“Why am I really here, Mark?” I asked.
“Maybe I just wanted to take you out to dinner,” he said.
“Seriously.”
“I’m serious. You aren’t enjoying yourself?”
“How can I enjoy myself when I’m waiting for a bomb to drop?” I said.
He unbuttoned his suit jacket. “We’ll order first, then we’ll talk.”
He used to do this to me all the time. He would get me going only to make me wait. Maybe it was the lawyer in him. It used to drive me crazy. It still did.
“The prime rib comes highly recommended,” he said as we looked over the menus. “That’s what I’m going to have, and a spinach salad. Nothing fancy. But the steaks are supposed to be the best in town.”
“You’ve never been here?” I asked.
“No. Sparacino has,” he answered.
“He recommended this place? And the hotel, too, I presume?” I asked, my paranoia kicking in.
“Sure,” he replied, interested in the wine list now. “It’s SOP. Clients fly to town and stay in the Omni because it’s convenient to the firm.”
“And your clients eat here, too?”
“Sparacino’s been here before, usually after the theater. That’s how he knows about it,” Mark said.
“What else does Sparacino know about?” I asked. “Did you tell him you were meeting me?”
He met my eyes and said, “No.”
“How is that possible if your firm is putting me up and if Sparacino recommended the hotel and the restaurant?”
“He recommended the hotel to me, Kay. I have to stay somewhere. I have to eat. Sparacino invited me to go out with a couple of other lawyers tonight. I declined, said I needed to look over some paperwork and would probably just find a steak somewhere. What did he recommend? And so on.”
It was beginning to dawn on me and I wasn’t sure if I felt embarrassed or unnerved. Probably it was both. Orn-dorff & Berger wasn’t paying for this trip. Mark was. His firm knew nothing about it.
The waiter was back and Mark placed the order. I was fast losing my appetite.
“I flew in last night,” he resumed. “Sparacino got hold of me in Chicago yesterday morning, said he needed to see me right away. As you may have guessed, it’s about Beryl Madison.”
He looked uncomfortable.
“And?” I prodded him, my uneasiness increasing.
He took a deep breath and said, “Sparacino knows about my connection, uh, about you and me. Our past …”
My stare stopped him.
“Kay …”
“You bastard.” I pushed back my chair and dropped my napkin on the table.
“Kay!”
Mark grabbed my arm, pulling me back into the seat. I angrily shook him off and sat rigidly in my chair, glaring at him. It was in a Georgetown restaurant many years ago that I had snatched off the heavy gold bracelet he had given me and dropped it into his clam chowder. It was a childish thing to do. It was one of the rare moments in my life when I had completely lost my composure and made a scene.
“Look,” he said, lowering his voice, “I don’t blame you for what you’re thinking. But it isn’t like that. I’m not taking advantage of our past. Just listen for a minute, please. It’s very involved, has to do with things you know nothing about. I have your best interests in mind, I swear. I’m not supposed to be talking to you. If Sparacino, if Berger knew, my ass would be nailed to the nearest tree.”
I didn’t say anything. I was so upset I couldn’t think.
He leaned forward. “Start with this thought. Berger’s after Sparacino and, right now, Sparacino’s after you.”
“After me?” I blurted out. “I’ve never met the man. How could he be after me?”
“Again, it’s all got to do with Beryl,” he repeated. “The truth is, he’s been her lawyer since the beginning of her career. He didn’t join our firm until we opened the office here in New York.
Before that, he was on his own. We needed an attorney who specialized in entertainment law.
Sparacino’s been in New York for thirty-some years. He had all the connections. He brought over his clients, brought us a lot of business up front. You remember my mentioning when I first met Beryl, the lunch at the Algonquin?”