Absolute Power

Chapter Ten

Bill Burton was sitting in the White House Secret Service command post. He slowly put down the newspaper, his third of the morning. Each carried a follow-up account of the murder of Christine Sullivan. The facts were virtually the same as the initial stories. Apparently there were no new developments.

He had talked to Varney and Johnson. At a cookout over the weekend at his place. Just him, Collin and their two fellow agents. The guy had been in the vault, seen the President and the Mrs. The man had come out, knocked out the President, killed the lady and gotten away despite the best efforts of Burton and Collin. That story didn’t exactly match the actual sequence of events that night but both men had unfailingly accepted Burton’s version of the occurrence. Both men had also expressed anger, indignation that anyone had laid a hand on the man they were dedicated to protect. The perp deserved what was coming to him. No one would hear of the President’s involvement from them.

After they had left, Burton had sat in his backyard sipping a beer. If they only knew. The trouble was, he did. An honest man his entire life, Bill Burton did not savor his new role as prevaricator.

Burton swallowed his second cup of coffee and checked his watch. He poured himself another cup and looked around the White House Secret Service quarters.

He had always wanted to be a member of an elite security force, protecting the most important individual on the planet: the quiet resourcefulness, strength and intelligence of the Secret Service agent, the close camaraderie. The knowledge that at any moment you would be expected to and in fact would sacrifice your life for that of another man, for the benefit of the common good, made for a supremely noble act in a world more and more devoid of anything remotely virtuous. All that had allowed Agent William James Burton to get up with a smile each morning and sleep soundly at night. Now that feeling was gone. He had simply done his job, and the feeling was gone. He shook his head, sneaked a quick smoke.

Sitting on a keg of dynamite. That’s what they all were doing. The more Gloria Russell explained it to him, the more impossible he thought it was.

The car had been a disaster. Very discreet inquiries had traced it directly to the goddamned D.C. police impoundment lot. That was too dangerous to push. Russell had been pissed. But let her be. She said she had this under control. Bullshit.

He folded up the paper, placed it neatly away for the next agent.

Fuck Russell. The more Burton thought about it the madder he became. But it was too late to go back now. He touched the left side of his jacket. His .357, filled with cement, along with Collin’s 9mm, was at the bottom of the Severn River at the most remote point they could find. To most perhaps an unnecessary precaution, but to Burton, no precaution was unnecessary. The police had one useless slug and would never find the other. Even if they could, the barrel on his new pistol would be squeaky clean. Burton wasn’t worried about the ballistics department of the local Virginia police bringing him down.

Burton hung his head as the events of that night raced through his mind. The President of the United States was an adulterer who had roughed up his lay for the night so badly she had tried to kill him and Agents Burton and Collin had to blow her away.

And then they had covered it all up. That’s what made Burton wince every time he looked in the mirror. The coverup. They had lied. By their silence they had lied. But hadn’t he lied all this time? All these late-night trysts? When he greeted the First Lady each morning? When he played with their two kids on the rear lawn? Not telling them that her husband and their father was not nearly so nice and kind and good as they probably believed he was. As the whole country believed he was.

The Secret Service. Burton grimaced. It was an apt title for an unlikely reason. The crap he had seen going on over the years. And Burton had looked the other way. Every agent had, at one time or another. They all joked or complained about it in private, but that was all. That particular, if unwelcome, function came with the job. Power made people crazy; it made them feel invincible. And when something bad happened it was the working stiffs of the Secret Service who were expected to clean up the mess.

Several times Burton had picked up the phone to call the Director of the Secret Service. Tell him the whole story, try to cut his losses. But each time he had put the phone back down, unable to say the words that would end his career and, in essence, his life. And with each passing day, Burton’s hopes grew a little brighter that it might all blow over, even though his common sense told him that could not possibly happen. Now it was too late to tell the truth, he felt. Calling in a day or two later with the story might be explained away, but not now.

His thoughts turned back to the investigation of Christine Sullivan’s death. Burton had read with great interest the findings of the autopsy, courtesy of the local police at the request of the President, who was so, so distraught over the tragedy. Fuck him too.

A shattered jaw and strangulation marks. His and Collin’s shots had not inflicted those injuries. She had good reason to want to kill him. But Burton couldn’t let that happen, under no circumstances could he let that happen. There were few absolutes anymore, but that was sure as hell one of them.

He had done the right thing. Burton told himself that a thousand times. The very action he had trained virtually his entire adult life for. The ordinary person couldn’t understand, could never possibly comprehend how an agent would think or feel if something bad went down on their watch.

He had talked to one of Kennedy’s agents a long time ago. The man had never gotten over Dallas. Walking right beside the President’s limo, nothing he could do. And the President had died. Right in front of his eyes, the President’s head had been blown apart. Nothing he could do, but there was always something. Always another precaution you could have taken. Turned to the left instead of the right, watched one building more closely than you had. Scan the crowd with a little more intensity. Kennedy’s guy had never been the same. Quit the Service, divorced, finished his human existence in obscurity in some rat’s hole in Mississippi, but still living in Dallas for the last twenty years of his life.

That would never happen to Bill Burton. That was why he had hurled his body in front of Alan Richmond’s predecessor six years ago and caught twin .38 caliber steel jackets for his trouble despite his body armor; one through the shoulder, the other through the forearm. Miraculously, neither had struck any vital organs or arteries, leaving Burton only with a number of scars and the heartfelt gratitude of an entire country. And, more important, the adulation of his fellow agents.

And that was why he had fired upon Christine Sullivan. And he would do the same thing today. He would kill her, kill her as often as it took. Pull the trigger, watch the one-hundred-sixty-grain bullet slam into the side of the head at over twelve hundred feet per second, the young life over. Her choice, not his. Dead.

He went back to work. While he still could.

Chief of Staff Russell walked briskly down the corridor. She had just finished briefing the President’s press secretary on the appropriate spin for the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The bare politics of the matter dictated backing Russia, but bare politics rarely controlled the decision-making process in the Richmond administration. The Russian Bear had all the intercontinental nuclear forces now, but Ukraine was in a much better position to become a major trade player with the Western countries. What had tipped the scales in Ukraine’s favor was the fact that Walter Sullivan, the good and now grieving friend of the President, was homing in on a major deal with that country. Sullivan and friends, through various networks, had contributed approximately twelve million dollars to Richmond’s campaign, and garnered him virtually every major endorsement he needed in his quest for the Oval Office. There was no way he could not make a significant payback on that kind of effect. Hence, the United States would back Ukraine.

Russell looked at her watch, counting her blessings that there were independent reasons for siding with Kiev over Moscow, although she felt sure Richmond would have come out the same way regardless. He did not forget loyalty. Favors must be returned. A President just happened to be in a position to return them on a massive, global scale. One major problem out of the way, she settled down at the desk and turned her attention to a growing list of crises.

Fifteen minutes into her political juggling, Russell rose and slowly walked over to the window. Life went on in Washington, much like it had for two hundred years. Factions were scattered everywhere, pouring money, massive intellects and established heavyweights into the business of politics, which essentially meant screwing others before they got around to screwing you. Russell understood that game, better than most. She also loved and excelled at it. This was clearly her element, and she was as happy as she’d been in years. Being unmarried and childless had started to worry her. The piles of professional accolades had grown monotonous, and hollow. And then Alan Richmond had come into her life. Made her see the possibility of moving up to the next level. Perhaps to a level where no woman had ever gone. That thought weighed so powerfully inside her head that she sometimes shook with anticipation.

And then a goddamned hunk of metal exploded in her face. Where was he? Why hadn’t he come forward? He must, had to know what he had in his possession. If it was money he wanted, she would pay it. The slush funds at her disposal were more than adequate for even the most unreasonable demands, and Russell expected the worst. That was one of the wonderful things about the White House. No one really knew how much money it actually took to run the place. That was because so many agencies contributed parts of their budget and personnel to help the White House function. With so much financial confusion, administrations rarely had to worry about finding money for even the most outrageous purchases. No, Russell thought to herself, money would be the least of her worries. She had many others to concern herself with, however.

Did the man know that the President was totally oblivious to the situation? That was what was tearing Russell’s stomach apart. What if he tried to communicate with the President directly, and not with her? She started to shake, and plopped down in a chair by the window. Richmond would immediately recognize Russell’s intentions, there was no question of that. He was arrogant but no fool. And then he would destroy her. Just like that. And she would be defenseless. There would be no good exposing him. She couldn’t prove a thing. Her word against his. And she would be relegated to the political toxic waste dump, condemned and then, worst of all, forgotten.

She had to find him. Somehow get a message to him, that he must work through her. There was only one person who could help her do that. She sat back down at her desk, collected herself and resumed working. This was no time to panic. Right now she needed to be stronger than she had ever been in her life. She could still make it, still control the outcome if she just kept her nerves in check, used the first-rate mind God had bestowed upon her. She could get out of this mess. She knew where she had to start.

The mechanism that she had chosen to use would strike anyone who knew Gloria Russell as particularly odd. But there was a side to the Chief of Staff that would surprise those few who claimed to know her well. Her professional career had always come foremost to the detriment of every other facet of her life, including the personal, and the sexual relationships that were spawned from that area of one’s life. But Gloria Russell considered herself a very desirable woman; indeed, she possessed a feminine side that was in the sharpest contrast to her official shroud. That the years were going by, and rapidly, only increased the apprehension she had been starting to feel regarding this imbalance in her life. Not that she was necessarily planning anything, especially in light of the potential catastrophe she was confronted with, but she believed she knew the best way to accomplish this mission. And confirm her desirability in the process. She could not escape her feelings, no more than she could her shadow. So why try? Anyway, she also felt that subtlety would be lost on her intended target.

Several hours later she clicked off her desk lamp and called for her car. Then she checked the Secret Service staffing for the day and picked up her phone. Three minutes later Agent Collin stood before her, his hands clasped in front of him in a pose standard to all the agents. She mo tioned for him to wait a moment. She checked her makeup, performing a perfect oval with her lips as she reapplied her lipstick. Out of the corner of her eye she studied the tall, lean man standing next to her desk. The magazine-cover looks would’ve been difficult for any woman to consciously ignore. That his profession also dictated that he lived on the brink of danger and could, indeed, be dangerous himself, only added favorably to the total package. Like the bad boys in high school girls always seemed to be drawn to, if only to escape, momentarily, the dullness of their own existence. Tim Collin, she surmised with reasonable confidence, must have broken many a female heart in his relatively short life.

Her calendar was clear tonight, a rarity. She pushed her chair back and slipped into her heels. She didn’t see Agent Collin as his eyes shifted to her legs and then quickly back to stare straight ahead. Had she seen, she would have been pleased, not least of all for the obvious reason.

“The President will be giving a press conference next week at the Middleton Courthouse, Tim.”

“Yes, ma’am, nine-thirty-five A.M. We’re working on the preliminaries right now.” His eyes stared straight ahead.

“Do you find that a little unusual?”

Collin looked at her. “How so, ma’am?”

“It’s after working hours, you can call me Gloria.”

Collin shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another. She smiled at him, at his obvious awkwardness.

“You understand what the press conference is for, don’t you?”

“The President will be addressing the” — Collin swallowed perceptibly — “the killing of Mrs. Sullivan.”

“That’s right. A President conducting a press conference regarding the homicide of a private citizen. Don’t you find that curious? I believe it’s a first in presidential history, Tim.”

“I wouldn’t know about that, ma — Gloria.”

“You’ve spent a lot of time with him lately. Have you noticed anything unusual about the President?”

“Like what?”

“Like has he appeared overly stressed or worried? More than the usual?”

Collin slowly shook his head, not knowing where this conversation was intended to go.

“I think we might have a slight problem, Tim. I think the President might need our help. You’re ready to help him, aren’t you?”

“He’s the President, ma’am. That’s my job, to take care of him.”

Rummaging in her bag, she said, “Are you busy tonight, Tim? You’re off at the regular time tonight, aren’t you? I know the President’s staying in.”

He nodded.

“You know where I live. Come over as soon as you’re off duty. I’d like to talk to you privately, continue this discussion. Would you mind helping me, and the President?”

Collin’s answer was immediate. “I’ll be there, Gloria.”

Jack knocked on the door again. No answer. The blinds were drawn and no light emitted from the house. He was either asleep or not home. He checked the time. Nine o’clock. He remembered Luther Whitney to rarely be in bed before two or three A.M. The old Ford was in the driveway. The tiny garage door was shut. Jack looked in the mailbox beside the door. It was overflowing. That didn’t look good. Luther was what now, mid-sixties? Would he find his old friend on the floor, cold hands clutching at his chest? Jack looked around and then lifted up a corner on a terra-cotta planter next to the front door. The spare key was still there. He looked around once more, then put the key in the door and went in.

The living room was neat and spare. Everything was stacked where it should be.

“Luther?” He moved through the hallway, his memory steering him through the simple configurations of the house. Bedroom on the left, toilet on the right, kitchen at the rear of the house, small screened porch off that, garden in the back. Luther was in none of these rooms. Jack entered the small bedroom, which, like the rest of the house, was neat and orderly.

On the nightstand a number of picture frames containing various photos of Kate looked at him as he sat on the side of the bed. He turned quickly away and left the room.

The tiny rooms upstairs were mostly bare. He listened intently for a moment. Nothing.

He sat down in the small wire and plastic kitchen chair, looked around. He didn’t turn on a light, but sat in the darkness. He leaned across and popped open the refrigerator. He grinned. Two six-packs of Bud looked back at him. You could always count on Luther for a cold brew. He took one and opened the back door to step outside.

The small garden looked beaten down. The hostas and ferns drooped even in the shade of a thick oak and the nelly moser clematis clinging to the board-on-board fence was painfully withered. Jack looked at Luther’s prized annuals flowerbed and noted more victims than survivors of the Washington late-summer heat furnace.

He sat down, put the beer to his lips. Luther had clearly not been here for a while. So? He was an adult. He could go where he wanted, when he wanted. But something just felt wrong. But it had been several years. Habits change. He reflected a moment more. But Luther’s habits would not have changed. The man was not like that. He was rock-solid, as dependable a person as Jack had ever met in his life. Stacked-up mail, dead flowers, car not in the garage, that was not how he would have voluntarily left things. Volun tarily.

Jack went back inside. The answering machine tape was blank. He went back into the small bedroom, the musty air hitting him again as he opened the door. He scanned the room once more, then started to feel a little silly. He wasn’t a goddamned detective. Then he laughed to himself. Luther was probably living it up on some island for a couple of weeks, and here he was playing the nervous parent. Luther was one of the most capable men Jack had ever met. Besides, it was no business of his anymore. The Whitney family were not his concern, father or daughter. In fact why was he even here? Trying to relive old times? Trying to get to Kate through her old man? That was the most unlikely scenario one could imagine.

Jack locked the door on the way out, replaced the key under the planter. He glanced back at the house and then walked to his car.

Gloria Russell’s home occupied a cul-de-sac in a quiet upper-brackets Bethesda suburb off River Road. Her consulting work on behalf of many of the country’s largest corporations coupled with her sizable professorship, and now Chief of Staff salary and many years of careful investing, had left her with a deep purse, and she liked to be surrounded by beautiful things. The entrance was framed by an aged arbor interlaced with strong, thick ivy. The entire front yard was enclosed by a waist-high brick and mortar serpentine wall and set up as a private garden complete with tables and umbrellas. A small fountain bubbled and hissed in a darkness broken only by the shallow light thrown from the big bay window in the front of the house.

Gloria Russell was sitting at one of the garden tables when Agent Collin pulled up in his convertible, back ramrod straight, suit still crisp, tie knotted rigidly. The Chief of Staff had not changed either. She smiled at him and they walked up the front walk together and into the house.

“Drink? You look like a bourbon-and-water person.” Russell looked at the young man and slowly drained her third glass of white wine. It had been a long time since she had a young man over. Maybe too long, she was thinking, although the alcohol guaranteed that she wasn’t thinking that clearly.

“Beer, if you have it.”

“Coming up.” She stopped to kick off her heels and padded into the kitchen. Collin looked around the expanse of the living room with its billowy professionally done curtains, textured wallpaper and tasteful antiques and wondered what he was doing here. He hoped she hurried with the beer. A star athlete, he had been seduced by women before, from high school on up. But this was not high school and Gloria Russell was no cheerleader. He decided he would not be able to endure the night without a heavy buzz. He had wanted to tell Burton about it, but something had made him keep quiet. Burton had been acting aloof and moody. What they had done was not wrong. He knew the circumstances were awkward, and an action that would ordinarily have brought them praise from the entire country had to be kept secret. He had regretted killing the woman, but there were no other options. Death happened, tragedies occurred all the time. It was her time. Christine Sullivan’s number had just come up.

A few moments later he was sipping his beer and checking out the Chief of Staff’s derriere as she fluffed up a pillow on the broad couch before sitting down. She smiled at him, delicately sipped her wine.

“How long have you been in the Service, Tim?”

“Almost six years.”

“You’ve risen quickly. The President thinks quite a lot of you. He’s never forgotten that you saved his life.”

“I appreciate that. I really do.”

She took another sip of wine and ran her eyes over him. He sat erect; his obvious nervousness amused her. She finished her examination and came away very impressed. Her attention had not been lost on the young agent, who was now hiding his discomfort by examining the numerous paintings that adorned the walls.

“Nice stuff.” He pointed at the artwork.

She smiled at him, watched him hurriedly gulp his beer. Nice stuff. She had been thinking the same thing.

“Let’s go sit where it’s more comfortable, Tim.” Russell stood up and looked down at him. He was led from the living room through a long, narrow hallway and then through double doors into a large sitting room. The lights came on by themselves, and Collin noted that through another set of double doors the Chief of Staff’s bed was clearly visible.

“Would you mind if I take a minute to change? I’ve been in this suit long enough.”

Collin watched as she went into her bedroom. She did not close the doors all the way. A sliver of the room was visible from where he was sitting. He turned his head away, tried to focus all his attention on the scrolls and designs of an antique fireplace screen that would be seeing activity soon. He finished his beer and instantly wanted another one. He lay back in the thick cushions. He tried not to but he could hear every sound she made. Finally, he couldn’t resist it. He turned his head and looked straight through the open doorway. With a pinch of regret he saw nothing. At first. Then she moved across the opening.

It was only a moment, as she lingered by the end of the bed, to pick up some article of clothing. Chief of Staff Gloria Russell parading naked in front of him sent a jolt through Collin, although he had been expecting it, or something close to it.

The night’s agenda confirmed, Collin turned his head away, more slowly than he probably should have. He licked the top of the beer can, absorbing the last few drops of the amber liquid. He felt the butt of his new weapon dig against his chest. Normally the mass of metal felt comforting against his skin. Now it just hurt.

He wondered about fraternization rules. Members of the First Family had been known to become quite attached to their Secret Service agents. Over the years there had always been talk of fooling around, but the official policy was clear on that point. Were Collin discovered in this room with a naked Chief of Staff in her bedroom, his career would be short-lived.

He thought rapidly. He could leave right now, report in to Burton. But how would that look? Russell would deny it all. Collin would look like a fool, and his career would probably be over anyway. She had brought him here for a reason. She said the President needed his help. He wondered now who he would really be helping. And for the first time Agent Collin felt trapped. Trapped. Where his athleticism, his quick wits and his 9mm were useless to him. Intellectually he was no match for the woman. In the official power structure he was so far below her, it was like he stared up from an abyss with a telescope and still couldn’t glimpse the bottom of her high heels. It promised to be a long night.

Walter Sullivan paced while Sandy Lord watched. A bottle of scotch occupied a prominent position on the corner of Lord’s desk. Outside, the darkness was marred by the dull glow of street lamps. The heat had returned for a short spell and Lord had ordered the air conditioning to remain on at Patton, Shaw for his very special visitor tonight. That visitor stopped his pacing and stared down the street where a half-dozen blocks away sat the familiar white building, home to Alan Richmond, and one of the keys to Sullivan and Lord’s grand scheme. Sullivan, however, was not thinking about business tonight. Lord was. But he was far too cunning to show it. Tonight he was here for his friend. To listen to the grief, the outpouring, to let Sullivan mourn his little hooker. The quicker that was done, the sooner they could get down to what really mattered: the next deal.

“It was a beautiful service, people will remember it for a long time.” Lord chose his words carefully. Walter Sullivan was an old friend, but it was a friendship built on an attorney-client relationship and thus its underpinning could experience some unexpected shifting. Sullivan was also the only person in Lord’s acquaintance who made him nervous, where Lord knew he was never in complete control, that the man he was dealing with was at least his equal and probably more.

“Yes it was.” Sullivan continued to look down the street. He believed that he had finally convinced the police that the one-way mirror was not connected to the crime. Whether they were completely convinced was another matter. In any event it had been quite an embarrassing moment for a man not accustomed to such. The detective, Sullivan couldn’t remember his name, had not given Sullivan the respect he deserved and that had angered the older man. If anything, he had earned the respect of everyone. It did not help matters that Sullivan did not feel the least bit confident in the local police’s abilities to find the persons responsible.

He shook his head as his thoughts returned to the mirror. At least it had not been disclosed to the press. That was attention Sullivan could not tolerate. The mirror had been Christine’s idea. But he had to admit he had gone along with it. Now as he looked back, it seemed ludicrous. At first it had fascinated him, watching his wife with other men. He was beyond the age where he could satisfy her himself, but he could not reasonably deny her the physical pleasures that were beyond him. But it had all been absurd, including the marriage. He saw that now. Trying to recapture his youth. He should have known that nature bowed to no one, regardless of their monetary worth. He was embarrassed and he was angry. He finally turned to Lord.

“I’m not certain that I have confidence in the detective in charge. How can we get the federals involved?”

Lord put his glass down, lifted a cigar from a box hidden within the recesses of his desk and slowly unwrapped it.

“Homicide of a private citizen isn’t grounds for a federal investigation.”

“Richmond is getting involved.”

“Fluff, if you ask me.”

Sullivan shook his massive head. “No. He seemed genuinely concerned.”

“Maybe. Don’t count on that concern lingering for too long. He has a thousand cans of worms to handle.”

“I want the people responsible for this caught, Sandy.”

“I understand that, Walter. Of all people, I understand that. They will be. You have to be patient. These guys weren’t nickel-and-dimers. They knew what they were doing. But everybody makes mistakes. They’ll go to trial, mark my words.”

“And then what? Life imprisonment, correct?” Sullivan said contemptibly.

“It’s probably not going to be a capital murder case, so life is what they’ll end up getting. But no chance of parole, Walter, believe me. They’ll never breathe another drop of free air. And getting a little prick in the arm might seem real desirable after a few years of getting bent over every night.”

Sullivan sat down and stared at his friend. Walter Sullivan wanted no part of any trial. Where all the details of the crime would be revealed. He winced at the thought of all of it being rehashed. Strangers knowing intimate details of his life and that of his deceased wife. He could not bear that. He just wanted the men caught. He would arrange the rest. Lord had said the Commonwealth of Virginia would imprison for life the persons responsible. Walter Sullivan decided right then and there that he would save the commonwealth the cost of that lengthy incarceration.

Russell curled up on the end of the couch, bare feet tucked under a loose-fitting cotton pullover that stopped slightly above her calves. Her ample cleavage peeked at him where the fabric suddenly dipped. Collin had fetched himself two more beers and poured her another glass of wine from the bottle he had brought with him. His head was now slightly warm, as though a small fire were burning inside. The necktie was now loosened, the jacket and gun lay on the opposite couch. She had fingered it as he had taken it off.

“It’s so heavy.”

“You get used to it.” She did not ask the question he was usually confronted with. She knew he had killed someone.

“Would you really take a bullet for the President?” She looked at him through drooping eyelids. She had to remain focused, she kept telling herself. That had not stopped her from leading the young man to the very threshold of her bed. She felt a large measure of her control slipping away. With a masterful effort she started to regain it. What the hell was she doing? At a crisis point in her life and she was acting like a prostitute. She needn’t approach the issue in this way. She knew that. The tugging she was feeling from another sector of her being was disrupting her decision-making processes. She could not allow that, not now.

She should go change again, retreat back to the living room, or perhaps to her study where the dark oak paneling and walls of books would quash the unsettling rumblings.

He eyed her steadily. “Yes.”

She was about to get up but never made it.

“I’d take one for you too, Gloria.”

“For me?” Her voice quavered. She looked at him again, her strategic plans forgotten, her eyes wide.

“Without thinking. Lot of Secret Service agents. Only one Chief of Staff. That’s the way it works.” He looked down and said quietly, “It’s not a game, Gloria.”

When he went again for more beer he noticed that she had moved close enough that her knee touched his thigh when he sat down. She stretched her legs out, rubbing against his, and then she rested them on the table across from them. The pullover had somehow worked itself up, revealing thighs that were full and creamy white; they were the legs of an older woman, and a damned attractive one. Collin’s eyes moved slowly across the display of skin.

“You know I’ve always admired you. I mean all of the agents.” She almost seemed embarrassed. “I know sometimes you get taken for granted. I want you to know that I appreciate you.”

“It’s a great job. Wouldn’t trade it for anything.” He chugged another beer, and felt better. His breathing relaxed.

She smiled at him. “I’m glad you came tonight.”

“Anything to help, Gloria.” His confidence level was going up as his alcohol intake increased. He finished the beer and she pointed with an unsteady finger to a stand of liquor over by the door. He mixed drinks for them, sat back down.

“I feel I can trust you, Tim.”

“You can.”

“I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t feel that way with Burton.”

“Bill’s a top agent. The best.”

She touched his arm, left it there.

“I didn’t mean it that way. I know he’s good. I just don’t know about him sometimes. It’s hard to explain. It’s just an instinct on my part.”

“You should trust your instincts. I do.” He looked at her. She looked younger, much younger, like she should be graduating college, ready to take on the world.

“My instincts tell me that you’re someone I can depend on, Tim.”

“I am.” He drained his drink.

“Always?”

He stared at her, touched his empty glass to hers. “Always.”

His eyes were heavy now. He thought back to high school. After scoring the winning touchdown in the state championship. Cindy Purket had looked at him just like that. An all-giving look on her face.

He laid his hand on her thigh, rubbed it up and down. The flesh was just loose enough to be intensely womanly. She didn’t resist but instead inched closer. Then his hand disappeared under the pullover, tracing over her still firm belly, just nicking the undersides of her breasts, and then returning into view. The other arm encircled her waist, drawing her closer to him; his hand dropped down to her bottom and gripped hard. She sucked in air and then let it out slowly, as she leaned into his shoulder. He felt her chest push into his arm, up and down. The floating mass was soft, and warm. She dropped her hand to his hardening crotch and squeezed, then lingered her mouth over his, slowly pulling back and looking at him, her eyelids moving up and down in slow rhythms.

She put her drink down, and slowly, almost teasingly, slid out of the pullover. He exploded against her, hands digging under the bra strap until he felt it give way and she poured out to him, his head buried in the loose mounds. Next, the last remaining piece of clothing, a pair of black lace panties, was ripped from her body; she smiled as it was sent sailing against the wall. Then she caught her breath as he lifted her effortlessly and carried her into the bedroom.