Стюарт Вудс - Indecent Exposure

“No, but the sheriff did — we talked about it.”

“And what was his opinion?”

“He thought we ought to keep an open mind until we had found Rutherford and questioned him. He was like that, real thorough.”

“Rudy, how can I get in touch with Sheriff Bates? I’d like to talk to him.”

“You can’t. He had a heart attack when he heard about the election results and died on the way to the hospital.”

“Do you know if he made any statements about the Barrington murder before he died?”

“No, I wasn’t there when he collapsed. I went to the hospital, but like I said, he had died on the way.”

“Rudy, thank you so much. Can I call you again if I have any further questions?”

“Sure, Gloria, anytime at all. If you want to come down here and look around, I’ll be glad to escort you.”

She thanked him again and hung up. She had enough.

Gloria Parsons switched on her computer, pulled up her first draft on the Barrington murder, and began going through it, line by line, inserting fragments of her interview with Sheriff Rudolf Sweat. Half an hour into the piece she called Hazel Schwartz, her boss, and said, “Hazel, I’ll be ready for the lawyers in fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll have them here,” Hazel said.

Parsons finished her piece, spell-checked it, printed four copies, and walked down the hall to Hazel’s corner office. Two lawyers, Jim and Martina, were just sitting down. Parsons distributed the copies to her boss and the lawyers and waited while they read it.

Jim looked up. “This looks pretty clean to me. Are these quotes with the yokel cop accurate?”

“I have him on tape,” Parsons replied.

“I’ve got a couple of nitpicks,” Martina said. She brought up her points and Parsons made the changes on the spot. “I’ll put in the corrections and e-mail them to you in ten minutes,” she said.

Hazel spoke up. “I got the Architectural Digest photos licensed. An art director is working on the layout now. We’ll go over it together when he’s done.” She gave Parsons his e-mail address. “Forward it to him, and he’ll have full-blown comp ready for us to review.”

Parsons went back to her office, and in ten minutes she was done, and, she reckoned, so was Stone Barrington. She went back to Hazel’s office, and they went over the layout on her giant computer screen that could show half a dozen pages at once.

They settled on a headline:

“Love it,” Hazel said. “Gloria, I’m giving you a two-hundred-dollar-a-week raise, effective next pay period.”

“Thank you, Hazel,” Parsons gushed. She had expected a five-hundred-dollar raise, but she could lie in wait for a while longer. She left Hazel’s office whistling a little tune.

There was a cocktail party uptown that she had been thinking of passing on, but she was thirsty and horny, and one never knew who would be there, did one? She phoned for an Uber, and did her makeup in the backseat on the way.

The party had been under way for an hour when she got there, and it was more elegant than she had imagined. The apartment was on Fifth Avenue and had a low-floor view of the park, like a close-up, and the people were well dressed. Then she looked across the room to a corner bar and there, all alone and looking depressed, was the governor of the State of New York, one Benton Blake. She made a beeline for the bar and set herself on a stool right in front of him, not bothering to pull her skirt down. She was wearing a black Armani suit and a silk blouse that showed an impressive amount of her creamy breasts, and his eyes went directly there, just as they were supposed to.

“Hi, there,” he said, offering his hand. “I’m Benton. Who are you?”

“I’m Gloria,” she said; she didn’t want to mention her last name, in case he recognized it and got cautious. She squeezed his hand for a second longer than he had expected. “And I’d like a very dry vodka martini.”

“Certainly,” he said.

“Will you join me?”

“Of course. He ordered from the bartender and held up two fingers.

Parsons reviewed what she knew about him: his wife had left him two weeks ago for another man, a real estate developer. It wasn’t public yet, but Parsons knew a few details. The wife had pretty much moved into the man’s penthouse, and Governor Blake wouldn’t speak her name to his staff. The man was tall, slim, and fit, and once he started to recover, he would have the ladies lined up and waiting. Parsons decided to accelerate his recovery.

She accepted her martini, raised her glass to him while locking in on his eyes, and took a man-sized gulp. He followed suit.

“There,” he said.

“Is everything all better now?” she asked, licking the vodka from her lips.

“I’m getting there,” he said.

“What can I do to help?”

“That’s a leading question,” he replied.

They both took another gulp of martini.

“Then lead on,” Gloria said.

“Where would you like to be led?”

“All the way past my better judgment,” she replied.

That got a good laugh. “It sounds like an inviting place,” he said. “Where would we find it? Your place?”

“That’s way downtown,” she said, “and I don’t think I can wait that long.” She ran a fingernail from his knee up his inner thigh. “Isn’t there a bedroom in this apartment?”

“Well, let’s see,” he said. “The one with the coats is right over there, but that doesn’t offer much privacy. On the other hand, there’s another just beyond it that’s much better.”

“Does it have a lock on the door?” she asked.

“If it doesn’t, we can jury-rig something.”

“You go ahead, I’ll be sixty seconds behind you,” she said, downing what was left of her martini.

He did the same, turned and walked away. Gloria consulted her watch, then followed. The door was slightly ajar, and she went in and closed it behind her. She leaned on the door and kicked off her Manolos, then slipped off her suit jacket and hung it on the doorknob.

Blake was sitting on the bed, leaning back on his hands, watching. His coat was already off, and he loosened his tie. She strolled across the bedroom toward him, unbuttoning her blouse and unhooking her bra from the front. She put her hand under his chin and kissed him, using her tongue to good effect, and dropped her handbag on the bed.

He took a breast in his hand and pinched the nipple lightly.

“You’ve just found the hot button,” she said. “Where’s yours?”

He pulled her gently to her knees, and she could see the growing bulge under his trousers. “You’re getting warm,” he said.

She unzipped his trousers, liberated a very attractive penis, and kissed it a few times, while he made appreciative noises. “Before we go any further, there’s something I want,” she said, caressing him with a hand.

“You don’t look like that kind of a girl,” he said.

“Thank you, I’m not.”

“Then tell me what I can do for you,” he said, breathing faster.

“I have a young friend who is doing three years at Fishkill,” she said, “for a crime he didn’t commit. He’s being, ah, abused daily by other inmates.”

“And how can I help your friend? I can’t do a pardon.”

“Just commute his sentence to time served, for exigent family reasons.”

“Done,” he said.

She reached into her purse and produced her little recorder. “Repeat after me,” she said. “I, Benton Blake, in return for the best sex of my life...”

He repeated.

“... do promise to commute the sentence of Daniel Blaine to time served...”