"Then I object on the grounds that the line of questioning is irrelevant."
Conower raised an eyebrow at Latham. "That seems valid."
"Mrs. Gooding contends that the fact of her former husband's acehood constitutes a threat to the welfare of her daughter," Latham said.
"That's absurd(" Pretorius exclaimed.
"We intend to demonstrate that it is not at all absurd, your honor."
"Very well," Conower said. "You may attempt to so demonstrate. But the court will not compel Dr. Meadows to describe his powers."
Latham stood a moment before Mark, staring holes in him with reptile eyes. In the audience someone coughed. "You have friends who are aces, Dr. Meadows?" Mark glanced at Sprout, busy drawing doodles on one of Pretorius's legal pads, at Kimberly, who was dressed like the centerfold in Forbes and wouldn't meet his eye. Finally he looked to Pretorius, who sighed and nodded. "Yes."
Latham nodded slowly, as if this was Big News. Mark could feel the press begin to rustle around out there like snakes waking up among leaves. They sensed he was getting set up; he sensed he was getting set up. He glanced at Pretorius again. Pretorius gave him a drop-'em-and-spread-'em shrug.
"It's been suggested that you play a sort of Jimmy Olsen role to several of New York's most powerful aces. Is that a fair assessment?"
Mark tried to keep his eyes from sidling to Pretorius yet again. He didn't want Conower to think he was shifty-eyed. This justice trip was a lot more complicated than he ever thought.
… It came to him he had no idea how to answer the question. Other than, No, more of a Clark Kent role, which he badly did not want to say. He turned red and stuttered.
"Would it be fair," Latham continued, with a fractional smile to let Mark know he had him right where he wanted him, "to say that you are on intimate terms with certain aces, including one who variously styles himself Jumpin' Jack Flash and JJ Flash?"
"Um… Yes."
"Briefly describe Mr. Flash's powers for us, if you will. Come, there's no reason to be coy; they're not exactly a secret."
Mark hadn't been being coy. Latham's smug unfairness didn't make it easy to answer.
"Ah, he, ah-he flies. And he, like-I mean, he shoots fire from his hands."
Plasma, schmuck, a voice said in the back of his skull. I just pretend tit's fire. Jesus, you're making a royal screw-up out of this.
He looked around, terrified he had spoken aloud. But the mob showed blank expectant faces, and Latham was turning back from his table with a manila folder in his hands.
"I'd like to call the court's attention," Latham said, "to this photographic evidence of the damage done by just such a fire-shooting ace."
In the crowd somebody gasped; someone else retched. Latham pivoted like a bullfighter. Mark felt his stomach do a slow roll at the sight of the eight-by-ten photo he held in his hand. Judging from the skirt and Mary Janes, it had been a girl not much older than Sprout.
But from the waist up it was a blackened, shriveled effigy with a hideous grin.
Pretorius's cane tip cracked like a rifle. "Your honor, I object in the strongest possible termsl What the hell does counsel think he's doing with this horror show?"
"Presenting my case," Latham said evenly. "Preposterous. Your honor, this picture is of a victim of the ace the press dubbed Fireball, a psychopath apprehended by Mistral this spring in Cincinnati. Whatever his relationship to Mark Meadows, JJ Flash had no more to do with it than you or I or Jetboy. To show it here is irrelevant and prejudicial."
"Do you suggest I might be swayed by evidence not germane to this case?" Conower asked silkily.
"I suggest that Mr. Latham is attempting to try his case in the press. This is rank sensationalism."
Conower frowned. "Mr. Latham?"
Latham spread his hands as if surprised. "What am I to do, your honor? My opponent avers that ace powers are harmless. I demonstrate the contrary."
"I aver no such damn fool thing."
"Perhaps he would put it, Ace powers don't kill people-people kill people. I intend to demonstrate that the destructive potential of these powers is too enormous to be dismissed with a flip syllogism."
Pretorius grinned. "I have to hand it to you, St. John. You are stone death walking to straw men."
He shifted weight to the cane from his bad leg and turned to the judge. "Mr. Latham is trying to drag in atrocities with no connection to JJ Flash other than that they were committed by an ace with fire-related powers. And even if Flash were involved, to indict Dr. Meadows on that account smacks of guilt by association."
"If Dr. Meadows commonly associated with known members of the Medellin Cartel," Latham said ingenuously, "would your honor say that fact lacked relevance to his suitability as a parent?"
Conower squeezed her mouth till her lips disappeared. "Very well, Mr. Latham. You may present your case. And may I remind you, Dr. Pretorius, that I'm the one charged with evaluating the evidence?"
Mark felt more exposed and humiliated than he ever had in his life. This was worse than one of those balls-outon-Broadway dreams. All his life he'd shunned attention, in his own persona at least. Now all these strangers were looking at him and Sprout and thinking about those awful pictures.
Pretorius turned away from the bench. His eyebrows bristled over blue-hot eyes. Latham approached the witness stand with a look like an Inquisitor with a fresh-lit torch.
Kimberly was studying her fingernails. Mark looked at Sprout. Seeming to sense his attention, she looked up into his eyes and smiled.
He wanted to die.
"We need to do more, Mrs. Gooding," St. John Latham said.
"Such as what? You seem to be doing a marvelous job of emasculating my ex-husband as it is."
Latham stood. She sat on the couch, to the extent sitting was possible on a chrome-framed Scandinavian slab. It was more a matter of trying not to slide off onto the black marble floor. If the lawyer noticed the bitter sarcasm in her voice-as if she and Mark were on one side and he on the other-he didn't acknowledge it.
"Dr. Pretorius is a chronic romantic, and his notions of human nature and interactions downright quaint. Nonetheless, he is not a total fool. He is cunning, and he knows the law. And you are not without your vulnerable points." She threw her cigarette half-smoked into her drink and set the tumbler down on the irregular glass coffee table with a clink. "Such as?"
"Such as your breakdown in court during the first custody hearing. It lost the case for you then. It cannot help you now"
The two exterior walls that met at one corner of the Goodings' living room were glass. Kimberly gazed out over Manhattan and thought about how much the view reminded her of a black velvet painting. Apartments with panoramic views like this one always came off better in the movies, somehow.
" I was under a lot of stress."
"As are you now. It is not inconceivable that Pretorius might try to reduce you to another such breakdown on the stand."
She looked at him. "Is that what you'd do in his place?"
He said nothing.
She lit another cigarette and blew smoke toward him. "Okay. What did you have in mind?"
"A concrete demonstration of your husband's ace powers. Or solid evidence of the actual nature of the connection between him and Flash and Moonchild and the rest, if he is no more than a Jimmy Olsen figure."
Her eyes narrowed. "What are you saying."
"If your former husband loves your daughter as much as he claims, a perceived threat to her would certainly lead him to employ any powers he might have."
She went white, tensed as if she were about to leap up and attack him. Then she settled back and elaborately studied her manicure.
" I shouldn't be surprised that you're a bastard, Mr. Latham," she said. "After all, that's why I hired you. But it occurs to me-"
She lowered her hand and gave him a smile, poisonous and V -shaped. "It occurs to me that you're insane. You want me to use my daughter for bait?"
He didn't flinch. Didn't even flicker.