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“Is this Crissy Dowling?”
It was indeed Erika Schweiker. I recognized the voice instantly, the angry twang that had launched a thousand memes of mispronounced or misused words. “Yes, this is she,” I replied. “To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?” I asked, hoping to bluff my way out of this.
“You called me. Two times. You must know.” Her tone was curt. But this was a woman whose bullying was legendary—she bullied the media, she bullied anyone on the other side of the aisle—and who would probably be curt on her deathbed with whomever the hospice worker was who had the misfortune of shooting her veins full of morphine.
“I’m sorry. I’m rather flighty when it comes to phone numbers and such.”
“Look, I know who you are, and I know you had an affair with a U.S. senator.”
“He and his wife were separated,” I reminded her, and I might have said more, but she cut me off.
“You have fragrantly violated my privacy, so I should fragrantly violate yours.”
“Flagrant,” I said. It was a reflex.
“What?”
“I believe you meant that I flagrantly violated your privacy. But, regardless, please know that I am deeply sorry if—”
“Before I destroy you, tell me why you called. And by destroy, I don’t mean that literally. It’s not a threat, so don’t run like a crybaby to some reporter with an agenda. It’s just a fact. So: why? What do you want? And how did you get this number?”
Nearby was a poker room and I veered inside. It was quieter. Four twentysomething men, locals, were card dead and losing their shirts. They didn’t seem to mind. There was an empty chair, and I nodded at the dealer, who recognized me, and pulled it from the table and away from the players. I needed badly to sit down.
“I promise you, you’re mistaken when you say that I rang you on purpose,” I said. “I confess, I’m a bit of a flake.”
“You’re full of shit, that’s what you are—and a crappy liar for someone who’s supposed to be an actor.”
I didn’t even try to parse her conflation of acting and fabricating.
“People who sleep with John Aldred aren’t honored to speak with me,” she went on, “because you don’t respect me. I know what you stand for.”
And yet she still had not confirmed who she was. I wondered whether this was by design. So, in the event the call was being recorded, I said her name.
“You sound a bit like Erika Schweiker.”
“Representative Schweiker to you.”
“My apologies. My apologies for that and for phoning your number by accident.”
“By accident? Okay, then: Whose number in your contact list is close to mine?”
“I don’t know because I don’t know your number. Your number—at least this one—is blocked.”
“This is your last chance: why did you call me?”
“I had no reason. I promise you it was a mistake.”
There was a long pause at her end marked only by her breathing. I was forming another plea in my mind when she spoke. “Okay, Crissy Dowling. I’m going to quote the brilliant Ronald Reagan, who coined the expression ‘Trust, but verify.’ ” (I restrained myself from correcting her a second time and telling her that Reagan was, by design, citing a Russian proverb.) “I am going to trust that you are telling me the truth, but I am also going to verify it.”
And, with that, the line went dead. I left the poker room and returned to the raucous tumult of the slot machines, and the incessant burble of conversation, laughter, and applause that is the white noise that marks a casino.
* * *
So, this was the minefield into which Diana had walked. Was I now on the radar of whoever had killed the Morley brothers? I considered going to the police, but I was unprepared to reveal my own moral turpitude. Besides, how would telling the LVPD that I had done a dead casino owner’s bidding and was in the rifle site of a demented congresswoman help me to traverse the bombs beneath my feet? Moreover, I might anger Eddie Cantone and put my show—which I had to believe was now on a very shaky stage—further in jeopardy.
The next morning, I called Terrance, my agent in L.A., from my cabana.
“I talked to Eddie,” he told me. “Please stop worrying about your career at the Buckingham Palace. Eddie likes what you do; he really does. And if the new owners, whoever they turn out to be, don’t want Diana? They’d be insane. We’ll find you another residency.”
