by Dan Pope
He smiled at her and retreated from the crowd. They took a table in the rear. Sampson removed some pages from his briefcase—Lexis research, he said—and summarized his findings.
“Most of the cases are fairly recent, trial-level stuff,” said Sampson.
Beyond him, Andrew noticed some local Lothario in a black turtleneck approach the lady in the leopard dress, flashing a smoker’s brown-toothed grin. A bad dream, this place. He could hardly imagine anything as dreary as sitting on one of those padded red barstools with a martini, waiting to chat up some wanton divorcée.
The waitress arrived, a lithe Asian wearing a black miniskirt. She set down two glasses of scotch. “Our aperitifs have arrived,” said Sampson in his British tones, pushing aside his papers. Not cocktails, not scotches, aperitifs.
“Cheers,” said Andrew.
They ordered steaks and the waitress disappeared.
Andrew said, “I gave you these files for a reason. Internet monitoring, employee privacy—that’s the cutting edge. That’s what employers want to know about these days. Can we monitor employee email? What about employer-provided phones? Can we read their texts? Can we listen to their voice mail? Can we fire them for something they post on a social media site? They’ve got clowns spending half their day locked in their offices, jerking around on YouTube and every porno site you can name. Drunkensluts dot com. Hairyasses dot com. These are actual sites, I’m not making it up.”
Sampson laughed, a phony, breathy exhalation. Like giving him points in tennis.
“I had a case last year,” Andrew continued. “An in-house insurance attorney called and told me that two FBI agents had just walked into his office, asking for consent to monitor a VP’s company computer. They say he’s accessing child pornography. What should I do? the guy asks me. He’s got no idea, and frankly neither do I. Why? Because there’s no precedent. New technology, new law. You can make your name on a case like that. Take it up to the appellate court.”
“I appreciate the chance.”
“Better than scrap metal, wouldn’t you say?”
“Much.”
When the waitress appeared with their steaks, Johnny Sampson offered one of his easy smiles, calling her “darling,” and when it was time for the check, she stood by his chair for a minute, flirting.
“Come on,” said Andrew. “This place is giving me a headache. I know somewhere better.”
“Fine by me,” said Sampson.
They drove together in Andrew’s car. Andrew turned off his cell phone and stowed it in the glove compartment. On the way downtown, he had a luxurious feeling of being unaccountable. They passed from the suburbs into the outer limits of the city: strip malls and gas stations, run-down tenements and abandoned factory buildings. He drove through the deserted north end of the city, past the landfill, the main police station, and the car dealerships with their football-field parking lots, the vehicles lined up in neat rows. The streetlights and stoplights reflected off the windshield, blurring from white to red to green, to all the neon colors of the night.
“Where are we going?” said Sampson, looking uncertain for once.
“Never been down here before?”
Sampson shook his head.
“You’ll see in a minute.”
Andrew turned down a darkened side street, past a mattress factory, and pulled into the parking lot of a large windowless, one-story building as big as a warehouse. ECSTATIC, said the sign in fluorescent pink. In smaller letters on the marquee: CONNECTICUT’S PREMIER GENTLEMEN’S LOUNGE.
“A strip joint?”
“Only the best.”
Inside, the music was deafening. A lone dancer strutted the raised runway that ran nearly the length of the room. All this noise, but only five or six patrons sat at the stage, a few seats apart from each other, studying the dancer with humorless concentration.
At the bar, Andrew ordered tequila shots and beer chasers. The girls came on one at a time, dancing for the length of a song, wearing G-strings, their breasts bare. Most were skinny with bad implants, their arms and lower backs tattooed. They followed the same general choreography—first dancing languidly, then swinging around the pole, then simply lying spread-eagled in front of one of the patrons in the first row. One girl liked to slap her ass in the viewer’s face, which signified she was done with him—she’d earned her dollar—before moving on to the next glazy-eyed slob. Andrew liked watching her, a tall blonde on four-inch platforms, strutting back and forth, her enormous saline breasts bobbing.
Tequila, just like the night of the Russian kid. Salt, liquor, lime. Andrew adopted the same mind-set as that night, absolving himself of responsibility. This bar, like the park after hours, was a place of no consequence. The people around him led squalid, reckless lives—strippers and drunks, bouncers and men not gainfully employed. This was not his life. But there was an excitement in mingling among the lowly and dragging Johnny Sampson into the same wretched mire.
He put his arm around Sampson. “Do you like her?”
“Who?”
“Blonde.”
“I wouldn’t call her a natural beauty.”
“Have another shot. She’ll grow on you. Or should I request an Asian? You seemed to like our waitress, did you not?”
“If you say so.”
The room seemed engulfed in a thick haze, although no one was smoking. Andrew signaled the bartender again—tequila with chasers. Their second round, third. He lost track. He felt himself losing control. The parade of cheap harlots circled in endless repetition. Heavy metal music, a constant roar. He glanced over at Johnny Sampson, whose face had taken on a sphinxlike inscrutability. Daintily, he raised his glass of beer. His cheeks were flushed. He was watching the stage with the disinterested countenance of a judge.
“Don’t sip like that,” yelled Andrew.
Sampson leaned forward, touching him on the forearm. His fingers were chilled from gripping the beer, providing an icy sensation. “Say again.”
“You drink like a lightweight.”
“Fuck you.”
“Johnny Lightweight. You should put that on your business card.”
“I repeat: Fuck you.”
He toasted Sampson and drank the rest of the beer. “Your round,” he said, then spun off the barstool.
In the men’s room he pissed for what seemed like minutes, whistling, growing bored with pissing, directing the stream into the urinal cake. On the way out the door, he noticed the VIP area in the rear, cordoned off by a red velvet rope. A squat black man sat at the entranceway, texting on his cell phone in the dim light. He looked up with expressionless brown eyes. Andrew explained what he wanted. As they negotiated, Sampson appeared beside him, his hair slicked back. Andrew passed the bouncer the cash, and the man unsnapped the rope and let them pass, saying, “Number six.”
The room was at the end of the hallway, with a black curtain in place of a door. They pushed aside the curtain and went in, their feet sinking into a thick carpet. An enormous fish tank extended the length of the far wall; inside, two giant koi—one gold, one white—floated in the blue-lit water, dumbly opening and closing their mouths. There were two cushioned chairs without armrests in the center of the room. There was a wet bar with mirror backing. A disco ball hung from the ceiling, speckling their faces with psychedelic hues.
Andrew took one of the chairs and Sampson slid onto the other, facing each other like actors in an avant-garde play.
“Have you ever been to Montreal, Sampson?”
“Of course.” He pulled out his cell phone and began checking messages.
“Put that away. One of the partners in Stamford, an old-timer, had a fetish for strippers. That’s how I know about this place. He took us here once. All he talked about was sex, but in the most proper terms, if that makes sense. ‘I appreciate a pudendum that protrudes like a pitcher’s mound,’ he
would tell you. Things like that. He preferred foreign girls. He used to organize trips, up and back on the late train to Montreal. They called it the disco train, I think. We’d hit the places on St. Catherine Street. The French girls were beautiful, like fashion models, perfectly naked. You didn’t hear a word of English, all night long, Oui oui, like doves cooing. Inexpensive too, considering the exchange rate. I went only once; I can’t say I enjoyed it. But it was necessary for the advancement of one’s career. Put that thing away, will you?”
Sampson glanced up, the light from the phone display, reflecting in his eyes. “I’m listening,” he said. “Strippers cooing like doves.”
“It was necessary, I was saying, to perform certain duties which you might not otherwise enjoy.”
“I don’t find this unenjoyable.”
“Look at you, sitting there like the Sphinx. Employing double negatives.”
The curtain was pushed aside, and the blonde came into the room with a hard, awkward walk, as if falling forward with each step. She was wearing her pink G-string, nothing else, her skin bronzed with a salon tan. Her perfume instantly filled the room. She had a name tattooed across her shoulder blades in large cursive letters: ROMANO. She was not young, not by a long shot. Her rear end was square and flat, the tops of her thighs rippled with cellulite.
“Who’s Romano?” asked Andrew.
“A mistake.”
“Want to make another?”
She emitted a raspy laugh, all whiskey and cigarettes. “Story of my life. What do you have in mind?”
“The usual.”
She laughed. “You cops?”
“On the contrary,” said Sampson. “We’re lawyers.”
“I love lawyers. Always straight to the point.”
Andrew handed her the roll of bills and she tucked them into her tiny pink purse and went to the bar. “Drink?”
“Whatever you’re having,” said Andrew.
“Jack and Coke,” she said, pouring. “My specialty.”
Andrew took the glass from her and finished it with a few quick sips. He pulled her close and squeezed her breasts with both hands, making the areolas bulge grotesquely. She kissed him on the mouth, tasting of lip gloss.
“So, Counselors,” she said, looking over his shoulder to Sampson. “Who goes first?”
“Neither,” said Andrew. “That is, both.”
“You mean, at the same time?”
“Exactly.”
“Oh, dear. I’ll get lockjaw.”
“You can manage, I’m sure,” said Andrew, opening his zipper.
* * *
OUTSIDE, the gray November night. Andrew took a deep breath, clearing his lungs. He started the car, feeling sublimely drunk and yet unimpaired. He checked the dashboard clock: a little before 11:00 P.M. It seemed later than that. They drove along the deserted streets toward the office buildings in the distance. Andrew felt content with their silence, as if he and Sampson had come to an agreement. In the lounge, with the disco ball coloring their faces, he had watched the girl on her knees, her shiny lips, her dark purple tongue. Sampson’s cock was long and thin, the head bulbous, pink. Pencil dick, they used to call a guy like that back in high school.
Andrew turned in to the parking garage in Wintonbury Center, where they’d left Sampson’s car, and navigated the narrow, circular passage down to the underground level. He pulled up next to Sampson’s convertible, the only vehicle in sight. When he turned off the motor, a sudden quiet emerged. Overhead, the garage lights burned brightly, making a fluorescent racket. Somewhere on the upper floors of the parking garage, tires squeaked, like an animal bleating.
“What’s your schedule for the rest of this week?”
Sampson stared straight ahead. “Full. And I’m heading down to D.C. for the weekend.”
“When will I see you?”
Sampson shrugged. “Whenever.”
“Whenever?”
“Yes, whenever.”
“Whenever means fuck you. Is that what you’re telling me? To go fuck myself?”
Sampson glanced at him. “If you say so.”
“What about Monday? Can you get back to town by then?”
Sampson nodded.
“Fine. Next Monday. Indoor tennis after work and a late dinner. Put it in your book.”
“Fine.”
Andrew smiled. Yes, Sampson had come to understand the arrangement, it seemed. The know-it-all was subdued, at last. “You liked that back there, didn’t you? Is that what you did with Pedro? Suck him off?”
Sampson blinked a few times, but otherwise his face revealed nothing. He looked as fresh as always in his V-neck sweater, a few strands of blond hair falling across his forehead. “Which means what, exactly?”
“Which means what it sounded like.”
“Sounds like you’re jealous.”
“Jealous? I don’t give a shit about some paralegal—”
“He’s a law student.” Sampson got his cell phone out of his pocket and flipped it open.
“For Christ’s sake, you’re like a high school kid with that thing. Give it a rest when I’m talking to you.”
“Shut up for a second.” Sampson pointed the phone at him and clicked a photo. He examined the image, nodding. “Not bad,” he said, holding it toward Andrew.
He squinted. There was his face on the tiny screen, serious and pale against the pitch-black background. “What’s that for?”
“I want a picture of you.”
“Why?”
“You’re the smart guy. You figure it out.”
Then Sampson leaned in and kissed him full on the lips, a long and lingering kiss. This was a surprise, an admission of sorts. It was the first time they’d kissed.
Sampson pulled away, opening the door to get out, and Andrew nearly blurted: Wait. But he caught himself, and Sampson left without saying more.
* * *
THE WEEK PASSED. Andrew saw Sampson only once, in the hallway on Friday afternoon, and his protégé strolled by without speaking, offering instead a salute and a whimsical grin.
On Monday morning, when he called Sampson to confirm their tennis date, he got voice mail. He walked down the hall at lunchtime and found Sampson’s office door closed. His secretary told him that he’d called in sick that morning. Andrew left three or four messages, without getting a response. He was tired of talking to a recorded voice. He vowed to tell Sampson the next time he saw him: Answer my calls or don’t expect to try any more cases.
On Tuesday morning, Sampson’s secretary gave him the same news: “He called in sick.”
“What’s wrong with him? Is he in the hospital or something?”
“That’s all I know,” the woman said.
“He didn’t say?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t talk to him. He left a voice mail before I got in.”
All week he got the same response. On Friday morning, when he appeared at her desk, she simply shrugged and said, “Sorry.”
“Nothing?”
“Same message. ‘I won’t be coming in.’ ”
Andrew had dinner with Audrey and Emily every night that week and worked on his laptop in his home office, writing a brief that was due in appellate court the next month. The household was quiet, good for concentrating. His daughter rarely came out of her room, still “grounded.” Audrey went out every night after dinner, taking the dog on walks or running errands in town. The weekend came and went.
On Monday he found a message from Sampson’s secretary on his office line. “He’s still got the flu, Mr. Murray,” she said. “He says he’ll need someone to cover for his deposition Tuesday.”
That was all.
* * *
THEY HAD Thanksgiving at home—Andrew, Audrey, and Emily. Their second Thanksgiving without Daniel. No one mentioned this
fact, but they did not have to. Audrey set a place for their absent son, and they bowed their heads before the meal. Andrew recited a prayer, over Emily’s objections. An atheist, his daughter.
He’d invited his parents to come down from East Longmeadow, but his mother said that his father was “out of sorts.” His ulcer, apparently. The old man disliked going to doctors, like most men of his generation.
The next day Andrew wandered the house, unable to sit still for more than a few minutes. He called Johnny Sampson to see how he was feeling, but his voice-mail box was filled. In the afternoon the postman delivered some correspondence from a law firm, registered mail, but Andrew couldn’t bring himself to open the envelope. For once he didn’t feel like working; he’d finished his appellate brief already, two weeks before it was due, and needed a break from legal matters. All that long weekend his daughter locked herself in her room, disdaining family meals, instead coming out for the occasional snack—nothing more than cheese sticks, as far as Andrew could tell.
“This is getting worse,” he told Audrey after Sunday dinner.
Audrey occupied herself with her book and red wine, curled on the couch. “She won’t talk to me. What do you expect me to do about it?”
“I expect you to discuss it.”
“Why are you obsessing about her diet? She eats. She just doesn’t do it in front of us.”
“And you call that normal?”
“Her weight is fine, Andrew.”
“How can you tell?”
Audrey sighed. “They weigh her at school and at the doctor’s office. She had a checkup this summer. And her weight has been the same, every time, for the past year, give or take a few pounds. Okay?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that the last time we spoke?”
“Because you didn’t ask.”
“She’s been missing a lot of school lately,” he said.
