'If I were blackmailing you, I take the check, give you the pictures, you go home and stop payment on the check. Call the cops. I try to cash it and they've got me with proof of my extortion.'
'They what?' she said.
'It's okay. I'm not going to ask you for money.'
'Well, how do I get the pictures?'
'You don't.'
'Then…'
'I want information. I'm going to use the pictures to force you to give me information.'
'See, you are blackmailing me.'
'Yes I am. You change your mind about coffee?'
'I… yes,' she said and her eyes shifted. 'I'll have some, black.'
'Fine, and if you're not here when I come back with it I will show these pictures to your husband.'
'How do I know you even have the pictures?'
'There are four of them altogether,' I said. 'They were in with some love letters signed `J' in a shoebox under Brad Sterling's bed.'
I took one out of my jacket pocket. 'Here's one of them,' I said.
She looked and quickly looked away. 'Put that away,' she said.
Under the careful tan her face and neck flushed richly. I put the picture back in my jacket pocket.
'Large coffee?' I said.
She looked around the room. No one was paying any attention. She nodded yes to my question and I went up and got her a cup and one for me, cream, two sugars, and went back to the table with them. She had crossed her legs, which was a good thing, and was leaning back a little in her chair, being serene and ladylike in a difficult situation. I put her coffee down in front of her carefully, without spilling any, and put mine in front of me and got back in my chair. We sat. While we sat I surveyed the room. No sign of anyone intending to shoot me. Jeanette didn't touch her coffee. Susan did that too. You gave her something to eat or drink and she allowed it to sit there for a while. Maybe it was a gender thing. When presented with something ingestible, I began at once to ingest it. Jeanette met my eyes in a long look.
'Did you like what you saw in the pictures?' she said.
'Absolutely,' I said. 'My congratulations to your trainer.'
'I'm not ashamed of my body.'
'I'm not ashamed of it either.'
'You said something a moment ago about spending the night,' Jeanette said.
'It was an attempt at levity,' I said.
'We could, you know.'
'Spend the night together?' I said.
She smiled at me. It was a smile full of invitation and promise. A nice smile, very practiced.
'And all I have to do is give you the pictures?'
'It might be a night to remember,' Jeanette said.
She made a small show of looking at her watch. It was gold and silver and had a big face.
'Maybe,' she smiled again, 'a day and night to remember.'
'That a Cartier watch?' I said.
'Yes,' she said, 'a Panther.'
'Nice,' I said.
She looked at her coffee and didn't drink it.
With her eyes demurely on the coffee cup she said, 'Are you interested in my offer?'
'More than the spoken word can tell,' I said. 'But no thank you.'
She looked up and there was something like fear on her face. I knew what it was. She'd tried money and she'd tried sex. Neither had worked. There wasn't anything else.
'Well,' she said, 'what the fuck do you want?'
'I'd like you to tell me about the sexual harassment suit against Brad Sterling,' I said.
'You'll have to talk with my husband,' she said.
'Mm umm,' I said.
'What do you mean, `umm hmm'?'
'I mean you want to think that through a little?'
