“No, I can’t, Victor. You know I can’t do anything against Jimmy.”
“He didn’t save you, Veronica. Look at yourself.”
“But what he did he did for me, don’t you see? Of all of you, of Zack and you and Norvel and Chet, of all of you only Jimmy loved me. I won’t betray that.”
“I love you.”
“You love it,” she said sharply.
“More than that.”
“Really, Victor? Consider it carefully. From the first I’ve lied to you. We’ve never spent a full night together, never shared breakfast, the first coffee of the morning, the first cigarette. You know nothing about me, Victor, so what about me could you possibly love other than our sex?”
“It’s not so easily calculable, it’s not like a ledger.”
“Oh, yes it is,” she said. “Just like you told me the first night we met.”
“You can’t know what I feel.”
“I don’t think you know either.”
There was a pause and I started thinking about what she was saying and then I stopped, because I didn’t want to think about it, I didn’t want to look into it.
“You’re the only one who can stop Chester from losing his freedom,” I said. “Stop him from losing his life for something he didn’t do. You have the duty to save him.”
“No, Victor. You’re his lawyer. You save him.” She looked up at me with moist eyes and a tear rolled down her cheek. “Please.”
I couldn’t tell if she was asking me to save Chester or asking me to save her, but it didn’t really matter. I leaned over and brushed one of her tears away with my lips and then kissed her and her lips opened and my lips opened and I felt her tongue once again and the electricity and the wanting and the unquenchable thirst. I reached a hand to her hair and grabbed and kissed her again and she kissed me back and I wished desperately that it could have been different. She sighed into my mouth. I rubbed my hand in her hair and kissed her again.
“You brushed your teeth, at least,” she said.
I smiled at her and we kissed once more and my hand dropped from her hair to her back to the little hollow at the bottom of her spine and I pressed her to me there and her arms slung themselves around my neck and we squeezed ourselves together and the alcohol in my blood burned itself off with that kiss. And as she pulled me closer toward her, melting herself to the contours of my body, I knew what I had to do. With my free hand I reached into my raincoat and grappled around and pulled out the envelope.
“This is for you,” I said.
She gave me a curious look and then ripped open the envelope with the excitement of a little girl opening a valentine. But it wasn’t a valentine.
Inside was a piece of paper with great Gothic letters across the top spelling out “The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania” and ordering the said Veronica Ashland of 225 Church Street in the City of Philadelphia, the County of Philadelphia, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, to appear in the United States District Court on the date specified, at 10:00 A.M., as a witness for defendant Chester Concannon in the trial of United States v. Moore and Concannon. The document was signed by the clerk of the court and accompanied by a check for thirty-six dollars, which included the witness fee and travel reimbursement for the four-block walk from her apartment to the courthouse.
“You bastard,” she said when she realized what it was. “You subpoenaed me.”
“Yes, I did.”
“How could you? How dare you?”
“You told me that I should save Chet’s butt. That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
“I won’t go. I’m not going.”
“If you don’t go, sweetheart, you’re going to end up in jail.”
“Fuck you.”
I leaned over again to kiss her on the cheek, but she backed away from me as if I were about to rip her flesh with my teeth. So instead I gave her a light chuck on the arm and left her apartment for good.
From the huge window in her elevator, as it dropped slowly, I could see the empty plaza and the cobbled street beyond. It was still raining, pouring. Across the city old men, dazed by too much alcohol and life, were snoring. I turned up the collar of my raincoat and dashed out into the plaza. When I reached the street I looked first right, then left. I saw the car, an old gray Honda Accord, a short way down the street, parked in front of a little coffee store. I ran to it. The door opened and I ducked inside.
“An umbrella, Victor,” said Sheldon Kapustin. “It’s a relatively new invention, but very handy on nights like tonight.”
“Where’s Morris?”
“My father hasn’t spent all night on a stakeout since the Rosenbluth jewelry heist of ’seventy-eight. Did he ever tell you about that one?”
“No.”
“He will. It’s his favorite story.”
“She’s in there. Pretty, shoulder-length brown hair, about five six, thin. She’s wearing a navy blue overcoat. She’ll be carrying a black suitcase. She didn’t pack much, and practically no cosmetics, so I don’t expect she’ll be going far.”
“Is there a back entrance?”
“Only an emergency exit with an alarm. No, if she comes out she’ll come out here. I just want to know where she is. If she’s about to get on a train or a plane stop her and then let me know immediately. I’ll get a U.S. marshal on her.”
“Sure thing.”
“What about Corpus Christi?”
“Just so happens, Victor, the number I spotted is a pay phone next to a marina. We sent a picture down to someone we trust to check it out.”
“Let me know.”
He nodded. “You want a ride home?”
“I’ll find a cab,” I said. “You just keep your eye on her.”
“If she’s as pretty as you say, Victor, that won’t be a problem.”
The rain was falling into my collar and down my back as I walked along Market Street looking for a cab. By the time I found one I was so wet it didn’t matter. I sat in the rear, rainwater puddling on the vinyl seat, and leaned my head back. I wanted to sleep is what I wanted to do. I was tired, too tired to even lift my head. I thought about stripping off my soaking clothes and standing in a hot shower and collapsing onto my pillow and sleeping. But I didn’t have the time. What I had to do was strip off my clothes and take a cold shower and spend the night with my trial notes and my law books and prepare myself to devastate the inevitably self-serving and perjured testimony of James Douglas Moore.
48
I WAS WORKING AT MY red Formica dining table, preparing for Moore’s examination, when my doorbell rang. The table was covered with documents and yellow pads and books, Mauet’s Fundamentals of Trial Technique, Wellman’s The Art of Cross-Examination, Appleman’s Successful Jury Trials, my copy of the Federal Criminal Code and Rules, but even with all that help I was getting nowhere. And then my doorbell rang. It was after 10:00 P.M. and no one should have been ringing my bell after 10:00 P.M. I remembered that the last time my bell had been rung late at night I had found Veronica on my doorstep. That would be serious trouble, I thought, but I couldn’t help but also remember the feel of that last kiss and know that I still wanted more.
In a T-shirt and jeans I slipped cautiously down the steps and peered into the vestibule. Outside, it was still raining. I could see a woman in a raincoat standing in the vestibule, staring back out to the street. My throat closed down on me for a moment and then she turned around.
“Beth,” I said as I ripped open the door. “God, come in, Beth.”
She stepped into the hallway, her hair flat against her head, her raincoat dripping. She looked closely at my face as if in doubt as to what she would find there. “I heard about what happened in court today,” she said. “How you went after that witness.”