Blindside

FOURTEEN

It was time to call Erin. Every tenth thought had been of her since Sarah had called me. Third-stage cancer. Impossible. Her face at our wedding; her face in the hospital bed the night she delivered Sarah; her face watching Sarah in a third-grade play. Beautiful, smart, funny, sad Erin. So many things. And so many times now I wished she were still my wife.

I opened a beer, parked myself at the table and then spread flat in front of me the piece of paper I’d written Erin’s number on. I placed it next to my cell phone.

I was trying to prepare myself. I wanted to sound friendly and concerned as soon as she answered. I wanted to let her know how much I still cared about her. I wanted to talk about Sarah, because after we discussed Erin’s health that would be the subject that bound us together. Mother and father of our beautiful daughter.

I just didn’t want to say the wrong thing. She was going through hell and I didn’t want to make it worse for her in any way.

I swigged some beer and set the bottle down again. I took a deep breath, the way those kids in South America must do just before they dive off the sides of mountains into the sea.

Erin’s voice had changed considerably. It said: ‘This is Dr Connelly speaking.’

I’d assumed Sarah had given me Erin’s cell phone number. Not the residential one.

For years I’d thought of him as the man who’d broken up my marriage. But after I started being honest with myself, I realized that our marriage had been over long before he came along.

‘Hello? Is this Dev?’ My name had come up on his caller ID.

‘Yes. I’m calling to see how Erin’s doing.’

‘She’s a strong woman, as you know. But naturally at a time like this she’s thinking about her entire life. She wanted to talk to you. You’re important to her, Dev. It’ll help her just to hear your voice.’

‘She’s a good woman.’

There was a pause. ‘Look, Dev, I know this is awkward for you. It’s awkward for me, too. But there’s always been something I wanted to say to you. Erin tried but she thinks you don’t believe her. A month and a half before I even met her she’d gone to her attorney and started proceedings. If that hadn’t been the case I would never have asked her to have dinner with me. I hope you believe that.’ Another pause. ‘The main thing is that she needs us both right now.’

‘I agree.’

‘By the way, Andy is what my friends call me.’

‘All right, Andy. Can she talk on the phone now?’

‘I’ll get her in a second, Dev. But there’s one more thing I need to explain. She’s going to ask you to fly out here to be with Sarah and me on the morning she has surgery. I want you to know that I’m all for that. When she’s in post-op and wakes up with the three of us standing around her, that’ll be a big boost for her, believe me.’

I wanted to hate him but he wouldn’t let me. A part of me was still nursing The Wronged Husband; his concern was for the woman he loved. His ego didn’t matter. She had invited her ex-husband to come to her bedside. He was that rarest of beings: a real adult. The sneaky bastard.

‘You don’t have to make your mind up now, Dev. But please give it serious thought.’ In his laugh I heard fatigue. ‘I’m sure Sarah’ll be working on you about it. Now I’ll get Erin.’

There was a minute’s wait and then she came on the line, a voice from a shared past of memories that still had the power to crush, of a love I knew I’d never find again, a love that I had taken for granted and wasted.

Another phone clicked off as Erin said, ‘Remember that spooky fortune teller we went to in New Orleans?’

We’d honeymooned there for a week. I was on a brief leave from the army. One night we’d been giddy on wine and each other and had stumbled along steamy summer streets into an area that seemed to have all the remnants of a deserted circus scattered along shadowy broken sidewalks. We’d gone to an elderly woman who smelled of onions and cooking oil and marijuana. Her crystal ball was cracked down the center. We’d both been laughing as we went in, as I imagined most of her customers did. But soon enough Erin was taking the woman very seriously.

This was the living room of a house that should have been condemned forty years ago. It tilted when we entered it. The wood reeked of age, a vinegary odor. Black curtains divided the room in half. The woman and her attire were strictly central casting. Gypsy fashion cut for a woman of enormous size. The Day-Glo posters of astrological figures were diminished in impact thanks to her sad old dog that kept peeing on the floor about a foot from my leg. He licked his chops so loudly he almost drowned out his magical owner.

The woman — Madame Celestia, as I recall — went through the usual mumbo jumbo in a droning voice. I didn’t pay much attention. I just wanted to get out of there. Erin was spellbound.

Then Madame Celestia’s phone started ringing somewhere behind the curtained area in her tiny front room. She wore so many beads and chains she clacked and jangled as she moved. So much for show business. She hefted her considerable body from the chair, farting as she did so, and then plowed through the separation in the curtains only she could see. She left with no explanation or apology. Soon enough the phone stopped ringing and she was shouting at somebody in Creole. Whoever had called had made her mightily pissed.

After slamming the phone down, she reappeared. ‘I must help someone the dark gods have captured. I am also a witch and know the magic to free him.’

Drug connection? Cops about to land on her?

Then, remembering that she hadn’t concluded Erin’s reading, she leaned forward with alien eyes and said, ‘Oh, yes, before I forget. You will lead a charmed life.’

As she disappeared again, I started laughing, which irritated Erin. On the sidewalk she snapped, ‘You heard what she said and you’re laughing? I’m going to have a charmed life.’ She was gorgeously silly and drunk.

But our argument was brief. Within twenty minutes we were walking along the river where we found a park perfect for making honeymoon love. How I had wanted that moment to freeze in time; there were nights after our divorce, and in my worst lonely drinking, when I would reach out to snatch the memory as if it were a golden bird.

‘I want my money back from Madame Celestia. Do you remember her?’

‘Vividly.’

‘The whole “charmed life” thing?’

‘I don’t blame you. I think you should get a lawyer and sue her.’

I could hear giggling. ‘God, this is the first time I’ve laughed in a few days. It feels great. Thanks.’

‘I charge for stuff like this, you know.’

‘Keep me laughing and I’ll send you whatever you want.’ Then: ‘I’m sorry the way we ended up and how strange it all got, Dev. I didn’t handle it very well. I was so angry with you, I didn’t consider your feelings. I hadn’t cheated on you but it felt like it — marrying Andy so quickly, I mean. You know how much I loved you for so long, Dev. And now that this has happened — I just wanted you to know that one of the most comforting things I have is my memories of us in the early years. You’re still with me, day in and day out. I still hear you and sometimes I think I even see you, but it just turns out to be a stranger. I just wanted you to hear me say that.’

‘I feel the same about you, Erin.’

I wanted to hold her, kiss her, make her better. And Dance Her to the End of Time, the song she’d played over and over.

‘And we have Sarah.’ She wasn’t exactly crying; my sense was she was trying not to. But her voice trembled. ‘She’s so beautiful, Dev.’

‘And so are you, Erin.’

Now the tears came gently, softly. ‘Would you fly out for my operation so we can be together, like a family?’

‘Of course I will.’

I sensed a smile through the snuffling. ‘Andy.’

‘What?’

‘He told you I’d ask you, didn’t he? Otherwise you wouldn’t have answered so quickly.’

‘Will this get him in trouble? I gave him my Boy Scout pledge.’

Another giggle. ‘You and your stupid Boy Scout pledge. You’re still using that after all these years?’

‘Yeah, it’s probably time I got some new material.’

‘I know you like Andy. You try not to and I don’t blame you in some ways. He’s just so damned nice. And it’s not put on. It’s how he really is. He cares about people and he really cares about me. Sarah tried to resist him at first but he finally won her over.’

Sarah had indeed resisted him. She’d supported her mother divorcing me but she was suspicious of Andy for the very reason Erin had fallen in love with him — he was so damned nice. Sarah hadn’t believed it and neither had I, and so we’d commiserated and speculated about when he would reveal himself to be a monster. But even Sarah had succumbed to his decency and for a bitter time I’d felt that I’d lost both wife and daughter to him.

‘I can’t wait to see you, Dev.’

‘Everything’s going to be all right, you know.’

‘That’s what Andy says. He’s very optimistic. But it is stage three. I’m scared, naturally. But with you and Sarah here — I still love you, Dev. I love Andy, too, but it’s a different kind of love with him. I still love you so much.’ Then, ‘Just a few days till the three of us are together again.’

‘I love you, Erin.’ I smiled. ‘I just wanted you to hear me say that.’

‘You’ve made me laugh again. And you used my line.’

‘I’ll see you in a few days.’

‘This has been wonderful, Dev. It really has.’

I sat there a long silent time afterward, a willing prisoner of the past.

‘How much have you paid so far?’

‘I’m trying to be pleasant about this,’ Jeff Ward said. ‘I wish I hadn’t even mentioned it the other night. I’ve handled it.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means that when my father ordered me to let you come down here he meant for you to look over the campaign. And this has nothing to do with the campaign because I’m taking care of it on the side.’

‘It has everything to do with the campaign and in other words you don’t want me to know what the blackmailer’s got on you or how much you’ve paid him or her.’

‘It’s none of your business. I was tired when I told you about it. I shouldn’t have said a word.’

‘I already know anyway.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

My hotel room. Nearly five o’clock. Raindrops shimmied down the windows. Wind lashed the trees across the street. The congressman had complained that I didn’t have the right to order him up here. I argued that this was the only safe place to talk. To that end I’d switched rooms. If anybody was planting bugs they were now one room behind.

We sat at a table overlooking the street that early dusk and rain had turned into gloom punctuated here and there with stoplights and neon. Green and red and yellow and the occasional ice blue for bars.

‘I’ve seen the blackmail DVD, Ward. I take it you have, too.’

‘Where the hell did you get hold of it?’

‘Right now I’d rather not say.’

‘You’d rather not say? You’re working for me, remember?’

‘No, I’m not. But I am trying to help you.’

He started rubbing his face with one hand and squeezing the beer bottle hard with his other. Rage and frustration rose from him like smoke from a machine that was about to explode.

‘Did you recognize the woman on the video?’ I said.

I had to let him sulk for a minute or so. ‘I didn’t actually see the video.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I didn’t see the video. I heard it. That’s what he played for me.’

‘Who’s “he”?’

‘How the hell do I know who “he” is? He’s the ‘he’ who called me up and played the audio and said that this is from a video that they’re willing to sell me for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.’

‘And you paid him?’

‘Yes, I paid him.’

‘And you got a copy of the video?’

‘I didn’t get dick. The bastard screwed me.’

‘How long did it take for him to come back for more?’

‘Do you know how smug you sound right now? You know everything, don’t you, Conrad?’

‘I got it from TV when I was about ten, Ward. Blackmailers always come back for more. That’s rule number one. No genius involved in knowing that. So how long did it take?’

He swigged beer and then brought down his bottle like a judge gaveling down after he ordered a prisoner’s death. ‘One month. He wanted another two hundred and fifty thousand.’

‘What did his voice sound like?’

‘Electronic. Robot stuff. I’m only assuming it was a man. Could’ve been a woman the way they can do these things today.’

‘The prostitute on the tape. Was she telling the truth?’

He moved around in his chair and his eyes avoided mine. He was uncomfortable now. ‘Everybody has kinks. Everybody. Don’t tell me you don’t.’

‘I probably do.’

‘And she didn’t have any problem with what we were doing when we were together those times.’

‘Maybe because you were paying her. And maybe because she needed the money.’

‘Yeah, well, whatever, she didn’t say anything about it at the time.’

‘She never said at any time that she’d rather not do those things?’ Which is what she claimed on the DVD.

‘Well, I suppose she did. But she’s a whore. They all give you that shit from time to time. It’s just a way of getting more money from you. “I’m doing this extra-special thing for you so would you do something extra-special nice for me?” And anyway, what are you, a voyeur? Why are we even discussing all this crap?’

‘Because if this ever hits the press we’ll have to refute everything she says on that tape point by point.’

He came up out of the chair as if he was going to dive at me which, at that moment, I wouldn’t have minded. I’d slam his head against the table a few times and throw him the hell out and leave him to his fate. I just had to keep telling myself, We can’t lose this seat and let somebody like Burkhart win. He was fine as long as you weren’t of color, gay, poor, or held the protections of the Constitution near and dear. And not the so-called Constitution Burkhart and his followers had twisted into confirming all their prejudices.

‘Maybe you’re in on this whole thing, too.’

The stress was starting to make him paranoid.

I grabbed him by his famous black hair, then put the palm of my hand against his nose and shoved him backward as hard as I could. He hit the captain’s chair with enough force to knock it over. He followed it down, still ranting.

I went and got myself another beer. By the time he got up he’d quit calling me names. I sat down and sipped at my beer and watched him.

‘I’m calling my old man and you’re gone — out the door, believe me.’

‘You going to tell him about the hooker? Now get your ass back here. We’re not done talking yet. And the next time you throw a tantrum I’m going to do what you want me to do — I’m going to make a reservation on the next plane out and leave you on your own.’

He had too much scorn and pride to admit that he didn’t want me to do that. But with great dramatic reluctance he did upend the chair and come back and sit down.

‘I’m trying to figure out how big the circle is — who else knows you’re being blackmailed?’

He said it so casually I half wondered if it was a joke. ‘My wife.’

‘You told her everything?’

‘I had to. She reamed my ass out of course for being with a hooker. She knows I run around but I usually stick with women who keep themselves clean. She’s scared of AIDS. I had to tell her so she’d help me with the money drop. I couldn’t ask anybody else on my staff to do it. I didn’t want anybody else to know. And I just explained to her that if she didn’t do it we wouldn’t be going back to Washington, at least not in the congressional sense. I mean, I could always go to K Street. But being a congressman’s wife has a lot of social perks.’

‘She likes Washington, huh?’

‘She comes from a very social family. Washington reminds her of how she grew up, I guess. I knew that if I told her I might lose the seat, she’d help me.’ I didn’t like his smile. ‘I know how to handle her.’

To his credit he fought for all the right causes — and I believed he was sincere about them — but he was removed from the real world as most of us define it. His money and his mother-spoiling had made him more like a tourist than a resident. And it also sounded as if he’d married a woman just as vain and foolish as he was.

Then, by God, a whimper; a real whimper. ‘Why the hell did David have to walk off now?’

In true sociopathic fashion, he just couldn’t imagine why anybody whose wife he happened to be planking decided to leave the castle. ‘You really don’t see why he did it?’

‘If you mean his wife — it was just a whim on both our parts. She’ll straighten out. She’s just got some kind of weird fixation on me. That kind of thing always passes. I tried to tell David that but he was too pissed to listen.’

There was no point in pursuing it, though now that he’d mentioned Nolan I wondered if there’d been any news about him. I asked Ward.

‘He’s probably getting drunk somewhere. He does that sometimes. He gets real down about something then disappears for two or three days. Ends up sleeping it off in some motel somewhere.’

‘Tomorrow night’s the debate. You going to be ready for it?’

‘I thought you were only going to be here for two days.’

‘I can always leave.’

‘No, no — it’s just — I know you’re helping me. I have to admit that. But you’re like my boss and that pisses me off. I don’t like to be told what to do.’

‘I’m making suggestions. You don’t have to follow any of them. I’m not the “boss.” You’re the candidate. You make the final decisions.’

‘I guess you’re right.’ He drank mightily of his brew. ‘This is the first debate in my career where I won’t have David at my side.’

‘He’s good.’

‘If he’d just understand that it didn’t mean anything to me.’

I wanted to laugh. Or smash his head in with a brick. Whichever came first. ‘You know how stupid that sounds? You’re sleeping with a man’s wife and you’re telling him that it doesn’t mean anything. Now you’re not only insulting him, you’re insulting his wife as well.’

He shrugged. ‘Maybe you’re right. I know I’m not real sensitive sometimes.’

You have to look at these guys and wonder if they’re of the same species you are.

‘All right. I need to get to work and I’m sure you’ve got things to do. I want to start working on the source of this DVD. I’ll keep you posted up until what time?’

‘Around midnight. We usually watch one of the late shows in bed.’

‘I probably won’t have any news tonight but in case I do, leave your cell on.’

At the door, he said, ‘I could really lose this, couldn’t I?’

This was just now occurring to him? ‘Not if we’re smart.’

The grin belonged to a younger man. A more decent one. ‘That’s exactly what David would say. He’s never let me down.’

I just nodded. I was sick of him and sick of myself for being so pompous about him.

Twenty minutes later Kathy Tomlin called me.

‘Have you been watching TV?’

‘No. Been working.’

‘Something’s going on. Lucy and I always keep monitoring the stations and Channel News Update just claimed that tonight at ten they’ll have an important story about one of the candidates in this congressional race. Have you talked to Jeff?’

‘He was here until just before seven.’

‘And he didn’t say anything about this?’

‘No. And he would’ve. We went over a lot of things. I’m sure he doesn’t know anything about this.’

‘Well, he doesn’t pay attention a lot of times. David always does that for him.’ Lucy said something in the background. ‘Lucy and I have a terrible feeling about this.’

‘Tell her so do I.’

‘Is there anything we can do?’

‘See if you can get anybody at the station to tell you what the story is. You know anybody there well enough?’

‘I knew one of the sports reporters in college.’

‘There you go.’

‘I don’t know how he feels about me. I kept turning him down for dates.’

‘It’s worth a shot.’

‘Lucy is waving hi.’

‘I’m waving hi right back.’

‘Are you really?’

‘Pretty much.’

I still didn’t have the name of the private investigator. I’d tried Nan Talbot’s cell phone and her work phone and her e-mail but couldn’t get a response.

I was more worried than I’d let on about this ten o’clock announcement. In a Florida district once Sylvia Fordham had pulled this same stunt. She’d managed to get herself a live interview on a ten o’clock newscast. She’d accused the opponent of a dalliance with one of his office women who’d proved to be an illegal immigrant of Hispanic extraction. Sylvia gave good TV. Her man had been three points behind when that little red light went on and she started talking. Same time next night, polling indicated that they were one point behind — inside the margin of error, of course.

I was surprised by how accessible she was.

‘I thought you’d wait to congratulate me until after the ten o’clock show, Dev.’

‘I’m calling to tell you you’re making a big mistake and that you don’t know what the hell you’re dealing with, Sylvia.’

‘Right. So we’re going to blow your man out of the water and I’m making a big mistake?’

‘You’re at headquarters. That’s only six or seven blocks from my hotel, the Royale. Get over here fast.’

‘I’m not sure if we should start sleeping together, Dev. We might start talking in our sleep and give things away.’

‘Knock off the bullshit, Sylvia. You know me and I know you. We don’t like each other but we’ve both been in the same game for a long time. I know when you’re serious and you know when I’m serious. Now I’m telling you that there’s something you need to know before you go on that newscast tonight.’

‘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.