Клэр Донелли - Hiss And Tell

When Sunny hesitated, trying to find a way out of it, Nancy said, “Go on. I’ll cover for you.”

Traitor, Sunny thought unkindly. It wasn’t as if Nancy had any reason to know that the very last thing Sunny wanted to do was go spend time one-on-one with Randall. Well, why not? the scornful voice inside Sunny’s head chimed in. Just get it over with now while you’re too tired to care.

“Okay,” she said, getting up from the desk. Sunny suggested the Redbrick Tavern, where the food was good and reasonably priced. The waitress seated them in captain’s chairs and began reciting the day’s specials. Sunny didn’t even hear her. She was too tired, and too busy wondering what Randall thought they had to talk about.

His blue eyes peered anxiously at Sunny as the waitress finished her spiel, then he thanked her in a preoccupied voice. Sunny ordered a hamburger and fries, comfort food. Maybe the protein in the burger would fuel a comeback. Randall went for the same with a pint of beer.

One sip, and I’d be out, Sunny thought. She ordered an iced tea.

They sat in silence as they waited for their drinks to arrive, the noise of the lunch crowd, mainly tourists at this time of year, clattering around them.

Randall finally spoke up. “It’s been a while. Good to see you, Sunny. You look as great as ever.”

One, maybe two lies out of three sentences. Nothing about this was how Sunny had envisioned seeing Randall again. Admittedly, those visions had had a lot of revenge fantasy involved, with Sunny receiving a Pulitzer Prize and Randall admitting how wrong he’d been. Sunny had imagined herself in a designer gown, looking perfectly made-up and classy. Instead, I probably look like I’ve just been dug out of a pit, she thought. Well, Sunny could be a journalist, too. Just stick to the basic questions, find out what he wants, she told herself. Who, what, when, why.

“How are you doing, Randall?” That was still an acceptable journalistic question.

Randall responded with a what. “Nowadays they call me editor-at-large.”

That didn’t strike Sunny as a good thing, not for a guy working at a paper ruthlessly trying to cut expenses. It sounded as though his next promotion would be editor-out-the-door.

“So, what brings you up to this neck of the woods? The Kingsbury-de Kruk wedding seems an odd kind of assignment, even for an editor-at-large.”

“I’m up here on my own, Sunny. The paper thinks I’m taking some vacation time. What they don’t know about me using my press card won’t hurt them.”

Sunny knew the next reportorial question to ask. “Why?”

“I’m following a story.” Randall leaned across the table. “Do you remember the Taxman?”

“I remember him every April,” Sunny replied. “And I often say unkind things about him.”

Randall shook his head. “Not that taxman. Don’t you remember sitting in bars after we put the paper to bed, with the old hands telling stories—ones that they couldn’t print?”

Sunny dredged up a memory. “A society blackmailer, some sort of cross between Robin Hood and the Godfather—is that the one you mean? I remember one of the older crime reporters loved to talk about that. What was that guy’s name? Izzie—Izzie Kritzik! Whatever happened to him?”

“He retired,” Randall said, not meeting Sunny’s eyes.

Sounds as though he went into retirement about as willingly as I went into the larger job market, she thought. At least I hope Izzie got a pension out of the deal. All I got was the Maine Adventure X-perience.

Randall was about to say more, but the waitress arrived with their order. There was a brief moment of silence as they both attacked their burgers. When Randall finished chewing, he sighed. “Izzie didn’t know what to do with himself in retirement. He died recently, and in his will, he left me several boxes of notes. One file held everything he’d found out about the Taxman.”

Sunny frowned, trying to remember more about the older man’s war stories. “What was the deal with this Taxman? He was supposed to be a merciful blackmailer? After getting the goods on people, he’d be satisfied with a one-time payment. But God help them if they didn’t make it, right?”

Randall nodded. “Unlike most blackmailers, who keep demanding money until they drain the victim dry, the Taxman was fairly reasonable—as long as you paid. Izzie talked to one fellow who was in line to become the president of a major corporation. The guy didn’t believe the Taxman actually had the goods on him and refused to cough up. Turned out there was plenty of proof—documentation that the man was conducting several affairs with company funds. He wound up out of a job, divorced, and in prison . . . the poster child for what happened if you ignored the Taxman. What really rubbed salt in the wound was that the cash demand wouldn’t have broken the bank.”

“So he’s not a pig, but there’s still a Godfather aspect.” Sunny lowered her voice in a bad Marlon Brando impersonation. “‘Some day, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me.’”

“Right. The money was part of it, but the favors he was able to extract were more important. Izzie talked to one woman who expected to move from her seat in Congress into an ambassadorship. She had paid off the initial demand, but the Taxman later asked her to shepherd a bill through her House committee. Instead, she let several colleagues pressure her into backing off—and suddenly some embarrassing photos surfaced to sink her diplomatic career before it even got launched.”

“The favor bit probably explains why the Taxman can be content with a relatively small bite when it comes to money,” Sunny said. “Even after the payoff, he holds onto the incriminating information, giving him leverage with former victims to rope in new ones. That could be a favor, too.”

Randall nodded encouragingly.

Sunny stared at her former editor. “Come on, you can’t take this sort of thing seriously. It’s like an urban legend for reporters. You’d probably do better going after D. B. Cooper. Nobody knows who he really was, but at least there’s verifiable evidence that he hijacked an airliner and parachuted away with the ransom payment.”

“I was just as doubtful as you are when I used to hear Izzie in the bars,” Randall said. “But he had a banker’s box full of notes. He’d talked to people who’d had some spectacular downfalls after not paying, and who were now kicking themselves that they hadn’t just paid up or done what they were asked to do. Izzie knew how to get things out of people, and they probably wanted to vent, but even though he managed to get that far, none of them would ever say anything on the record. They were too scared of the Taxman. Once burned, twice shy.”

“Why would they talk at all?” Sunny ate some fries as she listened to Randall’s answer.

“They didn’t—not officially. The victims were specifically warned off from talking to the police or the media, but the stories about blackmail and one-time payments still spread around as rumor and gossip. Izzie thought it was some perverted form of advertising. It made the Taxman’s job easier with the next victim.”

“Sounds like Izzie had an answer for everything.” So what do you expect me to do to help you, and why should I? Sunny added silently. Unless you intend to take a page out of the Taxman’s book and blackmail me into doing a favor. She considered that for a second. Nah. He’s got nothing anymore. So she didn’t bother to keep the skepticism out of her voice as she asked, “Are you really telling me that you’re taking the old guy’s pet theory seriously?”