The Reflecting Pool

by Otho Eskin

“You have no right.” She looks beseechingly at Talbot.

  I snatch the purse from her hand.

  “You can’t do that! That’s personal.”

  I rummage through the purse and remove a second cell phone that I hand to Talbot.

  “Are there any other entrances to your apartment besides the front door?” I ask Mariana. “A kitchen entrance? An old servant entrance?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “We’d better check ourselves,” Talbot says.

  “Don’t move, Mariana,” I tell her. She watches, her eyes wide with innocence, as Talbot and I go through her apartment, searching every room, every closet, every possible hiding place.

  We go through a large kitchen, a dining room, and what I suppose is some kind of sitting room. Upstairs are the living quarters. We ascend a spiral staircase and check out the master bedroom and two guest rooms. Wherever I see a landline phone, I pull the wires from their jacks and give the phone to Talbot.

  We stop at the top of the spiral staircase.

  “I need to warn you. Mariana’s in real danger. The man after her is a dangerous criminal who’s killed people. Cloud Walker almost killed me. I’m sure you can handle him. But be careful with Mariana. She has a very sick relationship with Cloud. She can change her mind and decide to contact him. Whatever you do, don’t let her make any calls. And don’t open the door to anybody but me.”

  “I get the idea.”

  “Secure the dead bolts on the front door when I leave and don’t let Mariana out of your sight. Not for one minute. No matter how much she pleads with you. She can be very persuasive.”

  “You don’t trust her?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “It sounds like you speak from experience.”

  “A few years ago, during one of her breakups with Cloud, I took her out. Well, more than took her out. She spent several nights with me. When she decided to return to Cloud, she swore to me she would never tell Cloud what she’d done.”

  “I take it she did.”

  “I don’t know why. And she didn’t let me know she’d told Cloud. So, I wasn’t prepared when Cloud came after me. By this time tomorrow, the danger will be over. But until then, Mariana is a mortal threat to you—the most dangerous woman you will ever meet.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  A LINCOLN TOWN car stops in front of my house at seven fifteen sharp. The chauffeur, no security type this evening, properly opens the rear door for me, respectfully touching his visor cap. The car has been recently washed and polished and gleams in the streetlights.

  “Good evening, sir.” The chauffeur bows me into the back seat of the limousine where I make myself comfortable. While the driver takes me down Connecticut Avenue, I examine the well-stocked bar and the not-so-well-stocked collection of reading material. Apart from today’s edition of the Wall Street Journal, all I find is an outdated Guide to Our Nation’s Capital and some flyers from local hotels.

  The limousine glides through the main Pennsylvania Avenue White House gates and pulls up to the front entrance to the East Wing where Miss Shaw is waiting for me. This time she’s wearing a black cocktail dress that might be a Diane von Furstenberg with Christian Louboutin pumps. Her platinum blonde hair is done up in an elegant chignon.

  A dozen limousines are lined up in the circular driveway and a multitude of uniformed drivers are mixed in with Secret Service agents and security types. Back in the darkness, Secret Service agents in their black uniforms, armed with P90 submachine guns, stand among the trees.

  Miss Shaw inspects my tuxedo. “You have an excellent tailor, Detective.”

  “Why am I wearing this outfit?”

  “You are not unknown to the powerful in this town and are not always welcome. We thought, in a tuxedo, you’d be less conspicuous.”

  “Rather than wearing my usual trench coat and gum shoes?”

  She ignores me and I follow her through the parking area.

  “Why am I here?”

  “You are meeting with the President. It is strictly off the record. No one knows you’re entering or leaving the White House this evening.”

  She takes my arm and leads me through the east entrance used for security screening, guarded by armed Secret Service agents, and a tall young woman who, Miss Shaw informs me, is the White House Social Secretary. The tall lady checks off visitors’ names as they pass through. Neither she nor the Secret Service agents bother with me when they see I’m accompanied by Miss Shaw.

  We enter the East Wing. A Marine captain, in full dress uniform, is waiting at the entrance to the White House proper to greet the guests, and he directs us to a flight of marble stairs. Miss Shaw’s brilliant red-sole shoes click on the white marble steps. At the top we are on the state floor of the mansion where a large social gathering is underway.

  The reception area is filled with men and women in formal clothes, many of the men wearing medals and service decorations. Scattered among the guests are men, and a few women, in military uniforms—the aides and escorts, I assume, and various generals and admirals. The women guests wear ropes of pearls and diamond brooches, their hair recently washed and coifed and teased to perfection. A young Marine nods to us as we pass. “Good evening, Miss Shaw.”

  At one end of the room is a long open bar, the table covered by a heavy, white damask tablecloth, tended by bartenders in starched white jackets. A string orchestra, its members in splendid, red Marine Corps uniforms, plays dance music. A few of the more adventurous, or possibly just younger, guests dance to some show tune.

  A dozen servers glide among the guests, holding trays with flutes of champagne and seltzer water—the latter, I suppose, for the alcoholics in the crowd. Some servers carry trays laden with expensive-looking canapés: little things on wooden skewers and others impaled on red, white, and blue toothpicks. Dainty white napkins with the White House crest in blue are proffered.

  Hollis Chambers stands at the far side of the room in deep conversation with a man wearing a turban accompanied by a middle-aged woman in a beautiful sari. Chambers moves his head slightly and our eyes meet. He looks deeply disturbed, then turns away. Across the room, Mrs. Reynolds is talking animatedly with a group of women. She wears an elegant, black Alexander McQueen satin and lace evening dress. When she catches sight of me, her laughter stops. She disengages from the other women and strides across the floor determinedly to me.

  “I understand you’re here to talk with Eliot,” Mrs. Reynolds says. “You know you’re becoming an intolerable nuisance.”

  “That’s my job.”

  “Please listen carefully to what Eliot says.” She fixes me with an angry glare. “This is serious business.” She turns on her heels and returns to her guests.

  I feel a gentle tug on my arm. Miss Shaw whispers, “Come with me.”

  We pass a long table heaped with bowls of shrimp on crushed ice, thinly sliced ham, sausages with sauces on the side.

  I follow her down a corridor, through what I think is the Blue Room, and stop at a door that she opens and then ushers me inside.

  “Wait here,” she says. “I’ll get the President.”

  “You seem to be in charge of this place.”

  “Pretty much.” She smiles. “This will take only a few minutes.”

  She shuts the door quietly, leaving me in a small room furnished with a few antique chairs. On one side is an unused fireplace with a vase holding artificial flowers. I amuse myself while I wait by looking at the pictures on the wall—a mixture of oil paintings of men in wigs and engravings of landscapes. I try to identify the men in the wigs but mostly fail.

  The door opens and Miss Shaw escorts President Eliot Reynolds into the room. The President studies me while Miss Shaw says something to him in a low, urgent voice I cannot hear, presumably explaining who the hell I am and why the President must talk to me.

  He smiles brightly, a smile I’ve seen a thousand times on TV and on magazine covers while Miss Shaw fades out the door.

/>   “Good to meet you, Mr. Zorn,” the President says heartily, shaking my hand. “I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

  “I’ll bet you have,” I reply. “Sorry to take you away from your guests.”

  “I’m delighted to slip away. These things are terrible bores.”

  There is an awkward silence. I have the impression the President has been given talking points to bring up with me but, for a moment, can’t remember what they are.

  “You wished to speak with me, Mr. President?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course. It’s about this terrible business with the death of Agent Wilcox.”

  “A terrible business.”

  “Marsha told me about your conversation. And Hollis. You’ve talked to him as well, I believe.”

  “That’s right.”

  A long pause. “It seems we’re at something of an impasse.”

  “If you mean that I’m determined to investigate the death of Sandra Wilcox and expose her murderer and you want me to drop the case, then yes, we’re at an impasse.”

  Reynolds studies me quizzically and seems almost at a loss for words. I suppose, as leader of the Free World, he’s not accustomed to being contradicted by some low-level public servant. His talking points don’t seem to have covered this contingency.

  “You seem to forget I have influence in this town,” the President says.

  “I don’t take bribes, Mr. President.”

  Reynolds’ face flushes. Now I’ve pissed the President off, majorly. Reynolds shakes his head in disbelief. “If not as a favor to me, then as an act of loyalty to your country. I don’t believe I’m overstating the case when I say this matter could affect the future of the nation. Please consider this.”

  “When I spoke with Hollis Chambers, he alluded to a major crisis on the night Agent Wilcox was murdered …”

  “That’s right. A crisis.”

  “A crisis which prevents me from getting the information I need to find Sandra Wilcox’s killer.”

  “That’s right.”

  “With respect, Mr. President, I don’t believe any of that. There was never any crisis.”

  President Reynolds stares at me in shock.

  “I’m being lied to.”

  “I beg your pardon,” the President sputters.

  “I don’t like being lied to.”

  “You’re out of line.”

  “I suppose I am.”

  “Drop the Wilcox case.”

  “Sorry, Mr. President, but I won’t stop until I’ve found Sandra Wilcox’s killer.”

  “Why do you care about this particular case? What difference does it make to you if this one criminal among many escapes justice?”

  “That’s what I’m paid to do, Mr. President.”

  “It’s more than that.”

  “All right,” I reply. “Because I promised Sandra Wilcox justice.”

  There is a long silence while he tries to process this. “Then that’s the way it will have to be.” All the phony geniality has gone. The President’s face is stone cold, his manly jaw clenched. “Let us hope for the best.”

  He opens the door. Miss Shaw steps in. “We’re finished,” he growls to Miss Shaw and strides from the room.

  “Did the President ask you for something?”

  “He asked me to do him a favor.”

  “And you said no.”

  “That’s right, I said no.”

  She sighs, takes my arm, and leads me toward the White House entrance. “I think you’re done here, Detective.”

  “That’s it?”

  “You have disappointed us, Detective.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “It’s not a good idea to disappoint people like us. Never forget, life is not a zero-sum game.”

  “Did you really think I’d forget my promise to Sandra Wilcox and, after our little frolic, do whatever you wanted?”

  “That’s the way it usually works.”

  “I didn’t think sex was so transactional.”

  “Sex is always transactional.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  THE WHITE HOUSE limousine drops me off at my house thirty minutes later. I’m alone and about to go inside when a stretch Lincoln, not all that different from the one that just dropped me off, comes speeding down my street and stops in front of my house. Two large men swing open the car doors. They are not from the White House. These men are Cloud’s people.

  The two men are on me, one in front, one in back. I can see they carry shoulder holsters with heavy automatic weapons.

  “Come with us, Zorn.”

  “What if I don’t want to?”

  “Then we break your legs.”

  “Okay,” I say. Cloud is the man I must see.

  The Kotton Klub is located on a stretch of U Street in Northwest Washington. The interior is a bit run-down, but the clientele is loyal and enthusiastic. Although guns are strictly forbidden, people have a way of getting shot here. Its liquor license is always on the verge of being pulled and the police have been trying to shut it down for years. The owners of the Kotton Klub have influence downtown.

  My escorts double park the Lincoln in front of the Klub and hustle me out of the car, past a velvet rope and a long line waiting to get in, the majority attractive young women—a mixture of black, white, and Latina—and through the front doors.

  We step into the dark, noisy club where music blasts top amp from loudspeakers scattered around the ceiling and strobe lights flash on and off, blinding me, then leaving the Klub in darkness for seconds at a time. I’m disoriented and have no idea how to work my way through the dense crowd of gyrating bodies or even where I’m going.

  “This way, Detective Zorn,” one of my escorts tells me. We move through the dancing, laughing crowd, go past the crowded bar and through a door in the back, marked “Private,” into a sitting room with its own bar and bartender, and with comfortable chairs. It’s quiet here, the music muffled.

  Cloud waits for me at the small bar wearing a beautifully tailored silk suit. I feel the phantom twinge in my chest.

  “How come you all dressed up, Detective Zorn?” Cloud demands. “You goin’ to a party? Or maybe a funeral? Maybe goin’ to your own funeral?”

  “I like to look sharp when I come to your club.”

  “Where’s Mariana?” Cloud demands.

  “How should I know? She’s your lady, last I heard.”

  “I tol’ her to be here at the club. She never showed up.” Cloud studies me with deep suspicion.

  “I have no idea where she could be.”

  “She’s not answering her phone. I been trying all evening.”

  “Maybe she has a headache.”

  “I sent some of my boys to her apartment. There was no answer when they knocked on the door. When they tried to open the door, it was locked from the inside. How you figure that?”

  I shrug. “Sorry. Have you asked Lamont? Maybe he can help.”

  Cloud’s body tenses, and I think for a moment, he’s going to slug me. Then he controls himself. “Why you think Lamont might know about Mariana?”

  “I don’t know. Just trying to be helpful.”

  “What you know about Mariana and Lamont?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What’s this I hear about you selling machine pistols these days?”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “How come you go to Lamont with this deal? How come you don’ go to Cloud?”

  “Who told you about the guns?”

  “You got genuine Skorpions? Not some Chinese knockoff shit?”

  “They’re genuine.”

  “I ask how come you didn’t come to Cloud with this deal? I’m the main man in this town. Lamont’s nobody. You understand? He may talk big but he nobody.”

  I say nothing.

  “You lookin’ to make me angry? Right now, you under the protection of Sister Grace. But you never know how long that gonna last. Sister Grace be an old lady. No tellin’ when she
might pop off. Could be next week. Could be tonight. You never know.”

  “She looks healthy to me.”

  “Accidents happen. Know what I mean? Accidents sometimes happen to old people.”

  “That’s none of my business.”

  “You better make it your business. How many of these Skorpions you lookin’ to sell?”

  “One thousand.”

  “What’s your price?”

  “Total $900,000.”

  Cloud whistles. “That a big order. What Lamont want with all them guns?”

  “I forgot to ask. The Skorpions would make his crew the most powerful organization in town. Maybe anywhere on the East Coast. He’d have more firepower than the DC police. Hell, more firepower than the U.S. Army. He’d have more power than the President of the United States over there in the White House. He’d own this town. And he could have anything or anybody he wants.”

  “I own this town. Lamont jus’ talk.”

  “Maybe he thinks different.”

  Cloud looks me directly in the eye. “Maybe Lamont thinkin’ too much. Maybe you talkin’ to the wrong people.”

  “You interested in the deal?”

  “Sure,” Cloud answers. “How do I get these Skorpions?”

  “Nine hundred thousand dollars,” I say. “Cash on delivery.”

  “Okay. Cash. Where these Skorpions now?”

  “They’re on a truck ready to be shipped to Washington. As soon as they arrive, I’ll store them in a safe place. I’ll call you as soon as they arrive and tell you where you can pick them up.”

  “I want those guns. An’ don’ let Lamont get his hands on them. Understand?”

  “They’re all yours, tomorrow. At six in the morning. You bring $900,000. That clear? You bring the money; you get your guns.”

  “An’ Lamont’s out of the picture.”

  “Like you say, you own this town.”

  “If you see Mariana, you tell her to get her ass here. Now!” He turns away, stops. “Don’ fuck with me, Detective. You do, Sister Grace won’t be able to help.”

  As soon as I’m well away from the Klub, I call Talbot. “She’s asleep,” he tells me.

  “Any problems?”

  “A couple of times some people banged on the door. They tried to unlock the door, but the dead bolt is secure. Mariana’s cell phone’s been ringing constantly. Other than that, it’s quiet.’