Page 12
“Who hired you to take these?” he asked, looking up.
I liked the guy.
“She said her name was Cynthia Acres,” I replied.
That made his eyelids tighten.
“Cindy?” He might have been a child registering his mother’s first betrayal.
“That’s what she said, but when I looked into it I found out she was a ringer sent in through a third party to gather dirt on you for Albert Stoneman.”
“So it wasn’t my wife?”
“No. Not love, but politics as usual.”
“So Stoneman hired you.”
“Probably hired me. A man named Ossa James employs the woman posing as your wife. Ossa is a paid political adviser to Stoneman.”
Acres put his right hand up with the palm confronting his face; then he rubbed the center of the palm with the fingers of his left hand.
“I don’t understand,” the congressman said. “Why would they have you bring the evidence to me instead of making it public? Why would they allow you to identify them?”
“The dollar is my master, but I ain’t no slave,” I replied. It was something my father used to say. “When I realized that the woman who hired me wasn’t your wife I got kinda mad. I once had a woman lie about me and I didn’t like it one bit.”
Acres put both his palms flat on the table.
“Is this man bothering you?” a burly man asked Bob. By his white uniform I thought that maybe he was a cook. The authoritative way he asked the question meant that he was either a thug or a member of the Orelli clan.
“No, Chris, this is an aide of another member of Congress come to deliver a message.”
Chris turned his grizzled gaze upon me. He had more muscle but I probably had better training. I had a license to carry too, but I usually left the hardware at home, or in the trunk of my Bianchina; this because of the memory of that iron rod in my calloused hand.
After the self-appointed bodyguard left, Acres asked, “So what do you want? And what’s your name?”
“Whoever told you about me didn’t give a name?”
“No. She just said that there was a detective following me.”
She.
“I don’t need a name for this talk, Congressman Acres. And what I want is not a physical thing.”
“I will not resign,” he said.
“Look, man, I’m a Democrat and an ex-cop. Three people in a motel room in New Jersey don’t mean a thing to a cop, and you bein’ a right-winger doesn’t mean much either. I’m here because a halfway-decent detective could watch you, follow you, and get pictures like those without even having to work hard at finding a way in.
“I figure it like this—either you want to get caught or you’re just so hungry for it you kind of lose your mind sometimes. If it’s the first I know a good therapist. If it’s the second I know a woman named Mimi Lord. For a competitive rate she will set up rendezvous that Sherlock Holmes could not pierce.”
“That’s it?” Bob asked when I didn’t continue.
“I’ll call the second Cindy and tell her I couldn’t find anything. They’ve already paid me for half the work. I’ll tell her she’s wasting her money, that she doesn’t need to pay the rest. But you have to do something for me.”
“How much?”
“Not money. I need to know who told you about me.”
Acres had walnut eyes to go with the golden sports jacket he wore that day. Those orbs revealed the calculating heart of the debauched representative.
