Steve Martini - The Enemy Inside

The man in the three-piece looked over at him and said, “Do you mind? This is a private conversation.”

The younger man was good-sized. He appeared fit. And apparently this was not his day to take shit. “You want privacy, find an office!” he said.

“I’d prefer you find another bench.” The man in the suit twisted the handle on his cane just enough to release the bayonet thread so that the razor-sharp blade slid a few inches out from the cane. He could have shown him the SIG Sauer nine-millimeter under his coat, but why go nuclear in a quiet park?

The man with the brown bag looked at the glint on the blade and swallowed. “No problem.” He didn’t even look up at Grimes. Instead he got up, grabbed his Coke, and walked quickly down the path away from them.

“Does that make you feel big?” she asked.

“I don’t have a problem with it. Oh, I forgot. That’s right, you don’t like weapons. I apologize,” he said. He gave her a sinister grin. “I forgot your crusade. That you authored all those bills to outlaw, what was it, assault rifles and large clips? And you worked behind the scenes so quietly to sell all that used US military brass to the Chinese, mountains of it, just so that crazy gun loaders in America couldn’t get their hands on any of it. That was a stroke of genius,” he said. “Must have really put the press on the gangbangers in South Chicago. Only being able to kill a hundred people or so a night now. All those years pushing the ATF button to push them in the face of the gun dealers. Put as many of them as possible out of business, along with the manufacturers. You’re just up to your little honkers in good works, aren’t you?”

He stopped for a moment and looked at her, the smile gone from his face. “But then, of course, you have a permit to carry, don’t you?” He knew she did. He sometimes wondered if she might bring her pistol, a snub-nosed.38, to one of their meetings and try to put an end to it. But it wouldn’t do her any good unless she turned it on herself. “Where exactly do you hide it?” he asked. He looked her up and down with a kind of lustful leer as if the next thing he might do was strip-search her.

A good number of the political class constantly railed against guns and gun owners and then used their influence to obtain permits so that they could carry concealed weapons themselves. This was done mostly when they were back in their districts. Firearms were frowned upon in the highly sanitized atmosphere of the Capitol, where security was now so tight that members of the public had to make appointments, sometimes weeks in advance, and get ten-printed just to do the public tour of the hallowed halls that for more than thirty years had been the scene of the collective crime.

“I got that permit years ago when I was being stalked!” She said it with a tone of defiance. The instant the words left her lips she knew it was a mistake.

“Oh, I hope he didn’t hurt you,” said the man.

She shook her head, said nothing. Why compound the error?

“Thank God for that!” He shook his head. “It’s a sick world out there. You do have to wonder what’s going on in some people’s minds. That an honest, hardworking public servant such as yourself would be the victim of a stalker. You do have to wonder what could possess someone.”

The way he said it and the fact that he seemed to be waiting for an answer made her feel like a bug pinned under his microscope.

“One who didn’t know better might think you had done something wrong,” he offered. “But then, of course, we know better. Like I say, it’s a sick world.”

She stood there, the quiet anger fixed in her eyes. He was right about one thing. She had no one to blame but herself. Back in the Senate Office Buildings or in the Capitol she was part of the aristocracy. Out here she belonged to him.

Under the dome she might be whisked into the private members’ elevator between floors, and be able to jump aboard the little private underground choo-choo that chugged them beneath the sweltering streets of Washington so they wouldn’t wear out shoe leather or have to mingle with the unwashed.

Here, faced with the reality that others knew her secret, she was forced to stand by silently and accept the humiliation. She hoped in time he would let her go. He assured her that they would at some point. Until then there was nothing she could do, nothing she could say. Serna had discovered Grimes’s secret and had tried to extort favors and money from her only to discover that she was standing in line, that the people in front of her had a prior claim and that they held it with a death grip.

Mr. Madriani, call for you.” Brenda Gomes, my secretary, looks over at me from her desk, her hand cupped over the tiny microphone on her headset.

I am out front looking for a file in one of the cabinets. “Who is it?” I mouth the words so as not to be heard at the other end of the line.

“Mr. Diggs,” she whispers.

“I’ll take it in my office.” Seconds later I am behind my desk, the phone to my ear. “Herman. Paul here.”

“Benjawan Tjahana,” says Herman. “I’m not exactly sure how she spells it. But the man says that’s how she pronounced it. He remembers because he was very interested. So interested he wrote it down. It seems your client didn’t lose his entire memory. According to the guy at the tattoo shop, she’s a real dish. A regular rare-earth man magnet,” says Herman.

“Lucky for us she made an impression,” I tell him. “Otherwise you might be looking forever.”

“Makes sense,” says Herman. “They needed something to attract Ives. What better bait?”

“Does he have an address for her? This man at the shop?”

“No.”

“Damn!”

“But he got her cell number.”

My eyes light up. “Good man!”

“And a good part of her life story,” says Herman. “Seems that dragon on her leg is pretty good-sized, from just above her knee to the sweet spot on the inside of her thigh. The little dimple,” says Herman.

“Sounds like you had a very detailed discussion with this man.”

“And he got pictures.” Herman allows this to settle in.

“Of her face?”

“Among other things,” he says. “They had a long time to talk while she was on the table and he was doing his art. Says she’s an Indonesian national. Came here on a student visa to study computer science at the local C.C.” Herman means the two-year community college. “That was eight years ago.”

“She’s overstayed her visa,” I say.

“Unless they offer advanced degrees in digital rocket science,” says Herman, “she’s in the country illegally. Could give us some leverage.”

“Or turn her into a rabbit,” I tell him.

“According to what she told the man at the shop she was working at a private club out near the beach.”

“What club?”

“He gave me the name and address, but he says you won’t find it in the phone book or on the net. It’s in a commercial building near the pier. From what he was saying, it sounded like one of those places wouldn’t pass muster with the health department.”

“Why is that?”

“Where the female help cleans the tables with their bare behinds after you eat. Businessman’s lunch,” says Herman.

“When’s the last time he saw her?” I ask.

“He did the dragon in two sessions. Last one was three weeks ago. She may still be working there. I paid him a few bucks and he e-mailed two of the pictures he took. I’m sending them to you soon as I hang up. The guy got a couple of very good ones.”

“I don’t need any thigh shots,” I tell him.

“How do you know until you look?” says Herman. He laughs. “A clear, crisp head-and-shoulder close-up, and one a little farther out. She’s wearing a robe from the shop. Do me a favor and forward them on to your client. Give him a call and make sure it’s her before we get too excited.”