My Honorable Brother Read online

  Since his meeting with Pat Hanley at the Biltmore, Fiore had thought about her a lot. She gave him a wonderful time in bed and made it clear to him afterwards that she didn’t consider the evening a one night stand. He realized that his situation with Carol was becoming more tentative each day as the race for governor got closer to its start. If, as Sandy Tarantino predicted, Bruce Singer did become the Democratic nominee and Doug was his opponent, he would no longer be able to count on Carol as his playmate. He guessed that she would probably drop him like a hot potato if that contest for governor became a reality. Besides, he wouldn’t want to be the cause of her losing her husband to an adultery—one that could cost him his own wife as well—that risked exposure by a news hungry media covering the election. That would be a horrible embarrassment for everyone, and, as Cyril Berman told him in the limo, could well cost him the election.

  But he figured that the situation with Pat would be less fraught with danger. She had a suite at the Biltmore where he could meet her whenever his campaign gave him some free time at night in Providence. They could take their meals together in Room 606 and not risk being seen in the hotel’s dining room or bar. He was certain Pat would understand the importance of their avoiding the public spotlight. And she made it perfectly clear that she looked forward to more sexual encounters with him. That being the case, Doug had no trouble changing his mind about the continuing nature of his relationship with her.

  After hanging up from his call to Dana, he opened the telephone directory, the cover of which was partially torn off, and looked for Brad Hanley’s number. Several pages of names starting with the letter “H” were also ripped out of the book. Fortunately, the one containing a listing for the “Hanleys” was still there. As he dialed the number, he couldn’t recall whether it was one of the days Pat worked at the lab. When she answered, Fiore told her he had some new information about Ocean State Wire & Cable.

  “I’ve got some free time tonight if you want to meet and talk about it.”

  Pat was delighted to hear from him. “I’d suggest Room 606 at the Biltmore,” she teased, “but then we might forget what we went there for.”

  The words brought a smile to his face. “I’ll write it out ahead of time,” he answered, “and you can read it if I forget to bring it up.” He already knew he’d score with Pat again.

  “Seven o’clock?” she asked.

  “Yeah, that’s good. I’ll be the guy in the gray suit with the big bulge in his pants.”

  “Maybe we should change it to six,” she offered suggestively.

  Doug laughed. “Great line. I love it. See you at seven, and you owe me a dinner.”

  He was very pleased with himself when the call was over. “Screw Carol,” he said out loud.

  * * *

  “It’s your husband on line two, Mrs. Singer, and I’ll be leaving in about three minutes. Will you be here in the morning?” Kathy Walsh asked.

  Carol said she would, pressed the loudspeaker button on the telephone and sat back in her chair. “I’ve got you on the box, Bruce, so don’t say anything sexy.”

  “Hi.”

  “You don’t have to be that careful,” she said, a playful tone in her voice. “Let me guess. You’re calling to tell me you’re too hungry to wait until 6:30.”

  “That’s not it,” Bruce answered. “I just didn’t know whether you heard the news.” There was a short pause. “I guess you didn’t,” he said.

  Words like that always unsettled her. Carol immediately pictured one of her daughters in an overturned automobile or being rushed into a hospital on a stretcher. “What happened?” she asked, raising her voice and leaning forward involuntarily in the direction of the speaker.

  “Spence Hardiman announced he’s not running to keep his senate seat. He said he’ll finish up his term and that’s it. He’s getting out.”

  Carol breathed a sigh of relief that Bruce’s news had nothing to do with Bonnie or Rachel. Still, she didn’t grasp the relevance of it to anything concerning her husband or herself. She was joking when she asked whether Bruce intended to try and succeed him.

  “Dave Waller wants to see me, Carol. He’s getting as many members of the committee together tonight as he can reach. He insists that I be there.”

  “I don’t understand,” she replied. “You pretty much said that you were out of it. Why do you have to go?”

  “Don’t you see?” he said. “Hardiman has changed everything! I had decided not to run against Sacco. But now Sacco’s a sure thing to want to go to Washington. That means the governor’s office will be up for grabs and Waller thinks I’m the one who can win it for the Democrats.”

  Carol was stunned. It was as if she were told in the morning that she was pregnant and then having the doctor call back later to say it was a mistake. In the course of the day she went from uncertainty to happiness and now to despair. She picked up the receiver and switched off the loudspeaker. Singer could hear his wife let out a deep breath.

  “You know how I feel about it, Bruce. If you do this, you’ll be choosing between politics and me.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way, Carol. I’ve thought about it. I can take this on and still be there for you a lot of the time. Let’s talk about it when I get home.”

  “And what time will that be?”

  “I can’t say. I don’t know how long the meeting will last.”

  “That’s just what I mean.” She hung up without saying goodbye.

  * * *

  Carol took the stairway to the firm’s main floor and walked down the corridor to Fiore’s office. She could tell from the condition of Dana Briggs’s workstation that Briggs was gone for the day. The word processor was turned off and there were no papers on her desk. She looked into Fiore’s office. No one was there and the lights in the adjoining conference room were off. She didn’t hear Frankie Scardino come up behind her, and was momentarily unnerved when he asked if she was looking for Doug.

  “Yes,” she replied. “I had a client matter to ask him about but it’s not all that important. It can wait.” Carol was certain she was blushing. “I guess it will have to wait,” she said, trying to smile.

  “I’ll tell Doug you wanted to see him.”

  As she turned to leave, Scardino asked if she had a minute to answer a question for him.

  “Of course. What is it?”

  “I was wondering whether you thought Helen Barone was doing a good job as office manager.”

  Carol considered the question. She immediately felt that he was up to something. “How do you mean, Frankie?” she asked.

  He told her that it took in a number of things: whether Helen ever personally made certain that Kathy Walsh was at her desk by 8:30 in the morning, back from lunch at the end of an hour or working right up until five o’clock; whether Carol had any problem finding a secretary available for overtime to type something that had to get done that day; whether the message center was diligent in taking calls for her when Kathy was away from her desk; and whether the work Kathy did and her productivity were as good as the firm had the right to expect for what it was paying her.

  “Kathy’s not perfect,” she told him, “but she does a good job and she’s there when she’s supposed to be. Helen doesn’t have to keep tabs on her. And I’ve got no complaints about the overall clerical support I get or the calls that come in for me. As far as I’m concerned, the office runs fine.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Scardino answered, but he didn’t look pleased at all. Carol wondered whether he was laying the groundwork for moving Janice Rossman another rung up the ladder. “I’m not bashful, Frankie. If I have a secretarial problem, I’ll speak up.” Then she decided to come to Helen Barone’s defense for whatever good it might do. “Yes, I think Helen runs a good tight ship,” she added.

  Carol returned to her office. She called the Hilton and asked if they had a reservation for a Mr. F. Douglas for that night. The clerk put her on hold for a minute. When he came back on the line, he
informed her that Mr. Douglas cancelled the room reserved in his name.

  “Shit,” she said, and slammed the receiver down into its cradle.

  28

  FIORE COULDN’T REMEMBER THE name of the movie. It was the one starring Harrison Ford and Melanie Griffith. They were anxious to get to Ford’s apartment in one scene and had each other half undressed before they got through the front door.

  He thought of it when Pat Hanley let him into Room 606, planted a kiss on his lips and started to unbutton his shirt in a sort of frenzy. By the time he took off his jacket and tie, she had loosened his belt and was pushing his pants down over his hips. Doug kicked off his tasseled Deerskin loafers and let his pants fall to the floor. He reached for Pat’s sweater at the waist and pulled it over her head. She undid her skirt and fell into his arms as it was dropping to her feet. Fiore kissed her neck as he quickly unfastened her bra and helped her step out of her panties.

  “Why are you still dressed?” Pat asked in a teasing voice, as she put her hand on the erection still hidden by his shorts.

  “Don’t squeeze the veggies, lady,” he said, as he walked her into the bedroom. She pulled the spread down in one continuous motion, letting most of it fall onto the floor. He took off his underwear, but not his socks.

  Pat got into bed, resting on her knees. Doug joined her, laying on his back. “It looks like your big guy is ready to go to work,” she said. “In fact, I’ll bet he’s looking forward to some overtime.”

  Doug reached up and pulled her toward him. He put the nipple of one breast in his mouth and ran his tongue around it. Pat shuddered and cried out softly, and he did the same thing on her other side. He moved his mouth from one breast to the other several times. Then he pushed her back up and put his hand on her pubic hair, moving his fingers in little circles before letting them rest on the lips of her vagina. She took a long deep breath and her thighs shook back and forth involuntarily.

  Doug felt a little wetness on his fingers. “You must have been getting ready since I called you this afternoon,” he said, smiling at her.

  “Do you want a bite?” she asked quietly.

  “Only if you promise not to leave any tooth marks. Go easy, okay?”

  He moved onto his side. Pat bent over and began wetting the tip of his penis with her tongue, stroking the rest of it with her fingers.

  “You don’t know how good that feels,” he told her, moving his hand over her body.

  She continued doing the same thing for several minutes. Suddenly she felt the massive shiver that went through him and let go. He groaned several times and his hand pressed tightly on her thigh. Neither of them moved or spoke until Doug rubbed his hand over her nipples and whispered, “I owe you one tremendous fuck.”

  Pat lay down on her side, facing him. “Which I will collect after a brief intermission,” she said. She smiled at him and caressed his face with her fingers. “But while we’re waiting for the south to rise again, tell me what you found out about Ocean State.”

  Fiore told her what he knew but lied about where he’d gotten the information.

  “From what Irwin Platt tells me, the Tarantino family thinks its investment will start to pay off once the economy straightens out. The Platts respect their opinion because they know that other Tarantino business investments have done very well. I’d say the brothers Platt will be as patient as they can with Ocean State, but Brad has to hope their cash flow overall stays manageable.”

  “What if there’s a strike?” she asked. “Wouldn’t that make things worse?”

  “It would, and nobody wants one,” he said. “The Company feels it has to show the Union what kind of financial trouble it’s in and get a fair settlement. The Platts are looking for the right person in Providence to put some pressure on Johnny Morelli, the business agent, to make sure he doesn’t ask for too much. And we’ve got to be certain Brad doesn’t try to paint Morelli into a corner with contract demands he doesn’t like and could never sell to his membership. If your husband doesn’t start a war, I don’t think there’s going to be one.”

  He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Don’t you worry about it,” he said softly. “I’ll stay on top of Ryder so I know what’s going on all the time.”

  Pat smiled at him. “Thanks, Doug, I feel a lot better.” She ran her fingers through the hair on his chest and then quickly moved her hand down to his groin. “Speaking of staying on top of people, I do believe there’s something you owe me.”

  29

  AT ELEVEN O’CLOCK THAT night Carol turned on the radio next to her side of the bed. She listened to a report of Spence Hardiman’s news conference, followed by speculation that John Sacco would most likely seek to fill the Senate opening. “If that happens,” the announcer went on, “there’s sure to be a wide open race for governor, but former lieutenant governor Bruce Singer is already being rumored to be the man who would get the endorsement on the Democratic ticket.”

  She moved the dial to the station that carried “oldies” music and left it on for half an hour. When she set the alarm for 6:30 in the morning and closed her eyes, Bruce still wasn’t home.

  “Rotten fucking politics,” she hissed into her pillow.

  30

  ONCE SPENCE HARDIMAN INAUGURATED the election season with his unexpected announcement, it was as if a huge industrial machine was activated. As soon as the main gear started functioning, the smaller gears surrounding it began turning in sync, as they were designed to do.

  The Herald’s headline the next morning read, “HARDIMAN DROPS BOMB.” A week later John Sacco made separate appearances in Providence, Newport and Lincoln to inform the electorate that he was a candidate for the United States Senate. Two days after that, on a Friday, Richie Cardella met with the media in the Bounty Room of the Marriott Hotel and declared himself in the running for the governor’s office. Surrounded by a noisy group of supporters, he delivered a twenty-minute speech in which he conveyed his view of the issues facing Rhode Island in the immediate future. “I’m confident that I’ll be endorsed by the Republican State Committee,” he said.

  On that same Friday night, Doug Fiore received a call from Russell Walsh at home. It was the first time he spoke to Walsh, who would be travelling with him throughout the campaign. Walsh informed him that the friends he still had on the Republican State Committee confirmed Cardella’s boast that he would receive its official endorsement for governor. “But don’t let that discourage you,” he added quickly. “By primary day, most republicans won’t even remember who the Committee came out for. They’ll vote for whichever candidate has the message that turns them on.”

  Walsh said that Cyril Berman had faxed him a copy of the schedule Fiore was to follow the coming week. On Tuesday he would begin courting the fifty-five “pillars” of his campaign. They arranged to meet at Fiore’s office at ten o’clock the next morning for Walsh to give him an up-to-date briefing about the people they would be seeing. He also said he would bring along a tape of Cardella’s news conference since Doug didn’t watch it.

  By late Sunday night, Fiore had memorized all the information he was given by Berman and Walsh. He knew everything there was to know about the twenty-four Fiore supporters on that week’s schedule. If their pictures were on a deck of cards, he could have turned over any one, identified the particular VIP instantly and recited everything he was told to learn about that individual. He felt confident of what lay ahead.

  On Monday morning, Fiore called a meeting of the firm’s Executive Committee in his conference room. He kept them waiting almost half an hour before informing them that he would be out of the office for the remainder of that week and all of the next. “I can’t discuss the reason for my absence. All I can tell you is that I’ll be close enough to call in and discuss the operation of the firm if any problems come up while I’m gone.” He was amused by the looks of concern that showed on their faces. He flirted with the idea of keeping them completely in suspense, but decided against it.

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sp; “Let me assure you that there’s nothing wrong with my health, and I’m not trying to avoid being served with a subpoena,” he told them, smiling at the end. Doug informed the Committee that he was appointing Ed Jackson, its senior member, acting managing partner while he was away, and adjourned the meeting before any questions were raised.

  Fiore tried to reach George Ryder on the phone. Ryder’s secretary said that he was working outside the office on the Ocean State Wire case. She explained that he wanted to avoid the normal interruptions he faced at his desk. Fiore assumed she meant he was at home, in West Warwick. He instructed her to call and inform Ryder that the managing partner wanted him to come in and discuss the status of the negotiations early that afternoon. “Let me know when he gets here,” he said.

  31

  WHENEVER HE WANTED TO go to Carol Singer’s office, Fiore always spent time elsewhere on her floor first. Sometimes he sat in the lounge, drinking coffee and schmoozing with the lawyers who came in. Or he contrived excuses to walk in on one or two of the attorneys whose offices were close to Singer’s before finally stopping at hers. He often addressed her from the doorway, asking questions that others could overhear about loans or other financial matters she was negotiating with the banks on behalf of his clients. Doug was convinced that anyone seeing him close her office door behind him suspected nothing, assuming those visits to be business related also, only more confidential.

  Toward midafternoon, Fiore went upstairs and into the library. He sat there for a while, reading back copies of the Wall Street Journal and greeting anyone who approached his table. He took two of the newspapers with him when he left. Instead of heading directly down the corridor to Singer’s office from that end of the library, he took the longer route, around the perimeter of the floor, to where she was located.