The china cups and saucers are set out on the coffee table, the silver spoons and white linen napkins in place next to them, when there is a soft rapping at the door at one minute before two. Howard gets up from the couch where he has been sitting casually with one leg over his knee. He opens the door a foot.
Allison’s mouth drops open. “I’m sorry. I’ve knocked on the wrong—”
“Ms. Fitch, a pleasure to meet you,” he says, opening the door wide and sweeping his arm inward. “You’re right on time.”
She hesitates, then steps into the room.
“Where’s Bridget?” she asks.
“I will be representing Bridget’s interests here today,” he says.
“Who the hell are you?”
“My name is Howard Talliman.” He doesn’t see the point in using some sort of alias. If this woman has been researching Bridget and Morris online—as he is sure she has—then she will certainly have come across his name and photo at some point. “I am a friend of the family.”
“Oh yeah, I know who you are,” she says. “You’re like…you’re his campaign manager or something like that.”
“Won’t you sit down? I’ve ordered coffee.”
Allison’s eyes take in the room as she moves toward the couch. “Where’s the bed?” she asked. “I mean, not that—I’ve never seen a hotel room that didn’t have a bed in it.”
Howard points to a closed door. “The bedroom is in there.”
Allison is impressed. “A hotel room where the bedroom is separate?”
“Yes.”
“May I see?” She tips her head at the closed bedroom door.
“Be my guest.”
She opens the bedroom door and whistles. “Wow.” She comes back to the couch and sits down. “What’s a room like this run you for the day?”
“That’s not really what we’re here to discuss, is it?” he says.
“I’m just saying, if Bridget can afford a room like this just so you and me can have a chat, maybe I’m aiming too low.”
Howard has already thought her demand for one hundred thousand dollars lacks ambition, but he chooses not to say that. He picks up the silver coffeepot by the handle and says, “May I pour you a cup?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Steam rises from the coffee as it streams into the cups. Allison adds cream and sugar to hers, while Howard takes his black. He leans back comfortably in his chair, saucer in one hand and cup in the other.
“So, Ms. Fitch, you’ve certainly stirred things up, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know what exactly Bridget has told you.”
“She’s told me enough. That you two became friends, very special friends, that you spent some time away together in Barbados, and that you subsequently learned that she is married to Morris Sawchuck.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.” She sips the coffee, makes a face, spoons in more sugar, and stirs.
“And once having learned this, you saw an opportunity.”
Allison Fitch blushes. “I don’t know if you’d call it that.”
“What would you call it?”
“I guess…I guess I would call it doing Bridget a favor.”
Howard’s bushy eyebrows soar briefly. “Explain that to me.”
“Well, I figured she wouldn’t want it getting out that the two of us, you know, that we had had a thing, and I was offering her a way to make sure that didn’t happen.”
Howard nods. “I see. You’re a very kindhearted person, aren’t you? Just how were you hoping to ensure that this information did not become public?”
Her eyes narrow. “You’re a pretty smug son of a bitch, aren’t you?”
“I am many things, Ms. Fitch.”
“Look, you already know the answer. I told her I’ve been having kind of a cash flow problem lately, and that if she could help me out, I’d make sure nothing came out about her, something that could ruin her husband’s chances of being governor or president or head of the glee club or whatever it is he wants to be when he grows up. I mean, news of his wife sleeping with someone other than him would be bad enough, but with another woman? All those supporters of his who when they aren’t spending five hundred bucks a plate at some fund-raising dinner for him are spending millions to fight same-sex marriage, they’re going to just love that. I mean, come on, what’s a hundred grand for her and her husband? That’s like, what? Lunch money? A little trip to Gucci or Louis Vuitton? That’s nothing for them. I could have asked for a lot more.”
Howard Talliman smiles. “How do you know the police aren’t listening in on this conversation in the other room? How do you know they’re not about to bust in here and arrest you for extortion and blackmail?”
Allison tenses up. He can see it in her eyes that, for a second there, she’s actually expecting it to happen. But then her muscles appear to relax.
“I don’t think you’d do that. Because then it would all come out. That the governor’s wife had been having a lesbian affair.”
“You think you could survive that kind of publicity?”
“Sure.”
“How do you think your mother in Dayton would handle it?”
That gets her. You can almost hear her make a cartoon gulp. Knows he’s done his homework. But she composes herself again. “I think Mom’s been suspecting it for years.”