“You see?” Howard said. “This just proves that you’re not ready to get back into the game. You still need time to heal. Morris, trust me. I’m your friend. And I’m telling you this, as your friend, that this is not the time.”
Yeah, I’m some friend, Howard thought. I sent someone to kill your blackmailer, and ended up killing your wife instead.
Sometimes Bridget spoke to Howard, too, but she was far less forgiving.
FORTY
IT is August.
Allison Fitch has worked her usual shift, and would normally be sleeping now, this time of day, but she is up early. She’s had a phone call, and now she has an errand to run. She’s dressed, ready to go out. She has to run downstairs to the scarf store. She had managed, the week before, against all odds, to get them to accept a personal check for $123.76 for two silk scarves. “I live on the block, practically above your shop,” she’d told them. “I’m in here all the time,” she’d said. She’d shown them her ID, a driver’s license. Gave them her cell phone number. The girl on the cash register was new and finally relented.
Check bounced.
The manager has called. Three times. Most recently, fifteen minutes ago. Told Allison that if she isn’t there with $123.76 in cash in the next hour, she’s going to call the police and tell them Allison Fitch has defrauded them.
As it turns out, Allison has more than five hundred dollars in cash in her purse. A bunch of dickheaded traders from a prominent Wall Street firm had a party at the bar last night. They’d made some kind of killing in the market and were celebrating. Throwing money around. Tipping big. And, earlier in the day, Allison had gone to the ATM and taken out a couple of hundred. With all that cash, she figures she could go on a shopping spree when she gets up the next day. A warm-up before the really big money comes. She figures Howard Talliman will be in touch anytime now to set up a meeting, where he’ll hand over the cash in exchange for her silence.
Boy, she thinks, the expression on his face when she let him believe she’d heard Bridget having some kind of top secret chat with her husband. Guy looked like he’d just eaten a rat sandwich. She’d just figured it stood to reason a man like Morris Sawchuck had secrets, and that he might discuss them with his wife.
Suppose she’d heard some of them?
Hilarious thing is, she never heard a goddamn thing. But now she’s more sure than ever that she’s going to get that one hundred grand. Pretending to hear the call was just the icing on the lesbo-affair cake she needed to seal the deal.
So she figures, what the hell, she’ll pay off that bitch for the scarves, then come home, go back to bed.
She is slipping on her jacket, throwing the strap of her purse over her shoulder when she gets a buzz from the lobby.
Allison hits the button. “Yeah?”
“It’s me. We need to talk.”
Shit. Bridget.
Allison lets her in and half a minute later Bridget is at her apartment door.
“Hey,” Allison says, closing the door as the woman comes into the kitchen.
“What did you tell him?”
“What?”
“What did you tell Howard? What did you tell him you heard?”
Allison holds up a hand. “Look, we met, we came to an arrangement, and everything’s okay, so don’t worry about it.”
“What did you hear?”
“I’m not getting into this with you. And listen, if anyone’s got a bone to pick, it’s me. You should have been up front with me. You should have told me who you really were.”
“Allison, listen to me. You’re making a mistake, pushing Howard too far.”
“We got along fine. Everything’s cool.”
“Whatever he’s agreed to give you, you have to promise him you’ll never, ever, hit him up for more. He’ll do anything to protect my husband. If you’re smart, you’ll call it all off. You’ll tell him you don’t want any money, that he doesn’t need to buy your silence, that you’ll never say a word about us to anyone, that you never heard any—”
“Look, this is fun and all, but I really have to go. I’ve got to run downstairs and deal with this bitch who says I owe her money. I’ll be, like, five minutes. Stay here, make yourself at home, whatever, we’ll talk when I get back.”
“You have to believe me,” Bridget says. “You’re in over your head.”
“Fine, fine, we’ll talk about it when I get back.” Allison slides her purse strap higher onto her shoulder and heads out into the hall, pulling the door closed behind her.
Bridget stands briefly in the kitchen, then, feeling restless, moves farther into the apartment. She walks into the living room area, where the pullout couch Allison sleeps on is extended, the covers a mess. She reaches for a Cosmopolitan on the coffee table, looks at the cover featuring Ashley Greene and the headline “60 Sex Tips,” notices the issue is months old. She drops it back onto the table.