Senator Matera looked at him wearily. “Mr. Kincaid…”
“I currently have the floor, madam, and I will not yield. I know you and your colleague Senator Keyes are sticklers for proper parliamentary procedure. So be quiet.”
Matera leaned back in her chair, eyebrows raised, and remained silent. Ben took a deep breath. He’d won many a trial in the closing argument. He had to give it his best shot here—however impossible it seemed.
“Some of you probably approve of what has been happening, approve of the result if not necessarily the tactics. The end always justifies the means, right? That’s the mantra of partisan politics. That’s why we have to debate whether it’s proper to filibuster actions that are supported by the majority. That’s why we spend millions of dollars digging up dirt on each new nominee. Sure, it’s dirty. But it’s a means to an end.
“And what about the rest of you?” Ben asked, changing the direction of his gaze. “Those who disagree with the tactics and the result, but remain quiet, because last time—and next time—it was and will be your party doing the dirt. And so it goes, goes, goes, goes, goes, goes—until someone finally has the courage to step up to the plate and stop it. To draw the line.”
Ben turned slightly toward the nominee seated to his left. “Thaddeus Roush has drawn the line, ladies and gentlemen. And you should respect that, because in your hearts, you all know he’s right. What you have been doing here is wrong. As someone recently reminded me, when Clarence Thomas was being confirmed, you dragged sex into the proceedings. The ostensible topic was sexual harassment, but everyone knew that was just an excuse to introduce titillating material. Justice Thomas accused the committee of playing to racial stereotypes about black studs and sexual immorality—and he was right. And guess what? The same thing has been happening in this chamber this week—only worse. Now you’re introducing sex under the cover of a character issue, but it’s really an excuse to play to the stereotype of gay men as decadent, promiscuous. Perverse. And it has been far, far worse here than it was in the Thomas hearing because that’s what happens when you allow your standards to erode. Once you start down that path, it is very difficult to stop, perhaps impossible. Soon we’ll be able to disregard judicial qualifications altogether and cut straight to the sex life. That’s what Judge Roush has been telling you since the day this hearing was convened—but none of you would listen. You just went along the way you’ve gone along in the past, ignoring the reality of what you have become. What this proceeding has become.”
Ben considered the expressions on the faces of the committee members. It was impossible to know how this was playing. The senators were pros at masking their feelings, and for that matter, they might not know what their feelings were until they got the preliminary poll results.
“I don’t know why these witnesses have said the things they’ve said. Even if it were true, it would be an odd thing to talk about after years of silence, and I suspect I’m not the only one here who suspects that none of it is true. Some witnesses have probably been paid. Some would say anything to get on television. Maybe a little of it is true. I don’t know. But I know this: I’ve been to heterosexual bars before, but no one would think of using that to impeach me. Heck, George W. Bush went to bars regularly for twenty years, but that didn’t stop him from becoming President. I’ve dressed up for fun before and partied and so has every one of you. I’ve even had sex before.” He paused. “Once. A long time ago.” He waited for the mild laughter to subside. “But no one cares. These things have only become issues in this proceeding because, in the spirit of total honesty, Judge Roush acknowledged that he is a gay American. And just as the unscrupulous have used race and religion and gender as weapons to defame and destroy in the past, so sexual preference is being used today. If Senator McCarthy’s ghost still haunts this room, he must be very pleased.”
Ben paused. His lips were so dry they were splitting. He knew he needed to wrap this up; he was amazed Keyes had let him go on so long without trying to shut him down. But he had one last thing he needed to say. One last chance to remind them of something they already knew.
“Thaddeus Roush is a good man,” he continued. “All of you know it. That’s why he’s here. That’s why the President nominated him in the first place. He’s smart, he’s hardworking, and he’s fair. He’s a reasonable man. He is exactly what we need on the Supreme Court. That’s what matters. So we’re not going to make any more speeches. We’re not going to call any more witnesses. There’s no point. You know what you need to know. It’s time to vote. Just remember this one fact—”
Ben made eye contact with every one of them in turn, then continued. “America is watching to see if you’ll do the right thing. Please don’t disappoint them.”
37
“Aw hell,” Loving grumbled. “You didn’t tell me it was a strip club.”
“What did you think it was going to be?” Trudy replied. “A sewing circle?”
“You said it was a redneck joint. You never said—aw hell.” He stared up at the large neon sign flashing the name of the club: ACTION. Presumably because if you got inside, you were either going to see some or get some.
“So what’s the problem, big boy? Never been to a strip joint before?”
“All too often.”
“Bet you’ve never been to one like this. Fifty of the best-looking women you’ll ever meet in your life. And very discreet. They have to be: some of their clients are members of Congress.”
“You’re kiddin’.”
“I’m not. And lobbyists. Lobbyists love this place.”
“They come here to rub shoulders with politicians?”
“Well, they come here to get something rubbed.” Trudy winked. “Let’s go watch Your Government in Action.”
Loving scanned the considerable line of patrons waiting to get inside. “Looks like there could be a wait.”
“More than a wait, sugar. Dressed the way you are, you’ll never get in.”
“Hey, I put on this fruity shirt you gave me. What do you—”
“Don’t get your butt in a swither. I can get us in.” Trudy extended an elbow. “Escort me, baby.”
“I am not going to…to…have you hangin’ on my arm.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re—you know!”
“Yeah, I know, and you know, but they don’t know. At least not most of them. Do you want to get in or not?”
Loving sighed heavily. “Hell.” He raised his arm as if it weighed a thousand pounds and reluctantly offered an elbow.
“Thanks. You’ve got big biceps, sugar.”
“Don’t call me ‘sugar’!”
They walked toward the front of the line, ignoring the more than one hundred people waiting. “How much money you got on you, plum cake?”
“Don’t—” He sucked in his breath. “About five hundred bucks. More than enough.”
“More than enough? Here? We’ll blow through that in an hour.” She shook her head. “I just hope that’s long enough.”
Trudy approached the gatekeeper, a burly bodybuilder with a shaved head and muscles that made Mr. Clean look like a ninety-pound weakling. “Hey, Bones.”
He tipped a finger in a small salute. “Good to see you, Trudy.”
“Boss wants to see me.”
“Then step right in,” he said, but Loving noticed he didn’t move.
“Any time now,” Trudy whispered in his ear.
“Any time now what?”
“Pay the man.”
“For what?”
“To get in.”
“There’s a cover charge?”
“No, there’s a get-the-gigantic-traffic-control-bruiser-out-of-the-way charge.”
Loving muttered again, then grabbed his wallet and offered a five.
“Don’t be absurd.” Trudy reached into his wallet and pulled out a fifty, then handed it to the gatekeeper. “Sorry for the delay.”
He nodded graciously and let them pass.
“Fifty dollars to get in. A seat would cost you another fifty.”
Loving slapped his head in disgust and followed Trudy’s lead. He was immediately immersed in more or less everything he hated most in life. Relentless pounding noise—he supposed they called it music—playing so loud he could barely hear himself think, all electronic synthetic technocrap. Colored lights swirled back and forth across the club so fast it made him dizzy. The crowd was worse than Disneyland on a Saturday afternoon; every step forward required aggressive action. The people were generally well dressed—well, the men, anyway. Most of the women were barely dressed at all. Unlike most strip joints he’d visited, there was no stage, no artificial dividing line separating the patrons from the professionals. The dancers were working on the floor, often surrounded by a cluster of men barely a foot away.
“Isn’t that kinda dangerous?” Loving asked.
“How do you mean?”
“Lettin’ those droolin’ idiots get so close to the girls. Eventually one of ’em’s gonna get drunk enough to try to reach out and touch.”
Trudy smiled. “Not to worry. This place has more bouncers than the Senate. No one gets away with anything in here.”
Loving shoved his way past a group of gagglers surrounding a tall blond woman writhing on the floor in a hot pink sequined bikini. “It’s nice to know management cares about its key employees.”
“They don’t. It’s all dollars and cents. They want to attract the best customers, and that requires them to have the best girls. You don’t get the best girls if you can’t take care of them. That’s all a girl really wants, you know.” Trudy snuggled closer and laid a soft head on Loving’s shoulder. “A strong man to take care of her.”
“Would you stop that!” Loving pushed forward into the crowd. “So where is this Renny, anyway?”
“I can’t be sure. But he’s usually in the back room.”
“Of course. There’s always a back room. And let me guess. Not just anyone can get in.”
Trudy touched Loving’s nose. “Ding, ding, ding.”
“So what do I have to do to get in? Say the secret word? Beat up a squad of bodyguards? Solve the riddle of the Sphinx?”
“I’ll show you.”
Trudy blazed a trail through the jam-packed club. In many respects, the place was like a casino. There were no windows, no clocks, nothing to remind anyone of how late it was or how long they’d been there. He wondered if they pumped oxygen into the room to keep everyone a little high. Happy people bought more drinks. And whatever other luxury items the place had to offer.
Loving veered left to avoid a fight in progress, then almost tumbled over a dancer giving a guy a hand job. A guy Loving thought he’d spotted on the Senate floor, but he was too repulsed to look for long. He tripped and fell to the floor, and the minute he pulled himself up, he came nearly nose-to-butt with some dancer’s naked buttocks. As he steadied himself and scanned the room, Loving wondered if there had been this many women taking off their clothes in a confined area since the court of Caligula.
“That dancer back there,” Loving said. He was shouting, but given the general din, he could barely hear himself. “She was toasted.”
“You could tell that from staring at her ass?”
“No, her eyes.”
“Well, that’s hardly unusual. Even in a high-class joint like this one, most of the girls do a few shots or maybe a line of coke before they plunge into action. It’s a tough job. They need something to…distance themselves.”
“Seems like management would put a stop to that.”
“To the contrary. As long as they don’t overdo it, management likes the girls to be a little looped. Loosens them up. Makes them much more likely to tolerate a little pinching or other inappropriate touching. Accidentally brushing your boobies against some drooling politico’s face. That sort of thing.”
“You sound like you’re speakin’ from experience.”
“Are you kidding? How much could I take off before…you know. Some of my girlfriends are strippers, and they’ve told me about it. It’s not an easy life.”
“Then why do it? Go to typin’ school.”
“And spend the rest of your life fetching coffee for the man? No thanks.” Trudy leaned in closer. “In an A-list place like this, a good dancer can make two thousand bucks a night.”
“How?”
“By pleasing the big tippers.”
“Pleasin’ ’em how?”
“You probably don’t want to know.”
“You’re probably right.”
“For five hundred bucks, you can get a fabulously good-looking girl and pay a bouncer to look the other way while the two of you disappear into one of the many small side rooms.”
“Disgustin’.”
“Maybe. But very profitable.”
Loving almost crashed into a waitress. He knew she was a waitress because she was wearing clothes. “Get you something?”
“Yeah. I’ll take a beer. And another one for my…” He gestured toward Trudy. “…friend.”
Once again he pulled a five out of his pocket, and once again it was refused. The waitress smiled. “Your money’s no good here, big boy.”
Loving blinked. “You mean it’s on the house?”
Trudy whispered in his ear. “She means you need Action bucks.”
“Huh?”
“This place issues its own scrip. It’s all the waitresses—or the dancers—will take.”
“Scrip? How do I get that?”
“Give the waitress a credit card. She’ll sell you some. With a twenty percent markup.”
“That’s highway robbery!”
“Maybe so, but it’s the only way you’ll get a drink in here.”
Loving shoved his wallet back in his jeans. “Then never mind.” The waitress shrugged and moved on. “Scrip? What kind of idiot would agree to a rip-off deal like that?”
“Well, with most guys, when the most beautiful woman they’ve ever seen in their life straddles them and starts doing a lap dance, they don’t want to make a trip to the ATM.”
Loving plowed ahead, muttering to himself about how he was gonna have to talk to the Skipper about a raise.
At long last, they reached an alcove where, unlike the rest of the entire club, men were the center of attention. Most of them were sweaty and had their sleeves rolled up. And at three different tables, the men were arm wrestling.
“What’s this about?” he asked Trudy. “Trying to impress the chicks?”
“More like, trying to blow off some steam because you can’t afford to do it with any of the chicks. Give me a minute.”
Loving watched Trudy approach another gatekeeper. He spotted a windowless door at the rear of the alcove. The back room.
“I’m here to see the Boss,” Trudy said.
The gatekeeper shook his head. “You’re not on the list tonight.”
“Doesn’t matter. I need to talk to him. About a job I did.”
“Sorry. You’re not on the list.”
Loving watched as Trudy snaked an arm around his neck and leaned forward, pressing—what? rubber padding?—against his chest. Fake as it all was, he didn’t know how the gatekeeper could resist. She—he, damn it—was a total hottie. “Surely you can make an exception. Give a girl what she needs.”
The gatekeeper grinned from ear to ear, but he didn’t budge. “Sweetheart, I’ll be happy to give you what you need any time, any place. But I can’t let you in that room.”
Trudy recoiled and stomped away in a snit. “I gave it my best shot, Loving. I couldn’t get in.”
“So that’s it? We give up?”
“Of course not. You’re going to have to enter the tournament.”
“The tournament? What, poker or somethin’?”
“Arm wrestling!”
“This is a contest? I thought they were just…you know. Showing off.”
“No. The winne
r gets inside the back room. It’s like, the grand prize.”
“Why is that a prize? Does everyone want to see Renny?”
“I doubt if any of these rubes know who Renny is. But they’ve heard about the infamous back room. It contains some…rare delicacies.”
“Just give it to me straight.”
“Women. Real women. Willing to have sex with anyone. No questions asked.”
“Prostitution.”
“No money changes hands.”
“Renny keeps them doped up.”
“Point is, they’re there, they’re willing, and they’re better-looking than anything most of these muscle-bound clods have seen in their dreams. So, done any arm wrestling?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Good. Then we’ve got a shot.”
“I haven’t done it in a long time.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’ll have me to help you.”
“You? How the hell are you gonna help?”
She slithered up close to him. “By exercising my feminine wiles, sugar.”
“Don’t call me ‘sugar’!”
38
“This just in,” Beauregard said, flying into the conference room with a blue-rimmed piece of paper in his hands. “We’ve crossed the Rubicon.”
Ben squinted. “I don’t understand.”
Senator Hammond smiled. “When Julius Caesar was fighting the Gallic Wars—”
“I understood the historical reference,” Ben said, trying not to appear annoyed. After the day he’d had, he was a little tired of being cast as the political equivalent of the village idiot. “What I don’t understand is what he’s talking about.”
“The latest instant polls indicate that more people favor the Roush nomination than oppose it. And this is the first time that’s been true since he made his coming-out speech in the Rose Garden.”
“Swell,” Roush said. “Does that mean we’re winning?”
“Hard to say. This was a poll of the public, not the eighteen members of the Judiciary Committee. Still, one tends to lead the other.”
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