I could guess that Francine was not entirely happy with Mr. Lefkowitz, but Thomassy, with a glance, kept her from saying something. They had had a previous agreement on the point, I was certain.
"I think it would be useful in the opening presentation," said Thomassy, "to cover two more points. Murder is a single act. When it's finished, that's the end of it. The victims of rape, when they are allowed to live, or when they give in so that they can live, then have to spend the rest of their existences with the disgust and terror and memory of it. Rape is a continuing crime because long after it is committed it goes on in the head of the victim."
"A good point," I said.
"Excellent," said Lefkowitz. I wonder what he wrote down on that pad of his.
"My last point," said Thomassy, "has to do with the importance of this particular case. From time to time we've had the experience in this county of a rapist who focuses on youngsters, ten- and twelve- and fourteen-year-olds. When he's caught, the mother refuses to let the child testify. She takes the child to a psychiatrist, and the psychiatrist discourages public testimony because it could be traumatic for the child. He doesn't worry too much about the private testimony the child is giving him because that's therapy and he's being paid for it. Well, we're all against child rapists, right, and we're furious when the guilty escape the law because the underage victims aren't allowed to testify. But the truth is that many women who are raped feel exactly as the mothers of the children do, they don't want to go through the public experience, the drawing out of their private lives, the humiliation, the obscenity of the details. They fink out. In this case, the jury is going to hear from an extraordinary victim, the rare, brave young woman with the strength to testify, the moral strength to be unwilling to duck her responsibility to the rest of humanity. Don't make her into Joan of Arc. Just make damn sure that in your opening she comes across as someone deserving of respect. That's the word to write down: respect."
"I already have," said Lefkowitz.
"It's your meeting," said Thomassy.
"I think I've got what I need out of this larger meeting," he said. "I'd like to go over the details of the actual event from my notes with Miss Widmer, if that's all right with you gentlemen."
I said Thomassy and I would wait for her in the anteroom and take her to lunch afterwards.
Outside, we went to the men's room, the bridegroom and the father of the bride in adjoining urinals, listening to their respective tinkles. It would have been more comfortable to skip a urinal in between, but also obvious.
"Well," said Thomassy, "I think she's safe with Lefkowitz."
I had to laugh.
"I mean in the office," said Thomassy. "He could blow it in the courtroom."
I had to agree. "What do you think are our chances?"
Thomassy didn't answer. I didn't know if he was thinking or preoccupied.
"Realistically," I said.
We both took extra time to make sure the last drop went, then zipped up, washed up, and strolled down the corridor together before he replied.
"Lefkowitz is no match for Brady."
"Our case is good." Why our case? And how did I know it was good? I sounded like a layman.
"Ned, good cases are of no value if your advocate isn't shrewder than the other guy, or doesn't know where the power lies. We have one chance."
"What's that?"
"Work on Brady so he knows he's playing with me and not with the kid Lefkowitz."
We walked back the way we had come. "George," I said to him, "when you were in school, did you think of justice as the lady with the scales and all that?"
"In the streets of Oswego, Ned, things aren't much different from Manhattan. They don't let you get away with cock and bull. Clout counted. Not justice." He looked at me. "Were things different at Groton?"
"No. Of course not. The parents pretended, of course. And the masters. But not the boys. Did you pay the piper?"
"Piper?"
"The leader. The bully. Whatever you called him."
"I worked around him."
"A mite harder working around Lefkowitz."
"Yup."
"Well, never fear," I said. "I'm no authority on tactics, but it seems to me your suggested presentation was rather brilliant. If only we could hire an actor for the role."
"Why thank you, Ned." He seemed genuinely pleased. "Glad you steered Francine to me?"
"Not entirely."
Back in the anteroom, we sat apart. I thumbed through a U.S. News and World Report. When Francine emerged, Thomassy, who was not reading, went to her first. They said something to each other, I couldn't overhear, and he took both of her hands only for a split second. I thought Are we at last mingling our genes with the barbarians', or have we found a way of protecting ourselves?
We went to lunch. I was the supernumerary.
Thirty-eight
Thomassy
I put my briefcase against the leg of my chair so it would be sure to fall over when I got up. I didn't want to forget it. I couldn't tell you what I ordered or ate or heard as I watched the talk ping-ponging back and forth from Francine to her father, her father to Francine, meaning, really, I watched how Francine's lips moved when she talked, the way she touched them with the edge of the cloth napkin, the way her hair swayed when she tossed her head. All I'd had was a Campari and soda before lunch and I was sailing, floating, except it wasn't a casual high, easygoing or passive. I was being swept along weightlessly in space under the influence of the most potent hallucinogen in the world, the thrall of being in love.
Every once in a while Widmer would turn to me and say something. I'd nod or shake my head, possessed, not knowing what I was agreeing to! Francine, intuiting that a mad obsession had taken hold, covered for me, keeping the conversation bobbing amidst the noise of the restaurant. I felt as if she and me, me and she were the only ones mattering, stripped of all other things in life except each other. And the tremendous energy that came with it! Sitting still I felt like leaping up, whirling about, dancing like a Nijinsky even though I've never danced solo in my life. It's the omnipotence, the feeling I can do anything, I am in love.
At last father and daughter were through. We stood for the ceremony of his leaving. He pecked Francine's cheek, a cheek that I wanted to lick with my tongue like a cat. I shook Widmer's hand, hoping mine, its skin prickling with nerve endings, didn't feel as hot to him as it felt to me. My face felt flushed, too. The nerve endings on my arms and elsewhere cried out to be touched by you know who.
"Goodbye," he said.
Tra-la, I wanted to say.
"I suppose you two have things to talk about," he said.
I suppose, you suppose, he supposes. We suppose, they suppose.
He vanished into the crowd after a last little wave at his daughter and glance at me, and the two of us were alone in that crowd. I put my hands on the table and she covered them with her own.
"It's unbearable," I said.
"I know," she said.
Could another person feel energy bouncing around for release, the total, total, total overwhelming joy of it all? Perhaps she felt a bit of it, too?
"More than a bit," she said. Was she reading my thoughts or was I talking out loud and not knowing it?
"I've got to get back to the city," she said. "The stuff on my desk is crying out for my attention."
"I am crying out for your attentions," I said, and I knew she could hear me, because I could hear myself now talking out loud instead of inside my head.
"Listen," I said, "this is urgent."
"What?"
"This." I moved my hands under her hands. "I'd be dangerous in the courtroom," I said. "To my client. To myself." I moved my face across the table and she moved hers to meet it. From four inches away from her lips, I said, "I've gone insane."