Ed Gorman - Blindside

‘I can’t wait to see you, Dev.’

‘Everything’s going to be all right, you know.’

‘That’s what Andy says. He’s very optimistic. But it is stage three. I’m scared, naturally. But with you and Sarah here — I still love you, Dev. I love Andy, too, but it’s a different kind of love with him. I still love you so much.’ Then, ‘Just a few days till the three of us are together again.’

‘I love you, Erin.’ I smiled. ‘I just wanted you to hear me say that.’

‘You’ve made me laugh again. And you used my line.’

‘I’ll see you in a few days.’

‘This has been wonderful, Dev. It really has.’

I sat there a long silent time afterward, a willing prisoner of the past.

‘How much have you paid so far?’

‘I’m trying to be pleasant about this,’ Jeff Ward said. ‘I wish I hadn’t even mentioned it the other night. I’ve handled it.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means that when my father ordered me to let you come down here he meant for you to look over the campaign. And this has nothing to do with the campaign because I’m taking care of it on the side.’

‘It has everything to do with the campaign and in other words you don’t want me to know what the blackmailer’s got on you or how much you’ve paid him or her.’

‘It’s none of your business. I was tired when I told you about it. I shouldn’t have said a word.’

‘I already know anyway.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

My hotel room. Nearly five o’clock. Raindrops shimmied down the windows. Wind lashed the trees across the street. The congressman had complained that I didn’t have the right to order him up here. I argued that this was the only safe place to talk. To that end I’d switched rooms. If anybody was planting bugs they were now one room behind.

We sat at a table overlooking the street that early dusk and rain had turned into gloom punctuated here and there with stoplights and neon. Green and red and yellow and the occasional ice blue for bars.

‘I’ve seen the blackmail DVD, Ward. I take it you have, too.’

‘Where the hell did you get hold of it?’

‘Right now I’d rather not say.’

‘You’d rather not say? You’re working for me, remember?’

‘No, I’m not. But I am trying to help you.’

He started rubbing his face with one hand and squeezing the beer bottle hard with his other. Rage and frustration rose from him like smoke from a machine that was about to explode.

‘Did you recognize the woman on the video?’ I said.

I had to let him sulk for a minute or so. ‘I didn’t actually see the video.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I didn’t see the video. I heard it. That’s what he played for me.’

‘Who’s “he”?’

‘How the hell do I know who “he” is? He’s the ‘he’ who called me up and played the audio and said that this is from a video that they’re willing to sell me for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.’

‘And you paid him?’

‘Yes, I paid him.’

‘And you got a copy of the video?’

‘I didn’t get dick. The bastard screwed me.’

‘How long did it take for him to come back for more?’

‘Do you know how smug you sound right now? You know everything, don’t you, Conrad?’

‘I got it from TV when I was about ten, Ward. Blackmailers always come back for more. That’s rule number one. No genius involved in knowing that. So how long did it take?’

He swigged beer and then brought down his bottle like a judge gaveling down after he ordered a prisoner’s death. ‘One month. He wanted another two hundred and fifty thousand.’

‘What did his voice sound like?’

‘Electronic. Robot stuff. I’m only assuming it was a man. Could’ve been a woman the way they can do these things today.’

‘The prostitute on the tape. Was she telling the truth?’

He moved around in his chair and his eyes avoided mine. He was uncomfortable now. ‘Everybody has kinks. Everybody. Don’t tell me you don’t.’

‘I probably do.’

‘And she didn’t have any problem with what we were doing when we were together those times.’

‘Maybe because you were paying her. And maybe because she needed the money.’

‘Yeah, well, whatever, she didn’t say anything about it at the time.’

‘She never said at any time that she’d rather not do those things?’ Which is what she claimed on the DVD.

‘Well, I suppose she did. But she’s a whore. They all give you that shit from time to time. It’s just a way of getting more money from you. “I’m doing this extra-special thing for you so would you do something extra-special nice for me?” And anyway, what are you, a voyeur? Why are we even discussing all this crap?’

‘Because if this ever hits the press we’ll have to refute everything she says on that tape point by point.’

He came up out of the chair as if he was going to dive at me which, at that moment, I wouldn’t have minded. I’d slam his head against the table a few times and throw him the hell out and leave him to his fate. I just had to keep telling myself, We can’t lose this seat and let somebody like Burkhart win. He was fine as long as you weren’t of color, gay, poor, or held the protections of the Constitution near and dear. And not the so-called Constitution Burkhart and his followers had twisted into confirming all their prejudices.

‘Maybe you’re in on this whole thing, too.’

The stress was starting to make him paranoid.

I grabbed him by his famous black hair, then put the palm of my hand against his nose and shoved him backward as hard as I could. He hit the captain’s chair with enough force to knock it over. He followed it down, still ranting.

I went and got myself another beer. By the time he got up he’d quit calling me names. I sat down and sipped at my beer and watched him.

‘I’m calling my old man and you’re gone — out the door, believe me.’

‘You going to tell him about the hooker? Now get your ass back here. We’re not done talking yet. And the next time you throw a tantrum I’m going to do what you want me to do — I’m going to make a reservation on the next plane out and leave you on your own.’

He had too much scorn and pride to admit that he didn’t want me to do that. But with great dramatic reluctance he did upend the chair and come back and sit down.

‘I’m trying to figure out how big the circle is — who else knows you’re being blackmailed?’

He said it so casually I half wondered if it was a joke. ‘My wife.’

‘You told her everything?’

‘I had to. She reamed my ass out of course for being with a hooker. She knows I run around but I usually stick with women who keep themselves clean. She’s scared of AIDS. I had to tell her so she’d help me with the money drop. I couldn’t ask anybody else on my staff to do it. I didn’t want anybody else to know. And I just explained to her that if she didn’t do it we wouldn’t be going back to Washington, at least not in the congressional sense. I mean, I could always go to K Street. But being a congressman’s wife has a lot of social perks.’

‘She likes Washington, huh?’

‘She comes from a very social family. Washington reminds her of how she grew up, I guess. I knew that if I told her I might lose the seat, she’d help me.’ I didn’t like his smile. ‘I know how to handle her.’

To his credit he fought for all the right causes — and I believed he was sincere about them — but he was removed from the real world as most of us define it. His money and his mother-spoiling had made him more like a tourist than a resident. And it also sounded as if he’d married a woman just as vain and foolish as he was.