The Sphinx (2 page)

Gene shrugged.
“What can I call you if I don’t know what it is? Supposing I want to ask you to
come to dinner with me after the party? How do I say it? ‘Excuse me, Ms. X, or
Ms. Y, or whatever you call yourself, will you come to dinner with me after the
party?’“

She shook her
head. “You don’t have to say that.”

“Then what do I
say?”

“Don’t say
anything, because I can’t come.”

Gene took her
hand, and held it in both his hands.

“Of course you
can come. You’re not married, are you?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think
you were. You don’t have that haunted look that all Washington wives get sooner
or later.”

“Haunted look?”
asked the girl.

“Sure,” said
Gene. “They’re always worrying about which girls their husbands are sleeping
with, and whether it’s any of the girls that the men they’re sleeping with have
slept with, in which case their husbands may find out they’ve been sleeping
around.”

“It sounds
complicated.”

“You get used
to it. It’s all part of running a great democracy.”

The girl almost
unconsciously touched her animal-tooth earring. She said, as if she was
thinking of something else, “It doesn’t sound... very moral.”

Gene looked at
her cautiously. “Moral” was a word lie hadn’t heard in a long time, not since
he’d made his reputation four years ago down south by exposing a swamp-draining
scheme for the money-grubbing scan-, dal it was. On this girl’s lips it sounded
curious, out of place. Here she was, at a Washington cocktail party, dressed in
skin-tight, flesh-colored silk, with the most eye-stopping figure since Dolly
Parton, and she was talking about morality.

“Listen,” he
said gently. “This life is full of stresses and strains. For many people, many
politicians, fooling around is the only recreation they get.”

“I’m sorry,”
said the girl. “Fooling around is not my recreation.”

Gene spread his
hands wide in apology. “Okay. I didn’t mean to suggest anything. I think you’re
a beautiful girl, and I’d be some kind of monk if I didn’t find you sexy. Now,
wouldn’t I?”

She blinked at
him in bewilderment “You... find me... sexy?”

Gene almost
laughed. “Well, of course I damn well do! What the hell were you thinking about
when you put that dress on this evening?”

She blushed. “I
don’t know. I didn’t think...”

Gene took her
hand again. “Honey,” he said, “I think you’d better tell me your name. It’s
going to make life a lot easier.”

“All right. I’m
Lorie Semple.”

Gene frowned.
“Semple? Wasn’t your father...?”

“Jean Semple,
yes, the French diplomat.”

Gene squeezed
her fingers gently. “I was sorry to hear about that. I never met him, but a few
of my friends said he was a terrific guy. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have
to be. He always knew that he was living dangerously. My mother says that he is
probably more fulfilled now than he ever was.”

Gene managed to
catch the sleeve of a passing waiter, and say “vodka tonic” before the man
dashed off. Then he turned back to Lorie.

“Are you sure I
can’t persuade you to come and lave dinner? I’ve been meaning to test my teeth
on the gigot at the Montpellier for months.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry,
Gene.”

“I don’t
understand why,” he said. “I may not be Rock Hudson, but I’m still pretty
chunky.

Chunky guys
like me are hard to find in politics. You want to go out with bespectacled
weeds from the Treasury all your life?”

“Gene,” she
said, and he caught the strong scent of her perfume, “I don’t mean to be rude.
I don’t want to hurt your feelings, either. But I. came because my father was
invited here before he died, and I thought it would be polite. Once I have said
all the right things to all the right people, I must go.”

“You’re not
wearing black,” he said, quite suddenly.

“No,” she said.
“In my family, for generations, the death of the male has been regarded as–well,
a cause for celebration. I am celebrating because my father has fulfilled his
duty in this world, and is now at peace.”

“You’re
celebrating” Gene asked.

Lorie lifted
her head to stare straight into his eyes. “It is the way of our kind. It is the
way we are.

It is the way
we have always been.”

Gene was still
trying to work this out when the Waiter brought his drink. He tipped the man a
dollar, and then said unsteadily, “Lorie, I don’t mean to pry, but I’ve never
met a family that celebrates death before.”

She turned
away. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I know it shocks some people. We just
feel that when a man’s life is over, he has finished his work, and that in
itself is cause for pleasure.”

“Well, I’ll be
damned,” he said, and sipped his ice-cold drink.

Lorie turned.
“I have to leave now.”

“Already?
You’ve only been here a few minutes. This bash is going to go on till three.
You wait till Mrs. Marowsky starts her stripping act. Once you’ve seen that,
anything you ever thought about morality is going to go right out of the
window.”

“Don’t mock me,
Gene,” Lorie said.

“Honey, I’m not
mocking you. I just don’t want you logo.”

“I know. I’m
sorry. But I have to.”

Quietly,
impossibly, as if he had been materialized by Star Trek tele-transportation
beam, a tall, swarthy man in a black chauffeur’s uniform appeared at Lorie’s
side. He had a black beard, trimmed with obsessive neatness, and he wore Slack
leather gloves. He said nothing, but stood just behind her, his hard expression
giving Gene no doubts at all that it was going-home time, friends, and anyone
who thought otherwise could lump it. He could have been an Arab, or a Turk, but
whatever he was he was silent and hard and protective, and Lorifc Semple
retreated into his protectiveness at once.

“Goodbye, Mr.
Keiller. It’s been good to meet you.”

“Lorie...”

“Really, I have
to go now. Mother will be expecting me.”

“Well, let me
drive you home. That’s the least I can do.”

“It’s quite all
right. This is my chauffeur. Please don’t bother.”

“Lorie, I
insist. I’m a hot-shot politician at the Department of State, and I absolutely
insist.”

Lorie bit her
lip. She turned to the hard-faced chauffeur standing beside her and said,
“Could I?”

There was a
long silence. Gene was aware that Senator Hasbaum and several other friends of
his were watching, but he was too busy with this extraordinary relationship
between Lorie and her silent chauffeur to worry about them. He looked evenly
and confidently at the chauffeur, and in his turn, the chauffeur scrutinized him.

Finally, the
chauffeur nodded. It was an auction-bidder’s nod, almost imperceptible if you
weren’t watching for it. Lorie smiled, and said, “Thank you, Gene. I’d love
to,”

“That’s the
first sensible thing you’ve said all evening.” Gene said. “Just give me a
minute to say goodbye to the Secretary.”

Lorie nodded.
“All right. I’ll see you outside.”

Gene winked at
Senator Hasbaum as he pushed his way through the cocktail guests to find Henry
Ness. As usual, the young and dynamic Secretary of State was surrounded by a
crowd of women, burbling like doves in a dovecot over every platitude that fell
from his lips. His new fiancée, Reta Caldwell, was clinging on to his arm in a
ruby-red evening dress that made her bulge out in all the wrong places, and it
would have taken bolt-cutters to get her away.

“Henry,” called
Gene. “Hey, Henry!”

Henry Ness
turned around, his smooth Clark Kent face fixed in the confident smile that
experienced politicians automatically stick on their faces when anybody says
“Hey!” It could, after all, be a photographer, and after Nixon’s notorious
scowls there was a kind of frenetic nervousness in the Democratic camp that
everyone should always look joyful.

“Gene, how are
you?” said Ness. He reached over the head of a diminutive woman and shook
hands. “I hear good reports of your Mexican file.”

“Well, it’s
shaping up fine,” said Gene. “But I guess you’re shaping up better.
Congratulations on your engagement, Henry. You too, Reta. You’re looking
swell.”

Reta glared at
him. He had known her before, years ago, when he was a young and inexperienced
campaigner on the State assembly circuit, and she probably remembered that he
had seen her paralytically drunk at a campaign party, slobbering kisses over
acutely embarrassed party chiefs.

“Henry, I have
to leave now,” said Gene. “Pressures of state–you know how it is. But truly,
Henry, all my best wishes for the future. I hope you’re both going to be very
happy.”

Henry shook his
hand again, smiled unconvincingly, and then turned warmly back to his swooning
audience of Washington ladies. Henry liked talking to women, Gene considered,
as he elbowed his way out of the party toward the door. They didn’t answer
back, and they didn’t ask awkward questions like what the hell are we going to
do about multiple-warhead missiles on Turkish soil, and are we going to let the
Communists continue to infiltrate black Africa unchecked? All women wanted to
know was what he wore in bed, or preferably what he didn’t.

Gene collected
his raincoat and walked across the polished marble hallway of the Schirra’s
grandiose house toward the open front doors. It had stopped raining, but the
streets and the sidewalks were still wet, and there was a warm breeze blowing
that promised more showers before the night was out. Lorie and her chauffeur
were standing on the steps, and as Gene came nearer, it seemed that she was
leaning close to the chauffeur’s ear and whispering something.

Gene hesitated
for a moment, but then Lorie turned and saw him and smiled. Without a word, the
chauffeur left her side and went down the steps to collect his car, a glossy
black Fleetwood limousine with a coaching lamp on the roof. He climbed into it,
and waited at the curb with the motor idling–not once looking their way, but as
watchful and protective as a fierce dog.

Lorie tied a
long red velvet cape around her shoulders and brushed back her hair with her
hand.

“I think my
chauffeur’s nervous,” she grinned. “Mother told him to keep an eye on me, and
he doesn’t like to let me out of his sight.”

Gene took
Lorie’s hand. “Is he always as cagey as that?” he asked her. “I get the feeling
that if I nibbled your ear, he’d be out of that car and beating me into a pulp
before I could say ‘goodbye, Capitol Hill.’ “

Lorie laughed.
“He’s very good at his job. Mother says he’s the most conscientious servant
she’s had for years. He’s an expert in kravmaga.”

“Kravmaga? What
the hell’s that?”

“It’s a kind of
self-defense thing, like kung-fu. I think the Israelis invented it. You totally
dedicate yourself to the destruction of your opponent by whatever means
possible.”

Gene raised his
eyebrows. “It sounds like a slightly less hypocritical version of politics.”

They stood on
the rainy sidewalk waiting for Gene’s car to come around from the car park. A
footman in yellow livery shuffled around beside them, surreptitiously smoking a
cigarette. A few hundred yards away, across the grass, the illuminated spire of
the Washington Monument rose like a spectral tombstone in the damp evening air.
A siren warbled somewhere over on, M Street.

“You mustn’t
blame Mathieu for doing his job,” Lorie said.

“Mathieu?
That’s your chauffeur?”

“He’s mute, you
know. He can’t speak a word. He Worked for the French secret service in
Algeria, and the rebels rugged out all his fingernails and cut out his tongue.”

“You’re
kidding.”

“No, it’s
true.”

Gene turned his
head and looked for a long and thoughtful moment at the Hack Cadillac, still
idling quietly by the curb nearby. In the driving mirror he could see Mathieu’s
eyes, hard and watchful, as if they were floating by themselves in the air.

“A thing like
that–it must make a guy kind of edgy.”

Lorie nodded.
“I suppose so. Is this your car?”

Gene’s white
New Yorker was pulled up to the curb, and the footman opened the doors for
them. Gene pressed a dollar into the discreetly placed palms of both footman
and carhop and then settled himself down behind the steering wheel.

“Do you want to
direct me?” he asked Lorie.

Lorie shook her
head. “Mathieu will drive on ahead. All you have to do is follow him.”

“No detours?”

“Not unless you
want him chasing after us. And I can assure you, he won’t let us get away.”

Gene pulled
away from the curb, traffic signals flashing. “Doesn’t that ever bother you?
Being kept on a tight rein like that? You’re a grown-up girl now.”

She released
the catch of her cape and let it fall back from her shoulders. In the
flickering light of passing streetlamps, he could see the shine on her lips,
the intense green sparkle of her emerald choker, and the sheen of silk on her
breasts. Inside the car, that musky perfume of hers seemed even stronger, and
for a girl who professed to be so quiet and so moral it seemed peculiarly
rampant and aggressive. For some reason it reminded him of an animal in heat.

“I suppose you
find us strange,” said” Lorie huskily. “But you must remember that we’re not
Americans. This is not our country. That’s why we stay close together and guard
each other.

Apart from
that...”

“Apart from
that, what?”

She lowered her
eyes. “Well, we’re different, I suppose. And when you’re different, you tend to
keep your own company.”

Ahead of them,
the red taillights of Mathieu’s limousine turned left, and Gene followed. It
was starting to rain again, and a few drops spattered the windshield. Gene
switched on the wipers.