The Guest Room(45)

He felt a wave of sadness nearly smother him and wondered where she was now.

…

Richard was walking two blocks north of the restaurant on his way back to the Millennium when suddenly someone was calling his name and jogging through the afternoon crowds on the sidewalk to catch up to him. It was Spencer.

“Unless I have managed to get very lost or I have early-onset dementia, your hotel’s the other way,” he said to his brother’s friend when Spencer was beside him.

“I told Philip I had a dentist appointment. Can I walk with you?” He was a little breathless. He dabbed at the sweat on his temples with his handkerchief.

“Sure. But does that mean you really don’t have a dentist appointment?”

“Yeah, I lied. I need to talk to you.”

Richard couldn’t pinpoint precisely what Spencer would need to discuss with him that he didn’t want Philip to hear, but he knew it had something to do with the bachelor party. It had to.

“Okay,” he said, but he was wary.

“I’m sorry about your leave of absence. That sucks.”

“Yeah. It does.”

“But it’s paid. Right?”

“It is.”

“Good.”

They were passing a luggage store. Briefly Richard fantasized taking Kristin and Melissa and disappearing somewhere. Someplace you could reach only by airplane.

“And obviously you do pretty well as an investment banker. That’s some house you have. And Bronxville? Not a cheap place to live.”

He couldn’t see specifically where this was going, but the wariness he had felt from the beginning ratcheted up a notch. “I do fine,” he said evenly.

“I mean, Philip and I don’t make anywhere near the scratch you do. We do what we do because we love it. It’s not about the money.”

“It’s true. You’re all saints at the Cravat. A person either teaches Native American kids to read on a reservation in New Mexico or goes to work at a boutique hotel in Chelsea.”

He chuckled. “I hear ya. I just meant we chose not to be, you know, investment bankers.”

“You have no idea how hard I work,” Richard told him. He could have said more. He restrained himself from alluding to what a f*ck-up Philip had been in high school and college.

“Oh, I do. You guys work crazy hard.”

“Thank you.”

“But you’re paid for it. I mean, you have assets.”

He stopped walking and turned to Spencer. All around them people were passing, sometimes buffered from the world by their earbuds and sometimes in conversations of their own. Reflexively he put his hands on his hips. “Are you about to ask me for money for your own little legal defense fund, Spencer? Is this a follow-up to your feelers at lunch?”

Spencer nodded and then looked boyishly down at his shoes. But Richard could see through the movement. It was an act. Feigned sheepishness. Spencer, like his brother, had no shame. None at all. “Yeah,” he said, finally. “You nailed it. I do need a little help.”

“No. I’m already paying a hefty retainer myself. But even if I weren’t, the answer would still be no.”

“Is that it?”

“It is.”

“Well, it’s not. I mean, I’m pretty scared. Scared enough that I’m having to make compromises with, you know, who I am. What I stand for,” the fellow said, looking up at him now.

“You stand for nothing, Spencer.”

“I’m honestly not the jerk you think I am. I want your marriage to make it through this mess. I really do. Philip says your wife is kind of hot. And you have a kid. A daughter.”

“I think we’re done here,” Richard said, turning and starting to walk away. But as he half expected, Spencer stayed with him.

“We can be done here,” said Spencer, “but it’s not in your best interests if we are.”

“No?”

“Nope. I’m thinking of your wife. I’m thinking of your career—at that bank of yours.”

“Why does that sound like a veiled and utterly misguided threat?”

“Whoa! Where did that come from?”

“Spencer, there’s no polite way for me to say this: you are seriously creeping me out. I’m not giving you any money. Let it go.”

“I have pictures. Even a little video.”

He stopped walking. He knew what Spencer was suggesting, but he couldn’t believe it. Instantly he felt sick. “Of what?” he asked.

“Well, some of you.”

“Do you mean from the party?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You wouldn’t have dared. We were all terrified of those Russian strongmen. There’s no way you took your phone out.”

“I did. Upstairs.”

“You went upstairs? You went upstairs in my house?”

“Yup. And there you were. There you…both…were.”

“What kind of pervert are you?”

“I think I would have been way more perverted if I hadn’t filmed that little thing you brought upstairs. I mean, I would have preferred you weren’t in the shots with her. I know you. And I prefer girl-on-girl porn, to be honest. But that’s probably more than you need to know about my personal predilections.”