“Yes. I believe so.”
“We’re on the nineteenth floor. Be there at ten A.M. tomorrow. I’ll be expecting you.”
Then, having delivered his instructions, he hung up.
By seven that night, the media had gotten wind of the story in the Chattanooga paper and were descending on it like a pack of wild dogs on a lame deer. The CBS affiliate buried the story during the local newscast, but the Fox, ABC, and NBC stations led off with the story. By nine that night, the vultures had tracked down Taylor’s home phone number and had called so much that she finally disconnected the phone and turned off the answering machine. The only people she wanted to hear from already had her cell number, so she wasn’t worried about missing anything important.
By ten, all the local stations were leading off with the story, and MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News had picked it up as well. After a few minutes of channel surfing, she and Michael gave up and turned the set off.
“One thing we’ve got going for us,” Taylor said. “No one knows you’re staying here.”
“At least for now,” he said. “Let’s keep it that way as long as we can.”
They went to bed, but neither could sleep. Taylor lay as still as possible, thinking that Michael might be asleep.
Then he let out a long sigh and rolled over to face her.
“You awake?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Baby, I’m sorry about all this.”
“Me, too,” she said.
He scooted over in bed closer to her, then turned to face her and settled his left arm across her torso. His arm felt heavy and limp. He pulled her closer to him, his face against her left cheek. He leaned in and nuzzled her neck, then scooted in closer, his whole body pressed against hers now.
He laid his left leg across the tops of her thighs. She felt him growing hard against her.
She stiffened, almost unconsciously. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He raised his head. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I guess I’ve got too much on my mind. Not really in the mood.”
He bent his right elbow, then raised his head and propped it on the palm of his hand, looking down at her in the dim glow of the outside streetlights filtering through the curtains.
“Might take the edge off,” he said quietly. “Maybe help you go to sleep.”
She turned to her left, facing him. She thought she could see a glimmer in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said again.
He rolled away from her, then sat up on the edge of the bed. “Me, too.”
Then he turned and faced her. “You want me to go stay somewhere else?”
She sat up quickly, her hips scooting across the smooth sheets. “No, of course not. It’s quite a jump from ‘I’ve got too much on my mind to make love’ to ‘I want you out of here.’ “
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.” She reached over and brushed his face with the tips of her fingers. “I’ll make it up to you. Honest.”
She saw the white of his teeth as he smiled. “Okay. But I still can’t sleep. I think I’m going to go downstairs, have a drink, catch a late movie on TV. Want to come?”
“No. I can’t sleep, but I am tired. I think I’ll stay up here and try to rest.”
He shrugged, then leaned down and kissed her lightly and quickly on the cheek. It was, she felt, almost a dismissive peck. Then he was gone.
Taylor settled her head into the pillow and tried to clear her thoughts. Sometime around sunup, she finally succeeded and drifted off into a restless, troubled, and altogether too short sleep.
CHAPTER 27
The offices of Steinberg, Tillman, Gordon, Jenkins amp; Associates took up the entire nineteenth floor of a twenty-six-story building with a clear view of the East River and beyond. Taylor and Michael stepped off the elevator in the middle of a crowd of busy, droning office workers and entered the main reception area through a pair of heavy glass doors. The receptionist looked up, recognized Michael immediately, and stared for a few seconds before rising and taking them directly into Abe Steinberg’s office.
Steinberg’s office alone was bigger than most Manhattan apartments. A long plate-glass window gave them a view eastward of the sprawling city. Steinberg’s desk was easily six feet wide, made of a deep, rich brown polished wood. As Michael and Taylor were led into the office, he rose to meet them. He was short, balding, almost nondescript, and had to be pushing seventy. He didn’t exactly present a fearsome image, Taylor thought.
He crossed the room from behind his desk and met them in the middle of the room. “You must be Mr. Schiftmann,”
he offered, extending his hand.
Michael nodded. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Steinberg.”
Taylor thought he seemed quiet, subdued, even a little nervous. The two of them had left Taylor’s building through the basement and the boiler room, and out onto the sidewalk at the freight entrance. They’d dodged smelly garbage cans and pallets of flattened recyclable cardboard boxes to avoid the news trucks and vans parked out front. Michael had said less then five words during the long cab ride uptown.
“And you’re Taylor Robinson,” Steinberg said, turning to Taylor and smiling. “Joan Delaney’s told me so much about you. She sees you as the future of the agency, you know.”
“That may be stretching it a bit,” Taylor answered. “But thanks for the compliment.”
Steinberg turned and motioned toward a shiny leather sofa that occupied the center of the office. Next to it, a matching brown leather chair sat next to a long glass coffee table.
“Please, sit down. We’ve got a lot to do and not much time.
We’re going to be here awhile, so would you like some coffee, tea, a soda, perhaps?”
“No, thank you,” Taylor said. Michael shook his head.
Steinberg turned and dismissed his assistant with a wave of his hand. Michael and Taylor sat down on the sofa at opposite ends. Steinberg loosened his tie and settled himself into the chair.
“Well, Mr. Schiftmann, you must feel like a character in one of your own books.”
Michael reached up and rubbed his forehead. “I don’t think I could ever write anything like this. No one would believe it.”
Steinberg laughed. “You’re not the first person I’ve ever met who was accused of something and couldn’t quite believe it.”
Michael scooted forward on the seat and put his elbows on his knees, his arms extended forward. “First of all, Mr.
Steinberg, I want you to know I’m absolutely inno-”
“Don’t,” Steinberg interrupted. “Don’t tell me that now.
For one thing, it doesn’t matter at this point. For another, we have too much else to do.”
Michael leaned back in the sofa, looking a bit, Taylor thought, like a scolded puppy. Steinberg crossed his legs in the chair and leaned his head back, relaxed and confident.
“The first thing we have to do here is make a couple of decisions. The first is how you’re going to choose to fight this. There are several ways to contend with it. First, you can lay low, keep quiet, and let the best lawyers in the country fight it out for you. On the other extreme is total war, total commitment. Take your case to the public. Hire the best public relations firm in the country. Work the talk-show circuit, the tabloids, the whole thing. Build a case for Michael Schiftmann as the victim of an overzealous prosecutor and an incompetent police department. We can hire private investigators, our own forensic researchers, experts, and take the offensive. We challenge every point, concede nothing, and make them pay with blood, sweat, and tears for every step they take.”
