Them Hustlers Page 6

  Wilkes has once compared Tucker to Russian political operators like Lenin and Stalin. “Tommy works us like an old fashioned Soviet Union cell,” shrewdly suggested Wilkes. “I don’t know what you do; you don’t know what I do. If we get caught, few of us know the whole story.”

  The congressman was right on one level but was also wrong, because Tanya knew most of the dirty business. That’s the role of the bagman. She knew how much Wilkes was getting, maybe not why, but she could follow the money trail through the different bank accounts, from the paper bag delivered by a campaign supporter or lobbyist that would work its way to the mistress or the necessary extra cash to sprinkle on community leaders in a 'get out the vote' drive before an election.

  So too with Tim-Tim. Three weeks before the last election she had met the lobbyist in a bar on 19th Street, a hangout for queers. In the only quiet corner possible he had handed her the funds that the campaign needed for the final voter push. This despite the fact that Tucker was uncomfortable around homosexuals. That is, when he knew someone was gay, which was not often. If a guy smoked a cigar Tucker could not imagine him to be gay. Nor could Tucker acknowledge that some of his congressional colleagues were closet gays. In that sense he was like most of the politicians of his generation regarding sexual issues. Out of touch.

  * * *

  The daily tracking numbers a friend at the Democratic National Committee had shown last night to Tanya offered small hope for Gingrich. Yet the Republican leader was still clinging to his own numbers, which predicted the Democrats would suffer a big loss on election night. In fact, that had been his whispered promise all along, that the morality drive would create a generation of Republican leadership in both the House and the Senate. But everyone sensed those predictions were flat wrong. Details from Starr’s investigation now being printed in the Washington Post of semen stains and oral sex seemed overboard to most Americans. If ever a scandal demanded a sensitive political hand and some old-fashioned modesty, it would have been this one. The Clinton debacle wasn’t about financial hanky-panky but of a serial-womanizing politician trapped in the fishbowl of the Oval Office. Who had made these the new rules of the game of politics? Roosevelt, Kennedy and seemingly every testosterone-fueled politician had enjoyed their own married affairs and no reporter or voter had cared. Who changed the rules?

  Tucker’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Bob,” referring to Bob Livingston, “believes the returns will be in early on election night. We’ll still be in prime time on the East Coast. I got two well-placed operatives ready to stroke the flames.” Tucker unexpectedly nodded to Tanya. “Thank you ma’am.”

  “You are welcome, sir.” For all the work she had put into preparing for the media strategy during election night, Tucker had better express some appreciation.

  “The cable news pundits will go crazy,” Tucker predicted. “Our talking head on Fox News will jump all over Gingrich. We got him all pumped up with the invite to host the fact-finding trip to Rio, compliments of that health insurance group." Tucker again was inclusive. "Thank you again Tanya Lyn."

  This time Tanya actually blushed. Tommy was really laying it on--he didn't often refer to her by her full name.

  "If y'all need any help on that trip to Rio," offered Tim-Tim, "I got personal friends that can show him the town." Tanya knew that personal friends meant just that--no connections, no 'fingerprints' back to snooping Washington or Louisiana reporters. The talking head would have the trip of his life and be way in debt to Tucker by the time of his return.

  "Much obliged," Tucker accepted.

  Corwin leaned forward over the small card table. His voice was a whisper. “I spoke to Livingston’s staffer just an hour ago. Tonight is the best shot we gonna get." Corwin looked around. “Let’s get going here. Y'all got re-election campaigns to get back to.”

  Tucker turned to Gigi. “What our distinguished Senator is saying is that this is a job for you, hon.”

  Gigi's dark Cajun eyes widened as she mocked Tucker. “Why, sir, ah did wonder as to the reason y'all invitin' me to such an impawtan' event.” Full stop. "So soon after all the other impawtan' events.”

  Wilkes jumped in to express the regret all knew was necessary to keep Gigi a willing participant.

  “I know we had promised to go easy on using you honey but everything else with this damn Cuban-fella has failed. This is a moment more critical than any we have faced. Mebbe ever."

  Gigi had become more and more high-maintenance since the spring and was balking at being used “for every damn occasion" as she had yelled a few days ago to Tucker.

  "Am I right?” Wilkes looked to his friends for support. The other men nodded.

  “We’ve made promises to him, talked about the family, sympathized what a prick that Castro is," continued Wilkes. "I gave up a round of golf over recess to fly down to Miami. What we get?”

  Tucker finished. “Got us nothing. And will get us nothing. Martinez is feeling too cocky.”

  Martinez was the up and coming second term Florida Republican who had come to realize that his own stars had aligned just right. Unexpectedly, he was one of the remaining uncommitted Republican votes should Gingrich pull out. Though pre-voting party tallies were fluid and changed with the moment, it was deemed critical to show other Republicans, major backers, even trusted reporters, a list showing Livingston was now over the top to become majority leader.

  Showing the right numbers now hinged on the congressman from Florida.

  But Martinez refused to budge. This evening, at this very moment, he was meeting for the second time with Livingston in the dining room of Miss Lawrence, but there was no reason to believe that he could be swayed via any rational effort. A source on Martinez’s staff had admitted to Tanya that tomorrow the Cuban-American would also be meeting with one of Livingston's competitors.

  If they didn't lock this down now it could be an open race should Gingrich be forced out.

  The way Tucker reasoned, there was no rational inducement possible for the Florida congressman to commit to Livingston this week. Better for the Cuban-American to time his endorsement to obtain the maximum amount of backroom guarantees. That's the way it was done. Some congressmen would vote for Livingston to erase a political debt, a favor returned. Some would vote to hurt a potential competitor from the same party. And still others would seek out a favor, some sort of promise for funding or appointment to a desired committee. Most could be declined, but not Martinez. Fate had made him a critical wavering vote that if not locked down could open the door to a full field of contenders.

  * * *

  “Gigi hon, you willin' for us one more time this year?” Even after all these years Tucker couldn’t read her intent. Her exotic features with the high cheekbones and dark, dark, eyes obscured for any normal man the ability to predict this woman. No doubt there was American Indian blood in her as well as the Creole. And those eyes held their serene innocence; like Gigi knew, but just didn't care she was an powder-keg of eroticism just about to explode.

  Gigi smiled. “Of course, you know I’m here for you Tommy dear.”

  Relieved, Tucker looked at his ruby encrusted watch, a gift from the Sugar Export Association. “Look, dinner starts in about 15 minutes.”

  Livingston and Martinez were meeting three floors beneath them, in the Club's dining room.

  Tucker figured a final show of respect wouldn’t hurt none. He tossed a wry smile to Gigi. “So Miss Bienvenue, we are here askin' that you assist on our little problem and then we promise you a much needed rest.”

  Gigi didn't answer, but as the voodoo priestess reached into her Prada handbag Tommy and the other two politicians quietly exhaled in relief.

  ~ ~ ~

  Chapter 7

  “First things first, I got the handkerchief.”

  Wilkes pulled from his pocket a twice folded over white envelope. “And I got some of his hair.” Deep chuckles from the men.

  “How the hell did you do that? Egged on Senator Corwin. �
�Yank it out of him while he was sleeping?”

  Tim-Tim joined in the fun. “You promise it’s from his scalp?"

  Wilkes took the jabs good naturally. “Twenty bucks to the clean-up guy at the House barbershop, just like the other time.”

  “What did you tell him, you was a fan of Martinez, like a groupie?” Tucker’s tone was teasing but he was really curious.

  “I told the barber it was for charity, to auction off for a surprise event later this year.”

  Tucker was impressed. Two years before Gigi had requested a sample of another congressman’s hair, and Tucker had stupidly risked it all by bending down on his knees in the congressional barbershop and grabbing up a swath of the cut-off hair while the barber's back was turned.

  Gigi reached deeper into the large zippered up bag that never left her side. To those in the know the unassuming bag was a source of fascination. Inside were pieces of the heaven and the earth. There were feathers from African birds, bones from dead animals and strings made from Mississippi Delta cypress trees. The bag held her traditional gris gris bag, filled with the exotic herbs and oils essential to conducting a voodoo ceremony.

  Then there was the leather book, a book not one of them had ever seen for more than a fleeting moment. For two centuries the book had been passed down by mothers to daughters of the Bienvenue family.

  “My black bible,” Gigi called the leather bound collection of yellowing pages.

  The book was the handwritten compilation of spells for good and for evil. It had been written by the Bienvenue women in the final years before the family fled Haiti. Every person in this room had borne witness to the power it contained. Not that Gigi was always successful, but enough to make believers out of each of the men.

  Gigi Bienvenue was part of the history of Louisiana's people, whose origins resembled a spicy gumbo gene pool. Most of the first Europeans settlers were some part Cajun, some part Creole. Throw in a dash of Native Americans with a hint of African-Americans; bring to a boil over two centuries of slow-steamed simmering. What emerges is the make-up of the modern Louisianan.

  Two groups of immigrants from France exerted the most influence on the Louisiana culture. There were the Cajuns, the French decedents who fled from Canada's Nova Scotia when the British attacked. In the 1760s the war-weary refugees found a frosty reception in the American colonies. Some settled in Pennsylvania, others in New York, and some uneasily in the Carolinas. The Cajuns finally found a welcome of sorts in Louisiana, where the Spanish authorities used the French decedents as protective buffers against incursions from attacking Indians

  During this same period other French decedents were forced to flee the slave rebellion from Haiti. These were the Creoles. Their history is not as noble.

  Gigi traced her family back to the Caribbean island then known as Hispaniola, during the time that the French created what was without a doubt one of the worst hells on earth. The country now known as Haiti supported huge plantations for coffee and sugar, all made possible by the brutal treatment of African slaves. More than 800,000 slaves were imported into Haiti, of which some estimate the death toll as high as 400,000. If one is allowed to delineate levels of calloused immorality, though Gigi did not, then the French owners were by far the cruelest of the British, American and French business classes that ran the international commerce of the 18th and 19th centuries based on African slave labor.

  The African slaves carried with them their belief in the idea of living gods that are found in the world around us, including the animals, the plants and the earth. These ancient African beliefs were outlawed by the French masters, but with little practical effect. Over time the African religious practices became fused with the indigenous Haitian beliefs and later even with the French Catholicism of their masters.

  What emerged was voodoo.

  Why in Haiti and not in America or Canada or in the British territories? The horrific reason is probably because the Americans and Brits outlawed the importation of slaves early on, whereas the French found it cheaper and more expedient to work the slaves till death knowing that the next boat filled with fresh workers was just over the horizon. So a majority of Haitian slaves were always first or second generation, connected more intimately to African beliefs than American-born slaves.

  In 1804 a violent slave rebellion finally threw off the French yoke. And Haiti, the world’s first independent black republic, was formed. The consequences of the rebellion were far reaching. Not only did it scare the American southern slave owners, who feared for their own lives and hence became even more intransigent in their dealings over the issue of slavery, but it also forced the French masters to flee. Many choose New Orleans, then controlled by the French. The Bienvenue family, Tucker understood, had come to New Orleans after a few years of living in Cuba.

  After the rebellion some former slaves immigrated to the Caribbean as well as to Louisiana--so that was true Louisiana, a place where former slaves and former slave owners lived side by side.

  Gigi had caught the eye of Tucker when still a teenager. One of the street artists who ply their trade for the amusement of Bourbon Street tourists, Gigi was a local voodoo artist who specialized in incantations assuring a permanent bond of love between tourists. Tucker had stopped on his way to dinner to watch this lithe Creole girl with hair as dark as a moonless night conduct a ceremony cementing the love of a timid honeymoon couple.

  It was he who had been smitten. It surprised him not in the least to learn that she had taken her name after falling in love with the musical about the girl who came of age in Paris by breaking men's hearts. That first night his heart pounded watching her performance. This was not a teenager who had borrowed an old French dress and found a dusty black magic book in a Canal Street second hand shop. He knew enough from the old black folks in the parish to know voodoo, real voodoo. Sure, her act was innocent, giving the tourists a thrill. But a white woman like that, nurtured just right….Tucker had heard stories about the legendary populist governor of Louisiana Huey Long relying on voodoo to scare up the voters and settle political scores. So too Papa Doc, the dictator in Haiti.

  Why not for Tom Tucker? Who could argue that one day Tommy Tucker would not be remembered as fondly as the great Huey Long?

  That was 12 years ago and since that day Tucker had never lost the love of watching his voodoo priestess. All they had done together was for this one moment. ‘I will,’ Tucker found himself silently promising in the University Club room, ‘do more for the everyday folks if Livingston gets to be Speaker. On that I promise.’

  Huey Long would be proud of Tommy Tucker.

  ~ ~ ~

  Chapter 8

  Elsewhere that August night a get-together was taking place whose outcome would create more inexplicable dots for Greene to have to connect. Yet the two participants of this particular pow wow did not know or care one bit for Phil Greene. But what did concern at least one of them was the same subject that brought the Bayou politicians together at the University Club to get some mojo working, and that was the power struggle in Washington for control of the Congress and ultimately the White House. This was no inconsequential meeting: the result put in motion an improbable idea whose consequence joined with Phil Greene's unwitting efforts and saved the presidency of Bill Clinton.

  This was not however a meeting of national politicians or high-powered Wall Street financiers or influential publishers. No, meeting in downtown New York were two of the most infamous smut publishers.

  One was a brooder. Circumstances peculiar to the American political system had transformed his world into a physical nightmare --the target of an assassination attempt on the steps of a Georgia courthouse had left his body paralyzed from the waist down. But the pornographer suffered more than the indignities of being paralyzed; he would become addicted to painkillers and spent months in a psychiatric ward. It fused within him an anger against the Washington landscape where married politicians preached to the voters a 19th century morality against consenting se
x, while screwing without punishment their staffers and lobbyists.

  Lately his brooding had focused on the heated Republican congressional attacks on Bill Clinton. His frequent skirmishes with the federal judicial system, including a Supreme Court victory against the Moral Majority’s Reverend Jerry Falwell, forced him to keep close tabs on the political doings in Washington. And he was worried that the mood of the country--egged on by the Republican outcry against Clinton--would reverse all their hard won First Amendment gains on the freedom to publish whatever Americans wanted to buy. Especially his trashy publications.

  The wheelchair bound publisher didn't know Tommy Tucker was right now using the forces of voodoo to push Bob Livingston over the top. But he believed two things: that tall, good looking Bob Livingston was close to grabbing leadership of the Republican Party and that the Republican Party was led by moral hypocrites.

  This man knew about sexual hypocrisy. After all, his name was Larry Flynt, publisher of the notorious Hustler magazine. He knew intimately how men in power, men close to power, men hungry for power, displayed a libido far greater than other men. Whether the constant need for sex fuelled a life in the public’s eye, or, more likely, the endless need for approval from strangers carried over between the sheets --whatever the cause and effect Flynt knew a hell of a lot of politicians who made use of his hospitality on a regular basis. And now some of these same politicians had lined up to remove the president for having sex with an intern.