Эд Горман - Stranglehold

He dropped his voice when he saw me emerge but not so low that I couldn’t hear him: “So I made a mistake. How many times do I have to say I’m sorry?” He clicked off, stuffed the phone in the pocket of his gray-trimmed blue uniform. He was in his thirties, chunky, balding. He had one of those put-upon faces that not even a smile would light up. “Help you with something?” he said.

“Just looking for room 608.”

“Right down here, sir.” He pointed to his left. The corridor was carpeted in dark brown to complement the tan walls and brown trim. The wide window at the end of the corridor gleamed with thin autumn sunlight. He walked down to the room and stood beside it like somebody in a print ad pointing out a product.

I knocked. He started walking back toward the elevator. I knocked again. This time of day the sixth floor was quiet except for elevator doors opening and closing. I knew nobody was going to be answering here. I saw the bellhop starting to get on the car and I said: “Could I talk to you a minute?”

He turned around and shrugged. “Sure.”

“The woman in room 608. Do you know who I mean?”

“The Davies woman.”

“Have you seen her around today?”

He bit the inside of his lip and looked past me. His mind was still on the phone. “Today? I don’t think so.”

“I need to talk to her about something. I’ve had a hard time reaching her.”

He was suspicious. “So you know her, you mean?”

“We work for the same company. I was supposed to meet her for lunch. I just got in about three hours ago. But she didn’t show up.”

“Oh.”

“One of our men might have been around here, too. Did she have any visitors that you know of?”

“You mean Mr. Larson? He’s staying right down the hall. He sees her two, three times a day.”

“Anybody else ever see her?”

He just stared at me and said, “Did I mention that Mr. Larson is a good tipper? You must know him. She told me that he’s her partner in some kind of political firm.”

I reached for my wallet. I gave him a ten.

“You kidding, man? You know the kind of shit this place would give me for even talking to you about stuff like this?”

I gave him a second ten.

He stuffed the bills into the same pocket the cell phone rode in and said, “One guy. Big redheaded guy. Expensive suit. Gold watch. But there was something rough about him. You’ve seen guys like him. No matter how well they dress they still come across as rough.”

“How many times have you seen him?”

“At least three times in the past two days. Last time they had a real argument. Bad enough that somebody called down to the desk about it. I came up. He was in the doorway when I got here. He was still arguing, but when he saw me he left right away. Damned near knocked me down getting out of here. She was standing there looking really pissed at him. She slammed the door in my face.”

“You ever hear her call him by name?”

“Oh, yeah, she called him a name all right. A couple of them. ‘Piece of shit’ and ‘bastard.’ Once she even got him with ‘motherfucker.’ ”

“So no ID on him at all?”

“No.”

I took out my card and gave it to him. I scribbled the number of my cell phone on it. “There’s another twenty in it for you if you call me when you see her next time. Call me right away.”

“So you work with her, huh?” He smirked. “The hell you do.”

“All right, thirty if you call me.”

“I’m working through the dinner shift tonight. I need to buy my lady a nice gift. I had a little fun with one of the girls who work in the kitchen and she took it serious. Called the apartment for me where I live with my lady. I’ve been trying to tell her it didn’t mean anything — my lady, I mean. You know, a little nookie on the side? She’s making a big thing out of it.” He grinned. Not smiled, grinned. He was presenting himself as a man of the world and happy with his self-image. The nudge as ass-bandit.

“That’s a tough act to sell. That it didn’t mean anything.” I was thinking of my own ruined marriage. It had meant something to my wife when I’d betrayed her and it had meant something to me when she’d betrayed me.

“She’ll come around. Especially if I can hit you up for ten more right here.”

“Yeah, and what’s that going to get me?”

“I could always forget to call you when Ms. Davies shows up.”

There were at least three radios going in headquarters when I got there. Small groups had gathered around each. A few of the more ardent listeners were using their bodies as well as their mouths to show support. They’d bob and weave like fighters when the host asked something they didn’t like and they’d victory-jab their arms in the air when Susan scored a particularly telling point. But the on-air atmosphere was friendly. Don Stern’s questions were on point but not malicious. Unlike radio assassin Gil Hawkins, who’d done everything he could to humiliate Susan, Stern genuinely wanted to know where she stood on issues and how she felt about her two terms in Congress.

I stayed for ten minutes. The questions I heard dealt with the economy. Jobs and mortgages. Susan was prepared, smooth, and confident. I admired her ability to put aside what had happened in the motel room earlier.

Ben and Kristin had their own radio going in the office. I slid into a chair and listened.

STERN: But you’ve been in Washington for two terms, Congresswoman Cooper, so aren’t you at least partly responsible for the fix we’re in?

SUSAN: Don, you’re right, I’ve been there for two terms. But if you look at the facts, in my first term I demanded that we look into some of the more obvious dishonest — if not illegal — practices on Wall Street. There were a number of us who saw what was going to happen long before it did.

STERN: Well, that’s true, but you were never able to get anybody to support you. I mean you couldn’t get the head of the House Banking Committee to support you — and he’s a member of your own party.

SUSAN: Yes, and I talked to him about it several times.

STERN: By “talk,” do you mean argue?

SUSAN: (laughs) I’ll use my word. “Talked.”

STERN: Well, to play devil’s advocate here, Congresswoman Cooper — you’re asking the voters to reelect you because of your experience. But what good is experience if you can’t get anything done?

SUSAN: Don?

STERN: Yes?

SUSAN: Would you say that the Chronicle is a conservative newspaper?

STERN: It’s not as conservative as it used to be.

SUSAN: (laughs) Thank God for that. But you’d still agree that it’s a conservative newspaper by and large. Especially the editorial page.

STERN: (laughs) I don’t know where you’re going with this, but I’m happy to listen.

SUSAN: Where I’m going, Don, is that you still quote it frequently. But the one thing you haven’t quoted is their editorial last week about me being the most effective House member of the Illinois delegation. So doesn’t that make it sound as if my experience has been paying off?

The rest of the ninety minutes went well, too. A few of the callers were harsh. They were obviously for the other side. But she handled them easily and with humor whenever that seemed appropriate. Even more impressive, she was a human computer when it came to facts and figures and the intricacies of Washington. Stern complimented her a few times for her grasp of subjects. Our opponent was good on his feet, too, but not as good as Susan Cooper.

Toward the end of the show Kristin started talking about this new cocktail dress she was going to wear tonight to the fund-raiser downtown. Kristin was a vivid redhead of thirty. I’d hired her because of her background in planning events for large hotels. Political events can unravel if they’re not planned well and overseen with steely diligence. You’re always up against places that don’t care about your client the way you do. Right now Kristin was prom-night excited. All Ben had to say was: “I hope there are some single women there. It’s been a long time for me.”