“You had a baby?” I asked.
“Sort of,” he said, laughing. “I gave my first public speech last night.”
“How did it go?” I asked.
“Very well. Here,” he said and give me a silver tube.
Charles explained that he’d given the speech to a packed hall in Aspen, made lots of contacts, and then driven back this morning. He had even met Newt Gingrich and Senator Dole. He said that giving a speech wasn’t that much different from lecturing, or presenting a brief, or doing a rap at a door, except that you had to read off a Teleprompter, which took some getting used to.
“Wow, that’s cool, did you write the speech?” I asked.
“Robert and I wrote it. Robert wanted to come and, of course, Amber wanted to come, but, I don’t know, I thought it might be easier if I was there on my own. Amber tells me you escorted her to that play she’s been going on about.”
I nodded. He smiled. There he was. Together, tall, confident, just the sort of person who gets elected to Congress, whose past indiscretions are swept under a rug, never to see the light of day, the sort of fucker who pops up on a vice presidential ticket five years from now. I don’t know what kind of a person Maggie Prestwick was, but I’ll bet she was worth ten of Charles. Victoria Patawasti, I know, was worth a hundred.
“Come on, we’re having a meeting, everyone’s invited, including the campaigners,” he said.
“How democratic,” I muttered.
The meeting was just a pep rally for Charles. He talked about his speech and the conference, how he’d met half a dozen senators, congressmen, and governors. He told us that we should all be ready to see some big changes in CAW in the coming months. CAW was going to be adopted by influential people within the GOP as a counterweight to Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, who were firmly in the Democratic camp. It would mean more money, more work, more potential for growth. He didn’t mention August 6, but he was itching to, I could see that.
My eyes flitted down the table to Amber. Dressed in burgundy slacks and a tight silk cream sweater, her hair piled under a beret, it was a look I hadn’t seen her pull off before. She resembled Faye Dunaway in one of those films from the seventies. She mustn’t have had time to fix her hair before Charles had unexpectedly shown up. That would have been fun if he’d appeared even sooner, interesting seeing her talk her way out of that one. Would Charles’s violent streak extend also to the killing of his wife and her lover in their marital bed? No, a bit too clichéd for him. It would not serve his future self.
The meeting broke up, and although Amber looked nervy, I needed to speak to her. I pushed through the crowd.
“Nice hat,” I said, just as Abe bumped into her, making her spill her tea.
“What?” she said, glaring at Abe.
“Sorry,” Abe said, chastened.
“Forget it,” Amber said, recovering her poise and giving me a nod.
“What did you say, Alex?” she asked.
“I like your chapeau,” I said.
“Thank you, Alexander.”
“You look like Faye Dunaway,” I said.
“Faye Dunaway?”
“Yeah.”
“Doesn’t she always play the villainess?”
“No, I don’t think so. She was the victim in Chinatown.”
“Well, that’s not good either,” she said with a tight smile.
“Hey, it was cool about Charles, wasn’t it, apparently he was a big hit,” I said.
“He was, I really should have been there, it was selfish of me to go to the play,” she said almost to herself.
“But you would have put him off,” I said.
“Yes, that’s what he said,” she muttered.
“Next time, maybe he’ll want all of us there, as his confidence grows,” I said.
“Perhaps,” she said, and looked at me for the first time. Abe, Robert, and Charles began laughing at something. I took the opportunity to lead Amber to the windows at the far side of the room. I kept my eye on the trio behind us. Maybe we were looking at the gray clouds, debating the possibility of rain. Denver needed rain badly.
“How soon did he get there after I left?” I whispered.
“About an hour, it was close,” she said.
“Jesus,” I said. “But everything was ok?”
“No, I don’t feel well at all. After you left, I threw up. Revolting,” Amber said.
“Maybe the whisky,” I said, but of course I knew it was the heroin. That was a dumb move on my part, I was lucky I didn’t give her a bloody heart attack.
“Alexander, I don’t know what to think about last night,” she said softly.
“I know, I know,” I said stupidly.
“It’s confusing. I, I think, perhaps, we shouldn’t try to see each other again for a while,” she said.
I looked at her. She was so beautiful and at a loss. I was surprised. I thought she was going to say either “Alexander, I need to talk to you” or “Alexander, this was a terrible mistake” or “Alexander, I can’t see you again.” But not confusion. That was unexpected.
“Do you want to see me again?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“I had a wonderful time,” I said, perplexed.
“Me, too,” she said, and smiled so sweetly that it made my dick skip a beat. Was I falling in love with her?
“And you hid everything? And he has no idea?” I asked.
“No idea, he was talking all about his speech, all about himself,” she said.
“Good,” I said.
She touched my hand. This, I saw, would be one of those moments I would always remember. Robert, Abe, Charles, fifteen feet from me. Charles’s wife touching the back of my hand. Five people in this room. Charles laughing. Amber looking at me with sadness in her eyes. What was betrayed on my face? What emotions was I revealing? Could she read me like I was supposedly reading her?
Aye, the moment.
The room. Denver out the window. The Rocky Mountains. The rest of the great North American continent curving away to the horizon.
Amber.
Amber’s husband. Victoria Patawasti’s killer. With those hands. With that fingertip he squeezed the trigger. With that laughing face. Standing there, grim, in Victoria’s apartment. Standing there. Perhaps admiring his handiwork or perhaps recoiling at the horror of it. Stepping back, remembering to drop the driving license, walking out, closing the door, taking the elevator, holding on to the gun. Amber, the devoted wife saving the day. Drop it in the nearest river. Cherry Creek. Drop it. Get rid of it.
Amber. Her lips parted slightly. Breathing out. Her finger on the back of my hand. If time could freeze then we all survive and the bad things don’t happen and it doesn’t get worse. But time can’t freeze….
Amber lifted her finger from the back of my hand, leaned back. Charles was looking at us.
“What are you two conspiring about over there?” he asked, grinning.
“Maybe it’s going to rain. Make a change. Be nice, be like real Irish weather,” I said, meteorology always a good fallback.
“When we were in Dublin it didn’t rain at all, did it, Robert?”
“It did not,” Robert agreed. “We c-could do with a good downpour here, forty days and forty nights, if we’re lucky. They haven’t let me water m-my lawn since March of last year.”
Amber turned away from the window and walked back to the others.
“I’m very proud of you, darling,” she said to Charles.
“Maybe we’ll all get to go to the next conference, or even the convention in San Diego,” Abe said, getting between Charles and her.
“It’s possible,” she said, examining the tabletop like it was the Risk map of the world and she was in trouble in Central Asia. She couldn’t look at him. I walked over and joined the merry group.
Charles finished his conversation with Abe, put his arms around his wife, and lifted her up in the air.