Cooper sat on the couch. Cecile sat quietly in a badly painted Boston rocker in the corner nearest the door. Hawk leaned on the doorframe near Cecile. I sat in front of Cooper on a sea chest that had been painted brown and was being used as a coffee table. Cooper leaned back and rested one arm along the top of the couch. Casual. Fully at ease. A concerned CEO puzzled by the antics of subordinates.
'First,' I said, 'there's nothing personal here. You seem like a nice fellow. Second, there's nothing judgmental. Your sex life is your business. I don't care if you have carnal knowledge of a Chevy Tahoe, as long as the Tahoe is a consenting adult.' Cooper frowned mildly and looked quizzical.
'And third,' I said. 'We got your ass, and it will just slow everything down if you try to pretend we don't.'
'What on earth . . .' Cooper said.
'Stop it,' I said. 'Hawk and Cecile went to O'Mara's courtly love seminar, and Cecile, the lucky lady, made the cut and got invited to the women's mixer. O'Mara's assistant videotaped her, and you reviewed the tapes and, tastefully, picked her for an assignation.'
'That's absurd,' Cooper said. 'I have no idea who this woman is.'
'Which is why you called her Cecile when you opened the door.'
'I did not. She must have misunderstood.'
'None of us misunderstood,' I said.
I looked at the big entertainment center. Mute and sort of threatening on the far wall.
'Hawk,' I said. 'You know how to work that thing?'
''Course not,' Hawk said.
'I imagine I do,' Cecile said.
'See what he's got on videotape.'
Cooper said to Cecile, 'You seem a nice young woman. But this is, after all, an illegal entry, and you really ought to think of your own best interests, here.'
Cecile picked up the remote from the end table beside the couch and clicked on the gizmos in the cabinet, and in a moment the screen lit. She walked over and looked at some videotapes in a holder, selected one, slipped it in, clicked another gizmo, and after a moment of blank blue screen, there was Cecile drinking white wine from a piece of clear plastic stemware at the Balmoral Castle ballroom. Cecile shut it off.
No one said anything.
Then Cecile said, 'The tape of me is labeled Cecile. There are also tapes labeled Marsha, Dorothy, Caroline ... and, you get the idea.'
'Play Marsha,' I said.
'Don't,' Cooper said.
Cecile looked at Hawk.
'Let's go to the videotape,' Hawk said.
She picked up another videotape cassette. Cooper started to get up. I leaned over and put the flat of my hand on his chest and gently sat him back down. Cecile put it in, did the hocus pocus with the remote, and onto the screen came Marsha. Like Cecile she was good-looking, and like Cecile she was black. We watched her with her white wine, chatting with other women, and smiling into the camera. Then there was a somewhat amateurish cut, and we saw Marsha naked, and smiling past the camera, in what was almost certainly this living room. The camera tracked her as she walked through the hall and into the bedroom. Then another clumsy cut and there she was in bed with Cooper.
'Shut it off,' Cooper said.
His voice was hoarse. Cecile looked at me, and I nodded, and she shut everything down.
'My wife,' he said. 'My wife can't know.'
'Why don't you take a walk around, Licorice Stick,' I said to Hawk, 'see if you find some video equipment.'
'I'm leaving,' Cooper said.
He tried to stand, and once again I redirected him with the flat of my hand.
'No,' I said. 'You're not.'
'You can't keep me here against my will,' Cooper said.
'Don't be silly,' I said.
He tried again to get up. I held him down. He tried to push my hand away. He couldn't.
'Coop,' I said. 'You got no chance.'
He strained against my hand for another minute. I could see him debating whether to swing at me or not. He opted, wisely I felt, for not. Hawk came back into the living room with a video camera.
'Bedroom closet,' Hawk said. 'Lotta other stuff in there too.'
'Video equipment?'
'Un-huh.'
'And?'
