Strip Tease (22 page)

“The guy’s name is Moldowsky. And don’t ask me to spell it. Melvin or some damn thing.”

Garcia said, “Excellent. What did he want today?”

Orly jerked a thumb toward Erin. “He asked about her. What kind of person she is. Has she got a drug problem. Is there a boyfriend.”

Erin felt a bolt of fear. She’d never heard of this person.

“Another thing,” said Orly. “He knows about the kid. Knows there’s a problem with your ex-husband. The guy, he knows lots.”

“He mentioned Angie?” Erin’s voice cracked. She sat forward, balling her fists. “What did you say?”

“Not a damn thing,” he said. “I swear, I told him zippo.”

Erin’s glare was scalding.

Orly angrily jabbed a finger in the air. “You tell her, Shad. Tell her how I handled it.”

Shad backed up Orly’s version. “I was there when the asshole called. Mr. Orly didn’t give him shit.”

“Okay,” Erin said, leaning back. “I’m sorry.”

“He’s a heavy hitter,” said Orly. “He dropped a few names to get my attention. Otherwise I’d say fuck off.” His piggy eyes narrowed on Garcia. “I lose my license and there’s hell to pay. Bottom line, there’s some serious people I answer to.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Orly. You cooperate and everything’ll turn out just beautiful.”

“Cooperate?” Orly sprayed the word. “Sweet Christ Almighty, what more you want? I gave up the goddamn name.”

“Yeah, you did,” Garcia said. “If only there was a phone number to go with it.”

Orly adopted the impatient pose of a man with better things to do. “Yeah, Moldowsky left a number. I got it here somewheres.” He pawed halfheartedly at the clutter on his desk.

The detective said, “Excellent. I want you to call him.”

Orly frowned. “What the hell for? I’m not callin’ nobody.”

“Come on,” said Al Garcia. “Let’s find that number.”

Shad winked at Erin, as if to say: This part might be fun.

Garcia stayed at the club until closing time. He waited in the parking lot until Erin came out with Angie. The detective tried to make friends, but the little girl was tired and cranky. She climbed in the backseat of the Fairlane and lay down. Garcia said it was a lousy arrangement, letting Angie stay at the club.

Erin said, “Sorry you disapprove.” She was in no mood for a male lecture. “The other girls are terrific with her. And, no, she’s not allowed in the dance lounge to see what her bimbo mom does for a living.”

“Easy now,” Garcia said. “I’m not talking about the atmosphere, I’m talking about the child’s safety.”

He held the door while Erin got in the car. She turned the key and revved the engine noisily. “I want her near me at all times,” she said, “as long as Darrell’s out there.”

From the backseat: “Momma, can we go home now?”

Garcia lowered his voice to a whisper. “Think about it. If someone’s after you, where’s the first place they’re gonna come? Right here. Say the shit hits the fan—you want that little girl asleep in the dressing room?”

“Fine,” Erin said. “Then you find me a kindergarten that’s open at three in the morning.” She slipped the car in gear. “Besides, what’s there to worry about? We got you and Shad to protect us.”

Erin drove away fast, burning rubber on the corner. Very childish, she thought, but wonderful therapy. She gunned it all the way home.

When Al Garcia arrived at the town house, twenty minutes later, Erin and Angela were still sitting in the Fairlane. Erin’s face was taut as she stared at the front of the apartment. When the detective approached the car, he saw a small pistol on the dash. In the backseat, Angela was as still as a porcelain doll.

Garcia asked Erin to put the gun away. She pointed at the second-story window and said, “The bedroom light’s on.”

“You didn’t leave it that way?”

“No lights,” Erin said. She’d shut off everything before leaving for work. It was an old habit; the electric bills were murder.

They watched the window for signs of a shadow. Nothing moved behind the half-drawn drapes.

“Give me the key,” Garcia said.

“It’s probably open.”

“And the gun, please.”

Erin gave him the keys and the.32. “The safety’s on,” she said.

“Thanks. If things break loose, lean on the horn.”

The front door was locked. The detective opened it softly and went inside. For several interminable moments, nothing happened; it was as if Al Garcia had been swallowed up in the darkness. Erin scanned the windows and braced for the sound of a muffled gunshot, but all she heard was Angela’s gentle breathing in the backseat. Eventually the other windows lit up, one by one, as Garcia moved from room to room. When he reappeared at the front door, he waved for Erin to come in.

The place looked untouched. The detective accompanied her and Angela through the kitchen, the living room, up the stairs to the bedrooms. Nothing seemed to be missing.

So I made a mistake, Erin thought. I left the damn light on.

“This is all your stuff?” Garcia asked.

“Angie and I travel light.”

It felt strange to have the detective in her bedroom. Erin caught him smiling at the rock posters on the wall. She said, “I’m saving for a Van Gogh.”

“No, I like it.”

Angela ran down the hall and returned with a crayon drawing. “I drew this myself,” she said, thrusting it at Garcia.

“What a pretty dog.”

“No, that’s a wolf. Aunt Rita’s.” Angela traced the outline with a finger. “See the bushy tail? And here’s the baby wolves under the tree.”

“Right,” said the detective. “Wolves.”

Erin took the drawing from his hands. She said, “That’s Darrell’s side of the family. I need some aspirin.”

The bathroom was the last place she expected to find signs of an intruder. At first she didn’t notice. She got a bottle of Advils from the medicine chest and swallowed three. Standing at the sink, looking in the mirror, Erin sensed something was out of place. She turned and saw what it was.

“God,” she said. A prickle went down the back of her neck.

Garcia walked in. Erin told him to look at the shower curtain, which was pulled open along the length of the bathtub.

“You didn’t leave it that way?”

“Never,” Erin said.

Angie squeezed between the grown-ups’ legs and said: “Because of mildew.”

“That’s right,” said her mother. “It mildews if you leave it bunched up that way.”

Garcia smiled. “Every day I learn something new.”

Erin gave Angie a glass of chocolate milk and put her to bed. Then she and the detective went through the medicine chest, the cabinets, the vanity. They found nothing missing or even disturbed, yet Erin was sure that someone had been there.

Inside her house.

Not Darrell Grant, either. He wouldn’t have come and gone without leaving tracks. His ego couldn’t abide an anonymous entry. No, Darrell would’ve mangled something intimate and left it on display.

Erin sat on the edge of the tub and fingered the shower curtain, as if it held the clue.

“Weird,” Garcia said. “Not your average burglar.”

“I can’t afford to pack up and move again. I just can’t.”

Garcia leaned against the bathroom sink. He was dying for a cigar. “I wonder what he wanted,” he said.

Erin said she was too tired to keep looking.

“One more try,” the detective said. “I got an idea that might help. Tell me everything you do to get ready for work.”

“Please,” said Erin.

“I’m serious. Everybody’s got a routine when they get up in the morning. Tell me yours.”

“I’d say the high point is flossing my teeth.”

“Whatever. Walk me through it.”

Erin agreed, out of pure exhaustion. “Well, first I shower, do my hair, shave my legs. Then I touch up my nails… Wait a second.” She was looking at the window sill where she kept her bath articles.

“God, this is sick. Now I know what’s missing.” She stood up, shaking. “Angela can’t stay here,” she said, “not another single night!”

The detective put an arm around her. “Tell me what they took.”

“You won’t believe it,” Erin whispered. “I don’t believe it.”

Erb Crandall said: “What’ve you done here?”

“Created a mood.” David Dilbeck opened his eyes. “Did you get what I wanted?”

“Yeah, I got it. Where’s the wife?”

“Ethiopia, courtesy of UNICEF. Then Paris and probably Milan. Do you like the black lights?”

“Brings back memories.”

“Pierre found them at a head shop in the Grove. Let me see what you’ve got, Erb.”

Crandall stepped tentatively through the purple glow. He said, “Geez, look at you.”

Using handkerchiefs, the congressman had tied one arm and both feet to the bedposts. Above the boots, his pale shins gleamed, as if shellacked.

“Vaseline,” Dilbeck explained. “First I warmed it in the microwave—it’s best to use the sauce setting.” Erb Crandall’s disgusted expression prompted Dilbeck to add: “This is what happens when you won’t let me go out and play.”

“David,” Crandall said, “tell me you’ve been drinking.”

“Not a drop, my friend.”

So he was insane, Crandall thought; downhill from downhill. He wondered what the chairman of the Florida Democratic Party would say if he could see the senior congressman at this moment.

Dilbeck thrust out his free arm. “Come on. I’ve been waiting all night.”

Crandall dropped it—the thing he had stolen from the stripper’s apartment—in Dilbeck’s open palm. The congressman squirmed on the bed as he examined the illicit treasure: a pink disposable razor.

“Now, this is the genuine article?”

“From her very bathroom,” Crandall said, listlessly.

Dilbeck twirled it between his fingers. With an edge of excitement, he said, “I bet she used it this morning.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“I can see the little hairs!”

“Be careful, Davey.” With any luck, the dumb shit would slice his own wrists.

Dilbeck’s chest rose and fell heavily. “Erb, do you like Garth Brooks?”

“Is that who you’re supposed to be?”

Dilbeck smiled dreamily. “My boots are full of Vaseline.”

Well, thought Crandall, enough’s enough. He took one of the burglar tools from his pocket—a small screwdriver—and put the blade to Dilbeck’s neck. The congressman seemed surprised, but not particularly afraid.

Crandall pressed firmly and said, “I’d be doing us both a tremendous favor.”

“Erb, please. This is harmless sport.”

“You’re a sick puppy.”

Dilbeck said, “Stop that right now.”

“This isn’t why I went into politics, David—to pimp and steal for a perverted old fuck like you. Believe it or not, I once had ideals.”

Crandall was romanticizing; he was not a man of ideals so much as a man of instinct. He had been drawn to politics by the sweet scent of opportunity. The bitter backlash from Watergate had guaranteed a landslide for the Democrats, so that’s when Crandall invested his loyalty. The choice was not between good and evil, but between winning and losing. Occasionally Erb Crandall was compelled to question the wisdom of his allegiance, but never had it been so tested as it was now.

“Know what?” he said to the prone and bound congressman. “Even that jizzbag Nixon wouldn’t have pulled something like this.”

“Maybe he’d have been a better President if he had.” Dilbeck arched his silvery eyebrows. “Ever think of that?”

Dispiritedly, Crandall put the screwdriver away.

“That’s a good boy,” David Dilbeck said.

“Moldy’s coming in an hour. If I killed you, there wouldn’t be time to clean up the mess.”

Dilbeck studied the plastic razor from all angles, as if it were a rare gem. “What’s her name?”

“Erin,” Crandall said.

“That’s beautiful. Irish, obviously. Erin what?”

“Never mind.”

“Come on, Erb. I won’t try to find her, I promise.”

Crandall walked to the door. “I need a drink. By the way, you look absolutely fucking ridiculous.”

The congressman paid no attention. “Erb, one more small favor.”

“Let me guess. You want me to tie your other arm to the bed.”

Dilbeck cackled. “You better not!”

“What then?”

He wiggled the pink razor in the air. “Shave me, Erb. Shave me all over.”

Crandall glared loathsomely as he stalked from the room.

David Lane Dilbeck was the only son of Chuck “The Straw” Dilbeck, once the foremost pumper of septic tanks in Dade, Broward and Monroe counties. In the early boom days of South Florida, before sewers were available, nearly every family relied on a septic tank buried in the backyard. The massively squat cylinders were vital components of the average household, and a frequent source of whispered anxiety. A septic-tank backup was the secret nightmare of every rural husband, as dreaded as a hurricane or a heart attack. Cleaning clogs was a vile business, and only a few hardy entrepreneurs had the will to compete.

The Dilbeck name was widely known in the solid-waste industry, and its prominence endured long after most South Florida septic tanks had rusted out. Young David never spent a day pumping sewage (he insisted it gave him a rash), but early on he recognized the value of having a notable father. In 1956, at the age of twenty-four, he boldly announced his candidacy for the Hialeah city council. Many of the town’s citizens were lifelong customers of Chuck Dilbeck, and were glad to support his son’s ambitions. Speedy response was critical in a septic-tank crisis, so it was important to stay on The Straw’s good side. Hundreds of local septic-tank owners enthusiastically volunteered to help in young David’s first political campaign, which he won handily.

Even by Florida standards, Hialeah was—and remains—egregiously corrupt. For council members, the easiest graft was the fixing of zoning cases in exchange for cash, real estate and other valuables. David Dilbeck was fortunate to be in Hialeah during the salad years, when there was still plenty of land to be carved up and paved. He spent four fruitful terms listening, learning and successfully avoiding indictment. He excelled at negotiating bribes, and carried the skill with him when he went to Tallahassee as a junior member of the state Senate.

The atmosphere in Florida’s capital was different, and the pace of life was faster. Corruption was a sociable affair, rich with tradition; the stakes were higher, as well. Because of occasional scrutiny by pesky news reporters, it was unwise for legislators to be seen drooling openly on the laps of private lobbyists. David Dilbeck worked hard to polish his rough edges. He learned to dress and talk and drink like a country gentleman. The senate was loaded with self-cultured rednecks, and most were unabashedly crooked. But the pecking order was rigid, and newcomers who ignored protocol paid dearly for the mistake. Dilbeck adapted smoothly, and was soon studying at the knees of some of Florida’s most prolific thieves. He was rewarded in the usual ways.

It was in Tallahassee where he first learned that some women were attracted to politicians and would actually have sex with them. Dilbeck gained this pleasant knowledge episodically, and with each conquest he became more obsessed. He’d always anticipated that public service would make him wealthy, but he never dreamed that it would get him laid. For eight years Dilbeck wallowed promiscuously and then—in fine Southern tradition—married a phosphate tycoon’s gorgeous, semi-virginal daughter, who seldom consented to sleep with him. Pamela Handle Dilbeck was more interested in new fashions and social causes. Her husband encouraged her to travel often.

By the mid-1970s, Dilbeck’s career had stalled in the halls of state government, where he had authored exactly two pieces of legislation. Neither could be described as landmark. One of the bills made it illegal for sporting-goods stores to sell machine-gun clips to minors on Sunday. The measure passed narrowly, despite staunch opposition from the National Rifle Association. Dilbeck’s only other achievement was a joint resolution naming the Okaloosa dwarf salamander as Florida’s official state amphibian; a special limited-edition license plate was made available to the motoring public for thirty-five dollars, plus tax. The salamander tag was designed by a vivacious art instructor from Florida State University, who was paid $40,000 from the general revenue fund, and who also happened to be screwing a certain senator on Thursday afternoons.

Dilbeck’s big break was the passing, at age eighty-two, of Congressman Wade L. Sheets of South Miami. The venerable old Democrat had been mortally ill for the better part of three terms, and was rarely seen on Capitol Hill. Those close to Sheets sadly reported that his numerous health problems were complicated by fast-advancing senility; toward the end, he refused to wear pants and demanded to be addressed as “Captain Lindbergh.” By the time Sheets died, a score of local politicians had positioned themselves to make a run for his seat in the House of Representatives. Among the hopefuls was David Lane Dilbeck.

At Sheets’s funeral, Dilbeck delivered a eulogy that was uncharacteristically graceful, bringing fond laughter and tears from the huge assembly of mourners. The emotional speech was even more remarkable, considering that Dilbeck had met Wade Sheets only twice in his life and on both occasions the ailing congressman appeared not to be conscious. Dilbeck’s remarkable panegyric (written by an eager young staffer named Crandall) borrowed heavily from old John F. Kennedy scripts, which had borrowed heavily from everybody else. No one in the hushed church picked up on the plagiarisms. The other candidates for the dead Sheets’s seat also presented eulogies, but none were as moving or as memorable. The others knew they were sunk when all the TV stations led the news with a video snip of David Dilbeck in the pulpit. That single maudlin oratory ensured his selection as Wade Sheets’s successor. Hands down, Dilbeck had given the best damn sound bite at the funeral.

He was thrilled to travel all the way to Washington; the farther one got from one’s constituents, the harder it was for them to keep an eye on you. Again, Dilbeck modified his style of larceny to fit local custom. Outright cash-in-a-bag bribery was rare on Capitol Hill; special-interest groups were more subtle and sophisticated. A compliant congressman might receive four skybox seats to a Redskins game in exchange for a key vote. Such arrangements were virtually impossible to trace, much less prosecute. Another quick way to a politician’s heart was by exorbitant campaign donations; in this manner, David Dilbeck was seduced by the powerful sugar lobby.

Other industries found him equally receptive to their attentions. For two decades he was content to coast along as a well-lubricated lackey. He weathered several stiff Republican challenges and numerous negative news stories, but always managed to get reelected. Those who owned Dilbeck’s soul remained silent because they were satisfied with his favors. Consequently, he was never threatened by a scandal. Until now.

“Good evening, deacon.”

“Hello, Malcolm.” The congressman shrank in Moldowsky’s presence. Erb Crandall could be handled, but Moldy was something else. The man held no loyalties beyond the contractual.

He said, “Where’s the cowboy suit, Davey?”

“So Erb told you.” Dilbeck had ditched the boots and the cowboy hat for a maroon jogging suit. He stood casually in the den, sipping an iced tea.

“Erb is concerned,” Moldowsky said. “Frankly, so am I.”

As always, Dilbeck found himself admiring Moldy’s elegance. He wore a gorgeous dove-colored Italian suit with an indigo necktie. Tonight’s cologne was particularly memorable; Moldowsky smelled like an orange grove.

“David,” he said, pacing, “I hear talk of Vaseline.”

“I’m trying to cope—”

“—and laundry lint. Is this possible?” Moldy’s fulsome pucker suggested that he was about to spit on the carpet.

“Malcolm, I wish I could explain. These are forces rising up in me, animal urges… and it’s simply a matter of coping.”

“Sit down,” Moldy barked. No taller than a jockey, he hated staring up at the person he was berating. “Sit, goddammit.”

Dilbeck did as he was ordered. Moldowsky moved slowly around the den, occasionally pausing to scowl at the photographs and laminated press clippings that hung on the wall. Without glancing at Dilbeck, he said, “Erb found a lady’s shoe in your desk. Where did that come from?”

“Chris bought it for me.”

“From this stripper?”

“Yes, Malcolm.” Dilbeck took a gulp of tea. “These little things—they help me get by. It’s harmless sport.”

Moldy felt a jolt of desperation. Insanity was one thing he could not fix, spin, twist or obscure. And David Dilbeck was plainly nuts.

“What did Erb do with the shoe?” the congressman demanded. “He didn’t throw it away, did he?”

Unbelievable, thought Moldowsky. He’s like a damn junkie.

“My inclination,” Moldy said, “is to haul your ass back to Washington and lock you in my apartment until the sugar vote. Unfortunately, we’ve got a campaign to worry about. It would be poor form for you to vanish.”

“I suppose,” Dilbeck said, absently.

“David, you do understand what’s at stake?”

“Of course.”

“What if I brought in a woman, to be here just for you—for when you got in these moods. Maybe two women…”