Senator Love (22 page)

FROM WHERE Fiona sat at a round table along the window side
of the grand ballroom of the Pan American Building, she could see Frances
Langford, looking larger than life in an off-the-shoulder white ballgown that
greatly flattered her ample figure.

Frances sat at a table placed along the wall where one
entered the ballroom through wide open doorways from the marbled mezzanine,
which led to the twin staircases. The magnificent green-domed building was
designed and built in the thirties to commemorate hemispheric solidarity.

Sam and Nell exchanged glances often with Fiona, whose
designated "cover" was to appear in animated conversation with Monte
Pappas. Bunkie had been deliberately eliminated from their group, sent by the
Senator to California to talk up a preliminary committee for the Presidential
campaign, which was, at that moment, much in doubt.

Peripherally, Fiona had seen Frances look their way, her
gaze swiftly moving past them, as if she were merely scanning that side of the
room. Was there something proprietary in this glance? Or was it merely idle
curiosity? She would soon have that answer.

Fiona sat next to Sam, and Nell sat beside him on his other
side. The other chairs around their table for eight were occupied by a Senator
from Wisconsin and his wife and a Congressman from Oklahoma and his wife. It
was a charity event for the benefit of Juvenile Diabetes.

FRANCES LANGFORD'S ubiquitous social agenda had been simple
to track. She was everywhere, a networker of extraordinary energy. The
"strategy," as it was referred to by Fiona, did not have the
enthusiastic support of the Senator and his wife. But Monte had apparently
convinced them that they had little choice.

"You're asking me to torch myself," Sam had told
Fiona, after he had agreed to the plan.

"With your luck you could turn out to be the phoenix,
rising from the ashes," Fiona had replied.

Surprisingly, the eggplant was the most reluctant about
Fiona's participation.

"Unacceptable risk," he had argued. Cates,
knowing Fiona's absolute commitment to the idea, had given it his blessing.
"If we're right, we're dealing here with a brilliant psychopath. She's put
away two ladies without leaving a clue. If she decides to do you, she'll find a
way."

"That's my job," Cates said. "I won't let
her out of my sight."

"Easier said than done," the eggplant said.

"I've got to do this, Chief," Fiona said firmly.

He had rubbed his chin with ebony fingers. Then he reached for
a panatela and lit it with a match, puffed deeply, and expelled the smoke
through his nostrils like a dragon.

"It's the only way," Fiona pressed. "I'd
decline, really I would, let one of you be the patsy. Unfortunately, the good
Senator Love isn't into guys."

The eggplant's lips formed a rare grin.

Fiona waited for him to make a decision. It was too long in
coming and she broke into the silence.

"The hard part will be to convince her that the
Senator and I are ... well ... that way about each other. Enough to trigger the
aberration." Again she could not control a blush. "We know the MO. If
she's the one, I'll be ready."

The eggplant took a deep drag on his panatela and spoke.

"People like that come up on you when you least expect
it." The smoke flowed out of his lips on the words.

"I've gone to the police academy. I know how to defend
myself." The benign sarcasm was meant to prod him.

"I don't like my people to take unnecessary
risks."

The subject of risk was quite common these days. Cops were
fair game. So far this year seven had been blown away—five in uniform, two in
plainclothes.

"She doesn't know I'm a cop," Fiona argued,
skewering the logic deliberately, wanting to illustrate how lightly she was
taking the danger. "What's worse, Chief? Keeping her on the street to do
another? Just be a matter of time before someone gets wind that it's the work
of a serial psychopath. It happens."

The implied threat was deliberately soft. She had no
intention of setting him off. There was also a subtle appeal to his own
self-interest. Breaking the case in this way had real media legs and he, of
course, would take all the credit for it. He had slumped in his chair. Now he
sat up straight and pointed the burning end of the panatela at her.

"You get your white ass in a sling, you're in
trouble," he said. Then, turning to Cates, "You stay connected. I
want you glued, capish?"

Cates cut a glance at Fiona and grinned.

"Like Siamese twins, Chief," he said.

CATES, DRESSED in his tux, sitting at a table in a far
corner of the room, was watching her at that very moment. He was a slender,
handsome man with mostly Caucasian features and skin that looked like he had
gotten himself a deep tan. Only his hair, which was cut close, and a nose with
a slight Negroid flatness gave him away as black. Not that it was an issue with
him. He was proud of his race, despite the occasional slights of his fellow
cops, who had made him feel doubly alien, high yellow and Jamaican,
British-dipped variety. In his carefully pressed dress clothes, he looked
elegant.

Liveried waiters proceeded to serve the dinner, which
consisted of roast chicken, asparagus and cheddared potatoes served French
style. It had been agreed that Fiona would call the shots.

The band, which had played dance music before dinner, was now
playing background music. She had danced with Monte, and the Senator had danced
with his wife. Frances took the floor with a distinguished grey-haired man,
obviously her date for the evening. As Fiona had observed before at Mount
Vernon, Frances greeted both Sam and Nell with a pleasant smile, and they
returned the courtesy, a gesture that had surely passed between without
incident or second thoughts scores of times.

"Still inconceivable," Sam said when they had
returned to the table for dinner.

"She never gave us a spot of trouble," Nell
whispered. From the beginning, she had been wary of the idea. Having continued
to deny to herself that Sam was having an affair with Helga, she saw little
logic in the plan. Nor, apparently, had she confronted her husband for an
admission. And he had not volunteered a confession.

"Our theory is based on her perception of
events," Fiona had explained diplomatically, "which does not
necessarily have anything to do with the truth."

This seemed to satisfy her enough to consent to go along
with the plan.

As the waiters completed serving the baked Alaska, Fiona
turned to the Senator and moved her head closer to his, nodding to Nell, who
directed her attention to her partner.

The Senator put his hand on Fiona's bare arm and stroked
her. Her skin broke out in goose bumps.

"How am I doing?" he asked mischievously.

"You're being very realistic," she said, her
attention drawn to the table across the room. "I think we're getting her
attention."

"Probably your imagination," Sam said. She felt
him searching her face.

"You are rather attractive," he said.

"For a cop," she bantered.

"I don't believe this is happening," he said,
bending closer. He whispered in her ear.

"Shall I caress your thigh?"

"You're not taking this seriously." She was
suddenly alarmed. He moved his hand and put it under the table. She froze,
pressing her legs together, but he did not touch her.

He continued to study her, while she concentrated on
catching Frances in her peripheral vision. She noted that Frances was no longer
panning the room as she had done earlier. She was watching them.

"She's got a bead on us," Fiona whispered.

"Wish-fulfillment," Sam snickered.

"We'll know soon enough."

Beside him Nell was playing her part, talking with
animation with the man beside her. Monte was doing the same with his partner on
the other side, a shy horse-faced woman wearing a gown that had seen its best
days in the fifties.

"In the meantime, what shall we talk about?" Sam
asked.

"You're the politician. They're never supposed to be
at a loss for words."

"I keep asking myself. Why are we here?"

"You're helping to catch a killer."

He grew silent, his taste for banter obviously fading.

Fiona's eyes darted toward Frances' table, then returned
quickly.

"I'd say we have deeply arrested her attention,"
Fiona said. She looked into Sam Langfond's blue eyes. Despite the tension of
the situation, they appeared somewhat bemused.

"When they play dance music, we'll get on the
floor," Fiona said.

"I can't wait," the Senator said. He was back to
banter now.

"Act, dammit. She's biting."

"I'm a lousy actor," Sam muttered.

"The hell you are," she said.

Leaning closer, he brought his lips close to her ear. But
he said nothing. Instead, he kissed her on the earlobe.

Her heart began to pound in her chest and her temperature
seemed to have risen. But she knew that Frances had picked up the signals, was
watching them with greater and greater interest.

"Did I do all right?" he asked.

"I'd say a trifle indiscreet," she said, as the
waiters began to clear the main course. "We'll dance soon."

She had instructed both Monte and Nell to restrain any
desire to look toward Frances, and they had cooperated fully. Both of them
looked quite interested in the conversation with their dinner partners. They
were doing their part. Fiona was quite pleased.

The band struck up a slow dance tune and couples began to
head toward the floor.

"Now," Fiona said.

Sam got up, took Fiona's hand and led her to the dance
floor. Close dancing in Washington was socially acceptable. People tried hard
to be ingratiating, and men and women rarely exhibited scandalous conduct.
Image was everything. Sam's image was that of a handsome charmer and target for
the ladies. That was a perfectly acceptable persona to exhibit publicly. After
all, he was married to an attractive woman and had two delightful children.
Stepping out of line with other ladies was assumed for any man of power and
clout, but never flaunted. A level of philandering was tolerated just as long
as it stayed deeply in the closet. Sam's propensity was outside the parameters
of what was considered acceptable. Far outside. That was the real secret to be
kept. That was media fodder of the first rank.

Only someone who truly observed with a high level of
concentration could detect the real meaning beneath the surface of body
language—interpreting what to others might be harmless dance titillation as
blatant sexual foreplay instead. That was what Fiona was betting on.

She saw Frances rise and glide onto the floor in the arms
of one of her dinner partners, a heavyset man exactly her height.

"Make it authentic," Fiona whispered, her arm
creeping upward along Sam's back, a trifle north of mere affection. He pressed
his pelvis against hers, his fingers caressing her bare back. In another
prearranged detail, Monte and Nell were dancing in a far corner of the room,
well away from Sam and Fiona.

Deliberately Fiona closed her eyes, as if to simulate the
ecstasy of the proximity to the Senator. She followed Sam's short steps. He was
light-footed and graceful. His body ground into her, rhythmic, with a slight
gyration. Oh my God, she thought again. Hazardous duty. She felt his erection.

"You wanted convincing," he said. "I'll give
you convincing."

"Jesus."

"It's an involuntary reaction," he whispered.
"I can't help it. Live with it."

Worse, she felt a complementary reaction in herself and
opened her eyes. At that moment, Frances' eyes locked into hers. She was no
more than five feet away and there was no misinterpreting the look. Malevolent,
hate-drenched, violent.

With hand pressure on his back, she signaled him to move
laterally. She had to get away from those eyes, that look.

"I saw her, the real Frances," she whispered.
"I'm right. I know I'm right."

Responding, Sam had whirled to get a better look at Frances.
She felt him nod, then turn again.

"All I get is a polite smile," he said.

"I see murder," Fiona said.

"I still don't get it." The expelled air from his
sigh brushed against her cheek. She felt his erection subside.

"You're doing just fine," Fiona said, somewhat
relieved. "Just keep an open mind."

She took him by the hand and led him toward the exit doors
of the ballroom. They moved down one of the marble staircases to the lobby
level. There, she led him to a darkened spot in the atrium situated between the
two staircases. She had carefully staked out the spot in advance. It provided a
clear view of them to anyone who looked over the balustrade, yet masked the
possibility to anyone watching from the lobby.

She deliberately placed herself so that only she could see
any heads that poked themselves over the balustrade. They stood closely
together, facing each other, only inches apart. Sam's back faced the balcony.
Recognition would be difficult.

Turning slightly, she could see through the glass entrance
doors to the building, where uniformed security men and chauffeurs milled
about. Not far from where they stood and just out of sight was the hat-check
facility. She could hear the women clerks talking softly among themselves.

"Is she watching?" the Senator asked.

"Not yet."

"You could be wrong."

"I'm not," she said with conviction.

Then she saw a head pop up over the balustrade. Cates. He
was standing just where the balustrade made its long graceful turn toward its
downward descent.

Sam had sensed her tension.

"Her?"

"No."

When she looked again, he was gone. Then suddenly Frances
was there, her face visible over the balustrade. She was looking directly down
at them.