by Ridge King
“What do they say in New York?”
“They don’t give a holy shit about Russia and China. Your position on that is yours as far as they’re concerned. If you play hard to get with Slanetti and this shit hits the fan, the boys won’t like it any. They say vote for St. Clair. Who the fuck cares who wins when it comes down to facing all this crap and putting our people on the hot seat? He’s talking attorney general investigations, the works.” He nodded towards the paper and shook his head. D’Orofino eased his Lexus into a taxi stand across the street from the Society.
“I think I’ll talk to Slanetti. He knows I have friends.”
D’Orofino looked doubtfully at Kellerman.
“Larry, baby, lemme tellya something: this fucker knows when you take a shit and every time you fuck your wife. I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high, kid. That fella ain’t no pushover. He’s got you by the balls and he knows it. Don’t get too rough with him.”
“Won’t New York back me up?”
D’Orofino shook his head and smiled.
“What you got behind you in New York is more than most people got, but he’s got Norwalk and the Justice Department behind him and we all know what that means, so you watch it.”
“Maybe if I talk to him?”
“He told me he wouldn’t talk to you about it or even to me anymore. I’m supposed to call him and tell him you’ll go for St. Clair or I don’t call him at all. You got two days.”
Kellerman was furious. He was a big man and conscious of his physical strength. Sometimes his associates in New York worried that he might lose control of himself in a crunch.
“You go back to your place, Mario. I’ll call you tonight after I get home.”
* * *
Inside, Patricia returned to the ballroom. Jonathan quickly tracked her down and insisted on a dance, only because everyone in the room was looking at them.
“That’s pretty exciting, you dancing with the President,” said an elated Jonathan, who normally was bored to tears during these social events. “How’d he pick you?”
“I have no idea, Jonathan, no idea at all.”
“How does he even know you?”
“Like everybody else in town, Jonathan, through you.”
Her sarcasm was lost on him.
“It’s still exciting.”
“What’s Rolando up to while you’re attending to your social duties?”
“He’s hanging around the hotel room watching movies till I get back.”
* * *
But in fact Rolando wasn’t hanging around the hotel room looking at movies. An hour after Jonathan left for the National Geographic Society, he went downstairs, hopped in a cab and went to a gay bar called the Stomping Ground on Fourteenth Street, known for attracting a good-looking upscale clientele.
Even in the sleek lounge with so many other pretty boys, the handsome Rolando stood out.
He ordered a dirty Grey Goose martini with a twist and waited for the guys to approach him. Within ten minutes, other men were hitting on him. He assumed that bored, turned off look as each man came forward hopefully, got rejected and moved away. Finally, a tall blond came over. This was the look he liked. Tall and blond, just like Jonathan.
A lot of gay guys liked to sleep with mirror images of themselves. But not Rolando. He liked just the opposite—just as beautiful, but clean white skin and blond hair. He seldom slept with Latins.
“What’s your name?” asked the big blond.
“Rolando? Yours?”
“Ernst.”
“Where you from?”
“Austria. You?”
“El Salvador.”
“Live in Washington?”
“No. New York. I’m with the Salvadoran U.N. delegation. What about you?”
“A banker. I specialize in offshore tax havens.”
“Ah,” said Rolando, raising his martini glass to his lips. “Ah, those are getting harder and harder to find.”
Ernst didn’t want to talk about tax havens any more than he had to.
“You’re too beautiful to be by yourself. You’re waiting for someone, yes?” Ernst said in a clipped German accent.
“No. I’m avoiding someone. I have a boyfriend, but we had a fight,” which of course they hadn’t had. “I’m not sure if I’m going back to him,” he pouted, but of course he knew he’d be back in the suite snuggled up when Jonathan came home later. “I’m just out looking for a little fun.”
“I like fun. Maybe we could have a little fun together.”
“Why not?”
No one could pout like Rolando. And it worked. The Austrian bought Rolando another drink, and had one himself, and before long they moved to a corner banquette and were kissing passionately.
Using the palms of both hands, Rolando pushed back against Ernst’s big broad chest.
“Slow down, Ernst. You move too fast.”
“Austrians have to move fast because if they don’t the Germans will beat them to it,” said the handsome guy, his white teeth stunning and his flowing blond hair catching the light.
Keeping one palm firmly planted on Ernst’s chest, Rolando sat up and reached for his martini with the other hand.
“So tell me what kind of banking you do?”
“Just banking. I represent a consortium of European banks. I’m in the Washington office. We match up clients with the best offshore places to keep money.” Ernst held his hands out in a defensive gesture. “All very legal, of course.”
Rolando raised an eyebrow as he looked from under his luscious eyelashes at the hunky Austrian.
“Oh, I’m sure.”
“The way Treasury has been clamping down on the business, it’s becoming a lot more difficult to work, but there’s always business. And as soon as they come up with a new regulation to ban what we did last year, we work out a loophole that’s legal this year.”
“Sounds like you can’t lose, no matter what they come up with.”
Ernst leaned in, a smile widening across his handsome face.
“I never lose.”
While Rolando tried to keep Ernst’s pants on, Derek Gilbertson and Howard Rothman came through Stomping Ground’s front door, furtively glancing around the bar.
“Why the fuck he want to meet here?” asked Howard.
“Because the guy’s a big queer, OK? And he’s not exactly in the closet, Howard. What do we care where we meet him? I’ve done all the work. You’re just here to put a face to a name so we can move ahead with this shit.”
They moved up to the bar and ordered beers.
Derek spotted Ernst across the room at a low table with a black-haired boy and nodded to Howard to follow him.
Ernst saw them in plenty of time.
“Look, Rolando, I have a little business with some guys—no more than twenty minutes, all right? Then I’ll come back. Promise me you’ll be here.”
Rolando winked and kissed him on the cheek.
“I’ll be here. Don’t be too long. I get bored easily.”
“I bet you do,” Ernest said with a wicked smile.
Ernst got up as Derek and Howard came over, introduced them to Rolando and moved away with them to stand at a high-top table.
“The main reason I wanted you to meet Howard, Ernst, was so we could bring you and your group into some new projects I’m developing with Howard.”
“I understand. It all sounds very exciting, Howard, all the things Derek’s been telling me the last couple of days.”
“Some of these things are pretty delicate,” said Howard.
“They all sound delicate,” Ernst said.
“But as long as we can move what we need to move when we need to move it and where we need to move it, we’ll be fine,” said Derek.
Ernst laughed.
“It’s just that if something goes wrong with the ‘what,’ the ‘when’ or the ‘where,’ we’re all fucked.”
Derek reached out and put his hand on Ernst’s shoulder and leaned in.
; “That’s why we came to you, Ernst. You and the reputation of your firm give us great confidence, isn’t that right, Howard?”
“Yes, great confidence. You’re the best. And we only want to deal with the best.”
“That’s why our fees are so high.”
“They are high,” Howard agreed, his tone indicating he was ready to negotiate the fees. Derek wasn’t having any of it.
“Hey, you get what you pay for,” said Derek. “We want the best. The best costs money. We have plenty of money. End of story.”
“Yeah,” said Howard, “of course.”
“We want you to come to Miami, Ernst, so you can get closer to our operation.”
“I can come down in a couple of weeks. I’ll let you know.”
“Sure you can’t join us for dinner?” asked Howard.
“We’re going to J&G Steakhouse in the W,” said Derek.
“Thanks, but no,” Ernst smiled, “I have some unfinished business over there in the corner.”
Derek shook his head.
“Your unfinished business left about five minutes ago.”
Ernest whipped his head around—Rolando was gone.
“Bitch!”
* * *
As Jonathan finished dancing with Patricia, Hawkins came up and asked for the next dance. Jonathan was about to get nasty when Patricia, now smiling with no trace of her former pain, intervened and said she would be delighted, that she would start welcoming him to Washington that night. Jonathan backed away and went to talk to some friends.
As they danced she looked at him and smiled. He was smiling, too.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Can you talk about it? This isn’t really the best place, is it?”
“No.”
“Was it Norwalk—when you danced?”
“Not really. It’s a lot of things. It just came to a head when I danced with him.”
“We can’t talk here,” said Matt as they moved around the floor. “When can I see you?”
“Tomorrow Jonathan goes to Florida. Tomorrow night. Do you have a car?”
“No.”
“I’ll come at eight. Where do you live?”
“The Hilton, but there are others there. We can’t meet inside.”
The dance was over.
“Meet me outside, then, at eight.” She described her car just as Crampton and Perryman came over to break them up. Perryman wanted a dance. She gave him one.
Slanetti watched them talk, diagonally opposite them across the ballroom. He didn’t miss a thing the whole evening. As Perryman began dancing with Patricia and Crampton and Matt went for a drink, someone touched Slanetti’s arm. He turned around and saw Kellerman’s serious face trying not to look serious.
“Could I see you, Phil?”
“Sure, Larry, what’s on your mind?”
“Could we step into the other room?”
Slanetti didn’t know if D’Orofino had spoken to him or not, but he decided from Kellerman’s expression that he had.
“Well, I was just about to dance with my wife, Larry. Can it wait?”
“It’s important.”
“All right.” He excused himself from his wife and they went into the foyer outside the ballroom. There were about thirty people there, including Norwalk and Lord Ellsworth, all talking in small groups.
“Is this okay?” asked Slanetti.
“I’d rather we went upstairs,” offered Kellerman, glowering like a caged grizzly bear.
Slanetti had gone far enough.
“Tell me what’s on your mind right here, Larry, and get it over with,” he said sternly.
Kellerman edged him into a quiet corner and his expression became bestial.
“Listen, you little cunt,” he growled in a low whisper. “D’Orofino just talked to me. You aren’t going to get away with this. I’ll fight you and you know I have ways to get to people like you.”
Slanetti met him squarely. He knew Kellerman could kill him with his bare hands with no help from his Mafia pals. He was a powerful animal.
“And the Federal government can handle you, Larry. I’m not going to talk to you about this. You talk to Mario. He’ll call me. Now get out of my way. Now!”
Kellerman grabbed Slanetti by his lapels as he started to move away and they scuffled. Kellerman lost control of himself and swung a hard right at Slanetti, but Slanetti leaned back just in time and missed the full blow of the big man’s punch. Still, he was knocked to the floor.
Immediately, everyone in the room turned toward them. Kellerman, realizing what he had done, smiled and helped Slanetti up.
“Wow,” he said out loud, “I’m sorry, Phil, boy. I didn’t mean to connect.”
The President and Lord Ellsworth came over with several others, including Delamar and Corley Searles.
“What happened, gentlemen?” asked the British ambassador.
“Oh, nothing. I was just showing Phil how to block a punch. Used to fight when I was in college.”
Nothing was wrong with Slanetti and he was now smiling.
“Yeah, it’s nothing. I’m glad we were just playing. Larry here could handle any man twice my size. I’d sure hate to meet him in a dark alley.”
There were a few light remarks and then the group broke up. Kellerman looked right at President Norwalk, who looked back at him, staring right through him, his gaze oddly serene, his thin lips set. No words were spoken, but his eyes said plenty. Kellerman suddenly realized the odds he was fighting. The Mafia was powerful, but Norwalk was President. The Secret Service, the FBI, Treasury Department agents, the IRS—it was a lot to fight, especially over his personal feelings regarding the Sino-Russia conflict. He wondered just how far the boys in New York would support him. He decided not to strain their patronage. He would call Mario later when he got home.
* * *
Matt and Crampton met the Neil Scotts at the bar.
“It’s been a great evening, hasn’t it?” said Neil.
“Oh, I’ve really enjoyed it,” remarked Matt casually.
“Do you like to swim?” asked Scott.
“Love it,” said Matt. “I’m staying at the Hilton just for the pool.”
“The House has a fine gym, a pool and some paddleball courts. I’ll be swimming tomorrow afternoon. How about joining me? I’ll show you around.”
“Fine.”
“Say, two-thirty tomorrow?”
“Right,” said Matt, smiling.
Scott liked him right away.
The ball continued for a little while longer, perhaps an hour, before the President left to return to the White House. As he got into his special armored Cadillac limousine, a car the Secret Service dubbed “the Beast,” Norwalk smiled. It had been a good night. He looked up at the sky, lit by the millions of lights in Washington reflected from the thickening cloud cover.
They said snow was expected the next day.
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