Okay, have you gotten over your shock yet? Have you called back your mother, who called you the minute she heard about it on TV and asked, "WHAT'S WITH YOUR GOVERNOR?" ("THESE GUYS WITH THEIR EGOS, THEY THINK THEY CAN DO ANYTHING," she probably said when you returned her call. That was probably just before your aunt sent you an e-mail asking for "the buzz from the city.") Well, if you've gotten past these initial phases of dealing with trauma, it's time to unload some more awkward details on you. The Times does a really amazing job today of walking you through what happened leading up to, on, (under), and after that fateful February 13, when Client 9 had his assignation in the Washington with "Kristen" the call girl.

Kristen, having already passed through the lobby, with its wing chairs and its gilded half-clad cherubs, arrived in a small room in a quiet corner of the “Club Floor,” a special wing for V.I.P.’s. A king-size bed commanded the floor. Two photos — of the Capitol and the Washington Monument — hung beside a wood-framed mirror. As soon as she came in, Kristen called her boss, Temeka Lewis, who was the booking agent for the Emperor’s Club V.I.P., an online prostitution ring, the affidavit said. Ms. Lewis told her that the client had arrived. He was headed for the room.

We also learn in this article (fleshed out from the lengthy Emperor's Club affidavit, details of which we explained yesterday) that Eliot Spitzer went into the February 13 encounter with $2,721 in his account with the prostitution organization. He could pay up to $2,000 more for the visit and for future visits. Client 9, however, had trouble withdrawing that amount all at one time. This is, allegedly, where he got himself into trouble.

The IRS became interested in some strange transfers of several thousand dollars from the governor's account and began an inquiry looking for "bribery, corruption or illicit campaign financing." That's when they discovered the prostitution link and Spitzer's efforts to cover his tracks.

Which means that all of these financial transactions, perhaps including more episodes than just the February 13 one, have been tracked by officials and may be in court documents, along with all those phone transcripts recorded by the FBI between Client 9 and the Emperor's Club. So this ugliness is far from over. And the Post and the Daily News will still have plenty of chances to use the other brilliant headline puns available to them.

Affidavit: Client-9 And Room 871 [NYT]
Spitzer Probe Started By Tax Investigators [Bloomberg]