Victims SS

by Rusch, Kristine Kathryn

  Victims

  February 21st, 2011

  Reese Catton manages campaigns. The dirty side of campaigns. And he has dirt suggesting that his candidate’s opponent is a vampire’s slave. But in politics—as in life—nothing is as it seems. Not even the relationship between vampires and politicians…

  A vampire story by Stoker Award nominee Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Availble for 99 cents on Kindle, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and in other e-bookstores.

  Victims

  Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Published by WMG Publishing

  “Victims” copyright © 2010 by Kristine K. Rusch

  1995

  Her name had shown up twice before, in ’68 when Nichols had run for governor of California, and in ’72 when he made his unsuccessful bid for the presidency. No one had investigated her. Women’s issues were different in those days, and women were not viewed as the voting block they are now. Besides, we couldn’t make anything on Nichols stick.

  We decided to investigate her before we talked with the Senator Lurry. The task of interrogating her came to me.

  I used Senator Lurry’s outer office because it looked properly intimidating — mahogany trim, marble inlay floors. The desks were wide, oak and handmade. A coffeemaker, constantly in use, sat on top of one of the green metal filing cabinets, but the rich scent of French Roast couldn’t overlay the mausoleum stench of an ancient building that has stood in humidity for a generation too long.

  I arrived a half hour early, then adjusted my tie and peered at my reflection in the shiny glass on top of the secretary’s desk. The cowlick had refused to be tamed again. I licked my hand and patted the spot, wishing for the fifteenth time that I could use boyish to my advantage. From the neck down I was perfect: broad shoulders tapering into narrow hips, legs firm and muscular. My face was the major problem. Oval-shaped with wide eyes and pouty lips, it made me look like a twelve year-old in his father’s body, which was the reason I worked behind the scenes for Senator Lurry instead of out front as most of the Cattons had in the past.

  I didn’t dare look naive in front of a woman named Veronique.

  Especially a woman with a history like hers.

  Downstairs a door slammed shut. I jumped. High heels clicked on the marble floor, the sound echoing in the empty building. I had often worked late, but never alone. Near midnight on those evenings, the place had a hum to it that I always associated with an election or a smear campaign. Never with an interview.

  She had insisted on the time. “A woman in my profession,” she had said, her voice husky through the phone lines, “looks best after dark.”

  I tugged on my black suitcoat. I wasn’t really alone. Morse sat in the Senator’s office, watching through the fake mirror in case the lady decided to ply her trade on me.

  The footsteps grew closer. I rearranged the papers on the desk top, toyed with sitting down, and then decided to remain standing. I still hadn’t learned all the tricks to power and intimidation.

  The door opened and she slipped in. She was heartbreakingly thin, with perfect legs that tapered into a model’s body. She wore spike heels, fishnets, and a leather mini-skirt that revealed each curve around her hips. Her black Irish lace blouse set off her porcelain skin. Her lips were dark red, her cheekbones high and her eyes an amazing shade of brown. No wonder she ran the most exclusive escort service in D.C. No man would be able to say no to her.

  I stepped from behind the desk, resisting the urge to wipe my hands on my pants legs. I approached her, palm extended. “Reese Catton.”

  She placed her fingers lightly in mine. Her skin was cool, not cold as I had expected. “Veronique de la Mer.”

  Her voice was husky and warm. A tingle ran up my spine. Ever since vampires and vampirism had come out of the closet five years ago, the news and the tabloid press had been full of articles on the sensual effect of the predator-victim relationship. It didn’t seem to matter that all but a few psychopathic vampires had long ago given up killing human prey — choosing instead to use a handful of willing people to provide blood, much as a blood bank did for a hospital — (“the supermarket approach to blood-sucking,” the New York Times had called it) — the fear, loathing, and sexual tension caused by the human/vampire relationship filled the popular imagination.

  Just as she filled mine.

  Dry facts weren’t giving me control. I took a deep breath, and slid into the leather chair behind the desk.

  “I hope you understand why we contacted you,” I said.

  “Oh, yes.” Her voice was soft. “It’s about Governor Nichols.”

  She had an edge when she spoke his name, a frission of anger just beneath the surface. I swallowed, feeling calmer. “I hope you don’t mind if I tape this conversation.”

  “I expected you to,” she said, and folded her hands demurely on her lap. I pressed the button underneath the desk, activating the room’s taping system, and wondered for a moment if vampires’ voices taped. But I knew they did. We had gotten tape on one just a few weeks ago. They didn’t reflect or film — but that was because of the silvering in the mirrors.

  “I understand,” I said, leaning forward and placing my arms on the desk, “that you’ve never spoken with anyone about Governor Nichols.”

  She smiled, revealing straight, white teeth. “Oh, I’ve spoken with people,” she said. “Only no one believed me.”

  I froze. Her last sentence had thrown me. We were planning, with her cooperation, to smear the former governor by linking him to a vampire as her cow. Our preliminary surveys of 150 voters showed that such a thing would work as effectively as gay bashing had in the eighties. “What do you mean?”

  “On July 4, 1966, your friend, the former governor of California, raped me.” She never took her gaze off mine. She spoke calmly, but the ends to the words were clipped as if she had to spit them out.

  I let out the air I had been holding. She was lying. We couldn’t bring this to the media. They would skin her alive. “Why didn’t you press charges?”

  A half smile, curving those delicate lips into her firm cheekbones. “I tried. It was 1966. I was told that a woman who ran an escort service shouldn’t complain when she got famous business.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “The detective in charge,” she said. “An unfortunately deceased man named Petrie. His superior officers backed up his prejudice. I haven’t spoken of the incident since. I figure it would be even tougher to convince people now that they know I belong to a completely different race.”

  “Why didn’t you go after him?”

  Her eyes seemed to tilt downward with an expression of deep sadness, as if she were disappointed in me for asking the question. “Come now, Mr. Catton. What did you expect me to do? Fly into his house on bat wings and rip out his throat?”

  “Something like that,” I mumbled. My cheeks grew warm. I guess I had expected that. Old fictional images died hard. Studies had shown that vampires lacked the ability to shapeshift and mesmerize, although they did have centuries’ long lifespans and the appearance of eternal youth.

  “Mr. Catton, I have used my political contacts for the better part of two decades to keep the former Governor of California out of the presidency. But times are changing, and the country doesn’t seem to care what kind of man he is as long as he presents a positive media image. Grandfatherly always seems to work in this country. Well, as you know, any connection with me would ruin Nichols’ grandfatherly image.” She stood and smoothed her skirt. “The problem you face is that I am unwilling to be linked to that slime romantically or parasitically. We will denounce him as a man capable of extreme violence or you will not have my cooperation.”

  “Forgive me,” I said from my chair, “but I don’t think
Middle America would care that you got raped.”

  She took a step backwards as if I had slapped her myself. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “Middle America would simply figure that a woman like me deserved it.”

  ii

  I was shaking by the time I got home. Alison had gone to bed, leaving a single light on near the fireplace. Embers glowed, light reflecting across the shiny hardwood floor. This place always filled me with a kind of pride — the way the couches framed the oriental rugs, the fresh flowers on the Duncan Fife end tables, the lemon-scented neatness of the condo itself. Even though I had been raised a Catton, my mother kept a messy, “lived-in” house in Connecticut that hide my father’s wealth. I preferred an immaculate, House Beautiful style.

  Except tonight. Tonight I wanted to kick off my shoes, scrunch the rugs, and huddle near the television set. But I pulled off my shoes and hung them on the shoe rack in the closet beside the door, walked stocking-footed across the slippery floor and sat at the dining room table, staring at the fruit basket, perfectly arranged, with bananas on the side, oranges at the base and apples on top.

  Veronique had gotten to me.

  I had never been naive, not even when I had come to Washington as a page for Senator Lurry fifteen years ago. Any pretensions I had may have had remaining toward Truth, Justice, and the American Way were then bled out of me in George Washington’s poli sci department and at Harvard Law. Politics in this country had become the battle of the image. Whoever controlled the media controlled the campaign.

  Veronique and her escort service hadn’t been necessary in ’68 and ’72. Nichols had done a good job of destroying his own campaign. Then he disappeared behind the scenes, became a scion of the Republican party, helped Reagan and Bush achieve office, and maintained his own series of perks. The media had forgotten all about the bumbling “youth” candidate who had challenged Nixon in the ‘72 primaries, and saw only the trim, natty grandfather who had helped the Republicans become a power in the eighties. A viceless, happily married man who spoke of family values, and allowed Pat Robertson to fund his campaign.

  The kind of man Senator Lurry — whose presidential ambitions had died the night of his daughter’s suicide in ‘80 — despised. Lurry had vowed to clear the way for the Democratic challenger, whether that might be Clinton, Gore, or a wildcard no one had ever heard of. We had demolished Quayle before he even announced, but Nichols was proving to be as teflon as Reagan had been.

  The rape charge wouldn’t stand. I had been right. Middle America wouldn’t tolerate it. They would bring down the messenger.

  I sighed, and placed my forehead on my arms. We had contacted Veronique because the call girls had not so inexplicably shut up, the records had disappeared on the reported spousal abuse in the mid-seventies, and the college plagiarism charge hadn’t caused a ripple in the polls. An affair with a vampire, we figured, still had taint, even though it was nearly thirty years old.

  Although it would be a gamble. If word of the smear got out, Lurry would lose his position as champion of the non-traditional. Vampires, gays and minorities formed a large percentage of his constituency.

  If Lurry got caught, he would, of course, blame his assistants.

  He would blame me.

  iii

  “What’d he do?” Lurry asked. “Force her to bite him at gunpoint?”

  He was a big man who barely fit in the desk chair that had been specially designed for him ten years previously. He had long jowls that spoke of too many meals and the red, bulbous nose of a hard-core alcoholic. His voice boomed, even in the small office. It always amazed me that he could tarnish the image of anyone.

  I shot a glance at Stuckey, his press secretary. She had a small, heart-shaped face, almond eyes, and cafe au lait skin. Her mixed heritage was as much a part of her job as her way with words.

  “She didn’t go into the details of the rape,” I said.

  Stuckey leaned back in her chair, her long slender fingers playing with the ruby on her left hand. “We would need proof of some kind. Police report, photographs —”

  “Photographs are impossible.” I picked the lint off my black pinstriped pants leg. “And she said that the police refused to believe her.”

  “If they were called to the site, someone had to write it up,” Stuckey said. “It’s probably buried in some back file in a basement somewhere. I’ll bet Nichols didn’t think to cover his tracks on this one.”

  “I don’t see any reason why he had to. Reese was right. Middle America isn’t going to give a damn that some blood-sucking parasite got slapped around thirty years ago.”

  Stuckey jutted out her narrow chin. Forty years ago, someone might have said the same about her. I hated it when she got that look. “Be careful, Senator,” she said. “The Republicans would love to hear you talking like that.”

  “For god’s sake,” he said, leaning forward. His exquisitely tailored suit strained at its buttons. “It’s the truth.”

  “There’s another truth,” Stuckey said. “She has been an influential member of Washington Society since the thirties. She contributes to all sorts of charities, and it could be said that her escort business provides a necessary service for this community. There is no overt evidence of prostitution, and any employee who provides sexual services on a regular basis drops off the payroll of the service and appears on the payroll of the client. Would she make an articulate spokesman, Catton?”

  I nodded. Something about Lurry’s reaction was bothering me. “She would, except that we can’t film her.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Stuckey said. “Neither can they. I say let’s see what we got and then make a decision. We might be able to use the woman after all.”

  “No,” Lurry said. He folded his hands over his chest.

  Stuckey raised one eyebrow. She opened her mouth to speak as I put a finger on her arm.

  “What’s your connection with her, Senator?” I asked.

  His expression didn’t change but his gaze seemed to go flat. It was a look I recognized from his press conferences: the Lurry Method of Avoiding the Truth. “She runs an escort service for the Washington elite, Reese. There’s no telling what kind of dirt we might inadvertently dig up.”

  I suppressed a sigh. Lurry had always been a wild man; the wildness had gotten worse since his daughter’s death. During my college years, the staff had worked hard at covering his destructive tracks all over this city. I had worked hard when I came on board the second time to hold onto other staff members, particularly the women, who hated his roving hands and not-so-subtle innuendo. The others trusted me, because they knew I was a family man, a man who would never treat others the way Lurry did.

  But this was something that had fallen through the cracks.

  Stuckey had come to the same conclusion. She hated working for Lurry, hated that the man behind the excellent political record was a petty tyrant, sexist and a bigot. “It might be your last chance to get Nichols,” she said.

  Lurry spun the swivel on his chair so that he looked out the window instead of staring at us. He was silent for a long time. Finally he said, “I don’t care. We can’t afford the risk. We’ll have to find some other way.”

  “I doubt there is another way,” Stuckey said. She left the room. I followed more slowly. As I closed the door, I saw Lurry reach into his liquor cabinet. It was too early to drink, even for him.

  iv

  Despite Lurry’s refusal to pursue the investigation, Stuckey continued. So did I. I was too intrigued to let it go. Maybe after we had the evidence, Lurry would allow us to run to the media. It had happened before.

  Stuckey put one of our best detectives on the case, a secret infiltrator who had no visible connections to us. The detective would make it look to the police like an investigation of Veronique de la Mer instead of an investigation of Nichols.

  That would keep the information out of the press until we were ready to put it there ourselves.

  Stuckey and I were suppos
ed to meet with the Senator after the detective’s report came in, but I had some questions of my own to answer.

  Veronique’s escort service had headquarters near the Hill. I parked a block away, and waited until no one was looking before I entered the building. The elevator took me to the sixth floor offices. As I stepped through the double glass doors, a level of tension left me.

  The offices were tasteful. The colors were out of date: the muted grays and pinks of the mid-eighties, but the garish purples and neon greens of the early nineties would have looked out of place here. Flowers in waterford crystal vases stood on runners that crossed antique tables. All of the furniture was antique, mixing periods to great effect: the tables were Early American, the couches late Victorian, the lighting and the crystal were modern. The decor gave the feel of a place that had been in business for a long, long time. The carpet absorbed my footfalls, and I was alone in the waiting room. I assumed that was on purpose. It made the clients feel as if discretion was part of the service.

  A woman entered through a sliding glass door. She wore a white silk dress that flowed around her voluptuous body. Her long black hair flowed down her back, as untamed as the dress. “Do you have an appointment, sir?”

  Her voice was as well modulated as the rest of her. A shiver ran down my spine. “No,” I said, a little more harshly than I expected. “I am from Senator Lurry’s office. I would like to see Veronique.”

  The woman nodded once. “Come with me,” she said, and without waiting, went back through the glass doors.

  The hallway was long and narrow, and smelled faintly of lilacs. Closed doors along each side gave this area a forbidding feeling that the front didn’t have. Privacy above all else.

  How odd. Veronique mastered privacy in her business, yet she was willing to give it all away to bring down Nichols.

  She really had to hate him.

  The woman opened the double mahogany doors at the end of the hallway, then stepped aside so that I could enter. I stepped into another waiting room, although this one was more flamboyant than the one I left. The colors were red, black and deep browns, and all of the furniture was late Edwardian: heavy with thick upholstery. The room had a masculine feel as if it were designed by a man for a woman.