Steve felt like saying, “No, but I know you’re dying to tell me,” but realized that would be terribly cruel. He said nothing.
“Well, it’s hard,” Sheila said. “It’s very hard. Rich bitch? Well, I am, but I’m not. When I’m thirty-five I’ll be a rich bitch, but right now I’m not. I have all of the disadvantages, and none of the advantages.
“I’m young, and I’m pretty, and I’m fun, and men like me. They love me. They go nuts about me. But always in the background there’s Uncle Max’s millions, and I can never be sure. Is it me? Do they like me for me?
“And I have no money. None at all. I live like a pauper. I get by. And you know how I get by? Men. I live off men. That’s what Uncle Max has done to me. That’s what he’s reduced me to. If I wanna go out to dinner, I have to find some man to take me. And if I do, I never know if he’s taking me because he likes me, or because he’s trying to hit on me, or because of Max. Is he thinking of spending money on me as a long-term investment? I can never be sure.”
She paused, and a new look came into her eyes, and for a moment Steve wondered what it was. Then he got it. Defensive. She’d had no problem with what she’d said so far, but for what she was about to say she was taking a defensive stand.
“Except for Johnny,” she said. “I love him. We’re in love. I don’t know if you can understand that. But he loves me. Just for me. Not for the money. He doesn’t need the money. He’s young, and brilliant, and he makes all the money he needs. He takes care of me.”
She paused again. Steve said nothing. Waited.
“All right, there’s the coke. I guess I should stop it. All right, I know I should stop it. It’s just that Johnny was so perfect, so right, you know. It didn’t seem that bad. I mean if Johnny did it, how could it be wrong? And I was in love and I went along, and you can’t understand that. To you I’m just a cokehead. As far as you’re concerned, I deserve to be in jail. That’s what you think, isn’t it?”
“What do you care what I think? You don’t like me, anyway.”
Sheila’s body tingled when he said that. It was a strange sensation. Something new. Something unexpected. And something very unsettling. She shivered slightly, and the sensation passed.
“Right,” she said, mustering up some of the old spunk. “I don’t like you and you don’t like me. But we’re stuck with each other, so what the hell are we gonna do now?”
Steve smiled. “We’re gonna go to court.”
Sheila felt another sensation, and this one was entirely unpleasant. Her face lost a little color.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Hey,” Steve said. “It’s not gonna be that bad. What you’re having now is stage fright. Opening-night jitters. When you get in the courtroom you’ll be fine. Just remember, you don’t have to do anything. You just have to be there. I’m the one who’s gonna do all the work. All you have to do is sit there and look innocent.”
“How the hell do you look innocent?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then how the hell am I supposed to do it?”
“All right, then. Just try not to look guilty.”
“Oh, hey,” she said, sarcastically. “Great advice. Thanks. And just what do I do when you put me on the stand?”
Steve took a breath. “Look,” he said. “Let me tell you a little bit about our plan of attack. Right now, our best strategy is to sit back and try to poke holes in the prosecution’s case. There’s bound to be some, and we can find ’em. The money thing, for instance. How could you be blackmailed if you have no money? See what I mean? The prosecution has to prove you guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Always remember that. All we have to do is raise a reasonable doubt.”
Sheila was looking at him suspiciously. “Wait a minute. Are you trying to tell me you’re not going to put me on the stand?”
“All right, look, we have a big problem here. You told your story to the police. And you lied. If you change your story, you have to admit you lied. Unless you have a damn good explanation, that’s suicide, and you don’t have one.
“If you stick with your story, you’re sticking with a lie. And if the D.A. catches you in a lie in front of the jury, you’re done.
“So the answer is no. I can’t afford to put you on the stand.”
“But why not? They can’t prove I wasn’t window-shopping. Why, I can remember every store I went to.”
“I bet you can. Unfortunately, there are other little matters, which you can’t explain.”
“Like what?”
“Your uncle gave you a hundred bucks. How much money did you have when you were arrested?”
“About eleven dollars.”
“Sure, cause you spent the hundred on cocaine. Well, the D.A. is gonna wanna know where that hundred dollars went.”
“Can’t I say I bought something for my apartment?”
“You don’t own anything worth a hundred dollars. That’s just the type of lie I’m talking about. They’d catch you in it right away. They’d want to know what you bought and where, and they’d check the stores for the sales records.”
Sheila bit her lip. She thought a moment. Then she got a gleam in her eye. It was the old fire. The old spunk. Steve was glad to see it.
For a moment.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll say I gave it to you for a retainer.”
“Whoa! Back up!” Steve said. “Now you’re asking me to commit perjury.”
“Well, why not? You’re a lawyer, aren’t you? If anybody knows how to commit perjury, you ought to.”
“Well forget it. I’m not putting myself on the witness stand. In the first place, it’s questionable ethics for an attorney to testify in behalf of his client, even when he’s telling the truth. In the second place, the jury would never believe me anyway.”
Sheila put on a pout. “All right, be that way. But let me tell you something. If you can’t beat the prosecution’s case, you’ll have to put me on the stand. And when the D.A. asks me what happened to the money, I’m gonna tell him I gave it to you. Then if you try to prove that I didn’t, it’s gonna make you look like one hell of a lawyer, isn’t it?”
Steve looked at her. Sighed. She was back in form, all right.
35
Steve Winslow sat in the barbershop, waiting his turn and thinking about the case. The old man in the chair near the window looked about done. Then a quick clip, and he could get out of there and hunt up a clothing store and buy a suit off the rack- no time for alterations, thank god he was average build-and go home and hit the law books.
The case. The goddamn case. His first, his one and only case. Tomorrow he’d be in court.
Jesus.
Steve thought about what he’d told Sheila Benton. Stage fright. Opening-night jitters. Well, he had ’em all right. God was he nervous.
Nothing to worry about, he told himself. It’s just another play. You’re an actor, and it’s a play. Think of the courtroom as a stage set. That’s all it is. Just a bit of courtroom drama.
Then it hit him. A cold chill ran down his spine. It was a play all right. A play he hadn’t rehearsed. A play in which he didn’t know the lines. The actor’s nightmare come to life.
Steve felt a moment of panic. It was immediately replaced by something else. Anger. Anger at himself. Selfish bastard, he thought. So concerned about how he was going to look, what impression he was going to make in the court. A young girl’s future was at stake. A silly, irresponsible girl, perhaps, but still, one that deserved better. It was his job to defend her, and damn it, he had to be up to the task.
But what a task. To convince twelve people that Sheila Benton didn’t kill Robert Greely. Steve wondered if there were twelve people in all of New York City that didn’t believe Sheila Benton had killed Robert Greely.
There was a pile of old magazines and newspapers on the table next to him. On top was a copy of the New York Post. “BAXTER NIECE INDICTED” screamed the headline. “Baxter niece,” that was the thing. This wasn’t the Sheila Benton case. It wasn’t the Robert Greely case. It was the Baxter case, and the media wasn’t going to let anyone forget it. Maxwell Baxter’s niece killed someone, that was the message the media was putting out loud and clear, and the public was lapping it up. People always loved to see someone big, and rich, and powerful in trouble. An heiress with a multimillion-dollar trust fund killed someone. That’s what everyone believed. Even Mark Taylor. So how the hell was he gonna make anyone think different?