The Best Laid Plans

Chapter 16

There are two Washington, D.Cs. One is a city of inordinate beauty: imposing architecture, world-class museums, statues, monuments to the giants of the past: Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington...a city of verdant parks, cherry blossoms, and velvet air.

The other Washington, D.C., is a citadel of the homeless, a city with one of the highest crime rates in the nation, a labyrinth of muggings and murders.

The Monroe Arms is an elegant boutique hotel discreetly tucked away not far from the corner of 27th and K streets. It does no advertising and caters mainly to its regular clientele. The hotel was built a number of years ago by an enterprising young real estate entrepreneur named Lara Cameron.

Jeremy Robinson, the hotel's general manager, had just arrived on his evening shift and was studying the guest register with a perplexed expression on his face. He checked the names of the occupants of the elite Terrace Suites once again to make certain someone had not made a mistake.

In Suite 325, a faded actress was rehearsing for a play opening at the National Theater. According to a story in The Washington Post, she was hoping to make a comeback.

In 425, the suite above hers, was a well-known arms dealer who visited Washington regularly. The name on the guest register was J. L. Smith, but his looks suggested one of the Middle East countries. Mr. Smith was an extraordinarily generous tipper.

Suite 525 was registered to William Quint, a congressman who headed the powerful drug oversight committee.

Above, Suite 625 was occupied by a computer software salesman who visited Washington once a month.

Registered in Suite 725 was Pat Murphy, an international lobbyist.

So far, so good, Jeremy Robinson thought. The guests were all well known to him. It was Suite 825, the Imperial Suite on the top floor, that was the enigma. It was the most elegant suite in the hotel, and it was always held in reserve for the most important VIPs. It occupied the entire floor and was exquisitely decorated with valuable paintings and antiques. It had its own private elevator leading to the basement garage, so that its guests who wished to be anonymous could arrive and depart in privacy.

What puzzled Jeremy Robinson was the name on the hotel register: Eugene Gant. Was there actually a person by that name, or had someone who enjoyed reading Thomas Wolfe selected it as an alias?

Carl Gorman, the day clerk who had registered the eponymous Mr. Gant, had left on his vacation a few hours earlier, and was unreachable. Robinson hated mysteries. Who was Eugene Gant and why had he been given the Imperial Suite?

In Suite 325, on the third floor, Dame Gisella Barrett was rehearsing for a play. She was a distinguished-looking woman in her late sixties, an actress who had once mesmerized audiences and critics from London's West End to Manhattan's Broadway. There were still faint traces of beauty in her face, but they were overlaid with bitterness.

She had read the article in The Washington Post that said she had come to Washington to make a comeback. A comeback! Dame Barrett thought indignantly. How dare they! I've never been away.

True, it had been more than twenty years since she had last appeared onstage, but that was only because a great actress needed a great part, a brilliant director, and an understanding producer. The directors today were too young to cope with the grandeur of real Theater, and the great English producers - H. M. Tenant, Binkie Beaumont, C. B. Cochran - were all gone. Even the reasonably competent American producers, Helburn, Belasco, and Golden, were no longer around. There was no question about it: The current theater was controlled by know-nothing parvenus with no background. The old days had been so wonderful. There were playwrights back then whose pens were dipped in lightning. Dame Barrett had starred in the part of Ellie Dunn in Shaw's Heartbreak House.

How the critics raved about me. Poor George. He hated to be called George. He preferred Bernard. People thought of him as acerbic and bitter, but underneath it all, he was really a romantic Irishman. He used to send me red roses. I think he was too shy to go beyond that. Perhaps he was afraid I would reject him.

She was about to make her return in one of the most powerful roles ever written - Lady Macbeth. It was the perfect choice for her.

Dame Barrett placed a chair in front of a blank wall, so that she would not be distracted by the view outside. She sat down, took a deep breath, and began to get into the character Shakespeare had created.

"Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts! Unsex me here,

And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full

Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood, Stop up the access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep the peace between

The effect and it!"

"...For God's sake, how can they be so stupid? After all the years I have been staying in this hotel, you would think that..."

The voice was booming through the open window, from the suite above.

In Suite 425, J. L. Smith, the arms dealer, was loudly berating a waiter from room service. "...they would know by now that I order only Beluga caviar. Beluga!" He pointed to a plate of caviar on the room-service table. "That is a dish fit for peasants!"

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Smith. I'll go down to the kitchen and - "

"Never mind." J. L. Smith looked at his diamond-studded Rolex. "I have no time. I have an important appointment." He rose and started toward the door. He was due at his attorney's office. A day earlier, a federal grand jury had indicted him on fifteen counts of giving illegal gifts to the secretary of defense. If found guilty, he was facing three years in prison and a million-dollar fine.

In Suite 525, Congressman William Quint, a member of a prominent third-generation Washington family, was in conference with three members of his investigating staff.

"The drug problem in this city is getting completely out of hand," Quint said. "We have to get it back under control." He turned to Dalton Isaak. "What's your take on it?"

"It's the street gangs. The Brentwood Crew is undercutting the Fourteenth Street Crew and the Simple City Crew. That's led to four killings in the last month."

"We can't let this go on," Quint said. "It's bad for business. I've been getting calls from the DEA and the chief of police asking what we're planning to do about it."

"What did you tell them?"

"The usual. That we're investigating." He turned to his assistant. "Set up a meeting with the Brentwood Crew. Tell them if they want protection from us, they're going to have to get their prices in line with the others." He turned to another of his assistants. "How much did we take in last month?"

"Ten million here, ten million offshore."

"Let's bump that up. This city is getting too damned expensive."

In 625, the suite above, Norman Haff lay naked in the dark in bed, watching a porno film on the hotel's closed-circuit channel. He was a pale-skinned man with an enormous beer belly and a flabby body. He reached over and stroked the breast of his bedmate.

"Look what they're doing, Irma." His voice was a strangled whisper. "Would you like me to do that to you?" He circled his fingers around her belly, his eyes fastened to the screen where a woman was making passionate love to a man. "Does that excite you, baby? It sure gets me hot."

He slipped two fingers between Irma's legs. "I'm ready," he groaned. He grabbed the inflated doll, rolled over, and pushed himself into her. The vagina of the battery-operated doll opened and closed on him, squeezing him tighter and tighter.

"Oh, my God!" he exclaimed. He gave a satisfied groan. "Yes! Yes!"

He switched off the battery and lay there panting. He felt wonderful. He would use Irma again in the morning before he deflated her and put her in a suitcase.

Norman was a salesman, and he was on the road most of the time in strange towns where he had no companionship. He had discovered Irma years ago, and she was all the female company he needed. His stupid salesmen friends traveled around the country picking up sluts and professional whores, but Norman had the last laugh.

Irma would never give him a disease.

On the floor above, in Suite 725, Pat Murphy's family had just come back from dinner. Tim Murphy, twelve, was standing on the balcony overlooking the park. "Tomorrow can we climb up to the top of the monument, Daddy?" he begged. "Please?"

His younger brother said, "No. I want to go to the Smithsonian Institute."

"Institution," his father corrected him.

"Whatever. I want to go."

It was the first time the children had been in the nation's capital, although their father spent more than half of every year there. Pat Murphy was a successful lobbyist and had access to some of the most important people in Washington.

His father had been the mayor of a small town in Ohio, and Pat had grown up fascinated by politics. His best friend had been a boy named Joey. They had gone through school together, had gone to the same summer camps, and had shared everything. They were best friends in the truest sense of the phrase. That had all changed one holiday when Joey's parents were away and Joey was staying with the Murphys. In the middle of the night, Joey had come to Pat's room and climbed into his bed. "Pat," he whispered. "Wake up."