S ylvia always used it to her advantage, those sweet, earnest looks and that teenage slenderness. Would this gentle woman ever tell a lie? She brought with her night, chill, rain, and the unmistakable welcome scent of woman.
‘None of your bullshit, Dev. I want to know what the hell’s going on. I wanted to be with Rusty tonight. This is a big rally for him. We’re all set to slap you down once and for all and put that pussy hound you represent out of business for good.’
‘Jeff turn you down, did he?’
She snorted. ‘Believe it or not, I turned him down one night a few years back. This was before I signed on with Rusty. We were at a Washington party. His dear little wife was sucking up to all the important people in the room, as usual. By now she must be wondering why she never gets invited to lunch. She’s beautiful but so are a lot of climbers in Washington. So she’s strictly B-list but she doesn’t know it yet.’
‘Thanks for that update, Sylvia. You want a drink?’
‘What’ve you got?’
‘Beer or bourbon.’
‘Bourbon. And some water.’
‘Sit down at the table. I’ll turn the screen around so we can watch it together.’
‘I race over here and you’re offering me drinks. Where’s the urgency?’
I made her the drink and brought it back to her. Then I went to the TV. The DVD was already loaded. I stood next to the screen with the remote. ‘This is what you’re going to break on the ten o’clock news tonight.’ I clicked play.
I didn’t watch the screen, I watched her face. And a fine patrician face it was, too. She disappointed me. She selected a mask of indifference and left it on for the length of the interview with the prostitute who enumerated all the ways that our congressman was a kinky devil.
I stopped the DVD after the segment about Jeff Ward.
‘I’m curious about where you got your copy, Dev, but not all that curious. It’s a fait accompli. We preview ten seconds of it tonight at ten. Of our copy, I mean. At least you and Ward won’t be shocked.’
‘In most circumstances this would be a game changer.’
She sipped her drink and made a face. Then she pointed a long royal finger at the glass. ‘The urine of homeless people?’
‘Such a delicate flower.’
‘You really need to spend more than a dollar ninety-eight when you buy a half gallon of bourbon, Dev. Now what’s this bullshit about “most circumstances”?’
‘Just sit there, delicate flower, and watch.’
I hit play again. On came the woman who claimed that Rusty Burkhart, family values Burkhart, had not only visited her on many occasions but had also beaten her on three of them. She showed photos of the condition he’d left her in.
No mask this time. This was the real Sylvia Fordham. She was on her feet with the first mention of her client’s name. She kept walking closer, closer to the screen. When the Burkhart segment finished, she dropped her head to her chest and stayed silent for several seconds. ‘You bastard.’ She walked back to the table and sat down. Her gaze was elsewhere. She was making all the same calculations I would have in her situation. ‘Somebody was playing both sides.’
‘Looks that way.’
‘I knew Rusty was having some kind of trouble but he wouldn’t tell me anything about it. He just kept saying it didn’t have anything to do with the campaign.’
Burkhart was smart; even though she was working for him at the moment, he wouldn’t want anybody as treacherous as Sylvia to know he was being blackmailed. You could never be sure what she’d do later on with the information.
‘He’s being blackmailed. The same as Jeff Ward.’
‘Who the hell’s behind it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And of course you won’t tell me how you got hold of it.’
‘Not yet. Not until I know a lot more. And of course you won’t tell me how you came by yours of Ward.’
‘One of the nice things about being a national figure known for digging up dirt is that people offer you things you wouldn’t know about otherwise. A private detective in Chicago offered it to me for a pretty hefty amount of money. Naturally, I couldn’t say no. He didn’t bother to tell me where he got it, and I don’t care.’
‘You need to make a decision here, Sylvia. If you go on with the Ward segment at ten o’clock, tomorrow morning I go to a local TV station and play the Burkhart for them.’
‘All Burkhart did was push her around a little.’
‘She says it was more. And anyway, Burkhart is God’s man in the race. What’s he doing in a whorehouse?’
She reached down. The sound of her purse opening. The sound of her digging around. Her fashionable hand appeared holding a package of fashionable French cigarettes and a lighter. ‘Don’t give me any bullshit about not smoking.’
‘If the hotel sends me a bill, I’ll send it to you.’
‘Are you trying to scare me, Dev?’
‘Not about smoking. But about going on at ten, I am. This is the kind of war that isn’t going to do either side any good.’
‘Afraid we’re going to kick your ass with your wandering boy?’
I sat back in the captain’s chair and watched her light her cigarette. ‘You really want to risk it, Sylvia?’
‘I’m not afraid of you, Dev. You should know that by now.’ She exhaled a trail of blue smoke. How beautiful cancer is in a certain light.
‘And I’m not afraid of you. So if you’re going to the studio, you’d probably better get going. I’ve got other things to do.’
A hint of alarm in the eyes. ‘So I just walk out of here?’
‘You just walk out of here.’
‘What changed your mind?’
‘You did. I thought I could make you see that this DVD is a wild card for both of us. What the military calls unintended consequences. You blow something up and you’re never sure what’s going to happen afterward. We’re blowing something up here, Sylvia. Maybe it’ll be to your advantage, I don’t know. But then it could also be to Ward’s. I guess we’ll just have to see.’
She managed a laugh while she sipped her drink. ‘You’re doing this very well, Dev. You’re a good poker player. But I know you’re bluffing. You’re terrified of me going on TV tonight. We’ll be on the air first with our story. And first matters in a case like this.’ The shrewd, professional gaze. ‘By the time I get to the door over there you’ll be on your phone. Pure panic. I’d be the same way.’ She sipped her drink. ‘Sorry your bluff didn’t work, Dev. But it was a good bit — how much we both have to lose if I go on tonight. You’re good, but not that good, dear.’
But I was tired of it. Tired of her. Tired of the game. Tired of me. ‘You talk too much, Sylvia. So do I, for that matter. I appreciate you coming up here. I still think you’re making a mistake, but maybe not. I think this election should be about what kind of government we need. Burkhart’s a racist and couldn’t care less about anybody who isn’t rich and powerful. We both know what kind of man Ward is. We’re not talking about angels here. But at least Ward votes the right way.’
‘I’m glad I brought a lot of Kleenex.’
‘I guess the public’ll just have to decide which is worse — a kinky congressman or somebody who beats up hookers.’
She gathered herself and stood up. ‘We have one interest in common, Dev. We both want to find out who’s behind this blackmail.’
‘I agree.’
She moved to the door in a graceful sweep. ‘Watch me at ten o’clock. This’ll go national, Dev. My price’ll go up even higher. Maybe someday you’ll come to work for me.’
After she left I called Lucy and asked her to get Kathy so the three of us could talk. For once I appreciated the tinny music designed to make my wait more pleasant. I was on an elevator. I was going up and up and up to a better place. Any place but this one would be a better place at the moment. Then I heard Kathy say ‘Dev?’ and my elevator crashed back to reality.
‘I’m back,’ Lucy said.
‘Sylvia Fordham and I tried to come to an agreement about her ten o’clock interview. She’s going through with it so expect all hell to break loose. We need to get Ward and his wife ready for the cameras tomorrow morning.’
‘What’s going on, Dev?’ Kathy asked.
‘I can’t discuss it on the phone.’
‘This pisses me off, Dev. We have a right to know.’
‘Yes, you do. But now’s not the time.’
‘You really want his wife?’ Lucy said, trying to forestall Kathy coming back on me. ‘That always looks so cruel. They just stand there suffering.’
‘I don’t want to send him out there alone. I don’t like it either, but we don’t have any choice. Neither of their daughters, though.’
‘I saw some internals that just came in,’ Kathy said. ‘We’re up with blue-collar voters. Burkhart’s rant against unions pissed off a lot of working people. And now we have to deal with this — which you won’t tell us about.’
‘And this thing with Sylvia is all the press’ll ask him about tomorrow night at the debate, too,’ Lucy said. ‘Where did this come from?’
‘I’m not sure yet. I’m working on that part of it. But I’ll need everybody on the upstairs staff to come in at seven thirty tomorrow morning. We’ll do the press conference inside because the weather keeps changing. I want to make it look good for the video. I also want to pick the most photogenic of the volunteers to be on the sides of Ward so when the camera goes wide you see mature, attractive faces. You know Joan Rosenberg. She’s a sweetie and she looks it. We’ll definitely use her. We’ll also need to get hold of a caterer first thing in the morning and have them rush brunch food and three or four big pots of coffee to us. Between you two, figure out which reporters will be civil to him. I want him to choose them for the first few questions. If there’s national press he’ll just have to punt.’
‘I just hope we can pull all this off,’ Kathy said.
‘We will because we have to. If we can manage to get some sleep tonight things’ll straighten out in the morning. I’d really appreciate your help on this, so if you come up with any ideas we’ll talk about them first thing tomorrow.’
‘I can hear that bitch cackling as soon as the camera’s off her,’ Lucy said.
‘I take it the bitch you’re talking about is Sylvia Fordham.’
‘This is just the kind of thing she loves to do,’ Kathy said.
I disliked keeping the information about Burkhart and all the rest from them, but right now I couldn’t afford to trust anybody. First I needed to tell Ward about the other part of the DVD and how one part cancelled out the other in terms of usefulness. If we went after Burkhart with our part he’d come right back at us with his.
‘Thanks for your help, both of you. All we can do is try. And make sure to get some sleep.’
‘If I watch at ten I’ll never get to sleep,’ Kathy said.
‘Me, either,’ Lucy said.
‘Then don’t watch.’
‘Listen to him,’ Lucy said, ‘like I suppose you won’t watch.’
‘Of course I’ll watch. But right after that I’ll guzzle down two quarts of vodka and I’ll go right to sleep.’
It was now 8:40. A paralysis had set in. I should have gone downstairs to the bar and had a few and talked to some people. Just get my head back into the flow of normal life. But I was trapped up here and I knew it. I kept glancing at a dark TV screen the way I’d glance at my monitor after having a heart attack. Oh, she’d preen; oh, she’d swoon, our Sylvia. The sweet, proper girl.
Whatever happened to morality in this country? How can we expect to remain the best country in the history of man when we have leaders who violate the basic principles of family values? How can we keep returning to Washington the kind of man who disgraces the district he comes from?
I was pretty sure I knew how she’d handle the Burkhart part of the DVD. The only thing she could do. Reference it tonight and claim that Ward’s side had seen the tape with the prostitute detailing his kinky ways and they right away created a fake tape to accuse Burkhart of the same thing. She would warn the true believers not to believe a second of it. She would say — and here she would sound almost melancholy — that she missed the days when this country didn’t have to endure the kind of lies and nastiness that were part and parcel of so many campaigns these days.
Reporters would giggle, the not-news network would play sound bites of her rant for the next two news cycles and people in bars would get into loud arguments about the veracity of the Burkhart tape.
It was now 8:49.
When the phone rang I was grateful. Something to distract me from the dark TV screen.
‘I’m calling from a phone booth.’ Ward sounded as if a bully had just stolen his ice cream.
‘Before we get started, I want to tell you something.’ I explained to him about how the blackmail DVD was now useless to both candidates because there was video proving that both of them had gone to the same whorehouse. ‘That’s pretty good news.’
‘You think so, Dev? You fucking think so? It’s all coming down on me. Big time.’
God, I hated it when Ward whined.
My stomach knotted when he said, ‘It’s Bryn Nolan.’
‘What about her?’
‘She called and talked to Kathy a few minutes ago. She said she’s going to the police right away to file a missing persons. And this on top of that snake Sylvia going on TV-’
He’d convinced Bryn Nolan to hold off reporting David’s disappearance for a few days; the assumption being that David was trying to drink away the rage and sorrow he felt after learning about Ward and Bryn. If she called the police, the press would have the story within five minutes. When your key man goes missing you have a big problem, especially when one of your other employees was murdered in your headquarters’ parking lot. I couldn’t complain about Ward whining. I wanted to whine myself.
‘You have to talk to her, Dev. You have to convince her to wait.’
‘I’ve never even met the woman. Why would she listen to me?’
‘She’s heard good things about you. From David. He was the only one who liked the idea of bringing you down here. The rest of them were threatened.’
‘Why now? What changed her mind?’
‘I guess her two little daughters. They keep asking about their father. She’s getting scared that maybe something happened to him. You know, the way it happened to Jim Waters.’
‘Well, I suppose I can give her a call.’
‘No!’ he said. ‘No, not a call. You have to see her in person. The phone won’t cut it.’
‘What the hell are you talking about? I need to be here at ten when the news comes on. We need an angle so we can respond.’
‘This isn’t a big city. She’s maybe twenty, twenty-five minutes away. I can give you the address. Hell, you can watch the news there. She’ll appreciate the company. She’s going crazy and she doesn’t think I’m a help at all.’
‘I really resent this, Ward.’
‘I don’t blame you.’
‘You don’t blame me but you still want me to do it.’
‘I’m desperate. You bought in, too — so now we’re both desperate.’
I took down the address. Of course. And then went down to my rental. Of course. And set out in the dark rainy night. Of course.