CHAPTER FOUR
“Sam Flames Out”
Saturday.
Radio blasting Sis Boom Ba’s “Boom-Ba Style,” Sam Darling steered the Mercedes 350 SL with one hand and squeezed Sally’s right breast with the other. Rural Virginia flashed by in emerald hues, the air redolent with honeysuckle. Sally laughed and twisted away.
“Eyes on the road, Senator.”
Darling flashed his famous smile and shot a glance at his buxom thirty-six year old mistress, a lobbyist for Pendragon Oil. “How can I do that, darlin’, with you by my side?” His hand fell to her knee. His touch was warm.
Sally’s knee prickled with goose bumps. At sixty-five, the Senator looked like a man twenty years younger thanks to diligent workouts in the Congressional gym and a rugged outdoor lifestyle he’d brought with him from his native Colorado. Sally also felt the illicit thrill, familiar to half the players in Washington, of a clandestine affair carried out beneath the noses of the electorate, Senate leader and whip and the President, a model of moral rectitude who was rumored to be carrying on an affair with a foreign diplomat.
I owe this to myself, Sally thought, thinking of all the scheduling, work and deception that had gone into this weekend. With the enormous weight of Pendragon, its shareholders and board members on her shoulders Sally knew she had to produce or be gone. As Chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy Independence Darling was even busier. That they had managed to carry on their subterfuge for two whole years without National Enquirer or some freelance paparazzi finding out was a miracle in itself.
Never mind that Pendragon was behind Senate Bill # 465,002, lowering environmental restrictions on shale fracking in Western Colorado. So what if she was screwing the chairman? That’s how the game was played. Besides--Darling was tall, charming and attractive and had promised to take her to Barbados for a long weekend in December. He was separated but not divorced from his wife of twenty-one years, Crystal. Although Darling had never said as much, Sally was certain he could be maneuvered into divorcing Crystal and marrying her. If she played her cards right.
They always think that, she mused sardonically.
She’d packed a few things to ensure a memorable weekend.
Darling had led a life of probity, at least until colliding with Sally. Or so he claimed. Journalists had been tracking his spoor for decades in hopes of digging up dirt that would derail the powerful Republican. They couldn’t attack over his separation--half of Congress was in the same boat. So they scrutinized his every move, even going so far as to following his daughter Stella, a criminal defense attorney.
The two-lane blacktop wound through the piney hills northeast of Lynchburg passing the occasional picture-book farm, sleek horses grazing behind white picket fences, until it came to a turn-off marked by an engraved wooden sign that would not have looked out of place outside an exclusive Georgetown boutique. Vernon’s was a high-end low profile resort catering to D.C. power players. Owner Vernon Price was a former CIA officer and field agent, and had masterfully parlayed his credentials into a thriving business.
The smooth black macadam led between rows of blue spruce around a gentle curve to the administration building, a perfectly restored 19th Century gingerbread farmhouse with a wrap-around veranda, green shutters and trim, and an old-fashioned bench swing suspended from two tractor chains affixed to a beam. One other car, an SUV with Maryland plates, two kayaks strapped to the roof and bikes on the bumper, was parked on the gravel.
Darling pulled up next to it and shut off the engine. He turned to Sally with a devilish grin, his eyes oddly yellow. Perhaps it was the late afternoon sun.
“I’ll be right back, darlin’. Don’t go anywhere.”
Sally flipped down the passenger mirror and retouched her bow-shaped lips and lustrous fake eyelashes. Not bad for an old broad. Sally ran. Every morning, six miles along Rock Creek Park with a Beretta .25 in a fanny pack. Her belly was flat as Kansas. You could bounce quarters off her ass. Dabbing Donna Karan Delicious behind her ears, she placed the little glass container back in her purse as Darling emerged from the office holding a key on a big brass tag.
When he slid into the driver’s seat, Sally noticed the sweat popping on his brow. “Are you all right Sam? You look a little feverish.”
“It’s called Potomac Fever, my love, and it’s why we have to get away from time to time.”
Starting the engine he slipped the automatic into reverse and stomped on the gas causing the little Mercedes to scoot back spraying gravel like a singed Yorkie. He jammed the auto into drive and floored it, causing the car to fishtail wildly like a tire ad.
“Sam, is this necessary?”
“Sorry, Sal. I’m hot to trot.” His hand fell to her thigh and squeezed. His touch was hot. They zipped down the gravel road past several neat bungalows to the last in line, green on white like the main house. Darling parked the car at a carefree angle, popped the trunk, popped out, grabbed the two overnighters and went up three steps to the front door. A hand-carved sign over the door said “Day Lilly Lodge.” Setting down the bags, he unlocked the door.
He turned to Sally. “How fast can you change into something obscene, little lady?”
“Pretty damn fast,” Sally said. Darling smacked her butt as she passed him, went through the cozy living room/kitchen decorated with Currier & Ives prints, through the bedroom with its walnut four-poster and crinoline skirt to the bathroom where she stripped, putting on a slinky silk peignoir from Mitzi’s in Georgetown. She examined herself in the mirror, posing like a model, which she had briefly been following college. Small high tits. Thank God she didn’t have humongous bazoombas like the typical Washington mistress. No boob job for her. Mama Crandall didn’t raise no dummies.
Judging herself resplendent, she swung open the door and struck a pose. “Ta-DA!” Her smile froze.
“Sam?” she said.
The Senator stood on the opposite side of the bed wearing nothing but gray Calvin Klein briefs grinning vapidly. Vapor wafted from his mouth. His eyes were yellow.
“Sam, are you all right?” she said with quiet urgency.
Smoke spilled from his mouth, nostrils and ears. He incandesced into a pillar of blazing light and exploded releasing an expanding ball of white-hot gas and the smell of burning flesh striking Sally like a blacksmith’s hammer and throwing her back into the bathroom.
***