The Ditto List (42 page)

He checked his watch. Eight-ten. He made himself a peanut butter sandwich and drank a glass of milk, at one point conscious that it would be his final brush with wholesomeness. Then he stuck his camera in his briefcase and got in his car and drove to the Lakeview Inn and reconnoitered.

It was a large and popular place, modishly decorated, proximate to tennis, golf, swimming, and a trendy shopping mall, perpetually full of convening salespeople, energetic engineers, reuniting high school classes, or dancers who were charitably motivated. The leather lobby chairs were full, the desk clerks harassed, the floor littered with the luggage of the checking-in or -out. The bar off the lobby rollicked with warbled laughter and a banjo that was strummed, not picked. The dining room opposite the bar dripped with chandeliers and ferns. And Muzak maligned it all.

D.T. took the elevator to the second floor, found his room, found the stairs around the corner at the end of the hall, took the stairs to the main floor, and exited into the parking lot through the nearest door. He walked to his car and drove it to a place just outside the exit door, then took his briefcase and walked back to the main entrance and waited in line until he could ask the desk clerk for the key to 214.

The clerk slid the key his way without looking at him. No one else in the lobby seemed to notice him either, not even the woman he briefly wished would do so. Had his face not clashed with his emotions, every eye in the place would have been on him and every voice would have screamed for a cop. He crossed the lobby and took the elevator up a floor, sharing it with a Latin waiter who tended a cart of dishes topped with silver domes.

The elevator stopped at two. He walked quickly to his room, turned on the lights to check the layout, pressed his ear to the wall and listened for soundless minutes, then unlocked the connecting door. Retracing his steps, he wiped his prints off everything he'd touched, turned off the light with his elbow, and took out his camera and lay on the bed to await his victim. Before long, D.T. had convinced himself that he would not be altering history but merely hastening its pace.

He floated gently on time, exercising the skill he had developed in college to think of the erotic when confronted by the dreadful. The only light in the room came from the languid digits on his watch, the only sound from the toneless whistlings of his breath. He closed his eyes and watched the liquid colors that formed behind his lids. He took his pulse and tried to make it race and subside to his will. He held his breath for seventy-six seconds. He unzipped his pants and scratched his balls. He thought of Barbara and Michele, of Heather and Lucinda Finders. He thought of Bobby E. Lee, of how to apologize for this. He heard a sound and wished he hadn't.

Light spilled under the door, a yellow dash of doom, just as Bobby E. Lee had predicted. Motionless, D.T. listened for words or telltale sounds but heard nothing coherent. Water ran, a toilet flushed, water ran again. Drinks, he guessed. Or drugs. Coke would be good. Amyl nitrite, maybe. Free-basing? Who knew? Who cared? For thirty minutes more he was left to his imagination and his conscience. He cradled his camera like a baby chick and thought of every naked woman he had ever seen.

The light under the door went out. He got up as quietly as he could and went to the connecting door, counting to himself, readying his optic weapon.

On the count of ten he turned the knob. He pushed; nothing happened. He pressed harder, swore silently, then pulled. The door swung toward him quickly, squeaking only when it was open wide enough for him to pass beyond it. He stepped back, then stepped quickly into the other room. He heard vocal rumblings from the far corner, querulous, not yet frightened.

D.T. raised his camera to his eye, aimed for the sound, pressed the button, filled the room with light and lovers, was aware of only generality—their presence and predicament. He kept his finger down, and the motor whirred and the flashes came again and again, blinding him, preventing his sense of who he was shooting, of whether his pictures were anything he needed, or anything at all.

A voice beyond him cursed and ordered him to stop. He retreated, slamming the door and locking it. He grabbed his briefcase and ran toward the stairs, listening for pursuit, hearing nothing but his swollen, throbbing heart and his coward's fleeing footfalls.

Halfway down the stairs he tripped and almost fell. At the bottom he slowed to a homely walk, stepped into the parking area, and encountered a young boy with a sports bag over his shoulder, a racquet under his arm. They eyed each other nervously. D.T. walked on, opened the door to his car, got in, closed the door, inserted the key, turned it. The car started, no traffic impeded him, and he was on the boulevard that led to his apartment before he thought to look back.

Nothing followed. It had all gone perfectly. Perfect, perfect, perfect. So perfect it was bound to fall apart.

When he got home his phone was ringing.

“You the lawyer?”

“Yes.”

“You do divorce?”

“Yes. Who is this?”

“The name is Kates. The wife just threw me out. How much you charge to get me a divorce?”

“It depends on what—”

“How much?”

“Two hundred dollars, minimum. Cash up front.”

“Fucking asshole bastard.”

At the very least.

NINETEEN

The photographs—crisp, shiny glossies, developed and printed in D.T.'s makeshift darkroom—imprisoned Chas Stone and a tawny Aryan lad of about twenty-five, the pair of them snug and naked in the rumpled bed of Room 212 in the world-famous Lakeview Inn, American plan, all credit cards accepted, AAA-approved, group rates upon request. Their eyes were pinkish from the bounce of the flash off the rosy carpet, and the focus was a touch blurred since the darkness and distance reduced the depth of field, but the essentials were there for the looking, preserved on a borderless print.

Stone was covered from the waist down by an electric blue acrylic blanket, a preliminary pose of modesty or enticement, but in the chest and shoulders he was a Carrara bust—hairless, trim, and eager. And his partner, well, his partner had taken care to display himself in all his oiled perfection, from his tapering calves to his stubby, angled prick to his yellow curling locks to his knowing sadist's smirk. He was clearly teasing Stone, and Stone was clearly teased. The pictures wouldn't make
Popular Photography
, or even
Male Muscle
, but they would carry out their function, when and if D.T. had the need and the will to use them. He patted the pocket where they lay, glanced across the courtroom at Stone and Gardner, then looked at the client who he was about to call to the stand in the case of
Stone
v.
Stone
.

He still wasn't certain of his capacities. Hard as he tried to deny it, blackmail was a step beyond the tricks and stratagems he had used before, a step across the edge of felony, the stuff of detective novels and TV. Still, the choice between premeditated crime and ignominious defeat was not an easy one. He thought his scruples had been suppressed over a night of rationalization. He thought he was prepared, in other words, to do what had to be done. But, amazingly enough, he was apparently to be blessed. He could continue to face both the mirror and Bobby E. Lee of a morning because it looked very much as though he wouldn't need the extortionate emulsions after all.

The trial was going well. Freed from the monotony of the Friday Fiasco, Judge Hoskins was tolerably civil, which was all D.T. asked and more than he had figured to receive. Dick Gardner was as good as D.T. had expected him to be, but he was nothing miraculous, nothing otherworldly, nothing that could not be whipped, given a few breaks. And D.T. himself—albeit weary, ill-prepared, and penitent—he himself had been supreme.

Chas Stone had floated to the witness stand like an angel and rested there serenely, an object to be worshipped, on a par with God. D.T. had allowed Dick Gardner to elicit Stone's testimony without interference by way of legal objection, so that by the end of the direct examination Chas Stone had become a star of straitlaced rectitude, beyond the reach of mortal man or even lawyers.

Then, after lunch, the cross-examination. And at its end, just before lunch the following day, Stone had slithered from the stand like a slandered slug, battered, beaten, burdened by a view of himself that would fester like a pustule at the exact center of his soul. As Stone had passed his table on his way out of the courtroom, D.T. had barely suppressed a jeer.

He had made his points one by one, methodically and relentlessly, his tone suggesting, implying, doubting, accusing; his gestures scornful, dismissive, curt. Yes, Stone worked very hard at his job, spent many nights and weekends working or entertaining clients. Yes, he played golf every Sunday. Yes, he played racquet ball every Wednesday after work. Yes, he was a member of a men's club, an athletic club, a business club, and an alumni club and attended their functions regularly. Yes, he traveled at least six times a month, to conventions, or to securities analysts' meetings, or to visit companies whose stock he found attractive. No, he had never attended a PTA meeting or been a scout leader, a Little League coach, a Campfire counselor. No, he had never changed a diaper, mixed a formula, fixed a lunch, made a bandage, sewed a hem, mopped a spill, framed a picture, papered a wall, built a treehouse, constructed a fort, batted a ball, made a costume, pedalled a bike, assembled a dollhouse, or played doctor, cowboys, Indians, Monopoly, Clue, G.I. Joe, or Space Invaders. He thought he had helped David with some quadratic equations, and he knew he had once played in a father-daughter tennis tournament with Cristine. They'd lost their first match. No, she hadn't played much after that, she preferred music to sports. No, he didn't play an instrument himself. No, he had never taken her to a music lesson or his son to ball practice. Yes, he'd been to some baseball games. A few. Three last year. Out of ten or twenty, he wasn't sure. No, he didn't know the name of Cristine's piano teacher or David's coach or the school principal or the math teacher or the guidance counselor. He wasn't sure what book they'd read last, what their favorite music was, which movie star they liked. Cristine had a picture of a singer on her wall once, but it wasn't up there any more, he was pretty sure. Michael Jackson maybe? Was that somebody?

So it had gone, until the climactic incident, disclosed to D.T. by his client during recess called so Judge Hoskins could relieve himself. Yes, David had once taken his father's favorite putter to play with in the yard and had forgotten to return it to the bag. Yes, Stone had only discovered it on the first green while playing with his Sunday foursome. Yes, he had been upset, and had punished David. How? Well, he had made David clean his golf clubs. And wash his golf balls with his toothbrush. And shag practice shots for two hours the next Saturday instead of playing in his Little League game. Yes, there was one more thing. He had beaten David with the putter, just the shaft, across his thighs. Yes, there had been a bruise. Yes, David had run away from home that night, but only for a couple of hours: they'd found him at the mall at midnight, caught by an usher while trying to hide inside a movie house so he could spend the night there. No, the police hadn't been called. No, he didn't think David had been mistreated. Yes, he had spanked David on other occasions. Yes, he believed in discipline and occasional corporal punishment. Yes, when he spanked David he generally used a quirt.

When D.T. had finished, Mareth Stone had thanked him in a whisper and squeezed his hand, her eyes matched bowls of grateful tears. Her pleasure in his work had almost been enough for him to forget the photographs he carried in his jacket pocket like a passport to perdition, though not quite.

The rest of Gardner's witnesses had fared little better. Neighbors, acquaintances, busybodies, they had all seen the Stone family in one stage or another of stress and distress, had all seen Mareth Stone do something improper with her children or something unseemly with herself. One man had seen her retrieve the morning paper wearing only a bra and panties. The neighbor woman had heard her use language that would shame a trucker, had often heard the children crying, though for what reason she really couldn't say, it couldn't have been anything good, not the way they were screaming, she'd never heard anything like it in her life. A woman had seen Mareth get sick at a party that featured Boom Boom punch. A man remembered her saying that she envied him because he was childless and single. All nonsense, all trivial, most of it in a jury case irrelevant. But as the sole trier of fact Judge Hoskins had let it all come in to soil the record, as any jurist would.

The big problems were the booze and the sex, and the only one who could explain them away was Mareth Stone herself. The time had come. Purged of his pique, determined now to win despite his client's rash imprudence, he cleared his throat and called her to the stand, patting her shoulder as she left his side, crossing his fingers as he watched her take the oath to tell the truth, knowing he had no idea if she intended to obey it. He had never begun an examination with more foreboding, not an examination of his very own client. For a moment his voice fluttered and betrayed his fears, then he settled down, as interested as an observer in what she had to say.

He took her through the preliminaries slowly and calmly, cracked a few jokes, smiled a few smiles, loosened her up, made the judge like her or come as close as he could come. He covered the marriage breakup briefly, establishing that she was not the initiator of the action, that she was without rage or rancor, that she was agreeable to liberal visitation rights being accorded her husband despite their past wrangles, that she had recovered from whatever heartbreak the separation had originally caused. Then he took her from being wife to being what she wanted to remain.

Using details she had supplied or he had merely guessed at, he brought out her involvement with her children, reviewed her daily contribution to their welfare, elicited a frank confession of the frustrations and irritants of child-rearing before Dick Gardner could introduce the subject from a different tack, anticipating his opponent's thrusts. All the things her husband didn't know she knew, what he had never done had been done by her, what he believed, she doubted, and vice versa. By the time his initial gambit was concluded he had cast Mareth Stone as Earth Mother, nurse, chauffeur, coach, instructor, pastor, pal. But he knew Judge Hoskins remained to be convinced, was waiting to hear about the affair and about the booze. In spite of the relativistic statutes and decisions and attitudes now littering the law, they remained two vices that could end her reign as Mom.