Do You Want to Know a Secret?

by Mary Jane Clark

  She reached for the handle and turned the lock. In a second, he was inside with her. As Pete put his arms around her, he murmured, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me when you were on the phone with Range.” As he kissed her cheek, and then the side of her neck, he kept lying. “Everything’s going to be okay. Don’t worry. Pete’s here, everything’s going to be all right.”

  Now, at 4:30 in the afternoon, lying on the couch in her office, Yelena was filled with self-loathing. Why hadn’t she confronted him in the bathroom last night? What came over her, that she would let him guide her back to bed like that, let him have sex with her? Had she no pride or self-respect?

  Yelena felt desperate. She had to find out who Pete was talking to last night. Maybe he wasn’t talking about her after all. But what was so important that he had to get up in the middle of the night? She hoped he had been stupid enough to dial direct instead of charging it to his private number. When she got her bill next month, she’d be sure to check for a number dialed that night—the night all the fragile illusions of her desirability were destroyed.

  Chapter 50

  “So there you have it. The whole sorry tale.”

  Dennis crossed his arms in front of him on the kitchen table and laid his head down into them, trying to block out the story he had just told his mother, the only one he could really trust. He was so ashamed!

  “Denny, oh Denny,” she was clucking.

  He hadn’t wanted to unload his worries, but he needed to vent the desperation he was feeling. So he confessed to her the story of the funds embezzled from New Visions and how Bill Kendall discovered the thievery. Dennis was annoyed when she praised Kendall for making good on the money that was supposed to be in the New Visions treasury and allowing Dennis to pay him back monthly.

  “How much did you take?”

  “All together? Five hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Denny!” She was aghast. “What did you do with all that money?”

  He ignored her question. “I’ve been paying the money back, five thousand a month for the last two years. I have no funds for anything else. Do you have any idea what a strain that is?”

  Dennis looked around his mother’s modest kitchen and wished he hadn’t asked the last question. Things looked a little strained at her house, too.

  “Couldn’t you make more money at work?”

  Why had he come here? She didn’t get it. She didn’t understand. As a judge, he was well paid compared to the average Joe, but he wasn’t really making big money by Bergen County standards, and he wasn’t going to be getting any raises.

  “No.”

  “Couldn’t you have asked Mr. Kendall if he would understand and ease up a bit?”

  “I did. I went to him a few months ago and begged him to let me off the hook.”

  “And?”

  Dennis shook his head. “It was awful. The bastard wouldn’t give an inch. Right in front of his retarded kid, he gave me this pious sermon about stealing from the weak. Tried to make me feel this big.” Dennis pinched together his thumb and index finger.

  “But Bill Kendall is dead now,” she said hopefully.

  “I know, I know. I thought my problems were over. But he instructed someone else to take over collecting from me. I shouldn’t be surprised, really. He told me that if anything happened to him, there would be a record of the money I still owed. And sure enough, he left one. Now I’m on the hook to some doctor named Leo Karas. He’s blackmailing me, and it’s even worse than with Kendall. He says I have to come up with ten thousand a month. Where am I gonna come up with dough like that? I don’t have that kind of money.”

  He didn’t tell his mother about the money still in his safe deposit box. That was earmarked to buy the federal spot. God, if Karas made public what he knew—Judge Quinn would not only become Citizen Quinn, but probably Convict Quinn.

  “I do have some money,” he finally admitted, “but even if I pay, it’s never over. With Kendall, at least there was an end in sight, even though it would have taken forever to get there. I’m beside myself. Something’s gotta give. I’ve worked too hard.”

  And spent too much, he thought.

  “My poor Denny. What are we going to do? If anyone ever found out about this, your reputation would be ruined. The family would be so ashamed! Maybe you should have another cup of tea.”

  Chapter 51

  “Dr. Karas’s office.”

  “Hello. I’m calling from Mr. Hayden’s office at Albert, Hayden and Newsome. We represent the estate of William Kendall. We’re going over Mr. Kendall’s finances and want to make certain that Mr. Kendall’s bill with Dr. Karas is all paid up. Can you help me with that?”

  “Certainly. Hold on a moment, please.”

  Greedy bastards, those doctors.

  The receptionist came back on the line.

  “Yes. Mr. Kendall’s bill is entirely paid up.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  So, Karas wasn’t Bill Kendall’s friend. He was his doctor.

  Nate Heller put down the phone.

  Chapter 52

  “Pete Carlson is trying to trash me. I think he’s the one responsible for the Mole story on my breakdown.”

  “That’s a pretty strong allegation.”

  Eliza stared at the books that lined Dr. Karas’s office wall and went over events in her mind. She knew Pete wanted to bring her down. He’d deliberately asked her a question on air that would embarrass her. He was obviously trying to make himself look good while making her look bad. Eliza was sure Pete was low enough to plant the Mole story if he thought it would help his career. She told Dr. Karas her suspicions.

  Karas listened. His face showed no reaction but inwardly he seethed. Pete Carlson was despicable! He’d tried to blackmail Bill, saying that he was going to go public with the knowledge that Bill had AIDS if Bill didn’t resign from the Evening Headlines anchor post. That had been tearing Bill up in the weeks before he committed suicide. That and the painful end of the love affair with Joy Wingard.

  Now, as he viewed Eliza’s strained face, he had little doubt that her interpretation of events was on the money. Carlson would consider her a threat and it wouldn’t be beyond the snake to discredit Eliza and ruin her reputation.

  Dr. Karas considered telling Eliza what he knew about Pete Carlson.

  If things went any further, he would tell her. But he was still hoping that Eliza could handle this herself and that Pete Carlson would hoist himself by his own petard.

  “What do you think? What do you make of what I’m telling you?” she asked urgently.

  He had to give her some warning. “Sounds to me like you could be on the right track. Be very careful of Pete Carlson.”

  Chapter 53

  Nate spent the Memorial Day weekend holed up in his Washington apartment feigning an intestinal virus. He just couldn’t face campaigning this weekend.

  The small space was conducive to planning major strategy as there were few distractions. Just three basic rooms: an L-shaped living-dining room, a kitchen and a bedroom. It was an apartment like many others in the eight-floor building.

  No paintings or decorations hung on the standard rental off-white walls. There was a large wall unit filled with scores of history books and four small television sets. On the rare occasion that he was home to view the network evening news shows, Nate liked to watch the broadcasts simultaneously. He’d sit on the couch with four remote controls, raising and lowering the sound on the Panasonics as his interest level warranted.

  A pile of magazines, Time, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report, was stacked on the floor next to the large brown leather sofa.

  The kitchen looked the same as the day he moved in, stark and neat. A cleaning service came in biweekly.

  Nate spent most of the weekend in the bedroom, finding refuge on the queen-size mattress atop a box spring that rested on the floor. He had never gotten around to buying a frame. On the rare occasions that he brought a w
oman to his room, he knew that his companion for the evening was not impressed with the accommodations.

  At first, he had been overwhelmed, huddling underneath the down comforter with the shades drawn and the lights off, absorbing the shock of what Joy had revealed. All that he had worked for in jeopardy. Joy and Bill Kendall. What a nightmare! Could it get any worse? He jawed that over for a while, literally saying out loud the names of men who would have been even more devastating. After he came up with Saddam Hussein, Manuel Noriega and the grand marshal of the Ku Klux Klan, Nate decided to stop. He could stay in bed for six hours, six days or six months and when he got out, it would still be the same. He had a huge problem. He had to deal with it.

  Shuffling into the kitchen to make coffee, Nate began to review his options. As always, there were only three.

  Option number one: Tell the truth. Tell the world before the world finds out on its own. Where would that leave them? An electorate that might admire the candor of such an admission by the candidate himself most likely would not admire a candidate who, for whatever reasons, couldn’t, wouldn’t or didn’t satisfy his wife. If he didn’t give his wife what she wanted, how was he going to give the country what it wanted?

  So that ruled out the truth option.

  The whistle on the kettle blew. Nate poured water on the coffee granules.

  Option number two: Deny, deny, deny! But denying that there was any relationship at all between Joy Wingard and Bill Kendall would keep the press snooping around to find out how the KEY anchor knew about the AIDS parade before it was even announced. And what if the two idiots were seen by somebody? Washington was a strange town. The Manhattan Project you could keep secret, but let someone unzip his pants in the wrong bedroom and the whole world knew about it! And as Richard Nixon could tell you, “plausible deniability” was rarely plausible and always dangerous.

  That left option number three: Spin it, and spin it hard!

  Nate did not notice that he had forgotten to put sugar into his coffee. He was too busy patting himself on the back for being one of the best spin doctors around. Hadn’t he convinced Haines that focusing on AIDS was not the political risk everybody thought it was? Not only that he’d convinced the media, too. After Win’s speech kicking off the Parade for Dollars, the print media had had a field day and television anchors across the country had rushed to underline the rectitude of the crusade with their usual self-important approval.

  Yes, they’d have to put their own spin on Kendall’s bequest.

  Joy would indeed acknowledge that their mutual attendance at various Washington functions, and Kendall’s interviews of the candidate and his wife, had provided opportunities for discussion on subjects of mutual interest. They had talked at length about various subjects, including AIDS.

  Would they buy it? Probably not totally. Maybe not at all. Much would depend on how good an actress Joy could be. If she was unflustered and convincing, they just might be okay.

  But Win couldn’t be told the whole truth. Bad enough that Joy was going to have to fake it. Nate didn’t trust the candidate to carry off the lie. It would just be better if he didn’t know. He didn’t want Win to have to deal with the news that his wife had been unfaithful. Win shouldn’t be distracted now. His total focus had to be on the campaign. Nothing else.

  If Nate, the forever cynical and skeptical campaign manager, appeared to believe the explanation of the bequest, then Win would most likely go along and accept it also. If the whole scandalous truth came out later on, of course Win would never trust his campaign manager again. As much as Nate loathed the idea of withholding the truth from his friend, he knew that it was his job as the general of the campaign to make the hard decisions. Everything that they had worked toward over the past two decades was at stake. Yes, option number three was their only chance.

  After all, Nate was good at secrets. Admittedly, it would be hard to keep Joy’s affair private because it was so close to home. It was no bother at all keeping the secret about the half-million-dollar payoff he was getting from that joke of a judge in New Jersey.

  The decision made, he was suddenly famished. Nate went to his closet, pulled on some jeans, grabbed a sweater from the jumbled mess on the top shelf and found a pair of loafers in the shuffled shoes on the floor. As Nate jammed his feet into his burgundy Florsheims, his mind raced ahead. At least they could count on Pete to do whatever he could to squelch any KEY News snooping about the Kendall bequest. But the campaign manager was still surprised that Carlson wanted a White House job. Carlson was full of himself, claiming he wanted to make the news, and not report it. “I want to be a newsmaker,” he had said, “not a news reader.”

  Nate had to give Pete credit. The power-hungry bastard had worked out a pretty good situation for himself. If Wingard went to the White House, Carlson was going to get the chief of staff job. If Wingard lost, Carlson still anchored the Evening Headlines. Pete won either way.

  Then it occurred to him. There was a way that Nate could get that payoff money from Judge Quinn whether Win triumphed or not.

  Heading out of the apartment door, he knew what he wanted. Chinese food, and lots of it. He ate Chinese food before every battle. It was good luck.

  Chapter 54

  Top down, the rented red convertible cruised up the West Side Highway, over the George Washington Bridge and north on the Palisades Interstate Parkway. It was the beginning of a glorious Memorial Day weekend, the kind that begs for a ride to be taken.

  Eliza was enthusiastic when Mack suggested that they rent a car for the day and get out of the city. They ached for a little relaxation before another work week began.

  “When I was a kid starting out, I didn’t care how much I worked,” Mack said. “Six, seven days a week, that was fine by me. I didn’t want to miss anything, I was so engrossed in KEY and the news.”

  Mack spoke loudly, making sure he was heard over the radio and the open air. The breeze tousled his thick brown hair, the sun accentuating its clean shine. He wore a pair of faded, nice-fitting Levi’s, a blue and white striped oxford and a good-quality, though well-worn, navy blazer. Eliza recognized the name engraved on the side of Mack’s sunglasses and she could guess the brand of the brown leather dock shoes he wore. The yuppie uniform.

  “But now,” Mack continued, “I treasure my time off and guard it ferociously. I really need the downtime to recharge.”

  Eliza listened, her head back, enjoying the sun’s warmth on her face. It felt so good, so liberating in the open car. She felt a sensation she hadn’t felt in a very long time. It was the feeling of having fun.

  In the rearview mirror, she checked on Janie in the backseat, who had a smile on her face, her eyes squinting as the rushing air blew at her. Eliza suppressed thoughts of work and stories and deadlines, and luxuriated in the moment. A convertible, a sunny May day, a smart hunk sitting beside her, and her treasure in the back. What could be bad?

  “Where are we going anyway?”

  “A little town called Piermont. Ever been there?”

  “No, but I’ve heard it mentioned.”

  “I think you’ll like it. It’s a quaint little village sitting along the Hudson River. It has a 1930s kind of feel. Woody Allen used Piermont for the street scenes in one of his movies. Over the past few years, it’s become more and more popular. The small stores have been leased by boutiques, art galleries and antique shops. Somehow Piermont has managed to retain its charm. There are also a couple of really fine restaurants, and a few fun places to eat, too.”

  “Good. I’m starving.”

  It wasn’t long before Mack maneuvered the car into one of the limited spaces along Piermont’s short main street. Eliza took in its charm and was hooked.

  “And this is only a half hour from midtown?” she asked incredulously.

  He grinned. “I knew you’d like it. How ’bout some brunch? We can walk the street later.”

  The three took their places at a table on the upstairs porch of an informal restaurant
called Terri’s.

  “Vegetarian?” Eliza read the menu, a look of uncertainty on her face.

  “Don’t panic. You’re going to be pleasantly surprised.”

  Eliza and Mack ordered Terri’s omelette special. Janie wanted pancakes. They sat back and relaxed. From their raised position, they watched others strolling beneath them, and savored the atmosphere of the little town. The Hudson River and the Tappan Zee Bridge could be seen not too far in the distance. Weekend sailors guided their tidy white boats on the river. The clean smell of the water permeated the air.

  Fresh-squeezed orange juice arrived along with a basket of small whole wheat and oat bran muffins and bagels. A carousel of little glass bowls full of jam was set on the table. The young clean-scrubbed waitress identified them as strawberry, blueberry, boysenberry, grape and citrus marmalade, no sugars or preservatives added, of course. Janie set right to spinning the lazy Susan.

  “So far, so good,” said Eliza as she spread thick strawberry jam on her second muffin.

  Terri’s vegetable omelettes arrived. They were fluffy and full. Slices of cantaloupe and honeydew melon garnished the sides of the plates. A bowl of fresh strawberries and blueberries accompanied the meal. Janie was satisfied with her pancakes, insisting on pouring the maple syrup herself. “I’ll do it,” she declared determinedly.

  “I didn’t know eating healthfully could taste this good,” Eliza admitted. “In a world where it seems everyone is more and more into wholesome eating, I still enjoy the hell out of a quarter pounder with cheese and an order of fries. Of course, I order a Diet Coke with that, so it’s not so bad.”

  Mack looked at her, smirking. “What about all those health style segments you do on the show. If America only knew.”

  “If America only knew, they’d probably like me better and our ratings would go up. You’ve just given me a good idea for a segment. We’ll call it ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ Harry and I could report the sound medical and expert advice pertaining to good health and then we could confess to the audience what we really do. For example, Harry could explain the latest findings on the benefits of oat bran and then he could close by telling the viewers that he himself plans to go down to the commissary for a Pepsi and two jelly donuts after the broadcast.”