"You look lovely," he said.
He put a hand on the flat of my belly and said, "You feel good, too."
The flash of light came from the window straight across the room.
"Jesus!" He was on his feet in a second, bolting across the room, opening the window, trying to grab at something, cursing. He ran to the hall and out the door like a maniac. I could hear footsteps racing down the gravel driveway.
I hurried my nakedness back to the John, got his bathrobe off the knob on the back of the door, and wrapped it around me.
When he got back, George's face was livid. "The son of a bitch got away."
"Someone took a photograph."
"You can bet everything you own to a nickel that that photograph is for Brady."
"We weren't doing anything,"
"Oh no, just you lying naked and me with my hand on you, how much do you think you need for a blackmail photograph?"
"That's ridiculous," I said. "Nothing I've done with you is embarrassing to me."
"I'm not thinking of you being embarrassed. I'm thinking of who he'll show that photograph to."
"In court?"
"Brady's not stupid. That's not the kind of thing you can show in a courtroom. If I know Brady, he's going to use it now."
"Who?"
"Put yourself into his head, think what he would do. Damn it, you should have pulled the curtain if you were going to take your clothes off!"
"I didn't think anyone could see here in the woods. I mean there're no windows across the way."
"That guy was no amateur."
"I was only trying to distract you. I thought you need some R and R."
"Oh I do, I do."
"How can lawyers do things like that?"
"Some do it more easily than others. Some don't."
"Do you?"
He looked at his fingers at first, not answering me, then he said, "Look, Brady doesn't take those pictures, he hires people. I got something from somebody, that's all."
"A picture?"
He nodded.
"Like that?"
"No, just a newspaper clip."
"But the effect is the same?"
"How do you mean?"
"Morally," I said. "Is that what all you guys are taught in law school, dirty tricks?"
"Not in law school."
"I think I'd better get my clothes back on." Halfway to the bathroom, I stopped and asked him, "Who's he going to show that picture to?"
"It's only a guess."
"Guess for me," I said.
His face looked very tired. "Your father," he said.
Thirty-one
Widmer
My secretary said that a Mr. Brady was telephoning. He wanted to speak to me, she said, about my daughter. Which daughter? When she got back on the Hne, she said it was Francine. I didn't know any Brady, but I wondered what had happened to Francine now.
"I'll speak to him," I said.
It is modulation rather than accent that conveys breeding in an American voice. Brady's rasp belonged to a man who had never given any thought to how he sounded.
"I have a photograph of your daughter I think you ought to see," he said.
"I have a great many photographs of my children, Mr. Brady, and I'm quite busy right now."
"I bet you'd have to go back to baby days to find a picture of Francine without anything on."
Oh how I would have loved to tell this Brady person about my treasured photograph and then hang up. "We don't take baby pictures in our family," I said.
"Mr. Widmer, this picture of your baby was taken this week."
I must keep him at a distance. "To what end?" I asked.
"You mean why did she take her clothes off?"
"No. I meant why did she have the picture taken."
"Oh," said Mr. Brady. "I don't think she wanted this picture taken. It was through a window. At some risk to the photographer. It's an expensive picture, Mr. Widmer, and I think you should see it."
I thought it best to ignore this kind of extortion ploy.
"I'm really not interested in seeing pictures of my daughter nude," I said. "Goodbye, Mr. Brady."
Before I could hang up, he said, "One moment, Mr. Widmer. There is one element in this photograph that may make it of special interest to you."
My "yes?" was hesitant.
"It was taken in a man's apartment."
"My daughter is twenty-seven years of age, Mr. Brady, and is free to do as she chooses. Goodbye, Mr. Brady."
"Don't hang up! This is George Thomassy's house the picture was taken in."
I was silent for a moment. I could hear him breathing on the line. Then I said, "Is he in the picture, too?"
"You bet."
It was as if someone had announced that I was in the picture of Francine that I had secreted away. George Thomassy was closer to my age than to hers.
"Mr. Brady, is the object of your call to sell that photograph?"
"Oh no, no. I want to give it to you. After we discuss one or two things."
"Do I get the negative also?"
"There is no negative, Mr. Widmer. It's a Polaroid. Avoids questions from whoever's doing the developing. Can you come up to my office at four this afternoon?"
He gave me his address. It was out of the way.
"I'd feel safer in my office, if you don't mind, Mr. Brady."
"Oh Mr. Widmer, I'm a lawyer."
"Yes, well, could you make it here at four?"
"Of course," said Brady. "Anything to oblige a colleague."
He knew I would be offended by a word suggesting that he and I had anything in common. Time passed as slowly as an inchworm till four o'clock.
Mr. Brady turned out to be a very short man. On my couch, he had to sit far forward so that his feet could touch the floor. In person, he seemed far less menacing than on the phone.
He held up the snapshot by the top corners, close enough for me to see that Thomassy was fully dressed. I thought Francine looked as graceful as an odalisque. The photo was anything but pornographic. I guess I had expected to see them copulating.
Brady put the snapshot in his pocket. "I want you to have that," he said, "as soon as we agree on a course of action concerning the case."
"What case?" I wasn't going to help.
"The Grand Jury has handed down an indictment charging that my client, Harry Koslak, forced his attentions on your daughter. I have a good deal of information that it may well have been otherwise. Hold on, Mr. Widmer, maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. The point is that Koslak is married, has two kids, and if he goes to jail because of your daughter's complaint, you're not going to feed those kids, and I'm not going to feed those kids. I don't want to see an injustice done here to either party. You know how rough a rape trial can get. And believe me, for the sake of those kids, this one's going to be plenty rough. I don't think the judge will be able to bar the press. Through a friend I've already arranged for coverage from the Daily News. Broadcast media won't be hard to get for a sensational trial involving the daughter of a prominent attorney."
"What do you want, Mr. Brady?"
"I wish you'd give me a ring by the close of business tomorrow and tell me that the charges have been dropped. Cunham'd be relieved not to prosecute. We'd all feel better, wouldn't we? I'd give you the picture now. I trust you. But just in case you can't persuade your daughter, I'll need it along with the others for the trial. I'm sure you understand."
I must explain something about my temperament lest you think that my hesitation about the next step was a personal failing; it was a failing of my heritage. I made no attempt to avoid active service during the war, and though I spent a good deal of it behind a desk, I had no fear of seeing action. In boarding school I was in brawls repeatedly. When Priscilla's cat was the merest kitten it once got itself out onto the overhang of the roof from which it could not retreat, nor did it yet dare spring. I don't know whether it was my neck or my limbs I was risking, but I did crawl out there without anything solid to hang on to, to rescue the damned cat. You can see I am not a coward about ordinary hazards to life and limb. It is the embarrassments that I usually seek to avoid, the phone call to someone who may hang up on me, the near stranger to whom I should volunteer an apology, above all, the confrontation on the kind of subject matter I would choose to be sheltered from. In some respects life has prepared Priscilla better than it has me for such encounters; perhaps it is the leavening power of Gristede's that has accustomed her to the occasional necessity of overriding her heritage. Yet I cannot ask her to speak to Francine in my stead while I hide in the closet. And suppose it is not only Francine but Thomassy as well who has to be confronted?