THE POLITICS OF PLEASURE (24 page)

Belize turned aside and moved closer to the policeman. 'Listen,' she said in a breathy voice, 'I'm really tired. Why don't you take me back to the station so I can make a statement.'

'Sure.' The young officer re-holstered his service revolver and looked into her eyes. His nostrils twitched as if smelling the perfume Belize had liberally splashed on herself before bursting into the police station. Belize felt his gaze on her body. She turned him on. They both knew it.

'Let's go.' He smiled but didn't step aside, as if wanting to prolong their closeness. Belize didn't intend to make a statement, official or otherwise. She would grab Manuela and sneak home, utilizing a willful guile which had often bettered her country's
Fidelistas.
She winked at the swarthy young officer, slipped around him, and headed for the door, hoping Scott was safe and would call her from a pay phone before the night was out. In her mind's eye she saw herself sliding into a hot bath, her brown breasts disappearing into the soapy water, her pert nose pleasantly numb from cocaine ...

She stopped at the open door and looked either side of the shadowed walkway. With the police officer in tow, she hurried off into the night.

Rod Haslow looked either side of him as he stood outside a public phone booth in China town, Washington DC. He'd driven with considered haste from Baltimore, staying just under the speed limit and keeping out a watchful eye for patrolling police cars.

After escaping Goldman's apartment, he hadn't known where to go. Consequently he'd ended up in a late-night diner in South Baltimore, nursing a lukewarm coffee, mulling over his limited options. He was unsure whether to share his plight with anyone he knew: best friend Jake Travis who'd moved to Los Angeles; his bowling buddies (not likely); Irene Tamar, a friend of his ex-wife who'd been surprisingly sympathetic to his side of the split. He saw little benefit in contacting any of these people. He couldn't bear the humiliation of presenting his downtrodden tale, not to mention the unease he would instill in anyone bothering to hear him out. He was after all a federal fugitive. And, considerably worse, a man illegally marked for death.

Sitting in the frosty light of the all-night diner, absently moving a salt shaker across a Formica tabletop, he was overcome with the hopelessness of his situation. He recalled a non-curricular text he'd read at university. It advocated a model of thinking which looked at a problem from every angle. A model which relied less on step-by-step logic and more on laterally derived solutions. He tried his best at the remembered process, but after a string of false starts became more disillusioned. 

Then it hit him.

At first his mind couldn't entertain the notion. He looked about the deserted diner, its large wall clock ticking loudly in his ears, and knew there was nothing else. What had struck him like a jolt of current from a faulty switch seemed his best and only shot.

If anyone could help him it was his brother.

A master criminal who in all likelihood had contacts for any kind of illegal undertaking. Quite possibly he could get Haslow a new identity. God forbid, a false passport would see him out of the country. And money ...

Apparently Peter had stacks of it. He was always one to boast about his ill-gotten gains. Haslow, in contrast, had been too frightened to go home for his check book, and so had extracted the cash limit from a Bank of America ATM before leaving Baltimore. He planned to withdraw the rest of his savings first thing Monday for fear of General Turner freezing his assets. Most likely the DIA general could wrap up the night's affair in any security classification he wished.

Haslow's world had been turned on its head. What had been unthinkable for years was now his most promising prospect. Of course he was desperate, all and out. Of course he didn't know how his brother would take to him, especially after Haslow's long-standing repudiation of their kinship.

He looked at his BMW parked at the curb. Was there an APB out on him and his plates? He didn't know. He knew he needed another drink, even as his stomach was soured from the night's alcohol. He'd just called Clarence McGuire, cocktail lounge owner and mutual friend of Haslow and Peter since orphanage days. He now had the phone number of the DC hotel where Peter was staying, in keeping with the arrangement he'd made with his brother the night before. His brother? The night before? It seemed so long ago. The world had a fleeting substantiveness to it. As if the street about him might metamorphose into another reality. His workaday life was behind him. In fact, it was history, relegated to the rubbish heap of the past without the decency of a proper burial.

A throng of unfamiliar faces pressed past him on the street. Neon Chinese characters glowed preternaturally. Multi-hued hieroglyphs that offered little comfort. He looked skyward as if the heavens might offer a way out. An easy fix, an omen, a shiny star breaking through the cloud, anything ... but there was only the low-lying grayness blanketing the city. He glanced at the telephone number scribbled in black marker on the inside of his wrist. He was about to plunge deeper into the nightmare that had wrapped itself about him like the cloaking wings of a phantasmal creature. He felt to bang his head against the side of the booth so he could wake up and find he'd dozed in front of the late-night game after all, the familiar comfort of empty bottles at his side.

But the night and city about him were no dream. Cold drizzle patted the nape of his neck. The start of a headache felt like a crown of screws tightening against his skull. He lifted up his collar and stepped inside the phone booth. Passing headlights made him squint as he grabbed the receiver and dropped a coin into the slot.

General Turner powered his red and white Scout past the cluttered street entrance. His sweeping gaze took in the police cars, the laden tow trucks, the lingering bystanders, and the high-tech television news vans. The hive of activity had him seething. He hated it when plans went wrong. He abhorred failure, and abhorred even more those who brought such failure upon him. God help him when he saw Armstrong again.

After Goldman's hair-raising escape, Turner's remaining men had carried Armstrong and his offsider from the apartment (most of the block's residents having gone onto the street to look at the burning cars). In keeping with the general's instructions, the gunmen had been stripped of ID and left in a secluded place; namely in a dark back corner of a nearby neighbour's yard. Turner knew the night's cold drizzle would facilitate the gunmen to drag their sorry asses to wherever they saw fit. If captured, he was confident the mercenaries wouldn't talk. They weren't that kind of men. In any case, there hadn't been enough time or a spare car to do anything more for them. Not that the big girls deserved any better, Turner had thought at the time. Jesus, what did their battered condition say of Goldman's fighting ability? The goddamn sonofabitch could hold his own all right.

With the gunmen out of the way, the silver-haired general had waited for the police. He'd blended into the biggest group of onlookers after seeing whom he believed was Belize Cheraz in the first police vehicle to arrive (and the general was relieved beyond measure when she left in the same vehicle shortly after).

With his CAC military ID badge, Turner identified himself to the burly Detective Lieutenant in charge of the crime scene investigation. Of course the two men hardly hit it off. The cop not caring one iota for the headstrong stranger with his flashy military credentials. Nevertheless Turner presented his claim the DIA had had Goldman and Haslow under surveillance for some time. The bag of drugs found in the abandoned apartment only furthered his premise that the chemists were selling classified military drugs on the black market, as well as selling amphetamine made at their workplace. Of course the shot-up and smashed-up living room only pointed to the chemists being caught on the wrong side of a dangerous drug-ring.

At first suspicious and then downright uncooperative, the police Lieutenant included Turner's statements in his hand-written preliminary report. The general would use the Baltimore Police report, along with the far-reaching powers of his office, to ensure state and federal authorities did their utmost in uncovering the chemists' whereabouts.

Turner wound out the Scout's motor before aggressively changing into top gear. Drizzle turned into a shower and he switched on the wipers at their highest speed. He braked at an unsigned intersection, his hard face streaked by the rain-distorted light of passing traffic. He craved a cigarette, wanted to suck nicotine-laden smoke deep into his lungs. He pulled out in front of an oncoming pickup and put his foot to the floor. Rainwater sprayed from the back of his wheels as he pushed the Scout to well over the speed limit. But he soon got stuck behind a removals van and couldn't get around the bothersome vehicle due to a slow-moving car penning him in. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. 'Come on, come on, you sonofabitch,' he said through clenched teeth. The anger that had roiled inside him since Goldman's escape finally broke its banks. 'God damn him to hell!' He slammed his fist on top of the Scout's plastic dashboard, creating an unsightly web of hairline fractures.

Goldman straightened his hair and clothes after speaking into the intercom. The glass door in front of him made a buzzing sound and opened. He took an elevator to the second floor. Before long he pressed the doorbell of apartment eighteen.

Michelle appeared in the doorway.

'Hi.'

'Scott.' A nervous smile flitted across her face. She twirled the back of her hair. 'I expected you earlier.'

She was everything his memory had painted, and more. 'Traffic,' he apologized.

'Well ... come in.' She gestured inside and closed the door behind him. He looked about the apartment which was of a clean and gracious line and highlighted with modish fittings. He glanced at two Andy Warhol prints near the front door: Deborah Harry (1980) and Loti Smorgon (1979).

'Er, Scott, this is Carmen.'

He turned from the prints and was taken aback by Michelle's friend, her implausible beauty a signature of god's better work. Quite simply she was one of the most striking women he'd seen. Clothed in an over-sized jumper and red cotton tights, Carmen appraised Goldman as if he were a downtrodden creature from off the street. 'Scott.' She uttered his name as if performing a bothersome chore. After a cold smile, she returned to the kitchen, her standoffish air claiming the room.

'Don't worry about her,' Michelle said. 'She's initially like that with strangers.'

'Well, I'm glad I don't have to take it personally,' Goldman said with a sliver of sarcasm.

An awkward smile crimped Michelle's face, all the while the room's subdued light highlighted the pale bruise about her eye. She gestured for Goldman to take a seat on a nearby sofa. Incredibly, she sat down beside him, only to look away and tap the sofa's armrest. A disquieting tension bridged the gap between them. Goldman sensed fatigue's legions skirting his perimeters, planning to invade at an inopportune time. All the while he couldn't think of a suitable conversation topic.

He tensed when Carmen returned from the kitchen and dropped into a seat opposite. She crossed her legs with the elegant assurance of one not fazed by the critical lens of the public eye. A woman accustomed to pointing cameras and bright lights. From what Goldman knew she was a successful model. Accordingly he couldn't imagine her turning in a bad photograph. Like many men Goldman wasn't impartial to the glamorous model's movements. But he could tell from her cringing aspect that she didn't approve of him. He glanced down at himself and knew why. His soiled clothing, the fine sprays of blood (from the gunmen's injuries) on his shoes and jeans. God knew how dishevelled he actually looked. In the haste of his escape, he'd forgotten about his appearance. He knew it without a mirror: he looked like crap.

'So, 'chelly says she met you yesterday afternoon.'

Michelle nodded and continued picking at the sofa's armrest.

'Yes, I, um, dropped Michelle off here yesterday evening.'

'So where are you from?' Carmen asked suspiciously. 'What's your accent? New Zealand?'

'No, Australia,' Michelle said.

'Australia,' Carmen repeated, her deprecating tone suggesting it was hardly a better admission.

Goldman wasn't insensitive to Carmen's manner or to the polish of her abode. He didn't belong here. But what to do? He had to concoct a fitting response to yet another awkward situation that he, in the course of this tumultuous night, had got into. He had to break the ice and elevate his status with these good-looking women, one of whom had already roused his finer side. He'd never been comfortable in the throes of a lie, but tonight he felt equipped for all kind of invention. Fortunately something came to mind.

'Listen ... I really have to get this off my chest.' He took a crestfallen breath and looked at his two lovely companions. They were all ears. 'On my way here, after coming off 95, this gangling Red Setter leapt out in front of my car. Well, I was travelling pretty fast ...' He glanced at Michelle, as if keeping his appointment with her were the reason for such speed. 'Anyhow, I braked and swerved ...' He saw concern etch across Carmen's tan brow (was she naturally that colour? he wondered – she was nothing if not exotic). 'But you know how it is sometimes with split-second responses. The dog, realizing its mistake, paused, then continued ... alas, straight into my swerving car. I scraped against a stucco wall trying to miss the animal' – he waited, to affect the final touch – 'I stopped and had to pull the animal out from under the car. It was caught in the ... I won't go into it. The outcome was the poor creature died in my arms. I've still got its blood on me and the side of my car is terribly scraped ...'

'Scott, it must have been awful,' Michelle said, 'to have gone through something like that.' She reached across and stroked his arm in commiseration. How he warmed to her touch, and how he recoiled from the boldfaced lies that had slipped from his tongue. His conscience stabbed at him and made him feel like a two-bit hustler stealing from her store of compassion. But he had no choice in the matter. He could hardly tell these women about the explosive violence he'd escaped from.