“Positioned?”
“Ready to deal. Ready to spin. Ready with my well-calculated coping strategy. These things can’t be concocted overnight, you know. It requires thought, planning. Polling. Brainstorming with consultants.”
Ben stared at her, uncomprehending. Or to be more accurate, he comprehended every word. He just couldn’t believe it. It was too strange, too foreign to his usual reasons for dealing with a client’s spouse. The woman wasn’t concerned that her husband was having an affair. She wasn’t even concerned about what it might do to his career. She was concerned about the possible ramifications on her public image.
“You have your own political ambitions.”
“People always say that because I won’t act like the typical token congressional Stepford spouse who lives only to serve her master’s political career. They want me to be Malibu Marie. Why should I? Why shouldn’t I think about myself? Women are allowed to be more than just a subservient spouse in almost every other field. When are politics going to catch up to the rest of the world?”
“Here’s the thing,” Ben said. “I want access to your detective’s records. Files, photos, movies. Whatever he’s got.”
“Are you kidding? I can assure you there’s nothing there that will make Todd look better to a jury.”
“Right now, there’s nothing short of bestiality photos that could make him look worse to the jury. I want to know what your man dug up on Veronica Cooper.”
“What makes you think he has anything?”
“He was on Todd for months. I’m betting he spent some time digging into Veronica’s background, her lifestyle, her recreational activities.”
“So that’s your defense strategy. You’re going to put the victim on trial.”
Ben squirmed. “It’s a possibility.”
“Do you think that could work? I mean-good or evil, the woman was still murdered.”
“In the eyes of the law, you’re correct. But in the eyes of a jury, who the victim was can make a huge difference. Up till now, the press has played her as a poor innocent, a naïve waif who went to Washington to serve her country and ended up being abused and debased by a depraved senator-despite a video that to me shows her to be anything but naïve and innocent. We need to turn that around. Loving tells me she was into some really weird stuff, and I’ve got at least one witness at an escort service who can give the jury some insight on Ms. Cooper’s secret life. But I need more. I’m hoping your detective can give that to me. If he does, it will do a lot more than tarnish the victim’s image. If we can prove she was all wrapped up with some bizarre vampire cult-”
“Reasonable doubt,” Marie whispered.
“Exactly. Parade in a coven of vampires, and suddenly the list of possible suspects gets a lot longer. Everyone has been assuming Todd was guilty because of the video, where the body was found, and because there were no other likely suspects. But if we can show she was involved with all sorts of dangerous characters-”
“That’s brilliant,” she said, slowly nodding her head. “I mean, it’s evil. Bogus. Lies and calumny.” She smiled. “But brilliant. I’m finally beginning to see why Todd hired you.”
“We aim to please.”
She laid her hand on Ben’s wrist. “You’re an experienced trial attorney, Ben. Tell me the truth. Are you going to get my husband off?”
“It’s impossible to say,” he replied, trying to resist his instinctive impulse to brush her hand away. “We haven’t put on our case. Juries are unpredictable. The evidence is massively stacked against Todd.” He paused. “But I think we have a shot. A small shot, perhaps. But a shot.”
She removed her hand. “That’s good to know.”
“Now, I don’t mean to give you false hope.”
“It’s not about hope,” she said, pushing herself out of the chair. “It’s about intel. I like to know what the contingencies are. So I can lay my plans accordingly.”
Loving and Shalimar stayed hidden in the shadows of an alley off one of the seediest streets in Georgetown, staring at a tall brownstone building across the darkened street.
“That’s the Playground?” Shalimar whispered.
“So my sources tell me.”
“The whole building?”
“Probably not. Someone’s private suite, I bet. Somewhere they can restrict access.”
“Then how are we going to get in?”
“I’m workin’ on it.” Loving had spent the entire day turning over every slimy rock in the city to get a lead on the place.
“I can’t believe my sister would be involved in-in anything like this.”
“Why? She hung out with vampires.”
“But I never-” She stopped short, biting a knuckle. “I imagined-pretended, perhaps-that she’d been taken against her will. Like white slavers or something. But from what you told me, she did it all by choice. She did it for fun.”
“Maybe up to a point,” Loving said. “But I’ve got a hunch her power of choice was removed. Otherwise you woulda heard from her.” He slowly pulled out of the shadows. “C’mon, Slayer. Let’s go find your sister.”
They crossed the street and approached the front door of the building. The front door was locked. Just to the right, he saw an intercom speaker. He pushed the button.
“Yes?” the electronic voice crackled.
“Umm… could you please open the door?”
“Are you a resident?”
“No. Visitor.”
“And who are you visiting?”
Loving looked at Shalimar. She shrugged. He tried, “The Playground.”
“Just a moment. I’ll transfer you.” As if he had asked for nothing out of the ordinary.
A few moments later, the speaker crackled to life again. The voice was different. “Yes?”
“We’re here for the Playground,” Loving said.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No, we’re-” Looking for someone? Loving thought better of it. “New. This is our first time.”
“Are you cops? Or in any way associated with the law enforcement community?”
“Nah. We’re just… you know. Here for a good time. Into it.” Whatever it was.
“I’m sorry. I can’t let you in without an appointment or a referral. We have to enforce our rules to ensure-”
“The Sire sent us,” Loving said. And waited.
The air went dead for several seconds. Then: “Stand back, I’ll release the door.” He heard a sound something like the turning of an idled engine, then a few seconds later the dead bolt in the door retracted. “Come up to the top floor. The penthouse.”
“Will do.” He grabbed Shalimar’s arm and whispered: “We’re in!”
She did not move. “I don’t know about this.”
“Don’t be afraid,” Loving said, patting her arm reassuringly. “We’ll be together. Besides, whatever it is, it couldn’t possibly be worse than that vampire club.”
As it turned out, Loving was dead wrong.
20
“G lad to know they still care,” Glancy said as he gazed out the limo window at the crowd outside. The courthouse steps were filled to capacity, and the security forces were working overtime to hold the throngs behind the ropes.
“Like you thought they’d forget about this case?” Ben asked.
“You never know,” Glancy replied, smoothing the line of his trousers. “If a governor had been caught in the back of a cab with a transvestite last night, no one would remember this case existed.”
Ben knew the press could be fickle-he’d seen for himself how press coverage of a case would surge with a dramatic inciting incident, then predictably wane as time passed, spurting briefly when the trial began, then continuing its downward spiral. By the time it was over, sometimes the verdict didn’t even make the papers. But this case was something else again. Just looking into the eyes of the people on the courthouse steps informed him that this case was important to them, that it had become a part of their lives.
“This is the big day, at least to many spectators,” Ben said. “After all, they already pretty much knew what Padolino was going to say. They’ve got no clue what you’re going to say. They’re anxious to hear your story.”
“I thought you told me I wasn’t taking the stand today.”
“They don’t know that. Press conference this morning?”
“I don’t think so.”
“The press is dying to know what your defense will be.”
“Yes, but I’m not sure I’m quite ready to say the ‘v-word’ on national television. I need to practice in the mirror. Make sure I can keep a straight face.”
As before, the advance men had worked their magic-all the people most supportive of Senator Glancy were closest to the roped-off trail up the steps. Ben tried to hurry his client, but it was like dragging an elephant. He was an addict, powerless to prevent himself from shaking every outstretched hand, signing every autograph book.
“We know what they’re tryin’ to do to you,” a plus-sized Latino woman said, as she flung her arm around Glancy, hugging him so tightly it made the federal marshals tense. “You hang in there.”
“That’s my fervent intent, ma’am,” Glancy said, flashing that award-winning smile.
He flew up the steps, brushing his hands against theirs like Leno coming onstage for The Tonight Show, till he had almost reached the top of the steps. A middle-aged man in a flak jacket ducked under the rope and stood in front of him.
“You killed my daughter, you bloodsucker!” Darrin Cooper flew at Glancy and Ben with a wild walleyed look, but he never had a chance. One of the security cops and both federal marshals tackled him, knocking him to the hard stone steps. His jaw made an ugly brittle sound as it smashed onto the granite. Ben suspected Cooper was going to lose a few teeth over this attack.
“Ben, I think you need to reconsider.” Christina was behind him, whispering in his ear. “I understand why you didn’t want to prefer charges before. But neither you nor Glancy will be safe if this clown isn’t locked up. I mean, I know he seems pathetic, but even a pathetic loser could get lucky. Especially if he starts employing weapons.”
Ben nodded, but he knew he couldn’t do it. Neither Glancy nor his lawyer could be responsible for incarcerating the victim’s father, regardless of the situation. The PR fallout would be brutal.
The officials hauled Cooper to his feet and dragged him up the steps to a holding room. Glancy was unflappable; he went right on smiling and waving as if nothing had happened.
“Interesting choice of words, don’t you think?” Ben said.
Christina was puzzled. “I don’t follow you.”
“Cooper. Just now. Cooper always calls me a money-grubbing bastard, or some variation on the theme.” He paused. “But Glancy he called a ‘bloodsucker.’”
As soon as the woman opened the door to the penthouse apartment, Loving knew he was in the right place. And wished he weren’t.
The first thing he noticed was that she was wearing a dog collar cinched around her neck. She was also wearing a tight leather corset that left most of her buttocks exposed. It was only upon closer-and extremely unpleasant-inspection that Loving realized that she was a he. A somewhat pudgy, heavily made up, he.
Vampire drag. Jeez Louise, what next?
“Would you like me to show you around?” he/she said, and of course Loving didn’t, but he said that he did. “If you’re with the Sire, I, and my humble establishment, are at your complete disposal. You can call me Mina.” And so the tour began. Giggling, mincing, and occasionally attempting to be scary-which was even funnier than the mincing-their leather-clad tour guide strolled them through a maze of darkened rooms, some vacant, most not, all of them equipped with a different top-quality device for the infliction of pain.
“We do have some open rooms,” Mina explained. “And remember if you have the desire-and the cash-you can rent this place for the night. Have an exclusive. Just you and your friends.”
Loving was pretty sure he didn’t have any friends who would want to come here. And if they did, they were off his friends list.
The people they encountered, in the halls and the darkened rooms, were clad much like what he had seen in the vamp club and the Goth bar, when they were clad at all. Too often he had to avert his eyes-and resist the temptation to cover Shalimar’s-to avoid seeing something he didn’t ever want to see people doing to one another. In one room equipped with a vaulting horse, which they were able to view through a voyeuristic one-way mirror, Loving heard smacking sounds followed by cries of ecstatic pleasure.
“Spanking,” Loving whispered to Shalimar knowingly. “Some of these vamps are really into it.”
But when their tour guide turned up the lights slightly, they were able to view a spectacle for which neither of them was prepared. A woman, obese and naked, was strapped across the horse. An equally heavy and equally naked man stood behind her teasing her with a cat-o’-nine-tails, whipping her lightly, tickling her legs and breasts and stomach. She moaned in pleasure with each new slap of the leather against her exposed jiggling skin. And, to make it even more interesting, there were at least half a dozen other people in the room, just watching.
In the next room, they found a young woman, this one slender, and as far as Loving could tell quite attractive. She was wearing only black lacy panties and was handcuffed, her hands hoisted above her head and fastened to what looked like a large meat hook suspended from the ceiling. The man standing in the rear was caning her, striking her again and again, all up and down the back of her legs, while she let loose high-pitched whimpers of erotic delight. She writhed back and forth, which did amazing things to her suspended body, titillating not only her and her master-but the audience of spectators as well.
“My sister is not here,” Shalimar whispered. Loving noticed she was inhaling in deep quick gulps. “She would not have anything to do with this… disgusting place.”
Loving put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze. He just hoped she was right. For once, he didn’t want to find Beatrice. At least not here.
Ben had adjusted over the years to the fact that he was simply not, by anyone’s definition, flashy. Not that he would mind. To the contrary, he thought being flashy sounded rather fun. It just wasn’t in him. So he’d learned to content himself with being thorough, prepared, and good. If he couldn’t gain prosperity via flamboyance, then at least he could gain notoriety by winning.
Nonetheless, he couldn’t help but notice the contrast between Padolino’s announcement of his final prosecution witness, and his own announcement of his first defense witness. The former had triggered gasping and astonishment; the latter was met by, well, nothing. An absence of reaction. Boredom. Ben consoled himself that it wasn’t a reflection on his style as a litigator; it was simply that no one in the gallery knew who Sid Bartmann was.
That was about to change.
Interest in the witness increased, at least in the jury box, when the Virginia state troopers walked Bartmann into the courtroom. They removed his handcuffs but left the leg restraints chaining his two legs together. He was wearing his prison grays, which informed all the world that he was Prisoner XK-24637. His face was pale and pocked; his hair, what little he had left, was unwashed.
“Jesus,” Glancy muttered under his breath. “That’s my lead witness? He looks like the scum of the earth.”
“Yes,” Ben replied quietly. “He does.”
“Couldn’t you have… I don’t know. Dressed him up a little bit? Loaned him a bar of soap?”
“Yes,” Ben answered. “I could have.”
Ben wasted no time establishing that Bartmann had several prior offenses but that he had most recently been incarcerated during a raid (if you could call what Loving did a raid) on a club in Georgetown called Stigmata. He was arrested for possession of an illegal designer hallucinogen derived in part from OxyContin.
“You were a habitué-” Ben checked himself; what was he thinking? “-you w
ere at Stigmata a lot, correct?”
“Oh yeah. Almost every night. I worked for the owner, Randy Lorenz.”
“And do you know where Mr. Lorenz is at this time?”
“In lockup. Bail was denied.”
“What exactly was your position at the club?”
“What, ya mean like my job title or somethin’? I don’t think I ever had one. I just did what the man told me. Randy snapped his fingers, I come runnin’.”
“And what was your rate of payment?”
“I don’t think I had one of them, neither. Basically, whenever Randy got a wad of cash, he threw some of it my way. Fortunately, he got a wad of cash like every night.”
“And that was because he was peddling a designer drug to a select group of women who were admitted to his apartment on the second level of the club above the dance floor, correct?”
Ben could see the man blinking, trying to understand. Must use short sentences and one- or two-syllable words, he reminded himself. “Randy had some chicks up to his place, yeah. Some of them were usin’. But the club itself was rakin’ in dough. It was very popular with… you know. A certain crowd.”
“And what crowd would that be?”
Bartmann coughed, a long grotesque grinding noise that sounded as if he were peeling off the lining of his lungs. “The Goth freaks.”
“Interesting. So you and the other… freaks… were using this designer drug?”
“Hell, no. I couldn’t afford the stuff. Rather have a tall cool one, myself.”
“But you were arrested in possession-”
“Randy gave me the package and I held it for him. He was my boss. I did what I was told.”
“Even holding on to illegal drugs.”
“Hell, I woulda held on to illegal turds if he’d asked me.” Judge Herndon glared at the witness but remained silent. “He was the man, you know? He took care of me and I took care of him. He was like the brother I never had.”
Capitol Murder Page 25
