Them Hustlers

by Jeffrey Manber

  It was at that moment that Herb came upon page eleven.

  “Looka here,” he mumbled. “Ain’t this a strange one?”

  Herb looked up but Phil was gone. He was three tables down talking to a cute mother, a blonde, about 30, who was eating breakfast with her young child. Herb just shook his head and watched, enjoying the not infrequent morning show of Phil talking to any woman he could. In a moment Phil returned holding up a piece of paper like a kid with a new autograph.

  “Got the number!” Phil boasted, his familiar big grin bursting out.

  Herb had come to realize that Phil enjoyed the hunt like few men he had known. The rituals of the chase, culminating in a promise to get together, provoked sheer joy in Phil.

  “Look at this.” Herb re-started up the conversation.

  Phil took a moment before taking the offered section of the paper. First he stuffed the just acquired number into his wallet. Only then did he focus on the newspaper.

  Their Sunday breakfast had become a tradition. No matter how great the Saturday night, and they had all been wonderful, just like the Friday’s and Thursday’s and the rest of the week, Phil would leave his bed and the latest woman and drive downtown for Sunday breakfast with Herb.

  Both men were creatures of habit and so a routine had developed. While eating, Herb would read the news and the book review sections. Phil surveyed the sports section and the real estate. That meant Herb made the catch.

  Phil took the page offered up by Herb and read the key points in his own style. “1 million bucks for information on sex with politicians. Goddamn there must be a lot of folks choking on their coffee this morning.”

  Herb chuckled in agreement. In his analytical manner Herb began dissecting the language. “Ya notice it says ‘adulterous’? That means he is going after those hypocrites, the married congressmen attacking the president who’ve also been fooling around. Sure is a number bigger than zero.”

  Phil put down his sports section. “You mean like the Republicans in Congress?”

  “Sure who else would Flynt be willing to spend a million bucks on? Herb snorted. “He may be smutty but there’s a core to this guy that’s rock solid American.”

  “Who’s that?” Phil was having problem paying attention.

  “Flynt. Larry Flynt. He’s the publisher of Hustler, you know? He’s been going after the Republicans who are going after the president. You know, attacking Bill Clinton, like they haven’t been guilty of the same nonsense." Herb mused out loud, “it’s a brilliant move."

  "That reminds me of a Carnac joke that Johnny Carson used to do."

  Phil infuriated Herb that way. But he knew there was no choice but to play along.

  "Okay, okay, what's the joke?"

  "The answer is, 'Until he gets caught.’

  "And, great swami," and here Phil expansively waved his hand through the deli crowd as if he was holding an envelope, "the question is...how long does a United States congressman serve?"

  Herb laughed. It was a funny bit. The dirt never ended. Scandals, whether financial or sexual, were the perpetual motion machine of Washington.

  “I gotta wonder if the White House is behind this. I read Flynt just got himself arrested ‘cause he wants to take the ban on selling Hustler in Cincinnati to the Supreme Court.” Herb resumed enthusiastically. “What political leader can say they are not also guilty of just about anything involving sex?” Herb stopped, allowing Phil to break in with some witty comment on the political scene, but his breakfast companion was now miles away and running fast.

  “This then,” Phil began cautiously, “is--it’s an attack on the Republicans going after Clinton?”

  “Sure seems so.” Finally Phil had caught on.

  “Gingrich, Tucker, Livingston, Barr, guys like that?”

  Herb got where Phil was going. “These are mostly Tanya’s clients?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So Tanya’s group could be the bull's eye for the million dollar reward?”

  “Yeah.”

  Phil looked like he was drowning in fear. “These small town big-shots--even Tanya called them that-- are going after Clinton. It’s all part of a strategy that’s been worked on for a couple of months now. Once Livingston replaces Gingrich, the plan is to use the morality issue to strip Clinton of the presidency. With the momentum Livingston rides into the White House. This is about who will become the next president.” Phil stopped on a dime.

  “Tell me more.” Herb prodded.

  “No.”

  Herb nonchalantly picked up the front section of the paper and continued reading the Sunday news. With Phil being such a stereotypical Virgo his succinct summation of the political situation spoke volumes. Caring about a world outside your own home life or business is not a Virgo trait. That meant that if Phil knew so much about the attempt to derail President Clinton, it was part of his personal life, just like he said.

  When Judy brought the plates Phil was still silent.

  "More coffee, hon?"

  Herb pushed his cup forward. "Thanks dear. You Phil?"

  "No, no, I'm set."

  Phil waited until their breakfast was over, the plates were being cleared by the busboy and the checks were being paid. “I got something to say to you Herb.”

  “What’s that?” Relieved the silence was broken he threw down another dollar for Judy.

  “Tanya and her clients have had four meeting about going after the speakership if Gingrich stumbles after these mid-term elections.” And with that Phil outlined for Herb everything he knew about the no-holds-barred campaign by the Louisiana delegation to lock in the votes for Livingston, and the fears of Tanya and her high powered clients that Phil would speak to the press through Rachel after running out of the wedding.

  Herb was taken aback that Phil could articulate a situation so clearly. The man just continued to amaze. Fear clearly loosened his usually stumbling tongue.

  There was one question that had to be asked. “How you think they gonna go for you if you spill the beans to the reporter?” Herb was thinking it unlikely that a sitting congressman would send some goons for Phil...but you never know.

  Phil voice didn’t waver. “Don't think. I know. Here's the situation and don't laugh. They got some woman hidden away that does black magic. Right from New Orleans. Her family's been doing it for years. Tucker swears by her. Even Tanya was afraid, though she doesn’t believe in this stuff at all."

  Herb didn't laugh. Not at all. He could see all the dots connecting. Sure, why wouldn't a guy like Tucker surround himself with a Louisiana voodoo priestess who may or may not know what she was doing? It really didn't matter whether it worked. Half the game was putting the fear of black magic onto your enemies. Herb didn't not believe in voodoo...but he couldn't say he believed.

  Phil was back to his normal speaking patterns now and that meant he stopped for a long beat. Herb waited with all the patience he could muster up.

  Phil gulped for some air. “This attack by Flynt is gonna panic them. It will be panic-time big-time. They’re gonna go after everyone. Reporters like Rachel. Me, I’m gonna be hit. I know too much.” Phil shrugged. “But I knew this was bound to happen.” Then the salesman slapped his hands together and his biggest sales grin was offered up. “Look, forget it. What will be, will be.”

  * * *

  Herb needed to think through all that Phil had revealed. Already, talking about Phil with his wife he had raised the possibility of money laundering. Or insider trading. Or illegal lobbying. Or maybe even something as deadly as espionage. The commonality being Phil's power-hungry girlfriend.

  That’s the problem. He thought too much. His new friend was on the outs with some of Washington's dirtiest players. A group who would use any means possible to keep clinging to power.

  Black magic. Sure, it made sense. How the cards had burned white hot during that first reading. The weird tingling in his side before Phil had dropped into his life. Someone skilled. Someone practiced in the voodoo ways w
as even then seeking to influence Phil. No, he couldn't laugh.

  Herb knew just what to do to protect Phil. He once had a customer he respected very much who believed in the power of voodoo and in fact owed him a big favor. This type of favor.

  ~ ~ ~

  Chapter 20

  Phil lay in his bed, taking in the quiet of the night. It was still possible this late in the year to have the windows on opposite sides of the cramped bedroom flung open, letting in the breeze from the nearby creek. The deafening roar of the cicadas, produced by the rubbing of their back legs, was gone now, their corpses littering every inch of the lawn and the sidewalk. The piles of dead bodies were a nuisance, but he knew his landlord and part-time roommate would do nothing. Maybe he would clean up the mess tomorrow.

  It was unnaturally quiet now except for the barking of the neighborhood dogs from both sides of the creek. One would start up, usually the German shepherd from next door, and then two or three would join in for an hour or so. When he couldn’t sleep, which was more common now, he would listen to the howling of the dogs as if they were performing for him.

  Tonight he wondered about those cicadas. He had read how the population followed a decade-long cycle, much like the eleven year rise and fall of solar flares. He wondered how that happened. Did the cicadas know there was a pattern to their birth and death, tied intimately to events taking place millions of miles away in the star closest to the earth? Did they know their population rose in a predictable manner - and not because of a good one-line or hot romance?

  Letting out a resigned sigh, the sort that comes when sleep doesn’t, Phil turned his attention closer to the planet earth, specifically the seemingly chance occurrences of the past weeks. Events had escalated in the worst possible way since the Flynt bombshell. The cash reward from Flynt had taken on a life of its own, a three-ring political circus.

  But that was not Phil’s concern. Tanya was Phil’s concern. He knew that if Flynt uncovered real dirt it could bring down her personal empire. Threatened would be her cash payments, the nice house, the designer clothes, everything that Tanya needed to believe was really Tanya Lyn.

  Phil swung over onto his other side, facing the window that opened onto the creek, hoping to find that sweet spot between his body, his worried mind and the old mattress that would bring him back to sleep.

  He’d never admit it, but the procession of Herb's clients was getting pretty tiring. Sure it was a dream come true, having sex with all sorts of women each a decade younger. Herb had introduced him to a situation beyond imagination. But now he was weary. Time to find a wife.

  If the prophecy of that fortune teller in Old Town was right he would be married within six months. Hell's bells. That’s what he wanted.

  Phil had worried about sleeping with so many women in a small town like Annapolis, but that didn’t seem to be a problem. In the past month he had run into some of his dates while having breakfast with Herb or in the grocery store. Yesterday he had ducked into Ruth’s for a late afternoon hotdog and sitting at a table was Andrea Newburg. She had waved him over and introduced him to a woman named Violet, who was next on his list to call. Past and future sitting together. Neither seemed to mind. Each woman felt Phil had a unique pipeline into their soul and what more could a girl ask for?

  So far his favorite was 34 year old Bonnie Christiansen. Cute, with big doe-like brown eyes, she had arrived from Montana six years ago. Bonnie had worked for Bush’s first campaign and was rewarded with a secretary’s job in the White House. Politics was of no concern to her, just like with Phil. She was a Republican because her parents were Republicans. With the election of Bill Clinton she had found a sales job for a Baltimore mutual fund.

  Bonnie was sweet. A little sheltered still, but sweet and funniest of all, the woman got turned on doing the wash or cooking or things like that. If he married Bonnie his clothes and dishes would be spotless. They had made love in the kitchen and once in the basement laundry room. Phil lay still in the dark bedroom ruminating about a honeymoon with Bonnie. In a laundromat? The thought made him laugh out loud.

  Phil looked over to make sure that he hadn’t disturbed the woman’s body that pressed lightly against his side. It was so dark it was hard to see, but sleeping next to him was Connie Wong - a congressional lobbyist on environmental issues. This was too close to Tanya’s world, as she represented the oil companies. But Herb had promised she would be fun in the hay, and yet again the fortune teller was right. She had been just that. Earlier this evening he had confided to the girl about his former lover--no harm in that, right? It was one part showing off, that he knew her world of politics, and two parts needing to share his life with someone other than the fortune teller of Annapolis.

  He could hear his roommate and girlfriend whispering. With the weird hours the cop worked, there was rarely an overlap in scheduling; Phil didn’t even think the cop knew of the never-ending line of women in his house. A perfect roommate.

  Connie had arrived with a good bottle of red wine, from southern France she said. The cute Asian lobbyist made a dinner of pasta and salad, cleaned the dishes, and then announced she was too tired to drive home, where was the bedroom?

  Phil had followed the script as written by Herb, of course. Connie wanted her own home. She was tired of roommates. She wanted a man who was worldly, had been to Asia, and understood different cultures. And didn't eat his food so fast "like all Americans," she had complained to Herb. So Phil spoke non-stop about his desire, at 43, to settle down, to find the right woman, a traditional woman from a traditional cultural, not like the fast-talking fast-food junkies everywhere in America. It seems to have worked. And funny enough, it was also what he believed.

  He propped himself up and quietly reached down under the bed where he kept the latest sheets of papers and a black hotel pen. Whatever logo had been stamped across the pen was now faded away, destroying, Phil had noted with smug satisfaction, any commercial value to the giveaway. In Phil’s world hotels would give pens to customers because customers needed pens. End of story. And baseball caps and t-shirts would be void of branding. That’s the way he felt. It seemed the whole country was amuck in gimmick marketing. Even for a cup of coffee. He had heard amazing things about those Starbucks popping open everywhere so he tried one out. The smallest size was called ‘Tall'. Why? Tall is....tall, not small. And Grande? C'mon. Stubbornly Phil asked for a small cup of coffee. The girl hesitated, which only annoyed Phil more.

  Lying in the bed he decided to write down data from the last few nights.

  To start with, he had enjoyed two orgasms earlier this Thursday night. So in the first column of numbers on the top sheet of paper, Phil, lying now on his back, the paper held above his body, and flush against his left hand, wrote carefully the number “2.” There was no surprise in this particular fact. Thursday was his best night, averaging 2.7 orgasms over the past 7 weeks. Saturday was the lowest, at 1.3. Phil wondered why the pattern.

  With Tanya, they had made love an average of 4.6 times a week, with him enjoying just about 10 climaxes per week. Over the 28 weeks that was 280 climaxes. Say what you may about that girl, she sure enjoyed her sex and sure let Phil enjoy his.

  In the warehouse yesterday Phil had started assembling a list of numbers for playing the lottery based on his sexual accomplishments--he wondered why he hadn’t thought of that before. But he wasn’t sure for good karma whether it should include the statistics from Tanya.

  Using numbers from his own life for playing the lottery was a strategy that he had started a few years before. Last year he had made almost $1100 playing the Maryland lottery using numbers based on the time and date of contract signings for the business.

  The year before the New York Times had published a chart showing where the survivors had sat in an airplane that had crashed. What could be luckier than those seats? Phil figured. So he had played the lucky seat numbers, winning about $1800 over the year.

  Numbers based on his lovemaking just might work better. />
  Numbers. God how Phil loved numbers. One day he would find the magical string of numbers that would answer all his questions, or win him the lottery or find him his wife. That’s what numbers could do. It was like the puzzles he bought from time to time, the wooden cubes and such. There was always a trick, a single way to unlock the cube and twist the colors around into the desired pattern. That’s what numbers were. Knowing the right sequence of numbers would solve any puzzle. Phil was sure of that. There were no coincidences in life.

  Phil carefully returned the paper and the pen to their place under the bed and turned, looking over at Connie. Same business as Tanya Lyn mused Phil, but the two women could not be more different. Connie lacked the relentless ambition that his former fiancée displayed both in her business and in the bedroom. He sighed again, wondering what evilness Tanya was up to right now. At times he felt a longing for her, but the feeling disappeared with the ease of never being alone. This was one of those moments. His arm instinctively went out to connect with the woman next to him. If it was Tanya, he might pull her sleeping body over and she would, more times than not, mount him though both would be half asleep. ‘Sex walking’ Tanya had dubbed the night encounters.

  Never had he experienced such a range of emotions regarding a past lover. There was the longing, sometimes regret; at times relief, and since running out of her kitchen he had also been on edge. The nonchalance shown in the deli in front of Herb was a ruse. In truth he was scared to death by Flynt's surprise offer.

  There was good reason for the fear. That she had resorted to violence at the request of Tucker was a given. Well, not violence but the perception of violence. Almost as bad.

  Tanya had explained the ritual. How some newbie opponent of Tucker’s never gained traction either in the primary or general election because of the “new to the neighborhood” welcoming wagon, as they apparently referred to the strategy.