Hush Money

“He was hurt,” he said, “that I hadn’t leveled with him. The sonovabitch. Like he’s telling me about his sex life.”

“But he didn’t fire you.”

“Hell no. The union would be on them like ugly on a warthog. The PR fallout would swamp him, and he knows it.”

“He taking any action?” I said.

Randolph shrugged. “You watch the news on this station?”

“No,” I said.

“Well, if you did, you might next see me covering a fashion show.”

“Or modeling them,” I said.

“Ah, if only,” Randolph said.

“Was it Lamont that was doing the blackmail, you think?”

“I don’t know. The letter was unsigned, appeared to be written on a computer. The voice on the phone was anonymous. I have no idea who I talked to, but how big an operation was it?”

“Maybe bigger than I thought,” I said. “Could you tell anything from the voice? It was male.”

“Yeah, male. Native English speaker, I’d say.”

“How old?”

“Couldn’t tell. Wasn’t a kid, or an old person. Twenty to sixty, somewhere in there, I guess.”

“Race?”

Randolph shook his head.

“Anything to indicate that it wasn’t Prentice Lamont?”. “Given that I don’t know who Prentice Lamont is, no.”

We sat for a moment. Outside his cubicle the newsroom clattered and hustled. Monitors gleamed. Assignments were being given. Phones were ringing. Computers were being keyed.

“You talk to any other people who’ve been featured in OUTrageous?” I said.

“No.”

I nodded.

“How come you get a cubicle?” I said.

“Senior correspondent,” he said.

“Wow,” I said.

“Yeah,” Randolph said.

We sat for another moment.

“You know what my real name is?” Randolph said. “My real name is Dick Horvitz. Media consultant said it didn’t have sympathetic overtones.”

“Gee,” I said, “I choked up the minute you said it.”

“You ever wonder why people care about shit like this?” he said.

“Often,” I said.

“You have an answer?”

“No.”

He leaned back and put his feet up.

“Senior correspondent,” he said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

It was time to find out more about Prentice Lamont. So I drove over to the university and parked my car in a space marked faculty only. Actually it was past time to find out about Prentice. If I knew any less I’d be in some sort of informational deficit.

I started with the Dean of Arts and Sciences, whose name was Reynolds. We sat in his first-floor office with a view of coeds in the student quadrangle. His desk was neat without being barren, and a picture of his wife and three daughters was displayed on a side table.

“I can get you Prentice Lamont’s transcript,” he said, “hold on.”

He stood and walked to the door and stuck his head out and spoke to one of the women in the outer office.

Back behind his desk, he smiled.

“Things move quicker,” he said, “when it’s a request from the dean’s office.”

Reynolds was a tall trim man with a bald head and hornrimmed glasses. He wore a dark suit with a red silk tie, and a matching pocket square.