A man leaned out of the van and said, "Hey, baby, did you vote today?" She showed him the manicure on her right middle finger. That went for the American political system, too. What kind of freedom was it when the only people you could vote for were politicians?
She got in line outside the methadone clinic, pulling her coat tighter around her. It was embarrassment as much as cold. She didn't know which was worse, to be surrounded by so many junkies or to be taken for one of them. They mostly seemed to be black women and white boys with long greasy hair.
At least, she thought, she was still on the street. Ichiko had given her three choices: check into a detox center, see Hannah, or look for another job.
Her turn came and the woman at the window handed her a paper cup. The methadone was mixed in a sweet orange-flavored drink. Veronica drank it down and crumpled the cup. The black hooker behind her teetered up to the window on impossibly high heels and said, "Weeee, law, give me that jesus jizz."
Veronica threw the cup on the street and looked at her watch. Time enough to get uptown to Bergdorf s before her dinner date.
She should have guessed from the name he'd used to make the dinner reservation: Herman Gregg. But she didn't figure it out till she got to the table.
"Holy shit," Veronica said. The subdued light of the restaurant was enough, even for Veronica, to know the face. "Senator Hartmann," she said.
He smiled weakly. "Not senator anymore. I'm just an ordinary citizen again. But you can see why I didn't want to be alone tonight. You know what they say about politics and strange bedfellows."
"No," Veronica said. "What do they say?"
Hartmann shrugged and put the menu down. "How hungry are you?"
"I don't care. If you just want to go upstairs, that's fine." He'd already told her he had a room upstairs at the Hyatt. "Don't feel like you have to buy me dinner, like this is a real date or anything."
"Somehow this isn't quite what I expected. I'd heard so much about Fortunato and his extraordinary women."
"Yeah, well, Fortunato's gone. Things have fallen off a bit. If you're not happy, you don't have to go through with it."
"I'm not complaining. I guess you're more human than I expected. I kind of like that."
Veronica stood up. "Shall we?"
He was very quiet in the elevator, didn't touch her or anything. Just one hand on the elbow as they got out, to point her toward the room. Once inside, he locked the door and turned the TV on.
"We don't need that, do we?" Veronica asked.
"I have to know," Hartmann said. He took his jacket off and folded it over a chair, then untied his shoes and put them neatly underneath. He loosened his tie and sat on the end of the bed, his tiredness visible in the curve of his spine. "I have to know just how bad it is."
When Veronica came out of the bathroom in her bra and panties, he was in the same position. Bush was running almost two to one ahead of Dukakis and Jackson. Concession speeches were expected momentarily. She helped Hartmann off with the rest of his clothes, put a condom on him, and got him under the covers.
He didn't want anything fancy, just got right down to business. As he rocked against her, the election returns continued in a steady stream: "Texas now shows Bush with a staggering fifty-eight percent of the vote, and that's with thirty-seven percent of the precincts reporting." Hartmann's spasm happened quickly and left him on the edge of tears. Veronica stroked the small of his back, where the sweat had just broken, and made soothing noises. Just as he rolled off her, one of the TV reporters said his name and he sat up guiltily.
"Many of us must be asking ourselves the same question tonight," the reporter went on. "Could Gregg Hartmann have beaten Vice-President Bush? It was just two and a half months ago that Hartmann withdrew from the race after his loss of composure at the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta. That convention will long be remembered, not only for its bloodshed, but as a turning point in the nation's attitude toward victims of the wild-card virus."
She carried the used condom into the bathroom, knotted it, wrapped it in toilet paper, and threw it away. The odor of sperm almost gagged her. She sat on the edge of the tub and washed herself and then brushed her teeth, over and over, telling herself she didn't need a shot, not yet.
It was after two when Hartmann turned the TV off. Bush was a joke, Hartmann told her. His campaigning against drugs was sheerest hypocrisy, given what his CIA had done in Central America. His cabinet officers would never live up to his claims of ethics, and his "kinder, gentler" America would have no room for aces or jokers.
The wild-card issue meant little to Veronica. Fortunato, the man who had brought her in off the streets, was an ace. Her mother had been one of Fortunato's geishas and had meant for Veronica to have a college education and a real career. But Veronica had turned tricks anyway. The money was easy and it was easy as well to think of herself that way, as a whore. Together Miranda and Fortunato had decided that if she was going to sell her body, she might as well do it right. Fortunato had brought her back to his apartment and tried, unsuccessfully, to make her into one of his ideal women. She loved him in the way that people loved something sweet and not entirely of this world.
Because of Fortunato she'd met and had sex withother aces and jokers. None of them had seemed quite real to her either. There weren't even that many of them, not compared to unwed mothers or the homeless or old people, not enough to deserve all the attention they got. And it wasn't like it was a disease that other people could catch, like AIDS or something.
That thought gave her a chill. For a while the wild card had been contagious, and her sometime boyfriend Croyd Crenson had been spreading it. She'd been exposed to him but fortunately nothing had happened. She didn't want to think about it.
Eventually Hartmann fell asleep, the soft flesh of his stomach shaking with muffled snores. Veronica lay awake, counting all the many, many things she didn't want to think about.
She didn't sleep even when she got back to Ichiko's, around dawn. This time it was the idea of seeing Hannah again that kept her turning from side to side, chills moving up through her from her stomach.
She got up around noon and made a breakfast she couldn't eat. Ichiko walked her out to the cab or she might not have made it. Even then she tried to tell the cabby to stop, to let her out, but she couldn't find her voice. It was like being back in convent school, being sent to the principal, the oldest, scariest nun in the world.
She walked up the stairs and into Hannah's office. She couldn't feel her legs. She sat in the middle of Hannah's square, gray couch. Today Hannah wore jeans and a man's dress shirt and a cardigan with interwoven gold thread. Veronica couldn't take her eyes off the sparkles of gold.
"Did you have a chance to think?" Hannah asked her.
Veronica shrugged. "I've been busy. I don't spend a lot of time thinking."
"Okay, let's start with that. Tell me about the things you do."
Without meaning to, Veronica found herself talking about Hartmann. Hannah kept asking for details. What did he look like naked? What exactly was the taste in her mouth afterward? She sounded like she was only mildly curious. What was it like when his penis was inside her? "I don't know," Veronica said. "It didn't feel like anything."
"What do you mean? He was inside you, but you couldn't feel it? Did you have to ask him if he was in yet?" Veronica started to laugh, and then she was crying. She didn't know how it happened. It seemed to be somebody else. "I didn't want him there," she said. Who was that talking? "I didn't want him in me. I wanted him to leave me alone." Her whole body shook with sobs. "This is ridiculous," she said. "Why am I crying? What's happening to me?"