But still.
“What say we do the town tonight?” said Simon.
“Find us a high-class knocking shop,” said Jack.
“Just a pleasant night out with the boys,” said Simon.
“I noticed something curious in the partnership list,” I said. That got their attention fast. “That’s what was troubling me before. There were two partnership shares held in trust by W.P. on behalf of W.O. Any idea what that is all about?”
“A old friend of Prescott’s,” said Simon. “A prep school mate, being hounded by some cackhanded fool for a million dollars or so. Something to do with his divorce, I think. Seemed to be a sad story, actually, when Bill told it to me. It’s always sad to see a sot being chased for his money. Prescott owed him something so he bought two shares to be held in trust, until the legal problems settle.”
So that’s the way it was, I thought. William Prescott and Winston Osbourne, friends from the start, prep school mates, one helping the other hide his money from me. Well, now I knew where to find a little bit more for my twenty-five percent share. But all of a sudden I wasn’t hungry for the last of Winston Osbourne’s dollars. I was tied up with William Prescott in a very real way, which meant I was tied up with Winston Osbourne too. And I guess that was the price for joining the club, that we all help each other out, even the destitute. I could be munificent, sure, if that was what was required of me, I could be munificent as hell. Simon was right, it was so sad to see a sot being chased for his money. I had taken enough from him, I figured. Whatever he offered in final settlement after the car would be enough. Good. My first case as a lawyer would finally be over. It was time to move on.
“Well, what do you say, Victor?” asked Jack. “Boys night out? A few cigars, a few cheap thrills?”
“Or maybe not so cheap thrills,” said Simon.
“Sure,” I said with a shrug, shucking off all concern that Beth had raised about the Ruffing cross-examination, ignoring the worries about the connection between W.P. and W.O. that should have been hammering at my consciousness but were instead only tap, tap, tapping there, tapping so lightly they couldn’t break through the spell of the alcohol and fine food and rich company. “Why not,” I said. “I’ve got nothing better to do.”
“More wine, Victor?”
“Yes, please.”
I drank the wine, a crisp Chablis, and ate the veal and laughed along with Simon’s jokes. The waiter brought another bottle and my glass was filled again, the two Bishops so attentive to my goblet they might almost have been trying to get me drunk, and as the wine danced on the back of my tongue my spirits rose. This wasn’t so bad, this veal, this wine, this ambience of money. I could get used to this.
30
PRESCOTT WAS IMPRESSIVE on cross-examination. Even without saying a word he could be unnerving. He leaned slightly forward, his hands gripping tightly to the sides of the wooden podium, his eyes fixed like laser sights on the witness. As he stood there, tall, in a solid navy blue, pitched forward, his posture angry, the polite smile on his stern face tight and angry, as he stood before the court a tension grew and then out of that tension came questions, soft at first, full of incredulity or certainty, rising and falling in pitch and volume, questions that compelled answers.
“Now, Mr. Bissonette was a ladies’ man, wasn’t he, Mr. Ruffing?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“He went out with lots of different ladies, isn’t that right?”
“That’s right.”
“Older ladies and younger ladies and single ladies and married ladies.”
“He did all right, he was a ballplayer, after all.”
“And the married ladies had husbands?”
“By definition, right?”
“And the single ladies had fathers?”
“I would guess so.”
“And Mr. Bissonette with all his lady friends was sure to have made some enemies, isn’t that right?”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Are you married, Mr. Ruffing?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have daughters?”
“Two.”
“Would you have let your two precious daughters go out with Mr. Bissonette?”
“Not on your life,” said Ruffing with a broad smile at the jury.
“No, I’m sure you wouldn’t, Mr. Ruffing. But plenty of men, without giving permission, had their precious daughters go out with Mr. Bissonette, right?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“And Mr. Bissonette used to talk about these girls, didn’t he?”
“Occasionally.”
“He’d tell stories.”
“Sometimes.”
“He’d entertain his friends at the bar with his stories of all these ladies.”
“Now and then.”
“Stories about these ladies he took to bed, these wives and daughters he took to bed and fucked.”
The jury leaned back as if they had been slapped. The word was all the more shocking coming from the upright and austere personage that was William Prescott III.
Eggert said, “Objection to the language and the relevance.”
The judge turned to Ruffing and said simply, “Is that what Mr. Bissonette would talk about?”
“Sometimes,” said Ruffing. “Yes, sir.”
“Watch your language, Mr. Prescott,” he said. “You can continue.”
“Now, Mr. Ruffing, did Mr. Bissonette ever tell you the names of these women?”
“Sometimes.”
“And was one of them the daughter of Enrico Raffaello?”
“Objection,” shouted Eggert, jumping to his feet before Ruffing could answer, and the judge picked his head out of his papers and stared long and hard at Prescott and then said, “The jury is excused for fifteen minutes, the bailiff will lead you out,” and everyone stayed still as the jury rose and filed out, Prescott gripping the podium, Eggert standing, his arm raised in protest, the judge staring at Prescott.
When the jury had left the courtroom the judge said in four sharp and precise syllables, “In my chambers.”
I rose as steadily as I could and followed the other lawyers into the judge’s book-lined office. I had drunk far too much wine the night before with the Bishops, graduating later in the evening to Sea Breezes. We had never gotten back to the marble-tabled conference room. Instead, Simon knew of this place on Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Jersey where the women dance on your table and sit on your lap, so long as you buy them twenty-four-dollar glasses of fake champagne cocktail, which we did. One of the women in this place had the longest legs I had ever seen, bacon and eggs Jack called them, legs she could wrap twice around the pole that bisected the stage, and the Bishops bought her three champagne cocktails just to keep her on my lap. Her name was Destiny, she wore golden spikes, her breasts were like porcelain, that white, that smooth, that immobile as she danced. I liked her smile. Destiny. With real red hair and golden spikes. It was a good thing that my orders were to let Prescott do the whole of the examination because that morning my brain was so fogged and my tongue so thick I doubted a single word would have been understood by the jury.
“Mr. Prescott,” said the judge, with more than the usual tinge of anger in his voice. He was sitting behind his desk in his chambers while the rest of us stood around him in a semicircle. The court reporter had brought his machine from the courtroom and was sitting serenely next to the desk. “What kind of question was that?”
“A probative one, Your Honor,” said Prescott.
“I won’t let you bring up all the names of the women Bissonette might have been with. I gave you more than enough latitude with your questions about his stories as it was.”
“Your Honor, we believe Mr. Bissonette was murdered by Mr. Raffaello because he was having sex with his daughter.”