The Ditto List (41 page)

“I'm sorry,” D.T. said. “My remark was out of line. But you can't let me or anything else throw you for the next two days.” He gestured toward the drink. “No more than one of those tonight. And none tomorrow or the next day. Besides, booze with pills is stupid.”

“Okay, okay.”

“Now, I think we should go through your entire testimony, just the way it will be when you take the stand. Then I'll put you through a cross-examination, just the way Dick Gardner will.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“No rehearsals. I don't need to
practice
to be a good mother or to prove that I am. I mean, that's what this is all about, right? Well, I've got more experience at motherhood than anyone in that courtroom, including you and Chas and the almighty judge.
I don't need practice
. Just put me on and ask your questions, Mr. Jones. That's all I want, except to go to bed.”

“Listen to me, Mrs. Stone. I'm going to tell you an absolute truth, one of the few sure things I know of in this world.”

“What's that?”

“If you don't let me take you through the whole thing—question by question, answer by answer—if you don't let me do that, then you're going to lose your case.
And your kids
.”

“No, I'm not.”

“I'll bet you a thousand dollars.”

Her smile was a stripe of condescension. “Don't be ridiculous, Mr. Jones. I am not going to sit here and play-act with you all afternoon. I'll tell my story when the time comes, and not before. Is there anything else?”

“I have to warn you, Mrs. Stone, that—”

She stood up. The housecoat flapped open, revealing a flannel gown that had aged to translucence. “Consider me warned, Mr. Jones. Now. Is there anything else?”

To hell with it. He'd fought them long enough, the bitches. The ones who thought they were so goddamned smart, who thought they knew it all, who thought no
man
could best them in court, no
man
could make them look the fool, incompetent, immoral, unfit. If Mareth Stone wouldn't let him win, then he could damned sure let her lose.

“Have you crashed yet?” D.T. asked in a red heat as she waited to dismiss him.

“What?”

“Crashed. Screamed and yelled and fallen on the floor and beat your head on the wall and wanted to be dead.”

She scowled. “No. I'm fine. I told you. That's not the way I am.”

“Good for you.”

“Will you please leave now?”

He nodded, knew he was surrendering too soon, no longer cared. “Be at my office at nine sharp. Bring the kids. Be clean and sweet and alert. Pray to whatever you pray to that I know everything about you I need to know.”

She closed her eyes. “Why do I feel as though it's Judgment Day?”

“Because that's the day it is.”

Still enraged, he drove against the rush hour to his apartment. On the deck with a drink at his side he checked the
Sporting News
and the sports pages from the L.A. and New York papers he subscribed to, then called his bookie and put fifty on the Beavers against the Bruins, because Ralph Miller was Ralph Miller and the game was in Oregon and the California boys just hated it up there. Then as an afterthought he put another fifty on the Spurs against the Lakers because the A-Train had made them whole. When he was finished, Sol reminded him he was four hundred down. D.T. said he knew it. Sol swore and bemoaned his fate. D.T. cursed the collapse of the Chargers, which was what had caused it all.

He hung up and sat silently for a time, weary, convinced of the nightmare that frequently assailed him—that every day of the rest of his life would be exactly the same as this one. When his glass was empty he went to the bedroom and looked up Dr. Haskell's office number and dialed it. The woman who answered asked if it was an emergency. He told her it was. He didn't tell her that the emergency was legal, not medical, and was of his own making.

After several minutes Haskell came on the line. “Dr. Haskell, this is D. T. Jones. I'm an attorney. I spoke to you a couple of months ago about Nathaniel Preston? Your former partner?”

“Yes. I remember. How are you?” Haskell was tense, irritated.

“Fine. I wanted to ask you a couple more questions about Preston.”

“What?”

“First, is there any chance at all that Preston was an abortionist back when he first started in practice?”

Haskell was silent for several seconds. “What on earth gave you that idea?”

“Just a hunch. Is is possible?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Are you saying you would have known if he had been doing something like that?”

“Yes. I think I would. I was down there day and night.”

“Okay, how about drugs? Could Preston have been an addict? Or a dealer?”

“My God, Jones. What are you trying to prove, anyway?”

“Anything I can.”

“Are you saying Esther's still going ahead with this trial business?”

“Yep.”

“But I thought …”

“What?”

“Well, I heard Nat had done something to her. Threatened her, or something.”

“Threaten's a rather benign term for it.”

“And yet she's still going after him?”

“Full speed ahead. Preston made her mad.”

“I
really
don't think that's a good idea, Mr. Jones. If it's only a question of money I can probably help Esther out a little. How much does she need?”

“A million dollars.”

“Come on. Be serious.”

“I am serious. How much do
you
need to get you through the next thirty years?”

“But …”

D.T. hung up and hooked up his video recorder and got out the cassette he ran at times like this and shoved it into the machine.

The tape was entirely of Heather, age approximately one and a half, filmed over the period of months when she was learning to walk and talk. All comic, all marvelous, all his only legacy to the world. He watched raptly in his blackened bedroom, as poisons and acids drained from his body and his mind, as he took silly solace in the fact that he had once done something holy. As Heather was falling into a plant, the phone rang.

“Leaving the office a little early these days, aren't you, sport?” Dick Gardner chided.

“On the track of a surprise witness. Claims to have photos of your client committing unnatural acts with a goat.”

Gardner laughed. “One last chance, D.T. Save yourself some embarrassment.”

“Hell, Dick. I try to be embarrassed at least twenty minutes a day. Aerobics, you know.”

“No time for mirth, D.T. My guy wants to avoid trial if he can. To spare the kids.
He's
thinking of their welfare, even if their mother isn't.”

“Save it for the judge, Gardner. Let's get to the ingrown toenail. Does your offer include exclusive custody to Mrs. Stone?”

“Joint. Both legal and physical. The boy goes with Stone and the girl stays with the mother. Or, six months a year at each place, both kids together.”

“Two interesting proposals, Dick. I don't know which is more specious. Your man's just in this to save face, isn't he? He wants a legal judgment that he's a great guy. For political reasons. He doesn't give a damn about those kids.”

“Come on, D.T. She could lose them both at trial. Mary Poppins she ain't.”

“Mary Poppins she don't gotta be, thank God.”

“Stone will give her a quarter million plus the house and car.”

“What's she going to do with that house without kids to put in it?”

“The way I hear it, she's found a few things to put in it already, and most of them have cocks hanging between their legs, or did when they went in there. I hear
you
were out there this afternoon, by the way. Have a nice chat?”

“He must be pretty good, Gardner. What was he, disguised as a dog turd?”

Gardner laughed easily. “That reminds me of those old Lone Ranger jokes. Remember? ‘Tonto, not recognizing the Lone Ranger disguised as a pool table, racked his balls.'”

“Old isn't the only word for that joke, Dick. And the answer is no. No deal without custody. So how many of that warren of witnesses are you really going to call? The shrink?”

“Who knows?”

“The kids?”

“Who knows?”

“The lover?”

“Who knows?”

“You met with the kids today, didn't you?”

“Who knows?”

“Jesus, Gardner. I've had more intelligent conversations with Judge Hoskins, for God's sake.”

“He's got the case, did you know that? Clerk called just before five.”

“No. Christ. I thought it was Buchanan.”

“Buchanan has the flu.”

“Hoskins hates me,” D.T. blurted.

Dick Gardner laughed. “With good reason, I'm sure. And with that knowledge I hereby withdraw our offer of compromise.”

“See you in court, you prick.” D.T. dropped the phone, his concern about the Stone case approaching panic.

The more he thought the more worried he got. Hoskins. An angry, impulsive client. A lawyer who'd done less than he should have to prepare his case. An opponent among the most skilled in the city. Sweat crawled forth and chilled him. He put away the video equipment and picked up the phone and called his secretary.

“Bobby? D.T.”

“Hi.”

“You got anything lined up on Stone yet? I've got to try to set it up with someone else if you haven't.”

Bobby hesitated. When he spoke his voice lagged with resignation and regret. “I was about to call. You know the Lakeview Inn?”

“By the golf course. Sure.”

“Do you want a tape or just pictures?”

“Just pics.”

“You got a photographer lined up?”

“Right. Ready to go.”

“Okay. Have him ask at the desk for the key to Room 214.”

“What?”

“He asks for the key. The room's already reserved. He should be there by ten.”

“Tonight?”

“Tonight. Tell him to go to the room and get his camera ready and keep the lights out and not make a sound. No TV, no nothing. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“There's a connecting door from that room to Room 212. Have him unlock it right when he gets there. That's all, just unlock it.”

“Check.”

“Sometime tonight two people will check into 212. I don't know what time, probably not before ten or after midnight. When he hears them come in have your guy keep his eyes on the connecting door. When the light under the door goes out, have him count ten and go through the door and snap two or three shots and then take off. The bed's against the far wall, the head at the corner.”

“How far from the door?”

“Twenty feet, maybe.”

“Okay. It'll be dark, right?”

“Right. He'll have to have a flash or infrared. After he snaps the pictures have him get out of there fast. The stairs are at the end of the hall, just around the corner. Stone might try to come after him, so he shouldn't dawdle.”

“Who's the guy?”

“No names.”

“Trustworthy?”

“As much as anyone.”

“He know about me?”

“No.”

“How much?”

Bobby paused. “Five hundred.”

“High.”

“It's what he needs.”

“You absolutely sure they'll be there tonight?”

“As sure as I can be.”

“How'd you get it fixed so fast?”

“I guess Stone is always ready to play, provided the arrangements are discreet. As for the room, well, those of us who are more adventuresome than others, well, sometimes we need to make a record of a relationship ourselves, for various reasons. I don't expect you to understand.”

“Okay, Bobby. I'm sorry I had to go to you for this, but I need an edge in this one. I need one bad.”

Bobby E. Lee ignored his plea. “Tell your guy to be on time. And not to leave anything behind.”

“Bobby?”

“Yes.”

“One more thing.”

“What?”

“The guy in the next room with Stone?”

“Yes?”

“It's not going to be you, is it? I don't want it to be you, Bobby.”

Bobby E. Lee hung up without a word.

D.T. went over in his mind the list of people he could call who might take the pictures, investigators and photographers he knew of or had used in the past as witnesses or collectors of evidence. There was a score or more of them, and afterward he would be hostage to the creep for life, subject to having done to him exactly what he was preparing to do to Stone. One word, and his license goes. One word, he gets sued, or jailed, or both. He would have to take care of it himself. That way his trust would extend only to Bobby E. Lee, where it had already resided for years.

Blackmail. That was a first. But it was only a difference of degree, right? Another price of victory. They all did it, one way or another. The personal injury boys solicited clients, the class action boys split fees, the corporate boys phonied registration statements and bought stock on inside tips, the criminal boys bought experts, and each and every one of the boys suborned perjury in every case that had ever gone to trial in the history of the world. So what the hell? The ingrown toenail was that Stone was gay and gays couldn't be parents. Right? Right. Hell, he could do it in open court if he had to, even without Bobby's help. Find one of Stone's playmates and move for amended custody and subpoena him. Put him on and ask him how Stone liked his sex, whether he used K-Y jelly or only a dab of oleo. Any judge in town would feign a faint and give the kids to Mom. So the result was right, the kids were better off, and who was hurt? D.T. went to the hall closet and dug out his good camera, the one with the automatic film advance and the electronic flash. He wound in a roll of the high-speed Ektachrome he had on hand, set the shutter to the flash indicator, opened the aperture as wide as it went, put new batteries in the flash attachment, and aimed and shot his bedroom door. The flash exploded, momentarily erasing the room, permanently erasing his illusions of legitimacy.