Then again, people keep telling me I seem a bit crotchety since I woke up.
“...a direct examination of each witness,” Santos was saying, “followed by the defense’s cross-examination. The plaintiff is then allowed a redirect, and the defense a re-cross. After the plaintiff has rested its case, the defense then calls its witnesses, and the same rules of questioning and requestioning apply. If there are any questions from either of the contesting parties, please let me hear them now. I want everyone to understand exactly what’s about to transpire.”
There were no questions.
“In that case, Mr. Hope,” Santos said, “if you’re ready with your first witness, we’ll begin.”
Hurry up and come out of there, Warren thought.
He usually drove a beat-up old grayish Ford, which was a very good car for someone in his profession to drive unless he wanted everyone in the state of Florida to know just what he was up to. Trouble was, she knew the Ford, had in fact been in the car more times than he could count, so he couldn’t very easily park it up the street from her condo without her making it in a minute. Black man parked in a dilapidated gray Ford, who else could it be but good ole Warren Chambers?
So he’d parked here on the corner in a borrowed red Subaru with a dented left fender, and was hulking down now under the shadow of a big banyan tree dropping leaves all over the hood the way pigeons dropped shit. From where he was parked he could see the exit driveway from the parking lot in front of her condo. He knew her car. He’d be able to spot her the minute she left. If she left.
A fly buzzed his head.
Trouble with sitting here all the windows open.
Hated Florida and its goddamn bugs.
Kept watching the exit drive. It was on this end of the lot, big white arrow painted on the cement, pointing in. Big white arrow on the other end of the lot, pointing out. So come on, he thought. You got an arrow showing you the way, let’s do it.
He looked at his watch.
Nine thirty-seven.
Time to get out and get hustling, he thought.
Elaine Commins — or Lainie, as she preferred calling herself — was thirty-three years old, tall and spare with an elegantly casual look that spelled native Floridian, but she had come here from Alabama only five years ago, and she still spoke with a marked Southern accent. She was wearing for this morning’s hearing a long pleated silk skirt with a tunic-length cotton pullover. No panty hose or stockings, just bare suntanned legs in a sling-back shoe with a low heel and a sort of openwork macramé toe. On the pinky finger of her right hand was the same gold ring she’d been wearing when first she came to my office. She’d described it then as a Victorian seal ring, its face in the shape of a heart, its band decorated with florets. The gold of the ring and the wheat tones of her outfit complemented her long sand-colored hair, pulled back and away from her face in a ponytail fastened with a ribbon the color of her green eyes. Those eyes seemed wary and intent and — well, not to be unkind, but merely for the sake of accuracy — a trifle cockeyed.
In America, the word “cockeyed” means “cross-eyed,” what the British call a “squint,” although in America someone “squinting” is not looking at you “cockeyed,” he is merely narrowing his eyes at you, looking at you with his eyes only partly open, the way he might look while squinting at the sun, for example, hmm? A funny language these colonials have, wot? Lainie wasn’t truly cross-eyed. That is to say, neither of her eyes turned inward toward her nose. But she was cockeyed in that her left eye looked directly at you while her right eye turned outward. The defect was vital to her claim — in fact, I hoped it would win the day for us — but it nonetheless gave her an oddly vulnerable and exceedingly sexy look. Placing her hand on the Bible extended by the clerk of the court, she swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help her God.
“Would you tell me your name, please?” I said.
“Elaine Commins.”
Her voice as soft as a hot summer wind blowing in off the Tennessee River. Cockeyed green eyes wide and expectant in a face kissed by sunshine, left eye staring straight at me, right eye wandering to the American flag in the corner behind the judge’s bench. Bee-stung lips, slightly parted, as though she were breathlessly anticipating my next question.
“And your address, please?”
“1312 North Apple.”
“Is this also the address of your place of business?”
“It is. I work from a small studio in my home.”
“What’s the name of your business?”
“Just Kidding.”
“What sort of business is that, Ms. Commins?”
“I design children’s toys.”
“How long have you been doing this kind of work?”
“Ever since I graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design ten years ago.”
“So for ten years you’ve been designing children’s toys.”
“Yes.”
“Have you had your own business for all of those ten years?”
“No, I’ve worked for other people in the past.”
“Did you once work for Toyland, the defendant in this case?”
“I did.”
“In what capacity?”
“As a member of the design staff.”
“Designing toys?”
“Yes. Children’s toys.”
“Did you design Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear while you were in the employ of Toyland?”
“I certainly did not!”
“When did you design the bear?”
“In April of this year.”
“And you left your job at Toyland when?”
“This past January.”
I walked to the plaintiff’s table, and picked up from its top one of two seemingly identical teddy bears. The one I held in my hand as I walked back to the witness stand was some nineteen inches tall. The one still on the table was an inch shorter. Both were made of mohair. Each had hanging around its neck a pair of spectacles on a gold chain.
“Your Honor,” I said, “may we mark this as exhibit one for the plaintiff?”
“So marked.”
“Ms. Commins,” I said, “do you recognize this?”
“I do.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a stuffed toy called Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear, which I designed and had copyrighted and trademarked.”
“I offer the bear in evidence, Your Honor.”
“Any objections?”
“None,” Brackett said. “Subject to our argument that the bear was not designed by Ms. Commins.”
“Duly noted.”
“Ms. Commins, was the design of this bear original with you?”
“It was.”
“To your knowledge, before you designed and named this bear, was there any other teddy bear in the world called Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear?”
“To my knowledge, there was not and is not.”
“Have you registered the trademark Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear?”
“I have.”
“Your Honor, may we mark this document as plaintiff’s exhibit number two?”
“So marked.”
“Ms. Commins, I show you this document and ask if you can identify it for me.”
“It’s the original certificate of trademark registration for Gladly.”
“You mean Gladly the bear, of course.”
“I mean Gladly the Crow-Eyed Bear. The crossed eyes are a unique part of her design. As are the correcting eyeglasses. They are integral parts of the trade dress.”