Jake's 8

by Howard McEwen

  I introduced myself and he motioned his hand as invitation to sit.

  “Thank you for meeting me here, Mr. Gibb. I have a meeting flying in shortly.”

  “It’s not a problem at all, sir. It’s a beautiful day.”

  “It’s best we skip the weather chit-chat. I’m told that you work with Mr. Carmichael and you are a man to be trusted. I’m told you have some bad news for me. Let’s have it. I assume it’s about my wife and the divorce she wants.”

  I steeled up my courage. I asked myself the question I’d been asking myself ever since Mr. Carmichael told me I’d be performing this bit of ‘client service.’ How am I going to tell a former governor and a former senator that his wife filmed herself having sex with multiple men to use as political blackmail to force him into divorcing her?

  As with telling Kendra, there really was only one answer.

  “Senator, your wife has filmed herself having sex with multiple men and is threatening to release the videos to the press unless you file for divorce.”

  Before I said it, he was looking out at the small aircraft landing and taking off. As I said it, his jaw dropped and his head turned toward me and his eyes widened. The moment faded and he composed himself.

  “You think she really did that?” he asked.

  I squirmed in my seat a bit then came out with it.

  “I saw the videos, sir. It is definitely her and it’s definitely a variety of men. The men are prominent in their fields. These are well-known men.”

  The red rose from under the collar of his white Oxford. It climbed up his neck and flushed his face then passed.

  “You know I met my first wife in the eighth grade,” he said. “Her family moved to Cincinnati from the hills of eastern Kentucky. She spoke with this charming twang that I just couldn’t get enough of. Her father wouldn’t let her date the first year I knew her, but I visited her every chance I got. I loved her. And she loved me. We were married the July after high school graduation. She helped get me through college and then law school. She stood by my side throughout those years in Columbus and Washington. We were both virgins on our wedding night and she was the only woman I ever went to bed with. Then she got sick. Then she died. Then I mourned and two years later I met Holly. She was the second woman I ever went to bed with and I knew after that night that she’d been around the block plenty of times. Like a fool, I mistook her curling my toes for love. Like a greater fool, I married her because she curled my toes. How could I be so lucky the first time and so unlucky the second? How could I be so stupid?”

  “You’re not the first and won’t be the last to be taken in that way. It’s been going on since Eve tossed the apple to Adam, sir.”

  “So she wants me to file for divorce because of that damned codicil her father put into that damned trust of his?”

  “That’s it, sir.”

  “It will leave me broke, you know. I think I’m the only senator in the last one-hundred years to leave the senate poorer than when I arrived.”

  “We can negotiate that with her, sir. That’s why I’m here.”

  “No, Mr. Gibb. There will be no negotiation. I’ve been broke pretty much my whole life. I don’t want another man’s money anyway. I’m no gigolo. But I’m not going to file for divorce. My church won’t allow it. The sin is hers. Let her suffer the consequences.”

  “There’s the rub, sir. I don’t think there are any consequences for her. For a woman like her, I mean. If I understand her.”

  “No deal, Mr. Gibb. I won’t negotiate while being threatened. Tell her to file for divorce or not. I still have to sign off on her checks.”

  “So there is no counter-offer?”

  “I’ve been foolish many times, Mr. Gibb. But I’ve always been honest. I’ve stayed true to myself. I’m going to stay true to my God and true to my church.”

  “This doesn’t have to be this hard, Senator.”

  “Doing the right thing is often hard, Mr. Gibb. That’s why people usually don’t do it.”

  I noticed Senator Hessenbaum’s gaze fixate on a Gulfstream G5 as it taxied closer to us. When it came to a stop, he stood.

  “It was nice meeting you, Mr. Gibb. I hope I can count on your vote. Will you please ask my wife to behave herself? Tell her the life she has with me is a nice life. I’m not such bad company. There’s no need for her to tell the world she’s a whore and that I’m a cuckold.”

  “I’ll pass that along, Senator.”

  Senator Hessenbaum walked toward the Gulfstream. He had an old man’s walk and his sparse hair blew wildly in gusts of wind. The airplane’s stairs lowered and a man and a woman descended to greet him. They shook hands and seemed to exchange pleasantries. The woman stood tall and commanding. She was the Majority Leader of the Senate of the United States. The man was the President of the Senate—also known as the Vice President of the United States.

  The phone rings.

  It wakes me. It’s not my usual ringtone. What gives? I sit up. There’s no morning light creeping through my shades. It’s either way late or way early. I grab my phone. No one there. It still rings. What? It’s not my phone that’s ringing. I look down at the end of the bed. There’s another phone sitting there. It’s ringing. It’s not Kendra’s. She’s gone. She’s at the hotel.

  I shake the sleep from my head and turn on the bedside light.

  Two men are standing at the foot of my bed. They’re big. Really big. Caber-tossing big.

  “You have a phone call, Mr. Gibb,” says the one on the left. He’s draped in a black suit and crowned by a dark, short-cropped haircut.

  “Who are you guys?”

  “You have a phone call, Mr. Gibb,” says the one on the right. He’s roughly the same pile of man wearing the same black suit except this mountain is blond with a crooked nose.

  “FBI? CIA? What?”

  They don’t answer.

  The phone keeps ringing.

  The two of them stare me down and I divide my attention equally between their four eyes.

  The phone keeps ringing.

  To hell with this, I think. I pick up the phone and answer it.

  “What?”

  “Mr. Gibb?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You recognize my voice? I’m told my accent is distinctive.”

  “Yeah, I know it, I saw you at the airport this morning.”

  “Mr. Gibb. I would like to keep my position. To do that, I need Senator Hessenbaum reelected.”

  “How’s that my concern?”

  “I want you to talk your client out of this little gambit of her’s.”

  “If you know her you know that’s not going to happen.”

  “Talk her out of it, Mr. Gibb. That’s all I’m going to say.”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “Do it for your country.”

  “My country or your position?”

  “You have until nine p.m. tonight, Mr. Gibb. Things are too precarious in this country to leave to the whims of a whore.”

  She hangs up and I toss the phone to the end of the bed.

  “Where’s your girl, Gibb?”

  “There’s no girl.”

  ”There’s makeup and tampons in the bathroom.”

  “Makeup? Oh, yeah. I’m a drag queen.”

  “And the tampons?”

  “I really get into character.”

  The giant on the left picks up the phone, takes out the SIM card and breaks it between his thumb and two fingers. He puts it all in his suit pocket. They turn and walk out of my bedroom, walk through my living room and out my front door. They don’t shut it.

  I check the clock. It’s three in the a.m. I start to shake uncontrollably. Being rousted awake at this time of the morning by two thyroid cases and de facto threatened by a woman such as that woman put me on edge.

  I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a glass and tossed in some ice. I poured three fingers of a nice Cognac I’d bought myself. I poured in two fingers of triple sec. I opened t
he fridge and grabbed a half of lemon that was drying out on the third shelf and squeezed in into the glass. I stirred it with my right forefinger. A sloppy sidecar. I downed it in three gulps.

  It didn’t put me to sleep. I checked my watch. It was twenty past. I was glad I’d sent Kendra away, but I could have used someone to talk to. If she was here, though, she’d still be yelling about the men that showed up uninvited in her bedroom. I could call Mr. Carmichael but that seemed like going to daddy. No. I’d handle this.

  I had until nine in the p.m. tomorrow, no, today. When was the best time to call Mrs. Hessenbaum? I didn’t want to call too early. Hell, what was I thinking about? The woman started this. She could stand to be woken up—if she was even asleep. She may be in bed but possibly not asleep.

  I dialed her number.

  “Hello, Mr. Gibb.”

  “Mrs. Hessenbaum, I made the offer to your husband.”

  “What? No ‘hello’?”

  “I made the offer.”

  “And he declined.”

  “You already know?”

  “I guessed as much.”

  “Your husband is an honorable man, Mrs. Hessenbaum.”

  “Yeah, he’s a real bore.”

  “So what’s our next step?

  “You don’t have any ideas?”

  “My idea is for you to go on living as man and wife in name only with Senator Hessenbaum. Keep your mouth and legs shut. Enjoy life.”

  “That’s not enjoying life, Mr. Gibb. Sorry. I tried to be nice. I’ll email you some further leverage.”

  “Email! Just tell me what you have on him now. And by the way, you have any interest why I’m calling at three thirty in the a.m.

  “Just check your email. And why are you calling me at three thirty in the a.m., Mr. Gibb. Couldn’t wait to talk to me?”

  “No. Two goons showed up at the foot of my bed.”

  “Were you alone?”

  “They gave me until nine tonight to resolve this.”

  “It’s bad for your health to sleep alone, Mr. Gibb.”

  “I think you might be in danger. Physical danger, Mrs. Hessenbaum.”

  “Myron is too ethical to do anything that could hurt a fellow human being, Mr. Gibb—even me.”

  “This is bigger than your husband, Mrs. Hessenbaum.”

  “Check your email, Mr. Gibb. Pass along the information to my husband.”

  It took an eternity for my computer to boot up. I logged into my email and spotted Mrs. Hessenbaum’s message. It came from her foundation email. She had latched onto the latest trendy cause de jour to organize cocktail parties around. This one tried to prevent the tragedy of bullying in our affluent, white, suburban, private schools.

  I opened the email. She hadn’t written anything. There was only a MPEG attachment. I clicked on it. The video launched and began to play. Mrs. Hessenbaum had filmed herself again. This time she was with her own husband. I watched for two minutes then clicked the file closed. Senator Hessenbaum was a good man. Nothing I saw on that video changed my mind about that. He was a good man who made a bad marriage to a bad woman whose lack of empathy bordered on the sociopathic.

  I knew she would release this video. I knew it would not only destroy the political future of the Honorable ex-Governor, ex-Senator Hessenbaum and all the good he could do in Washington, but it would make him an object of contempt and derision.

  I checked my watch, fiddled with his card and eyeballed the private number he’d written on it. I wasn’t going to wake the man with this news. I triple checked my front door and laid down for some shut eye. It never came.

  At a minute past eight in the a.m., I dialed Senator Hessenbaum’s private number. He answered on the second ring.

  “Yes,” he said. He sounded wide awake and rested.

  “It’s Jacob Gibb, Senator.”

  “I know, Mr. Gibb. You have my wife’s response?”

  “It’s not a response I enjoy delivering, Senator.”

  “What did I say earlier, Mr. Gibb?”

  “Yes, sir. Her response was another video. It’s of you and her making—attempting—to make love. In a way, sir. In the video you become—emotional. Am I being clear?”

  “No, but I know the incident you mean, Mr. Gibb. She filmed that too?”

  “If you want to give this some thought. If you need time. I’ll be near my phone as long as you need, sir.”

  “There’s no need for that, Mr. Gibb. My position hasn’t changed. Don’t respond to her at all.”

  “You’re a good man, Senator. There’s no need for your career to end this way.”

  “My career has only existed because I’ve made choices like these, Mr. Gibb. Choices based on principle. Goodbye.”

  He didn’t wait for a response before hanging up. I’d just been the delivery man of the deathblow to his political life. It wasn’t my doing, but I felt like hell. My stomach started to churn and there was nothing in the fridge. I hiked it down to Coffee Emporium for a breakfast burrito and a chaider.

  I called Mrs. Hessenbaum back.

  “He said ‘no dice.’”

  “He didn’t say, ‘no dice,’ Mr. Gibb. That’s not how he talks. He said something about honor or integrity, no?”

  “He did.”

  “Silly man. Let him sit with the idea of that video out and about… in Cincinnati, in Washington. He’ll come around.”

  “The ball is in your court now, Mrs. Hessenbaum, but I need to remind you that I’ve been given a nine in the p.m. deadline to convince you to drop this thing.”

  “Or what?”

  “I don’t know what. These are your waters we’re swimming in here.”

  I hung up on her. I couldn’t listen to her anymore. I didn’t want to look at her or speak to her. She disgusted me. I finished my burrito and drained my chaider but didn’t feel like going home. Home didn’t quite feel like the safe place to be after the two mountains visited last night. I was edgy and needed sleep. I felt like wheels were in motion behind the scenes and I was stuck out on some stage—alone and exposed.

  I called up Kendra. She answered. “I’m coming over.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” she said. She gave me the room number.

  I knocked once and the door opened. She saw the stress on my face and laid me down into bed. She took off my shoes, shirt, pants and undergarments and climbed on top of me and made love to me. It was short and intense and I felt her body reach for the heights then I released. Afterwards, I slept.

  I woke up drooling into the overly luxurious pillow of the Netherland Hotel. The drapes were opened and the setting sun was blasting into the room. Something pinged off my forehead. My eyes adjusted in time for me to see Kendra’s fingers fish out a cherry from a jar from the honor bar. I didn’t say anything. I watched her suck the flesh off the cherry, swallow it then spit the pit at me. She bullseyed my forehead again. I rose to my elbow and saw about twenty pits staining the hotel’s crisp white linens.

  She giggled.

  I reached over and grabbed her wrist. I tossed her face-downward onto the bed and took her. Afterward, we ordered cheeseburgers from room service and rented a twelve dollar pay-per-view movie.

  I’d almost forgotten the last few days until my phone rang at eight-fifty nine in the p.m. Kendra was in the bathroom. I yelled at her to stay in there.

  “Have you solved this Holly Hessenbaum problem for me, Mr. Gibb?”

  It was the woman I’d seen on the national news and exiting the G5 with the V.P. to greet Senator Hessenbaum.

  “Not yet. Both parties are in a stand-off. There’s Senator Hessenbaum and his unyielding ethics on one side up against Mrs. Hessenbaum’s complete lack of ethics on the other side.”

  “Mrs. Hessenbaum is your client, Mr. Gibb. You should have resolved this by the deadline I gave you.”

  “I know you’re powerful and all, but you’re adding nothing to this. It’s nothing to do with you.”

  “It’s nine p.m., Mr. Gibb. Times up for Hol
ly Hessenbaum.”

  It wasn’t explicit, but it was a threat. It felt like a mob hit was about to go down. I tossed on my pants and shirt and grabbed my keys. I bolted for the door. As the door to the elevator closed, I heard Kendra yell down the hall, “What the hell, Jake?”

  I called Mrs. Hessenbaum, but there was no answer. I could only assume she was at the country club. The cab made good time out there. I tossed five twenties at the cabbie and hustled through the grand foyer of the country club. There was a party going on in the main ballroom. My lack of Puttin’-on-the-Ritz attire drew attention from the crowd, but there was no Holly Hessenbaum. I made for the bungalow. The path was dark. I tripped. I raised up and smash into someone. We both fell to the ground.

  “I did what you guys told me,” he said. It was Bobby the waiter.

  “Who’s ‘you guys’?” I asked. “What’d you do, Bobby?”

  “Oh, hell,” was all he could manager as he struggled to his feet and made off down the path. I limped down to Mrs. Hessenbaum’s bungalow.

  She was splayed out in the middle of the floor. Her left side was lax. Her right eye stared at me in fright. Beside her lay a broken cocktail glass. Her words only came out as a groan. She seemed to be grasping at—and accusing—the glass. I called 911.

  Ex-Senator, ex-Governor Myron Hessenbaum announced his candidacy for his old senate seat a few months after the night two paramedics wheeled his wife out of the country club and to the hospital. Later, he won his party’s primary and then handily won reelection in a year that the rest of his party took a beating at the polls. His wife’s only appearances were at those two events.

  Even sitting in a wheelchair, she still made for a striking figure. She wore a designer gown and someone had applied her makeup with skill, but her once lovely face was permanently contorted by the supposed stroke. Everyone admired Senator Hessenbaum all the more for standing by his stricken wife as he dabbed away little beads of drool from the left corner of her mouth.