Mark Costello - Big If

“I want to get the Admiral something special,” Bobbie said. “Sort of a peace offering and early Valentine, me in something sinful. I want to make that motherfucker buckle at the knees.”

“Did you guys have a fight?”

“We’re adults, Vi. We don’t fight, we have miscommunications.”

“Did you guys have a miscommunication?”

“No, I understood him loud and clear.”

They got off at Exit 12 and trolled for a parking space. Bobbie saw one in the distance, but a sports car beat her to it. She found another spot farther out. They parked and caught the shuttle bus.

The bus was standing room, packed with shoppers going to the mall or riding with bulging bags to rejoin their cars. Vi and Bobbie pushed their way to the back and found two hanging straps not far apart.

They rode the bus around the mall to the grand entrance. They strolled the indoor boulevards of the Galleria. They stopped at the mall map and, after some cross-triangulation, found the you-are-here dot.

Vi said, “Okay, we’re there.” She consulted the directory. “What’s the name of this boutique?”

“It’s a secret,” Bobbie said. “Known only to the chosen few. They’re notoriously discreet — they have to be, with their clientele — so they keep the name and whereabouts a secret. Don’t bother with the map. I’m pretty sure it’s down by Sears.”

They started for the far end of the mall.

“How do they advertise,” said Vi, “if it’s such a fucking secret?”

“Legend, myth, word of mouth,” Bobbie said. “How did people advertise before advertising?”

“Do you know the name?”

“Of course I know the name. The Admiral and I, we travel in those circles, Vi. We go to parties, closed parties in large houses on tree-lined private drives.”

“So what is it? If you know, that is.”

“I just told you that I know. Don’t try and goad me into telling you the name.”

They kept walking.

“Oh all right,” said Bobbie, “but don’t tell a soul and for God’s sake don’t tell Herc Mercado. He’ll have every stripper in the District camped out at the door.”

They stopped at a pretzel cart. Bobbie whispered in Vi’s ear: “The name of the boutique is Inside the Beltway.”

“No really, what’s the name?”

“Isn’t it amazing, Vi? Makes me hot, just saying it. Inside the Beltway. Inside the Beltway. O, the way around my belt, power sleeping in my region. O, my hidden inner, my soft and rotten fruit. O, my throbbing Washington. Makes me want to touch myself, the name.”

“Why’s it in Virginia then?”

“The Beltway is a state of mind. Everyone has noticed this but you.”

They passed Neiman’s, Godiva, Pulitzer, and Wurlitzer.

“You know, sometimes I wonder,” Bobbie said.

“What?”

“I wonder if the Admiral’s using me, promising to marry me, promising and promising. I give him all I can, but he only wants more. Can I ask you something weird? Have you ever been with more than one man at the same time?”

Vi laughed. “I was with ten thousand men in Iowa last week.”

“Sexually I mean.”

Vi knew what she meant. “Can’t say as I have. Why — is the Admiral into that?”

“Every man is into that — you’re so fucking innocent. When I was your age, damn. I remember once in El Paso. I met these two cute postal inspectors at a weapons refresher. We went back to my place. It was nice. Even been with three men, Vi?”

Vi figured you had to be with two before you were allowed to move up. “Nope,” she said.

“I remember once in Crim, we hit a warrant on the border, this big ol’ hacienda in the desert. We seized eight million bucks in cash that day, a gloryosky stat, and some of us went upstairs to celebrate. I’m lying on this big old iron bed in this big adobe room, cash spread all around me. Me and these three agents — Lord, I wore ’em out. I felt sorry for those agents, afterwards. I saw ’em lying on the floor. They were young guys, they had their whole lives ahead of them, but they would never see another woman half the woman I was in that bedroom. One of the three was one of the two from the weapons refresher, just so you don’t think I’m a total fucking strumpet.”

They came to a cement oasis, a fountain, benches, and some palms.

“I remember this other time,” Bobbie said. “Super Tuesday in Atlanta, when the president was running the first time. You’ve never worked Super T, but let me tell you, it’s a fucking scene — six hundred delegates selected, the nomination on the line, careers are made and ruined, and bourbon is the balm. Everyone was staying at the same hotel on Peachtree, the candidates, the campaign staff, the press, and us. Georgia’s coming in, Tennessee is coming in, Florida is coming in, and everybody’s smashed. I’m in the hotel bar with Fundeberg, the president’s Rasputin, the architect of victory, the toast of Super Tuesday. We had a thing back then.”

“You and Fundeberg?”

“Why — is he so horrible? Don’t answer that. We’re drinking Charlie Mansons in the bar, and we go up to his suite with this twerpy little talking head from cable. We ride the elevator and it’s glass. The lobby had its own indoor jungle and we rose over it, like going up to heaven. We get to the suite and the phone is ringing. It’s a well-known syndicated columnist — I shouldn’t say his name.”

She said his name.

Vi said, “ Him? But he looks so owlish.”

“Mr. Family Values, always calling for a moral renewal, horny little wormwood that he is. So he shows up, flings off his bow tie and we keep on drinking and I’m feeling good, you know. I’m feeling free. Here’s trashy little Bobbie Taylor from a Tulsa trailer park, drinking drinks with these big important men, and this is what I want and this is all I want, and we keep drinking and I lie back on the bed. I close my eyes and then I feel their hands on me. It’s like they’re searching me.”

Vi said, “Was it nice?”

“Not at first. The mood was off — ringing phone, three TVs, beepers beeping, and this moaning, keening, grinding sound like a goddamn ghost in chains, which turned out to be a fax-paper jam. The talking head was talking dirty and the columnist was bragging about the opinion-making power of his weekly dozen inches, but the body’s an amazing thing — I started going with it. You know that feeling, Vi? Your mind is here, your body’s there. You float away. That’s how Super Tuesday felt to me. The talking head’s between my legs, the columnist fills my mouth, but just as I’m about to come, Fundeberg starts leaking.”

“Leaking?”

“Some incredibly hot nugget of inside campaign dirt, I forget exactly what. They left me on the bed and went off the record. Deep background, they call it.”

They were sitting on a bench in the oasis. Dimes shimmered on the bottom of the fountain pool, magnified by water, looking like nickels. The fountain was on some kind of timer. It rose to a halo, fell to a burble, rose again and fell.

Bobbie said, “Oh well. Someday I’ll get there, Vi — the inner ring of power, sure. Come on, girl — let’s find this damn boutique.”

The elite boutique had no sign and no windows. They found a plain steel door under a surveillance cam.

“This must be it,” Bobbie said.

Vi looked at the camera.

Bobbie said, “That’s so they can peruse us and see if we’re their sort of person.”

She buzzed. They waited by the door.

Driving back to Washington, Vi said, “It was probably closed, that store.”

Bobbie didn’t say much, depressed by the rejection.

Vi said, “Let’s go up to Beltsville and goof off at the range.”