‘What the fuck are you talking about, Conrad?’
‘My room is 538. I just took it. There’s no possibility it’s bugged. Get here as soon as you can.’ I clicked off.
Nan Talbot didn’t e-mail me. She phoned.
‘God, I’m sorry this has taken so long. I got stuck in this city council meeting because the reporter who usually gets stuck with this stuff is covering a basketball game. I hate sports so I told him I’d cover for him. Anyway, I apologize and I’ve got that private investigator’s name for you. You got a pencil?’
‘Ready.’
‘Lyle Gaskill.’
‘Lyle Gaskill. You got anything more on him?’
‘Just a cell number. I tried it. No longer in service.’
‘Well, this is a good start. I really appreciate it.’
‘Sorry I couldn’t get back to you sooner. Say hi to Lucy. Remind her we’ve got a guy for her.’
‘The Nan Talbot Dating Service.’
‘Now that isn’t a bad idea.’
‘Thanks again.’
Not only was private eye Lyle Gaskill’s cell phone out of service, so was he. I Googled him and found that forty-six-year-old Lyle Clancy Gaskill from Chicago had died five months ago of an aneurysm. He had been stricken while playing with his three children in his backyard and rushed to a hospital where he died later that night.
FIFTEEN
S ylvia always used it to her advantage, those sweet, earnest looks and that teenage slenderness. Would this gentle woman ever tell a lie? She brought with her night, chill, rain, and the unmistakable welcome scent of woman.
‘None of your bullshit, Dev. I want to know what the hell’s going on. I wanted to be with Rusty tonight. This is a big rally for him. We’re all set to slap you down once and for all and put that pussy hound you represent out of business for good.’
‘Jeff turn you down, did he?’
She snorted. ‘Believe it or not, I turned him down one night a few years back. This was before I signed on with Rusty. We were at a Washington party. His dear little wife was sucking up to all the important people in the room, as usual. By now she must be wondering why she never gets invited to lunch. She’s beautiful but so are a lot of climbers in Washington. So she’s strictly B-list but she doesn’t know it yet.’
‘Thanks for that update, Sylvia. You want a drink?’
‘What’ve you got?’
‘Beer or bourbon.’
‘Bourbon. And some water.’
‘Sit down at the table. I’ll turn the screen around so we can watch it together.’
‘I race over here and you’re offering me drinks. Where’s the urgency?’
I made her the drink and brought it back to her. Then I went to the TV. The DVD was already loaded. I stood next to the screen with the remote. ‘This is what you’re going to break on the ten o’clock news tonight.’ I clicked play.
I didn’t watch the screen, I watched her face. And a fine patrician face it was, too. She disappointed me. She selected a mask of indifference and left it on for the length of the interview with the prostitute who enumerated all the ways that our congressman was a kinky devil.
I stopped the DVD after the segment about Jeff Ward.
‘I’m curious about where you got your copy, Dev, but not all that curious. It’s a fait accompli. We preview ten seconds of it tonight at ten. Of our copy, I mean. At least you and Ward won’t be shocked.’
‘In most circumstances this would be a game changer.’
She sipped her drink and made a face. Then she pointed a long royal finger at the glass. ‘The urine of homeless people?’
‘Such a delicate flower.’
‘You really need to spend more than a dollar ninety-eight when you buy a half gallon of bourbon, Dev. Now what’s this bullshit about “most circumstances”?’
‘Just sit there, delicate flower, and watch.’
I hit play again. On came the woman who claimed that Rusty Burkhart, family values Burkhart, had not only visited her on many occasions but had also beaten her on three of them. She showed photos of the condition he’d left her in.
No mask this time. This was the real Sylvia Fordham. She was on her feet with the first mention of her client’s name. She kept walking closer, closer to the screen. When the Burkhart segment finished, she dropped her head to her chest and stayed silent for several seconds. ‘You bastard.’ She walked back to the table and sat down. Her gaze was elsewhere. She was making all the same calculations I would have in her situation. ‘Somebody was playing both sides.’
‘Looks that way.’
‘I knew Rusty was having some kind of trouble but he wouldn’t tell me anything about it. He just kept saying it didn’t have anything to do with the campaign.’
Burkhart was smart; even though she was working for him at the moment, he wouldn’t want anybody as treacherous as Sylvia to know he was being blackmailed. You could never be sure what she’d do later on with the information.
‘He’s being blackmailed. The same as Jeff Ward.’
‘Who the hell’s behind it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And of course you won’t tell me how you got hold of it.’
‘Not yet. Not until I know a lot more. And of course you won’t tell me how you came by yours of Ward.’
‘One of the nice things about being a national figure known for digging up dirt is that people offer you things you wouldn’t know about otherwise. A private detective in Chicago offered it to me for a pretty hefty amount of money. Naturally, I couldn’t say no. He didn’t bother to tell me where he got it, and I don’t care.’
‘You need to make a decision here, Sylvia. If you go on with the Ward segment at ten o’clock, tomorrow morning I go to a local TV station and play the Burkhart for them.’
‘All Burkhart did was push her around a little.’
‘She says it was more. And anyway, Burkhart is God’s man in the race. What’s he doing in a whorehouse?’
She reached down. The sound of her purse opening. The sound of her digging around. Her fashionable hand appeared holding a package of fashionable French cigarettes and a lighter. ‘Don’t give me any bullshit about not smoking.’
‘If the hotel sends me a bill, I’ll send it to you.’
‘Are you trying to scare me, Dev?’
‘Not about smoking. But about going on at ten, I am. This is the kind of war that isn’t going to do either side any good.’
‘Afraid we’re going to kick your ass with your wandering boy?’
I sat back in the captain’s chair and watched her light her cigarette. ‘You really want to risk it, Sylvia?’
‘I’m not afraid of you, Dev. You should know that by now.’ She exhaled a trail of blue smoke. How beautiful cancer is in a certain light.
‘And I’m not afraid of you. So if you’re going to the studio, you’d probably better get going. I’ve got other things to do.’
A hint of alarm in the eyes. ‘So I just walk out of here?’
‘You just walk out of here.’
