Eisen was looking after the financial end in the interim.'
'Did Cooper actually say bit the dust?'
'I'm paraphrasing,' I said. 'He also remarked that Adele, whom he liked personally, of course, was something of a man eater, and might not necessarily be reliable.'
' Man eater was his term?'
'It was,' I said. 'Are you keeping a journal?'
'You can sometimes gain insight,' Susan said, 'listening to the way people speak.'
'Have you done that with me over the years?'
'Of course.'
'And your conclusions?'
'Sort of a big John Keats,' Susan said.
'That would be me,' I said. 'Silence and slow time.'
'And Cooper agreed to let your accountant in.'
'And staff,' I said. 'Marty will need help.'
'Did he know anything about the special whatsises, or the funny accounting?'
'He said he didn't.'
'Do you believe him?'
'I think he was focused on being senator, and positioning himself for the presidency, and that Kinergy, having made him rich, was now merely a base. I think he had little interest as long as its profits kept growing and its stock kept soaring, which made him look good.'
'So Adele is right,' Susan said. 'He let Rowley and Eisen run the company.'
'I'd say so.'
'How about the O'Mara stuff?'
'Cooper met O'Mara through Trent Rowley, he says. He, Cooper, is of course totally devoted to his lovely wife, Big Wilma . . .'
'He didn't call her Big Wilma,' Susan said.
'I'm paraphrasing. He's totally devoted to Big Wilma. Their marriage has been, of course, blissful, but . . .'
'Any children?'
'One son. A career Marine.'
'Really? Isn't that sort of odd. I mean from a family like that.'
'Probably,' I said. 'But despite how swell Wilma is, and how happily married they are, Coop felt perhaps there was a way to enlarge his life experience and blah and blah and blah.'
'So he decided to take a seminar with Darrin O'Mara.'
'He did. The Eisens and the Rowleys brought him to one.'
'Not him and Wilma.'
I smiled.
'You should meet Big Wilma,' I said.
'Out of place?' Susan said.
'Like a mongoose at a cobra festival.'
'But isn't that O'Mara's rap? Freeing husbands and wives from the bondage of monogamy?'
I shrugged.
'In Coop's case it was hubbies only. Under pressure, he did allow that not only had he an eye for the ladies, but he had eyes for African American ladies in particular, which Big Wilma is not, by the way. And, because he's so decent a guy, and trying to preserve his wonderful marriage, and in order never to embarrass Wilma, or in any way imply a lack in her, he arranged for O'Mara to begin supplying him with the black women of his dreams.'
'What a guy,' Susan said. 'Whose apartment is it?'
'Coop says it belonged to Gavin, who let him use it.'
'You believe him?'
'No. I'm sure Gavin rented it for him. But I don't care if he I ies about stuff like that. If you let a guy like Cooper weasel on the small stuff, he thinks he's winning some of the battles, and it's easier to get the big stuff out of him.'
'Did others at Kinergy use O'Mara?'
'We know Rowley did, and Eisen. Coop thinks that probably some other executives were involved, but he doesn't know who.'
'You think that's a lie?'
