Эд Горман - Fools Rush In

I was starting to calm down. I’d been scared and then mad and then scared-mad and now I was just mad. And puzzled. Why hadn’t the senator shown up, and why had somebody come in his place?

Though you never hear much about them, both parties have political operatives who perform all kinds of services for their employers.

What a service it would be to hand over photos of the senator and his mistress to the man running against him. Now, no opponent would be stupid enough to call a press conference and share the photos with every leering reporter in the state. The opponent couldn’t use the photos in any public way without implicating himself and looking seedy.

But there was certainly a way the photos could be used privately. This particular tactic had been used before. Opponent takes photos to the senator and demands that the senator withdraw, otherwise the photos will be circulated privately to reporters.

Some people can tolerate scandal. They can go before their public and apologize with wife and children by their side and go on from there. But there are those who can’t, those who are willing to give up the power that comes with a Senate seat, rather than face a scandal-hungry press that will likely not let go of the subject for some time.

What the hell was going on here?

I ate — don’t ask me why in the Edward Hopper diner. Slice of peach pie, cup of coffee. As usual, the place was mostly empty. I was all things at once — tired, restless, angry, baffled.

I’d brought along my nickel notebook to make out the list I probably should have made out forty-eight hours ago.

Rob Anderson

Nick Hannity

Lucy Williams

Senator Williams

Will Neville

James Neville

Those were the primary suspects. The Neville brothers had to be included because they had a good reason to kill their little brother — to take over his blackmail business and find the cash he’d already amassed.

I also needed to make a separate list of those he’d been blackmailing, the names on the manila envelopes I’d handed out tonight. Last names only. I’d been able to guess correctly which family member bearing the name was being blackmailed. Logic and familiarity dictated a husband in one case and a wife in another, whereas the third had been determined by my favorite scientific method, the lucky guess.

“Your handwriting is worse than mine.”

She slipped onto the counter stool next to me. Her perfume set off an alarm in my trousers.

“It was good enough for the nuns,” I said.

“The nuns always gave boys the benefit of the doubt.”

“That’s not true.”

“Sure it is. Think back. I went to Catholic school, too.”

“Since when are Sykeses Catholics?”

“My dad saw this movie when he was in Italy during the war. You know, one of those corny things where there’s a miracle in the end?”

“I always hated those movies. They always embarrassed me.”

“Me, too. But they didn’t embarrass my dad. He wrote my mom that he wanted all of us baptized Catholic right away. He’d already been baptized. So, anyway, after seventh grade, I went to Catholic school. And the nuns preferred the boys.”

I saw her looking at the list on my notebook page. I flipped the cover closed.

“I already saw it. I do the same. Make out a list of suspects.”

The night man came and took her order for coffee and a piece of buttered toast.

“So how’d it go with Rob Anderson?”

“He now has a lawyer, and a damn good one. Frank Pierson. Des Moines.”

“Yeah, he is good.”

“Pierson allowed us half an hour and he did most of the talking. Anderson just sat there and smirked. God, he’s a jerk.”

“You ask him about the tar baby?”

“Of course. Pierson answered that one, too, and said that it was just a prank and that it hadn’t even been constructed.”

“Because he couldn’t find anybody who’d do it for him.”

“According to Pierson, even if it had been built, it wouldn’t have any bearing on the case.”

“I’d like to hear him try that one in court. You could take him apart with it.”

“I did. In fact, that was the only point I scored. I said it spoke to state of mind and to motive — how much he hated Leeds.”

“What’d Pierson say?”

“Said it was tangential and a waste of time.”

“So I don’t suppose you learned anything new?”

Her coffee and toast came. She ate fast. “Haven’t had anything since lunch.” Then she turned to me and said, “Even if I did learn something new, I can’t share it with you, Sam. Remember?”

“Oh, right.”

“So it’s no fair asking me. I wouldn’t want to damage our relationship.”

“Some relationship.”

She swallowed the last of her toast. “You know your problem?”

“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“You love being in love. A lot of people are like that. And it’s fun. In the beginning, anyway. It’s like you’re high all the time. Everything is new and exciting — even though you’ve been through it with a number of people before — and it’s like you’re living in this state of grace. And that’s what you’re after.”

“I probably am. So what’s so wrong about that?”

“Nothing at all, Sam. I love that feeling, too. But I’ve been through too many ups and downs with men. For once in my life, I want to take my time. And you don’t. You want the exhilaration immediately. Two dates and we’re sleeping together and living in this Technicolor romance. And then in six or seven months it all falls apart.”

I gave it some honest thought. Because the night man was listening so carefully, I almost asked him what he thought. Maybe we could have a vote and he’d be the tie-breaker.

“I’ll tell you what. I think after the big heartbreak of my life — a beautiful girl named Pamela Forrest — I think I probably was like that. But I don’t think I’m like that anymore.”

“You know what, Sam?” She rested her hand on my arm. “I was sort of the same way. Rush into things and then watch it all fall apart. So why don’t we make a pact?” She glanced up at the night man. “How does that sound, sir? A pact?”

He smiled, wiped his hands on his grease-spotted apron. “I get up late in the mornings and my old lady always has soap operas on. This is just like one of those. A pact sounds great.”

“Do I get to know what this pact is all about?”

“Why don’t I tell you outside? We have some business to discuss, anyway.”

As we were leaving, the night man said, “Stop back, you two, so I know how it works out.”

We all laughed.

“Were you ever in that little wading pool over there, Sam?”

“Oh, sure.”

“I’ll bet you were cute.”

“Skinny, that’s for sure.”

“I can picture you, actually.”

We were sitting on the steps of the bandstand in the middle of the town square.

“So how about that pact, laddie?”

“Laddie?”

“I heard Maureen O’Hara say that on the late movie last night. If it’s good enough for Maureen, it’s good enough for me.”

“Yeah, I mean, sure, the pact I mean. Slow and easy.”

She put out her hand and we shook. We sat silent in the darkness then, watching a lonely dog sniff around the grounds and the teenagers roar by in their custom cars, radios blaring, Roy Orbison and Jan & Dean and Lesley Gore providing the soundtracks for all those high school lives that would make sense only years later to those who had lived them.

“Did you used to drive up and down the street like they do?”

“Sure.”

“Did the beautiful Pamela Forrest ever go with you?”