Allison jumps from Web page to Web page, finding more information about how much money Sawchuck has. Millions, for sure, if not billions.
It’s enough to make one’s head spin.
Looks like she might be able to get what she needs to pay back Courtney, and buy herself a new pair of Manolo Blahniks, too. Girl always needs new shoes.
SHE paces the apartment for the better part of an hour, practicing what she’s going to say. She doesn’t want it to sound like out-and-out blackmail. What she’s really looking for is a loan. Except, unlike most loans, this would be one she gets to pay back on the installment plan. Payments stretched out over, say, the next couple of thousand years. So, okay, maybe it’s more like a gift she’s seeking. But is that such a big deal? All that money, how big a deal can it be to throw a few thousand her way? And Allison can return the favor. No doubt about it. Allison knows just the right way to show gratitude. And not by putting her mouth in some special place to make someone happy.
She can show gratitude by keeping that mouth shut. That’s her way of saying thank you.
She can decide not to go to the Daily News or the Times or the Post. Or one of those TV shows, like Dateline.
Won’t that be a nice thing not to do?
Because something like this, coming out, well, that’s not going to help Mr. I-Want-to-Be-Governor one little bit.
Maybe she’s not even going to have to get to that point. She won’t have to mention the newspapers or the TV shows. Maybe she’ll have a check in her hands seconds after she says the words “I know who you are.”
Allison picks up her cell, starts to enter in the number she was given, then stops. Her heart is pounding. Making up stories to get money out of her mother, that’s one thing.
This is something else again.
This is what happens when a girl leaves Dayton for the big city.
“HELLO?”
“It’s me. It’s Allison.”
“What—Allison?”
“Yeah, Allison. Remember me?”
“Of course I—look, I really can’t talk now.”
“We need to get together.”
“This isn’t a good time.”
“I saw you on the news.”
“You—what?”
“I had no idea. No idea at all who you are. How’d you forget to mention something like that? First, that you’re married, and second, that—”
“Look, Allison, I’ll try to give you a call in a week or two. There’s a lot going on right now. If you saw the news, you know things are starting to heat up in the campaign and…and…there are other problems. A possible investigation of—”
“You remember where we first hooked up?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Be there at three. Before it gets busy, and you can still make it to Lincoln Center or Broadway or whatever thousand-dollar-a-plate dinner you have to go to tonight.”
“I can’t meet with you. We can’t—I’m really sorry but we can’t be seen together.”
“Three o’clock.”
“Jesus, what the hell is this about?”
“Well, I can put your mind at ease about one thing. I’m not pregnant.”
BY half past two, Allison’s at a Gramercy Park bar, around the corner from that place where O. Henry wrote “The Gift of the Magi.” Manages to get the same booth they shared on their first date. Date? Was it really a date? Doesn’t “date” imply some kind of adherence to social convention? “Clandestine meeting,” maybe? What’s that old-fashioned word, again? “Tryst?”
She orders herself a gin and tonic, keeps an eye on the door. She’s still rehearsing what she’s going to say, although she wonders why she’s bothering. Despite all the time she spent practicing her lines before making the call to set up this meeting, once the ringing stopped and the cell was answered, she started saying the first thing that came into her head. Winging it. Including that line about being pregnant, which, she has to admit, was pretty goddamn funny.
At three o’clock, right on the dot, someone walks through the door, sees Allison in the booth.
It’s not Morris Sawchuck.
It’s his wife, Bridget.
She doesn’t look like the Bridget Sawchuck Allison saw on the news. She has her hair wrapped up in a red and black scarf Allison is guessing is Hermès. She’s wearing sunglasses that cover up half her face.
But it’s her, all right. The attorney general’s hot little wife. Strutting in on her three-inch heels, hands tucked into the pockets of her trench. Turning a few heads as she walks past the bar. But not getting recognized. She’d turn heads whether you recognized her or not.
Bridget Sawchuck walks straight to the booth where Allison’s sitting, slides onto the leather seat across from her.
“You look like a freaking spy,” Allison says, grinning.
“I only have a few minutes,” Bridget Sawchuck says. “Why the urgent meeting?”
“Like I said to you on the phone, we’ve got some things to talk about.”
TEN
“I don’t want you think I’m the sort of person who gets caught up in titles, but what will mine be?”