The Up and Comer (11 page)

"I'm sorry, Tyler, what were you saying?" I asked.

"I was saying how I decided to follow around some of the people I knew, or maybe I should say, people I thought I knew, because it turns out you never really know someone. If you don't believe it, try following someone for yourself. It can be a real eye-opener."

I was starting to get the creeps. "You're serious?" I said.

"Absolutely. Hell, not everyone has deep, dark secrets. The worst Kevin Marshall does is go to a tanning salon. You remember him from Deer-field, don't you? Still, I did notice that he looks around a bit before going into the salon, like, not to be seen or anything. Funny when you think about it. So maybe he's guilty of vanity. No great crime. But still guilty.

"Tom Atkinson? You know what he does twice a week? He goes to this prostitute in the East Village. I wasn't sure that's what she was at first, until I staked her place out. You should have seen the traffic! A revolving fucking door she had there. But I'm thinking, Tom is a bachelor, after all, so there's really not a lot of damage being done. Yeah, he wouldn't want anyone to know, but the embarrassment, the potential for embarrassment, could only be so motivating a factor. Ultimately, I didn't bother."

Tyler folded his arms on the table and leaned in.

"Then there's you. You know, I was almost starting to lose faith in my little endeavor. For all intents and purposes, I was oh for two; behind in the count, as they say. Though I'm happy to report, Philly, you didn't disappoint. Not that it was immediately apparent. You were pretty crafty,
 
staggering your entrances and exits.
 
I mean, I knew what you were doing. I just couldn't pinpoint
who
you were doing. In fact, I was thinking about giving up, when all of a sudden you come flying out of that hotel last week — bang! bang! — with that girl.

"My guess is that you got a little cocky, a little too confident. I mean, what are the odds that there's a guy like me tailing you, huh? Wait, what was that you called me this morning? A
blast from the past?
How ironic. Because ain't this just one big fucking ka-boom! for you right now."

Tyler eased back in his chair, mighty impressed with himself. I wasn't about to hit the panic button, though.

"Let's see if I can make some sense of this," I said. "You asked me to lunch so you can break the news that you saw me walk out of a hotel with another woman." For effect, I paused a second. "This is supposed to mean what?"

"I thought you'd say something like that. That's why I brought these." He reached down and removed a manila envelope from a small black duffel bag sitting by his chair. He placed the envelope in front of me. "Go on, take a look," he said.

In that instant, the image flashed before me. A picture of Tyler in the credits section of the Deerfield yearbook our senior year. He had a camera hanging around his neck and this stupid grin on his face. Underneath, the caption read: "Man on the scene — Tyler Mills, Photo Editor." I knew what was coming.

I picked up the envelope and pulled them out. A batch of eight-by-ten black-and-white photographs. Slowly, I started to flip through them. The initial ones were of me — alone — coming and going from the Doral Court hotel. They must have spanned a few weeks, if not a month. Either way, they dated back well before Tyler just
happened
to bump into Tracy outside of Saks. He hoped to be talking to me soon, he had said to Tracy that day. Indeed, just as soon as I gave him his smoking gun.

And there it was. I had flipped to the picture of me and Jessica leaving the hotel together. Our minor breach in security from the week before. The two of us, in a rush, and yet, perfectly in focus. Crisp and clear.

As were Tyler's last few shots. For good measure, he had us both individually coming and going at the Doral Court the very next day. Yes, Tyler Mills was very thorough.

I quickly flipped through the entire set of pictures again, laying them down on the table when I was done. "I still don't know what this is supposed to prove," I said, stone-faced.

Tyler laughed. "Probably nothing in a courtroom. I mean, any dumb lawyer could explain these pictures away as nothing more than a weird coincidence. What were you doing at the hotel? Oh, I don't know, I'm sure you'd think of something. Something just believable enough to create those two magical words that you scumbags live by.
Reasonable doubt.

"Fortunately for me, this isn't about what would play out in a courtroom. No, this is different. This plays out in that most delicate of relationships that exist between a man and a woman, otherwise known as a marriage." He reached over and tapped his forefinger on the pictures. "What might not hold up in a courtroom would sure stand a much better chance back at your home, don't you think? How is Tracy, by the way?"

I tried to remain calm, but it was too late. I could feel my face getting red, the veins bulging around my temples, my fists balling up, and my fingernails
 
digging
 
deep
 
into
 
my
 
palms. Tyler picked up one of the pictures with Jessica in it.

"She's cute," he said. "I can only hope that she was worth it." He grinned. "So tell me, was she?"

"Fuck you."

Tyler shrugged. "I'm sorry, was that a yes or a no, Philly? I couldn't quite tell."

"Fuck you," I said again, forcing the words through my clenched teeth. "And the name, you son of a bitch, is Philip."

"The way I see it, so long as I've got these pictures, your name's whatever I goddamn want it to be."

With that, I casually put my hands on the table, resting them on top of the photos. It was worth a try, I figured.

Tyler looked at me the way people look at a dog chasing its tail. He shook his head. "C'mon, Philly, you don't honestly think these are the only copies to be had, do you?"

Our second waitress returned. "You guys ready to order?"

"Not yet, darling," Tyler told her.

I waited for her to walk away. "Pretending for a minute that you actually have something on me," I said, "what is it that you want?"

"Now we're talking," he said, his eyes lighting up. "What I want is what anybody ever wants. Money, baby."

"Money?"

"That's right. Cash, cabbage, moola! What the fuck did you expect?"

"You know, if you just needed some dough, Tyler, you could've simply asked me."

"For a hundred thousand dollars?"

I gagged. "You've got to be kidding me!"

"Yeah, I didn't think so. Hence, the blackmail. So, what's it going to be, Philly? I've got an account set up and everything."

I started to laugh. I couldn't help it. Right in his face I started to laugh uncontrollably. I'd spent the past five minutes like a boxer reeling from a punch. Finally, I was starting to come around, the brain starting to kick back in. No doubt I was spurred on by the absurd amount Tyler thought he could bilk me for. It somehow made his whole scheme seem instantly less credible.

Now it was my turn.

"What's it going to be?!" I said. "This is what it's going to be, you piece of shit. First, if you call me Philly one more time, I'm going to lodge my heel into your nuts so hard you're going to piss out your asshole, pictures or no pictures. Second, if you so much as think of bothering me again about this, I promise you, you'll be wishing that razor blade of yours had actually done its job."

I stood up, turned, and began to walk out of the restaurant, leaving Tyler alone at the table. I wanted to look back, to see his reaction. I wanted to see what, if anything, he was going to do. But I knew better. In a split second, I had made the decision to call his bluff. Risk Factor 7. It was a risky gambit, for sure, especially given that Tyler Mills seemed very much the guy with little or nothing to lose. Would this be the end of him?

At the time, I could only hope so.

Part
II

TWELVE

Sally Devine showed up drunk for her DUI court appearance.

At first I wasn't sure. Then she reached for my crotch in the hallway of the courthouse and asked me if I really had the balls for the job. Dead giveaway. Thankfully, there was so much commotion and so many people milling about that no one seemed to notice.

"For Christ's sake, Sally, you're loaded!" I whispered at the top of my lungs, all the while imagining the spectacle of standing with her before a judge.

"I am not. I just had a couple drinks to take the edge off," she slurred.

Suddenly her telling me that she'd had only a couple of drinks the day of her accident was put into an entirely new perspective. I had to act fast. Sally had been late, of course. It was nine-fifty-five, five minutes before court was in session.

"Come with me," I said, taking her hand and pulling her through the slalom of delinquents in the hallway.

"Where are we going?"

"Maxwell House," I told her.

We headed up to the second floor and found a small coffee room, probably intended for administrative personnel. I immediately poured a cup for Sally.

She protested, "I don't like coffee."

"You do now," I said. I held the cup in front of her until she finally grabbed it from my hands. She took a sip and made a face.

"Blech! This is horrible!"

I had little sympathy for her. It was already officially a bad day and it wasn't even... I looked at my watch —
shit!
— two minutes past ten. Court was in session. I grabbed the cup back out of Sally's hands and put it down. "C'mon," I said.

We rushed back downstairs, stopping momentarily before the doors to the courtroom so I could compose myself. Two deep breaths and I was ready. In we went.

Westchester County Court was a far cry from your favorite TV law drama. First off, the attorneys were not all attractive. Some bordered on downright ugly, almost as ugly as the room itself, a four-sided homage to the banal. Drama? There was more drama in a ham sandwich. Here, the vast majority of cases called were petty crimes and misdemeanors that, one after the other, tended to become painfully monotonous. Perhaps the only true entertainment to be had stemmed from the tired old man in a robe who sat up on the bench and looked out with a hemorrhoid-induced grimace and spoke in a dyspeptic tone that let everyone know that above all else, this was
his
courtroom. Quite an act.

Sally and I quickly found seats in one of the back rows. As we settled in, I looked over at her. Her normally alert eyes were glassy and distant. Her clothes were disheveled. I leaned over in her direction and silently sniffed. Eau de Tanqueray. This was not shaping up well at all.

I had left my briefcase back at the office, opting, instead, for my litigation bag. Though the morning's proceedings hardly called for anything so oversized, I was the type who felt naked in a courtroom without it. Any courtroom. Lifting the bulky thing up to my lap, I opened it and pulled out Sally's file. Various forms, my notes, the police report…. Ah, the police report. True to form, it contained its share of discrepancies and procedural missteps. If it had been my intent to take this case to trial, we would've had more than a fighting chance. But that wasn't my intent. Rather, in the words of Jack Devine, I was there to make things as easy and painless as possible. And a trial, no matter how good your chances, was anything but. Sally's admittance into the alcohol education program. That's what we were there to get.

I tapped Sally on the shoulder. "Listen, when we get called and go before the judge, here's the deal. You don't say anything. I do all the talking. If by chance, and it would be a slim chance at that, the judge asks you a question directly, don't get nervous. Simply answer him as concisely and directly as possible, and whatever you say, make sure you end it by calling him sir. Okay?"

"Yes,
sir"
she replied. She was mocking me, but I didn't care. Her delivery was perfect.

What to do next? "Defending Your Inebriated Client at a DUI Hearing" wasn't exactly part of my core curriculum back in law school. Still, I felt the need to do something. So I reached into my pocket and pulled out some Tic Tacs. Technically that was something. Telling Sally to stick out one of those heavily bejeweled hands of hers, I shook a few of them into her palm.

"Are these pills?" she asked me, a little too loudly.

I pursed my lips and made a "shhh" face while raising my index finger to my mouth. Back home at the library, Mom would've been proud. "No. They're breath mints," I whispered.

Sally whispered back, "Because if they're pills, I'm telling you right now that I'm not taking them."

"Sally, they're breath mints, trust me."

She cupped her other hand over her mouth and did a quick exhale. The universal breath-check maneuver. With a sheepish grin she turned back to me. "Better make it a double," she said.

Shake, shake. I shook the box of Tic Tacs another time and a few more came tumbling out. Sally popped what was by then a handful of them into her mouth. Shake, shake. For good measure, I shook the box a couple more times and took some for myself.

As we both chomped away on Tic Tacs, I checked Sally's file yet again. Nope, no document had decided to up and disappear in the past two minutes. Though given everything else going on in my life at the time, I wouldn't have been surprised. Three days and counting. That's how long it had been since my lunch with Tyler. So far, so good. Nonetheless, it was way too early to be claiming victory. As far as I understood, blackmail threats didn't really have any statute of limitations.