“All we want are some names,” says Gibbs. “A little cooperation.”
“The court can’t give you that, only my client can.” Gibbs has opened the door a crack, and my foot is in it.
“We can subpoena her.” Lama wallows about like a water buffalo in the mud.
“And she can take the Fifth,” I say. “You can’t compel her to testify if that testimony will incriminate her-and the last time I looked, it took two to commit an act of prostitution-or bribery.”
Acosta is growing restive, distracted by something else, some other, deeper concern. I can read it in his eyes, which have wandered from us.
“Perhaps I should bring my client in here, and we can see if she’s willing to testify, and if so under what conditions.”
Like an ammonia capsule, my suggestion delivers the Coconut from his comatose state. “No, no, we do not have time for that. I have a crowded docket today.” His hands flail the air, palms out in protest. “Besides, I have learned from long experience that it is best to separate clients and their emotions from the details of plea bargaining and settlement negotiations.”
It is as I suspected: Susan Hawley has been a busy woman.
I play me final trump card. “Well, I think it’s only fair to explain that my client has given me precise instructions not to accept any offer short of an outright dismissal of all charges. I believe that in return for such an offer she might be persuaded to testify.”
“Bullshit.” Lama’s on his feet.
“Maybe. But unless she gets it, you don’t have a witness.”
“Listen …” He begins to move around Gibbs.
“Officer, sit down.” Acosta’s in no mood for a brawl. His baritone voice echoes off the walls. “I think we’re going to have to continue this matter on another date.”
Acosta tells Gibbs to start thinking about immunity for my client. He says that with the crowded court calendar this is not something he wants to see tried in his court. Lama’s fuming. But the Coconut is tired of humoring him. There’s some haggling over calendar conflicts. We settle on a date three weeks off. It’s the first line of defense in any criminal case-delay. I waive time. At this point the last thing Susan Hawley needs is a speedy trial.
“Counsel!”-Acosta looks at me-“I don’t think there will be any need for you to bring your client to court when we next convene on this matter. There’s no reason to inflict any unnecessary inconvenience.”
“Certainly, if the court pleases-and there’s no objection from the prosecution.” I look at Gibbs, whose mouth is about to open.
“Well, the court pleases,” says Acosta, “and there is no objection from the prosecution.” Gibbs’s jaw slacks, his lines usurped by the court. As we rise to leave, Armando Acosta leans back in his chair and arches his spine, an expression of relief etched on his face. I suspect it isn’t the first time Susan Hawley has had this judge by the balls, though the last was unquestionably in more private and provocative surroundings. It would appear that her expectations of dismissal are not idle thoughts after all.
CHAPTER 6
In the days following Ben’s death, my mind has been playing tag with thoughts of recrimination, of my role in his misery with Talia. The funeral is now past, part of yesterday’s news. Alone in my office I study a copy of the Trib, which lies on my desk next to a tall glass of bourbon. I look at the three-column photo above the fold.
Talia was, I think, at least in that moment when light hit Mr. Kodak’s emulsion, heavily into appearances. She has made the front page. Her face shrouded by black lace, her mourning suit by Armani, she is the chic picture of stoic sorrow. She stands three steps up on the cathedral stairs for the world to see, head held erect, a slight breeze ruffling the lace about her face. All that is missing is the toddler at her knee dressed in long coat; saluting the coffin. Under the picture a bold lead for the cutline: WIDOW GRIEVES. Talia knows how to set a scene.
I sip my drink and remember our last meeting. A dim hotel room across the river, ensconced in a once posh tennis resort now turned to seed.
I rolled to her side of the bed and felt the cold wetness of my own passions, a small portion of which had pooled in the creases of the sheets beneath where her loins had rested.
She moved about the room a picture of indolent calm, gathering wisps of lacy underthings. Silence seemed Talia’s special refuge after passion.
In my own time I came to understand that Talia was an innocent, in the way that rich men’s daughters are often innocent, as if they are somehow immune to the usual social conventions. In the months that we met, following my separation from Nikki, whenever we registered at a hotel I huddled under a broad-brimmed hat behind the heavy collar of a long coat in the winter or oversized dark glasses that concealed a good part of my face in the heat of summer. I used more aliases than there are characters in a Tolstoy novel.
But with Talia, what you saw is what you got. To my chagrin she was soon on a first-name basis with the clerks at the myriad of no-tell motels and roadside hostelries we frequented. To her, discretion was a word without meaning.
“How’s Nikki?” she asked. “And your daughter. How’s Sarah?”
“We agreed not to talk about them, remember?”
“She’s so cute.”
Talia’s interest and concern were genuine. She had helped me on two occasions make support when my take from the firm, my bonus after salary, was a little light. These were short-term loans, which at the time I attributed to our relationship. Now, in retrospect, I wonder whether they were so much for my benefit as Sarah’s, for Talia possesses the universal maternal instinct. She lacks all capacity to harm small animals and children.
“They’re fine,” I said.
She turned and noticed that I was staring wide-eyed at her from the bed. “A penny for your thoughts,” she said.
“Is that all they’re worth?”
“Won’t know “til I hear them.”
She was standing at the foot of the bed, a sheer teddy gracing her body, facing away from me, gazing into the mirror as she arranged her hair, long brunette locks in a mock bun high on her head. Her left foot was raised-resting on the low stool in front of the vanity, the muscles of her thigh flexed in an athletic pose. The filigree of lace trimming the right leg was cut high on the hip and pulled into the crack of her buttocks. Her stance revealed the erotic and distinct crease separating her thigh from the gentle hillock of her ass. I remember the surge of desire. That is how it was, always, with Talia-instant arousal. Moments after spending every ounce of my manhood locked in her embrace my eyes were again drawn to her long legs and tapered waist, the delicate wisps of hair at the nape of her neck.
“Well?” she said. She was waiting for some deep revelation, some mirror into my inner being.
“You really want to know what I’m thinking?”
“I do,” she said.
“I’m thinking about jumping you one more time before you can get out of this room.” I strove for a little wickedness in my smile-a touch of Jack Nicholson captured in the squint of my eyes. Watching her there in the dim shadows of that room, I was a bundle of lust.
She giggled. “Sorry, can’t. Have to meet Benjamin.” Talia insisted on using his full Christian name in their social circle. It was, at first, one of those things they cooed over in public. But as with so many older men with younger women, it had begun to go sour and now rubbed like a burr under his saddle whenever she called him by name.
“He called me this morning before I left the office. Some dark, brooding secret,” she said, her eyebrows arched in mock suspense.
There was an instant knot in my stomach, the kind that accompanies dark prophecies. “What did he want?” I ask.
“Who knows? You know Benjamin. If he’s of a mind, he can breathe intrigue into last week’s grocery list.”
“Maybe we should discuss a little business,” I said. “These are supposed to be business meetings.”