Simply Lies

Chapter 11

The cab dropped her off at the corner of a major thoroughfare in Washington, DC’s Georgetown neighborhood, which gleamed bright and full of possibilities.

“Clarisse,” exclaimed the woman. The lady approaching her was towering and busty and hippy and dressed for success of a certain kind, with men of a certain kind.

Clarisse turned and smiled with her muted, burgundy-tinged lips.

Hit the play button and enjoy yourself. “Angie, how long have you been waiting?”

“Ages, meaning ten minutes. Girl, we have work to do.”

“Yes we do.”

They started down M Street. There were money and powerful people in abundance here, which was the only reason the two women were trolling the area.

They entered the lobby of the hotel, looking guest-worthy but with just enough glam to cause sedate heads to turn. DC was not New York or even close to LA. Somber and conservative were still the accepted fashion marks of the day here. But something different and alluring could be appreciated, and every bit of clothing worn by the two women had been carefully calibrated to elicit heightened attention but not scrutiny.

Angie hit the elevator button and they rode the car to the fourth floor.

“Room 412,” said Angie, her booming voice gone; she was all business and focus now.

“The Washington senator,” Clarisse whispered back.

“All five feet six of him. And another four inches of you know what, poor, pitiful thing. But that’s okay, in his mind he’s LeBron James with a Louisville slugger in his pants.”

That was as playful as Angie got on these things. Still, Clarisse frowned.

Influencer mode. “Time for games later, Angie. Tight is tight. You’re a pro. You know this.”

“Yes I do, girl.”

Angie keyed the door to Room 410 and let Clarisse inside. Clarisse took Angie’s purse, and a few moments later she heard Angie unlocking the door to 412.

Clarisse opened up her small laptop and ran it off the hotspot of her ultra-secure “fortress” phone, as she liked to call it. No ludicrously unsecure Wi-Fi for this mission. She connected a wireless camera to her computer, fired up a program, and said into the computer, “Copy, Angie?”

“Copy loud and clear.”

With the line of communication established, Angie would now take her mic, which was sunk so far in her ear that it was invisible but not untraceable, and place it in a small lead container that she had carried on her person. That container would be inserted in the showerhead pipe in the bathroom. She would wait for the electronic sweep to be completed and then, unless she did it before the senator arrived, nature would call before the show would begin. In this intimate situation, no man would deny a woman that. The earbud would be reinserted and the connection resumed.

The placement of the tiny camera would have to wait for the sweep. The senator’s detail placed too much faith in this electronic vetting. If it had been Clarisse, she would have rented out the rooms on either side and placed trusted people there. Apparently the senator was too cheap or too stupid to do that.

She readied herself as she heard the troop-troop of the dutiful and dullard personal security detail. These guys made middle-class wages and had no incentive to go the last mile. The criminal syndicates did it so much better. You messed up there, you were fish food. You screwed up here, and you just slouched off to work for the government.

She heard murmurs next door.

The sweep took five minutes while she could envision Angie waiting patiently on the bed, her eyes not making contact with any of the men, as instructed. And they were always men. Put a girl on the detail and then people like Clarisse started to sweat. Men were clueless about everything having to do with women. That was the one principle that drove her entire business plan.

The detail left but with a man posted outside. They always did it that way. One lucky guy was picked to listen to the fun.

When Angie opened her connecting door a crack, Clarisse was there, having done the same with her door. Clarisse secured the tiny camera to the edge of Angie’s door with a Velcro sticker, its silhouette invisible against the dark wood of the door.

“Okay, going to mic up now while the getting’s good,” whispered Angie. Both women eased their doors shut and secured them.

Clarisse returned to her computer and watched as Angie disappeared into the bathroom, coming out a minute later with the mic in her ear. Her glam reverberated to all four corners of the room in the little white nighty that she had worn under her dress.

The knock on the door came a few moments later. Angie opened it and in strode Senator Wright, who was, despite the name, all wrong in too many ways to count. He was four inches shorter than Angie in bare feet, flabby, bald, and the second wealthiest politician on Capitol Hill, all inherited. Back in the fifties, his grandfather had invented a new type of windshield wiper motor, invested the royalties well, and allowed his descendants to be lazy, rich, and obnoxious about it.

And the senator’s wife, a petulant Princeton grad with her own trust fund, just didn’t get him, or so he told women like Angie. And neither, apparently, did his three kids.

He smiled, wrapped his arms around her, his hands dipping down and sliding up the nighty.

“I like them really voluptuous,” he said, giving her the same campaign trail smile he had probably practiced in front of a mirror for months on end. “And you damn sure fill that bill.”

Clarisse could not speak without fear of the senator overhearing through the mic. But she and Angie had devised another method to communicate.

Clarisse tapped her mic twice, telling Angie to deliver the line they had practiced.

Angie said breathlessly, “I will be your best friend tonight.”

“Oh, I can see that, babe.”

One tap.

“But this will be our little secret, okay?” said Angie.

“What do you mean?”

Three taps.

“I’m married.”

He smiled. “Perfect. He’s a lucky guy.”

“And tonight, I’m a lucky girl.”

That was it for the chitchat. The rest was a mud wrestle on the bed that was energetic if not epic. Clarisse had seen better and worse.

The gasps, the moans, the squeaks of the embattled box springs. The nervous chuckle of the lone security guy outside.

You won’t be laughing tomorrow. Tomorrow you’ll be unemployed.

Clarisse now put things on autopilot. Angie knew how to string the guy along. She somehow could tell right when the cork was going to pop and she pulled it back, let the guy calm, allowing a bit more time to film, because the more footage they had, the more the men tended to pay.

Clarisse pulled another notebook out of her bag and began jotting thoughts down on another project, the sounds of sex next door becoming white noise to her.

Later, when the couple was done, the senator washed up and was gone, leaving an exhausted (he thought) and sleeping (he hoped) and absolutely sexually fulfilled (he was sure) Angie on the bed, naked, along with a stack of cash on the nightstand.

Oh, this night is going to cost you so much more than that, thought Clarisse.

Ten seconds after the door closed Clarisse checked her security peephole and tapped the all-clear signal on the mic. She watched on the screen as Angie rose, washed up, got dressed, and then methodically wiped down everything in the room she might have touched. Prints she could do something about, DNA not so much, but DNA was probably not going to come into play, particularly after the maids cleaned the room. And Angie was on no database anywhere, so DNA could go screw itself.

Clarisse had worn gloves, because her prints were on file.

Angie then knocked on the connecting door and was let in to 410.

Clarisse had already put all the equipment away, and now she took the ear mic back from Angie.

Angie worked away on some fasteners and a scalp adhesive patch, and finally pulled her long hair free, revealing a bald head. She put the fake tresses in her purse.

She said in a resigned tone, “How come the richest, cheating assholes are the shortest and the fattest with the smallest dicks?”

“Somehow, in the universe, it all makes perfect sense.”

“I’d much prefer tall, rich, handsome, with a six-pack.”

“Try the NBA, Angie. They’ve got plenty of free cash flow.”

“Oh, I’ve worked that garden, baby.”

“I thought so.”

“And you don’t have to blackmail those suckers. They just give you a Ferrari for a blowjob.”

“Right.”

Before parting Angie said, “When?”

“Very soon.”

“You know how much?”

“To start, half a mill. You managed him well. I’ve got twenty-five minutes of film. The good, the better, and the really better.”

Angie blew her a kiss. “See you next time, bay-bee.”

Her coat was reversible. She went from black to white, which looked stunning.

She left, her cavalier stride now transformed to a normal gait.

Clarisse watched the door for a moment. She had six Angies, but Angie only had one Clarisse.

She took her auburn wig off as well, and put on a short blond one she had in her bag. She teased the hair in the mirror, reapplied her makeup, and changed the colors of her eyeliner and lipstick. She slipped out a different outfit from her oversized bag and went from slinky dress to a women’s tailored suit and black, square glasses. The sky-high heels got replaced with flat and professional. With slumped, rounded shoulders she shrunk from high-priced hooker to mousy CPA. The hotel had CCTV everywhere and if the senator later had it pulled, he would be very confused as to the women coming out of this room. And tomorrow she and Angie would look nothing like either of the two women the film would reveal coming and going.

She hailed a cab outside and rode it back to within three blocks of where she was staying. You never took anyone all the way home.

Clarisse walked in, got on the phone, and confirmed her reservation on NetJets. She slept well, rose early, walked the requisite three blocks, picked up her Uber and rode it to Dulles with big sunglasses covering her face. Clarisse was wheels up to Greenville, South Carolina, at eight a.m. sharp.

Time to visit Mommy.