The Killing Vote

by Bette Golden Lamb

  “You see,” he said, “every person is different in their response to illness.” He glanced at his watch; he’d spent much too much time with this woman and he no longer felt threatened by her condition. Actually, she had been much simpler to deal with than if she’d been conscious pushing him into a tight corner where she would demand more information than he thought she should have.

  Emory stood, stretched, and signaled for the nurse to bring the patient’s sedative. As she approached he said, “She’ll need some rest.” He waited while the nurse injected the medication into an intravenous port.

  * * *

  No, no. Don’t go I don’t want to rest.

  I need to know more. I need you to tell me.

  More. Please!

  She frantically moved her eyes under the lids.

  Stay.

  Please stay.

  I’m here.

  Stay.

  * * *

  Emory looked down at the woman and shook his head. He’d made his decision. It wasn’t difficult since it was totally in line with Garret Rudge’s most recent protocols. He was definitely off the hook.

  “Mrs. Paoli, I think it would be best if we moved you to another part of the hospital. I’m sure you’ll be very comfortable there and we’ll do all we can to help you.”

  “So soon?” the ICU nurse asked.

  He put both hands on the back of a chair and stretched. “I think so.”

  Whatever empathy Emory felt earlier was now sublimated, tucked away. All he saw was an old woman who had not moved her body a fraction of an inch since he’d started talking to her.

  Following the nurse back to the station, Emory said, “Let’s have her moved out to the hospice unit.”

  “Not Med/Surg?”

  He shook his head as he looked over at the patient’s bed with all the machines that surrounded her. Even though policies were changing, not always to his liking, he still wanted to be an integral part of the medical system. He hadn’t gone through all those years of training to step aside because healthcare operated in a different world than when he started.

  “She’s an administrative problem now.”

  Dr. Terence Emory was satisfied he’d done what he could for Della Paoli. Before going off duty he took one final look around the unit.

  “Where’s Myra Jackson?” he asked. “The patient brought in from the explosion downtown. I don’t remember transferring her.”

  “You didn’t. She died early this morning—septicemia, toxic shock, you name it, she went out with all of it.”

  The nurse indicated the final chart on the desk should he want to look at it. “Not too many people survive a ten-inch stake blasted into the middle of their chest.”

  “Yeah, her chances were pretty slim right from the start,” Emory said. “Helluva surgery. Everyone was talking about it. Can you imagine all those foreign bodies, all those splinters?”

  “Yeah,” the nurse said. “It was a mess.”

  “It’s probably better this way.”

  “Probably,” the nurse said, turning away.

  Chapter 29

  Jumbo elbowed Death out of the way as they entered the Capital City Whore House. They walked through the lobby, smirked at each other, ordered a couple of whiskeys and sprawled out on a ratty sofa. When they plopped down, they dug their boot heels into the rug that looked like it was held together by an uninterrupted smear of mud and grease.

  The air smelled of sweaty socks, dirty underwear … and sex.

  The gun-toting madam, probably in her mid fifties, maybe younger, maybe older, barked a coarse laugh at nothing in particular as she slopped their drinks down in front of them. Jumbo flicked out a credit card, which earned him a heavy grunt.

  “Cash only, buster,” she said in a voice well-worn from hitting the booze and sucking on unfiltered Camels hour after hour, day after day, year after year.

  Jumbo pulled some crumpled bills from his jeans pocket. She gave him a pasted on smile, but it didn’t take much for him to see that she could turn into a pit bull if he dared say or do anything to ruffle her fur.

  Like shoot my balls to kingdom come.

  Death ogled the line of women dressed in stained satin and tattered lace teddies. He rubbed a finger back and forth across a tattoo of a skull and crossbones and the faded word “Death” on his forearm. He snickered.

  Jumbo barely glanced at the whores, who were all phony smiles and sexy poses, licking and sucking at their lips. He studied the layout of the cat house—several patched-together doublewides with minimal furnishings.

  The place had a good reputation—the madam knew how to deal with county law enforcement and health officials. Bribes bought advance warnings of sheriff’s raids whenever righteous citizens or a new hot shot district attorney tried to close down the place. The owner simply hitched a truck onto the mobile units and wheeled the whole enterprise into another of the three counties that intersected at a common point on the high desert mesa, each no more than a few scorpions away from the other.

  The cat house wanted no trouble, so the madam worked hard to keep the law away and her whores out of jail. She was very much aware that some of her customers had a tendency to get nasty, lusting, and likkered up. Sometimes they would start shooting at anything that moved. So, on the wall near the front door was a large, bold-lettered poster with the Capital City Whore House Rules:

  Guns collected at the door

  Cock wash a must

  No exceptions

  Jumbo continued to study the layout, took a small sip of his whisky and tried to calculate the number of bedrooms and exits.

  He didn’t like the pair of Dobermans chained to a huge doghouse near the front gate, and the chain link fence surrounding the trailer complex was solid. But the beady-eyed, stubby-fingered bouncer at the front door hadn’t exercised in a long time and probably got paid in nooky. He’d be no problem.

  The gig wasn’t impossible, but it wasn’t going to be a pushover either.

  “You boys see anything you like yet?” The madam was getting impatient. Wanted them to fuck and move on. “Sure one of our ladies can do anything you have in mind.”

  Death stood, mumbled to his friend as he pulled at his crotch. “You do your thing, I’ll do mine.”

  “Keep your mind on the job, not on your pecker,” Jumbo whispered. He watched his companion grab a busty brunette and lead her off to one of the rooms.

  When Death disappeared down the hallway, Jumbo said to the madam, “Don’t these girls have names?”

  “You’re not marrying them, for crissakes. What do you care? A fuck’s a fuck.” She tapped him on the shoulder. “So what’s it gonna be, big guy?”

  He wasn’t ready, didn’t have enough information. But the madam was getting antsy. He’d better do something—keep his ass from getting tossed out of the dump. It was getting busy and the johns were rolling in, most of them acting like regulars—grungy-looking ranchers, a lot of them grinning, toothless. She glared at him, wanting him off her mind.

  He rose stiffly and tossed down the rest of the rotgut. “I like to know the name of the whore I’m fucking.”

  The madam glared at him for a moment, a glint of distrust in her eyes. Then her expression changed, and she started reciting names of the girls in one long sentence.

  “Did you say you had a Joanne?” He stood, wiggled his hips, and said, “Tell her to stand back. Jumbo’s coming.”

  * * *

  Joanne Paige sat in her room drinking decaffeinated green tea and reading a pamphlet on “How to Become a Real Estate Agent.”

  Dream on.

  From a distance, because she was petite and waif-like, she looked thirty-five instead of the forty-four she really was. She lied about her age constantly. After putting on fresh makeup, the mirror kept telling her that not even the drunkest of the johns would soon believe she was thirty five.

  At least she didn’t have AIDS.

  It had been a long day. She felt old, wasted. Every week sh
e expected Lorene to tell her she wasn’t earning enough and The Capital would turn her out, the same way the top-of-the-line escort services and several upper class houses had.

  Then she’d have no crib space. She’d be out in the cold. This was the end of the line. Trying to make a miserable buck as she aged out of the game was only going to get harder and harder and she’d promised herself that there was no way she was going to become one of those pick-up gals at truck stops along I-80.

  She shrugged her long, blonde hair over her shoulder, noting how limp and dingy it had become. She ran a hand over her face, moved down her neck, and gingerly touched her left breast where some miserable asshole had bitten through the skin, leaving a dark bruise behind.

  “Jesus, I hate this,” she said to the mirror as she adjusted the straps on her lacy black bra.

  She tossed on her robe and padded down the hallway to the “Staff Only” bathroom; it was its usual mess. She turned the shower water up as hot as she could stand it, grateful that there was any heated water left at all.

  As the streams beat down her back, she studied a line of old track marks on both arms. Ten years of using had scarred her forever, yet she never stopped hoping the tell-tale marks would somehow disappear. It had been five years since she stopped cold turkey, but that pitiful creature, the user, still lived inside of her, starving, screaming for “just one more.”

  She was back in her room and into her skimpy lingerie outfit again when she heard her name being called.

  “Yeah, I’m in here.”

  “Someone asking for you by name, sweetheart.” Lorene stuck her head in. “Didn’t know you still had fans.”

  “Ever-popular me,” Joanne said.

  “Yeah, well, get your goodies ready before he changes his mind.”

  Joanne straightened her bed and waited.

  * * *

  “I don’t remember you as ever being one of my regulars,” Joanne said. She stood in the middle of her room, looked the john up and down.

  “You remember all the guys you’ve boffed?”

  “No, but being asked for by name is special.”

  “Well, don’t worry your pretty little head about it. I’m just going to make sure you don’t forget me this time.”

  He grabbed her by one wrist, spun her around and shoved her down onto the mattress.

  * * *

  By the time the last customer left The Capital City, Joanne was exhausted, couldn’t remember the last time she was so beat. Probably didn’t eat enough today. Each day she found her appetite shrinking another notch.

  Was she trying to kill herself? Did she wish she was dead? Maybe.

  She dropped onto the bed, was drifting off, her mind finally emptied when a hand clamped tight over her mouth.

  She struggled to breathe, to move more air into her lungs. She grabbed hard at the rough hands and tried to see her attacker, but the predawn light and the closed blinds only gave off silhouettes.

  She thumped her legs into the mattress, twisted and turned her head, but she still couldn’t breathe.

  She heard the door open—someone else came in, jumped on top of her, sat on her arms. She tried to kick again, but a cord was wrapped around her ankles and cinched up tight.

  “Okay, get off her, you dumb dick. Can’t you hear she’s not getting any air?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “I told you before: a dead broad is worthless to us. We gotta get her out of here … alive. And keep her that way.”

  Blindfolded, on her back, she lay perfectly still. She sensed that the man clamping her mouth liked to cause pain, would hurt her even more if she struggled.

  “Will you stop hammerin’ me,” hand-over-her-mouth said in a whiney voice.

  “Or what?”

  The room was suddenly silent, she could smell their sweat, taste their anger.

  Then, “Did you cut the fence?”

  “Piece of cake. Those Dobermans gobbled up that doped hamburger almost before it was out of my hand. They’ll be snoozin’ for hours.”

  * * *

  “I’ve got to get back to Nevada, Gabe. I’ve got to find Joanne. I can’t believe she would do anything to hurt me. No matter what that slime Wade Wilson says.”

  “People change, Angelle.”

  She tried to quell her desperation as she tossed a hard look at her husband. “Haven’t we, though.” Her voice was coated with bitterness.

  “My dear Senator,” he said, pointing a finger at her, “our crawling into bed again doesn’t make this my problem, or allow you to talk to me like that. How you stay in office, what you do to stay in office, has nothing to do with me. So stop throwing those daggers or I’m out the door.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “You’re right. It has nothing to do with you and me.”

  “Well, what the hell is it about?”

  She lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. The smoke curled around her face as she walked back and forth in the bedroom. Finally, she sat down next to him.

  “Wade Wilson wants me to attach a Medicare-related rider onto an upcoming must-pass appropriations bill.”

  “What’s his real interest in all of this?” He snatched the cigarette away from her and roughly stubbed it out an ashtray on the bedside table. “Dammit, will you tell me what the hell is going on?”

  “You might be sorry you asked,”

  He reached for her hand. “Tell me, Angelle.”

  The words came out in a rush. “Mainly, it’s all about Wilson’s agenda to cut Medicare costs. It could even be a stepping stone to getting rid of the program entirely.”

  “Come on, Angelle. No one is going to stand for that nonsense. What’s going to happen to the old people in this country?”

  “If they’re in good health, they’ll probably have no problems.”

  “And if they’re not?”

  “Well, then there sits the rider—tagged to legislation to authorize palliative care or selective euthanasia, under certain medical conditions.”

  “Do you really think something like that will fly?”

  “If they can stay under the radar, keep it nebulous and loose, it will ride on through before there’s too much in the way of opposition, especially if I’m the one to tag it on. Everyone knows I’m a liberal who sleeps with no special interests.” She looked closely at him. “Even my husband … most of the time.”

  “Typical political subterfuge shit,” he said, ignoring the jab. “Why you want to continue to be a part of this Washington nightmare is beyond me.”

  “I’ve worked hard to get where I am. Can’t you, of all people, see that? I wanted to make a difference. A real difference. I can’t walk out on that commitment.”

  “They’ll destroy you, Angelle. You’ll end up being a sacrificial goat if anything goes sour, or at the very least you’ll come off looking like a hypocrite.”

  “Not if I can find Joanne and talk to her.”

  “So your future is on the shoulders of a Nevada hooker?”

  “What difference,” Angelle said, “does it make who or what she is?”

  “Listen, I don’t care how she earns her money, or that you had a fling with her way back when. But how do you think your electorate is going to react?”

  Angelle laughed without humor. “I’d like to think that in Nevada we’re a simpler, more down-to-earth bunch of humanoids. But truth be told, we’re probably not.”

  “And I’ll bet they expect their elected officials to be straight as an arrow, and I mean that in the biblical not the fiduciary sense.”

  Angelle dropped down onto the bed. “It was so long ago, Gabe. Another lifetime.”

  “That won’t matter and you know it.”

  “You’re right. Once the media puts together my lesbian affair with Joanne, and the fact she’s a prostitute, it’ll bring me down.”

  Angelle’s eyes closed and she was quiet for a moment. “I loved Joanne … still do. And even though I haven’t seen her for a long time, she saved my life, a
nd I’m not being theatrical about that. She killed a man who would have destroyed me.”

  “Did the law ever catch up with her?”

  Angelle threw her head back and laughed until tears ran down her face. She held out a hand, palm up. “Really, I’m not laughing at you. It’s just that I don’t think you could ever truly understand Virginia City and its unwritten code of ethics. I mean, how could a nice Midwestern boy like you ever understand?”

  “Everyone’s accountable to the law, Angelle. Everyone.”

  “That may be true on television, or maybe even in some parts of the real world. But that’s not the way it always works in my remote little home town. Besides, the man she killed had a lot of enemies. Any number of people could and would have murdered him for any number of reasons, most of them quite legitimate.”

  “So he wasn’t popular,” Gabe said. “The law is still the law.”

  “Sounds good. Sounds right.” Angelle walked to the bedroom window and stared at the hot tub in the small back yard. “They found his body in one of the deserted mines. And what a fluke that was—couple of tourists wandering off the beaten path. They weren’t looking for trouble, just adventure.”

  “I guess they got more than they bargained for,” Gabe said.

  “They called it an accidental death. Interesting, especially since he had a hole the size of quarter in the middle of his chest. They cremated the bastard almost immediately.”

  “Did he have a family?”

  “Oh, he had a wife and two pre-schoolers. They still live in Virginia City, and from what I hear, they never hurt for money. Word at the time was that there was a contract out on good ole Harlen for playing fast and loose with someone else’s money. Joanne just beat them to it. Did them an unexpected favor.”

  “When was the last time you spoke to her?”

  “You mean, when was the last time I was in bed with her? Isn’t that really what you want to know, Gabe?”

  “No, it isn’t, which still leaves my question unanswered.”

  “For one thing, it was over when I left for college.” Angelle reached for a fresh cigarette and held it between her fingers, unlit. “But I ran into her about five years ago.”