Stranglehold

by Ed Gorman

  “That’s a tough act to sell. That it didn’t mean anything.” I was thinking of my own ruined marriage. It had meant something to my wife when I’d betrayed her and it had meant something to me when she’d betrayed me.

  “She’ll come around. Especially if I can hit you up for ten more right here.”

  “Yeah, and what’s that going to get me?”

  “I could always forget to call you when Ms. Davies shows up.”

  There were at least three radios going in headquarters when I got there. Small groups had gathered around each. A few of the more ardent listeners were using their bodies as well as their mouths to show support. They’d bob and weave like fighters when the host asked something they didn’t like and they’d victory-jab their arms in the air when Susan scored a particularly telling point. But the on-air atmosphere was friendly. Don Stern’s questions were on point but not malicious. Unlike radio assassin Gil Hawkins, who’d done everything he could to humiliate Susan, Stern genuinely wanted to know where she stood on issues and how she felt about her two terms in Congress.

  I stayed for ten minutes. The questions I heard dealt with the economy. Jobs and mortgages. Susan was prepared, smooth, and confident. I admired her ability to put aside what had happened in the motel room earlier.

  Ben and Kristin had their own radio going in the office. I slid into a chair and listened.

  STERN: But you’ve been in Washington for two terms, Congresswoman Cooper, so aren’t you at least partly responsible for the fix we’re in?

  SUSAN: Don, you’re right, I’ve been there for two terms. But if you look at the facts, in my first term I demanded that we look into some of the more obvious dishonest—if not illegal—practices on Wall Street. There were a number of us who saw what was going to happen long before it did.

  STERN: Well, that’s true, but you were never able to get anybody to support you. I mean you couldn’t get the head of the House Banking Committee to support you—and he’s a member of your own party.

  SUSAN: Yes, and I talked to him about it several times.

  STERN: By “talk,” do you mean argue?

  SUSAN: (laughs) I’ll use my word. “Talked.”

  STERN: Well, to play devil’s advocate here, Congresswoman Cooper—you’re asking the voters to reelect you because of your experience. But what good is experience if you can’t get anything done?

  SUSAN: Don?

  STERN: Yes?

  SUSAN: Would you say that the Chronicle is a conservative newspaper?

  STERN: It’s not as conservative as it used to be.

  SUSAN: (laughs) Thank God for that. But you’d still agree that it’s a conservative newspaper by and large. Especially the editorial page.

  STERN: (laughs) I don’t know where you’re going with this, but I’m happy to listen.

  SUSAN: Where I’m going, Don, is that you still quote it frequently. But the one thing you haven’t quoted is their editorial last week about me being the most effective House member of the Illinois delegation. So doesn’t that make it sound as if my experience has been paying off?

  The rest of the ninety minutes went well, too. A few of the callers were harsh. They were obviously for the other side. But she handled them easily and with humor whenever that seemed appropriate. Even more impressive, she was a human computer when it came to facts and figures and the intricacies of Washington. Stern complimented her a few times for her grasp of subjects. Our opponent was good on his feet, too, but not as good as Susan Cooper.

  Toward the end of the show Kristin started talking about this new cocktail dress she was going to wear tonight to the fund-raiser downtown. Kristin was a vivid redhead of thirty. I’d hired her because of her background in planning events for large hotels. Political events can unravel if they’re not planned well and overseen with steely diligence. You’re always up against places that don’t care about your client the way you do. Right now Kristin was prom-night excited. All Ben had to say was: “I hope there are some single women there. It’s been a long time for me.”

  “Gee, that’s a good approach,” Kristin laughed. “Be sure to mention you haven’t had sex for a couple of years.”

  “See the kind of bullshit I have to put up with?”

  Kristin smiled at me.

  “Well, I guess I’d have to agree with Kristin on that one. I wouldn’t mention that you haven’t been with a woman until you’re at least on your fourth drink.”

  “Or sixth,” Kristin said. “You know, when she can barely hear anything anyway.”

  I stayed around to go over some fresh internal polling. Ben was disappointed we’d only gained back 1.5 percent of the previous internal dealing with blue-collar voters in the northernmost edge of our voting district. Kristin thought we were trending up and should be happy. Then Ben wanted to talk about bringing a senator into the district to campaign with Susan. He was hoping for a man I respected but who was given to saying the wrong thing at key moments. You had to exorcise him before you put him up on the platform or the demons would take him over. We decided to ask a safer if slightly dull choice who had a good relationship with unions. He had never been known to make a joke about his opponent’s rather large nose.

  When I got to the door, I said, “I may see you tonight. Right now I need to do a couple of things.”

  I spent ten minutes up front with the volunteers, getting their read on the day. Everybody was still high-fiving. And hugging. And beaming. Susan had done very well indeed. I did a bit of acting, slapping hands and backs with a few of them I knew. And then I was outside in the melancholy autumn dusk that was a perfect match for my mood.

  CHAPTER 8

  I pulled up in my former spot at the Family Inn. A couple was unloading an SUV. A baby sat in her car seat crying. The couple took turns trying to calm her down as they trekked back and forth to their room. The door I wanted was four slots away. I knocked, waited. The lights of tall buildings and towers pierced the gray haze covering the half-moon. The McDonald’s across the way was crowded. The drive-through had two long lines going. The baby continued to wail. I knocked again.

  The door opened about an inch. She had to jerk it open because of the swollen frame. “Who is it?” A female voice, young.

  “My name is Dev Conrad. I’d like to talk to you if I could.”

  “I’m not supposed to talk to anybody. Please just go away.” Her fear made her sound even younger.

  The door started to close. I risked shoving my hand between it and the frame. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t slam it on my fingers.

  “Maybe I can help you.”

  “Please. Don’t get me in trouble. We don’t need any more trouble.”

  “I was in this room earlier. I saw the blood.”

  From inside I heard the sound of a TV newscast turned low. At the far end of the lot a pickup truck blaring country music pulled in. “Are you alone in there?”

  After a pause: “Yes.”

  “You’d feel better if you had somebody to talk to.”

  “I don’t know who you are.”

  “Somebody who wants to help you. And maybe you can help me.”

  “I’m not sure—” Then: “Oh, God.”

  She rushed off making sounds that I remembered from early in my marriage. My wife was sick a lot during her pregnancy with our daughter. We used to joke that she should just take up residence in the bathroom. I couldn’t be sure that this woman was going through the same thing, but that was my first impression.

  She hadn’t bothered to close the door. I gave the door a shove and walked in. I flipped on the light switch. The bulb was dim, the light itself dirty yellow.

  The cheap suitcase was still on the same bed. The other bed was messy from sleep. The first thing I did was go over to the desk. The cleaning had been crude but had gotten rid of most of the blood if you didn’t look closely. There was a residue of cleaning solution on the desktop now. Amateur job. The cleaning woman would have had a more formidable solvent and she wouldn’t have le
ft traces of her work.

  The vomiting started behind the closed bathroom door. I went over and sat down on the desk chair. On the screen starving children in Africa looked out at me in confusion and despair. When I took over the world I was going to kick a lot of ass. A whole lot.

  Water ran in the sink. An electric toothbrush clicked on. When the nagging motor of the toothbrush clicked off she started to gargle.

  When she emerged from the bathroom she looked no older than fourteen or fifteen, one of those waifs who is often painted with butterflies and rainbows all around them, out of a Victorian children’s story. She was lovely in a pale anxious way. It was the kind of sorrowful appeal that brought out the protectiveness in men. Doubly so in her case because in addition to her jeans she wore a light-blue maternity smock.

  “That’s the only part of it I really hate. Barfing all the time. It makes me feel guilty, though. I shouldn’t complain about it. We’re actually going to have a baby this time. The last one—we lost it at four months.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yes, so were we.” Then: “You really shouldn’t be here. You’d better leave.”

  “Who cleaned up the blood?”

  “I did. But I didn’t do a very good job, did I? I was really sick the last few hours.”

  “Whose blood was it?”

  She walked over to the mussed bed and sat on the front edge of it. She put tiny frail hands together and placed them in her lap. She had a pink barrette in her long golden hair. It only emphasized the impression of her being very young. But now that I saw her more closely I saw a spent quality to her mouth and eyes that suggested she was probably in her early twenties. She looked at me and said, “I would really appreciate it if you’d leave. Bobby has everything under control now, so there’s nothing you need to know anyway.”

  “That easy, huh? Bobby taking care of it?”

  “Don’t make fun of Bobby. I love him. He’s a good husband.”

  “I’m not making fun of him, but if he’s taken care of it, why are you so upset?”

  She raised her head, taking the dusty air of the room deep into her lungs. When she fixed on me again she said, “This man came and—” She stopped talking and pressed her splayed fingers across her belly. “That’s how I lost the first baby. I’m sure it is. All the stress we were going through. I don’t want to lose this one.”

  “I want to help you. I don’t like to see you like this.”

  “People are always saying bad things about Bobby. They don’t understand that he’s a good person.”

  She started to cry. Put one of those fragile hands to her face and wept. She kept the other hand on her belly, as if to reassure the infant inside.

  I went over and sat next to her on the bed and put my arm around her. She didn’t resist. I’d done this a few times with my own daughter, especially in her teen years. She leaned against me. “It’s just so hard sometimes. And sometimes I think it’ll never be any easier.”

  “You have to tell me what you’re talking about.”

  “But if I do, he’ll think I’m betraying him. He always says that about people. And he’s right. But I don’t have anybody else to talk to about it. I’m just cooped up here all the time.”

  “You can talk to me.”

  “I don’t even know you.”

  “You said you need to talk to somebody. I’m trying to be your friend.”

  She dragged the palms of her hands down her gleaming face and snuffled up her tears. “Oh, God. You really should leave.”

  I waited a minute before I spoke. She had put her hands on the horizon of her belly and was staring at the wall.

  “You’re in trouble. Maybe I can help you.”

  The sigh was ragged. “It’s just everything he tries—it never comes out right.”

  “What never comes out right?”

  She raised her head. “I just feel so sorry for him. And for our baby.”

  “You’ll feel better if you talk about it.”

  “Oh, damn,” she said. And started staring at the wall again. And then she said, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ll feel better if I talk about it.” When our eyes met this time she said, “Why did you come here?”

  “I followed a woman here.”

  “A woman?”

  “Her name is Susan Cooper.”

  “You know her?”

  “Yes. Do you?”

  She looked away. “It all looked like it was going to work out for a while. This band he was in got a good gig in Vegas, but then they dumped him. He’d been their lead singer for two years. Went behind his back and got somebody else.”

  If this had been a puzzle you’d have realized that she’d just contributed at least two major pieces. And a picture was beginning to emerge. Bobby was a musician and she’d hinted that while there’d been trouble they hadn’t had anything to do with it. Giving a picture of the kind of people they knew. The kind whose visits left blood behind.

  “Was he hurt today?”

  She pulled her head back so she could see me. “Hurt?”

  “The blood. Was that your husband’s?”

  She shook her head. “No, no. Bobby can take care of himself. It was—” A deep sigh. She smelled of tears and shampoo. “I really can’t say anymore.”

  He was there then. He managed to slam the door back against the wall in what seemed a second. And then he was charging me with a fist ready to smash me in the face.

  I got my elbow in front of my face to block his punch, rising to my feet as he attacked. He was a few inches shorter than my six-two and on the slim side. But the arms at the end of his T-shirt sleeves were muscular and he knew how to fight. He stepped to the side of me, forcing me to turn and throw myself off balance in the process. He managed to hit me hard just below my cheekbone. But he made the mistake of hurrying in to follow up, and I was able to smack him with a blunt right hand to stun him. I cut his lip. He fell back against the desk.

  “Stop it, Bobby!” she shrieked. “Do you know that our baby can hear everything that’s going on? Do you want to lose this one, too?”

  Her words had a powerful and immediate effect on him. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry, Gwen. I’m sorry.” His words were troubled by what I’d done to his lip. His arms dropped to his sides. Then he ran a hand through his dark curly hair.

  I walked to the door and closed it from inside. My head hurt from where he’d hit me. I was glad we weren’t throwing punches any longer.

  I came back and said, “We need to talk.”

  He wiped the blood from his lower lip with the back of his hand. “Who is this jerk, Gwen?”

  “I’m not sure, Bobby. But he didn’t hurt me. He was nice.”

  “Nice. Right.” To me: “You know, I could call the cops and get you in a lot of trouble.” He had a spiky beard that gave his handsome features a diabolical look. That was the whole idea. He was a standard-issue rock star type. The losers looked about the same as the winners. But the winners wouldn’t have to stay in motels like this one.

  “Go ahead and call them. You want to use my cell phone?”

  “You trying to be funny?”

  “Bobby, calm down. This isn’t good for me. Or the baby.”

  He made dramatic futile gestures with his hands and turned to face the wall. He pressed his forehead against it and stayed that way for a full minute. I glanced at Gwen. She just shook her head.

  “Something happened here this morning, Bobby,” I said. “I’m trying to find out what.”

  He came off the wall and said, “Nothing happened here.”

  “There was a lot of blood on the desk. Somebody got hurt.”

  “How the hell did you know that?”

  “I came in here and saw it.”

  “Yeah? How’d you get in?”

  “The door was ajar. I walked in.”

  He shoved his hands in the back pockets of his jeans and then closed his eyes and lifted his head to the ceiling. I recognized the move. James Dean in Rebel Without
a Cause. Nice to know that Bobby’s generation was still honoring him. “This is really bullshit.”

  “Maybe we should tell him, Bobby—”

  “No!” He dropped the pose and crossed to Gwen. “Honey, we don’t know who this jerk is. Or why he’s so interested in everything. You want to see me go to prison?”

  “Oh, God, Bobby, don’t even say that.”

  “Then don’t say we should tell him anything.”

  Right now I was invisible to them.

  Bobby got down on his haunches and put his head on her lap. She stroked it the way she would a child’s. Her eyes glistened with tears. Bobby spoke, the words muffled: “You have to stay with me on this, Gwennie. Otherwise I’m going to be in real trouble.”

  It might have been an act. Hard to say. Maybe he wasn’t as tough as he thought and was using his wife as his mommy. Or maybe he had to keep her on his side and this moment of fear and sadness was his way of ensuring her loyalty.

  He stood up and pulled down his T-shirt and hitched up his jeans. “Pack everything, honey. I’ve already checked us out.”

  “Checked us out? Where are we going? I don’t want to leave, Bobby.” Obviously this grim room had become a kind of home to her. The prospect of leaving it scared her.

  “A nicer place, honey. Much nicer.”

  “But we don’t have the money.”

  “What did I say about not talking in front of him? I’ll explain all this later. My suitcase is ready to go. You just get your stuff ready.”

  He turned to me. “So that’s it, man. We’re leaving and I don’t want to see you following us.”

  “How’re you going to stop me?”

  “I could always shoot out your tires.”

  “God, Bobby, stop talking like that. And you’d better not have a gun. You promised you wouldn’t get one, remember?”

  To me he said, “Get out of here. Now.”

  Gwen sat with her hands on the swell of her belly. She was crying again, silently.

  I took out one of my cards and wrote my cell phone number on the back. I walked over to her and dropped it in her lap.