Chapter 5

"Thank you, Mr. Lee," the uniformed policeman said with a nod. "Do you know your way around?"

"Yes, thanks," Jeff answered and walked through the turnstile.

Jeff didn't really mind the red tape required to get onto the convention floor. The Republicans didn't expect any trouble, but they still had to keep outsiders from butting in, after all, political secrets are political secrets, he thought.

There had been no trouble obtaining a valid delegate pass earlier that morning. Jeff's fight against organized crime in Miami had one backer, a very influential Republican. Even with all his power and influence he hadn't been able to recruit any more support for Jeff, but he did easily arrange for credentials that would allow the editor to wander around the convention hall without being known as a member of the working press.

If Pam could talk to him, Jeff thought, then maybe she would believe what I say. His wife's lack of concern was constant concern for Jeff. He wanted her to believe in what he was doing, and pay much less attention to her social engagements and ridiculous charities. If those hens wouldn't cackle so much, and try talking about important problems, he thought, they might be able to persuade their husbands to help me. Christ, that'll be the day. Until then I'm strictly on my own.

"Hartford's the name," a loud voice said beside him. "Iowa," he added proudly.

"Jeff Lee. I'm local."

"Just call me Bill, Jeff," he said.

One of those, Jeff thought. He'd met many men like Hartford during the last twenty years and had never been impressed with any of them, except perhaps by the excess weight they always seemed to carry around the middle. It was almost a badge of honor for men like Hartford to be fat, he thought.

Jeff looked right past Hartford's head as the overweight delegate talked to him. Full of information, Jeff snickered to himself. Probably doesn't do a goddamn thing but talk. Probably talks to his hogs, too. Jeff didn't care to hear anything that Hartford said. He was too intent on spotting familiar faces of Wade Jackson's henchmen, all of whom he would know on sight, though none of them had ever seen him.

"Excuse me for interrupting, Bill," he said, grabbing the big man by the arm and shaking his hand. "But one of my fellow delegates has just waved at me. I think we have a caucus coming up."

"Yeah, I know how it is..."

But before he could finish Jeff had already left.

Across the room he had spotted Carl Pearson, Wade Jackson's right hand man. Seeing Carl, he knew that there was something lined up for the delegates already, and if he wanted more evidence he would have to find out where and when.

Keeping his eye constantly on Carl's bald head, Jeff shoved and wormed his way through the vast crowd of delegates who mingled around the main floor, talking, dealing or just plain standing. The way they make crowds, he thought, they must be doing it through a prearranged signal.

Suddenly breaking into the open Jeff watched Carl shake a man's hand and turn to leave. There's my contact, he thought, pulling a cigarette from his half empty pack. Well, here goes nothin'.

"Gotta light?" Jeff asked the man as he started to walk away.

"Oh," he said, surprised by the sudden intrusion on his private thoughts. "Sure, somewhere," he laughed, searching his pockets for a phantom book of matches. "Here."

Jeff took the pack and started to light his cigarette, reading the club name from the cover.

"This is a good spot," he asked, pointing at the name on the cover, a club he knew that Jackson owned.

"Hey, let me tell ya about this place," the man said, winking his much practiced sly old fox wink. "I was there last night, and Jesus, you shoulda seen the broads. Say, you aren't here with your wife, are ya?"

Lotta good that'd do me, Jeff thought wryly. "Nope, she's out of town."

The man looked at Jeff's delegate tag, surprised at the city.

"Hey, you're from here, huh? I'll bet you know a lot of good places."

"No, not really. I can never get rid of my wife long enough to catch any action."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," he said, making his "you" sound like "choo." "But she's gone tonight," he continued, punching Jeff lightly in the ribs.

Jerk!

"I'm looking for some action," he said, trying to get irritated. "Maybe I should try that club on the matchbook."

"Oh, no," he said drawing out the words. "Tonight! Tonight there's gonna be some real action."

Jeff nodded showing his interest.

"I was just talking to a friend of mine, one of the guys who runs the club, and he's got a big bash set up for tonight. I mean booze, entertainment and girls, girls, girls," he finished, making an Eddie Cantor face.

"Sounds good," Jeff said, fishing for an invitation.

Jeff listened while the man gave him instructions, where to meet him, what time, etc.

Just before they parted he said, "We ought to get to know each other. I'm Jeff Lee."

"Right, Jeff. Bob Ferris," he put out his hand. "See you at nine, huh?"

"Great," Jeff answered, hoping this might be the break he was searching for.

At nine thirty the two men pulled up in front of a sprawling white mansion that housed thirty rooms. Jeff could hear the loud pounding of a drum as he got out of the car. In another minute he would be inside and could lose this creep. How the hell a guy like him ever got to be a delegate, he thought, I'll never guess in a million years how anyone could trust him with the political future of their country.

A butler in black tie waited for them at the open door and in a second they were inside. Without any trouble at all Jeff lost his companion and headed toward the music.

Before he opened the door to the room, he could tell that there was a striptease going on, or coming off, he thought with a sarcastic grin. The drum was beating the universal stripper's rhythm, a pounding monotonous beat.

Jeff slipped in unnoticed and walked through the dim red room to the opposite wall, where he sat on a large cushion as had the rest of the guests. Looking around he noticed a few familiar political faces, some of them women. Obviously the party was well planned, he noted as he searched the room. A lot of the older men were accompanied by strikingly beautiful young girls in their early twenties.

For the first few minutes he hadn't looked toward the center of the room where a magnificently built Cuban girl, about twenty was stripping. My God, he thought as he saw her. She's stolen Pam's body. A small wince of pain flashed through his chest when he thought of his wife. She had the same legs, the same hips, the same firm perfectly shaped breasts as the dancer, but never in a lifetime would she be able to lose her inhibitions and perform like that for him.

Jeff didn't like to think about Pamela's sexuality mainly because it was almost non-existent. Christ, he thought, what ever happened to her. He could remember the first time they had made love, a few weeks before they were married. He knew at the time that she was a novice, but he wrote it off to her being a virgin, something he thought strange, since she was twenty-seven at the time.

They had only made love once before they were married, and Jeff realized that something was wrong, but couldn't pinpoint it until a month after the wedding. Frigid, he thought. It was the only word that fit her. During the last three years he had done everything he could think of to help her change, but nothing had worked, and finally they had just stopped talking about it altogether.

But a man's a man, and he sometimes needs it any way he can get it, he told himself silently as he watched the stripper. She was about five-foot-three and dark, but other than that, the physical similarity between her and Pamela was a carbon copy. He watched her breasts quivering as she moved subtly around the circle in the center of the room, her hips in perfect unison with a slow, excruciatingly desirable act of sexual intercourse.

He tried to remember that she wasn't his wife, that she was a professional prostitute earning her living by taking her clothes off in front of a multitude of men and women.

Moving her eyes from man to man she continued to dance, undulating her hips, gesturing with her arms in such a way that every muscle in her long dark body would seem to twitch in unison. Her black hair swayed as she leaned her head backward, but all eyes were on her hands and not her head as she slipped her black half- slip from over her hips and exposed a tiny pair of panty briefs, smaller than any bikini Jeff had ever seen. She dropped the nylon to the floor and continued her dance, turning so that everyone in the room would be able to savor every inch of her sensuous flesh.

Jeff looked at her buttocks as she turned her back toward him, clenching the muscles in rhythm to the music as if she were conducting the drummer.

Just as she turned again to face him she slowly removed the two black pasties that covered her chocolate-brown nipples, completely exposing her rounded full breasts to his eyes. She looked directly at him as she danced, her hands toying for a moment with her breasts, then sliding down her torso slowly, stopping at her hips only long enough to grasp the brief panties and slowly ease them down her long firm thighs, revealing the small black triangle of soft pubic hair that covered the dampened lips of her vagina.

Pam, Jeff thought, replacing the stripper with his wife. If Pam could only be like you, for God's sake, what's your secret.

The stripper continued looking at the graying editor as he watched her, her muscles tense with desire as his eyes traced a path around her breasts and down her tummy to that tiny triangle of black curls between her legs. He was imagining his tongue in place of his eyes, but Goddamn it, he thought, I won't even get the chance.

Not taking his eyes from her, Jeff heard a voice say at his head, "Would you like a drink, sir?"

Jeff didn't answer.

"Perhaps there's something else," the too sweet voice of the young man said.

Mesmerized, Jeff still said nothing.

"The girl," the voice said. "Is that the one you want tonight?"

Jeff nodded.

"She's booked," the voice whispered, "But for the right price I can arrange her for you. You've obviously found what you want."

Jeff turned to him for an instant. "Fix it," he said and looked back at the girl.

He hated prostitution and anyone concerned with it, but Jeff had lost his battle. He had to have that girl to know what his wife could really be like. He had to have her!

She had turned her back to Jeff when he spoke to the waiter, and was slowly revolving in a small circle, tantalizing every man she looked at. But when her eyes met Jeff's she slowed almost to a stop, moving only her hips and holding her breasts out for his approval. There they were, two perfect nipples waiting for him to suck into his mouth, and pinch with his teeth.

His hands rested on his lap, gently touching the large bulge of his swollen penis, stroking it slightly. He felt it twitch as she leaned back, her head touching the floor, then with her free hands, running her fingers over her torso, along the insides of her long dark thighs to the pink open lips of her vagina. His throbbing cock was ready to burst as he watched her spread the moist lips through the soft pubic hair and open her pulsating vagina with both hands, and insert two fingers.

Jeff could hardly breathe as his hand gripped his thick cock. He watched her as the two fingers began to stroke in and out of her soft, finger-stretched pussy, one against the other. No person in the room made a sound, as they watched, the men with their hands underneath their companions' skirts, and the women gently stroking swollen cocks.

Slowly, to everyone's disappointment, she removed the two fingers and slid their long nails along her skin, around her buttocks to gently whisk her tightly clenched anus.

In a few moments it'll be over, Jeff thought to himself, relieved that she was going to stop before he went mad. Quickly, almost ashamed, he moved his hand from the swollen penis. Why do it myself when she can, he thought, and got up from his chair, looking about the room for the young waiter who signaled him that everything was ready.

Fine, he thought, and made his way through the crowd to the door. Pam can go fuck herself, he rationalized. For once since he had been married, he, was going to have a real woman.

"Hello," she said through bright red lips. "I'm Carmen."

"I know," he answered her, anxious to get her away from the crowd in the large living room. "Is there somewhere we can go now?"

"You're in a big hurry," she told him, her Spanish accent slipping through each word. "I've got a room upstairs, but we can only stay for a while." Seeing his expression she offered an alternative, "But if you want me for longer, I can do that too, at my apartment."

"Fine," he said, not wanting to talk until they were away from the house.

"But it'll cost you more," she said coyly, "Much more."

"Let's go," he said looking at her eyes. Except for the color, they had the same shape and size as his wife's eyes.

Twenty minutes later he inserted the key into her lock and stepped into her apartment. She does well, he thought as he looked about the room.

"In here," she pointed toward the bedroom door and walked in.

It's not real, he thought as he followed her into the large bedroom. She even walked like Pamela and he couldn't decide whether it was going to be easier or harder for him to climb into bed with her. She possessed every sexual quality that his wife lacked, but the resemblance was so great...

"How old are you?" he asked as she kicked off her shoes.

"Twenty, why, are you a cop?"

He told her no, but the word cop had reminded him of the job he had to do. Wade Jackson must be stopped, but Oh God, what a price to pay, he thought, not wanting to wait.

"I'd like a drink first," he said as she began to unzip her dress.

"Whatever you say," she answered him in her sexiest Cuban voice.

They went into the living room and she fixed them both a drink, bringing his to him where he sat on the couch.

"You haven't even asked me how much," she said, wondering if he might be a very wealthy man.

He looked at her with his eyebrows raised, indicating a question.

"Three hundred," she said hesitantly. If he was rich, he would pay it.

"Three hundred dollars would have to buy a lot more than just a night in bed," he told her.

Oh brother, she thought, another weirdo. I wonder what tricks he likes?

"You're the boss, big man," she said trying to be cute.

"Where're you from," he asked without hesitating.

What's he gonna do, talk all night?

"I'm from Cuba," she answered, thinking that he wouldn't care what she said. "I've been in the States for a year."

Jeff continued questioning her for the next hour, and she slowly began to trust him, talking more freely as the drinks increased. She had barely escaped Castro's assassins three years ago when they had murdered her father. Hiding in the mountains she had gotten involved in an underground railroad operation and finally been able to escape to Miami.