She gave a little, confused smile, and Carl said, ‘You don’t understand that, do you?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘I was never much good at school. I just like hearing you talk.’
He lifted his chin and looked up at her. Her pert, pretty face looked down at him between the pale moons of her breasts, and that sprinkle of freckles called ‘seasoning.’
‘There’re elections and elections, Lollie, just like there’s working girls and working girls.’
He was speaking directly into her microphone now, enunciating each word as if he was a TV newscaster.
‘Elections don’t often give a fair representation of the real desires of the people. There are too many pressures from the media, too many pressures from fashion, too many pressures from the tides and the currents of time.’ Lollie said, ‘That’s Greek to me.’
‘Well, look at this way,’ said Carl. ‘Television and newspapers tell people what they want. National moods tell people what they want. Emotions tell people what they want. But what people should vote for is what’s going to be best for them, and what’s best for them is not very often what they want.’
‘But how do you make people vote for something they don’t want?’ asked Lollie, still baffled. ‘I mean, how can you make them act that way?’
Carl smiled patiently. ‘It’s very simple,’ he said. ‘In any society, all these emotions and moods I’ve been talking about are generated by a comparative handful of people. There are people in any group who are leaders, and everyone else in the group takes their cue from them.’
‘I know,’ said Lollie, ‘like a flock of sheep.’
‘Well, it’s a little more complicated than that. What you have a society, say, like Los Angeles, you have leaders on all kinds of levels with all kinds of different ideas. You have ethnic leaders, local political leaders, PTA leaders. You even have people who are leaders simply because everyone else on their block likes them and respects them.’
‘Is that so?’ said Lollie, trying to look as if she understood what he was saying.
He gently lifted her hands from his shoulders and stood up. ‘It’s not really the kind of thing you should bother yourself about,’ he told her in a warm voice. ‘Why don’t you stick to what you do best?’
‘But it’s fascinating,’ she insisted.
He picked up his shorts from the floor, where they had been provocatively tugged down the previous night. As he stepped into them, he said, ‘It’s the leaders who sway the way that everybody else votes. So if you can work out how they’re going to vote, then you know how the country as a whole is going to vote. As the leaders go, so goes the nation.’
He located his undershirt. ‘These days, you can work out how the leaders are going to vote with something very scientific called the Sweetman Curve.’
She giggled. ‘The Sweetman Curve? That sounds kind of cute.’
‘It’s cute all right, because it works. And because once you know for certain how an election is likely to turn out, you can use that information to make sure that it turns out the way you want it to, instead of the way the nation wants it to. That’s what I mean by making people vote for what they need, instead of what they want.’
Lollie came up and put her arms around him. ‘You get to the leaders?’ she asked him. ‘You bribe them or something?’
He kissed the tip of her nose. ‘Something like that.’
‘Supposing they say no?’ she whispered, nuzzling his ear.
‘Then we try something else.’
‘Like what?’
Carl’s eyes suddenly went cold. He took hold of Lollie’s wrists and held them with unrelenting tightness.
‘You’re asking a hell of a lot of questions.’
She blushed. ‘It’s only because I’m interested.’
‘What makes a working girl like you so interested in politics?’
‘You’re hurting me,’ she protested.
Carl snapped, ‘I asked you a question, honey. What makes you so all-fired interested?’
‘I’m not going to tell you until you let me go-’
‘You’ll tell me now or I’ll break your fucking jaw.’ She glanced at him, confused and frightened. He had lost his temper and his self-control so quickly, without any warning at all, that she thought for a moment that he was acting, playing around with her. But his grip on her wrists was so painful that she knew he meant it.
She said, ‘If you’re going to be President – I mean, if you’re really going to be President – then it’s worth being your friend, right?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, that’s why’I wanted to know. I just wanted to know if you really were, or if you were kidding.’
He kept hold of her wrists for a few moments, and then released her. Standing there in his underwear, he told her darkly, ‘I never kid. And I don’t believe you.’
‘It’s true, Carl. It’s really true. It’s what’s really important, right? I mean, all this divorce stuff, that doesn’t mean anything, right?’
Carl had been casting around for his socks. But he jerked his head towards her, and stared at her as if she was crazy.
‘Divorce stuff?’ he demanded. ‘What divorce stuff?’
She backed off. ‘Just divorce stuff, that’s all. You know, with your wife and everything. You do know, don’t you?’
‘Know what? I don’t know a damned thing!’
Lollie reached for her baby-pink satin wrap, and pulled it around her protectively.
‘Well, it’s really nothing,’ she said nervously. ‘It’s just that I thought you knew.’
Carl stepped across the bedroom towards her with three fierce strides, and seized her hair in his fist. He bent her head back and glared at her from less than an inch away, so close that she couldn’t focus on him.
‘You thought I knew what?’
‘It’s nothing, Carl, it’s just a joke.’
‘A joke? What kind of a joke?’
She tried to twist her head away, but he clenched her hair tighter, and forced her head even further back.
‘Oh, Christ, you’re hurting me,’ she told him.
‘That’s the intention. I want to know more about this joke. Like, who’s playing it, and why.’
‘It’s – it’s only your wife,’ gasped Lollie. ‘She wa-wanted divorce stuff against you. This place is – wired for sound – and movies—’
Carl raised his head and looked around the bedroom.
‘Sound?’ he whispered. ‘And movies?’
‘That’s – that’s right. It was a – private detective. His name’s David – Radetzky.’
‘Radetzky?’
‘That’s right. Oh, Christ, let me go, will you?’
Carl released Lollie’s hair and pushed her roughly towards the bed. ‘Stay there,’ he ordered her, and then went straight to the phone. He picked it up, and dialled his private number at the Xanadu.
There was a pause, and then he said, ‘Umberto? This is Carl. Yes, I know we’re late for the meeting. Forget the damned meeting. I want you to get right on over to the Scirocco. Because I damned well said so. Bring Val with you, too. That’s right. And there’s one more thing. Call Mr Domani at the Lucky Stallion, tell him there’s a private investigator in town name of Radetzky, David Radetzky. Tell him it would help if Mr Radetzky stayed within the city limits until we’ve had the opportunity to talk to him. That’s it. And do it quick.’
He banged down the phone and turned towards Lollie.
‘You cheap whore,’ he snarled at her. ‘Do you know where the cameras and the mikes are hidden?’
White-faced, she said, ‘They didn’t show me. It was all done by the time I got here.’
‘Well, it doesn’t matter too much,’ breathed Carl. ‘Because we’re going to get hold of this Radetzky character and we’re going to make him show us. And then we’re going to put the movies and the tapes on a plate, and shake a little Heinz ketchup on them, and make him eat them. And if
you think I’m joking, I’m not.’
‘I don’t think you’re joking,’ said Lollie, in a hushed voice.
As Carl got dressed, he said, ‘You’ve heard me say one or two things today about politics, honey. Things about elections and votes and how they can be manipulated. Well, I want you to remember that they’re only theories, okay? Not for real. Just theories. And when you’ve remembered that, I want you to forget that you ever heard a word of what I said, and if you ever breathe a single word about the Sweetman Curve to anybody, then I’m going to make sure, personally, that your neck gets broken.’
‘I won’t say nothing to nobody, Carl. I promise you.’ He tightened the knot of his tie. ‘I just hope your promises are better than your grammar.’
There was a quiet knock at the door, and Carl went to answer it. In stepped two tall, dark men. One of them wore an immaculate white suit, and had carefully-greased hair, like Rudolf Valentino, and a small clipped moustache. The other, in scruffy jeans and a blue sweatshirt with Franklin and Marshall College printed on the front, had an unshaven chin and close set eyes which gave him the appearance of a mental defective.
‘We’ve got a problem here,’ Carl said. ‘This broad lured me up here last night under false pretences. The whole room here is bugged for sound and vision.’ The man in the white suit lifted an eyebrow, and looked towards Lollie.
‘Did you say anything?’ he asked Carl.
‘What do you think?’ Carl snapped back. ‘I want you to look the place over, see if you can locate the mikes. If you can’t, stay here until Mr Domani picks up the private investigator for us.’
‘And what about the girl?’ asked the man.
‘Do what you like. Give her a slight accident.’
The man nodded. ‘Okay. Are you going to the meeting now?’
‘I’m going to change first, and take a shower. If you have any problems, call Phil.’
‘Phil’s gone over to the meeting already.’
‘In that case, come over to the meeting. But I don’t want anything to go wrong. I want all the movies found, all the tapes found, and I want Radetzky found, and I don’t want any fuss.’
‘You got it,’ the scruffy man said laconically.
Carl opened the door, and then paused.
Lollie, with her wrap tightly pulled around her, said, ‘Carl – you’re not going to leave me?’
Carl smiled. ‘You’ll be taken care of. Just the way you took care of me. So long, Lollie.’
Then he closed the door and he was gone.
The tall man in the white suit took off his coat, hung it on a hanger on the back of the door, and then brought a bedroom chair across to the bed where Lollie was sitting. He sat astride the chair, with his elbows resting on the back, and he looked at her with eyes as dark and shiny as the backs of bugs. The scruffy man stood a little way behind him, cleaning his fingernails with his front teeth.
‘My name’s Umberto,’ said the man in the white suit. ‘What’s yours?’
‘Lollie,’ Lollie said anxiously.
Umberto nodded in appreciation. ‘Lollie, that’s a nice name. This is Val, incidentally. You mustn’t mind Val on account of Val was dropped by his mom when he was a kid.’
‘What are you going to do to me?’ asked Lollie. ‘Carl said an accident. You’re not going to give me an accident, are you?’
Umberto’s eyes closed and opened like a sleeping cat’s. ‘Accident? No way. Everything Val and me do, we do on purpose.’
‘Stand up, kid,’ Val said quietly.
Lollie looked at Umberto for help, but Umberto simply said, ‘Go ahead. Do like the man says.’
She stood up. She felt alternately hot and shivery, and she wondered if there was something wrong with the air-conditioning. Val stepped up to her, and walked around her, as if he was admiring a statue.
‘Okay,’ said Val, ‘that’s nice. Now drop the robe.’
Lollie clung to her wrap even tighter.
Val continued to walk around her, and then came up and stood in front of her. His expression was calm, but strangely irrational, and he kept licking his lips as if he was thirsty. There were cold-sores all around the side of his mouth.
‘Um, I said drop the robe,’ he repeated, almost politely.
Lollie didn’t move, but she could feel her pulse speeding up.
Val, watched from his chair by a benignly smiling Umberto, came right up close to Lollie and stared into her face. He must have been eating onions for breakfast, because she could smell them on his breath.
With brutal strength, he seized the front of Lollie’s satin wrap and tore it off her. Then he flung it across the room, and stood facing her, panting. She let out a little high-pitched breath, and stared back at him, wide-eyed.
‘You have a lovely body, Lollie,’ Umberto said pleasantly. ‘Do you know that? A body like that, it’s a genuine pity to waste.’
Val didn’t say anything, but pulled his sweatshirt over his head, baring his hairy chest, and unbuckled his jeans. He stank of stale sweat, but Lollie found herself thinking, thank God he only wants to have sex with me. Thank God it’s only that.
‘Umberto, you joining me?’ Val asked in that same odd, polite tone, as if he was inviting his friend to take tea with him at the Bel-Air Hotel.
‘If it’s all right by you, Val, I’ll just sit and watch.’ Val pushed Lollie towards the bed. ‘Come on then, let’s get it together.’
Lollie lay on her back on the bedcovers, and Val climbed astride her. He bent forward first of all and kissed her, and she could feel the coarse bristles of his chin scratching her face, and the crusted sores around his mouth, but all the time she kept herself in neutral shift, and told herself over and over, it’s only sex, it’ll soon be over, it’s only sex.
Val squeezed her breasts, and sucked a bit at her nipples. She tried not to, but she couldn’t help crying out, and then he bit her even harder. Then she felt his hand between her legs, tugging at her pubic hair as if he was going to wrench it out, feeling her and stimulating her. She could feel her cheeks flushing hotly as she realised that she was aroused.
He forced a finger up her, then another, and probed deeply into her soft, wet flesh. Then his thumb went up her bottom, and he began to tug at the thin skin that divided his fingers and his thumb, and she felt as if he were pulling her insides out.
He mounted her roughly, forcing her thighs wide apart, so wide that she was frightened they were going to crack. His erection pressed into her with his whole weight, huge and hard, and it went up her so far that she jumped in nervous response. She kept her eyes shut tightly, feeling the weight of his hairy, stinking body on top of her, feeling his penis ramming into her harder and harder, and she wanted so much to keep herself detached, to believe that it wasn’t happening to her at all. But the sensations inside her wouldn’t let her, and in shame and fear she felt herself beginning to shake with an orgasm, a tremor that came and passed, while Val still thrust and gasped and bludgeoned.
When Val himself finally climaxed, he twitched and clawed at her as if he was having a fit. She felt the spasms of his ejaculation inside her, and again that shameful tremor began, but she didn’t reach an orgasm properly. She turned her head sideways, and opened her eyes, and it was then that she felt something warm and wet splash on to her cheek, and slide stickily into her ear.
She looked up. Umberto was standing over her, with a faint smile on his face, his cheeks a little bright, and he was just putting himself away. She said, ‘Oh, God,’ and wiped at her face with the bedcover.
Val climbed off her and walked across to the other side of the room, breathing heavily. Lollie stayed where she was on the bed; she had learned already that with Val, you did what you were told, and only what you were told.
Umberto took out a dark green silk handkerchief, turned away from her, and blew his nose. Then he said, ‘You see? We’re men who appreciate a beautiful girl.’
Val pulled his jeans up, buckled the belt, and told Umberto, ‘
I’ll go run the bathwater.’
Lollie, lying still and frightened, heard the faucets splashing. Umberto paced up and down, more restless now, and occasionally glanced at Lollie and gave her a little encouraging smile.
‘This your first time in Vegas?’ he asked her.
She nodded, without speaking.
‘Yes, it’s a place with its own character,’ said Umberto. ‘Some people say that it’s America’s Gomorrah. Other people find it fun.’
Val came out of the bathroom, and said, ‘Okay, it’s ready.’
Between them, they helped Lollie off the bed. She didn’t even understand, as they guided her solicitously through to the bathroom, what they intended to do. It was steamy in there, and the walls were tiled in turquoise. She saw her pale body in the misted-up bathroom mirror, marked with red bruises and scratches where Val had mauled her.
They assisted her into the bath. She stood there, shin-deep, her arms held over her breasts, and said, ‘It’s real hot. I don’t usually take a bath this hot.’
Umberto said, ‘Come on, sit down, make it easy on yourself.’ Lollie sat, and stared up at them, and then of course she knew.
She splashed, and struggled, and tried to get out of the tub, but her foot slipped on the bottom, and Val pushed her face-first under the water. It was very hot, and she swallowed a huge mouthful of it. She heard Val’s knees striking the sides of the tub in great distorted booms of sound, and bubbles of air bursting all around her.
Somehow, she managed to force her head up out of the water again, and she let out a terrible gargling scream. But Val pushed her back under, until her nose was pressed against the bottom of the tub, and his strength was so overwhelming that she lay there with scalded eyes and nose, and knew that she was going to drown.
She held her last breath as long as she could, until her lungs felt as if they were cast out of lead. Then she let it out, in an agonized rush of bubbles, and drew in hot bathwater.
Val and Umberto waited in the bathroom for almost five minutes. They didn’t say much, or even look at each other much. When the time was up, Val let Lollie go, and she lay there, face-down, her red hair floating darkly in the water.
The Sweetman Curve Page 16
