Chapter 9: Ride Me Hard

Saturday afternoon

BACK AT THE OFFICE, SUZANNE threw her pencil down and looked at Larry and the pile of papers on his desk.

“So, Larry, on the minority leader, where the hell are we?”

“We know he had enemies. Perhaps someone thought he was doing Raptor a favor, Suzanne, I dunno.”

She watched Larry shuffle the papers in front of him. When he started through it again she knew they really were nowhere on this.

It wasn’t the party in the White House, that was pretty clear. After all, they had nothing to gain from making the late minority leader a martyr. Come to think about it, of course, being caught in bed with another woman wasn’t exactly a career-enhancing move. And if the other woman was none other than the famous Tina Wong, the “bitch” as Raptor insisted on calling her, it was even worse. She had a reputation, and not a good one, all around town and beyond.

Larry interrupted her thoughts.

“So, what did Sunshine have to say?”

Suzanne had to think for a moment, get back on track. She couldn’t stop a giggle. Put on her serious face.

“It’s bad, Larry. She sent me the video from last summer on Martha’s Vinyard. She’s on film getting fucked and eaten by the late Josh. She’s right, you can’t see her face clearly in the video, but you can tell the young woman is black, everyone knows she and Josh were friends, so it begins to look pretty bad for her. And that’s not even counting this latest video.”

Suzanne laughed.

“You know, she’s pretty upset, no question, but I think there’s more to it than she told me. I mean, the tears were real but there was an undertone of something, excitement, maybe, I’m not sure, at the same time. She had a glow.”

Another laugh.

“Maybe that’s why they call her Sunshine?”

Larry snorted.

“Back to the minority leader, Larry. Not the White House, we agree on that. What about his own party?”

“Maybe the radicals on his side of the aisle?”

Suzanne thought that was possible but very unlikely. Certainly nothing at this point was off the table, and the whole Washington, DC atmosphere was more poisonous in recent years than it had ever been, but neither party had resorted to political assassination. Not yet, anyway. On the other hand, she’d been a cop in the District long enough not to be surprised about anything. A senior member of Congress with a stripper wading in the Tidal Pool in the early hours of the morning? Sure, even if the stripper was the only one wading. A president getting a blow job from an intern in the Oval Office pantry? Check. Anything was possible.

“You know what the boss has decided?”

Larry shook his head.

“You won’t believe this. He thinks she shot him and then herself.”

Larry’s laughter was unexpected, but in a second Suzanne was laughing with him. When he caught his breath he managed to ask, “Twice?”

Suzanne snorted.

“Yeah. That’s what I said. I can’t figure out if he’s serious or pulling my chain. Idiot. I can see his idea of a headline now, ‘Yellow peril menaces United States Senate.’”

“Suzanne, Tina was born in San Francisco. She grew up in Montana.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t say his idea was any good, did I?”

Suzanne turned from the file she was reading.

“Larry, you don’t suppose Raptor arranged this?”

“No. Sure, she hated Tina, and she and the minority leader weren’t exactly close. In fact, they were less close than Bill and Hillary after Monica. But no. What does she gain? I mean, sure, she gets rid of the two of them, but the minority leader is really her ticket to the big time. People don’t like her. She called Tina a bitch, but really she’s as much the bitch as Tina was.”

“So, who had motive?”

“It’s more than just politics in the normal sense. Gut feeling, but this isn’t Washington infighting, whatever form that takes. It’s something else.

Suzanne was making notes on her yellow pad.

“OK. Go with that. Tell me why.”

“Easy. For all that he was a dick and a pain in the butt to the guy in White House now, the minority leader was a moderate. At least in today’s political climate he was, anyway, and he’s changed a lot from when he was first elected. Look around you. I’m not sure where Raptor stands in all this, though.”

Larry paused, stared at his screen for a moment.

“Suzanne, tell me again about Josh and the daughter.”

Suzanne looked at him. This was unusual. What did he want, all the delicious details? Screw it, she decided. She would tell him, and if he wanted to play with himself while he listened, so much the better.

“She said it started slowly. They knew each other from school mixers, of course. Even given who she was, there are enough other children of big dog players in both schools they weren’t in awe of her.