Читать книгу Capitol Punishment - Andrew Welsh-Huggins - Страница 13

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WITH THAT CLEARED UP, WE WALKED PAST a row of tables, arriving at a booth in the restaurant’s far corner. Despite our presence, a woman on one side continued speaking to a man sitting across from her. At last, after an interlude that was starting to feel uncomfortable, she raised her eyes expectantly.

“Yes,” she said.

“Hello, Senator,” Hershey said. “Just wanted to say hello.”

“How kind of you.”

“You look familiar,” the woman said before Hershey could introduce me. “Have we met? I’m Ottie Kinser.”

“I’m not sure,” I said, shaking her extended hand as I told her my name. She was black, with four-alarm good looks, dressed in a tailored off-orange suit, wearing gold earrings and a gold necklace.

“My husband, Reggie,” she said. I turned and shook the hand of the man across from her. He was wearing a dark suit that looked equally tailored.

“You work for Burke Cunningham,” he said.

“That’s right.”

“Burke and I went to law school together. Weren’t you at the banquet last winter?”

“Yes, of course,” I said.

How could I forget? Banquet a euphemism for a Rodriguez fundraiser that Burke had organized the night of one of the televised Democratic candidate debates earlier in the year. Burke, the consummate Democrat, and more importantly, my occasional boss as one of Columbus’s top defense attorneys. My sister, who was always on me about my lack of interest in politics, had ragged me endlessly after I photobombed a picture of Burke and his wife, Dorothy, posing with the state party chair. A picture inconveniently, at least for me, posted on the Ohio Democratic Party’s Facebook page for a couple of days.

“I remember now,” Senator Kinser said. “You were with a charming young woman. A runner, as I recall. Such a beautiful girl.”

“That’s right. Anne Cooper.”

“Beautiful is right,” Hershey said, much to my annoyance.

“Please give Burke my regards,” Reggie said.

“And give Anne mine,” Senator Kinser said.

I nodded.

“Senator Kinser is cosponsoring the Fair Funding Focus bill,” Hershey said. She waited, patiently, not rising to the Triple F bait. He said, “Any word on the charter schools?”

“We’re working diligently on the legislation,” she said.

“Any details on that diligence?”

“Perhaps.”

“Any you’d care to share?”

“Not tonight. We’re just here for dinner.” When Hershey didn’t respond, she added, “Call me tomorrow. After ten.”

“It’s a date,” Hershey said.

“Sounds like Anne’s got a new best friend,” Hershey said as we walked away.

“I guess. Don’t tell me that the senator is the type to follow you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. Didn’t you notice her eyes? She’s got a bad case of the ‘Ohio Look.’”

“The what?”

We arrived back at the bar and found space in the middle. Hershey cleared his throat dramatically. “The Ohio Look,” he said. “‘The dreamy, far-away expression of a man richly meditating on cheering audiences, landslides, and high office.’ It’s an old James Thurber line. You have heard of Thurber?”

I gave him my own look, the one I reserve for people who make fun of me for wearing black socks with sandals.

“OK, OK. But did you know he was a Statehouse reporter here before he went off to the New Yorker?”

“As a matter of fact I did. What’s any of this got to do with Kinser?”

“Her faraway expression involves a run for state treasurer in two years. She wants a school-funding bill passed as badly as anyone. It’ll be at the top of her speech the day she announces.”

“Have you written any stories that annoyed her?”

“A couple. She’s tight with the Planned Parenthood crowd. I’ve pointed out the proximity of donations from pro-choice folks to her votes on abortion-expansion bills.”

“I thought you media elite types were hands-off anything criticizing abortion.”

“Couldn’t say. I’ll write just about anything as long as I’ve got it first.”

“So you’re an equal opportunity enemy maker?”

“That may be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me, Woody.”

“I told you, it’s Andy—”

“Let’s see,” he said, ignoring me as he searched the room. “We’ve done the executive branch and legislative branch. All we need is—.” He settled on someone across the restaurant. “Perfect. He’s out of the can. Come on.”