Authors: Dale Wiley
“Your secret’s safe with me.” He winked conspiratorially.
I wondered for a second if it really was. If he wound up
feeling jealous about Tabitha and me—not knowing I was hot for her best
friend—he might, government phobia or not, decide that jail was the right place
for me after all.
Tabitha sensed this too. “Dennis, next weekend let’s have a
little get-together. On me.” I caught the double entendre even if he didn’t. He
was probably too busy staring at her boobs. His look changed, he shook my hand
again—this time happily rather than sullenly—and turned, practically stumbling
out of the door.
I looked at Tabitha, trying to keep all of the twelve very
confused emotions I was feeling out of my face. It apparently didn’t work. She
turned away and walked to the far side of the bed.
“That’s what I do,” Tabitha said. “Dennis is a cocky, fat,
well-paid saboteur, who doesn’t have an ethical bone in his body, and I screw
his brains out at least once a week.”
My stomach tightened. Once a week? I chose my words
carefully. “If it’s any consolation,” I said, having no idea if it was the
right thing to say, “he really likes you. I could tell immediately.”
“Of course he does. I’m the only woman in Washington DC who
would let that goon within a mile of me.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed, close enough she could
touch me if she wanted to, but still giving her some room. She was just as
confused as I was, and I realized I had put her in just as much danger. That
realization—that I had now risked more than my own worthless neck—was almost
enough to bring tears. God, I had become so weepy! Despite Dennis, despite all
the other logical reasons why I should get the hell away, I was beginning to
like Tabitha as a human being, and I had put her in a position to be exposed,
jailed, or killed. I turned slightly away from her, really feeling low.
“What?” Tabitha said immediately.
“I don’t know … Everything. You. This.”
She straightened her back and her eyes narrowed. “I don’t
need any …”
“No,” I said quickly. “Not that. I’ve put you in an
extremely vulnerable position.”
Her face softened, and she looked down at her hands. “I’m
okay … I’ve kind of enjoyed it.”
I chuckled. I started to speak, probably destined to say
something silly, then stopped and just looked at her.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“I was thinking while you were working with Dennis. We have
Daedalus, the post office box, and Helper’s mysterious trust. Now we’ve gotta
tell somebody.”
“But not the police,” Tabitha said in a tone which said she
still thought I ought to talk to them.
I shook my head. “They’ll give me the Rodney King treatment
for sure. And anyway, they’ve taken all of their leads in this case from the
press. We need somebody to write our story. I don’t think at this point I trust
anybody to call them up and invite them over; that’s too risky. We’ve gotta
catch them off-guard and make them believe us.
“The guy we ought to get is Greer, since he’s writing the
Post
’s
stories, but …” My mind took off, and Tabitha just stared at me, so I filled
her in. I told her about Gerald Greer, about his arts column, and, most
importantly, about the rumor concerning him and his proclivity for chasing ass
at the Hawk and Dove. “As hot as you are,” I said, praying my flattery would
work, “it won’t be any trouble for you to get him back here.”
She smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear. “And what if
he’s not there?”
“We make sure he is. I’ll call the
Post
, get a hold
of Greer, tell him I’ve got a lead, and have him meet us someplace. When I
don’t show up, you close the deal and bring him back.”
Tabitha twirled her hair and considered this. “What if he
won’t come?”
I shrugged my shoulders and glanced at her again. “I really
think he’ll come with you. And if not, we’re no worse off than we are now.”
Tabitha agreed.
There was one other thing. “Is there anything we can do
about Stephanie?” I asked, trying to keep my face blank.
She smiled. “I knew you were going to ask about that … I
don’t know.”
“But we don’t want her out with the police helping them
catch me …”
“But …”
“And we do want her to realize I’m innocent …” I tried the
sad puppy-dog look that worked on occasion with my mom.
“I don’t want to drag her into this.”
“You also don’t want her to foil our plans.”
“No, Trent. She’ll find out the truth when it’s over.”
She wasn’t going to budge.
This made me sad but not sad enough not to start looking for
something we could use to tie up Greer.
Tabitha stopped me. “Don’t go slitting bed sheets. I’ll just
call the office and have them send something over.”
I probably looked like my eyes were crossed.
“Bondage equipment,” said Tabitha. “Some people like it.”
I shrugged and decided not to prod further.
Tabitha made several phone calls—first to her office to get
the bondage stuff and then room service for some Chinese food for dinner. While
she was talking, my mind was racing faster than my stomach.
One of my greatest flaws is that, with very little prodding,
I will plan some event or project well into the next century. So while Tabitha
lay down on the bed and rested, I was planning the seduction of Gerald Greer.
He would come, he wouldn’t take much coaxing, and he would agree to help us.
No, he would resist, and we would have to point the gun at him and tie him up.
Somewhere in between? I didn’t know, but I ran all of the scenarios while
watching the beginnings of rush hour and wishing no one wanted me dead.
I snapped myself out of self-pity and called the
Post
on Tabitha’s cell phone. After three different operators, I finally got to
speak to Greer, who was down in the news department instead of at his desk in
features. I knew he was loving his new status as the most important reporter on
a very important newspaper.
While I was waiting, I firmed up my story. I had information
for him. If he asked me for details to prove the validity of my material, I was
going to tell him a little about the burglary I had reported. That way, it
would make it look like I had something to do with the police department.
“Greer,” he said into the phone.
I rolled my eyes. I knew I wasn’t going to like this guy.
For an opening to a phone conversation, instead of the traditional, “Hello?”
this guy said, “Greer.” Oh boy.
“I’ve got some information about the Norris case.” I had
thought about calling it the Timmons case, but I allowed myself this much
hubris. Suddenly, I had cold feet, wondering if journalists ever really got
calls like this.
Well, if they didn’t, they at least dreamed of it, because
Greer jumped at the bait.
“Yeah?” he said, sounding more excited than he probably
wanted to.
“Yeah.”
He sounded like he was ready to get out his pencil and quote
me but then remembered himself.
“How do I know this isn’t just a prank?”
I paused for a minute to make him think about all of this,
and then told him all about the report I had given the police about the
burglary, and he seemed pleased. I told him to meet me at The Tombs, a
Georgetown pub, at nine-thirty. I told him I would recognize him from his
picture in the paper. He told me he had lost weight. I didn’t believe him.
The food arrived about the same time as the bondage kit. I
was in the closet for both arrivals, of course, and was pleasantly surprised
both times. Especially with the bondage kit. Tabitha told me it was officially
known as a “B and D” kit, which meant bondage and discipline. The intention was
not only to hurt the person, I surmised, but to humiliate them as well, while
wearing a leather dress and brandishing a bullwhip. Our kit came with these
items and much more. There were half a dozen sets of police-quality handcuffs,
arm and leg restraints, and lots of little painful-looking clamps. The way
Tabitha carefully picked over things, I didn’t think she had a lot of
experience.
“Do you … do … a lot of this?” I grimaced.
“A bit. They make you learn how to use the whip, just in
case, but I think they figure you can figure out the rest if you need to.” She
told me there were women who specialized in humiliating people, and this left
the others free to ply their own specialties. I wondered what her specialties
were, but I didn’t dare ask. I kept quiet and ate an egg roll.
I hadn’t caught a fresh newscast since early that morning,
so I turned the TV to one of the local stations. “A new development in the
Trent Norris case arose this morning,” said a sandy-haired, cross-eyed man, who
read the news painfully slowly. They showed Morris’s press conference but cut
him off after he said, “I was afraid he would kill me.” People who didn’t watch
the entire press conference didn’t get to hear how nice I was or how he had
thanked me. But the anchor ended the piece by saying I had called myself
Leonard.
Tabitha could see I was seething. She glanced around the
room and over toward the closet, where all of the costumes were hanging. “I
guess I should go to The Tombs.” I nodded, and she ran with her bag into the
bathroom. A minute later she emerged wearing a green blouse and a new pair of
jeans.
“You look really nice,” I said. “You look good in green.”
Knowing nothing else to say, I pulled out that day’s copy of the
Post
and showed her Greer’s picture one last time. She nodded, prodded me for some
of the senator’s money, said goodbye and once again left me to my own
imagination.
Twenty-Three
L
ater Tabitha told me what happened on
her journey. She took a cab to The Tombs, which, not surprisingly, is dark and
subterranean. The walls are lined with rowing memorabilia, and it was one of my
favorite bars in DC. She got there about 9:20 and pulled up a chair at the bar.
She informed me she was hit on by several preppies—which didn’t surprise me—and
she let me know one was enough of a hunk’a’man that she was very pissed she had
to brush him off in order to keep the Greer watch.
Greer, she said, was already there when she arrived, wanting
everyone to know he wasn’t going to be alone long. He looked at his watch and
kept glancing at the door, all to no avail. Tabitha said she made her move
about twenty-’til-ten, believing that Greer no longer thought his source was
coming. She looked and smiled at him from the bar and then looked away. When
she turned her head back, he was still looking. She walked slowly to his table
and sat down.
“I see your picture in the paper,” she began. “You write for
the
Post
.”
She said she expected Greer to be surprised at being
recognized, but it didn’t seem to faze him. The
Post
is widely-enough
read that people probably said that every day.
“Gerald Greer.” He extended his hand.
Couldn’t this guy just say hello?
She told him her name was Lisa, and they struck up a
conversation. She said at first, Greer kept looking over his shoulder, still
hoping his source would arrive, but soon gave up and concentrated on her. She
told him she worked in New York and was in town on business, staying at the
Watergate. This impressed him, and he heaped on the compliments. At five after
ten, she asked him if he’d like to escort her back to her hotel, and by
ten-fifteen, the cab Greer had ordered had arrived.
While she was busy travelling around Washington saving my
ass, I cleaned up the room enough that she could get him in it without our prey
getting overly suspicious. This didn’t take as long as I expected, so I sat
down and read the answers to Trivial Pursuit questions, determined to win a
rematch with Tabitha if one occurred. Then I sat down at the table to try and
make some notes about how I was feeling, on the off chance I would survive this
whole mess.
But nothing important was written by the time I heard
Tabitha giggle and let her body slam against the door, our sign for her
re-entry. I almost forgot I had placed the gun on the nightstand next to the
bed, and now I scrambled to palm it as I moved into the closet. I closed the
mirrored door almost all the way and listened. In a moment, she quit fumbling
with the card key, and let herself in, giggling like she was fall-over drunk.
He was laughing too, a rather high, surprising laugh.
Tabitha told me she would say, “Goodness me!” when she was
ready for me to spring from my lair. I crouched nervously, accustomed enough to
the dark to see the box of bondage equipment and the rows of costumes which
hung in the gargantuan closet. She was trying to get Greer comfortable, into a
somewhat compromising position before I sprang, so we would have both surprise
and fear on our side. She continued with the coy, half-sexual talk, which I
knew must be the tools of her trade. She poured him a drink from the mini-bar
and brought it over to him.
This was my first glimpse of the man himself. His hair and
his beard were short and prickly, and he was wearing a black turtleneck, which
accentuated his gut, and loafers but no socks.
“Any idea where the intern might be?” asked Tabitha, sitting
on the other side of Greer and fixing his collar.
Greer looked at her for a second, deciding if he should say
anything. Then he looked at Tabitha again and decided this was too good of an
opportunity to pass up. “I’ve heard two reports. One has him up somewhere in
Boston, hiding out with old college friends, and another has him somewhere in
Alexandria.”
“Which one do the police believe?”
“The one about Virginia. I kind of agree. I don’t think he
could get far. He’s Public Enemy Number One.”
“Do you really think he did it?” Tabitha asked.
“Yeah,” Greer said. “I do. Don’t have the foggiest idea why,
unless this kid was so into the idea of the NEA that he couldn’t stand the
thought of Timmons voting against it.”