American Sextet

by Warren Adler

  "It was never a question of that," Jason said. "It's too late for regrets, I'm afraid. I've just done that bit. It's penance now."

  "What does that mean?" Arthur said, looking toward him.

  "I've got an idea." He paused before proceeding. "I want it secret. I'm going to destroy the tapes. It was sheer madness."

  Arthur seemed relieved and the color began to come back to his cheeks.

  "There's no note. I looked everywhere. Still, maybe it was suicide." He was suddenly speechless with fear. Maybe she was poisoned. Or there was a wound. He hadn't looked. "Maybe," he said finally. "Unless one of you people went crazy."

  "Good God, Jason. We're victims. We're just people. Not killers."

  "You said that before. But you nearly killed me."

  "I was desperate."

  "So are they."

  "Then when I calmed down, I said to myself, what the hell. I had a good run. It's the humiliation of it..."

  "I told you. I'm destroying the tapes."

  "Thank God."

  "Don't get too grateful." He felt his stomach tighten and his heart pump heavily. Arthur looked at him warily, his eyes had narrowed and his lips fell slack. "Just hold on," he said to placate him. "It's not as bad as you think. Very simple, in fact. Nobody is going to get off scot free. I want money."

  "Money? So it is money."

  "It is now."

  "I figured it wasn't the end of it."

  "Don't look so contemptuous. It's not for me. It's mostly for my kid, for his education. How's that for decency?"

  "How much?"

  "Twenty thousand apiece. No big deal." He felt his growing strength. The idea was emerging painlessly. Even Dorothy would be happy about that. When he would speak of Trey, she would grow misty-eyed and upset.

  "You can have mine in the morning," Arthur said, quickly standing up, looking arrogant again. "All in cash, I presume. I suppose in exchange you'll hand over the tapes to each of us. Unless you've dubbed them."

  "It'll be a clean deal. I promise that."

  "Your promises. What are they worth? Deliberately destroying other people. For what? It makes no sense. What did we ever do to you?"

  "Or Dorothy..." Jason muttered. But he didn't want to go into that now.

  "She went nuts."

  Jason ignored the remark.

  "There's just one more thing, Arthur."

  "Still more?"

  "You're going to be the collector."

  The blood drained out of Arthur's face and he had to sit down.

  "Me?"

  "You're a great communicator, Arthur. Hell, you're the best."

  "I can't be a party to that."

  "I'm afraid you'll have to be. I'm just being practical."

  Not practical, he knew. Malignant. Even the most fleeting sense of compassion lay dead with Dorothy. He was being deliberately diabolical. It was no longer a child's game. Yet, he seemed to himself, oddly reasonable.

  "Hell, Arthur. You've got credibility. Access. You're one of the people who runs America. Right hand of the President. They'll believe you. I also don't give a shit what you tell them. Name names. I've got nothing to hide."

  "You're being satanic."

  "Manipulative. I prefer manipulative--like you. I only hope you get no objections. That, of course, would put it out of my hands completely."

  "I feel ill."

  "Fight it, Arthur. You'll need your strength."

  He looked at Jason and shook his head. "You're not leaving me too many choices. And no guarantees. You're really turning the knife, Jason. Does it give you pleasure?"

  "No, I'm afraid it doesn't. But it would have been worse the other way. I'm just thinking of myself for a change. I've got a kid, too."

  "And he'll be real proud when he finds out where the money came from for his education."

  There was a long pause.

  "Suppose the police get too nosy?" Arthur said, considering all the angles.

  "I figure if there was no sign of foul play, they'll write it off as a pure suicide. This MPD is no great shakes. But if they come up with any strange evidence, then we're in the soup. Me, too."

  "Then what? You use the tapes?"

  "Every man for himself."

  "You are the most disgusting human being I have ever come across. Worse than any killer."

  "I know. And I hate myself for it. But I'm not going to let self-loathing interfere with what I have to do for my kid, for my own peace of mind."

  Arthur got up and walked to the door, pausing, his finger on the knob.

  "Be careful," Jason said. "I have to wipe those prints away."

  He removed his hand from the knob as if it was electrified.

  "Don't worry," Jason said. "I've wiped off everything and I've removed everything that could be incriminating. At least I hope so. Most of the time I made her bring her stuff home."

  "Home?"

  "She was my girl. She lived with me."

  "You're a pig," Arthur said.

  "That, too."

  "No conscience? No remorse? How can you possibly live with yourself?"

  "I'm going to have one hell of a tough time," Jason said, glaring at him. "Think of poor Dorothy," he said. "She actually thought you were wonderful. All of you. Her buddies. What did you tell her on the phone? Live with that."

  Arthur shook his head. "I'll have to try. And I'll try on the other. You'll hear from me tomorrow. I hope you're right about the police. But I can't conceive of any of the men doing that to her. I really can't conceive of it."

  "I can," Jason said. He felt himself smile. It was more sardonic than warm. "Hell, Arthur. Consider yourself lucky. What if those tapes were in the hands of a really vicious man."

  The door slammed shut. Jason looked at it for a long time, then began to wipe off the knobs. Yes, he thought, they were lucky. They were always lucky.

  XVII

  The early April rain had coaxed open the cherry blossoms around the reflecting pool exactly as scheduled. The delicate pink buds on trees donated by the Japanese before World War II formed a magnificent display, one of Washington's prime tourist attractions.

  From where Fiona and Cates stood at the north end of the pool, they could see a panorama of American history--the Jefferson Memorial, Arlington Cemetery, Memorial Bridge, and the Pentagon. Behind them was the U.S. Mint.

  "It's the helplessness that really hurts," he said.

  "Hell, that's just the other side of power. No fun being powerful if the victim has choices." She watched the lines of tourists walking along the path that snaked around the waterside. They leaned against a railing and Cates flipped tiny pebbles into the water.

  "Just don't talk about fair," she said. "I don't think I can take fair."

  "All right, I won't say fair. But you got to admit, Fiona, we started something, stirred things up a bit. The damned White House. That's heavy duty. Sounds like a football play--Congress to White House to mayor."

  "To eggplant to Cates to FitzGerald. A round robin."

  "That's not football," Cates muttered, flipping a pebble far across the pool. "What the hell do you suppose we did?"

  "Why flagellate? Forget it."

  "I can't."

  "I warned you," Fiona said. "Erase it."

  "And just wait it out?"

  "That's the game plan."

  "How long?"

  "Weeks. Maybe two or three. Then he's going to get us reinstated and we get our pay."

  "But it goes on our records."

  "If he's willing to go this far, he'll probably have it removed." She wondered why she was putting so much faith in a bootlicking lackey like the eggplant. But he always reacted to strength and her information was a formidable hand.

  "Now that's fair," he smirked.

  "Sure," she smiled. "If it benefits you, it's fair. If it benefits the other guy, that's injustice."

  He threw another pebble in the water.

  "You think it was O'Haire got on our case?" he asked.

 
"Doesn't matter. Up there, they're all in cahoots. Right?" He searched her face for the sarcasm, found it, and smiled. If she were a man, he might have kicked her teeth in for getting him into so much trouble. I warned him, she assured herself. But it didn't chase the guilt and she found herself still searching for ways to explain it.

  "It's bureaucracy. Everybody has to protect the man ahead of him. Simple as that. That's why we always get the supreme level of mediocrity at the top."

  "It still stinks," Cates said.

  There was a long silence between them. A puff of cumulus cloud hid the sun for a moment, then the blazed out again, stinging their eyes with the sudden brightness.

  "What do you think in your gut, Fiona? That's what I want to know."

  He had turned and looked deeply into her eyes, probing, the pupils dancing.

  "You're not supposed to think with your gut," Fiona said, looking away quickly. "That's why we're in this mess in the first place." She wanted to explain to him about Clint's being the trigger. He had a right to know that, but still she held it back. Her temporary weakness had jeopardized his career.

  "You owe me that," he said gently.

  "Owe?" She felt a whip of anger.

  "What do you think really went down? Did the girl get heaved? Was she some kind of a spy? An agent of some sort? How many men did she make? A Supreme Court justice? A top congressman? Someone in the Czech Embassy? Maybe the ambassador? And a four star general?"

  "Maybe even someone in the White House."

  It seemed utterly impossible to avoid the subject.

  "And that Martin guy," he pursued. "We can't forget him. He brought the poor girl to town in the first place."

  "Now you're doing it."

  "Doing what?"

  "Saying poor girl."

  "I've been thinking a lot about her."

  "Now you," she mumbled.

  "Just a kid from the sticks. A dumb bunny. He should have just let her alone."

  "Who?"

  "The newspaper guy. Something fishy about him."

  "Forget fishy," Fiona said. "It's not going to do us much good. We got jobs to worry about."

  "Yeah, jobs."

  Cates scratched his chin and shrugged. "Just the same..."

  "Can't you stop it? Just shut up," she snapped. She started to walk down the path and he caught up with her. "I'm sorry," she said, "I got you in. I'll get you out. Just shut up and be a good boy."

  "Us boys," Cates said. "All we do is run. When we fight, we always lose anyway."

  She tapped her forehead.

  "Smart thinking, black man."

  "Black man?" he groaned. "My blood's the craziest mixed drink you ever saw. My grandfather was half-white, half-Indian. My grandmother was half-black, half-hispanic. My father was a British civil servant in Trinidad. Half-Indian, I think. My mother migrated here with me in her gut. And I'm what you call a bastard."

  "You think you got troubles. I'm Irish. That's trouble by definition."

  They walked in silence for a long time. Cates worried her. His mind couldn't leave it alone.

  "Just hold on, Timothy," she said. "It'll blow over. I made the deal for both of us. Just have a little patience. We're little people. We stuck our nose in the wrong place. One way or another, the girl died. And the mighty are still the mighty. We're not God's avengers."

  "So you think they are getting away with something."

  "You just can't leave it alone, can you? It doesn't matter." She paused and looked out at the tranquil setting, the blossoms swaying in a gentle breeze. "I was the believer. You were always the skeptic. This is no time for role reversal."

  "I sure would like to know how close we came to something really big..."

  "Dreams of glory. That's what we need in our business. Another glory hound."

  "You're not even curious?"

  She took a deep breath and felt her heart flutter briefly. "Not anymore," she lied, patting his back. "Just hold on, kid. It wouldn't be any fun without the secrets. We're in the den of the ruling class. They like to play God. We're supplicants. Pay your fucking respects and shut up."

  They began to walk along the path. She had vouched for him with the eggplant. Her job, after all, was to keep him cool.

  "Whadayawannado?" she joshed. "Take in a flick? Grab a hamburger? Go to a gallery? How about the zoo?"

  "The zoo." He looked at her and smiled. "I been to the zoo, baby. I grew up in the zoo. I work in the zoo."

  He started to laugh and slapped his thigh.

  He'd be fine. She was sure of that. Just fine.

  They spent the day in the Museum of American History. It was the beginning of the tourist season and crowds of teenagers in buses had begun to descend on the city.

  That was the first way she'd seen it. She had done an essay on "The American Way," and the trip was sort of half-prize since her parents had to pay half-price. She remembered how the first sight of the Capitol dome had thrilled her. They had all stood on the Capitol steps and sang "America the Beautiful," and everyone in their hearts believed that it was true. The perfect Capitol of a perfect world. A man took their picture and they all paid fifty cents apiece for it. Now it stood in a battered frame in her parent's living room "rogues gallery."

  "Pick out Fiona," her father would say sometimes, usually to one of their growing brood of granchildren. The kids were never very successful at it. On her visits home, for some reason, she always noticed that picture and the original feeling came back, like a pure fresh breeze.

  Maybe it wasn't so perfect. But people weren't perfect and people ran things. Who was she to demand perfection? Her job was to see that people obeyed the written rules. As for those that were unwritten ... that was none of her business. Let she who was without sin cast the first stone, she thought, smiling at the change of gender.

  "What's so funny?" he asked.

  "Us," she said. "A couple of idiots. Gribben said MPD was a bunch of idiots."

  "He's right."

  They decided to spend their suspension seeing the city like tourists.

  "Let's see how they run America," she teased.

  "Hell, we know how they run America."

  "Do we?"

  They had dinner at a small Italian restaurant in Georgetown and headed home in different directions. Suspension might not be so bad after all, she thought.

  She had just settled into a book, proud to have put all thoughts of the case out of her mind at last. She had washed her hair, shaved her legs and underarms, filed her finger and toe nails and painted them pink. To match the blossoms, she decided. Then she gave herself a facial, tweezed her eyebrows, took a hot bubble bath, and rubbed herself all over with softening lotion, even the bottoms of her feet. It was delicious, she told herself, all this pampering. And she had nearly convinced herself when the telephone rang.

  It was Clint. Her stomach heaved, a groan bubbled up from her chest, but she could not put down the phone.

  "Still mad?" he asked.

  "Mad?" No, she decided. No games. "It's not a question of mad. Whatever we had, which was good and wonderful, is hereby terminated. Why don't you give up, Clint?"

  "I can't."

  "I'm sorry."

  "We're negotiating," he said. "Talking it out. I can't live without you, baby."

  She felt the longing begin again, cursing its power.

  "You have no right to do this," she whispered. The flesh is weak, she told herself. Help me.

  "I need time," he said. "I'm getting it together. I'm just no good without you."

  She could not think. The words refused to come.

  "Fi? Are you there?" Tears spilled over her cheeks and she held her palm over the mouthpiece. This man was making her miserable.

  "Yes."

  "I love you, Fi." He paused. "And I know you love me."

  She pressed her stomach in, as if the weight could hold in the pain.

  "It's not enough, Clint," she said. "I don't feel comfortable about it."

  "Comfortab
le. What has that to do with it?"

  "Everything."

  Plumbing her depths to find courage, she found it at last and felt the pain recede. "Maybe someday. Not now. There's too much on my mind." She hesitated. "It's me that needs the time, Clint."

  "You're not being fair."

  Fair again. Please not fair. This is another woman's property, she told herself. No matter what. And the father of another woman's family. It was stealing. A real crime. She laughed at her simile. Her strength flew through her in waves. She had made a deal with the eggplant. If she did that, she could do anything.

  "No, Clint. Leave it alone. Not now."

  "Please. Let me see you. Tomorrow. I'll be there at six. Like always. Please, Fi. I can't stand it. Have pity."

  "I'm going to hang up now, Clint."

  "Please, Fi ... Ple..." She pressed the cut-off button and the phone went dead.

  You're getting to be a hard case, Fiona, she told herself, trying to settle back with her book. Finally she found her concentration again and read until she eventually fell into a dreamless sleep.

  The telephone's ring stabbed her consciousness. Not again. She let it ring and covered her head with a pillow. It didn't help. The persistence was maddening and she picked it up.

  "Be dressed in fifteen minutes," the eggplant's voice crackled. "I'll pick you up."

  "Fifteen minutes?" She looked at the clock. It was eight-thirty.

  "That's an order."

  "An order? I'm suspended."

  "Fifteen minutes."

  He hung up and she dressed quickly, jumping into the shower to remove the grease she had smeared on herself before going to bed. She wrapped her wet hair in a turban, then she put on a slack suit and hurried downstairs. His car was waiting for her, the door open. A cigarette dangled from his lips. He squinted through the smoke at her, nodded and slammed down the accelerator. That told her all she needed to know. Something had gone wrong. When the car jammed in traffic, he turned to her.

  "I thought you said you could cool Cates?"

  It caught her off guard. Cates?

  "We made a deal," he growled.

  He was obviously wrestling with his temper. A wrong move by her would set off the eruption. She cautioned herself, speaking slowly.