I guessed that was the way it was done at the Big House.
Hamerman placed his first overhead on the gently purring machine. The display screen said Jack and Jill Investigation.
Not much to argue about so far.
"As you know, there have been three brutal celebrity murders in Washington in the past week. The latest was the shooting sometime last night of the actor Michael Robinson at the Willard.
The stalkers call themselves Jack and Jill. They leave artsy mash notes at their murder scenes. They like to play games with the media. They seem to relish the spotlight a lot.
"They also seem to know what they're doing. They've successfully committed three high-profile murders and haven't left us squat to work with. They appear to be signature or serial killers, though of a particularly high order. That's debatable, or so I'm led to understand. But it's one theory.
"Here's the first kicker," Hamerman said and arched his thin, blond eyebrows. "What some of you don't know is that Jack and Jill' is also the Secret Service code name used for President and Mrs. Byrnes. It has been since the President took office. We are not comfortable accepting this fact as mere coincidence."
The blond woman from the CIA lit a cigarette. I remembered her name. Jeanne Sterling. She blew out a pale gust of smoke.
I heard her mutter "shit." My sentiments exactly. This was the worst news we'd had so far. Also, I didn't Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
appreciate the fact it had been kept from us until this moment.
"We believe it is a very real possibility that an assassination attempt could be made on either President Byrnes or Mrs. Byrnes.
Or perhaps on both of them," Hamerman said.
The words were absolutely chilling to hear. I glanced around the table and saw the frozen expressions of concern.
"We have taken, or are taking, every precaution that we can think of. The President's exposure outside the White House will be extremely limited for the time being. He's been told everything about the unfortunate situation, and so has Mrs. Byrnes. They're taking it well. They're both very smart, very impressive people.
They will not panic. I can promise you that. I'll do the panicking for both of them.
"Let me talk about some facts we don't have about the so-called stalkers Jack and Jill. Actually, there are several thousand investigators assigned to the case, and we know surprisingly little. Jack and Jill may be heading toward the White House next, and we don't have the foggiest idea why. Or who they might be.
Or what the hell is in this for them."
Don Hamerman peered around the table. He was definitely wired. The other word to describe him, the one that came to my mind anyway, was supercilious.
"Please feel free to correct me on any point I make. Feel free to add any updated information you might have," he said with a tiny sneer.
Except for a few sighs, no one spoke. No one seemed to know any more than I did. No one had a worthwhile clue so far. That was the scariest thing of all.
The possibility existed that the President and First Lady were the ultimate targets for Jack and Jill... or maybe not even the ultimate targets?
Jack and Jill came to The Hill. What in the name of God for?
To wipe out all the bleeding liberals? To punish sinners? Was the President a sinner in their minds ?
"Jay, do you want to say something now?" Hamerman asked Secret Service Agent Grayer.
Grayer nodded and stood up at the worktable. He leaned against it with his hands. He looked a little pale. "There's a very tough problem here," he said to us. "The danger is real, believe me. This is as scary as anything I've seen in my time at the White House. You see, I was the first one inside Senator Fitzpatrick's apartment after the killing. I was there, alone, at six o'clock that morning. I called the Metro police... the same is true for Ms. Sheehan and for Michael Robinson. Each time Jack and Jill has called the Secret Service first. They've contacted us right here at the White House. They told us... that they're practicing for the big one."
ON FRIDAY NIGHT Jack and Jill checked into a high-priced suite at the Four Seasons Hotel, one of the Washington area's best. No one was scheduled to die at the exclusive hotel. Not that they knew of, anyway. Actually, the killers were taking the weekend off-- while everyone else in Washington, the police Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
geniuses especially, stewed in their own juices.
What a fabulous treat the weekend was. What a delicious notion.
The six-hundred-dollar-a-night suite overlooked a corner of Georgetown, and they never left it for a moment. A masseuse came Friday night for a double shiatsu session. Sara had a facial and a manicure on Saturday morning. Room service sent up a personal chef Saturday night, and he prepared their meal in their room. Sam had also provided for four dozen white roses to be delivered when they arrived. It was paradise regained. They felt they deserved it for what they had accomplished so far.
"This is so unbelievably decadent. It's a postmodern, grossly socially incorrect fairy tale," Sara said at a luxurious high point late on Sunday night. "I love every minute of it."
"But do you love every inch of it?" Sam asked her. Only he could get away with a touchy line like that --
and he did.
Sara smiled and felt a rush of heat inside her body. She looked at him with warm and inquiring eyes. "As a matter of fact, I do."
He was deep inside her, thrusting slowly and gently, and she was wondering if he truly loved her. She wished for it with all her being, but she didn't believe it, couldn't believe it. She was, after all, Sara the gimp, Sara the drudge, Sara the drone.
How could he have fallen in love with her? And yet sometimes it seemed that he had. Is this part of the game for him, too? Sara wondered.
Her fingers ran all over his chest, played with individual hairs.
She touched him everywhere: his beautiful face, his throat, stomach, buttocks, his dangling testicles, which seemed as large as a bull's. Sara arched up toward him, wanting to be as close as she possibly could, wanting every inch, yes, wanting everything of him that there was. Even his real name, which he wouldn't tell her.
"We've earned this weekend," Sam said. "It's also necessary, Sara. Rest and relaxation are a real part of war, an important part.
Jack and Jill is going to get progressively harder from here on.
Everything escalates now."
Sara couldn't help smiling as she stared up at Sam's face. God she loved being with him. Under him, over him, sideways, upside down. She loved his touch -- sometimes strong, sometimes so surprisingly gentle.
She loved, yes, every inch of him.
She'd never felt like this before, never thought that she would.
She would have bet anything against its happening. In a way, she had bet everything, hadn't she? For the cause, but also for Sam, for this.
Sam was such a closet romantic, too. It was so unexpected from The Soldier, from any man she had known before. The suite at the Four Seasons was his idea, just because she had mentioned -- mentioned Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
it once -- that it was her favorite hotel in Washington.
"Say," she said to him now, whispering during their lovemaking, "do you want to know my favorite hotel in the whole wide world?"
He got the joke -- he got all of her humor and twisted ironies.
His large blue eyes sparkled. He grinned. He had brilliantly white teeth, and such a shy, disarming smile.
She thought he was much better looking than Michael Robinson had been. Sam was a real-life action hero. The Soldier. In a real war for survival, the most important war of our times. They both believed that to be the truth.
"Please, don't tell me the answer," he said with a laugh. "Don't you dare tell me your favorite hotel in the world. You know I'll have to take you there somehow if you do. Don't tell me, Sara!"
"The Cipriani in Venice," Sara blurted out, laughing.
She had never actually been there, but she'd read so much about it. She had read about everything, but experienced so little until recently Sara the hopeless bookworm, Sara the bibliophile, Sara the cipher.
Well, no more. Now she lived as almost no one had before. Sara the gimp lives!
"Okay, then. When this is all over -- and this will end -- we'll go to Venice, for a holiday I promise you.
The Cipriani it is."
"And Sunday brunch at the Danieli," she whispered against his cheek. "Promise?"
"Of course. Where else but the Danieli for brunch? That's a given. As soon as this is finished."
"It's going to get worse, isn't it?" she said, hugging his powerful body a little tighter.
"Yes, I'm afraid so. But not tonight Jilly. Not tonight, my love.
So let's not ruin this by thinking too much about tomorrow. Don't make a wonderful weekend into a bad Monday"
Sam was right, of course. He was a wise man, too. He started to move again on top of her. He flowed like a fast river current over the top of her. He was such a generous and beautiful lover; he was both teacher and student; he knew how to gve and take in bed. Most important, Sam knew how to bring her out of herself.
God, she had needed that -- forever, it seemed. To get outside of herself. Not to be the gimp anymore.
Not ever again. She promised herself that.
Sara pursed her lips tightly. In pleasure? In pain? She wasn't even sure anymore. She shut her eyes, then quickly opened them.
She wanted to look.
He held himself over her, as if he were pausing during a push-up. "So you've never been to the Cipriani, Monkey Face?" he asked. His cheeks weren't even flushed. He effortlessly held himself over her. His body was so beautiful, strong and agile, rock-solid. Sara was in good shape also, but Sam was superb.
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He called her "Monkey Face," from Hitchcock's Suspicion. It wasn't really such a great movie, but it had hit the spot for them, hit their spot. Ever since they'd seen it, she'd been the Joan Fontaine character, Lena. He was Johnny, who had been played by Cary Grant. Johnny had called Lena "Monkey Face."
At the end of the film, Lena and Johnny had driven off into a sunset on the Riviera, presumably to live happily ever after. The Hitchcock movie was an elegant, witty, mysterious game, just as this was.
Their game. The most exquisite game two people had ever played together.
Will we drive off into the sunset after all this? Sara Rosen wondered. Oh, I think not. I don't suppose that we will. What will happen to us, then? Oh, what will happen to us? What will become of Jack and Jill?
"I've only been to the Cipriani in my dreams," she confessed to Sam. "Only in dreams. But, yes, I've been there many, many times."
"Is this all a dream, Monkey Face?" Sam asked. His look was serious for a moment. She couldn't help thinking how precious every moment like this was, and how fleeting. She had secretly yearned for this all of her life, for one truly romantic experience.
"I think it's a dream, yes. It's like a dream anyway Please don't wake me, though, Sam."
"It's not a dream," Sam whispered. "I love you. You are the most lovable woman I've ever met. You are, Sara. You're like staying at the Cipriani every day for me. Please believe that, Monkey Face.
Believe in us. I do."
He clasped Sara from behind and pulled her closer. She savored the sweetness of his breath, the smell of his cologne, the smell of him.
He began to move inside her and she felt herself melting into a liquid force. She did love him -- she did, she did, she did. Her hands ran all over him, touching, possessing. There had never been anything like this before in her life, nothing even close.
She slithered up and down on his long, powerful pole, his strength, his exquisite malehess. Sara couldn't stop herself now, and she didn't want to. She was choking with her own passion.
She heard her voice crying out and almost didn't recognize herself. She was joined with him in a simple rhythm that got faster and faster as the two of them came closer to being one --Jack and Jill, Jack and Jill, Jack and Jill, Jack and Jill!
THEIR FAIRY TALE ended with a quiet, almost disheartening thud, and Sara felt herself crashing back to earth, tumbling, being rushed along in a powerful tide. Monday morning meant a return to the dreary work world again, to real life.
Sara Rosen had held "normal," boring jobs around Washington for fourteen years, ever since she'd graduated from Hollins College in Virginia. She had a day job now. A perfect job for their purposes. The dreariest and weariest of jobs.
That morning, she rose early to get ready. She and Sam had separated on Sunday night at the Four Seasons. She missed him, missed his humor, missed his touch, missed everything about him. Every inch.
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She had gotten lost in that thought. Inches. Millimeters. The essence of Sam. His tremendous inner strength. She glanced at the luminescent face of the clock on her bed stand. She groaned out loud.
Quarter to five. Dammit, she was already late.
Her bathroom had a yoga corner with a custom-made leather mat. No time for that, though her body and mind ached for the discipline and the release.
She took a quick shower and washed her hair with Salon Selectives shampoo. She put on a navy Brooks Brothers suit, low pumps, a leather-strapped Raymond Weil watch. She needed to look sharp, look alert, look freshly scrubbed this morning.
Somehow, she always came out like that anyway. Sara the freshly starched.
She hurried outside, where a grimy yellow cab was already waiting at the curb, wagging a tail of smoke.
The wind whooped and howled up and down K Street.
At five-twenty, the yellow cab pulled up in front of her workplace. The Liberty Cab driver smiled and said, "A famous address, my lady. 50, are you somebody famous?"
She paid the driver and collected change from a five-dollar bill.
"Actually, I might be someday," she said. "You never know."
"Yeah, maybe I'm somebody, too," the driver said with a crooked smile. "You never know."
Sara Rosen climbed out of the cab and felt the early December wind in her face. The pristine building before her looked strangely beautiful and imposing in the early-morning light. It appeared to be shining, actually, glowing from the inside out.
She showed her ID card, and security let her pass inside.
She and the guard even shared a quick laugh about her being a workaholic. And why not? Sara Rosen had worked inside the White House for nine years.