Eric Lustbader - First Daughter

THE SPANISH Steps, running on Twenty-second Street, between Decatur Place and S Street NW, was part of the luxe, lushly treed Dupont Circle area of Washington. Its formal name was the rather dull Decatur Terrace Steps, but no one, especially the residents of the Circle, called it that. They preferred the infinitely more romantic name that conjured up the real Spanish Steps in Rome. By any name, however, it was a delightful stone-and-concrete staircase guarded on either side by ornamental lampposts and crowned at its summit by a leonine fountain. By day, children could be seen running and squealing around the mouth of the great beast from whose mouth water spewed in a constant stream. At night, it gathered to itself a certain Old World charm that made it a favorite assignation spot of young lovers and adulterers alike.

Calla stood waiting for Ronnie Kray at the top of the steps. She had arrived a few minutes before midnight so that she could drink in the nighttime glow that illuminated the steps in a sepia tint. One of the lamppost lights on the right was out, and the resulting pool of shadows spilled across the stairs in a most pleasing manner. Couples strolled arm in arm, perhaps kissed chastely, then ran across the street laughing or stood on the corner, waiting for their radio-dispatched taxis to arrive.

Though she worked long and hard for the First American Secular Revivalists, and was as rational as the members who sat on either side of her, she was, at heart, a true romantic. Perhaps this was why she was drawn to Ronnie. Though she knew he was in his mid-fifties, he looked a decade younger. Perhaps that was because he was possessed of a romantic streak with which she could identify. Besides, he treated her like a lady, not like a kid, the way many at FASR did, especially Chris and Peter. She hated that they never took her suggestions seriously. Ronnie did. Ronnie got her, and she loved him for that.

She couldn't help furtively watching a young couple sitting on the steps, perhaps halfway down, necking. Calla imagined herself in the girl's place, her lover's hands on her warm flesh, and envied her. She'd come to Washington three years ago from Grand Rapids in search of a husband with a good job and solid family values. But finding that kind of man proved more difficult than she had imagined. She'd dated men who were either windbags or hopeless narcissists. And she'd deflected a number of married men who wanted to bed her, sometimes desperately. Switching to plan B, she'd thrown herself body and soul into FASR, a cause she believed in-fine for her sense of justice, bad for her love life.

As if from an invisible vibration, her head swung around and she saw him coming, stepping off the street onto the rectangular plaza at the top of the stairs where she waited for him.

"Hello, Ronnie," she said softly as he bent, his lips brushing her cheek.

"You came."

"Of course I came!" She looked deep into his dark eyes. "Why wouldn't I?"

"You could have changed your mind," Kray said. "People do, at the last minute."

"Well, I don't," Calla said firmly. He had taught her to stand up for what she believed, even with Chris and Peter. Terrifying and exhilarating all at once, like being on a roller coaster.

She shivered in the gusts of wind swirling around the fountain. The lovers on the steps had left, no doubt for a warm bed somewhere. The steps were clearing of people.

He put his arm around her. "Are you cold?"

"A little."

"Then let's get some hot coffee into you. Would you like that?"

Calla nodded, rested her head on his chest. She liked the bulk of him, the heft. She often thought of him as a sheltering cove.

He began to lead her down the steps.

She tugged against him gently, almost playfully. "Don't you want to go to Cafe Luna?"

"This is a special night." He continued to steer her down. "I've got a special place in mind."

They entered that area of the Spanish Steps where, because of the burned-out bulb, shadows billowed out across the stone and concrete like ink from an overturned bottle.

"Where are you taking me?" Calla asked. "Have we been there before?"

"It's a surprise," was all he said to her. "I promise you'll like it."

Huge trees rose far above their heads, the skeletal branches scratching the sky, as if trying to dig the diamond-hard stars out of a setting made milky by the District's million lights. In among this winter bower Calla shivered again, and Kray held her tighter, one arm around her waist.

All of a sudden, he lurched against her, as if his left ankle had turned over on a stone. She stumbled against the trunk of one of the trees and, as she did so, Kray stabbed her once in the back. So precise was the thrust, so practiced the hand, so unwavering the intent, the wickedly sharpened paletta did the rest.

Kray held her lifeless body and glanced around. Had anyone been looking, they'd have seen a man holding his drunk or ill wife, but as luck would have it, no one was about. Kray slowly laid Calla's body at the bole of the tree. With quick, practiced movements, he snapped on surgeon's gloves, pulled out the cell phone he'd taken from one of Alli's Secret Service guards, put it into her hand, pressed her fingers around it, then threw it into a nearby evergreen bush. Then he picked up the paletta. It was such a superb implement; it had penetrated through cloth, skin, and viscera with such ease, there was hardly any blood on it. He pocketed the weapon and, his mission accomplished, vanished into the shadowy forest of swaying trees.

IT'S A universal law of teenhood that the bully always returns for more. Maybe he's drawn to what he perceives as weakness, because other people's weakness makes him stronger. Maybe he's a sadist and can't help himself. Or maybe he just can't leave well enough alone. In any event, Andre returns to Jack's life, stronger, meaner, more determined than ever.

It's as if he's been biding his time, accumulating power, calculating his return like a general who's been forced to make a strategic retreat from the field of battle. The source of his newfound power isn't only his patron, Cyril Tolkan, but a supplier he's found on his own-a man named Ian Brady.

"One thing fo' sho," Gus says with a fair amount of scorn, "Ian Brady ain't no black man. Shit, Ian Brady ain't no American name, no way, no how. But, shee-it, he a ghost, that man, 'cause none a my snitches know shit 'bout him. I mean, who the fuck is he? Where he come from? Who's his contacts? He got so much fuckin' juice, he could light up alla D.C."

This tirade occurs one evening when Jack and Gus are at home, listening to James Brown. Jack has made a couple of purchases at the local record store and is eager to both hear them and share them with Gus. In the wake of Gus's rant, he wonders whether he should keep the LPs under wraps, but having brought up the subject during dinner, he has no choice.

"Huh! I mighta known!" Gus says, holding the cardboard sleeves in his massive hand. "Elvis Presley an' the Rolling Stones. White boys, jus' like you. And some of 'em look like they ain't eaten in weeks!"

"Just listen, will you? You're such a hard-ass!"

"Well, I heard Elvis, an' he ain't half-bad. So play this here other, so's I can see whut yo' taste in music's like."

Jack carefully slides the James Brown disc back in its sleeve, then rolls out the black vinyl disc of Out of Our Heads, puts the needle down, and out blasts "Mercy, Mercy." After the last jangling bars of "One More Try" fade into the walls, Gus turns to Jack, says, "Play dat again, son."

Jack puts the needle back on the first cut, and Mick Jagger starts it up.

Gus shakes his head in wonder. "Shee-it, fo' skinny little white boys, they sho-nuff do shout."