D.C. Dead

22

Stone, Dino, and Shelley turned up at Fair Sutherlin’s place fashionably late; they were the first ones there. Fair lived in a small, elegant apartment building on a broad avenue near Dupont Circle, and her space, its furnishings and pictures indicated an income of which her government salary was but a small part.

As Dino was introducing Shelley, two other couples arrived, and before those introductions had been made there were six couples present, including a network anchorman, a columnist for the Washington Post, and a right-wing Republican senator, each with a wife in tow. Everybody was terribly glad to see everybody else.

A young man in a white jacket took drink orders, and a young woman in a white jacket poured champagne for those who did not have another choice. They drank for forty minutes, then someone opened a pair of sliding doors, and the twelve took seats around a long, beautifully set table.

“Fair,” the senator’s wife said, “I don’t know how you have amassed so many beautiful things in your short life.”

“By the deaths of my parents and all four of my grandparents,” Fair replied. “I’m an only child, and I have three very complete sets of china, silver, and crystal, in opposing patterns. By the way, since Stone, Dino, and Shelley are new at my table, I should tell them about my one rule: no politics will be discussed.”

There were murmurs of assent, then there was complete silence for a little more than a minute.

“How ’bout those Redskins,” the anchorman offered.

“Not until next month,” Fair said.

The senator spoke up. “Stone, Dino, tell us about how your investigation is going.”

“First of all, Senator,” Stone said, “I am not shocked that you know about our investigation. Second, as you must know, we can’t discuss it before we have made our final report to the president, and maybe not even then.”

The columnist gave a snort. “I would imagine that the collective knowledge about your investigation by those present at this table amounts to very nearly everything you have learned so far. For instance, I hear that you had a conversation with the notorious Milly Hart yesterday.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that,” Stone said, “but I would be interested to know why she is notorious.”

“Because she’s a high-priced hooker,” Dino said.

The table made an affirmative noise.

“What is Ms. Hart’s story?” Stone asked the columnist.

“Well, let’s see if I can encapsulate it in one short paragraph,” the man said. “Well-brought-up girl comes to Washington and works for an important senator, one Gerald Hart, of Virginia; marries senator; senator dies, leaving a widow surprised that he left her so little; senator’s federal pension is insufficient to keep widow in style to which she has become accustomed; then someone offers her funds to tide her over, affection presumed; then someone else offers, and pretty soon widow is living stylishly again.”

“I hear Milly has a stylish clientele, too,” the anchorman’s wife said.

“Was Brix Kendrick among them?” the columnist’s wife asked, directing her question to Stone.

“You tell us,” Stone said, “please. We’re new in town.”

“Frankly,” said the anchorman, “I don’t know how Brix could afford her, on his White House salary.”

The senator grinned. “Perhaps someone should audit Brix’s books at the White House,” he said, pointing his fork at Fair. “After all, he reigned over a considerable budget. My committee has seen the numbers.”

“Senator,” Fair said, “the audit has already been done, and everything was in apple-pie order.”

“Apple pie can be messy,” the senator replied.

“Not our apple pie,” Fair said.

“Oh, that’s right,” the senator said. “Will Lee is notoriously proper about budgets.”

“And notoriously transparent, too,” Fair responded.

“No skeletons in that closet, then,” the senator admitted.

“Well,” said the columnist, “not the budgetary closet, anyway. There are, of course, other closets, and upright, dull Brix was, apparently, occupying a crowded one.”

That got a laugh from the table.

“I should think,” the senator’s wife said, “that that would make Brix neither upright nor dull. I can’t imagine how a man of his age could manage so well.” She shot a meaningful glance at her husband across the table, and he looked uncomfortable.

“Someone has pointed out to me,” Stone said, “that, at fifty-one, Brix’s age, half of American males are experiencing erectile dysfunction. Has it occurred to anyone that Brix might be among the other half? Or perhaps among an even smaller percentage who are raging bulls at that age?”

“Hugh Hefner is in his eighties,” Fair said, “and he seems to be holding up well.”

The senator snorted. “All that guy has to do is lie still,” he said, “and they do it for him.”

The anchorman laughed. “I hope I can lie that still when I’m his age.”

“I hope so, too, dear,” his wife said.

Shelley spoke up. “Would anyone care to hazard a guess as to who else is on Milly Hart’s preferred list?”

“At least one senator, I hear,” the columnist said, raising his eyebrows in the direction of the senator present.

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“I wouldn’t know about that,” the senator said. “And even if I did, senate cloakroom gossip is privileged.”

“Only if we can’t pry it out of you,” Fair said.

Everybody laughed.

“He’s apparently right,” his wife said. “He won’t even tell me what’s said in that cloakroom.”

“I recall,” the columnist said, “that Warren G. Harding, when he was a senator, is alleged to have impregnated a young woman on a sofa in that cloakroom.”

“That the young woman was impregnated by Warren G. is not in doubt, though the geography in question is a little hazy. I think that information,” the senator said, “was traced to the young woman herself, though she may have embroidered her story for effect. It did not come from one of Senator Harding’s colleagues, though.”

Everyone moved back to the living room for coffee, and Stone asked Fair for the powder room.

“I believe it’s occupied,” Fair said, “but use my bathroom.” She pointed to a door.

Stone opened it and found himself in a very feminine bedroom. He crossed it and found the bath, and while he stood at the toilet, he could not keep himself from opening the medicine chest on the wall before his nose. He found prescription bottles for a painkiller, a sleeping pill, and a couple he did not recognize.

Also, he was intrigued to find a clear plastic case containing four lipsticks, the same brand that he had been told about by Shelley, apparently part of a promotion, none of which was Pagan Spring. There was, however, an empty space in the case. One lipstick had been removed.

He stopped by her dressing table on his way back to the living room, but found no Pagan Spring there, either. He was, he reflected, going to have to make a trip to a drugstore.