"Someplace we can sit and talk? Preferably someplace air-conditioned. I have maybe forty-five minutes till the fund-raiser lets out. They instituted a no-press rule. Pisses me off. Leaves me standing out here in this convection oven."
"I'm afraid I still don't have anything to tell you."
She smiled in a way that clearly communicated "Don't patronize me." Her smile was pleasant enough but I was still having difficulty getting past her brilliant eyes and the tobacco fumes.
"You were just with him, weren't you?" "Him?" I asked, feeling caught and feeling stupid.
She laughed at my lame attempt at being disingenuous, caught herself, and swallowed.
"You know whom I'm talking about. Colorado's next senator Raymond Welle? Six two. Handsome enough. Bad five o'clock shadow. Body mass index just this side of obese. You were just meeting with him, I think?"
"I don't… I don't have anything to say."
She licked her lips.
"I already know about the meeting, Doctor. I'm just trying to be polite, here, generate a little discussion. Tomorrow's editions of the Post will report the meeting you just had with Welle. My story won't say what you two discussed because I don't know yet. But the fact that you just had a private tete-a-tete with Ray Welle prior to a major fund-raising luncheon will soon be national news. The local papers here in this thriving metropolis will pick it up off the wires and then-I promise this on my mama's grave-then you'll get lots of calls from reporters who are nowhere near as pleasant to deal with as I am."
"Why on earth would you want to do that? The fact that I met with Welle isn't news."
She shifted the heavy bag from one shoulder to the other.
"Of course it's not news-yet. So I'll bury the fact somewhere in the story to smoke you out.
Eventually, you'll tell me."
I could hardly believe what I was hearing.
"Am I'm being threatened?"
She scoffed.
"You kidding me? You're being encouraged. This…" she waved her hand back and forth between us-"is encouragement. I say please, you say no. So I say pretty please. You still say no. So I try pretty-pretty please. That's what this is. This is the pretty-pretty-please phase of encouragement. Can we go somewhere? This laptop I have weighs a ton. I'm trying to get them to buy me one of those little tiny ones. You seen those? Couple of pounds. That's what I need.
Color screen, word processing and a modem. I don't need the rest of this shit.
What on earth am I going to do with a DVD or a 3-D video card?"
I wasn't press-sawy. I didn't have any way of judging whether or not she was telling me the truth. Would she really print my name in the next day's Washingon Post? If she did Locard would not be happy with me.
To buy time to think, I said, "Yes, we can go somewhere. My car's around the corner. There's a place a few blocks from here."
"I have to be back by the time this thing lets out." She pointed at the tennis house door.
"I'm not going to kidnap you, Ms. Levin."
"Can I smoke in your car?"
"Not a chance." "Shit. My friends warned me about coming to this state. And you can call me Dorothy."
I've always had an affinity for smart women with an attitude. By the time we got to the restaurant I already liked Dorothy Levin.
"I bet I can't smoke here either, can I?" she asked as she was pulling off her jacket and settling onto a chair in Cucina Leone in nearby Bonnie Brac.
"I doubt it."
A waiter approached and she ordered coffee and two chocolate chip cookies. I ordered coffee.
She said, "I never get enough calories when I'm on the road. Do you have that problem?"
"Will my answer be in your story?"
She laughed.
I said, "Let me ask you something. A journalism question. What's it called when I tell you something but you agree in advance not to use it."
She lowered her chin and batted her eyes.
"I think its called a cock tease, isn't it?"
It was my turn to laugh.
She said, "What? You mean not attribute it? Not quote you? That's called background."
"No. I mean not use it at all. You'll know it, but you won't print it."
"Ohhh. Deep background. We're getting sophisticated, are we? Sorry, I don't play that game."
The coffee arrived. Dorothy started into her cookies immediately. She ate them by breaking off small pieces and transferring them to the tip of her tongue as though they were communion offerings.
I announced, "Then I'm afraid this meeting is just going to be coffee." I sat back on my chair and lifted my coffee cup.
"Go ahead and write your story and start to smoke me out. I'll just have to live with the consequences." I inserted as much bravado into the words as I could muster.
She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck with the hand that wasn't breaking apart cookies.
"Don't be disappointed, Dorothy. I wasn't lying before. I really don't know anything that will be helpful to you."
"These are good." She pointed to the cookies.
"Want a bite?" She broke off a corner and handed it to me.
"A peace offering. I lied to you before. About not playing the deep-background game. I'll listen to what you say.
If I start having problems, I'll warn you. How's that?"
"You won't print anything?"
"Unless I come upon the same information independently. Then it's fair game.
But I still won't quote you."
"Are you trustworthy? You lied to me once."
"Hello. You've lied to me more than once. And whom are you going to ask if I'm trustworthy? My cats? My ex-husband? My editor? My shrink? Probably get a lot of different answers." "You're in therapy?" I asked.
"Don't get me started. So why did you meet with him?"
"This is deep background, right?"
She rolled her tantalizing eyes and nodded.
"Okay. I'm a clinical psychologist, right?"
"Yeah"
"So is he. Welle."
"Yeah. This is news?"
"I met with him because I needed to discuss one of his old psychotherapy cases with him."
"That's it? You're seeing one of his old patients and you wanted to compare notes?"
"Not exactly."
"Oh, here we go again. I smell the acrid odor of obfuscation. No more cookies for you." She slid the cookie plate far out of my reach and guarded it in the crook of her elbow.
"It's not one of my cases. It's a quasi-legal thing, actually. I've been asked to review some old therapy records."
"Ah! Malpractice? Is someone suing Welle? Cool. Not as good as a campaign violation, but cool enough."
"No, not like that. Nothing like that. I'm not sure I can tell you more without breaching confidentiality, but suffice it to say that I've been asked to review one of his old cases with him and he was gracious enough to do it." "But a lawyer asked you to do it?"
I thought for a moment. The request had actually come from A. J. Simes.
"No, another psychologist."
"Why didn't the other psychologist do it himself or herself?"
"The other psychologist isn't local. It wouldn't be… convenient."
She chewed on my answer for a moment.
"And that's what you did this morning?"
"Yes."
"In person? He met with you to review a case? I'm sorry, that doesn't make any sense to me. Couldn't that be done over the phone?"
"Could be, isn't always."
"Welle doesn't give away hours to just anybody. What he's doing now at the tennis house-raising money-that's how he spends his free time."
I made a face to indicate I was offended and shrugged my shoulders.
"I asked for a meeting. I was granted a meeting."
"No." She shook her head.
"No. Uh-uh. It's not that simple." She checked her watch.
"Time to go back to my stakeout. Have a couple more people to talk to at the old fundraiser."
"What do they do in there for all this time?"
"Never been to one? It's basically a meeting of rich white guys over forty-five.
Some of them bring wives or dates but over eighty percent of the donors are rich men with an agenda. It goes something like this: