Ross Thomas - Ah, Treachery!

Still on his feet after delivering his six-minute report, Partain crossed to the bed and picked up the large old brown Coach shoulder bag. After he handed it to the seated Altford, she removed a wallet,counted out twenty $100 bills, gave them to Partain and said, “Two weeks in advance.”

He nodded, folded the money uncounted, stuck the bills down in his left hip pocket, buttoned the pocket carefully, then said, “What about expenses?”

“I’ll want receipts for everything they give receipts for. But for the stuff nobody gives receipts for, I’ll want a one- or two-word description such as, ‘Bribes, $500.’ Fair enough?”

Partain nodded again but Altford had already resumed her study of the red carpet. It was only then that he noticed she was wearing a different robe — a belted one of a light cream color that covered her from neck to ankles. Partain guessed it was cashmere and even hoped he was right.

After nearly forty seconds of utter concentration, Altford frowned, as if she had just reached a difficult decision, looked up at Partain again and asked, still frowning, “You like tamales?”

“Very much.”

“Then why don’t you go down and get the car and meet me out front in ten minutes and we’ll drive up to Santa Paula and have us some tamales for lunch? Ever been to Santa Paula?”

“Not that I recall,” Partain said.

It was a cool overcast day with the temperature down in the low sixties and Altford had dressed for it in a thick dark gray turtleneck sweater, tailored pale gray flannel pants and blue sneakers over bare feet. Partain stood beside the passenger door of the Lexus coupe, much as he would have stood if Altford had been a major and he a second lieutenant. Partain wore his blue suit, a fresh white shirt and his other tie. He opened the passenger door but she shook her head. “I’ll drive,” she said, went around the front of the car and slipped behind the wheel.

She was a quick assertive driver and took Olympic across Lincoln Boulevard, then cut down to the Santa Monica Freeway, dived into the McClure tunnel and came out the other side on the Pacific Coast Highway that was also State Highway 1. Except for a few gaps, State Highway 1 went all the way to the Oregon line.

“We’re taking the long-way-around scenic route,” she said, making “route” rhyme with “out.”

Partain nodded and they rode in silence until she stopped for a red light at Sunset Boulevard. “You like politics?” she asked.

“I like to vote.”

“Why?”

“Probably because I never got to vote on anything in the Army. Sometimes, just to get a rise, I’d argue that officers and noncoms should be elected. Nearly everyone else argued that that’d lead to anarchy. When I asked them to define anarchy, they’d usually come up with a pretty fair definition of democracy.”

“You voted in what — presidential elections?” she said.

“Never missed.”

“When’d you start?”

“‘Seventy-two.”

“Who for?”

“Nixon. Ford. Reagan twice. And Bush both times.”

“Mind if I ask why?”

“I figured I was voting against a military coup.”

She stared at him and kept on staring until the car behind her honked. She moved her right foot from the brake to the accelerator and the Lexus shot away. “You’re not serious?” she said.

“There hasn’t been a coup yet, has there?” Partain said. “Not a military one anyway.”

Just past Oxnard, State Highway 1 merges with U.S. 101 for a stretch and it was then that Partain said, “Tell me about the missing one-point-two million and why you won’t go to the cops and report it stolen or embezzled.”

Altford slipped the car over into the far left fast lane and nudged it up to 73 miles per hour before she said, “You know how politics works?”

“I know how it works in the Army. You do favors for guys who, expecting more favors, do favors for you. Some call it politics. Others call it brownnosing. But it’s how it works in the Army.”

“And everywhere else,” she said. “Except that in elective politics you make promises to get elected. And once you’re elected, you promise even more things to get reelected. But promising isn’t cheap — especially when you have to go on TV to outpromise your opponent. The entire political process requires God knows how much money and, like I told you, that’s where I come in.”

She looked at him, as though expecting some kind of rebuttal. Instead, Partain gave her what he hoped were a couple of wise nods.

“I suppose I best tell you about the damp money,” she said with a small sigh.

“Is that money that went through the laundry but somebody forgot to fluff-dry it?”

“They didn’t forget. They just thought I might sunshine it dry. Once damp money’s dried out, it’s just plain old money. The missing one-point-two million was sun-dried. By me.”

“But still just a little bit damp?”

“Not enough to notice. Anyway, it made up a discretionary fund to be used only in emergencies.”

“For example?”

She thought about it, then said, “I’ll give you a sanitized for instance.”

“Fine.”

“A sixteen-year-old U.S. Senate page is about to go public with an accusation that a forty-seven-year-old U.S. senator is the father of her unborn child. The Senator is privately questioned and admits he might’ve had sex with the kid once or twice, maybe even three times or, maybe, after thinking about it, half a dozen times.”

“Who asks him?”

“An intermediary or go-between of impeccable discretion, who’s also a long way from being broke.”

“Rich, huh?”

“Sort of.”

“Does the go-between do much of this kind of thing?”

“Enough,” she said. “Anyway, it’s two weeks or ten days before the November election when the go-between pays a call on the girl to find out how much she thinks her silence is worth.”

“How pregnant is she?”

“Two months.”

“What about her parents?”

“They’re back in Idaho, she’s in Washington and, anyway, she thinks if they knew, they’d want a cut of whatever she gets.”

“How much does she ask for?”

“She tells the go-between her silence is worth at least one hundred thousand. They bargain and the go-between knocks her price down to seventy-five. That’s when he comes to me with his problem, which is money.”

“And you decide if reelecting a U.S. senator who fucks sixteen-year-old girls is worth seventy-five thousand?”

“Right.”

“Why not get the money from the Senator?”

“One, he’d claim he hasn’t got it and, two, if he did have it, he’d be too tight to part with it. He’ll take his chances instead and his defense will be that the girl’s lying. If that doesn’t work, he’ll say he’s not the only senator she fucked.”

“Sounds like a prince,” Partain said.

“Just average. So I ask the go-between to make sure the girl’s really pregnant and that the Senator’s really the father. He does and they are. I ask him if there’s a chance the girl will take the money and then talk her head off. He doesn’t think so and is almost sure she’ll have an abortion, then simply blow what’s left of the money. Because I trust his judgment, I hand over the seventy-five thousand.”

“What’s his cut — the go-between’s?”

“Zero.”

“Must be a lot of altruism going around these days.”

“I haven’t noticed,” she said. “Anyway, the girl vanishes after the payoff and the Senator never even asks what happened to her.”

“And that’s when you tell him what he owes you?”

She turned to glance at him with obvious wonder, then quickly went back to her driving. “If we told him we’d spent seventy-five thousand on her, he’d’ve laughed and said we were a couple of marks who got taken by a teenage con artist.”