Krieg burst out laughing. “I’d say so-even in the Biblical sense. You’ve had carnal knowledge of her lots and lots of times.” He took a black notepad from his jacket pocket and began leafing through it. “Would you like some dates?”
Could he still be bluffing?
“So, you have dates in a notebook. That means nothing. It’s no more than your word against mine.”
From the corner of the balcony railing, Krieg picked up a large manila envelope. It had been there all the while, but David hadn’t noticed it.
Krieg removed the envelope’s contents and fingered through a series of 8? 10 glossy photos. He handed them to David, who looked at them one by one. They were black-and-white shots of him and Pam-almost everywhere: walking arm-in-arm down a tree-lined street, picnicking on the grass of a public park, dining in a restaurant. All very innocuous-yet pictures of almost every time in recent memory that they had chanced being together publicly. He had expected the stereotypical sleazy bedroom shots. He was greatly relieved.
“So? I have been in the company of a young lady a few times. Is there any law against that? God or man’s?”
“David, David. .” Krieg shook his head. “You must have caught on by this time. C’mon, you’re a smart kid. I know more about you than anyone-your mother, your wife, your mistress, anybody. I just showed you the tip of the iceberg. I thought you’d be impressed that I knew who touted you out of signing my contract. Then there’s knowing every blessed thing you like to eat, that you don’t mind cigar smoke-pipes, for that matter-the name of your mistress. Weren’t those fine, clear shots of you and Pamela?
“We could go on, David, but I wanted to spare you the tapped phone conversations, the tapes of all those amorous affairs that took place in her apartment-we erased the small talk, gossip, and things like that, and concentrated on the sexy sounds and sweet nothings. Do you really want me to trot out all that. . really?”
David slumped, figuratively and literally. He had to admit that it was feasible that Krieg, immorally and technically, had procured all he claimed to. Benbow had never been so embarrassed. Not even as a child. Someone had shredded his privacy and recorded his most secret words and intimate actions. He gave hardly any thought to begging Krieg for mercy. The man had made it crystal clear that he got what he wanted. And he wanted David.
Shame gave way to an intense anger. “Klaus, this is blackmail!”
Krieg smiled ruefully and shrugged.
“It’s blackmail!” David repeated. “And you, a Christian minister! Have you no shame!”
“Me? I didn’t sneak around to a young lady’s apartment-a vulnerable young lady. .”
Vulnerable. It was the word used by the Reverend Massey that had so affected Benbow. Had Krieg bugged that conversation too? By now, David would have put nothing past the man.
“I didn’t sneak around to a vulnerable young lady’s apartment,” Krieg repeated, “to seduce her and carry on an adulterous relationship after having been advised to break it off not once but twice! And you think I should be ashamed!”
“All right, all right,” David said. “I’ve sinned. I won’t excuse myself.
But I failed. I was weak. Your sin is coldly deliberate. Your sin is full of malice. And you won’t get away with it. How is it going to look for a minister of the Gospel to admit that he’s been no better than a peeping Tom? You’re going to degrade yourself. You may even destroy yourself.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t think so, Father Benbow. If you recall, it was a fellow minister who turned in Jimmy Swaggart, and he suffered no ill for it. But that isn’t part of my plan. You see, I have numerous friends in the fourth estate. There are ways of leaking information. Why, Father, I wouldn’t even be involved. Somebody else. And, far from destroying myself, I know for a certainty that the news media will be grateful. Indeed-grateful.”
David felt a strong urge to pitch Krieg off the balcony. The impulse was brief. Later, on reliving the scene, Benbow had to admit to himself that the real reason he hadn’t done it was that the fall probably wouldn’t have killed the bastard. David was deeply ashamed to realize that the very moral consideration of murder had had nothing to do with his holding back.
At this point, at least all the cards were on the table. David now knew clearly what the stakes were. And Krieg seemed to hold all the aces. Yet David was not quite ready to throw in his hand.
But first he had to buy some time.
Benbow did his best to introduce a tone of surrender, submission, entreaty to his voice, as he stated that this could, indeed, be an unrefusable offer, but that these revelations had come unexpectedly, that he’d need time to consider all the ramifications of signing with P.G.
Krieg countered that Benbow had had plenty of time-years-to weigh every possible consequence. This was decision time.
Benbow, affecting to try to be as reasonable as possible, acknowledged that Krieg was, of course, free to act now, spread the slander, and ruin Benbow’s careers, marriage, life. But, he said, it was clear Krieg had not gone to all that trouble and expense for the purpose of defamation of character, but rather as a most impressive bargaining chip, in order to force Benbow’s signing with P.G. Since Krieg had already waited years, as he himself had admitted, what was so difficult about giving him just a little more time? After all, Krieg wanted Benbow’s signature on a contract, not his head on a pike. The head was destined for hanging only if the signature was not forthcoming.
With some reluctance, yet with the acknowledgment that basically Benbow’s point was well taken, Krieg agreed to wait a bit longer. But, he warned, his patience had worn thin; an affirmative response had better damn well be forthcoming, or. .
Finally, in a pretense of some sort of conciliation, Krieg assured that the destruction of David’s reputation was the furthest thing from his intention. So there need be no fear of a premature revelation. On the other hand, David must know the consequences of an ultimate rejection of the contract. There could and should be no doubt that Krieg was ready and able to make public David’s secrets. To reckon otherwise would be to risk certain destruction.
The Reverend Father David Benbow returned to his rectory a sober and worried man. Martha detected the mood but could not pierce the curtain David had drawn about himself.
Martha was not the only one puzzled by David’s uncharacteristic transformation. Pamela had never seen her lover in such an unremittingly dark frame of mind. It affected their total relationship. They barely spoke, and on those occasions when they did, he would become lost in thought at any point in a conversation. She took special pains with dinners; he scarcely touched them.
And, as a unique event, he had become impotent, at least with respect to her. She had no means of knowing he remained sexually active with his wife.
Pamela was convinced by the evidence that overwhelmed her that her affair with David Benbow was over, presently and permanently. She scarcely paid attention to the words David used to tell her.
He knew what was wrong, of course. Krieg’s threat was so imminent and far-reaching that it exacerbated Benbow’s guilt. If it were not for his affair with Pamela, Krieg would have nothing, no hold on him whatever.
There was no way of eradicating the affair retroactively. No way, in the face of all Krieg’s evidence, that David could claim that it had never happened. It got so that every time he was in the presence of, or saw, Pamela his fatal folly was brought home to him ever more forcefully. She became the personification of his downfall. Not that he thought for a moment that the entire mess was Pam’s fault. No, the fault lay in David’s groin. But he could not amputate any of his organs. His sole recourse for any measure of personal peace was to end the affair and see Pam no more.
He did not take too kindly the fact that, after their breakup, she took up with several young men of promise, according to all reports. She seemed to be having a marvelous time while he wavered between helpless hatred for Krieg and the no-win situation of his dilemma. Should he sign and risk his career or refuse and risk his career? And what of his soul?