Senator Love Read Free Page A

his first wife as she
two-stepped toward him. Inexplicably, she found herself resisting his lead as
if the confrontation was to be avoided.
    "Hello, Sam," his ex-wife said as she whirled
past. Close up she looked bigger than life, big bosom, a round face. Pleasing
plumpness filled out the skin, holding back any discernible wrinkles. She was a
picture of strength. Hardly an ex -anything.
    "Frances," he acknowledged, offering a thin
smile. She felt a snicker of contempt escape his lips. No love lost, she
decided. But the greeting seemed quite civilized.
    "You have any children?" Fiona asked, embarrassed
suddenly by her oblique curiosity.
    "Just two. Eight and six," he said, offering no
details. None with the other, Fiona thought, oddly relieved. The band stopped
and he led her back to the table.
    "Now," Monte said as the band struck up again.
    The Senator and Helga got up to dance. It seemed a cue for
all the others. The Ambassador and Nell, Bunkie and Bonnie.
    "Bad knee," Monte smiled, explaining himself.
    "Really?" Fiona asked.
    "Time to watch the fun."
    They watched. Helga's slender body melted into the
Senator's, although above the waist the dance had the illusion of decorum.
    "Surely not tonight," Fiona asked.
    "Never at night," Monte clucked. "That's his
modus operandi. He's a matinee man and Bunkie's a past master of scheduling and
timing. Easier to elude detection."
    "Does little Nell know?"
    "Oh, I'd say she might suspect about the sport
fucking. It's the serious stuff that she's on the lookout for." He looked
at the Senator and Helga intent on keeping their pose casual. "Like
that."
    "Must be exhausting work," Fiona said.
    "Keeps her on her toes."
    Fiona watched them. Without Monte's running revelations,
she might have missed it. They didn't appear obviously improper. Not unless the
idea was put into your mind. Her gaze wandered to the Ambassador and Nell,
talking as they danced. Occasionally, on a turn, Nell looked toward her husband
and his partner. Was it a look of curiosity or anxiety? For a moment, her eyes
narrowed as she watched them, as if she were making a great effort to pierce
the invisible veil in which the two seemed shrouded.
    At one point in the dance, the big woman, the ex-Mrs.
Langford, sailed past. She, too, seemed to be observing the Senator and his
partner. When she passed him, she offered a smile. But the Senator was oblivious,
his attention directed exclusively to Helga Kessel. Fiona watched her smile
hold, then fade as she swung out of his line of sight.
    The poor bastard is on display, Fiona thought, her
sympathies suddenly with the Senator. In deference to this idea, she allowed
her eyes to wander elsewhere, but only for a few moments. Senator Love drew her
gaze back to him like a magnet.

2
    "HARD NIGHT, FitzGerald?"
    It was Cates' clipped exaggerated Bahamian British singsong
pouring into her ear from the instrument that lay beside her on the pillow. She
had heard its ring through the fog of sleep, a relentless assault on her
attention.
    She managed to squint into the red digital face of the
clock perched on the antique dresser.
    "Six in the a.m., you bastard," she moaned, still
disoriented. "We're cops, not obstetricians."
    Four hours, she calculated. That was all she had slept, a
deep pass-out kind of sleep.
    "We got old bones," Cates said. She wondered if
he was enjoying the intrusion. She had told him she was going to this party,
had expected a late night. They weren't due until three in the afternoon. All
signs had pointed to a routine day, late shift. In the background she could
hear the relentless cacophony of heavy rain banging against the house.
    "Do me a favor, Cates. No cryptic. Not now."
    Wine invariably translated into morning headaches. She
imagined there would be other poundings among last night's assemblage, but
inclusion did not comfort her. They simply poured too hard and she had not had
the will to stop her lapping. Poor Monte's loquaciousness had been cut off
abruptly at