John Katzenbach - The Wrong Man

O’Connell kept his eyes on Ashley.

“So, you thought you needed help?” he asked.

She nodded.

He slowly pivoted in his seat and looked up at Scott, as if measuring him.

“Hello, Professor,” he said calmly. “Won’t you have a seat?”

Hope quietly watched Sally as she worked on the New York Times crossword puzzle left over from the previous Sunday. She never worked in pencil, tapping her pen against her front teeth, before finally committing letters to blocks and slowly, steadily filling in the blank spaces. The silences that she had become accustomed to, Hope thought, were growing even more frequent. She looked over at Sally and wondered what was making her so unhappy.

“Sally, don’t you think we should talk about this guy that Ashley seems to have taken up with?”

Sally lifted her head when she heard Hope’s question. She had been about to write down the answer to 7 ACROSS, four letters, the clue being Murderous Clown and the word being Gacy. She hesitated. “I don’t know what there is to talk about. Scott should be able to handle this with Ashley. I’m hoping that he’ll call sometime this evening and say it’s all straightened out. Finito. Kaput. On with everything else. We’re just out our share of the five grand.”

“You’re not afraid that this guy might be worse than we think?”

Sally shrugged. “He sounds to me like a nasty guy, sure. But Scott is pretty capable at dealing with college students, so my guess is, he’s out of Ashley’s life any minute now.”

Hope framed her next question carefully. “In your experience, like in divorce cases and domestic disputes, are people bought off that easily?”

She knew that the answer was no and that on far more than a few occasions she had listened to Sally as she had vented at the dinner table, or even in bed later, over the pigheadedness of clients and their families.

“Well,” Sally said with a lack of urgency that infuriated Hope, “I think we should just wait and see. No use in preparing for a problem that we don’t know exists.”

Hope shook her head. She couldn’t help herself. “That’s the damn stupidest thing I’ve heard in some time,” she replied, her voice rising slightly. “We don’t know if a storm is going to hit, so why buy candles, batteries, and extra food? We don’t know that we’re going to get the flu, so why get a shot?”

Sally put down the crossword puzzle. “Okay,” she said, irritation creeping into her own words, “precisely what sort of batteries would you like to buy? What sort of inoculation is out there?”

Hope looked across at her partner of so many years and thought how little she really knew about Sally and about herself. They lived in a world where normal was defined differently, and Hope thought sometimes it was nothing but minefields.

“I can’t answer you, you know that,” she said slowly. “I just think we should be doing something, and instead, we’re sitting around waiting for Scott to call and tell us everything is back to the way it was, and I don’t imagine for an instant that we’re going to get that call. Or, indeed, whether we deserve that call.”

“Deserve?”

“Think about it while you finish your puzzle. I’m going to read for a bit.” Hope took a deep breath, thinking that there were some far greater puzzles that Sally could be working on.

Sally nodded, dropping her eyes to the puzzle page in front of her. She wanted to say something to Hope, something reassuring, something affectionate, something that would defuse some of the tension around their house, but instead, she looked down and saw that 3 DOWN was What the Muse Sang, and she remembered that the opening of Homer’s Iliad was “Sing, O muse, of the anger of Achilles.” There were four blank boxes, with the last letter needing to be E, and so it was not hard for her to come up with rage.

Scott slid into the booth, pushing Michael O’Connell into the corner, as he’d planned. It was a tight fit. The waitress took that moment to arrive at the table, menus in hand.

“Give us a minute or two,” Scott said to the waitress.

“Bring me a beer,” O’Connell said. Then he turned to Scott. “I figure you’ve got this round.”

There was a momentary silence, and then O’Connell turned to Ashley. “You’re filled with surprises today. Don’t you really think that all this is between you and me?”

“I tried to tell you,” she said, “but you wouldn’t listen.”

“So you thought bringing in your father…” He pivoted slightly and stared at Scott. “Well, I don’t know. Just what exactly is he supposed to do?”

This question was directed at Ashley, but Scott answered, “I’m just here to help you understand that when she says it’s all over, that means it’s all over.”

Again Michael O’Connell took a long time assessing Scott.

“Not exactly muscle. Not exactly persuasion. So, Professor, what’s your deal? What have you got in mind?”

“I think it’s time for you to leave Ashley alone. Get on with your life, so she can get on with hers. She’s busy. Working. Going to grad school. Hasn’t really got the time for a long-term relationship. Certainly not the one that you seem to suggest. I’m here to do what I can to help you see that.”

O’Connell didn’t seem fazed in the slightest by what Scott said. “Why do you think this is any of your business?”

“Your refusal to listen to what Ashley has said has made it my business.”

O’Connell smiled. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

The waitress brought O’Connell his beer, and he drank half of it in a large gulp. He grinned again. “What is it, Professor, that you got that’s going to persuade me not to love Ashley? How do you know we’re not perfect for each other? What do you know about me? I’ll tell you: nothing. Maybe I don’t look like what you expected for her, and maybe I’m not the sort of BMW-driving young executive with a Harvard MBA that you’re counting on, but I’m a pretty capable guy at lots of things, and she could do a lot worse. Just because I don’t fit your profile, I don’t know that that means a damn thing.”

Scott wasn’t sure how to respond. O’Connell had thrust the conversation in a different direction than he’d expected.

“I don’t want to know you,” Scott said. “All I want is for you to leave Ashley alone. I am willing to do whatever is necessary to help you understand that.”

O’Connell paused, then said, “Somehow I doubt that. Whatever is necessary? I’m not thinking that that’s really true.”

“Name a price,” Scott replied coldly.

“A price?”

“You know what I’m saying. Name a price.”

“You want me to put a price tag on my feelings for Ashley?”

“Stop screwing around,” Scott said. O’Connell’s grin and the easygoing way he was handling the conversation were beyond irritating.

“I could never do that. And I don’t want your money.”

Scott reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the $5,000 in the white envelope.

“What’s that?” O’Connell asked.

“Five grand. Just for giving Ashley and me your word that you will stay out of her life.”

“You want to pay me?”

“That’s right.”

“I never asked you for any money, did I?”

“No.”

“So, this money isn’t in response to anything I demanded, is it?”

“No. All I want is your word.”

O’Connell turned to Ashley. “I never asked you for money, did I?”

She shook her head.

“I can’t hear you,” O’Connell said.

“No, you have never asked me for money.”

O’Connell reached across and picked up the cash. “If I took it, it would be a gift, right?”

“In return for a promise.”