Mark couldn't evade the issue any longer. "I beg your pardon?" he said, blinking furiously. Behind his chair Sprout hummed to herself as she studied the array of insects mounted under glass on the walls.
"You heard me. If you want to hold on to your little girl, the best advice I can give you as a lawyer is to go underground."
"I don't understand."
"Oh, my God,"' Pretorius quoted, "you're from the sixties.' Doesn't ring any bells? You didn't see that movie they made out of W E Kinsella's autobiography? No, of course not; chewing up a blotter and sitting through a revival of 2001 three times is more your speed in movies."
He sighed. "Are you telling me you don't know what 'going underground' means? You know-Huey Newton, Patty Hearst, all those fabulous names of yesteryear."
Mark glanced nervously back at his daughter, who had her nose pressed to the glass over some kind of bug that looked like a ten-inch twig. Mark had never realized before just how nervous insects made him.
"I know what it means, man. I just don't know-" He raised his own hands, which in the somewhat stark light began to look to him like specimens escaped from Pretorius's cases, to try to draw communication out of himself, out of the air, whatever. Outside of one area of life he had never been much good at getting ideas across.
Pretorius nodded briskly. "You don't know if I'm serious, right? I am. Dead serious."
He let his hand drop forward onto his desk, onto the copy of the Post Jube had given Mark. "Do you have any idea who you're dealing with here?"
A blunt finger was tapping Kimberly Anne's face where it peered over Sprout's shoulder. "That's my ex-old lady," Mark said. "She used to call herself Sunflower."
"She's calling herself Mrs. Gooding now. I gather she married the senior partner at her brokerage firm."
He stared almost accusingly at Mark. "And do you know whom she's retained? St. John Latham."
He spoke the name like a curse. Sprout came up and insinuated her hand into her daddy's. He reached awkwardly across himself to put his free arm around her.
"What's so special about this Latham dude?"
"He's the best. And he's a total bastard."
"That's, like, why I came to you. You're supposed to be pretty good yourself. If you'll help me, why should I think about running?"
Pretorius's mouth seemed to heat-shrink to his teeth. "Flattery is always appreciated, no matter how beside the point."
He leaned forward. "Understand, Doctor: these are the eighties. Don't you hate that phrase? I thought nothing was ever going to be as nauseous as the cant we had back in the days when Weathermen weren't fat boys who got miffed at Bryant Gumbel on the morning show. Oh, well, wrong again, Pretorius." He cocked his head like a big bird. "Dr. Meadows, you claim to be an ace?"
Mark flushed. -"Well, I…"
"Does the name `Captain Trips' suggest anything?"
"I-that is-yes." Mark looked at his hands. "It's supposed to be a secret."
"Cap'n Trips is a fixture in Jokertown and on the New York ace scene. And does he ever wear a mask?"
"Well… no."
"Indeed. So we have a fairly visible but apparently minor ace, whose, ahem, `secret identity' is a man who follows a rather divergent life-style in a day when `the nail that stands out must be hammered down' is the dominant social wisdom. St. John Latham is a man who will do anything to win. Anything. Do you see how you might be, how you say, vulnerable?"
Mark covered his face with his hands. "I just can't… I mean, Sunflower wouldn't do anything like that to me. We, we're like comrades. I knew her at Berkeley, man. The Kent State protests-you remember that?" His confusion came out in a gush of reproach, accusation almost. He expected Pretorius to bark at him. Instead the attorney nodded his splendid silver head. The perfection of his ponytail filled Mark with jealous awe.
"I remember. I still walk with a limp, thanks to a National Guardsman's bayonet in my hip-among other reasons."
Pretorius sat back and gazed at the ceiling. "A radical in '70. An executive in '89. If you knew how anything but uncommon that story is. At least she's not with the DEA."
"And while we're on that subject, I have formed the impression you don't say no to recreational chemistry"
"It doesn't hurt anybody, man."
"No. Ain't nobody's business but your own; couldn't agree more. Being a Jew in Nuremberg in the thirties didn't hurt anybody either."
He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. "Doctor, you are a big, soft, inflated Bozo the Clown doll in the climate of today, and Mr. St. John Motherfucking Latham is going to knock you all over the courtroom. So I say to you, Run, baby, run. Or be prepared for a sea change in your life."
Mark made a helpless gesture, started to stand. "One more thing," Pretorius said.
Mark stopped. Pretorius looked to Sprout. She was a shy child, except with those close to her, and the lawyer had an intimidating way-he intimidated her dad, anyway. But she faced Pretorius, solemn and unflinching.
"The question that needs to be asked is, what do you want, Sprout?" Pretorius said. "Do you want to live with your mommy, or stay with your father?"
"I-I'll abide by her wishes, man," Mark said. It was the hardest thing. he'd ever said.
She looked from Pretorius to Mark and back. "I miss my mommy," she said in that precise, childish voice. Mark felt his skeleton begin to collapse within him.
"But I want to stay with my daddy."
Pretorius nodded gravely. "Then we'll do what we can to see that you do. But what that will be"-he looked at Mark-"is up to your father."
Seven o'clock turned up on schedule. Susan-he was fairly sure it was Susan-marched to the front door to flip over the sign to SORRY-WE'RE CLOSED just as a woman materialized and pushed at the door from outside.
Susan resisted, glaring. Mark came around the counter wiping his hands on his apron and felt his stomach do a slow roll.
"It's okay," he managed to croak. "She can come in." Susan turned her glare on Mark. "I'm off now, buster." Mark shrugged helplessly. The woman stepped agilely inside. She was tall and striking in a black skirt suit with padded shoulders and a deep purple blouse. Her eyes had grown more violet over the years. The blouse turned them huge and glowing.
"This is personal, not business," she said to Susan. "We'll be fine."
"If you're sure you'll be okay alone with him," Susan sniffed. She launched a last glower at Mark and clumped out into the Village dusk.
She turned, Kimberly, and was in Mark's arms. He damned near collapsed. He stood there a moment with his arms sort of dangling stiffly past her like a mannequin's. Then he hugged her with adolescent fervor. Her body melted against his, fleetingly, and then she turned and was out of his arms like smoke.
"You seem to be doing well for yourself," she said, gesturing at the shop.
"Uh, yeah. Thanks." He pulled a chair back from a table. "Here, sit down."
She smiled and accepted. He went around behind the counter and busied himself. She lit a cigarette and looked at him. He didn't point out the LUNGS IN UsE-No SMOKING, PLEASE sign on the wall behind her.
She wasn't as willowy as she had been back in the Bay days. Nor was she blowsy from booze and depression as she had been when their marriage hit the rocks and she self-destructed at the first custody hearing, back in '81. Full-figured was what he thought they, called it, glancing back as he waited for water to boil, though he had it in mind that had become a euphemism for "fat". She wasn't; voluptuous might have put it better. Whatever, she wore forty well.