“You’ll have to excuse the mess. I’m moving next week.” She retrieved a beer bottle stuck between two couch cushions and took a long swig from it. With her head upturned, the bathrobe fell open, revealing the swell of her breasts and the beginnings of her pubic hair. She made no effort to cover herself.
“Moving up in the world, Violet?”
“Sure, why not?”
“With a little help from Monty?”
Violet closed the robe, belting it tightly. “Monty? Who’s that?”
“C’mon, Violet. I’ve had a really hard week.”
“Oh! Monty! He’s that guy from Let’s Make a Deal, right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, he is. And you made a deal with him, didn’t you, Violet? About twenty thousand deals.”
FORTY-FIVE
Paula fine-tuned her makeup in the mirror that hung on the back of her office door. Leo opened the door without knocking, and Paula frowned as her reflection slid away from her.
“Leo. Come on in, it’s good to see you,” she said with as much sarcasm as she could muster, which wasn’t much. It would be bad karma, not to mention hell on the frown lines. She wanted to stay in good spirits today. She was due in court in twenty minutes, and every bit of equilibrium she could hold on to would be an asset.
“We need to talk,” Leo said.
Paula closed the office door and resumed studying her reflection. She outlined her thin lips with a tube of pale lipstick. “Court’s in twenty minutes. Today’s the big day. Adam Lee is gonna testify. You gonna be there to give me moral support?”
“Not today. I gotta talk to you about something.”
Paula struggled with a pair of opal earrings, small enough to be overlooked, but there nonetheless to accent her femininity.
“Adam Lee might be innocent.”
“Uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah, great.”
“I’m serious. I’ve uncovered evidence that tends to indicate Mr. Lee’s-”
“Stop.” Paula got the last earring in and turned on Leo. “I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. It’s a little late in the game for that sort of thing, don’t you think? Isn’t this dangerously close to the kind of thinking that messed up your life in the first place?”
“But I found out that-”
“I don’t care if you just found out he’s Jesus Christ come down from the cross. Because I’m nailing his ass back up there. I’m gonna crucify the fucker again.” She checked herself in the mirror and saw Leo’s bowed head behind her. “That’s my job, Leo. That’s what I do. It’s what you used to do. I have no choice.”
“He may be innocent.”
“So?”
“So how can you prosecute an innocent man?”
“You can’t be serious with this. I don’t know that he’s innocent. And neither do you. That’s for the jury to decide.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, if you’d just listen to me.”
“Look, Leo, wise up, okay? You’re a good lawyer, but you can’t hang with the men. You’re pathetic. Now why don’t you be a good little robot and go back to your cubicle.”
She checked her look one last time and gathered her papers for court.
“And get used to that cubicle, Leo. You’ll be working there for a very, very long time.”
FORTY-SIX
Today the courtroom is packed with spectators. An artist scribbles furiously to capture my face. I remain expressionless, but I know that the artist will sketch in faint lines around my mouth to connote sadness or guilt. We watch as the jury files in. None of them look at me. They never do. Monty sits beside me at the defense table. He leans and whispers into my ear, “Today I am my brother’s keeper.” His breath is warm, humid, and pleasant so close to me. Even now, I take comfort and delight in his closeness. He is golden.
Have I mentioned that I love him? I do, oh, I do.
Monty stands and addresses Judge Cray. “Your Honor, the defense would like to call as its last witness the defendant, Mr. Adam Lee.”
As the bailiff swears me in, my hand trembles. I concentrate to make it stop, lest one of the jurors interpret it as a sign of guilt and make a premature decision. Once I am seated, Monty stands before me. He gives me a wan smile and a slight nod of his head. This, of course, is for the benefit of the jury.
“Mr. Lee, after everything that’s gone on before this moment, there’s really only one question that matters. I’ll ask it point-blank. Adam Lee, did you murder your wife?”
“No,” I say, “No, I loved my wife.”
FORTY-SEVEN
The office cubicles were busy now. Like insects building a colony, the office workers busied themselves with their daily rituals. The sounds of printers humming, copy machines laboring, and the quiet murmur of conversations surrounded Leo. He heard none of it. The sounds of Paula’s last words to him reverberated in his head. The downward sneer of her sterile mouth. The hard glint in her unforgiving eyes. And her words echoed. He stared into space, seeing only her, and in his hands he held a pencil. He bent the pencil slightly with his fists. The pressure on the pencil was building slowly and the wood was beginning to crack minutely; small yellow splinters danced to the surface at the pressure mark. It had reached its breaking point. The pencil snapped. So did Leo.
A rage consumed him. A rage that could not be held in. A sound escaped his throat, and a secretary passing by on her way to the water cooler stopped and stared at him. Her expression was akin to that of a little girl who has just found a razor blade in her Halloween apple. Leo stared at her and growled. She ducked her head and hurried away. Leo sprang to his feet and looked around wildly, looked for some way to vent this anger before it swallowed him whole. He stared down at his desk, the laminate peeling away from the cheap mass-produced surface, and it seemed to suddenly symbolize everything that had ever gone wrong in his life. Another growl escaped his throat and he overturned the desk. He did not simply push it over, but flipped it, sent it spinning into the air. As it crashed down, the cheap pressboard splintered and cracked apart. Not satisfied, Leo kicked out at the walls of his cubicle, and the cheap material buckled. The office grew dead quiet except for the sounds of Leo’s rage. The workers interrupted their tasks and stared at him. One young man cowered under his desk, sure that Leo would soon pull out an automatic weapon and begin gunning people down.
“What are ya? Buncha good little robots?” he shouted at them. He shook the cubicle walls violently, sending them heaving back and forth. The metal strips that held the cubicle walls together began to twist and come apart. The walls began to wobble and shake and then started to tumble down, and soon, like dominoes, all the cubicles fell over and came apart.
FORTY-EIGHT
“So, you were only joking?”
“Yes. I never dreamed…”
“Would you describe yourself as a good husband?”
“As good a husband as I could be. I tried to be, I really did try to be a good husband.”
“And how would you describe your affair with Constance Perkins in the context of being a good husband?”
“As a mistake. I knew it was wrong. That’s what the weekend was for. To put an end to it. To break it off.”
“How did Ms. Perkins react when you told her the relationship was over?”
“She was angry. Very angry. I guess she still is.”
From my position on the witness stand, I am the first to see Leo when he opens the door to the courtroom. I have to suppress a mischievous grin when I see him. His chest is comically puffed out in a parody of righteous pride. He makes his way down the aisle, but he doesn’t stop to take a seat. Spectators crane their heads to see him. It is quite dramatic, almost overly so, but, I must confess, I had at that time grown most fond of high drama.
He approaches the bench, still beaming with righteousness. “Your Honor, I have new evidence that directly relates to this trial. It will affect the outcome of this trial. I respectfully ask the court’s permission to confer with Adam Lee.”