A Vote For Lust: A Bad Boy Political Romance

by Natasha Tanner

  I didn’t stop to see if he was unconscious or not. I jumped over his body and rushed out of the room. I closed the door, threw the first thing I found against it (it turned out to be a tiny table, unable to stop any door and certainly not this one), and went in search of my cellphone. I found it in the other room, resting candidly on a desk. My handbag was there too, which made everything easier. I grabbed both things. Then I rushed out of the apartment and ran, ran, ran until I was so exhausted that my mind seemed to detach from my body. And then I ran a bit more.

  “Come back, you stupid bitch!”

  Hagrid’s voice came from afar, but I barely registered it. I was already ahead of him, out of reach, my legs moving mechanically, my mind in a realm of prolix serenity. Exercise clears your head, dad used to say. Maybe that’s why he sent me to take those taekwondo classes.

  I know where I am, I thought with extraordinary clarity, as the physical Sadie went on her knees on the sidewalk, gasping for air, with her chest on fire and her legs aching hard. I know where to go.

  HOW TO VOID A CONTRACT

  SIX

  Coney Island was as cold and grey as my mood. I walked along the boardwalk feigning disinterest; I was scrutinizing everything, though, to make sure that Pam hadn’t put snipers along the way, between the quiet rollercoasters or behind the closed ticket booths of the Luna Park. I had called her to arrange this, to put an end to everything. Whatever happened here, now, would be the end of it. Dark thoughts filled my mind as the chilly air threw minuscule particles of sand to my face.

  The place looked completely deserted. The boardwalk was empty and the whole park remained inactive. On the beach, near the water, someone fed a seagull. A chunky old man, from what one could see at this distance, wrapped in several layers of clothing to keep the cold at bay. The seagull looked angry and I feared it would attack the man sooner or later. Maybe he was too stingy with the portions.

  “Here,” a voice said from somewhere between the steel beams of the closed attractions. “Here are the answers you look for.”

  I looked around in search of the voice’s origin. At first, I saw nothing. Then I looked up. And there she was. A dark, inconspicuous figure amidst the red skeleton of the Parachute Jump, standing on the roof of the small building that had been the entrance to the ride a few decades ago.

  With her black hair, black overcoat, and dark skin, her hands tugged into her pockets, Pam Overton looked like a real life chess queen. She had to be well past their forties, but she still looked like she was in her early thirties, maybe late twenties.

  I had walked right past her, I had looked at the Parachute Jump directly, and I hadn’t seen her.

  “Pam Overton,” I said. “Long time no see.”

  “I wish it would be somewhere else, in other circumstances,” she replied as I walked off the boardwalk and made a beeline to the dead, gigantic attraction. “I was thinking of throwing a retirement party for you. That would have been a nice farewell.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “but this is how it is. Will you get down?”

  She shook her head and pointed to something behind the entrance, out of my sight. I walked around and saw a metallic ladder. With a sigh, I started climbing.

  “You always make me do something ridiculous.”

  “True,” she laughed.

  “Well,” I continued once I got to the roof, rubbing my gloves against each other to wipe off the dirt, “who’s killing who today?”

  “I think the answers come first.”

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “I want to know why you sent Four to kill me as soon as I had the job done. If I had done it. Somehow I don’t think a change in zoning laws warranted such measures.”

  Pam looked at me as if she didn’t understand.

  “zoning laws?”

  “I mean you took Poole’s million. You could have arranged something quieter.”

  “Poole?” she echoed, incredulous, and then again: “Poole? You think that rich breeder of cattle is the buyer?” Somehow she made the word cattle sound like a terrible insult. “Sixtus, this is not about the fucking farmers. This is about the fucking presidency.”

  “Wh-what?”

  Pam laughed. She seemed to find my cluelessness genuinely funny.

  “Oh, Six, you’re so naïve. The perfect finger, but not a very good brain.” She got closer to me, always with her hands in her pockets, and her eyes were mocking me. “Do you think I would have gone into the trouble of involving three operatives in the same job, and lose one of them, just to help a farmer? This is a long bet. Four years ahead. You were supposed to end up in jail. You and Poole, of course. But dead is good too, I guess.”

  “So the buyer...”

  “Seth fucking Pryce, idiot,” Pam spat.

  I wouldn’t have survived all this time if I were stupid, so it must follow that I’m not. But Pam was right in that I was a better finger than a brain. Other operatives were more suited to the kind of long con that gets you spectacular results in a year or two; I am a man of action. I could almost feel the cogs turning inside my head as I tried to process it all. Three operatives, Pam had said. Lose one. That meant three minus Four, who was lost. The new Four might or might not be part of the three. If she wasn’t... Maybe... Maybe there was something Pam didn’t know. But what? And how?

  “So Mark Cross was right all along,” I said aloud. “It was his rival, the other senator. He wanted Cross out of the way so that he could become president in four years.”

  “You’re a genius,” Pam replied mockingly. “Luckily, Pryce is a practical man. That’s why you’re alive right now.”

  “Go on.”

  “As I said, the idea was that you and Poole were going to be caught and sent to jail for killing Cross. Four had stolen Poole’s cellphone and made a call to make it seem like he had hired you to do the job. Once the thing was done, she would tip the cops about you and get you both arrested. Then, Pryce would have his way to the White House cleared. But you fucked it up, and it turned out exactly backwards. You practically killed his chances.”

  “Oh, such a pity.” I looked around. The whole area still looked empty, except for the chunky man and the seagull.

  “But, as I said, Pryce is a practical man. He got very angry when you failed, but I talked to him and he’s on board with a new proposal. He’s willing to pay two more millions. We spare your life, you go to jail, then find your money when you get out. But Sadie March must die.”

  The mention of the name brought the pain once more. A stake puncturing my heart, a heart that shouldn’t be there. But you have Sadie March, I thought. Only she didn’t. Somehow...

  “So you will throw me a retirement party in jail? How nice of you,” I said. “But here is an alternative idea. I can kill you right now. Give me a reason why it’s not a good plan.”

  “You won’t be able to pull the trigger so fast.”

  Pam hadn’t moved her lips. The voice came from behind me. And I knew that voice. I thought I had forgotten it, but as soon as I heard the first syllable, it all came rushing back to me in full force, like a maelstrom.

  I couldn’t see her, of course, but I knew she has her gun pointed at my head. There was nothing I could do except put down mine and try to figure out something fast.

  I lowered my arm and let the gun fall softly to the floor. I raised my hands and spoke without turning around.

  “Hello, Nine.”

  THE BOGUS BUYER

  SADIE

  Scott Poole’s house was as big and fancy as I had imagined. I’d never been there before, of course, but it wasn’t hard to find. I had called him beforehand to make sure he was home, hanging up as soon as I heard his voice saying hello. I didn’t want him to know that I was coming for him. Not when I was still carrying Six’s gun.

  He opened the door himself. He was holding a glass of water and a newspaper; a paper newspaper, not a tablet with a news app. He looked a bit like A
lan Alda in his older years, a similarity that his big clear glasses only could accentuate. He stared at me, clueless, and only after a few seconds he saw the gun in my hand. Or, rather, he didn’t see it. It was covered by my pocket, but there was no mistaking the shape of the lump rising from where my hand was tucked inside the jacket.

  “Get inside,” I said. “Don’t even think of screaming.”

  He obeyed. I entered the house after him and found myself in a living room decorated in good taste, with heavy curtains and dark walls and a couple of pictures hanging from them.

  “I don’t have my money here,” he started as he walked toward the center of the room, without turning around. He was calm, a man trained in dealing with all kinds of people and situations. “But I can get you some...”

  “I’m not here for your money, Poole.”

  “What, then?” He kept walking. He was old and slow, and the room was big. Finally, after some hesitation, he turned around to face me. “Tell me. I can’t offer much resistance, you see.”

  “I want a confession.”

  “A confession? What do I have to confess?”

  “Don’t play the fool.”

  He opened his mouth, but said nothing. He seemed to realize something. He raised his glass as he pointed at me. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Your face is familiar to me. I know who you are.” He came closer and stared into my eyes, as if he could read something in there. “I’ve seen you on TV. You are the girl who was with Mark Cross when he was attacked. The girl they are searching for.”

  “Yes, and I am the person you’ve been calling for months on end to get Mark to advance a zoning reform,” I retorted. “I am the one who’s been telling you repeatedly that we won’t do it. My name is Sadie March, and if you want that reform to pass, I am the person you need to kill, not Mark Cross.”

  Nicole Kidman starred in a movie once. Well, she starred in lots of movies, but in this one in particular, Birth, there is a scene where her talent as an actress really shines. Her character has been through a succession of traumatic experiences, and by that point in the movie she is refusing to accept that there is something weird, really really weird, going on. She goes to an opera concert and the camera focuses on her face as she’s watching the actors, letting the music wash her with emotion. The camera lingers on her face for what seems like several long minutes, as the music plays offscreen. And this is where she makes the movie. Because she doesn’t say a word, nobody else says a word, there’s only Nicole Kidman looking ahead, silent, and you can see –you can actually see all the different emotions that she goes through. From the initial buildup and release of her sorrow to her disbelief and shock and finally her realization that what’s happening is true, is really happening, to her astounded but cathartic acceptance of this weird, miraculous occurrence, she’s there on her own, just a face without words, without anything else. And she shines.

  Scott Poole is not, never was an actor, and he had no script to work on; everything in this moment was genuine. But I could read his face as perfectly as Nicole Kidman’s in that scene, as he tried to process the fact that he knew me already, then the knowledge of who I was exactly, and then he assimilated the reproach in what I was telling about his plead –because I had always been polite and I had never told him explicitly that it wouldn’t pass as long as I was alive. And then the puzzlement when I mentioned something about killing, and the utter, perfect shock when he finally realized what I was accusing him of.

  “Are you—” he started, then gasped for air, and continued, “are you out of your mind?”

  Then I knew what I needed to know.

  He was not the buyer. He had nothing to do with it.

  There was no way around it. His surprise was so authentic that I didn’t have any doubts. He hadn’t hired the Scope to kill Mark Cross. It had been someone else.

  But who?

  “What makes you think I would do something like that?” Poole asked, when I failed to answer his first question. “Go ask Cletus Wyndham if I need to get my hands dirty. He’s the head of the Agriculture commission, and he’s already written a proposal of his own. It will pass.”

  I didn’t need to ask Wyndham. I knew he was telling me the truth. Plain as day. Even if he hadn’t seemed so sincere, I knew that it was very likely that he had Wyndham in his pocket –money can buy lots of things, and people.

  “But you,” Poole said carefully, standing motionless in the middle of the room as if he was afraid of making any sudden movements, “you know something about it.” He read in my eyes that he was right. My fingers clenched around the gun I was concealing in my pocket. “You don’t know who paid for it, but you know who was supposed to actually do it.”

  I didn’t deny anything. I waited, as a film of cold sweat covered my neck and brow and the hand that was holding the gun. I didn’t want to harm Poole, but if he as much as moved a finger to reach for a phone or something, I’d have to put a hole in his head.

  “Easy,” I said, trying to sound authoritative.

  “I won’t ask you where you have been all this time,” Poole said. “I don’t think you are the killer. Even though it’s evident the killer doesn’t know who the buyer is, right?”

  “I find your train of thought fascinating,” I snapped dryly.

  “You love him.”

  Just three months before, I had found Scott W Poole’s voice infinitely annoying. Now it sounded dangerous, destructive. But I also perceived something else. A certain softness, revealing he was unwilling to harm me.

  “Are you mocking me? I swear...”

  I was holding the gun with my right hand. My left hand was covering my belly. I had put it there instinctively. Six... his child... this was the only thing that meant anything to me now.

  “I’m not mocking you,” he said, raising his hand, which almost made me draw out the gun and shoot him. “Look, I know you have a weapon. You don’t want to do it, really. You’re better than this.”

  “Shut up,” I said. “I’ll be the one to decide.”

  “Oh, but that’s the point,” he said. “You don’t think you can decide. You think there’s no way out for you. For him. But there is.”

  “There is?” The tears came to my eyes so fast I couldn’t do anything to stop them. I must have looked ridiculous because my expression was still cold and hard, but there was hot water incongruently running down my cheeks, as if someone had forgotten to tell my face that it should change accordingly. Mood swings, already? It couldn’t be the pregnancy at this stage. It must be the adrenaline. Or all of this was already making me insane.

  “Sit down, please,” Poole said, but when he realized I wouldn’t move, he chose to sit down on his own instead. “There is a way... He didn’t kill the man. I have a friend, a very prominent lawyer... Look,” he added persuasively, “this is a high level conspiracy to assassinate a powerful man. A seriously true crime. But he didn’t actually do it. He can be charged, of course. But he can also be exonerated if he cooperates to bring down the big guys. The ones who set up the plan.”

  Oh my god, it makes sense, I thought, and the tears dried up instantly as a cold sweat covered my whole body. Then I started to cry again. But I never put the gun down. It could all be a trick. Could it? People think fast when they have a gun pointed at them. They lie very efficiently. I guess. I don’t actually know. I hadn’t pointed a gun at anyone before. Never even thought about it.

  “They would kill him,” I objected, feebly. “They have been trying to kill him from that very day.”

  “More reason to put the motherfuckers behind bars,” Poole insisted.

  “I... I don’t know. Then who...?”

  And then I understood.

  I understood everything.

  * * *

  I wish I could say I kept my cool and decided to act rationally, but it was not my cold head what saved Scott Poole’s life. It was my cellphone.

  The cellphone I had on my person by sheer chance. The cellphone I had taken from m
y captor’s hands in Cedar Rapids before coming back to the ol’ South in search of the bogus buyer.

  I kept my gun pointing at him as I fumbled in my pocket with the other hand. I picked up the phone and answered it blindly, without taking my eyes off Poole.

  “Hello,” I said. “This is—”

  “I know who this is,” the woman’s voice cut me off angrily. “I’m Lottie Harmund. Where the fuck are you?”

  A STITCH IN TIME

  SIX

  “You used to call me Wendy.”

  “You used to be alive.”

  I turned around slowly, to let her see that I wasn’t going to attack her or try to escape. There she was, as slender as elegant as ever, but with a malignant tint to her expression that I didn’t remember from the good years. Wendy Flagg, or Nine for short. I had loved her once, as much as a finger can love. Then I had her killed.

  Somehow, she had come back to life.

  “Well, I don’t think I’m a ghost,” she said with a smirk.

  “What happened?”

  “A stitch in time.”

  I was not in the mood to laugh, but I chuckled slightly. I can appreciate a good line even when I’m about to die.

  “Seven?”

  “Seven,” she reacted. “He was as cute as he was stupid. I hope you don’t mind that we had a fling instead of a murder. Well, there was a murder, but that was much later.”

  A fling? Had Wendy seduced Seven when he met her with the intention to kill her? Or was it before? How long did she keep at it before getting rid of him?

  So many questions, none of them apt to be asked when the girl is pointing a gun at you.

  Oh, Seven. Fucking idiot. He would’ve had to know, of all people. That’s what happens when you go soft.

  “I was stupid for you once. I got better.”

  “And yet...” she replied, nodding to point at her gun.

  “This is so sad,” Pam’s voice came from somewhere behind me. “It could have been beautiful. But you had to fuck it up. All for a girl you didn’t even know.”