The Intern: Chasing Murderers, Hookers, and Senators Across DC Wasn't In The Job Description

by Dale Wiley

  “But I knew if I would do that, it wasn’t going to be on The Block. I knew I was attractive enough to make it in DC, and I got hired by one of the agencies here. And then a friend of a friend told me about Discreet Companions, and here I am, in the major leagues of sex.”

  Tabitha watched me carefully, trying to gauge my reaction. I looked back at her. “What are you thinking?” she finally asked.

  I drummed my fingers on my knee. “I can understand your reasons.”

  “A lot of guys get really uptight and stupid when you tell them.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. I think I’m just beginning to learn what it’s like when people assume everything about you.”

  She shook her head and smiled. “Nothing had surprised me in a very long time—until tonight.”

  “Well, stick around,” I said. “It’ll only get worse.”

  Tabitha got ready for bed, and I watched the news. They were discussing unimportant things like the balanced budget when she emerged, wearing a sweatshirt and shorts.

  “Most of your clients ask for something more revealing than that, don’t they?” I asked, smiling. For a second, I could tell that she thought I was telling her I expected sex as part of the deal because her mouth twitched, but then she relaxed.

  “Yeah. But I keep this around just in case. Sometimes they pass out, and I climb out of the crotchless panties into something more comfortable.” She jumped in bed, and I went off to brush my teeth. When I returned, my face was once again in the middle of the television screen. They were citing new evidence in my case.

  “In the days leading up to the shooting, sources close to the police say Trent Norris shared his plans with others. Norris wrote a note to one friend, saying he would soon shoot someone.” They cut to a picture of the Pavilion and then to a shot of one of the panelists—one I had barely even noticed—talking about my strange behavior.

  Tabitha looked at me, waiting to see my response. I just shook my head. I told her about the note I wrote to Ann. She had probably felt that she should tell the police, or maybe they found it sitting on my desk. I wasn’t mad at her; I was mad at the people who were trying to put me in the gas chamber before they even had a flattering picture.

  I grabbed the remote control and shut the TV off. The light next to my side of the bed was the only one still on, so I turned it off and got further under the covers. Tabitha squeezed my hand and lay close to me. I liked that. I could smell her hair. I could hear her breathing slowly even out into sleep, while I kept my eyes open and worried about my entire existence.

  Thursday

  Chapter

  * * *

  Sixteen

  Tabitha woke me around 6:30 wearing a Georgetown sweatshirt and jeans.

  “Shower’s free.”

  When I returned from the steamy heaven—my arm feeling somewhat better—I found a continental breakfast waiting for me.

  “Why are you helping me?” I asked.

  She took a sip of orange juice and studied me for a second. “A couple of reasons, I guess. The first one is that Stephanie really did like you. I got to hear every damn detail of every one of your dates, and she really thought you were the shit. And Stephanie’s about the coolest person I know, so that went a long way.”

  “Why does she rate so highly?”

  “Because it’s very, very hard to stay friends with a hooker. I’ve heard that from all the girls I work with, and I’ve discovered it myself. I didn’t tell her for a long time, but then my hours got so crazy that I just had to. And she wasn’t happy about it, but she didn’t desert me, either.” She gave a short laugh. “I made the mistake of thinking everyone would be the same, so I told another good friend of mine, and she doesn’t even return my calls anymore.”

  She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “But the other big reason I’m helping you is that I’ve had my back against the wall. And I’ve wound up in situations I didn’t create. And I know how that feels.”

  I reached out my hand and she put hers in it. “Thank you,” I said. And I meant it.

  But there was work to do. Through the night, as I tossed and turned, I had considered the plan of action. Between bites, I told Tabitha the things I had been pondering all night.

  “I’m sure my ol’ boss Helper is the key to this whole thing.” Or at least the key to what I could see of it. “Maybe we should search his house.”

  She shrugged. “It’s as good a place to start as any.”

  It would be a helluva lot easier than starting at the McHolland Foundation and probably less dangerous, too.

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “No.” I glanced around the room. “Where’s the phone book?”

  Tabitha grabbed it and plunked it down between us. He was listed—no reason not to be. He lived on Bush Hill Drive in Alexandria, and I wrote down the address and phone number on the snazzy Watergate notepad, which felt like it was made out of better-quality paper than most law firms’ stationery.

  “Do you think he’ll have an alarm system?” Tabitha asked.

  Just as I hadn’t considered it when dealing with car alarms, I had overlooked this completely. I considered for a second “Yeah, I imagine he will. Damon always called him Inspector Gadget. Said he always had the newest computer, the newest this, the newest that.”

  Tabitha pursed her lips. “Let me make a couple of calls,” she said. She hit the concierge button on the phone. “This is the Senator’s room,” she said in a businesslike tone. “We need a laptop computer with a zip drive and extra floppies and zip disks.” She laughed as she got off the phone. “They’re gonna think we’re into cybersex.”

  Her next call, I gathered, was to Discreet Companions. First, she told them that the Senator was going to be needing her services for the next few days and then placed an order from their costume vault; until this experience, I had no idea that a brothel had a costume vault. She approximated my size—and did so quite well—and ordered me the detective, the soldier, and the patient, and got herself the secretary, the schoolteacher, the meter maid, and the nurse. I almost leaned over and asked her to get the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader outfit—a favorite of mine—but finally decided against it.

  “And listen, Julie, his clothes got a little … soiled last night. Can you send over a sweatshirt and some jeans, maybe? Thanks.” I groaned, wondering what Julie would think.

  Before she could make her third call, the doorbell rang. That scared the bejeezus out of me because I had absolutely no idea that hotel rooms had doorbells. I whispered this to Tabitha, but she assured me that this one did.

  She motioned me to a corner by the closet and went to the door. In the next moment, she returned, wheeling a cart with a laptop hooked up to a new-looking printer.

  The next phone call scared me a bit. She called and asked for Phillip, and, when he came on the line, she identified herself as Desiree and smiled at his response.

  “Phillip,” she said after a second, “I’ve gotta break into a house with a good security system … No, you can’t break into it for me.”

  Oh God, I thought, master criminals were now playing on my team. He evidently asked no more questions, because she gave him our location and hung up. “A client,” she said, looking at my milky complexion.

  “A hobby of his?” I asked.

  “No, it’s his profession. He has a deep fondness for me and would do just about anything I ask of him.”

  “Where does he rank among your clientele?”

  She thought for a second. “He’s one of the nicest guys, but one of the most perverted.”

  I almost protested his appearance on my behalf when I realized I was in so much trouble it made exactly no difference. She sorted through the computer pile and nodded her approval while I paced the floor. I looked out the window, still expecting to see the entire DC police force lined up around the outside. There was a squad car, but it was headed down the street and out of my view in seconds.

  “All right,” she said,
“we’re hooked up from this end.” She had plugged the modem line into the phone and explored the files and menus to see what she had. The doorbell once again rang, and I headed back to my spot. She came back with two thick hanging bags and a red backpack. We opened them and found professional-quality costumes, facial hair, wigs and bottles of spirit gum among lots of other goodies.

  “What did you have in the bag last night?” I asked. She laughed and flipped the blond hair back from her face while walking to the closet. She produced a costume that would’ve turned her quite convincingly into Little Red Riding Hood. It was enough to make a fellow want to play the big bad wolf.

  She went back to rummaging through our new booty, handing me a navy DKNY sweatshirt and a new pair of jeans to put on. We were not going to be the world’s least conspicuous burglars, but it was much better than a business suit or an orange Blues Explosion T-shirt. I ran to the bathroom and was finished dressing and tying my shoes when I heard the doorbell ring once again. Tabitha got service, I thought as I listened to the conversation outside.

  “Desiree—is everything all right?” Phillip, who had a heavy south Jersey accent, sounded genuinely concerned.

  “Everything’s fine, just like I said.”

  “Can you …”

  “I can’t tell you anything right now, Phillip, but I will soon.”

  He seemed to understand and began explaining how the device worked. It was to be held next to the keypad on the alarm, he said, and would come up with a code in less than fifteen seconds. He also talked about a second device, which would open garage doors, which, he said, made entry much more convenient, and then handed her what he called a care package. She thanked him.

  “If you need any more help you’re gonna call me, right?” he asked.

  “Of course,” she said. By this time, I was tired of sitting on the toilet and hoping she was getting rid of him. She almost had him out the door when I heard him push his way back in, trying to find a way to tell her that this was expensive equipment, and he needed it back soon.

  I bit my lip, thinking that I didn’t want to be on any hardened criminal’s shit list and made a note to take extra-special care of Phillip’s stuff. I finally heard the door close moments later, and she knocked on the bathroom door. “He’s gone,” she said, and I sprang up.

  When I came back into the room, she was smiling, looking warily at the contents of the “care package.” She handed me a Walther PPK pistol—the kind of gun James Bond favored—with a cool looking silencer on it, two full clips of ammo, a flashlight, a set of lock picks, and a pair of ladies’ black leather gloves.

  “He’s way more thorough than we are,” I said, kicking myself for not thinking about gloves.

  “He has a good deal more practice,” Tabitha said, moving to the phone. She dialed the concierge once again. “Yes. We’re in need of some surgical gloves. … Yes. … I don’t know—could you spare a box? Great.” She hung up, and I could only imagine what that poor man downstairs was thinking. While we were still laughing, there was the doorbell again, and Tabitha returned with a box of 100 latex gloves.

  Tabitha sized me up, looking very pensive, and then dug into the backpack. She pulled out a long, straight-haired blond wig. “Ever had a pony tail before?” she asked.

  “I came close once,” I said as she stood on her tiptoes to put it on top of my head. For a minute, I almost said no, thinking long hair would make me look more like the picture on TV, but then I realized I had never been blond.

  She did some magic with bobby pins, whipped a rubber band around the hair in the back, grabbed a Braves baseball cap from her bag in the closet, and put it on over top of the wig. I looked at it in the mirror and thought it looked good—the annoying guy no one really wants to speak to anyway.

  Tabitha, however, was not done. She covered my brown eyebrows with some yellow gunk that tickled when she applied it, and then made me model a goatee. I eighty-sixed that idea, thinking that really would make me look like a bleached version of the picture the media had.

  “Yeah,” she said. “And it would only be something else to worry about. The hair should stay in place fairly well.”

  We grabbed our contraband. I stuck the gun in the small of my back as I’d seen done a thousand times in the movies. I was a little ticked at Phillip for not bringing a holster; I was very concerned about the possibility of eluding the cops and the criminals only to end up shooting my own butt off. I emptied the backpack and loaded it with the zip disks and floppies, the extra ammo clip, the gloves, and our high-tech crime gear. I hung the “Maid Please Come Early” sign on the door, and we were off.

  Tabitha knew a back set of stairs reserved for just these sorts of clandestine exits. Every movement echoed in the empty stairwell, making us sound like an army marching down the steps. We plunged deep into the basement before we came to her car. It was a new, red Saturn in need of a wash. We stopped, not having considered how best to take care of the seating arrangement.

  “My trunk is very clean,” she said, trying not to laugh.

  “Oh, come on!”

  “I’m serious. It’s one less chance we take.”

  “You don’t even know how to get there.”

  “I’m great with geography.” She popped the trunk and gestured. “I’ve never had someone in here before,” she said. “Knock if you need oxygen.”

  She was enjoying this too much for my liking.

  “Wait,” I said. “What about getting out? We’re gonna park some distance from this guy’s house, and it’s probably going to be residential, and there’ll be some Mrs. Kravitz with nothing better to do than look out their window.”

  She hadn’t considered this. I hadn’t either until she made the oxygen comment, and I was struggling for one more reason to stay out of the trunk.

  “The back seat, then. After I pay the parking attendant, you’re laying down.”

  “What if we’re stopped?”

  “Then you’re sick, and we’re taking you to a doctor.”

  I had no good reason to avoid this one. I told her to at least let me sit in the front until we got out of the garage, and she agreed. Tabitha drove off, the garage attendant paid no notice, and I hopped over the seat, lay down, and tried to think.

  Chapter

  * * *

  Seventeen

  The drive took about half an hour. My first order of business was to take the gun out of the small of my back and put it in the backpack. It was very uncomfortable, and I saw no reason for taking the chance of getting my rear blown off while we were crossing Memorial Bridge.

  We didn’t talk, but the silence wasn’t forced. She had plenty to think about, and so did I. This was the first time I really had reflected on everything, and I was glad to have a chance.

  I had been on the brink of absolute terror for a day now. I realized that once you got there you almost got used to it; the excitement and adrenaline almost made up for the fear that had been with me constantly. Every car held a madman or a policeman, and every sound was ominous. Even now, when all I had to do was think, I could barely keep my heart from racing.

  When you get on that adrenaline high, you start to believe you’re invincible. That’s probably why most everyone gets caught; they forget all about caution, both because they need more excitement and they believe they can’t or won’t be caught. I was definitely beginning to think like that, and that scared me as much as anything else.

  I also spent a good deal of time trying to learn more about Tabitha from her back seat. For someone with a high-paying job, her car was just okay. She had a very sorry-looking blanket spread out with all kinds of junk on top of it: one parking ticket—I wondered how far she was from The Boot—two empty vitamin bottles, and a well-worn Orioles cap, the old style with the goofy, smiling bird on it. Her car could’ve belonged to anyone, and that got me nowhere.

  Under one corner of the blanket, there was a small bulge I didn’t know at first. I reached down and uncovered it, and there lay
a book about angels, the kind I would’ve never expected her to have. I opened it to the first page, and there someone had written, T—I hope this book and a few angels will help you through all of this … Love, S.

  “Did Stephanie give you this book?”

  “Are you snooping?”

  “I guess I am.”

  “Yeah, she did. Just after she found out. I look at it a lot.”

  I liked Stephanie even more than before, if that was possible.

  Tabitha occasionally consulted a map in the front seat and made comments which weren’t really meant for me, almost like she had forgotten I was even there. Finally, she whispered, “Look to your right. It’s the gray house.” She cruised by slowly, like something out of a movie, while I peeked out and saw our target.

  We both knew we didn’t want to park too close to the house; there are a surprising number of people who have little else to do except look out their windows and worry about strangers. Tabitha searched for a place to park and made me lie back down while she did it. In the meantime, she got her cell phone out of her purse and called Helper’s number. The answering machine picked up. No one was home.

  It was probably five minutes later when she said, “Perfect.” She had found Lydia Frock Memorial Park, which wasn’t much more than a big patch of green that needed to be mowed. Still, half a dozen cars were parked in a row, their owners off cavorting in various fashions: throwing Frisbees, holding hands, and one hippie was singing “Helplessly Hoping” while strumming a beat-up guitar. It was a great place for Tabitha’s car and its occupants to blend in. We wouldn’t look a bit out of place.