Authors: Janice Weber
Fausto’s cold fingers brushed my throat as he pinned it on. I had to admire his choice of weapons: gems and music. “Do you
think I need luck?”
“No.” He was so quiet en route to Aurilla’s that I almost asked if he had taken any tranquilizers. But I kept my mouth shut,
just in case he was thinking about his piano part: Duncan always did his most earnest practicing half a mile before show time.
Besides, sympathy was useless now.
He looked over. “Sorry I was a little testy before. Thanks for asking me to play with you. You took a huge risk.”
I was still taking it. “So did you.”
“No matter what happens, I want you to know that you gave me a very happy week.” He kissed my hand. “I’ll never forget that.”
As his skin touched mine I heard soft, ecstatic laughter from a faraway place. I almost asked him to pull over and kiss me
again, on the mouth, but that was a dangerous thing to do to your accompanist before a debut performance. So I merely smiled.
We left the Corvette with a valet outside Aurilla’s mansion. Since my last visit, her gardeners had planted asters along the
front walk. Brass doorknobs gleamed in the fading light. The place looked more like a movie set than ever. “I wonder what
she did with Gretchen,” I said.
Fausto rang the doorbell. “Let’s hope she’s upstairs in a straitjacket.”
A maid led us to the concert room, a cream and brocade extravaganza about the size of Fausto’s but with more chairs. I placed
the Saint-Saëns on an ornate music stand. “Sure you don’t want to run through anything?”
“Absolutely not. Bad luck.”
“Where’s the green room?” I asked the maid. “Where musicians hang out beforehand. A room with a toilet.” She didn’t know what
I was talking about: obviously Aurilla didn’t sponsor many musicales. I gave her my violin. “Put that upstairs. Keep the door
locked.”
Fausto handed the maid a stack of lavishly printed programs, instructing her to place one on each chair. We were shown to
the backyard, where two dozen guests were tanking up at a canopied bar. No manicured fund-raising crowd, this. Aurilla’s crew
was scruffier and deadlier, the Gamblers Anonymous who had helped her arrive and were prepared to sacrifice everything for
a few asterisks in the best-seller that would hit the bookstores in a few years. Aurilla, in a gold-white-black pants suit,
looked every ounce the queen bee. Drone Bendix stood at her side, collecting handshakes and collusion. The two of them looked
triumphant as newlyweds. Fausto leaned over my ear. “I don’t play
Pomp and Circumstance.
Neither do you.”
We paid our respects. “Fausto! I’m finally able to reciprocate for all your breakfasts.” Aurilla gushing was like an iceberg
melting. “We’re so looking forward to the program.”
She wouldn’t be hearing one note. “How’s Gretchen?” I asked.
A nanosecond of dead air: who the hell was
that?
“Very well.” Aurilla excused herself to speak with some real guests.
Bendix kissed my hand. “I haven’t seen that brooch in a while, Fausto.”
“Over thirty years since Ethel wore it. Just think.”
Whatever the memory, it wasn’t pleasant. Bendix turned to me. “What’s on the program tonight, Leslie?”
“This and that. Easy listening.” Gad, I needed a drink.
“Nervous, Fausto?”
“Hell no. I’m looking forward to it.”
Bendix eyed his old friend. “You won’t be dancing on top of the piano, will you?” he asked, only half joking.
“Not yet,” Fausto replied.
Very few words later, Bendix excused himself. “He smells something,” I said.
“Good! He should!”
Whatever their game, I was obviously not included. “I hope you’re having fun,” I snapped. “I’m not.”
“Hold on, sweet. The evening’s young.” Fausto dredged a shrimp through cocktail sauce. It was almost in his mouth when he
spied someone across the patio. “My God! What’s she doing here?”
A zaftig redhead, highball in hand, backed away from the bar and into an elderly man, spilling his drink. Something about
her looked familiar. “Who’s that?”
“Jojo Bailey’s girlfriend.” Fausto watched her mop tomato juice off the man’s tie. “Myrna Block. Maybe she’s trawling for
a new job.”
Ah: that rear end. I had seen it before, in one of the photos Barnard had taken at the environmental conference in Belize.
“How long have they been an item?”
“Years. She’s one of Jojo’s staff. He doesn’t go anywhere without her.”
“What about his wife?”
“She’s a psychiatrist. Can’t afford to leave her patients alone too long or they might get better.” Lifting a cigarette from
an antique gold case, Fausto explained that the old man was New Jersey senator Phil Pixley. Although Pixley had served seven
terms with absolutely no distinction, he had been Aurilla’s first ally in the Senate, so she owed him a few favors before
dropping him. Pixley had just gotten himself reelected for the eighth time by eloping, after sixty years of bachelorhood,
with a Latina beauty queen on Halloween night. The Hispanics all voted for him and it was too late for the gays to withdraw
their support without looking petty. “Typical Washington marriages. Damn, I could use a drink.”
“You’re abstaining on my account? I’m flattered.”
Fausto exhaled at the stars. “I don’t want to let you down. Hello, Wallace. Nice party you’ve thrown together here.”
Aurilla’s aide-de-camp smiled. One hundred degrees outside and she was still wearing a poplin suit and stockings. Technically
I suppose she was still at the office. “We’re so glad you could come.” After shaking my hand, she looked anxiously across
the yard at her mistress. “Excuse me.”
“That’s Aurilla’s rottweiler,” Fausto informed me.
“She looks like a hamster.”
“Precisely. Oh God, look what just sailed in.”
Vicky Chickering and partner Rhoby Hall. Chickering had dressed for the occasion in one of her flashier tents and plenty of
Indian jewelry. She lingered on the porch, wrapping up a cell phone call, while Rhoby fetched drinks. “Bestowing Paula’s blessing?”
I asked Fausto as they headed toward the hostess.
“Of course. Aurilla’s toast without the First Lady behind her. Look out, here they come.” Fausto flicked his cigarette into
the hedges. “Hello, ladies. How’s that traffic jam at the White House, Chickie?”
“Moving right along.”
Rhoby took my hand. She was a healthy brunette maybe half Chickie’s age and weight. Like her consort, she wore no makeup;
unlike her consort, she didn’t need any. Her skintight black pants suit revealed muscle rather than curve. I guessed she ran
sixty miles a week and hadn’t menstruated since Christmas. “I’m Rhoby Hall. I’m really looking forward to the program tonight.
I used to play the cello.”
“You still play,” Chickering corrected. “Very well, too.”
“In that case, we’ll read a few trios someday,” Fausto said. “I’ve got all the music.”
“Oh no! I couldn’t! I’m not that good!”
“Yes you are,” Chickering corrected again. “Stop apologizing. They’ll play with you.”
“Victoria, please. I can handle this myself.” Rhoby’s smile returned when she looked at me. “What’s on the program? Aurilla’s
kept everything so hush-hush.”
“Saint-Saëns, Wieniawski, Hubay, and a surprise.”
“Uh-oh,” Chickering clucked, pausing in whatever she was scribbling in the little notepad around her neck. “Your idea, Fausto?”
He only smiled. “Bendix’s.”
Rhoby forced her eyes away from either Fausto’s brooch or my cleavage. “Have you two played together before?”
“No. Tonight’s our debut.”
“Gad! Are you nervous?”
“Terrified.”
She couldn’t tell whether or not Fausto was joking. “Well, I think it’s wonderful Aurilla invited you to play,” Rhoby continued.
“To tell the truth, I wouldn’t have come otherwise.”
Chickering’s frown now involved her entire face. “Is that a fact? I wish you had told me earlier.”
“Victoria, stop it. You’re such a wet blanket.”
Chickering’s glare could have sparked a forest fire. “Excuse us,” she commanded, steering Rhoby toward the hedges.
I watched them commence a peppery dialogue. “Rhoby must be the only person in Washington not terrified of the old girl.”
“That’s why the old girl needs her. Poor Chickering. One blessed day she’s going to pay for that weakness.” He lifted a snail
from a passing platter. “Everyone does sooner or later. Desire is the ticket to destruction.”
I looked calmly at his round eyes. “What do you desire?”
“The most impossible prize of all, darling. Time.” He chuckled. “You?”
I looked over the lawn full of dedicated, desirous people, all closing in on that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Too
many of them had the suicidally exultant look of skiers zipping downhill ten feet ahead of an avalanche. “I don’t want anything.”
“You do realize that wanting nothing is the greatest desire of all. Fortunately I don’t believe you.” His fingertips brushed
my cheek. “And you’re blushing.”
His darts were landing a little too close so I went inside to check on my violin. The frazzled maid sent me upstairs with
a key ring and instructions to open the first door on my left. I obeyed, only to interrupt Chickering deep in discussion with
Wallace. They were probably hashing out seating plans at Aurilla’s swearing-in. Chickering broke off in midsentence, glaring
as I said, “Excuse me. The maid told me first door on my left. I’m just checking my violin.”
“It’s across the hall,” Wallace said pleasantly. “Can you find it?”
Duh, I think so. “Sorry.”
My Strad lay unharmed on a chaise longue. Someone familiar with backstages had provided water, fruit, and extra toilet paper.
Didn’t see Gretchen under the bed with a blow torch so I returned downstairs. Fausto was chatting nebulously with strangers.
I huddled at his side like a chick with mother hen. Soon the dinner bell drew everyone to a pale peach room where round tables
floated like gigantic lily pads beneath a chandeliered sky. Nine pieces of silverware and three goblets outfitted each Limoges
plate. Bouquets and candlesticks vied for the remaining open space. Beneath portraits of illustrious Perles, Aurilla’s butlers
awaited her signal to empty the kitchen.
“Impressed?” I asked my accompanist.
“Worth the trip.”
We were busted to musicians’ ghetto in the darkest corner along with the other least consequential guests, namely Myrna Block,
Senator and Mrs. Pixley, and a Mr. Tanqueray Tougaw, all of whom seemed quite drunk already. Poor Myrna could not blather
three sentences without crying, but her social status was about to go six feet under with Jojo. Pixley sported quite a tomato
splotch on his tie. His twentyish bride Pila was insulted to be seated next to Tougaw, a black man wearing twice as much gold
as she. Twice Pila told a butler that there must be some mistake, then settled into a loud pout with her martini. Tougaw I
couldn’t place. Maybe he was a cricket player.
After introductions and a toast, Tougaw got things off to a rocky start by asking Myrna how Jojo was feeling. “Horrible,”
she wept, not at all indignant that a complete stranger knew about her liaison with the vice president. “He’s unrecognizable.”
“Now now,” consoled Pixley, donating his handkerchief. “Nothing you can do about these tropical diseases. Everybody down there
catches ’em.”
“One day he was fine,” Myrna sobbed. Her curls and breasts shook when she blew her nose. “Just a little headache from the
heat. A few aspirin and it went away. He made a terrific speech. Next day he was still fine except for another headache. But
he had made every meeting on the agenda. Next day he was sick as a dog. I don’t understand.”
“You catch de dengue from de mosquito,” Tougaw said in a lovely tropical drawl. I lost my breath, momentarily flung into a
writhing jungle.
“Everyone knows how you catch it,” Myrna snapped. “Why did one have to bite Jojo?”
“He mus’ have de sweetes’ skin.” Smiling at his brilliant deduction, Tougaw lifted his glass. “To a fine gen’leman. May his
suffrin’ soon be ovah.”
Pixley shook his head as Myrna fled the table. “She’s a nice girl but none too bright. Headaches from the heat, my foot. Bailey
was sloshed from the beginning to end of that conference. He could have been bitten by a tiger and not felt it.”
Tougaw looked up from his chestnut soup. “You were dere?”
“Of course.” Pixley puffed like an adder. “I’m the number one environmentalist on the Hill.”
“You’re the oldest one, at any rate.” Pila Pixley drained her glass as if it contained Kool-Aid.
“Jojo got his green conscience from me,” her husband continued after a generous little laugh. “I knew his daddy from the minute
he came to Washington. Now there was an outstanding public servant. One of the best secretaries of state we ever had.”
That explained Jojo’s refuge in the bottle and perhaps Louis’s refuge in the jungle. Two tables away, Rhoby Hall beamed at
me. “So politics runs in the family?” I asked.
“Absolutely. Old Bailey intended to be president himself. Ironic that Jojo, who’s a mere shadow of his father, would get within
a heartbeat. Ah well. It’s all a crap shoot.”
“How amazing that Jojo alone got dengue,” I said. “Considering all the people who went to the conference with him.”
“Madame is missing of information,” Tougaw broke in. “Dere be two more suffrin’ as we speak. But we do not read of dem in
American newspapahs. Dey be Belizean schoolgirls who performed one afternoon.”
Right: Barnard had taken a picture of Paula Marvel and the obligatory dancing locals. “They were so cute,” Pixley cried. “Why
didn’t I hear of this before?”
“They don’t vote,” his wife sniffed. “Will they die, too?”
“Dey are younger,” Tougaw said diplomatically. “Stronger.”
Pixley whipped out his gold pen. “What are their names? We’ll send flowers.”
“Babette and Iris Auclair.” Tougaw paused as a waiter removed his soup. “Dey stay at Dr. Tatal’s dengue ward in Belize City.
Sain’ Elizabet’. It is de place to go for dese sicknesses.”
Obviously news of Tatal’s death had not yet made it to Washington. My heart skittered into my throat as Fausto said, “Are
you a friend of hers, Mr. Tougaw?”