Door frame, no door on it, led to what he could see was a kitchen. Fridge, stove, countertop, no window, just a little cubicle the size of a phone booth laid on end, well, he was exaggerating. Still, he wouldn’t like to try holding a dinner party in there. He stepped into the room, saw a little round wooden table on the wall to his right, two chairs tucked under it. Kitchen was a bit bigger than he’d thought at first, but he still wouldn’t want to wine and dine the governor here.
Pile of dirty dishes in the sink, another bad sign.
Food already crusted on them, meant they’d been there a while, an even worse sign.
He opened a door under the sink, found a lidded trash can, lifted the lid, peered into it. Three empty quart-sized ice cream containers, no other garbage. Things looking worse by the minute. He replaced the lid, closed the door, went to the fridge and opened it. Wilting head of lettuce, bar of margarine going lardy around the edges, container of milk smelling sour, half an orange shriveling, three unopened cans of Coca-Cola. He checked the ice cube trays. Hadn’t been refilled in a while, the cubes were shrinking away from the sides. He nearly jumped a mile in the air when he spotted the roach sitting like a spy on the countertop alongside the fridge.
They called them palmetto bugs down here. Damn things could fly, he’d swear to God. Come right up into your face, you weren’t careful. Two, three inches long some of them, disgusting. There were roaches back in St. Louis, when he lived there, but nothing like what they had down here, man. He closed the refrigerator door. Bug didn’t move a muscle. Just sat there on the countertop watching him.
Another car passed by outside.
Real busy street here, oh yes, cars going by at least every hour or so, a virtual metropolitan thoroughfare. He just hoped one of them wouldn’t be her car, pulling into the parking lot, home from market, surprise!
He figured that’s where she’d be, ten-thirty in the morning, probably down in Newtown, doing her marketing. He hoped to hell he was wrong. The roach — palmetto bug, my ass! — was still on the countertop, motionless, watching Warren as he went back into the main room of the unit, the living room/bedroom/dining room, he guessed you would call it. Red hibiscus sofa against the far wall, he walked to it, and leaned over it and opened the blinds, letting in sunlight.
I had only one other witness, an optometrist named Dr. Oscar Nettleton, who defined himself as a professional engaged in the practice of examining the eye for defects and faults of refraction and prescribing corrective lenses or exercises but not drugs or surgery. He modestly asserted that he was Chairman of, and Distinguished Professor in, Calusa University’s Department of Vision Sciences. I elicited from him the information that Lainie Commins had seemed elated...
“Objection, Your Honor.”
“Overruled.”
...and glowing with pride...
“Objection.”
“Overruled.”
...and confident and very up...
“Objection.”
“Sustained. One or two commonsense impressions are quite enough for me, Mr. Hope.”
...when she’d come to him this past April with her original drawings for Gladly and her requirements for the eyeglasses the bear would wear.
“She kept calling them the specs for the specs,” Nettleton said, and smiled.
He testified that his design for the eyeglasses was original with him, that he’d received a flat fee of three thousand dollars for the drawings, and had signed a document releasing all claim, title and interest to them and to the use or uses to which they might be put.
Brackett approached the witness stand.
“Tell me, Dr. Nettleton, you’re not an ophthalmologist, are you?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Then you’re not a physician, are you?”
“No, I’m not.”
“You just make eyeglasses, isn’t that so?”
“No, an optician makes eyeglasses. I prescribe correctional lenses. I’m a doctor of optometrics, and also a Ph.D.”
“Thank you for explaining the vast differences, Doctor,” Brackett said, his tone implying that he saw no real differences at all between an optician and an optometrist. “But, tell me, when you say the design for these eyeglasses is original with you, what exactly do you mean?”
“I mean Miss Commins came to me with a problem, and I solved that problem without relying upon any other design that may have preceded it.”
“Oh? Were there previous designs that had solved this problem?”
“I have no idea. I didn’t look for any. I addressed the problem and solved it. The specifications I gave her were entirely original with me.”
“Would you consider them original if you knew lenses identical to yours had been designed prior to yours?”
“My design does not make use of lenses.”
“Oh? Then what are eyeglasses if not corrective lenses?”
“The lenses in these glasses are piano lenses. That is, without power. They are merely clear plastic. If you put your hand behind them, you would see it without distortion. They are not corrective lenses.”
“Then how do they correct the bear’s vision?”
“They don’t, actually. They merely seem to. What I’ve done is create an illusion. The teddy bear has bilaterally crossed eyes. That is to say, the brown iris and white pupil are displaced nasalward with respect to the surrounding white scleral-conjunctival tissue of the eye. As in the drawing Ms. Commins first brought to me. What I did...”
“What you did was design a pair of eyeglasses you say are original with you.”
“They are not eyeglasses, but they are original with me.”
“When you say they’re original, are you also saying you didn’t copy them from anyone else’s eyeglasses?”
“That’s what I’m saying. And they’re not eyeglasses.”
“Your Honor,” Brackett said, “if the witness keeps insisting that what are patently eyeglasses...”
“Perhaps he’d care to explain why he’s making such a distinction,” Santos said.
“Perhaps he’s making such a distinction because he knows full well that his design is copied from a pair of eye—”
“Objection, Your...”
“I’ll ignore that, Mr. Brackett. I, for one, certainly would like to know why Dr. Nettleton doesn’t consider these eyeglasses. Dr. Nettleton? Could you please explain?”
“If I may make use of my drawings, Your Honor...”
“Already admitted in evidence, Your Honor,” I said.
“Any objections, Mr. Brackett?”
“If the Court has the time...”
“I do have the time, Mr. Brackett.”
“Then I have no objections.”
I carried Nettleton’s drawings to where he was sitting in the witness chair. He riffled through the stapled pages and then folded back several pages to show his first drawing.