“You really haven’t told me anything!”
“Of course I have, Mickey. Let me recount for you. Pottinger was a criminal on a global scale. I managed to find out about this. There are people out there who want to kill me. The same ones who probably killed Pottinger. I know you were skeptical of the breadth of his heinous actions, but I can assure you that what I gave you is not an exhaustive list by any means. Now you have some things to check out.”
“It would help a lot if I had his real name.”
Praise her. “I’m sure with all your talents and experience you can discover that. I didn’t involve you in this because you’re second-rate, Mickey.”
“I actually have taken some steps.”
“Excellent. And who knows, before much more time passes, you’ll let me call you Mick.”
And next time don’t make it so easy. People grow from challenges and I’m no exception.
She clicked off and finished her makeup. She rose and took off her robe. She was naked underneath. She wrapped a pushup bra around her bosom, slid on a thong, wriggled into a tight black dress, and completed the outfit with dark stockings and four-inch heels.
She checked her image in a full-length mirror.
It was good, no, better than good. She was not beautiful. She was even better. I can sell the line with average looks and a tall, thin, small-chested frame because I exude confidence, refuse to back down, and can read a room better than anyone. And really, what else does one need to do to make it in this life? Hell, with just the right eyeliner I can rule the world.
She walked over to her desk and looked at the open spiral notebook. She closed it, revealing the cover on which she had placed a label that read Mickey Gibson and the Plan. It sat next to a half-dozen other notebooks with their own little neatly organized esoteric worlds lying therein.
She wasn’t full-on OCD. Yet. But it was probably only a matter of time.
But then, with my history, what else could I expect? You build walls to keep the boogeyman away as long as you can.
She grabbed a large tote bag with things already packed neatly in it, and a wrap, and walked out the door.
To go to work.
Chapter 11
The cab dropped her off at the corner of a major thoroughfare in Washington, DC’s Georgetown neighborhood, which gleamed bright and full of possibilities.
“Clarisse,” exclaimed the woman. The lady approaching her was towering and busty and hippy and dressed for success of a certain kind, with men of a certain kind.
Clarisse turned and smiled with her muted, burgundy-tinged lips.
Hit the play button and enjoy yourself. “Angie, how long have you been waiting?”
“Ages, meaning ten minutes. Girl, we have work to do.”
“Yes we do.”
They started down M Street. There were money and powerful people in abundance here, which was the only reason the two women were trolling the area.
They entered the lobby of the hotel, looking guest-worthy but with just enough glam to cause sedate heads to turn. DC was not New York or even close to LA. Somber and conservative were still the accepted fashion marks of the day here. But something different and alluring could be appreciated, and every bit of clothing worn by the two women had been carefully calibrated to elicit heightened attention but not scrutiny.
Angie hit the elevator button and they rode the car to the fourth floor.
“Room 412,” said Angie, her booming voice gone; she was all business and focus now.
“The Washington senator,” Clarisse whispered back.
“All five feet six of him. And another four inches of you know what, poor, pitiful thing. But that’s okay, in his mind he’s LeBron James with a Louisville slugger in his pants.”
That was as playful as Angie got on these things. Still, Clarisse frowned.
Influencer mode. “Time for games later, Angie. Tight is tight. You’re a pro. You know this.”
“Yes I do, girl.”
Angie keyed the door to Room 410 and let Clarisse inside. Clarisse took Angie’s purse, and a few moments later she heard Angie unlocking the door to 412.
Clarisse opened up her small laptop and ran it off the hotspot of her ultra-secure “fortress” phone, as she liked to call it. No ludicrously unsecure Wi-Fi for this mission. She connected a wireless camera to her computer, fired up a program, and said into the computer, “Copy, Angie?”
“Copy loud and clear.”
With the line of communication established, Angie would now take her mic, which was sunk so far in her ear that it was invisible but not untraceable, and place it in a small lead container that she had carried on her person. That container would be inserted in the showerhead pipe in the bathroom. She would wait for the electronic sweep to be completed and then, unless she did it before the senator arrived, nature would call before the show would begin. In this intimate situation, no man would deny a woman that. The earbud would be reinserted and the connection resumed.
The placement of the tiny camera would have to wait for the sweep. The senator’s detail placed too much faith in this electronic vetting. If it had been Clarisse, she would have rented out the rooms on either side and placed trusted people there. Apparently the senator was too cheap or too stupid to do that.
She readied herself as she heard the troop-troop of the dutiful and dullard personal security detail. These guys made middle-class wages and had no incentive to go the last mile. The criminal syndicates did it so much better. You messed up there, you were fish food. You screwed up here, and you just slouched off to work for the government.
She heard murmurs next door.
The sweep took five minutes while she could envision Angie waiting patiently on the bed, her eyes not making contact with any of the men, as instructed. And they were always men. Put a girl on the detail and then people like Clarisse started to sweat. Men were clueless about everything having to do with women. That was the one principle that drove her entire business plan.
The detail left but with a man posted outside. They always did it that way. One lucky guy was picked to listen to the fun.
When Angie opened her connecting door a crack, Clarisse was there, having done the same with her door. Clarisse secured the tiny camera to the edge of Angie’s door with a Velcro sticker, its silhouette invisible against the dark wood of the door.
“Okay, going to mic up now while the getting’s good,” whispered Angie. Both women eased their doors shut and secured them.
Clarisse returned to her computer and watched as Angie disappeared into the bathroom, coming out a minute later with the mic in her ear. Her glam reverberated to all four corners of the room in the little white nighty that she had worn under her dress.
The knock on the door came a few moments later. Angie opened it and in strode Senator Wright, who was, despite the name, all wrong in too many ways to count. He was four inches shorter than Angie in bare feet, flabby, bald, and the second wealthiest politician on Capitol Hill, all inherited. Back in the fifties, his grandfather had invented a new type of windshield wiper motor, invested the royalties well, and allowed his descendants to be lazy, rich, and obnoxious about it.
And the senator’s wife, a petulant Princeton grad with her own trust fund, just didn’t get him, or so he told women like Angie. And neither, apparently, did his three kids.
He smiled, wrapped his arms around her, his hands dipping down and sliding up the nighty.