Эд Горман - Fools Rush In

I didn’t like him. He brought out all my class anger. He’d been an overindulged preppy who’d come back here summers to tell everybody of his manly conquests back East. He’d never carried this county because so many people in their forties remembered him all too well.

But what he was talking about was a principle. Whatever I thought of him, he didn’t deserve to be blackmailed.

“I’ll tell you what, Senator. I won’t make any kind of deal with you except to say that whatever I find, I’ll turn over to you. I want to see you defeated but not because of some pictures. You don’t pay me anything, I don’t tell anybody about this, and whatever I find is yours.”

“I’m sorry I shot off my mouth and called you a name.”

My laugh was harsh. “That was a moment of truth, Senator. We basically hate each other. And a moment of truth coming from a politician is something to be happy about.”

I started to turn away from him. “I’ll be in touch.”

“Can’t I at least say thank you?”

This time I was the one who regretted being a bit nasty. I turned back to him and stuck out my hand. We shook.

“Thanks, McCain.”

I walked back to my ragtop.

Dear Mr Ssampson

Please remit your bill, which is attached. This is the third time we’ve have sent it.

Sincerely,

Then, in light pencil: Needs your cig here, Mr. C.

“Cig” meaning signature.

“Think you could run this through the typewriter one more time, Jamie?”

“Was there something wrong with it?”

“Just a few things.”

“I really took my time with that one, too, Mr. C.”

“I just made little marks on it.”

I placed it on the edge of my desk for her to pick up. She wore a tight mauve blouse and a short tan skirt. She also smelled great. In the face of such things, what are a few typos?

The phone rang. I grabbed it.

No greetings and salutations. “Since you’re on salary, would it be too much to ask that you stop by my office?”

“I’d be honored to.”

“And I mean now.”

“Delighted to. Five minutes?”

“How about three? You’re not that far away.”

Just as I hung up, the mailman came through the door. His name was Henry Woolsey and he was an unabashed admirer of Jamie’s, fifty-some years notwithstanding.

“’Morning, Jamie.”

“’Morning, Henry. I see you broke out your shorts already.”

“Plenty warm for them. Too bad Sam won’t let you wear shorts.”

“Why don’t I just let her wear one of those French bikinis, Henry? Would that be good enough for you?”

Henry’s furiously flushed face contrasted vividly with his white hair.

“He’s always kidding around like that, Henry,” Jamie said. “He wouldn’t actually let me wear anything like that to the office.”

Henry started dealing out the pieces of mail as if they were cards and we were playing poker. I immediately saw what all the envelopes had in common. She just looked so innocent poised on the edge of her chair, I had to say it gently: “Gee, I guess I must have forgotten to put stamps on all these envelopes last night. Would you do that for me, Jamie?”

I was already late for the judge. Three minutes can go by awfully fast.

“I’ll probably be back in an hour or so,” I said.

Henry, the lecher, was already helping himself to the coffee. Young women like Jamie were in need of protection, no doubt, and Henry was only too eager to lend a hand.

He winked at me. “I like that idea you have for a French bikini, Sam.”

After I brought her up to date, she said, “My spies tell me you spent some time with Jane Sykes.”

“True enough. Your spies got something right for once.”

Judge Esme Anne Whitney’s office was one of timeless solemnity: deep leather chairs, rich carpeting, flawless wainscoting, two full walls of legal tomes, and a desk big enough to play a passing fair game of Ping-Pong on. It was always cleared off.

“Maybe you haven’t noticed, McCain, but the Sykes family is our enemy. They stand for everything we revile — or at least that I revile. And I assumed you did, too.”

“She’s cleaning up the police force, for one thing. And for another, she’s not going along with all of Cliffie’s arrests.”

“And she’s very good-looking.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed that.”

“I don’t want you to see her anymore.”

Per usual, she parked herself on the edge of the desk with a Gauloise and a cup of coffee laced with brandy. No rubber bands this morning, which was an indicator of how seriously she took this.

“I’m serious, McCain.”

She looked regal in her fitted gray dress and oversized, vaguely African-style earrings. No wonder she’d managed to find four men to marry her. Even in her sixties, she was still a desirable woman, if, that is, you caught her before a day’s worth of sipping brandy-soaked coffee began to take its toll.

“You can order me not to work with her. That comes under the heading of employment. But you can’t order me not to see her for pleasure. That comes under the heading of private life.”

This was my morning for shocks as she said, “I thought we were friends, McCain.”

My instinct was to laugh. The words hadn’t come out right, which I’d put down to bad acting. But then I saw the shimmer of tears in her ice-blue eyes and knew better.

The judge had never before said anything like this to me. She’d always made it clear that she’d hired me because she couldn’t find anybody any better who lived here in town. Not exactly your ringing endorsement. Never warm, most of the time barely courteous, sometimes damned mean, she was fond of reminding me of her social background and position and my lack thereof.

And now this. Served with tears yet. But those first tears were now followed by more tears that actually escaped her eyes and sparkled on her cheeks.

“I just feel so damned alone sometimes, McCain. No friends to confide in except back East; nobody to have dinner with at the end of the day.”

I knew what I was seeing, of course, but now wasn’t the time to talk about it. In the years I’d been her court investigator, I’d seen her drinking get increasingly serious. And now she was at the point where she needed to make the trip up to the Minnesota clinic that was disguised as a resort for rich people.

Four, even two years ago, she would never have let me see her so vulnerable. She enjoyed being imperious. She even enjoyed jokes about being imperious.

I found myself standing up and walking to her. I found myself putting my hands gently on her shoulders.

And she found herself jerking away from me and snapping, “Don’t you dare ever touch me like that, McCain! I’m your employer, not one of your little strumpets!”

I thought of explaining myself but realized it wouldn’t help either of us. I’d embarrassed her. I’d damaged her pride. People just didn’t go around touching imperious people the way they would little strumpets.

There was only one thing left for me to do. I walked to the door. “I’ll give you my word that I will never cooperate with Jane Sykes on a case. If we have a relationship, it’ll be strictly a personal one. And if that’s not good enough, then—”

“Just get the hell out of here, McCain, and don’t come around until I tell you to.”

She was drinking deeply from her cup as I quietly closed the door and stepped out into the hallway.

Walter Margolin had been a particularly obnoxious hall monitor. We’d always had the sense that he was too goody-goody even for the nuns. I remember Sister Mary Rosemary standing behind him while he was ragging on some poor little girl for taking too long at the water fountain. The sister rolled her eyes as Walter became more and more dramatic.