‘That’s very fine, Your Honor, thank you. No disrespect intended.’
Fowler allowed himself a chilly smile. ‘Of course not, Counsel. An honest question.’
After Fowler left the bench Pullios stomped out of the courtroom, leaving Hardy to gather their papers and eventually follow along. Freeman came over to the prosecution table and told Hardy he hoped there were no hard feelings about their initial meeting in the visitors’ room at the jail.
‘None at all.’
‘You know, if you wouldn’t mind a little free advice, I wouldn’t recommend using my client’s little slip about being on the Eloise. She really wasn’t there.’
Hardy smiled. ‘That seems debatable, doesn’t it?’
Freeman had his hands in his pockets, his leg thrown casually over the corner of Hardy’s table. ‘I’ve listened to the tape several times. The way you phrased it, it will come out as a trick question. It will only cast the prosecution in a poor light, make the playing field uneven.’
‘Well, we wouldn’t want that.’ Hardy finished picking up the papers, closed the briefcase. Thanks for the tip,‘ he said. ’I’ll pass it along.‘
Hardy was beginning to get used to it. These trial attorneys played a no-limit game and didn’t go about it according to Hoyle. How could Freeman get the balls to offer such advice? Did he think he was so green he’d be taken in by so transparent a bluff?
But the more Hardy thought about that, the more it made no sense at all. So maybe it wasn’t a bluff, it was a double reverse. Which made it a very effective bluff, if it was one.
Slick, he thought, walking along the hall back to his office. You had to admire it.
What did Freeman really want? He wanted to win. In a circumstantial case like this, if he could cause the prosecution to have doubts about bringing up any evidence whatever, it could only help the defense. On the other hand, on the surface his advice was sound – Hardy hadn’t planned to bring up May’s slip of the tongue, which had seemed to imply she’d been on board the Eloise because not only was it in itself unconvincing, Hardy didn’t want to introduce into the record his impropriety in visiting May in jail without her attorney present.
But now Freeman had told Hardy it wouldn’t be a good idea to bring it up. Certainly Freeman wasn’t actually trying to be a nice guy, help out the new kid. But his advice was something Hardy had intended to do anyway.
Which meant – what?
‘So why are we continuing until tomorrow? What’s the point of that?’ It had been less than five minutes since Pullios left the courtroom and now she sat in her office, door closed. Hardy, entering, had been shocked to see tears in her eyes. He started to tell her it was all right, he didn’t mean…
She stopped him and pointed to her eyes with both index fingers. ‘This is anger, Hardy. Don’t confuse this with having my feelings hurt. That bastard.’
Hardy had thought he’d discuss Freeman and strategy, but that clearly wasn’t going to be on the agenda. ‘He’s probably continuing it so he can read the file. He just found out he had the case this morning,’ Hardy said.
‘There’s no excuse for that tone.’
Hardy put her briefcase on the desk and sat down across from her. ‘Maybe he resented having his own motives questioned?’
She didn’t buy that. ‘You wouldn’t have asked him?’
‘I don’t know. I was curious, sure.’
‘When you’re curious, ask. It’s one of the rules.’
‘I didn’t think there were any rules.’
She looked straight at him. Her eyes still glittered. ‘There aren’t,’ she said.
31
It had turned into this.
Owen Nash stood on a balcony twenty-three floors above Las Vegas, his skin still damp from his shower. A towel was tucked under his protruding stomach, a fresh cigar remained unlit in his mouth. He liked the desert, especially now at twilight. It was still hot and dry after the scorching day, but the water evaporating from his skin kept him cool.
He fixed his eyes beyond the city. The mountains on the horizon had turned a faint purple. From far below, street noises carried up to him softly. More immediately, he heard May turn the shower off in the bathroom. He leaned heavily, with both hands, on the railing.
Sucking reflectively on the cigar, he felt rather than heard the soft tread of her bare feet crossing the rug behind him. He sighed again, started to say something, but May hushed him. She opened her kimono and pressed herself against him, then she led him silently back into the room and pushed him onto the bed.
‘Lie down,’ she ordered. ‘You’re getting a back rub.’
She started kneading his shoulders. The muscles were knotted tightly, but May was in no hurry. She knew what she was doing. Gradually, the stiffness began to work itself out. He began breathing deeply, regularly. For a moment she thought he might have fallen asleep, but then he groaned quietly as she moved to a new knot.
Outside, the twilight had deepened. May stretched out on top of him, ran her hand up along his side. ‘Pretty tense, you know that?’
He nodded.
‘You want to talk about it?’
He didn’t answer immediately, just lay with his eyes closed, breathing heavily. ‘We’ve got dinner,’ he said. It was to be their first public appearance together. He thought it was important to her. May didn’t push. She lay quietly in the growing dark.
‘I’ll decide in a minute,’ he said.
Even in the dimness, May could make out the lines in his face. His high and broad forehead showed a lifetime of living. His thin lips were tight. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, his voice strangely flat, ‘I don’t know.’
‘What?’
‘I think things may be getting a little out of hand.’
May stiffened – she’d been trying to let herself believe that she’d never hear this kind of thing from him. ‘With us?’
He laughed, pulling her tight against him. ‘Shinn, please. Well, maybe it is us, but not the way you mean.’
‘You tell me.’
‘You know the bitch about life is you can’t do everything. You take one road and it means you can’t take another. And either way, you’re going to miss something.’
‘Are you afraid of missing something?’
He laughed dryly. Tm afraid of missing anything. I never felt I had to. I never made any commitment that way. It just wasn’t in my life. Now I’m thinking about it. It scares the shit out of me. I keep thinking you’re going to find out.‘
‘Find out what?’
‘What I am. What I’ve been.’
She pressed herself long against him. ‘Haven’t we been through that. What do you think I’ve been?’
‘I don’t care what you’ve been, Shinn.’
‘I don’t care what you’ve been, Nash. Are you worried about those other roads, what you’re going to miss?’
‘Not so much. It’s making the change.’
‘Nobody’s forcing you.’
‘You’re wrong, Shinn. You’re forcing me. But it’s okay, it’s what I want. It’s the only thing I want anymore.’
She tried to believe him.
Freeman chewed on a pencil, looking out the sliding glass doors to the little courtyard, enclosed on the other three sides by the bricks of the surrounding buildings. A pigeon pecked on the cobbles.
May was sitting next to him at the marble table in the conference room. There was a fresh spray of flowers in the center of the table. The room smelled faintly like a walk-in humidor. ‘Did you ever go out?’ he asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that night. You said it was supposed to be your first public appearance. I just wondered how it went.’
She seemed to gather inside herself, as she’d done before. Freeman wasn’t sure he’d call it a visible withdrawal, but it was somehow palpable. He would have to try and define it better, get her trained not to do it, whatever it was, in front of a jury. ‘No,’ she said finally. ‘No, we never met any of his friends.’