Impact (37 page)

“I see.”

“I tell you this because I'm sure that when he recommended us, Alec told you our studies are often accepted at face value in court. But we've never had a case that was this … what I'm saying, I'm afraid, is that if it weren't for Alec Hawthorne, we would have declined the commission once the facts were known. Declined it with dispatch.”

“I understand, Mr. Ely.”

“Resist the temptation to believe our report is as favorable as it appears on the surface, Mr. Tollison. That's all I have to say.”

“I appreciate your candor.”

“I hope you remain appreciative when you get our bill.”

Tollison replaced the phone, got himself another beer, and sank into his chair. Within the nearby tube of his Trinitron, Gifford handed off to Dierdorf, but Tollison had become oblivious, his mood so soured by the phone call that he could no longer take pleasure even in a Monday night.

The case was becoming a nightmare—the trial approaching like a runaway train while his proof collapsed like the trade of arms for hostages. His nights restless stretches of gloomy forecasts, long hours of every day were spent doing nothing more productive than seeking a way out of the mess he had made. But he could find no exit that would not so erode the elements he had hoped the case would enhance—his trial skills, his financial security, his grasp on Laura's heart—that surrender would make him even more miserable than he was already.

Ambition had lured him beyond his depths. In the spell of a dozen venalities he had persuaded himself that the SurfAir case was no different from any other—that, with Hawthorne handling the liability evidence, it was merely an airborne fender bender. Hire some experts, charm the jury, show your client in a sympathetic light, then watch the fees roll in. Fueled initially by fancy, now he confronted only truth—the heart of his case was as insubstantial as cream cheese: Jack Donahue, as Art Ely had confirmed and as Tollison had known for forty years, was worthless.

As he was getting his third beer, he heard the doorbell. He was expecting no one, so he sat and sipped and hoped they'd go away. The bell rang a second time. A Witness with the
Watchtower
, or possibly his mother. Neither a welcome interruption. Irritated, he yanked open the door, prepared to be as inhospitable as necessary.

“Laura. I'll be damned.”

“Hi, Keith.”

“I … you've never been here before.”

“I know.”

“Has something happened?”

In the dusk her eyes were queerly hooded, as though her purpose were nefarious. “I'm giving myself a treat.”

He glanced past her at the street, then behind him at the mess. When he looked at her, she was laughing. “Why are you so
nervous?
I'm just visiting my lawyer. What's wrong with that?”

He thickened with embarrassment. “Come on in. The place is essentially filthy, but …”

She followed him into a gloom appropriate to the evening he had planned. After he brushed
Sports Illustrated
and
Newsweek
off the couch she took a seat, but only after brushing at the thin velour herself, this time to scatter Cheetos.

He broached the only subject that still linked them. “How's Jack?”

“He's back in San Jose. They're running more tests. Trying to revive another square inch of his brain, I guess,” she added, casually enough to disturb him.

He sat on the ottoman across from her. “Is he still making progress?”

She shrugged, her eyes taking in as much of the room as was visible in the dusk. “He's better physically—he can move his left side now, pretty much, but his right side is still paralyzed.”

“How about mentally?”

“Most of the time his mind is still somewhere I can't reach. And lately I've been too tired to try.” She looked around. “Do you always keep it this dark in here? I feel like I'm at the bottom of a well.”

He turned on a light and opened the curtains. As he apologized again for the state of the house, he wondered why she had come. They had always made love on neutral territory, and though he tried to see her arrival as a sign that their relationship had not only revived but had become flagrant, he was unable to see the visit except as a relapse to when their meetings didn't matter.

He asked if she wanted a drink. She shook her head. He motioned to the chips and the gangrenous dip. She shook her head again. Al Michaels cackled over a tackle. Tollison turned him down.

“I … was I interrupting something?”

“Just a game.”

“Monday night. Of course. I shouldn't have—”

“There are plenty of games,” he interrupted. “This one was going to be boring.”

“How do you know?”

“They're all boring these days—everyone you want to watch is always hurt.”

“But you were going to watch anyway?”

“Sure.”

“Why?”

“Because I like the things I think about when I watch sports. And I love bloodshed.”

Her look of censure made him sad. “I was kidding about the blood, Laura. You look like you haven't been kidded for a while.”

She looked toward the TV, at the silent slammings of the game. “I suppose I haven't.”

In the space vacated by their conversation, she seemed uncertain of how to proceed. “Where'd you get your drapes?”

“My mother gave them to me.”

“She lives down the block, doesn't she?”

He nodded.

“Does that mean she knows I'm here?”

He nodded again.

“Do you mind?”

“Are we going to do something that would upset her?”

She shook her head.

“Shucks.”

She grinned ruefully, but changed course. “Spitter's been a real help around the house, did I tell you? He's a nice boy, underneath his anger. We get along pretty well, though I think he comes mostly because it makes his mother mad. And because he likes my car.”

“He hasn't gotten violent, has he?”

“Not at all.”

“You don't have trouble communicating with him?”

“Well, he keeps calling me Carol. But if I don't dispute him, things move along just fine.”

“Spitter loved Carol.”

She nodded. “We talked about her once. He started to cry and, after he told me about standing guard on her grave, so did I.”

A second silence swelled. “Do you need anything, Laura? Money? Anything?”

She shook her head. “I'm getting by. But I never realized how
exhausting
poverty is. How much is that? Can I afford this? Which is the cheapest brand? It's like doing algebra all day long.” She sighed. “The walls were closing in on me, so I thought I'd stop and see if you'd heard when the trial was going to be. Dr. Ryan said you talked with him about being a witness, and he wanted to know how soon he would be called.”

Tollison shrugged. “Alec's motion hasn't been decided, so I can't tell you exactly. But I want to make sure you're getting the stuff together we talked about. I need to get it to a printer so he can make up a brochure on you and Jack that I can give the jury to take with them when they deliberate.”

Her hesitation spawned a sigh. “I'm not going to do it, Keith.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have to live with myself after the trial is over and I'm left with …” The smile was gone before it registered. “I'm not sure what that will be, but it will probably include my conscience, don't you think?”

“What's the problem, Laura?”

She opened her purse, took out an envelope, and handed it to him. Inside were several sheets of paper, edges irregular and oddly shaded, handwritten in a woman's round precision, photocopied, stapled, folded with care. He flipped through them quickly but found no title, no salutation, no signature at the end. After a glance at Laura, he began to read.

We fucked the first time I let him in the house, the first time I let him touch me. He wouldn't stop, and after a while I begged him not to. He took me places I've never been, did things to me no one's ever done, made me do the same to him. It would be nice to say he hypnotized me, diary, but of course I hypnotized myself. He came along at the right time, I guess, because I was ready to be his mistress from the moment he bought me a drink.

As you know, I've done things that were silly before, diary, things that were dumb, dangerous, even immoral in most people's sense of the word, but this is the first time I've done something even
I
believe is wrong. There's no good end to this—I'll be hurt, and so will others. I should put a stop to it, tell him I can't see him again, make him stay away. But I won't. I'm getting too old to be safe, too old to be good, too old to let a chance like this go by, too old to consider other people's feelings more than my own.

Sweating, he stopped reading. “What the hell
is
this?”

She shrugged. “Some woman writing about Jack.”

“How do you know?”

“Read the rest.”

He turned a page and continued.

He's like no man I've ever known. He's so
sure
of himself, so certain he is right no matter what the issue, so confident he can get away with anything he decides to do, which I guess explains why some people think he's a crook and why he kept coming on to me despite my cold shoulder the first time he made a pass. But who am I to judge? I gave in, after all—and I got what I wanted, so far, at least. When I'm with Jack I share his vision; I become what he wants me to be, which is more than I have ever been before.

He says he loves me. He doesn't, I don't think, not for anything other than the sex, but somehow that doesn't matter. He's expecting big things to happen soon, and when they do he expects me to enjoy them with him. And I
want
to. I want to be
someone
before I die, if only for a moment. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm with him for as long as he wants me to be, no matter what the consequences, no matter how badly it's going to hurt, or who.

He says it's over between them, that I'm not breaking anything that isn't already broken. I don't know if that's true, but I don't care if it is or not. At this point all I know is that I'm going along for the ride, wherever the ride will take me. Maybe after next week, and the ride has taken me to La La Land and back, maybe then I'll know what I want to do. I just hope—

The final page appeared to have been ripped in half, the bottom missing. Tollison gathered the papers together, put them in his lap, and contemplated the medium and the message. “I'll be back in a minute,” he said, then hurried to his bedroom and closed the door.

It took three calls for him to track her down. When she was on the line, he spoke with a blunt insistence that was prompted by his duty to the woman in the other room. “You sent some papers to Laura, didn't you?”

“I —”

“Didn't
you, Brenda?”

Her voice summoned a familiar bluster. “Maybe I did. So what?”

“It's supposed to be Carol's diary, isn't it? But I didn't find a diary when I searched her house.”

“It's hers, all right.”

“Where'd you get it?”

“Someone sent it to me.”

“Someone from the airline?”

“Some guy from Portola Valley. He found it while he was out riding his horse. It may have blown over there in the crash, or he may have stolen it, who knows?” Brenda paused. “I know what you're thinking, but I don't care
what
you think. I told you you'd be sorry for what you did to Spitter. I want you two to hurt the way
I
hurt, Keith.”

“If anyone was hurting more than Laura, they'd be in a mental ward. And the only thing I did to Spitter was get him out of jail. Have you shown this to anyone else?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, don't. Especially not the insurance company.”

“I'll do whatever I want.”

He gripped the receiver until his hand hurt. “That diary could ruin Laura's lawsuit, Brenda. I know you think that's what you want, but if we don't win this case, Jack Donahue will never get better than he is right now, which is pretty damn pathetic. Therapy could bring him back to normal, at least partway, but he has to be able to pay for it. You'd have a hard time living with yourself if you took away that chance away from him.”

Her voice was raw and cavalier. “I've always had a hard time living with myself. That's why I used to hope I could live with you.”

“If you try to testify against us, I'll cut you up the way I would any other hostile witness. I
mean
it, Brenda.”

She hung up in the middle of his warning. His trepidation unrestrained, Tollison returned to the living room.

Laura wore a thin, expectant smile. “Brenda?”

He nodded.

“I never got along with her very well, but I always liked Carol.”

He stared at her. “How did you know?”

“There were hints, even before the crash. I just didn't want to deal with them.”

He gestured toward the papers. “It doesn't make a difference, you know. Not to the case.”

“It makes all the difference in the world,” she rebuffed softly. “I'm glad this happened, in a way.”

“What do you mean?”

“We were going to go to court and say I had a wonderful marriage that was destroyed by the plane crash. And it wasn't true.”

“It used to be.”

“I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think that's the point. The point is what was the marriage like when Jack was hurt, and when his plane went down, I'd been sleeping with you for over a year and Jack had been with Carol Farnsworth for I don't know how long.”

He was shaking his head before she finished. “You don't know what would have happened, Laura. People have affairs all the time. That doesn't mean their marriage falls apart. Besides, that diary was Carol's, not Jack's. Just because she thought he loved her doesn't mean he did.”