A Hideous Beauty

by Jack Cavanaugh

  “Before answering that,” I said, “you have to remember I’m just reporting what I heard.”

  “Noted.”

  “According to Myles Shepherd, the president knows about the assassination plot because he’s the mastermind behind it.”

  Neither man blinked. It was amazing.

  “President Douglas is plotting his own assassination?” Agent Cunningham said.

  “You’re saying President Douglas is Satan?” Agent Phillips added.

  “I know how this sounds,” I said.

  “Tell us about how Shepherd drugged you,” Agent Cunningham said.

  “Drugs?” Agent Phillips shouted. He was out of the room when I’d mentioned drugs.

  I told them how I suspected Shepherd might have used peyote, which has hallucinatory qualities. Then I described everything that happened in Shepherd’s office.

  Their response was to give me a ride home. They suggested I sleep it off.

  And they told me not to come anywhere near the president or the White House again.

  Ever.

  CHAPTER 12

  A note was pinned to my front door.

  Stop trying to contact me!—C

  I tore it down and unlocked the door, wondering how long the note had been up there, how many times the mailman had seen it.

  With a mail slot on the front door, whenever I’m gone even for a few days the accumulation of mail on the other side makes opening the door an experience. Glossy magazines are slipperier than ice.

  Steering around the pile of mail on the floor, I tossed my bag onto the sofa and opened windows to air out the place. Then I returned for the mail. I bent over and felt like I’d been bit all over again.

  The bite that keeps on biting, I lamented.

  Through trial and error I found that bending over didn’t hurt as much if I was on my knees. Just as I was reaching for the electric bill, my phone rang. The display said it was Jana.

  “Hi, it’s me,” she said softly.

  “Hi. I’m glad you called.”

  “I apologize for not returning your calls last night,” she ventured.

  “No . . . not at all.”

  “It’s just that—”

  “We both had a rough day,” I said. “I just wanted to take you to dinner and apologize.”

  “Well . . . how about today? Are you free for lunch?”

  I groaned.

  “I understand . . .” she said.

  “No! No, it’s not that . . . it’s . . . well, I’m on my knees here.”

  “Grant, you don’t have to beg . . . after all we’ve been through together?”

  I laughed. “It’s not that, I’m on my knees in my apartment, picking up the mail.”

  “Your apartment?”

  “In D.C.”

  “Oh! Now I feel foolish. With cell phones you never . . .”

  “Yeah . . . you never know where you’re calling.”

  “I don’t know why I assumed you would be staying in San Diego longer,” she said.

  “It was important I get back here.”

  “I guess I keep forgetting what an important man you are now,” she said.

  “Not so important.”

  “Is San Diego on your itinerary anytime soon?”

  I sighed. “At the moment I don’t have an itinerary, everything’s sort of up in the air. I don’t know when I’ll be out West again.”

  “OK . . . I understand . . . I was just hoping to clear the air a little, to talk with you when I wasn’t so emotional . . .” She paused. “And to tell you that I overreacted about Christy—”

  “Christina.”

  “I really don’t know why I acted like I did, it’s not like we’ve been seeing each other or anything, I mean, it’s been years! But the way you held me on the freeway . . . it brought back a lot of old feelings and they surprised me.”

  “About Christina . . . we’re not—”

  “Really, Grant, it’s none of my business. Oh! And I hear you met Sue Ling! Small world, huh? Isn’t she special?”

  “Yeah . . . special. She thinks the world of you.”

  “It’s mutual. She’s the smartest person I’ve ever met! Well, I’m sure you have a thousand things to do . . . Oh, are you going to come to Myles’s funeral? It’s next Tuesday.”

  A dozen quips leaped to mind regarding Myles, none of them kind, or appropriate. I went for the simple answer, “I don’t think that will be possible.”

  “Well, if things change, you know? I know he would have wanted you there. It looks like the whole city is going to be there. The mayor. Chief of police. You know, honoring the former teacher of the year . . . The station tried to get me to cover it, but I don’t think I’ll be in any shape to do a broadcast.”

  “My thoughts will be with you.”

  “Keep in touch, Grant, OK? And the next time you’re going to be in San Diego, try giving a girl a little advance notice.”

  Closing the phone, I slipped it into my pocket. There are no feelings like old romantic feelings. I gathered my mail in an emotional fog.

  I stood in the shadows of Christina’s three-story, brick apartment building in Adams Morgan. My usual place to wait for her is parked on the street within sight of her parking space in the rear of the building. Circumstances suggested a change of tactics. I was afraid if she saw me while she was still behind the wheel, she’d rabbit. So I parked two blocks away on Mintwood and waited in the shadows beside the steps.

  Actually, the shadows weren’t necessary. I stood there because I couldn’t sit. The side of the steps gave me something to lean against. I had no idea how long I’d be waiting.

  People who work in the West Wing live in the West Wing. Their apartments are little more than walk-in closets and staging areas for the next meeting, party, or event.

  As it turned out, I got lucky. Christina came home before midnight. I had to wait only three hours.

  She walked with her head down, preoccupied. As she started up the steps, I moved out of the shadows. “Hello, Christina.”

  Startled, her hand flew into her purse rummaging for a container of Mace.

  “Christina, it’s me.”

  Her hand continued its search.

  “Christina?”

  “Grant! It’s you! You scared me!” She glanced up and down the street. “Didn’t you get my note?” she said. “I told you not to contact me!”

  I approached her, keeping a wary eye on the hand in the purse. It had slowed, but was still groping.

  “We need to—”

  She pushed me back into the shadows. Her voice low, her eyes menacing, she said, “Go away!” She started up the stairs, her keys dangling.

  I followed her.

  Mid-step, she swung around. “What are you doing?”

  I thought she was just peeved at me for leaving all those messages, but this was beyond peeved. She was scared.

  “Christina, can’t we—”

  She pushed me back a step. “Go away!”

  “Not until you tell me what’s going on!”

  “Not now!” She stepped into me, grabbed my shirt, and yanked me close. “Not now!” she hissed.

  Again, she was looking up and down the street.

  “OK, if not now, when?”

  She pushed me down a step. “I’ll call you,” she whispered, inserting the key into the hallway door.

  “OK . . . when?” I took a step up.

  She opened the door, but didn’t go in. “I told you, I’d call you!” she said. Reaching down, she pulled me up the steps to the landing. “Go!” she cried. “I can’t be seen with you!” She shoved me back.

  Christina has always been good at keeping me off balance, that’s one of the things that attracted me to her, but this little pushing-and-shoving routine had me thoroughly confused.

  Her apartment was the first door on the left. She jabbed repeatedly at the lock with her key.

  “Christina, what do you want?”

  “I want you to leave!” s
he said, forcing the key into the lock.

  “All right, I’ll go. Can you just tell me who—”

  She lunged toward me, grabbed my shirt, and pulled me into the hallway.

  “Christina, what are you—”

  “Shush!”

  “But this is crazy!” I whispered.

  “Shush! Shush! Shush!”

  Her apartment door swung open.

  “For the last time, go away!” she shouted, shoving me inside her apartment.

  She double-checked the hallway, then slammed the door and fell back against it, her chest rising and falling as though she had just done a wild sprint across the White House lawn with dogs chasing her.

  Frenzy doesn’t look good on Christina. Frantic, but in control, is her style. This temporary madness didn’t suit her. I gave her the time she needed to collect herself.

  Her blond hair, parted over her left eye, fell in parenthetical curves framing a face with intelligent eyes and a sensuous mouth. The necklace she was wearing brought a smile to my face. I’d picked it up in France for her during the economic summit. It was a gold collar with a single dangling pendant. I’m not usually good with gifts, but I thought I’d done a good job with this one. The necklace was simple and elegant. Simple for me; elegant for her.

  “You can’t stay,” she said.

  “Will you at least tell me what’s going on? Nobody will take my calls. My White House credentials have been revoked. What have I done?”

  “That’s what I want to know! What have you done?”

  She pushed past me, dropped her purse at the base of a hat rack, and kicked off her shoes. “On Sunday I drop you off at the airport. You tell me you’re giving a speech at a high school.”

  “My alma mater.”

  “And the next thing I know memos are flocking like pigeons telling everyone we’re not to have any contact with you for any reason; that if you attempt to contact us we’re to notify the chief of staff immediately.”

  “Did you?” I asked. “Notify Ingraham?”

  “Are you kidding? Even before you started your phone-solicitor routine, he pulled me into his office and grilled me.”

  “Grilled you?”

  “He wanted to know if I’d heard from you, when I spoke to you last, when I saw you last, dated you last. He asked me if I ever knew you to be part of a subversive, anti-American organization, or participated in any subversive activities.”

  “What?” I couldn’t believe this.

  “He wanted to know if you’ve ever spoken in subversive fashion or taken me to any anti-American rallies.”

  “This is crazy!”

  “Then, he made me hand him my personal cell phone and ordered me to tell him my PIN number so that he could listen to my messages. I felt like I was a teenager at home all over again.”

  “He can’t do that!”

  “You’re kidding, right? You don’t tell Chief of Staff Harold Ingraham what he can and can’t do.”

  “Christina, you have to believe me, had I known . . . I had no idea . . . I never would have . . . How many messages were on there?”

  “Luckily, only one. The blitzkrieg came later. When it did, I checked my messages every fifteen minutes and immediately deleted them. Finally, I turned off the answering service.”

  “That was smart.”

  “You don’t work your way into the West Wing without learning how to watch your back.”

  “I had no idea it was this bad,” I said by way of apology.

  “Grant, what have you gotten yourself involved in? Everyone is paranoid. They’ve all taken your book off their shelves. They avoid me and whisper behind my back.”

  “I’m as stumped as you are.”

  I meandered into the alcove. The windows faced the street. Christina had turned it into a book nook. Beneath the windows are bench bookshelves stocked with her favorite titles. In preparation for my trip to Europe, she had taught me key French phrases here.

  Headlights flashed against the windows, and the next thing I knew, Christina dove to the hardwood floor and, grabbing my back pocket, pulled me down with her.

  Yeah, the side the dog bit.

  A stab of pain from my back forty nearly made me pass out. I was definitely going to have to tell her about the injury.

  While I tried to keep from passing out, Christina crawled to the windows and pulled the draperies closed.

  “Was that really necessary?” I cried.

  I started to get up. She pushed me back down and joined me. We lay on our sides facing each other.

  “Grant, I’m really scared,” she said.

  She was. I felt guilty. It was time to give her a few pieces of the puzzle.

  “While I was in California, I learned of a threat against the president’s life. An assassination plot.”

  “Grant! This is huge! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  If I weren’t hurting so badly I would have laughed.

  Realizing the ridiculousness of the protest, she waved it off. “I mean, I thought you were going to a high school. Where did you hear—”

  My cell phone rang. The anonymous-caller tone. It was in my floor-side pocket. I started to roll over on my back to get it, remembered my injury, then rolled over onto my stomach and retrieved the phone. The display had a number I didn’t recognize. I did, however, recognize the area code. Six one nine. San Diego. “I need to take this,” I said.

  “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know.” I flipped open the phone. “Hello?”

  “Grant?”

  I’d only heard an afternoon’s worth of her voice, and then mostly angry tones, but I’d heard enough to recognize it. “Miss Ling,” I said.

  “Is this a bad time?”

  I took stock of the moment. I was lying on the floor of my former girlfriend’s apartment hiding from anonymous headlights while trying to explain to her that an old high school rival, who was possibly dead, was trying to kill the president of the United States and, for reasons unknown, implicate me in the plot.

  “Not at all, Miss Ling,” I said.

  Her head propped in her hand, Christina watched me with interest.

  “Maybe you should call me Sue,” Miss Ling said.

  “All right . . . Sue.”

  Christina rolled her eyes in exasperation.

  “You didn’t show up at the library this morning,” Sue said.

  “Um . . . no, I didn’t. I had to return to Washington. Urgent business. Unexpected.”

  “More urgent than meeting an angel from heaven?”

  I tried to sit up. It hurt too much, so I returned to my side, squirming to get comfortable. “Did he show up?” I asked.

  “No. Not in the library.”

  I knew it! I grinned victoriously. “Somehow, I’m not surprised,” I said.

  “He visited the professor earlier, though.”

  “Earlier. Convenient. When no one else was around.”

  “I assume the professor was alone. I didn’t ask. Abdiel didn’t come to the library because he knew you’d returned to Washington.”

  She knew I was in Washington. When Jana called, she thought I was still in San Diego. I grinned. Miss Ling had talked to Jana. That’s how she knew I’d returned home.

  I played along. “It makes sense he’d know I’d returned to Washington,” I said. “Angels are pretty well connected.”

  Christina frowned. “Angels?” she mouthed.

  I shrugged.

  Getting up in a huff, she went to the kitchen. The light came on and cabinet doors opened and closed.

  It was awkward talking on the phone on my side. I tried to sit up. A yelp of pain erupted from my lips.

  “Are you all right?” Sue asked.

  I did my best to sound fine. “A little stiffness from the flight, that’s all,” I said.

  Sue Ling already had a low opinion of me. I didn’t want to justify it by telling her about the dog bite.

  Christina’s voice came from the kitchen. “Do you want some c
offee?”

  I covered the phone. “That would be great,” I shouted back.

  “Is that Christina?” Sue Ling asked.

  I cringed, hoping she hadn’t heard the exchange.

  “Um . . . exactly why are you calling, Miss . . . um, Sue?”

  The voice on the other end of the line cooled. “The professor asked me to take another look at your book. To dissect it . . .”

  “Dissect it.” This conversation was going downhill fast. “OK . . . so you called to give me a review?”

  “I found something. Something disturbing.”

  “Disturbing. Factually or grammatically?”

  “Does Christina have a copy of your book in her apartment?”

  I frowned. “How did you know I was in Christina’s apartment?”

  “I didn’t, until now.”

  I cringed. She had set me up, and just like a guy, I walked right into it.

  “Um . . . let me check,” I said.

  In order to get up I had to crawl on my hands and knees to the padded benches that rimmed the alcove and use them to push myself to my feet. I poked my head in the kitchen. “Christina . . . Do you have a copy of my book?”

  Her hand was atop the coffee grinder. “Who’s on the line? Your editor?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Do you have a copy?”

  Christina didn’t appreciate being dismissed. When she walked by me it felt as though someone had left the refrigerator door open. She went to the alcove and pulled a book from the very shelf I’d used to push myself up.

  “Thanks,” I said sheepishly. To Sue on the phone, “All right, I have a copy.”

  “You’ll need a paper and pen.”

  Christina had just placed her hand atop the coffee grinder again when I said, “Do you have a scratch pad, or something I can write on?”

  She yanked open a drawer, rattling its insides, and rummaged around until she found a scratch pad which she flung at me.

  I mouthed the words thank you to her. I was definitely going to have to do some damage control when this call was over.

  Pulling out a chair from a small tea table, I sat down slowly on half of it, placing the book and scratch pad in front of me. At the top of the pad was a female cartoon mouse, her gloved hands clasped against her chest as she gazed amorously at her counterpart male on the far side of the pad. Little hearts floated between them.