Эд Горман - Stranglehold

I was looking at her, which was a pleasure. That cap of gorgeous red hair and the slash of grin and the lithe body moving sinuously to the music. Since I’m neither pretty nor sinuous, I kept on dancing the only way I knew how. Stiff middle-aged white man gets his groove on.

Neither of us could go for much longer than thirty seconds without looking to the center of the floor where Susan was dancing. A long line of men had queued up to be the congresswoman’s brief partner. Each of them got about a fourth of the song. She could really dance. Apparently, all her nights in clubs had taught her well. The TV people loved it. So did the guests with digital cameras. As long as we could see her, we were happy. She wasn’t going to wander off without giving me the talk I deserved, as to just what the hell was going on.

Susan had competition in the form of her stepmother. Natalie had an even longer line of beaus, and where Susan was dancing just for fun, Natalie was putting on a show. In her mauve cocktail dress, her dark hair and makeup flawless, she was one of those absolutely perfect middle-aged women gerontologists are awed by. She was here to show the younger ones how to do it.

The few times she and Wyatt danced together, the cameras rushed to make the moment immortal. They danced to the slower songs and with such grace I wondered if they hadn’t taken ballroom lessons together; their steps and their physical attitude had that kind of drama and poise.

Natalie was no doubt pleased to see that the cameras had now shifted in her direction. She wouldn’t get as much screen time as her stepdaughter, but at least she’d be on the tube.

When they finished dancing, Wyatt Byrnes stepped aside so that a group of women could surround Natalie and gush. Byrnes’s gaze met mine and he walked over.

“Enjoying yourself, Dev?”

“Do I look as uncomfortable as you do?”

“You noticed, eh?” He laughed. “I like dancing with Natalie. That’s the fun part. On one of the cruises we took we got into ballroom dancing.”

“What’s not the fun part?”

He leaned in and said softly, “The people. I’m not much for parties and things like that. I’d rather be home with a beer, watching Western movies. My father read them and watched them all the time. Westerns, I mean. I guess I picked it up from him.”

The rich man with the taste of the common man. Hard to know if it was genuine. Political spouses and important relatives are trained to be good copy. When the press comes around, have a good story for them. And make that story something the largest number of people can identify with. And make it an “Aw” story, as in “Aw, that’s so nice he’s just a regular guy.” You have to be careful of “Aw” stories because they can get out of control fast and sound contrived and unctuous. For instance, never have your guy say that his lifelong ambition is to work in a leper colony.

“For what it’s worth, Dev, I think you people are doing a good job for Susan. I know that Natalie can get a little testy now and then, but when we’re alone she admits that you’re doing everything you can. The problem is Susan.”

On the edge of the dance floor Natalie stood with her admirers. When she was a little girl she’d probably dreamed of being popular in this way, show-biz popular. But now she’d begun looking around, her smiles stage tricks and her attention wandering.

“I think she’s looking for me,” Byrnes said. “I need to go and rescue her. Nice to see you, Dev.”

I had a fresh drink and listened to the band for a time. They did a pair of Stones covers that were especially good. Then I needed a break. I was on my way to the men’s room when my cell phone bleated. I stopped and answered it.

“Mr. Conrad?”

“Yes.”

“This is Tommy Nickels.” Whoever he was — and I didn’t have a clue — he was excited about something. “From the hotel? You said to call you?”

“Oh, right, Tommy.”

“Something happened in her room. I was carrying bags past her room and I heard her arguing with somebody. I couldn’t stop because I was loaded down and this guy was in a hurry to get into his room. I had to spend a few minutes before I got him all set up. Then I got back to the Davies woman’s door and there wasn’t any sound.”

“Maybe the other person left. Was it a man, by the way?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely a man.”

I wasn’t sure why he had called. Did he think this kind of information would get him more money?

“There was a security man up here checking on something, Mr. Conrad. So just for the hell of it I had him knock on her door and see if everything was all right. I mean she and the guy were really arguing when I heard them. He knocked, but he didn’t get any answer. I wanted him to let me in, but he wouldn’t do it until he got the night manager’s approval. Which he ended up getting. And that was when he found her.”

Somebody would have to teach Tommy how to write a news story. The lead was always the most important part and it was now obvious what that lead was going to be.

“Is she dead, Tommy?”

“Yeah. Whoever nailed her got her with this small brass statue we have in some of the rooms. Like I said, it’s small, but if you use it like a weapon, it’ll get the job done for you. So is this worth another twenty?”

“Yeah,” I said, but I was too troubled by what he’d just told me to pay much attention.

I drove over to the hotel where the three of us — Monica Davies, Greg Larson, and I — were staying. Given the hour, the crowd was sizable. The police had the entrance cordoned off. Two TV crews were interviewing men in the uniform blue sport coats worn by hotel employees. And the ghouls drank it all in. I call them ghouls with complete hypocrisy. I’ve been a ghoul many times myself. Proximity to death is exciting because it isn’t us who are dead. It might scare us and make us sick — people burned to death can haunt you for a long time — but it makes us feel lucky, maybe even for a moment or two, immortal. We’re alive and they’re not.

I parked my car and took my place with my fellow ghouls.

The entrance to the hotel was wide and well-lit, with long windows stretching across the entire width of the front. Beyond the glass I could see guests standing in small groups, talking about the invasion of the police and emergency workers. This was a better-dressed collection of ghouls than the one I was with. A pair of uniforms burst out of the front door. The white box-style ambulance that had been parked on the front walk now went into reverse and got as close to the doors as it could.

She came down in a black body bag on a white gurney. Comments crackled through the crowd like summer thunder — flashes of pity, excitement, and even black humor. Not even professional wrestling could beat the death of a young woman. It was devoutly to be hoped that she’d been good-looking and nude when they’d found her.

The crowd on the far side of the rope line had the preferred view of the ambulance. They were mere feet from it. Several of them were pointing things out to one another as the ambulance team raised the gurney up and over. The first thing I noticed about the people over there was that two or three of them were attractive women. I’d never meet any of them, but glimpsing them was fun in a melancholy way. Then, behind the tallest of the women, standing next to the building in the cold autumn night was the red-haired man.

Tan Burberry coat, collar up, long red hair with a curl that touched his forehead. A blunt harsh face that was handsome in a severe way. You saw them in Chicago working for businesses that were secretly owned by the mob. They knew how to talk properly, dress properly, and be polite. They were never executives — their actual titles were as murky as their actual jobs. But guessing what they were used for was all too easy.