Adrian McKinty - Hidden River

She walked me over to the sofa that had just been set up in the reception area of the CAW offices.

“I’d like to ask you a favor,” she said.

“Oh, yeah?” I said, as those lovely turquoise eyes blinked in fast succession.

“Charles is being asked to speak at a Republican Leadership Conference in Aspen,” she said.

“I know,” I replied.

“Charles doesn’t want me to go, thinks I’ll put him off,” she said, smiling.

“I can understand that,” I said.

“Anyway, it’s the same night a touring company of Dancing at Lughnasa is coming to Denver and I hardly ever get to go to the theater. Robert can’t go. It’s a big hit and it’s about Ireland. I thought, I mean, I wondered if you wouldn’t mind escorting me. I don’t want to go alone. I have two tickets. And I thought, because it was about Ireland, you’d be interested.”

“Of course,” I said, stunned.

“Thanks,” she said, and left the room without another word.

I shuddered. Hot and cold. She had me jumping through hoops. Intentionally or not.

To compound it, she didn’t come into the office at all for the next few days. In fact, I didn’t see her again until I met her outside the theater in a rented tuxedo. I was there twenty minutes early. She was late. A limo dropped her off.

She looked incredible in a slightly risqué, low-cut black dress and heels. She had had her hair done, too, pulled back and pleated and curled over on itself. Perfumed, bedecked with pearls over an impressive cleavage, she could have been going to the bloody Oscars or just a dinner party next door. My dinner jacket was old and too long in the sleeves and judging from the other patrons I was woefully overdressed.

“Thank you so much for coming,” she said.

“Not at all,” I replied.

“I’m glad to get out, I’d be worried about Charles all evening,” she said.

“Sure.”

“You’re not nervous, are you?”

“I’m not nervous. Why would I be nervous?”

“Don’t you get nervous for the performers? Hoping they’ll hit their lines and their marks?”

I shook my head. We went into the show.

The audience said “Ssshhh” as the lights went down.

The actors. The play. Amber’s bare arm next to mine. I hardly paid the story any attention at all. The only thing I noticed were the worst Irish accents I’d heard outside of an Irish Spring commercial. It went on for a long time.

The audience liked it, though, and there were four curtain calls. Amber clapped with the best of them.

We filed outside.

Amber wanted to walk home. She was very happy and it was a gorgeous night.

We walked south along Sixteenth and despite the play, despite the lovely evening, despite the champagne cocktails at intermission, Amber was talking about Charles.

“You can imagine how excited he was, he won’t be on television or anything like that, but it’s a real honor to be asked to speak, bigwigs are going to be there, Robert Dornan, Alexander Haig, he’s on the bill right after Newt Gingrich.”

“Great.”

“Charles, naturally, is diametrically the opposite. He represents the moderate wing, you know. He called me this afternoon, very excited. Of course, he’s been to Aspen a million times, but he’s not a natural public speaker.”

“Maybe you should have gone with him,” I said.

“He thinks it will be worse if I’m in the audience, better in front of a bunch of strangers, he says.”

“I don’t see Charles as the nervous type,” I said.

“Oh, you see, that’s where you’re wrong, Alexander, he’s extremely shy, he’s very much like Robert in that respect. He’s quite introverted. In many ways, it’s all a front, his whole persona. He does it to get the best out of people. Really, he’s very sensitive, shy. ’Course, you must keep that to yourself.”

“Of course I will,” I said indignantly.

We talked a little about the play and the neighborhood. On Pennsylvania Street, she pointed out the fancy nursing home where her mother stayed. A big, white, modern, soulless building.

“Charles pays for everything,” she whispered reverentially.

“That’s nice,” I said.

“He flew her in from Knoxville. It’s one of the finest homes in the state, she gets the best of care, it’s so sad,” she said, her voice breaking a little.

“It is,” I agreed. “Alzheimer’s is the cruelest way to go.”

“I can barely bring myself to visit, once a week is about all I can manage,” she said, overcome by sadness.

That topic had killed the conversation, and we walked in silence the rest of the way to her front door.

I wished her a good night.

“Oh, come up for a quick drink,” she said, slurring her words slightly and frowning a little at herself. Tipsy from the walk and the aftereffects of champagne, I assumed. She tapped in her security code, the cast-iron gate swung open; I followed her inside.

“What a night,” she said.

“Aye.”

“I wish Charles could have been there, it’s always the way, isn’t it, everything always happens at the same time,” she said.

“Yeah, life is like that,” I agreed.

“Do you want a drink?” she asked.

I didn’t, but I said, “Anything.”

“Charles has a collection of single malts, I don’t know a thing about whisky, would you like one?” she asked.

“I suppose in Tennessee you were all drinking bourbon?” I asked.

“What?”

“You know, because you’re next to Kentucky, Jack Daniel’s, that kind of thing,” I said.

“Yeah, well, we weren’t big drinkers in my family. My father, well, he was a recovering alcoholic, you know, we didn’t really allow it in the house…. Anyway, it doesn’t bother me, do you want a whisky?”

“Ok.”

If she wasn’t accustomed to alcohol, that explained how she could be tipsy. But why mention this out of the blue? Christ, maybe she was in a confessional mood. What else did she want to talk about? Maybe more about shy, introverted Charles? I would have to go softly-softly.

“Do you want anything in it? Ice or water?” she asked.

“No, nothing, thank you.”

She brought me a glass, smiled innocently, happily.

I chastened myself. No, she hardly seemed to be breaking under the strain of angst about a double murder. Maybe I was overanalyzing everything. You’re not supposed to do that, you’re supposed to get the information first, then collate it, and then think about it. Not leap to conclusions on inadequate facts. I relaxed, sniffed the whisky glass. Peaty. I took a sip: peaty with a seaweed tinge and a sugary harshness. From Islay or Jura.

“How is it?” she asked.

I noticed that she hadn’t poured one for herself.

“It’s good, it’s from the Inner Hebrides, you can tell because of the peaty aftertaste.”

She removed her pearls and put them on a sideboard. She kicked her shoes off and sat on the leather reclining chair next to the sofa. She really was extraordinary looking. Beautiful in a way that Irish girls aren’t. Healthy, sunny, fresh. She was the whole of America. Her big wide smile, her golden hair, her long legs. Even more attractive now that the thoughts of her poor mother had exposed her a little to me.

Her fingers tapped on the leather arm of the chair.

I got up, poured her a glass of whisky to see if she would drink it.

She sniffed it and took a big sip.

“Oh, Alex, that was a lovely play, Ireland sounds very romantic. Charles went there when he traveled around the world.”

“Yeah, he told me, he went to Dublin,” I said.

“Oh, yes, of course, he went everywhere. I’ve never even left America, if you don’t count Puerto Rico,” she said wistfully.