Capitol Murder (32 page)

“That’s the Playground?” Shalimar whispered.

“So my sources tell me.”

“The whole building?”

“Probably not. Someone’s private suite, I bet. Somewhere they can restrict access.”

“Then how are we going to get in?”

“I’m workin’ on it.” Loving had spent the entire day turning over every slimy rock in the city
to get a lead on the place.

“I can’t believe my sister would be involved in—in anything like this.”

“Why? She hung out with vampires.”

“But I never—” She stopped short, biting a knuckle. “I imagined—pretended, perhaps—that she’d
been taken against her will. Like white slavers or something. But from what you told me, she did
it all by choice. She did it for fun.”

“Maybe up to a point,” Loving said. “But I’ve got a hunch her power of choice was removed.
Otherwise you woulda heard from her.” He slowly pulled out of the shadows. “C’mon, Slayer. Let’s
go find your sister.”

They crossed the street and approached the front door of the building. The front door was
locked. Just to the right, he saw an intercom speaker. He pushed the button.

“Yes?” the electronic voice crackled.

“Umm . . . could you please open the door?”

“Are you a resident?”

“No. Visitor.”

“And who are you visiting?”

Loving looked at Shalimar. She shrugged. He tried, “The Playground.”

“Just a moment. I’ll transfer you.” As if he had asked for nothing out of the ordinary.

A few moments later, the speaker crackled to life again. The voice was different. “Yes?”

“We’re here for the Playground,” Loving said.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No, we’re—” Looking for someone? Loving thought better of it. “New. This is our first
time.”

“Are you cops? Or in any way associated with the law enforcement community?”

“Nah. We’re just . . . you know. Here for a good time. Into it.” Whatever
it
was.

“I’m sorry. I can’t let you in without an appointment or a referral. We have to enforce our
rules to ensure—”

“The Sire sent us,” Loving said. And waited.

The air went dead for several seconds. Then: “Stand back, I’ll release the door.” He heard a
sound something like the turning of an idled engine, then a few seconds later the dead bolt in
the door retracted. “Come up to the top floor. The penthouse.”

“Will do.” He grabbed Shalimar’s arm and whispered: “We’re in!”

She did not move. “I don’t know about this.”

“Don’t be afraid,” Loving said, patting her arm reassuringly. “We’ll be together. Besides,
whatever it is, it couldn’t possibly be worse than that vampire club.”

As it turned out, Loving was dead wrong.

“Glad to know they still care,” Glancy said as he gazed out the limo window at the crowd
outside. The courthouse steps were filled to capacity, and the security forces were working
overtime to hold the throngs behind the ropes.

“Like you thought they’d forget about this case?” Ben asked.

“You never know,” Glancy replied, smoothing the line of his trousers. “If a governor had been
caught in the back of a cab with a transvestite last night, no one would remember this case
existed.”

Ben knew the press could be fickle—he’d seen for himself how press coverage of a case would
surge with a dramatic inciting incident, then predictably wane as time passed, spurting briefly
when the trial began, then continuing its downward spiral. By the time it was over, sometimes the
verdict didn’t even make the papers. But this case was something else again. Just looking into
the eyes of the people on the courthouse steps informed him that this case was important to them,
that it had become a part of their lives.

“This is the big day, at least to many spectators,” Ben said. “After all, they already pretty
much knew what Padolino was going to say. They’ve got no clue what you’re going to say. They’re
anxious to hear your story.”

“I thought you told me I wasn’t taking the stand today.”

“They don’t know that. Press conference this morning?”

“I don’t think so.”

“The press is dying to know what your defense will be.”

“Yes, but I’m not sure I’m quite ready to say the ‘v-word’ on national television. I need to
practice in the mirror. Make sure I can keep a straight face.”

As before, the advance men had worked their magic—all the people most supportive of Senator
Glancy were closest to the roped-off trail up the steps. Ben tried to hurry his client, but it
was like dragging an elephant. He was an addict, powerless to prevent himself from shaking every
outstretched hand, signing every autograph book.

“We know what they’re tryin’ to do to you,” a plus-sized Latino woman said, as she flung her
arm around Glancy, hugging him so tightly it made the federal marshals tense. “You hang in
there.”

“That’s my fervent intent, ma’am,” Glancy said, flashing that award-winning smile.

He flew up the steps, brushing his hands against theirs like Leno coming onstage for
The
Tonight Show
, till he had almost reached the top of the steps. A middle-aged man in a flak
jacket ducked under the rope and stood in front of him.

“You killed my daughter, you bloodsucker!” Darrin Cooper flew at Glancy and Ben with a wild
walleyed look, but he never had a chance. One of the security cops and both federal marshals
tackled him, knocking him to the hard stone steps. His jaw made an ugly brittle sound as it
smashed onto the granite. Ben suspected Cooper was going to lose a few teeth over this
attack.

“Ben, I think you need to reconsider.” Christina was behind him, whispering in his ear. “I
understand why you didn’t want to prefer charges before. But neither you nor Glancy will be safe
if this clown isn’t locked up. I mean, I know he seems pathetic, but even a pathetic loser could
get lucky. Especially if he starts employing weapons.”

Ben nodded, but he knew he couldn’t do it. Neither Glancy nor his lawyer could be responsible
for incarcerating the victim’s father, regardless of the situation. The PR fallout would be
brutal.

The officials hauled Cooper to his feet and dragged him up the steps to a holding room. Glancy
was unflappable; he went right on smiling and waving as if nothing had happened.

“Interesting choice of words, don’t you think?” Ben said.

Christina was puzzled. “I don’t follow you.”

“Cooper. Just now. Cooper always calls me a money-grubbing bastard, or some variation on the
theme.” He paused. “But Glancy he called a ‘bloodsucker.’”

As soon as the woman opened the door to the penthouse apartment, Loving knew he was in the
right place. And wished he weren’t.

The first thing he noticed was that she was wearing a dog collar cinched around her neck. She
was also wearing a tight leather corset that left most of her buttocks exposed. It was only upon
closer—and extremely unpleasant—inspection that Loving realized that she was a he. A somewhat
pudgy, heavily made up, he.

Vampire drag. Jeez Louise, what next?

“Would you like me to show you around?” he/she said, and of course Loving didn’t, but he said
that he did. “If you’re with the Sire, I, and my humble establishment, are at your complete
disposal. You can call me Mina.” And so the tour began. Giggling, mincing, and occasionally
attempting to be scary—which was even funnier than the mincing—their leather-clad tour guide
strolled them through a maze of darkened rooms, some vacant, most not, all of them equipped with
a different top-quality device for the infliction of pain.

“We do have some open rooms,” Mina explained. “And remember if you have the desire—and the
cash—you can rent this place for the night. Have an exclusive. Just you and your friends.”

Loving was pretty sure he didn’t have any friends who would want to come here. And if they
did, they were off his friends list.

The people they encountered, in the halls and the darkened rooms, were clad much like what he
had seen in the vamp club and the Goth bar, when they were clad at all. Too often he had to avert
his eyes—and resist the temptation to cover Shalimar’s—to avoid seeing something he didn’t ever
want to see people doing to one another. In one room equipped with a vaulting horse, which they
were able to view through a voyeuristic one-way mirror, Loving heard smacking sounds followed by
cries of ecstatic pleasure.

“Spanking,” Loving whispered to Shalimar knowingly. “Some of these vamps are really into
it.”

But when their tour guide turned up the lights slightly, they were able to view a spectacle
for which neither of them was prepared. A woman, obese and naked, was strapped across the horse.
An equally heavy and equally naked man stood behind her teasing her with a cat-o’-nine-tails,
whipping her lightly, tickling her legs and breasts and stomach. She moaned in pleasure with each
new slap of the leather against her exposed jiggling skin. And, to make it even more interesting,
there were at least half a dozen other people in the room, just watching.

In the next room, they found a young woman, this one slender, and as far as Loving could tell
quite attractive. She was wearing only black lacy panties and was handcuffed, her hands hoisted
above her head and fastened to what looked like a large meat hook suspended from the ceiling. The
man standing in the rear was caning her, striking her again and again, all up and down the back
of her legs, while she let loose high-pitched whimpers of erotic delight. She writhed back and
forth, which did amazing things to her suspended body, titillating not only her and her
master—but the audience of spectators as well.

“My sister is not here,” Shalimar whispered. Loving noticed she was inhaling in deep quick
gulps. “She would not have anything to do with this . . . disgusting place.”

Loving put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze. He just hoped she was right. For once,
he didn’t want to find Beatrice. At least not here.

Ben had adjusted over the years to the fact that he was simply not, by anyone’s definition,
flashy. Not that he would mind. To the contrary, he thought being flashy sounded rather fun. It
just wasn’t in him. So he’d learned to content himself with being thorough, prepared, and good.
If he couldn’t gain prosperity via flamboyance, then at least he could gain notoriety by
winning.

Nonetheless, he couldn’t help but notice the contrast between Padolino’s announcement of his
final prosecution witness, and his own announcement of his first defense witness. The former had
triggered gasping and astonishment; the latter was met by, well, nothing. An absence of reaction.
Boredom. Ben consoled himself that it wasn’t a reflection on his style as a litigator; it was
simply that no one in the gallery knew who Sid Bartmann was.

That was about to change.

Interest in the witness increased, at least in the jury box, when the Virginia state troopers
walked Bartmann into the courtroom. They removed his handcuffs but left the leg restraints
chaining his two legs together. He was wearing his prison grays, which informed all the world
that he was Prisoner XK-24637. His face was pale and pocked; his hair, what little he had left,
was unwashed.

“Jesus,” Glancy muttered under his breath. “That’s my lead witness? He looks like the scum of
the earth.”

“Yes,” Ben replied quietly. “He does.”

“Couldn’t you have . . . I don’t know. Dressed him up a little bit? Loaned him a bar of
soap?”

“Yes,” Ben answered. “I could have.”

Ben wasted no time establishing that Bartmann had several prior offenses but that he had most
recently been incarcerated during a raid (if you could call what Loving did a raid) on a club in
Georgetown called Stigmata. He was arrested for possession of an illegal designer hallucinogen
derived in part from OxyContin.

“You were a habitué—” Ben checked himself; what was he thinking? “—you were at Stigmata a lot,
correct?”

“Oh yeah. Almost every night. I worked for the owner, Randy Lorenz.”

“And do you know where Mr. Lorenz is at this time?”

“In lockup. Bail was denied.”

“What exactly was your position at the club?”

“What, ya mean like my job title or somethin’? I don’t think I ever had one. I just did what
the man told me. Randy snapped his fingers, I come runnin’.”

“And what was your rate of payment?”

“I don’t think I had one of them, neither. Basically, whenever Randy got a wad of cash, he
threw some of it my way. Fortunately, he got a wad of cash like every night.”

“And that was because he was peddling a designer drug to a select group of women who were
admitted to his apartment on the second level of the club above the dance floor, correct?”

Ben could see the man blinking, trying to understand. Must use short sentences and one- or
two-syllable words, he reminded himself. “Randy had some chicks up to his place, yeah. Some of
them were usin’. But the club itself was rakin’ in dough. It was very popular with . . . you
know. A certain crowd.”

“And what crowd would that be?”

Bartmann coughed, a long grotesque grinding noise that sounded as if he were peeling off the
lining of his lungs. “The Goth freaks.”

“Interesting. So you and the other . . . freaks . . . were using this designer drug?”

“Hell, no. I couldn’t afford the stuff. Rather have a tall cool one, myself.”

“But you were arrested in possession—”

“Randy gave me the package and I held it for him. He was my boss. I did what I was told.”

“Even holding on to illegal drugs.”

“Hell, I woulda held on to illegal turds if he’d asked me.” Judge Herndon glared at the
witness but remained silent. “He was the man, you know? He took care of me and I took care of
him. He was like the brother I never had.”

The brother he never had. Ben was reminded of Aristophanes: youth ages, immaturity is
outgrown, ignorance can be educated, drunkenness sobered—but stupid lasts forever. He removed a
photograph from his trial notebook and held it up. “Mr. Bartmann, have you ever seen this woman
before?”