you want, Mr. Moran.”
“I have some questions for you and I want to be certain that you understand you have the right to have an attorney present.”
“That depends on the questions. What do you want to know?”
“How was Sandra Reid involved in the shooting of Banks?”
“She wasn’t really. She ran in my house later.”
“But she plotted with you to get Banks down here from Delaware.”
“She did?”
“Look, this is just between us. I permitted you to post bond and stay out of jail, however I can revoke bail and put you in jail anytime I want. Also, when your trial comes up, and your attorney wants to plead to a lesser charge or something, I have power over that.”
“Okay, so you’re the big deal who can decide if things go good or bad for me...oh, I see what you’re getting at. You want me to do you some favors now and then.” She made a quick glance back at the door to his office, scooted her chair forward, and lowered her voice. “I get it. And it would just be between you and me. Well, that’d be very interesting for both of us.” She moistened her lips with her tongue and smiled at him. “I give good...favors.”
He squirmed slightly in his chair. “You misunderstood. I’m talking solely about what you’re going to say in your defense. I know you could give testimony that would incriminate Sandra Reid if you really wanted to. If you thought hard, there must be many things she did and said. She really hated Banks. That’s why she encouraged you.”
“She did that?”
He raised his eyebrows and looked at her expectantly.
“Well, she did tell me she had kept track of him and he should be punished for what he did. You mean stuff like that?”
He smiled. “You see, there’s no reason for you to take all the blame. Now go get yourself an attorney.”
Chapter Twenty-one
By mid-afternoon, we were several hours and hundreds of miles south of Richmond and continuing down I-95 to Florida. We were now definitely in the American South. Noticeably less traffic and none of the early winter bleakness of the northeast. We’d soon be in South Carolina. As a traveling companion, I found Betty Jo rather enjoyable. She was smiling at me more frequently. And now I didn’t care whether she was a stripper.
I had learned a bit about her and her job in Baltimore. Although I suspected that dancing in a men’s club was less glamorous and more sordid than she implied. Yet, she herself seemed an acceptable person. She had yet to express an interest in my profession. I wasn’t certain I wanted her to know much about me. They say power is the ultimate aphrodisiac and after fourteen years, I’d accumulated significant power in Congress, at least on my side of the aisle. However, I’d keep quiet about my position. I naturally wanted her to like me, yet I didn’t want to make too much of my favorable situation and invite undue attention.
Although growing weary of the particular subject of stripping, she was at ease talking about herself otherwise. For my part, it wasn’t that I found stripping so intriguing. The fascination was with the stripper herself and my increasingly favorable interaction with her. “Tell me about you,” I said. “Just to pass the time.”
“You don’t want to hear about me. You just want to hear me talk about taking my clothes off, right?”
Perhaps I was thinking that. “Not at all. However, I must admit I do think what you do is exciting. You know, like show business.” In truth, I thought it was a grimy way to make a living. No doubt, she had limited job choices. “But it’d be fine if you wanted to talk about something else, like where you grew up?”
“Okay, just to pass the time. But nothing about stripping, okay? Nothing special to tell. How far back should I go? Let’s see, grew up in Fort Lauderdale...” She brushed back some of her wonderful curly hair and turned to me. “Oh, you want to hear a good story about this guy George and me? It’s a long, long story.”
“It’s a long, long drive.” I was betting George was one of the lucky men in her life. I was interested to hear how he made out with her.
“Okay. George was Momma’s boy friend. I was a cute thirteen when he first came to the house. Big middle- aged guy, like an aging football player with a beer gut. Ran some type of contracting business. Nice to me and I liked him immediately. Momma wasn’t as tall as I was and I guess she was a little overweight, but she had a pretty face. The boob thing runs in the family so she was okay in that department.
“They didn’t date steady, but whenever he showed up, he’d be certain to speak to me and ask how I was doing. He was interested in what I did at school and about my friends and if I had a boyfriend. He guessed I drove all the boys at school crazy. He had that right. Nice to have him around now and then. I felt safe with a man like George in our house.”
“What about your father?”
“Never really knew him, took off early. He wasn’t a nice man, was all Momma would ever say about him. Now this George was a gentle type. At thirteen, I thought he was very cool. The next time he came over, he gave me a little bracelet with my name. He said it wasn’t expensive. He could have saved his breath. It looked like it came out of an arcade vending machine. Too cheap to wear. I didn’t care. It was from George. More than Momma ever got from him.
“He took Momma out no more than twice. Once for a dinner and once for a movie. From then on, when he came over, they didn’t leave the house. The first few times, the three of us would talk or watch TV for a while. They never said anything, but I knew they wanted me out of there. So, I’d go to my room early and listen to music. As you’ve probably guessed, they’d end up in her bedroom.
“As far as I could tell they never did anything for one another, outside of the bedroom, I mean. I never heard the word love. If he brought over a bottle, they’d drink it. But she wasn’t going to use her own liquor. Sometimes he showed up with pizza or Chinese. She never cooked for him. Of course, she never cooked all that much for me either.
“He would then disappear for a few weeks. One time he came over, I think I was fourteen by then, and Momma wasn’t home. She worked for a printer. She phoned, had to work a double, wouldn’t be home until midnight. He asked if he could hang around since he was already out of the house. I took ‘out of the house’ to mean he was married. That was cool with me. I could play hostess and I’d be the one to get him a drink or whatever he wanted. He’d brought a bottle of bourbon. He liked it on the rocks and that’s easy to fix. I could have a sip if I wanted, he said, but only one little one and it’d be our secret. I’d snuck into the bourbon years before and knew I didn’t like the stuff. So that was no big deal. I fixed a couple for him. He went in and fixed some others.
“He wanted to see my bedroom so we went in there and he sat beside me on the bed. He really liked my posters and bedroom junk. I had a real cool scrapbook of rock stars I had cut out of magazines. So we flipped through that. We listened to my favorite,
“So George made a move on you in your bedroom.”
“No, I didn’t say that. He left after an hour or so. I wished he’d stayed longer. So cool sitting beside the big guy on my bed. He was real nice.”
“I guess you saw him again.”
“I think it was the very next Saturday. He phoned Momma, wanted to take us out on his boat for the day. Said we could go swimming or whatever we wanted. Momma was annoyed and raised her voice on the phone. She always worked on Saturday and he should have remembered that. So his big deal invitation amounted to nothing. A few minutes later, he called back and apologized. He’d forgotten she had to work. Maybe I’d like to go if I wasn’t doing anything. I pleaded with Momma. She finally said okay go ahead.
“I was excited. I’d planned to go to the mall with my immature boyfriend, Jimmie. You know how long it took me to cancel out on that. So, I fussed with my hair and all. And counted the minutes until George picked me up.
“I was surprised. The boat wasn’t there in Lauderdale as I assumed. It was more than an hour away down at
