“I mean, Philip and I don’t make anywhere near the scratch you do. We do what we do because we love it. It’s not about the money.”
“It’s true. You’re all saints at the Cravat. A person either teaches Native American kids to read on a reservation in New Mexico or goes to work at a boutique hotel in Chelsea.”
He chuckled. “I hear ya. I just meant we chose not to be, you know, investment bankers.”
“You have no idea how hard I work,” Richard told him. He could have said more. He restrained himself from alluding to what a fuck-up Philip had been in high school and college.
“Oh, I do. You guys work crazy hard.”
“Thank you.”
“But you’re paid for it. I mean, you have assets.”
He stopped walking and turned to Spencer. All around them people were passing, sometimes buffered from the world by their earbuds and sometimes in conversations of their own. Reflexively he put his hands on his hips. “Are you about to ask me for money for your own little legal defense fund, Spencer? Is this a follow-up to your feelers at lunch?”
Spencer nodded and then looked boyishly down at his shoes. But Richard could see through the movement. It was an act. Feigned sheepishness. Spencer, like his brother, had no shame. None at all. “Yeah,” he said, finally. “You nailed it. I do need a little help.”
“No. I’m already paying a hefty retainer myself. But even if I weren’t, the answer would still be no.”
“Is that it?”
“It is.”
“Well, it’s not. I mean, I’m pretty scared. Scared enough that I’m having to make compromises with, you know, who I am. What I stand for,” the fellow said, looking up at him now.
“You stand for nothing, Spencer.”
“I’m honestly not the jerk you think I am. I want your marriage to make it through this mess. I really do. Philip says your wife is kind of hot. And you have a kid. A daughter.”
“I think we’re done here,” Richard said, turning and starting to walk away. But as he half expected, Spencer stayed with him.
“We can be done here,” said Spencer, “but it’s not in your best interests if we are.”
“No?”
“Nope. I’m thinking of your wife. I’m thinking of your career—at that bank of yours.”
“Why does that sound like a veiled and utterly misguided threat?”
“Whoa! Where did that come from?”
“Spencer, there’s no polite way for me to say this: you are seriously creeping me out. I’m not giving you any money. Let it go.”
“I have pictures. Even a little video.”
He stopped walking. He knew what Spencer was suggesting, but he couldn’t believe it. Instantly he felt sick. “Of what?” he asked.
“Well, some of you.”
“Do you mean from the party?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You wouldn’t have dared. We were all terrified of those Russian strongmen. There’s no way you took your phone out.”
“I did. Upstairs.”
“You went upstairs? You went upstairs in my house?”
“Yup. And there you were. There you…both…were.”
“What kind of pervert are you?”
“I think I would have been way more perverted if I hadn’t filmed that little thing you brought upstairs. I mean, I would have preferred you weren’t in the shots with her. I know you. And I prefer girl-on-girl porn, to be honest. But that’s probably more than you need to know about my personal predilections.”
“I should take your phone and break it.”
“Which would be dramatic and awesome, but I have already downloaded the images and video clip to my computer. Also, you would be making my job super easy. I’d make sure the assault got in the papers. Maybe I’d sue you.”
“You’re despicable.”
“I’m not. I’m really not. I’m just scared I have nowhere near the war chest I need to get through this.”
“I think you’re bluffing. I think you’re such a weasel that you wouldn’t have risked pissing off the bouncers and taking one single photograph.”
“Try me.” Spencer reached into his pants pocket and offered Richard his phone.
For a long couple of seconds Richard stared at it. On there, if this moron was telling the truth, was the moment that he regretted most in the world, and a noxious mix of guilt and disgust compelled him to steer clear. And yet he had to know whether this was a ruse for quick cash. “We’re on a street in the middle of Manhattan. Not here,” he said finally.
“Oh, here’s fine,” Spencer countered, and already he was holding the phone so Richard couldn’t help but see that his brother’s loser friend was telling the truth. There she was, Alexandra, naked on the bed, and there he was naked before her; there she was reaching out for him. Abruptly Spencer paused the video and closed the phone window.
“I have about ten seconds on either side. Plenty of her. Plenty of you. She was about to go down on you when my own girl sort of, you know, distracted me and we moved on.”
“That didn’t happen. She didn’t—”