Crime & Punishment: The Prequel Ch. 07

"We'll see how understanding Steven is when I hear back from the investigator," Susan said.

"I can't believe you are having him followed."

"Believe it, and it's not that I don't trust him. It's her that I don't trust. What kind of woman seduces a married man?"

"Do you know how hypocritical you sound?"

"Save that kind of thinking for someone stupid enough to accept it. I know Steven, and I love him. I'm no saint, but I do understand men. Most men will chase any available woman, but not a man like Steven. In some ways, he's a hopeless romantic. Such men are easy prey. You can take that from a skilled huntress, but there are limits, and decent married men are off limits," Susan told her friend.

"You mean to tell me you never sleep with married men."

"Not consciously. There are plenty out there that pretend to be single. You can't help an occasional mistake, but there is no mistaking the marital status of my Steven or your Pat. Those men are clearly taken. It's the difference between a pet dog and a wolf. You know it when you see it."

"Still, considering your lifestyle, isn't Steven entitled to some fun of his own?" Laura said.

"Now you are just being silly. Men like Steven don't commit adultery for fun and make no mistake, Steven with another woman is committing adultery in his own mind no matter what I've done. Two wrongs do not make a right, but I've done nothing wrong. Yes, I've broken a few tired moral standards, but I've never consciously hurt my husband or deprived him in any way.

"What I've been doing with Tony has been harmless fun. Steven was never in any danger of losing me, and I have always tried to be there for my husband first. And, now that Mr. Greico is acting possessive, I've been easing away from him. The only reason I haven't already given him the boot is my work with the governor. Otherwise, he would already be history."

"Still, what if Steven argues he's just out having the same fun that you are?"

"With some she-cat, who is playing with him like some mouse. He's in danger, and if he is too smitten to know it, then it is up to me to straighten him out."

Laura laughed because she could just see the scene of an irate Susan laying down the law to her wandering husband. Women like Susan just got what they wanted. Pity, she couldn't do the same to her husband, but Pat had a fearful temper. It was a temper he could control, but not appease. It was why he had plotted the destruction of her lover and their marriage. Laura's miscalculation was clear to her now. She had simply failed to consider how far anger could motivate her husband.

"I have an exceptional private eye on Steven, and when I have all the facts, I will act," Susan concluded.

Steven for his part knew he was being watched. He didn't know everyone who was watching, but certainly, some were. He had picked Tara O'Reilly out in the NYASAV meeting which meant the governor had Jimmy O'Reilly on the job, and it was only reasonable to believe there would be others. It was why he had rented two adjoining rooms. One under his own name and the other through his law firm. He had given the firm's room key to Lynda. When she exited early Monday morning for work, he would have already left Sunday evening through the adjoining room.

Steven Fitzgerald was going to be a harder target than Theresa Hartman thought, but not an invulnerable one. As for Tara O'Reilly, Steven was already considering how she might lead him to what he was seeking and how he might use Jimmy O'Reilly to his advantage. He was sure the able Jimmy was already ahead of him in the search.

****

Tony Grecio was on the outside deck of the Cityline bar. The place took its name from being where the jurisdictional city of Albany ended, and the town of Colonie began. Cityline was across the street from the University's back entrance. Once upon a time, the site had been a college bar, but now the crowd was older and far more upscale.

The deck was not particularly popular on a cool late September afternoon, but it featured a big screen TV on which the Yankees were losing to the Red Socks. Tony was drinking beer and eating buffalo wings. He was alone and unhappy about the situation, but he had to escape the office where it seemed to him everyone must know that Susan was avoiding him.

His affair with Susan had been one of those secrets that people know, but studiously don't know. It didn't make getting dumped any easier. Getting dumped was one of those things that just didn't happen to Tony, and certainly not after he had fallen in love. For he was sure that was the feeling, he had for Susan. Less generous individuals would have termed Tony besotted with a pretty faced, oversexed, society tramp. Susan's looks, social status, and bedroom skills had been making men stupid since her early teens. Tony was just the latest and perhaps most foolish victim.

He knew he had played the situation wrong. Carrie had warned him not to propose, but he could not believe that she would turn him down. Her husband was a nothing. He was in Tony's opinion hardly a man. That Susan would choose her husband over him seemed inconceivable, but that is what she did. In an age of divorce on demand and a decade in which more couples divorced than married, Susan had flatly told him she believed in "till death do us part." Not the "forsaking all others" part but the inviolable sacrament of marriage part.

The woman was clearly a bit cracked, and he should deem himself lucky to have escaped her allure. Yet, he could not conceive living the rest of his life without ever embracing her enticing body again. She held an attraction for him to such a degree that it was painful to go without her presence. However, the worst thing was to know that she was with that wimp, Fitzgerald. It was a blow so injurious to his manhood that he could barely contain his anger. So, he drank beer and watched the worthless Yankees lose yet again, and he seethed with hurt and anger.

"How about I join you?"

Tony looked away from the screen to see Frank Patterson pulling out a chair to sit down. Tony had no opinion of Frank, one way or the other. The man was a political operative whose stock and trade was his race and his hail-fellow-well-met personality. Frank had charm that he turned on for the ladies, but a good fellow personality he used on men.

Nevertheless, Tony knew Frank was a snake, an untrustworthy SOB who would sell his grandmother if the price was right. He had been making his bones lately being the outside counsel to the minority caucus. The legislators had their on staff counsel, several actually. However, the staff was unable to cut the payola deals that lined the legislative pockets.

Frank had the two essential qualities necessary for the job, dark skin and a corrupt soul. In return for his services, a considerable amount of the state authority bond work was funneled through his firm. Not the lion share that still was the prerogative of the three-man government, the speaker, Senate majority leader, and the governor. Since the governor was not using his share of the graft because of what Tony saw as a wasteful integrity, there was just that much more for everyone else.

Sometimes Kincade's personal ethics just offended Tony's political morality. It was just inept to let the others grab all the graft. There was no way to prevent it. Albany had always been about who could skim what. Since Richard Croaker had invented the concept of honest graft, the game had simply been about how to increase your share of the pie. Politicians would get indicted, but the U.S. Supreme Court would set them free for, after all, graft was at the fundamental core of American politics.

"Please, no politics today," Tony pleaded as Frank sat down.

"Wouldn't think of it," Frank replied.

The two men sat for a moment drinking beer and watching the game then Frank introduced the topic that had led to his seeking Tony out.

"How are things going with Mrs. Fitzgerald?"

"Why, what have you heard?" Tony shot back a bit sharper than he intended.

"Only that she has...shall we say an 'unnatural' commitment to her marriage."

Tony gave a short chuckle, "An interesting way to put it. But tell me what do you see as natural?"

"Lots of things, fire, floods,...fatal accidents."

Tony's eyes narrowed, and he took a hard look at Frank Patterson, "What are you getting at."

"That this is a troubled world, and we have something in common."

"And that would be?"

"A reason to want Steven Fitzgerald...removed from it."