Toni Adams had accepted Brad's offer to buy her a drink after work without a moment's hesitation, but as they worked their way through their second martini, she seemed to grow sullen.
"So I have the privilege of being hustled by the great Brad Tomlin, Man On His Way Up," Toni said sarcastically. "To what do I owe this distinct honor? Your wife running around on you or something?"
Toni was a skinny little broad with almost no figure at all. She had a plain-looking face. She had absolutely no sex appeal, and if there was anybody in the world that Brad didn't intend to hustle, it was Toni.
Brad almost laughed when she said it. The idea of jumping into bed with Toni had a comic aspect about it. He was about to assure her that this was the farthest thing from his mind when he stopped himself. If he let her know that she turned him off, it might hurt her ego and then she'd get mad at him. That way, he'd get nowhere in his quest for information on Hawkins.
"You never can tell what a man's thinking," Brad replied instead. He hoped he could lead her on.
"What do you mean by that?" she came back at him as the bartender brought them their third martini.
"Oh, nothing in particular. It just occurred to me that maybe you were being careful because of, well, you know, there are a lot of guys at the bank who like to play around a little."
"Oh, yeah? Like who for instance? What makes you think I do any messin' around with men at the bank?" She wasn't exactly slurring her words yet but Brad could tell she was no match for the martinis he was pouring down her throat.
Pretending that she had caught him off guard, Brad hesitated a moment. Then as though he were groping for words, he said, "Oh, Hawkins for instance. You know the old boss and secretary line."
"I wouldn't go near that dirty son of a bitch!" She had almost shouted and Brad noticed several people turn to look. He gestured for her to keep it down, but that only made her angry.
"Don't tell me to keep it quiet. If you knew what that bastard did, you'd be pissed off, too. That is, unless you're as dirty a bastard as he is."
Brad had never heard Toni curse before, and the fact that she was calling Hawkins a dirty bastard meant that she was about to open up. Brad hoped she possessed some worthwhile information.
"What the hell have you got against Hawkins?" Brad knew she was too contrary a broad to talk if he asked her direct questions. He decided to argue with her a little and get her to prove her point. "Hawkins has always treated you great, it seems to me."
"You don't know what the hell you're talking about!" She was growing angrier and more intense by the minute. She leaned close to Brad and grabbed his arm. She was really getting worked up. "I'll tell you what a creep that Goddamn Hawkins is."
Toni began her verbal assault on Hawkins by relating how her boss had picked her up at an office Christmas party a couple of years earlier. Everybody was pretty drunk and Hawkins suggested they go to a hotel. It turned, out that he had already reserved a room earlier in the day. He bought a couple of bottles of champagne and they went up to the room.
Toni and Hawkins had taken their clothes off and were in bed when the door opened.
"The first thing I thought of was a cop or his wife or something like that," she said as she took another sip of her martini. "But then this chick walks into the room. She's about twenty-five, and I knew damn well it wasn't his wife. She looks at us for a minute and sort of shrugs. Then she starts taking off her clothes and jumps into bed with us."
"I was too shocked to say or do anything at first, and then I realized what was going on. I started to holler and scream and I got the hell out of bed. Hawkins tries to quiet me down and toil me how the three of us can really have a great time."
"All the time this chick, this Goddamn whore, was just sitting there as though nothing was going on. Anyway, the more Hawkins talked the more upset I got, and I guess he finally knew that the whole deal was down the drain. He gave the girl some money and she left."
"After she left, I got dressed and was going to leave when I started to cry… I mean I really bawled. I couldn't stop. It was terrible. I must have sobbed for half an hour. Finally I sort of calmed down, and Hawkins just starts talking. He tells me how sorry he is and all that."
"Then he goes into this big thing about being such a lonely man and how his wife hasn't slept with him in years. He just keeps going on and on about how he has to hire call girls and so on. He made me so sick I could have puked. I just looked at him and then walked out."
Brad was glad that Toni was finished toiling her stow, because the liquor was beginning to get to her pretty good. She stumbled several times as he helped her out of the bar and into his car. She was asleep when he got her to her apartment. He had to open her purse and look at her driver's license to find out where she lived. She hardly woke up as he led her into the apartment and carried her to the bed.
He wondered if she would remember telling him about her episode with Hawkins. Brad was happy that she hadn't gotten drunk any faster. She would probably regret having told her story, and his chances for any additional tidbits about Hawkins' past were slim. But that was fine. Brad had all of the information he needed. Now all he had to do was use it.
As Brad recounted Hawkins' sexual misadventure to Sheila that night, a scheme began to build in her mind. She was only half listening as Brad said that he had been trying to think of a way of getting one of Hawkins' call girl friends to help out in his effort to get ahead at the bank.
But while Brad was struggling with the question of how to use his knowledge to Hawkins' secret sex life to put pressure an him for a promotion, things were beginning to add up for Sheila. If Hawkins were as starved for sex as it seemed, things ought to be easy, and fun, Sheila mused.
She saw her chance to add something new to her sex life, and it excited her immediately. She and Brad had swapped partners with several different couples since that first time with Jon and Carol, and she loved it. But now she began to see how she could use her body to get Brad his promotion at the bank. She was turned on by the sheer wantonness of her idea, but again she wondered whether Brad would go for it.
Brad didn't mind her fucking other men. In fact, she knew that he enjoyed it when she told him the details of her sexual encounters that had taken place during their swinging. That was one of the great things about swinging. They both enjoyed hearing the other tell about their experiences.
"I just wish I could figure a way to put the pressure on Hawkins for that promotion," Brad was saying. "All he would have to do is write one Goddamn memo to the board of directors and I'd get that vice-president spot." Brad loosened his tie and leaned back cm the sofa in exasperation. "Son of a bitch," he muttered.
"Cool it, honey," Sheila soothed him. "I've got it all figured out. It'll be easy. That is if you don't mind a little swinging with a new twist to it."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Brad demanded. "What has swinging got to do with Hawkins and the bank?"
"All you have to do is put two and two together," Sheila retorted. "I would think a big shot banker like you could do that without any trouble. Okay, so you want to get, something on Hawkins so you can force him to get you the promotion. You know he's not getting any sex at home and has to look for it. Right? But you don't know the names of any of his call girls, and you don't know how you'd get them on your side if you did find them. So who's already on your side? Me. That's who."
"You? What do you mean?" Brad thought he knew, but he couldn't believe it.
"Yes, me. In fact, I'm the only one who could really pull it off. What would ruin Hawkins at the bank? A call girl trying to make trouble? Of course not. Those big phonies all have their fun on the side. They've probably paid off dozens of call girls to keep them quiet, and they know how to protect each other. But what if a scandal about Hawkins and the wife of one of the bank's bright young men got out into the open? He'd be through. Not only at the bank but in his damn blue-nosed social circles, too."