Susan looked around the bar again. Parker had chosen it well. There was little chance anyone would see them all together. There was a vague maritime theme: a steering wheel from an old boat on the wall, an anchor nailed above the bar. The bartender looked about a hundred and ten, and the waitress not much younger. The only food in the place was popcorn. The bar stank of it. But it was dark and cool, which was more than could be said about outside. Susan pulled at her black tank top. It said I SMELL BULLSHIT in cursive across the chest, and the letters tended to stick to her skin when she sweated.
The door to the bar opened and a blinding rectangle of light streamed into the darkness, transforming the bar’s smoke-choked atmosphere into pretty swirls of carcinogenic mist. Susan’s stomach clenched. A middle-aged man walked in wearing a suit and fiddling with a BlackBerry. He was heavy, though not nearly as heavy as Parker, and he wore rectangular glasses that seemed too fashionable for him. She turned to Parker.
“Hide your valuables,” Parker whispered, taking a handful of popcorn from the bowl in front of them.
“You’re sure it’s him?” Susan asked, pulling at her tank top.
Parker guffawed, a quick laugh that sounded like a wheeze. He lifted the fistful of popcorn into his mouth and chewed. “Thirty years on the crime beat,” he said, mouth full. “You get to know a lot of lawyers.”
“Here,” Parker said, gesturing the lawyer over with a popcorn-greasy hand.
The lawyer sat. He looked ten years older up close. “Parker,” he said with a nod. Then he looked at Susan. His glasses said PRADA in big letters on each side. “This her?” he asked.
“Our Brenda Starr,” Parker said, still chewing. He grinned, his yellow teeth small and shiny in the bar’s low light. “Kid does my heart good, the way she went after your boy.”
“My ‘boy,’” the lawyer said, “is a sitting U.S. senator.”
Parker picked up another handful of popcorn. “Not for long,” he said through the grin.
Susan took a drag off her cigarette and felt for the small digital recorder she had hidden on her lap to make sure it was on. It whirred under her fingertips and she felt immediately calmer. Beyond the lawyer, a young man wearing a red baseball cap came into the bar and sat down alone.
The lawyer wiped the sheen of sweat from his forehead. “So the Herald’s running the story?”
“Senator Castle want to comment?” Parker asked. He brought his fist up and dropped a few kernels of popcorn into his open mouth.
“He denies it,” the lawyer said.
Susan laughed.
The lawyer pushed his Prada glasses up on his nose. “You’re lucky to get any comment at all,” he said, his face coloring.
Susan pledged right then and there that she was going to take down John Castle and the motherfuckers who’d protected him over the years. People idolized Castle for what he’d done for the state. But after Thursday, they would see him for what he was, a rapist, a manipulator, a blackmailer, and a fraud. She ground the rest of her cigarette out in the black plastic ashtray on the table. “He denies it?” she said. “He fucked his kids’ babysitter and he went to enormous lengths to cover it up, including paying her off.” She pulled another cigarette out of the pack and lit it with a plastic lighter. Susan smoked only when she was nervous. But the lawyer didn’t know that. “I’ve spent two months on this story,” she said. “I’ve got Molly Palmer on record. I’ve got interviews with Molly’s friends at the time that match Molly’s version of events. I’ve got bank records showing money passing from your law firm to her account.”
“Ms. Palmer was an intern,” the lawyer said, spreading his hands innocently.
“For one summer,” Susan said. She took a drag off the cigarette, leaned her head back, and exhaled. She took her time, because she knew she had him. “Your firm continued paying her for five years.”
The corner of the lawyer’s mouth twitched. “There may have been a clerical error,” he said.
Susan wanted to wipe the smirk off his face with her elbow. Why had he even bothered to show? A denial could have been delivered over the phone. “This is such bullshit,” she said.
The lawyer stood up and looked Susan up and down. When you looked like she did, you got used to that, but coming from this guy, it made her a little furious. “How old are you?” he asked Susan. “Twenty-five?” He flipped a hand at her head. “You think the people of this state are going to let some girl with blue hair and some sort of political agenda take down a beloved five-term senator?” He put his face right in front of hers, so close she could smell his aftershave. “Even if you publish the story, it will go away. And you won’t publish it. Because if the Herald goes near it, I will sue you.” He jabbed a finger at Parker. “And you.” He pushed his glasses up his nose one last time and stepped back from the table. “The senator denies all allegations,” he said. “Other than that, he has no comment.” He turned around and started for the door.
“I’m twenty-eight,” Susan called after him. “And my hair is Atomic Turquoise.”
Parker lifted his glass of whiskey to his mouth. “I thought that went well,” he said.
“Right,” Susan said. “They’re quaking in their boots.”
“Trust me,” Parker said. He picked up a toothpick from a dish on the table and dug at a piece of popcorn kernel stuck between his teeth, his jowls swinging.