug-eyed and slack-jawed, as he
played the tapes and showed him the various geegaws of proof, the little gifts;
the exhibit of Dorothy herself.

His plan was fully formed now, the marketing effort
carefully outlined in his mind. He envisioned a three-part series on successive
Sundays in the
Post,
five thousand words each with appropriate art. That
would begin the worldwide drumbeat. Then would come the books, serializations,
movies, foreign rights, and collateral material. By then, he was calculating in
real dollars, setting prices. A million net is what he wanted for Dorothy. He'd
be content with half that amount for himself, part of it to be tucked away in a
trust fund for Trey. The rest would be a nest egg for himself, a cushion
against any future ass-kissing.

Perhaps, after the smoke cleared, he and Dorothy would go
away. Maybe Ibiza or Sardinia or Corsica. Somehow he had fixated on islands, as
if the surrounding water could purify the rest of their lives and keep them
safe. He could not envision his future without Dorothy.

What remained was to confront her with the truth of his
intentions, an idea that continued to fill him with dread, especially since an
odd element of suspicion had crept into the debriefings. Who was questioning
whom?

"Why do you want to know that?"

"It's important."

"But didn't I say it before?"

"I want to hear it again."

In the end, she would obey. Then she would come at it
again, from a new direction.

"You don't tell me what they do for you, Jason. I
mean, how they help you."

"Us, baby. Help us."

"How?"

"It's very complicated."

"Sometimes I want to ask them."

The remark struck him like a blow.

"Don't you dare," he snapped. "Have you ever
mentioned me?"

"Never."

"And are you telling me everything?"

"Everything I can remember."

"You're not conveniently forgetting?"

His own suspicion frightened him. Whenever it hit him he
would stop the session, embracing her, changing the subject. What frightened
him most was the nagging feeling that he was losing control. Could she--had
she--grasped all of the implications? All she had to do was follow his
directions. He would, of course, assure her of his devoted protection. That
would certainly be enough. Or would it? Was there reason to doubt that? Had she
changed that much? Developed guile? Lost innocence?

He hated this nocturnal waiting. He had had quite enough of
that, quite enough of seeing her, smiling and happy, bouncing toward the car,
as if he were picking her up after an ordinary day's work.

Tonight, he told her, he was coming in to talk. At that
point, he even hated to enter the apartment. It wasn't really his place, just a
prop to be discarded after it had served its purpose. Still, he knew she had
become attached to it. Had she also become attached to the others? It gnawed at
him now. He discovered that through it all he had never quite transcended an
underlying jealousy that, until now, had been denied.

He looked up in time to see the bulky figure of Tate
O'Haire slipping out of the front doorway into the rain. Since the downpour was
sudden he was caught hatless and without a raincoat. A Teddy Bear? More like a
jackal, Jason thought. They were all jackals. The lot of them.

When he was out of sight, Jason ran across the street and
let himself in with his key. She had already tidied up and was in the shower,
giving him time to take what he hoped might be a final reflective inventory.
The apartment would have to be preserved intact, living evidence, perhaps to be
used as a set for a TV documentary. Dorothy would show the viewers around. No,
he thought, it was not going to be easy.

When she came out of the bathroom, she was damp,
sweet-smelling.

"He was so cute. Wanted to stay the night."

That was another prohibition. Nights were leisure time, his
time. She moved to his lap and he smelled her flesh, breathed it, as if it had
vaporized. All traces of the others had been scrubbed away. Hadn't she always
come to him miraculously renewed, the grime peeled away?

"I'm afraid we're going to have to say goodbye."

Having turned it over in his mind for days, he had decided
on just those words, a swift body slap. Saying goodbye was her primal fear. He
felt her stiffen with panic.

"Not to me. To them," he corrected, knowing that
he had deliberately created the space to save her in the nick of time. Instead
of reassuring her, it confused her.

"To whom?" The frown lines deepened in her
forehead and her eyelids flickered nervously.

"To them." His hand swept the room. "The six
wise men." As his contempt for them had grown, he had begun to refer to
them as such. "It's all over."

"Over?"

"It's the end. We've finished what we set out to
do."

"Finished?"

"We have enough now."

"Enough?"

My God, she was making it difficult.

"I'm going to make you a million dollars, Dorothy.
Would you like that?"

"A million dollars?" She giggled nervously.
"Who wouldn't?"

"Tell me what you would do with a million
dollars." She contemplated her answer, but he didn't wait. "You know
what you could buy? Anything you want."

"Anything?"

"A Rolls-Royce. A beautiful house. You could tour the
whole world. How would you like to come away with me? To a beautiful island.
Just you and me."

"Gosh," she said. But the frown persisted.

"That's why we've done all these things, Dorothy.
That's why you've talked to me after each time. That's why you made those
friends. Now comes the time when it has to end."

"Is it something I've done, Jason?"

"In a way," he said, caressing her damp hair,
rubbing strands together between his fingers. "Now what we're going to do
is write about all your experiences. We're going to tell the whole world."

He had been watching her face, observing the clean soft
skin, the shine in her eyes, where the whites were perfect and glistening,
outlined by her thick black lashes.

"You mean tell other people?" she whispered. Her
face suddenly turned ashen.

"The world," he said gently. "And people are
going to pay for it. And pay well. And you're going to wind up with a million
dollars."

"Tell everybody about what I did with them?"

"It's not meant to harm anyone," he said quickly,
the hollowness easily apparent, even to her.

"All those things I said?" She paused and smiled.
"You're kidding me, right Jason? You're not going to tell everybody what I
told you."

"Do you trust me, Dorothy?" It came out abruptly,
more like a challenge. Her eyes probed him, still confused.

"You're my man," she said, barely audible.

"And don't I always do right by you?"

She seemed in pain. Why should it hurt so much, he
wondered? These men didn't deserve her pity.

"You just can't tell people," she said softly.

"It's like show business. Like exhibiting yourself at
that bar in Hiram. Nothing more. I'm just going to tell your story. People will
eat it up, Dorothy."

"My story?"

"You'll be a national celebrity. Everybody will want
to talk to you. You'll be famous."

Why couldn't he just order her, he wondered? Instead he was
groveling, pressing for her approval.

"I can't tell people about the way they do it, about
Sally..." She got up and moved away from him.

"It won't really hurt anybody. Besides, there's
something important about it. Don't you see?" He could not believe what he
was doing, mouthing moral platitudes as if he were feeding peanuts to some
slow-witted elephant. The animal images troubled him. Were they genuine
insight, or an illustration of something lacking within himself, a basic sense
of humanity. The six wise men were jackals. Webster a fox. Dorothy an elephant.
And himself? What was he? A misshapen hyena baying into a moonless sky? He felt
disgusted, but he couldn't stop.

"Don't you see? We'll be making fools of them, showing
how their vaunted moral code is a fraud. All their churchgoing self-righteous
pontificating about the structure of society, our democracy. It's all bullshit,
and we're going to blow the lid off it! So our great leaders fuck in strange
and different ways, one step removed from the animals." There it was
again. Was this the way self-loathing began, comparing humans to animals,
stripped of civilization and evolution? "We'll be telling them that important
people are just as human as the rest of us. It'll embarrass them, but it'll
also make them reassess themselves."

It was like throwing darts against a stone target. Nothing
penetrated.

"I can't, Jason."

Through the obscure softness came the cry of her rebellion.
A thousand hosannas, he thought sarcastically. Cause to rejoice. So she had
elevated herself from a slab of sexual meat to a deeply compassionate woman.
The revelation came like an epiphany. I love this woman, he cried in his heart.
And I hate myself for what I must do.

"People will laugh at them," she said.

"So what?"

"I don't laugh at them, Jason. If I did, I know it
would hurt them."

"Dorothy. Do you think that they give one damn about
you?"

"Of course they do. They all love me. They're my
friends."

"Friends? You're kidding me."

"I respect them and their privacy. They believe that
what they tell me is secret."

He was appalled by her arguments. Couldn't she see?

"They used you. That's all."

"They did not," she snapped back angrily.

He couldn't believe it. Still, it wasn't a complete
surprise. It was his secret dread come to life, made real.

"You said they would do you favors. That's all. I did
it because I thought they were helping you."

"They are. That's the truth."

Her agitation grew. The color did not return to her cheeks.

"You lied to me, Jason."

The accusation was jarring. Hell, he had rescued her from a
slag heap. He had the power to make her wealthy.

"You never told me it would be like this, telling
everyone about it." She was shaking her head in obedience to some inner
caveat, but there was no mistaking the decisiveness.

"I don't even know why we're discussing it," he
said firmly. "You have no choice. We're going to do it."

"How can I tell them, Jason?"

"Tell them?" Was she serious? His laughter was
high-pitched, mocking. "You're not going to tell them anything. This is
it. We're closing shop." He had that planned well. She would simply quit
her job and go underground until he was ready for her to surface. Tomorrow, he
decided at just that moment, he would see Webster.

"Do you mean I'll never see them again?"

"Christ, Dorothy. You've been playing sex games with
six men. Don't you think it's about time you stopped?" He struggled to
hold back his fury.

"But I thought..."

"That's the problem," he said. "Suddenly
you're thinking. What did you think the purpose of all this was? All of
this?" His hand swept the air. "It all cost money." He shook his
head, as if to edit the new tangent he was following. Money was the least of
it.

"The fact is that it will bring you freedom. Nobody
will be able to kick dumb pollack Dorothy around anymore. Do you know what that
means? Nobody will ever be able to use you again. Like Jim. Like those men.
Like..." He swallowed hard. "Like me." The argument sickened him.
Come what may, she would always be dependent, manipulated and misused. It was
the only choice she knew how to make.

"I'm afraid, Dorothy," he said, controlling
himself, "that if you don't go along with me on this, I mean be real
cooperative, we're finished."