He really is something. “Her name’s Allison Fitch.”
Howard’s eyelids flutter rapidly. It’s what he does when he’s searching through his mental database. “You are right. I don’t know her.” He drinks more of his scotch. “You know, Bridget, you might have mentioned, after I arranged for you and Morris to connect, and I quietly asked you whether there was anything compromising in your history, that you were a muff diver.”
Bridget sits rigidly in her chair and says nothing.
“Did you make it known to this Allison Fitch that you were the wife of a prospective governor, the state’s current attorney general?”
“No. I gave her another name altogether. But she saw me on television, on the news, at a function with Morris, and there wasn’t much to put together after that.” Bridget gives him the Reader’s Digest version of the story. Where they’d met, how many times they’d seen each other, the time they’d gone away together.
Howard smiles humorlessly. “I mentioned pictures of you with a goat a moment ago. What about with this woman? Are there any photos? Hidden camera, that kind of thing? A goat, now that I think of it, might be less politically damaging.”
Bridget’s gaze narrows. “Are you worried about their blackmail potential, or did you just want me to get you a copy?”
“So they exist?”
“I don’t think so. Allison never mentioned it. I don’t see why she would have filmed me. She didn’t know, at the time, who my husband was.”
“Then what proof has she? One possible strategy is to ride the thing out. It’d be ugly, but we stonewall, deny, suggest that your husband’s opponents choreographed the entire episode. In the meantime, we dig into her past, find something good on her that destroys her credibility, and believe me, we will find something even if we have to make it up, and after the press has some fun with it for a while, everyone gets bored and we continue on as though it never happened. In fact, without any proof, I make some calls and a police investigation is initiated and before you know it she’s up on an extortion charge. Handle it like that talk show host, what’s-his-name with the teeth, who was getting blackmailed by the guy who said if he didn’t pay up he’d tell the world he’d been sleeping with half his staff. Brought in the cops, set up a sting, the bozo did time. Difference with you is, you’ll stick to the line that you don’t know this woman. Maybe you bumped into her someplace, on vacation, at some function, but you have no idea who she is. By the time we’re done with her no one will believe her if she says it’s raining in the middle of a Katrina.”
“There are texts,” Bridget says.
“Say again?”
“No pictures, but there are texts. Between us. Phone records, and texts.”
“And what do these texts say, Bridget? What is their nature?”
“They’re…I guess the word would be salacious.”
“And would you be the author of any of these salacious texts, or are they all written by Ms. Fitch?”
“Fifty-fifty, I’d say.”
Howard runs his tongue over his teeth. “How much is she looking for, and what does she intend to do should you not meet her demands?”
“One hundred thousand. Or she goes public, to whoever’ll pay the most for the story.”
“I see. Not very imaginative, is she?”
“I’m sorry?”
“If I were her I would have asked for at least a million. And how do we know she won’t take the money and sell her story, anyway?”
“She said she wouldn’t do that,” Bridget says.
Howard leans back in his chair and opens his arms. “Ahh, well then, nothing to worry about.”
“I know what you’re thinking. That she’ll come back again and again, always asking for money.”
“I think that’s very likely, Bridget. Perhaps, with the right degree of persuasion, she can be happy with one reasonable sum. And then she agrees to go away, and we never hear from her again.”
Bridget sighs. “I knew you’d know how to handle this. You’re just so…so cool and collected about these things.”
“It’s all about putting out fires, my dear. We want to douse this one before it consumes an entire forest, that’s all.”
“Howard, I don’t want Morris to know about this. I mean, Morris and I have been very frank with each other about our…idiosyncrasies, but he doesn’t have any idea that I’ve seen someone else since we were married. You’re not going to tell him, are you?”
He shakes his head and reaches out to touch her hand. “What purpose would that serve? I love you both too much to do that. You have a beautiful future ahead of you if you learn to control your…impulses.”