Deems stopped talking and leaned back in his chair. Packard's heart was beating overtime and he strongly regretted not taking that hit of cocaine.
"Hey, you look upset, Bob," Deems said suddenly. "Look, let's forget about this. Okay? I'm sorry I even brought it up. Let's talk about something else. Say, do you like TV game shows?"
"Game shows?" Packard repeated, puzzled by the transition, but relieved that Deems had let him off the hook so easily.
"Yeah, like Jeopardy! or Let's Make a Deal. You know."
"I work during the day, so I rarely get a chance to watch them."
"I didn't watch them either until they put me on the row. We had a set outside the bars. One of our few luxuries. The guards let us watch the game shows. I really got hooked on them. At first I thought they were kind of stupid, but the more I watched, the more I realized that you can learn as much from game shows as you can at school. For instance, have you ever seen The Price Is Right?"
"Isn't that the one where the contestants have to guess the price of a refrigerator or a set of dishes?"
"Right!" Deems said, snapping upright in his chair and grinning broadly.
Then, in an imitation of a game-show host, he said.
"Bob Packard of Portland, Oregon, come on down! You can play The Price Is Right!" Then you run up from the audience. Have you seen it?"
"A few times."
"Well, that's a great show," Deems said animatedly, "because it teaches you about the value of things. For instance, if I put two rocks on your desk and asked you to guess at their value, you'd say they weren't worth much, am I right? I mean, we're talking about two rocks. But what if one was a chunk of common granite and the other was a diamond? You see?
Two rocks, both the same size, but your judgment of their value would be really different."
Packard nodded automatically to avoid insulting Deems and cast a quick glance at his watch.
"That's interesting, Charlie, and I'd like to talk about it some more, but I have a motion I need to write. It's due in two days and it's rather complicated."
"I'm sure it is," Deems said, "but I think it's more important for you, in the long run, to discuss values."
The fear Packard felt initially had faded as he grew annoyed and he missed the menace in Deems's tone.
"What are you getting at, Charlie? Come to the point."
"Sure. You're a busy man. I don't want to waste your time. But I do think this little talk will help you put things in perspective.
For instance, what's worth more, a good night's sleep or the shoddy legal services of a coked-up junkie lawyer."
Packard flushed. "That's not fair, Charlie. If it wasn't for me, you'd be dead."
"Maybe, maybe not. As I said, more than one person I talked to was of the opinion that this was a pretty easy win. That would make the value of your services a lot less than thirty thousand dollars. See what I mean? But putting a price on abstractions, like the value of legal services, is a lot tougher than dealing with diamonds and granite, Bob.
So why don't you start by guessing the price of a common, everyday item."
"Look," Packard said angrily, "I just told you. I don't have time for this nonsense."
Deems ignored Packard and pulled a pair of soiled woman's underpants from his pocket, then laid them on Packard's desk.
Packard leaned forward and stared. The cotton panties looked familiar, but he could not remember where he had seen them.
"What's the value of these panties, Bob?"
"Where did you get those?" Packard asked.
"Let's see if you can guess. I'll give you a hint."
Deems leaned forward and grinned in anticipation of Packard's reaction to his clue. He pitched his voice high and, in a falsetto, said, "'Get off of me, now! If you can't get it up at least let me get some sleep.""
Packard turned white. His wife, Dana, had said that to him last night after a failed attempt at sex with the same tone of disgust Deems had so adequately imitated.
"You know, Bob," Deems said with an air of feigned concern, "your technique leaves a lot to be desired. You completely ignored Dana's nipples. They're yummy. Fiddle with them a while tonight. They're like the knobs on a radio. If you twirl them the right way, you can find a mighty nice station."
Packard suddenly recognized the panties as the ones Dana had taken off just before they got in bed. Dana had dropped them next to the bed before they started to have sex. That meant that Deems had been in their room while they were sleeping.
"You were in my house?"
"That's right, Bob."
Packard bolted to his feet and shouted, "Listen, you prick . . ."
"Prick?" Deems interrupted in a bemused tone. "That's a fighting word.
Now, a fight between the two of us might be interesting. Speed and youth against size and power. But I want to give you a word of advice, Bob. If you start a fight with me, you better be prepared to kill me.
If you leave me alive, I'll come for you when you least expect it and you'll die like Harold Shoe."
Packard remembered Shoe's autopsy photographs. It was the medical examiner's opinion that Shoe's hands and feet had been removed with a chain saw while he was still alive. All the fight went out of Packard and he collapsed in his chair. He tried to compose himself. Deems watched patiently while Packard took several deep breaths.
"What do you want from me, Charlie?"
"I want you to play the game," he said grimly. "You don't really have a choice. Now, what is the value of these panties?"
"Three-fifty? Four dollars?" Packard guessed, on the verge of tears. "I don't know."
"You're too literal, Bob. Think about how I got these undies and you'll know their true value. I'd put it at about the same price as a lifetime of good sleep. Wouldn't that be worth fifteen thousand dollars? I'd say a lifetime of sound sleep is cheap at that price."
Packard's jaw trembled. "Charlie, you have to be reasonable," he begged. "I don't have fifteen thousand extra dollars. You paid that retainer over a year ago. It's gone now. How about something less?
What about three? Three thousand? I might be able to manage that."
"Well, Bob, to me three thousand sounds like a kiss-off."
Packard knew he could not afford to pay the money. His rent was due, there were car payments. Then he thought about the price he would pay if he could be assured that Charlie Deems would never slip into his room at night and spirit him away to a twisted world of torture and pain.
Packard took his checkbook out of his drawer. His hand was shaking so badly that his signature was barely legible. Packard gave the check for fifteen thousand dollars to Deems. Deems inspected it, thanked Packard and opened the door. Then he turned, winked and said, "Sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite."
Chapter THREE
Salem, Oregon's capital, was a sleepy little city surrounded by farmland and located about fifty miles south of Portland on the I-5 freeway. The Oregon Supreme Court had been in its present location on State Street since 1914. The square four-story building was faced with terra cotta and surrounded on three sides by a narrow lawn. In the rear was a parking lot that separated the court from the back of another building that housed the Department of Justice and the offices of the Court of Appeals.
There were vans with network logos parked in front of the court when Tracy Cavanaugh arrived for work at 8 A. M. She glanced at them curiously as she strolled down the side street that divided the court from the grounds of the State Capitol. A radiant July sun made the gold statue of the pioneer on top of the Capitol building shine and gave the grass in the small park that bordered the Capitol the brilliance of a highly polished emerald. In keeping with the spirit of the day, Tracy wore a bright yellow dress and wraparound shades.