Stranglehold Read online

  “What the hell you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m letting her know how to get in touch with me.”

  “Let me see that.” He reached down to grab it, but I got his wrist before he could pick it up.

  “This is between your wife and me. She needs a friend.” To Gwen I said: “If he tears the card up, just remember the name of my business. They’ll put you in touch with me. That number is answered twenty-four hours a day. Same with my cell phone.”

  I let go of him. He didn’t face me for a while. I think he was more embarrassed than hurt. I had made him look weak in front of his wife. I wouldn’t have appreciated that, either.

  “Oh, God, Bobby, this is not going the way you said it would.”

  “Just shut up. And I mean right now.” Then he walked to her and kissed her on top of the head. “It’ll be all right, Gwen. We just have to stay cool is all.”

  “Remember, Gwen. Night or day, I’m ready to help you.”

  “You always sniff around other men’s wives?” Bobby said.

  “Just when they have husbands like you.”

  When I reached the door I looked back at them. She was weeping again. He sat down next to her and took her to him. They’d changed roles. Now he was the adult and she was the child. He kept stroking her head and kissing her on the side of her face. He was like most of us, a person of parts, in his case a violent punk capable of great tenderness.

  CHAPTER 9

  This was probably as close to the Hollywood style of red carpet as a small Midwestern city was going to get. The guests at the fund-raiser were dressed in evening clothes, and as they trekked across the lobby to the ballroom door a variety of digital cameras and video cams noted their appearance. They carried themselves with an air of prosperity and importance. The men favored dinner jackets, and the women cocktail dresses. There were gorgeous women of several ages, from the young to the elderly. This wasn’t the faction of our party where you would find schoolteachers and union members. These were the people with money and they were vital to Susan Cooper’s campaign.

  The ballroom had been decorated with a diamond-flashing disco ball in the ceiling like God’s eye overseeing the foolishness of the mortals beneath. The tables with their brilliant white tablecloths looked like large lilies. On stage was a local band called Black Velvet Elvis. Right now they were doing some very fine Chuck Berry. The singer was tall, lean, rock-star handsome, and his bass guitarist was a very young, pretty girl who even from here resembled him. Later I got a glimpse of the drummer. Very young but the same resemblance to singer and guitarist. A family affair? Even though few people had been seated, four or five couples were already on the dance floor going at it.

  On the right corner of the stage was a rostrum. Susan would be introduced from here and would give a brief speech. An enormous black-and-white photograph of her formed the backdrop.

  The only person I recognized was Peter Cooper. He was obviously still pissed because I didn’t use his speeches. He gave me one of those reluctant little waves you give the man who’s about to dump offal on your lawn and then scooted in the direction of the bar.

  I didn’t see any of my people. I wondered why they were late. I was just about ready to call them when I saw Ben hurry into the lobby. He washed a hand across his face. He was sweating. He looked around anxiously. When he saw me he took a deep breath and hurried over.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. After I’ve had three or four drinks I will be, anyway.”

  I pulled him into the cloakroom. There would be reporters roaming the ballroom tonight. The program itself wouldn’t be much in the way of a story, but given the number of drinks that would be drunk tonight, a loose tongue just might give them a piece of gossip worthy of a lead story. I kept my voice low. “What happened?”

  Ben wiped his face with his handkerchief. He needed to pull himself together. “There was this guy.” He shook his head. “I was talking to Susan, going over this list of people she had to make time for tonight. The heavy rollers. There was a knock on the office door and I went to it and there was this guy standing there. Susan had her back to me. She was studying the list. But when she turned around—I don’t know how to describe it. I thought she was in shock or something. She just stared at him. And then he smiled at her. He scared her and he was enjoying it. All he said was, ‘I’ll talk to you later, babe.’ Babe. I couldn’t believe it. Who the hell calls Susan ‘babe’?”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Then he left. Just like that.”

  “What was Susan doing?”

  “Sitting down. She just went over to the green armchair and sort of collapsed into it. I asked her if she was all right and she said yes, but I could tell she wasn’t. She looked miserable—and scared. Then Kristin came back and she had notes she wanted to go over with Susan, so they got to work. It took a few minutes for Susan to be able to focus. But finally she got herself together as she worked with Kristin and then she finished up with me.”

  “And that was it?”

  “I wish. I told her I’d drive us to the hotel here. So we go outside—by this time it’s pretty much dark—and as we’re walking across the parking lot, there he is again.”

  “Same guy who knocked on the door?”

  “Right. He just walks out of nowhere and stands in front of us. He doesn’t look at me at all. Just stares at Susan. And then he says: ‘I need a couple of minutes with you, Susan. Alone.’ All she says is that she’s in a hurry. She was lucky to even say that. I could tell she was in shock again. She grabbed my arm and damned near broke it, she was squeezing so hard. I told him to get out of our way and started for him. Then he said: ‘Tell him about me, Susan. Tell him what I do to people.’ Then she kind of came out of it. Out of the shock, I mean. She said, ‘Ben, wait in the car, would you please?’ I started to say hell no I wouldn’t, but she shook her head and said that she’d be all right. She said, ‘This is something personal, Ben. And I need to handle it.’ So what could I do? I went over and got in my car. I kept watching them. I wanted to make sure he didn’t hurt her, physically, I mean. He’s a scary bastard.”

  “What’s he look like?”

  “Big, redheaded guy. Good-looking, I’ll give him that. But he’s rough. Everything about him is rough.”

  I thought of the bellhop’s description of the man who’d visited Monica Davies. This was the same man who’d visited Susan in the campaign office and who had accosted her in the parking lot.

  “What did she say when she got in the car?”

  “Quote: ‘I don’t want to talk about it. It’s personal, Ben, and I ask you to respect that.’ Unquote.”

  A man came to the doorway and helped his wife out of her evening coat, ending my conversation with Ben. We all smiled at each other the way people do in commercials. Ben and I went back to the lobby, where we saw a small woman with a TV camera mounted on her shoulder and a sterile blond reporter interviewing an attractive older woman standing next to her attractive older husband. He seemed pleased that his wife would be on TV.

  We went back into the ballroom. The tables were filling up. Black Velvet Elvis was doing a very nice arrangement of two Ricky Nelson songs. The front man could really sing.

  Because this was Ben’s territory he started table-hopping. He’d come to know the important people in district politics and he had to pay them their due. More TV toothpaste smiles.

  I was just about to go over and get myself a glass of pop from the bar when somebody stumbled into me from behind. I turned to find Kristin there.

  “Sorry, Dev. I tripped. I’m so upset I’m crazy.” Her blue eyes were frantic. She nodded to the lobby. “We need to talk.”

  There were two more reporters in the lobby. Local TV. They were interviewing anybody they could grab because most of the attendees were hurrying inside. The formal ceremonies would start in less than ten minutes.

  We found a shadowy corner next to a darkened gift shop.

  “
They have a little dressing room backstage. She’s in there and she won’t come out. She keeps telling me to go away.”

  So much for Susan’s ability to stay focused no matter what was going on around her.

  “Any chance she’ll come out in a few minutes?”

  “I asked her that three times now. She won’t answer. She just says to go away. And I have to pretty much whisper when I talk to her. There are a lot of people around backstage. They’ll pick up on everything if I talk any louder. And there’s press here. They’ll love this.”

  “How do we get backstage?”

  “C’mon. I’ll show you. I know a way without going through the ballroom.”

  The kitchen resembled a war zone. Shouting, bellowing. Men and women in various uniforms cooking, carrying trays, filling glasses, opening ovens, preparing salads, sampling soups, the enemy being a collective appetite that had to be fed and satisfied.

  A door in the far wall led to three steps that ended on the cusp of backstage. Black Velvet Elvis was just starting on a Fats Domino song in front of the curtain. I looked for press. The only people I saw had big plastic badges strung over their necks. They were with the campaign. But even so they weren’t paid staff. I didn’t trust them.

  There were stand-up microphones, flats, long tables, chairs. Probably most of the business here would be conventions and conferences.

  I said hello to a number of people as we walked slowly toward two doors near the back. One door read Stage Crew and the other said Private. Kristin knocked on the latter one. It was one of those apologetic little knocks.

  She didn’t get any answer.

  I put my ear to the door, listened. What I heard was the wrong kind of silence.

  “She’s gone.”

  “What? No way, Dev.”

  It was my turn to knock. No surprise, no response.

  I put my hand on the doorknob, twisted it, and pushed into the room. A long metal coatrack on wheels, two comfortable armchairs, a long dressing table with the standard bulbs around the circular mirror. The lights were off. The dressing room was empty.

  “Oh, shit,” Kristin said behind me.

  I didn’t see anybody backstage. Black Velvet Elvis was now on to Buddy Holly. Kristin had followed me out of the dressing room. She was on her cell phone asking Ben if Susan was by chance in the lobby. “He’ll go check. And I’ll go out front and keep looking.”

  At times like these, even though you like to think of yourself as a rational, sensible being, all the end-game fantasies start preying on your mind. Where was Susan? Maybe she was preparing her resignation speech, trying to beat the press to the revelation it would soon be sharing with the world. Might as well get it over with. Maybe sitting in a nearby bar right now scratching out her speech on note cards—she did everything on note cards—preparing herself for one final news release.

  She came from the west end of the stage. I got on my cell and let Ben and Kristin know I’d found her. She was small against the back of the looming curtains. She had her head down, didn’t see me until she was ten yards away. She looked composed but pale. “I suppose you were looking for me, Dev. And I suppose Kristin told you I wouldn’t let her into the dressing room. That was silly. I owe her an apology.” The smile was faked but fetching. “I just went out for some air and I didn’t want company.”

  I watched her carefully. Anxiety played in the gray gaze, but she managed to give the impression she was in control of herself.

  “We just wanted to be sure you were all right.”

  She laughed. “I have one mother already, isn’t that enough?”

  I walked with her to the dressing room. The door was still open. She walked inside and started to close it. Black Velvet Elvis had stopped playing. Somebody was addressing the audience. Telling jokes that weren’t getting great responses.

  I got as far as saying, “Susan, we really need to—”

  “I’ll see you in a little while, Dev,” she said. And closed the door.

  I went back to the ballroom and grabbed myself a scotch on the rocks. Kristin took my hand and led me around to meet numerous people. This was a good time for socializing. People were drinking but not yet drunk. The band started playing again, this time a series of Stones songs. An elderly man in a gold lamé evening jacket took Kristin to the dance floor and started bumping and grinding as she pretended not to notice. Every once in a while, though, she’d look over at me and smile and give me a helpless little shrug. If this guy got any more enthusiastic he was going to end up in traction. Then I saw her frown suddenly and I wondered why.

  As soon as I sensed somebody stepping up on my right side I knew what had caused Kristin to frown. Greg Larson had invaded our fund-raiser.

  Like his partner Monica Davies, Larson had come out of the entertainment business. He’d started life as a studio publicist but found gossip to be more fun and much more profitable. He wrote a syndicated column known for its nastiness and was frequently seen on talk shows with updates on anything that involved stars and scandals. He’d married three different aging stars and had managed to cadge a fair amount of change from each divorce. Eight years ago he’d turned his love of gossip toward politics and set up his own opposition research firm. He had connections all over the world and this made him especially valuable to politicians. He hired the usual suspects to do the grunt work of sifting through newspapers and other documents to dig up their kind of scandals while he practiced the kind of assaults that divorce detectives once did.

  There was a senatorial reelection campaign two years ago. A friend of mine was working with an Iraqi vet named Bill Potter who’d lost both of his legs in Baghdad. Potter was ahead in the campaign until his opponent signed on with Larson. Larson did his usual job. Potter’s father was a college professor who’d written a number of antiwar pieces. Potter’s brother was gay. And Larson dug up a high-school photo of Potter grinning and smoking a joint and giving somebody the finger. Then he discovered that he had been treated for post-traumatic stress syndrome after his second tour in Iraq. Larson came up with a commercial he called “Family Values”—Potter’s family—a pinko father, a queer brother, and a dope-smoking smart-ass who couldn’t handle a couple of tours in Iraq without needing some psychological help. So he’d lost a couple of legs—he was still a whiner and a candy ass. It was ugly and it worked. Larson’s man had started twenty points behind and ended up winning by nine points.

  “Nice crowd.”

  “It was till you got here, Larson.”

  “Aw, still bitter about that commercial, are you?”

  Larson had the look of a Wall Street CEO, one whose fleshy body needed a lot more time in the gym and a lot less time at the table. But he had the hard good looks and the silver-gray hair that kept him dominant even in the company of younger men—younger men more ruthless than he was.

  “Heard you were in town and just thought I’d stop by to say hello.”

  In idle moments I’d had many daydreams of smashing his face in. Back when I was in army intelligence and investigating the sins of various officers I frequently met Larson’s type. They were usually West Pointers and they were convinced of their superiority based on little more than that they knew the secret handshake of that institution. Their weapon was the sneer. To question them was to challenge them as they had not been challenged since they’d graduated. They would always bring up West Point at the first opportunity and commiserate with me because I’d never had the privilege of attending there myself. Putting me in my place, of course. I’d had a lot of daydreams of smashing them in the face, too.

  “You always wear a dinner jacket?”

  “Believe it or not, I’ve got a dinner party to go to tonight. It’ll be a little higher class than this, Conrad, but I have to admit I haven’t seen any of your guests eating with their hands yet. So I’m impressed.”

  He hadn’t stopped just to say hello. We’d had too many near fistfights for him to be comfortable. One night in Chicago I’d gone so far as to th
row him up against a wall. We had both been pretty drunk. Both staffs had jumped between us, stopping the fun.

  “You haven’t seen Monica around here tonight, have you?”

  “Monica? What the hell would she be doing here?”

  For once he’d dropped his drollery. “There’s something going on. I don’t know what it is yet, but it’s got me worried.”

  “Why would I care what happens to you and Monica?”

  The smirk was back. “Because, old boy, your people may be involved in it, too.”

  But I was sick of him now and his game, whatever it was.

  “Hold this,” I said, pushing my empty glass into his hand and walking away quickly. It is small victories like this that make life worthwhile.

  Around ten o’clock, after the dinner and the speeches, the band started playing again and Kristin forced me onto the dance floor. For fast songs I have invented a series of miniature movements that to the casual eye seem to be what you could call dancing. But if you look carefully you’ll see that I’m actually standing in one place and cleverly using elbows and hips to fool any dance critics who might be looking on.

  “C’mon, Dev, move around a little. Look at me.”

  I was looking at her, which was a pleasure. That cap of gorgeous red hair and the slash of grin and the lithe body moving sinuously to the music. Since I’m neither pretty nor sinuous, I kept on dancing the only way I knew how. Stiff middle-aged white man gets his groove on.

  Neither of us could go for much longer than thirty seconds without looking to the center of the floor where Susan was dancing. A long line of men had queued up to be the congresswoman’s brief partner. Each of them got about a fourth of the song. She could really dance. Apparently, all her nights in clubs had taught her well. The TV people loved it. So did the guests with digital cameras. As long as we could see her, we were happy. She wasn’t going to wander off without giving me the talk I deserved, as to just what the hell was going on.

  Susan had competition in the form of her stepmother. Natalie had an even longer line of beaus, and where Susan was dancing just for fun, Natalie was putting on a show. In her mauve cocktail dress, her dark hair and makeup flawless, she was one of those absolutely perfect middle-aged women gerontologists are awed by. She was here to show the younger ones how to do it.