She didn’t understand it exactly. She just knew that in some unspoken way they were in this together, finding something out, something essential for them both to go on. It wasn’t the sex, or at least it wasn’t only the sex.
She’d made her living from sex for fifteen years, and none of it had seriously touched her. Her life, even her professional life, had evolved into something remote. She made love with her clients, but not every time she saw them. When they needed it, predictably missionary after the first few times, then she was there. Often they couldn’t make it. More often they wanted to hug, lie there afterward and talk.
She made them dinners, too. Scampi in brandy, raw oysters, rare filet and cabernet. She’d turned into a great cook. She sang for them, played piano while they sat with their bourbon or gin, gave them the companionship or escape or a kind of romance they didn’t find in their homes.
Owen, though. Owen wasn’t like anyone else. And not just his hungers. He didn’t live a life of quiet desperation. He wasn’t looking for respite, or peace, or a sheen of culture laid on top of the vulgarity of the world. He’d seen it for what it was, or more, he’d seen himself for what he was.
No games. And she was with him. The oblivion – the sex – the sex was the only way they both knew anymore to get to it, to get underneath the crust. Something was cooking inside each of them, threatening to blow if it didn’t get some release, get through the crust.
It was morning, early, before dawn. The sky was gray in the east and still dark over the ocean.
May Shinn had been out of bed for an hour, walking naked in the dark. She moved away from her turret windows and went back through the kitchen to the bedroom, stopping to pick up her razor-sharp boning knife. Owen slept on the bed, breathing regularly, on his back.
She put the edge of the knife up under his throat, sitting, watching him breathe. The bedroom was darker than the rest of the apartment. Finally she laid the blade down across his collarbone and kissed him.
‘Owen.’
He woke up like no one else. He simply opened his eyes and was all the way there. ‘What?’
She moved the edge of the blade back up so it touched the skin above his Adam’s apple. ‘Do you feel this?’
‘Would this be a bad time to nod?’
‘Do you want me to kill you?’
He closed his eyes again, took a couple of breaths. ‘That’s where we’re going, isn’t it?’ He didn’t move.
‘Owen. What are we doing?’
He took a moment. Perhaps he didn’t know either. Maybe they both knew and it scared them too much. ‘What are we doing?’ she asked again.
‘We’re showing each other each other.’ He swallowed. She could feel the blade move over his skin.
‘I don’t know what I feel.’
‘You love me.’ And as soon as he said it, she knew it was true. She felt her eyes tearing and tightened her hand on the knife. ‘And I love you,’ he said, ‘but I don’t want you to put your hopes in me. I’m not saving your life, May.’
‘I’m what you want, though.’
‘That’s right. You’re what I want. But I play fair. I’m telling you straight, the best way I know how.’
‘I’m a whore, Owen. I’m nothing, but I play fair, too. You know me. I don’t know how long I’ve loathed what I am. I don’t want to care about you, but you’re my last great chance…’
Owen had closed his eyes again. She pulled the knife away from his throat. ‘I’ve warned you,’ she said.
‘And I’ve warned you.’ He pulled her down and kissed her, held her against his chest.
23
The next morning, Pullios was sitting in Hardy’s office when he walked in at 8:25. She held the morning Chronicle folded in her lap. ‘Nice story,’ she said. She opened the paper to the front-page article, in its now familiar spot lower right: ‘State To Seek Death Penalty In Nash Murder.’ And under it: ‘D.A. Claims Special Circumstances – Murder For Profit – In Tycoon’s Death.’
He came around the desk, opened his briefcase, started removing the work he’d taken home and ignored – some stuff he’d let slide while concentrating on May Shinn. Moses had come over, worried about Rebecca (and about Frannie and probably Hardy, too) and had stayed to eat with them and hang out.
‘I read it,’ he said.
‘I’m surprised Elliot didn’t get the news about the bail.’
Hardy stopped fiddling. ‘She made bail? I had a feeling she’d make bail. Freeman put it up?’
Pullios closed the paper, placed it back down on her lap. ‘I don’t know. We can subpoena her financial records if we can convince a judge that we think she got it illegally.’
‘Not Barsotti.’
‘No, I gathered that. We’ll look around.’
‘How about prostitution? Last time I checked, that was illegal.’
‘Maybe. It’s a thought, we should check it out.’ She recrossed her legs. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I came by to apologize again. I was out of line. It should have been your case. I’m sorry.’
Hardy shrugged. ‘There’ll be other cases.’
‘Thank you.’ She didn’t try her smile or her pout. “Cause we’re going to be busy.‘
‘I don’t know,’ Hardy said. ‘We’ve got two months now and I’ve let all this stuff back up.’ He motioned around his office.
Now she was smiling, but he didn’t get the feeling it was for any effect. ‘You believe we’re going out on a prelim in two months?’
‘I got that general impression.’
Pullios shook her head. ‘We’re not letting that happen. There’s no way Freeman and Barsotti are putting this thing off until next year. I talked to Locke after the arraignment, and he okayed it – we’re taking this sucker to the grand jury on Thursday. Get an indictment there, take it into Superior Court and blindside the shit out of the slow brothers.’
‘Can we do that?’
‘We can do anything we want,’ she said. ‘We’re the good guys, remember.’
‘I don’t want to rain on this parade, but isn’t there some risk here? What if the grand jury doesn’t indict?’
Pullios rolled her eyes. ‘After you’re here awhile, you’ll understand that if the D.A. wants, the grand jury will indict a ham sandwich. Besides, the grand jury always indicts for me. We’ve got everything Glitsky had, which ought to be enough. But if it isn’t, Ballistics says the gun is the murder weapon. But one thing…“
‘Okay, but just one.’
She smiled again. They seemed to be getting along. ‘No leaks on this. This is an ambush.’
David Freeman knew his major character flaw – he could not delegate. He couldn’t even have his secretary type for him. He’d let Janice answer the telephones, okay, put stamps on letters if they were in the United States and less than three pages – more than that, he had to weigh them himself and make sure there was enough postage. He did his own filing, his own typing. He ran his own errands.
He was, after Melvin Belli, probably the best-known lawyer in the city. He had seven associates but no partners. None of the associates worked for him – recession or no – for more than four years. He burned ‘ em out. They ’d come to him for ’trial experience.‘ But if you were a client and came to David Freeman to keep you from going to jail, he wasn’t about to leave that up to Phyllis or Jon or Brian or Keiko – he was going to be there inside the rail himself, his big schlumpy presence personally making the judge and jury believe that you didn’t do it.
His deepest conviction was that nobody, anywhere, was as good as he was at trial, and if you hired the firm of David Freeman & Associates, what you got was David Freeman. And you got your trial prepared – somewhat -by associates at $135 an hour. When David got to the plate – and he personally reviewed every brief, every motion, every deposition – the price went up to $500, and trial time was $1,500. Per hour.