Now look here,
if you were really superior,
really superior,
you’d have money,
and you know it.
-D. H. Lawrence
Nina Reilly opened the window in her office in the Starlake Building on Highway 50. Warm air smelling of toast and dry grass drifted in to mingle with the brittle cool of air-conditioning. Outside, every shade of rust and gold shimmered in a hot October wind that rustled papers on her desk. In the distance, brightly colored sails waved against the blue backdrop of Lake Tahoe. She could sense a shift in the weather. The sultry air held a tang in it, like the end of something sweet, lemons in sugary tea.
Leaning through the opening to catch a ray of sunshine, Nina watched as a man and a woman in spotless white athletic shoes, plaid shirts tied around their waists, dropped hands so that the woman could stoop and gather some carrot-colored leaves from the ground. She held her little pieces of autumn like a bouquet, dancing a quick step or two in front of the man on the sidewalk. The man continued walking, apparently unwilling to play the game. Giving up, she resumed her place beside him, dropping her leaves one by one as they went on, like Gretel casting off a trail of crumbs.
“Way to keep this place energy efficient,” Sandy said, standing in the doorway to Nina’s office, hands on her womanly hips. Today she wore a fringed blouse and a shiny silver concha belt that jingled like coins when she moved, khaki pants, and cowboy boots, which made her look like an over-the-hill rodeo rider. Sandy enjoyed dressing for the office but she would never look the part of a legal secretary.
Two years earlier, she had worked as a file clerk at Jeffrey Riesner’s law firm, a couple of miles west on Highway 50. In spite of Riesner’s dissatisfaction with her work, her character, her looks, and her air of superiority, Nina had hired her when she had begun her solo practice in South Lake Tahoe, one of her more astute moves.
Sandy knew everyone in town and had a titanic strength of purpose that co-opted or crushed everything in its path. A lawyer starting up a practice in a new place needed to get clued in fast, and Sandy had brought in the vital first clients, organized the office, and installed herself as Nina’s keeper. Nina knew law. Sandy knew business, everyone’s business.
“What a day,” said Nina. “Not that you’d guess it in here.”
“High eighties?” Sandy said. “One of the last warm ones this year. Too nice to be inside.”
“That’s right. Let’s blow this joint. It’s four-fifteen and I can’t think anymore.”
“Not yet. You have a call on line two.” Sandy jiggled her eyebrows significantly.
“Who is it?”
“Lindy Markov’s secretary.”
“Do I know Lindy Markov?”
“If you don’t, you should. She wants to invite you to a party Mrs. Markov is giving this weekend.”
“What kind of party?”
“She does a lot of charity work and hosts a lot of community get-togethers. This particular shindig is a birthday party for her husband, Mike Markov.”
Nina closed the window, turning back to her desk. “Tell her I’m busy, Sandy. Give her my regrets.”
But Sandy, a Washoe Native American whose people had practiced stubborn resistance for hundreds of years, gave no sign that she had heard. “Lindy and Mike Markov are the biggest employers in Tahoe. They live up near Emerald Bay. This is a golden opportunity.”
“Why? I’m too broke to be an asset to any worthy causes.”
Sandy spoke again, her deep voice measured, reminding Nina of Henry Kissinger in his glory years pushing governments around. “And that’s exactly what you should be thinking about. We’re in business here. And we need more money coming in. You’ve been tapping into your personal account to pay the office rent, haven’t you?”
What could she say? The omnipotent Sandy knew all.
“Maybe they need a lawyer,” Sandy said.
“I don’t like going to things like that alone,” Nina said.
“Paul’s coming up this weekend. He called while you were in court this afternoon.”
“He’s back from Washington? I thought he was going to be gone longer. Anyway, what’s that got to do with…?”
Sandy shrugged. “I happened to mention the party. He’s up for it.”
“I see,” said Nina.
“He’ll pick you up on Friday at six. Don’t be late.”
“And if I still say no?”
Sandy heaved a fulsome sigh, her belt jingling slightly with the strain. “Then I’ll have to go for you. Someone has to network around here. If you want to pay the rent and the Whitaker bill and Lexis, the new computer, my raise…”
“Which raise would that be?”
“I’ll be needing a slight raise if I’m going to have to party for you.”
“Okay, Sandy. You win. Which line is she on?”
“No need for you to talk to her.” She turned to leave. “I’ll confirm that you’re on the list.”
“You already told her I was going?”
“I thought you might. After you had time to think about it.”
“Wait. Where is this party?”
“On the lake,” said Sandy. “They’re chartering the Dixie Queen. Taking off from the Ski Run Marina.”
Paul picked Nina up early that Friday, treating her to a hug that bordered on the obscene. “Three weeks,” he said. “God, how I’ve missed squeezing your cute little bum.” While the words were light, she felt his scrutiny. Three weeks was just long enough for them both to feel the distance.
A good eight inches over her five feet four, blond, and forty, with two licks of gray around his temples and two marriages behind him, Paul seemed to have been in her life forever. An ex-homicide detective, he had his own business as an investigator in Carmel. They worked together sometimes. They also slept together sometimes.
She was derailed by other men, sometimes. Just a few months before, she had engaged in an intense flirtation with Collier Hallowell, the associate DA she had always respected. That had ended when Collier’s personal hang-ups got in the way. So that left her and Paul, a lousy fit who grated on each other, sometimes.
But every once in a while, when they connected, they went deep down to a place that kept them coming back to each other.
As they drove to the marina, Paul quizzed her about her activities in the past few weeks. Nina talked about the house she and her son Bob had recently bought. “We’re making it homey,” she said. “It’s just that none of us knows exactly what that means. I stockpile paper in every corner. Hitchcock has taken up residence in the ski closet and spreads kibble all over the kitchen floor. Bob rides his skateboard through the downstairs.” When she turned the questions on Paul, he was uncharacteristically closemouthed. He couldn’t tell her much about the Washington, D.C., job, he claimed. And what was there to say about staying in a hotel?
Paul wasn’t teasing her. She sensed his preoccupation and wondered about it. Meanwhile, she could think of many things that might happen with him in a hotel and she spent at least part of the ride to the boat holding that thought, just enjoying his proximity and his big, comforting presence.
At the parking lot for the marina, not too far from Nina’s office, Paul pulled his Dodge Ram van in tight beside a creamy-white Jaguar.
“This is something,” Nina said, stepping down into a parking lot crammed full of gleaming metal. “Oh, boy. Look over there by the dock. It’s like a convention for chauffeurs. Maybe we should have rented a limo.”
“You look terrific in that slinky blue stuff,” Paul said, coming up beside her. He put a hand on her leg, squeezing gently to punctuate his point. “And if it makes you more comfortable, hell, I’ll be your chauffeur. Can’t do much about my chariot, but I’ve got a baseball cap in there somewhere. Anything to make you look less like you’re about to jump out of your skin.”
She shimmied a little, adjusting her panty hose. “You’re right, I’m nervous. I guess I’m just getting into the spirit of things, starting out with my foot in my mouth by insulting your car.”
“You’ve talked with people before. I’m sure I’ve seen you do that. What are you so worried about?”
“I’m intimidated,” she said honestly. “The Markovs are very wealthy. Their business is supposedly huge. They sell health aids of some kind. Mrs. Markov also raises money by the bucketful for the schools and recreation programs here.”
Paul took her hand and they walked toward the dock where a white stern-wheeler trimmed in blue rocked gently in the water. From the front of the boat, where Nina and Paul boarded, two black pipes tipped in gold, shaped like medieval crowns, framed a view of the rest of the boat. Silver lights of irregular lengths dangled like icicles from two of the boat’s three decks, and at the back an enormous paddle wheel, blades painted red, dripped water. On the bottom level, a wide swath of windows revealed a crowd of partyers already moving en masse to a tune Nina could not make out, bobbing between bunches of red helium balloons. The low bumping of bass traveled through the water to rumble up under their feet on the dock.
“Ever been on one of these before?” Paul asked her as they stepped onto the ramp that led to the lower deck of the boat.
“Once. I took a tour from Zephyr Cove with Bob when we first came here. He was only eleven. Very impressed by the glass bottom, even though there’s not all that much to see under the lake, just sand and the occasional beer bottle.”
“Did you say something about these people wanting to hire you?” he asked as they made their way to the exquisitely decorated party deck. “Because if they do, it looks like your ship has come in.”
“I have no idea why we’re here. It’s one of Sandy’s plots. Let’s just enjoy ourselves.”
They paused before going inside, taking a long look across the lake toward the teals and peaches just beginning to tinge the sky and water. “When I see the lake like this, so beautiful, I think about the Washoe people camping on these shores,” Nina said. “It wasn’t so long ago, only a hundred years or so.”
“I’m sure they’d love the hash we’ve made of the natural landscape.” Paul gestured toward the casino lights. They had begun to gleam in the fading light, under the evening glow of the mountains towering behind.
“From far away,” said Nina, “I think it’s pretty.”
A striking woman walked toward them, smiling. Several inches taller than Nina, Lindy Markov gave the impression of even greater height. Willowy, with warm coppery hair, she had expressive brown eyes over a prominent nose and jawline. A gold collar-style Egyptian necklace adorned her neckline, dressing up the rust-colored dress she wore over a body as muscular and wiry as an exercise guru’s. She might be anywhere over forty. She had reached that certain ageless age.
“Hello, Nina Reilly. I’ve heard so much about you. I recognize you from the paper, of course. Sarah de Beers and some other friends told me you did good work for them. Thanks for coming to join in the surprise for Mike.”
“How are you going to surprise him? I mean, this boat…”
“Oh, he doesn’t know I filled it up with friends. He just thought we were taking a dinner cruise to celebrate his birthday.” She looked around. “He’s going to love this. He loves surprises,” she said, but she looked unconvinced, even apprehensive. Nina thought, uh-oh. Something is not right.
“I hope everybody gets here on time. Mike’s due at seven.” She looked anxiously toward the door as another couple arrived, relaxing as she turned her attention back to Paul. “Mr. Van Wagoner.” She shook his hand, holding it for a moment before letting go. “So you’re a private investigator.” Her eyes probed his in the dim light. “Do you dance?”
“Naturally.”
She flashed a bright smile. Nina, who knew a stressed-out lady when she saw her, read worry verging on panic in it. “Save one for me.” She turned away to look at the door again. More guests, not Mike Markov. She excused herself to meet the next crop.
Nina couldn’t imagine how they could stuff more people inside. The decks were full of guests dancing, drinking, and snacking. The usual casual tour boat had been transformed-waiters in black suits dipped and posed with silver trays full of hot treats for the guests; tables with white cloths and real silver for a massive buffet dinner had been set up in the midsection of the center deck.
What must be hundreds of people murmured and milled through the scene, dreamlike in the dusk. Once her eyes adjusted, Nina said hello to a number of them: Judge Milne, who was rumored to be considering retirement, Bill Galway, the new mayor of South Lake Tahoe, and a few former clients. She stayed with the group where the judge was holding forth, and Paul wandered off. Seven o’clock came and went, and the waiters made sure no glass ever emptied, but Mike Markov didn’t come and the boat sat at the dock as the lake and sky flickered with the fire of sunset.
By the time the guest of honor finally appeared, everyone, including Nina, had had too much to drink. A lookout gave an advance warning, and a hush fell over the boat.
Nina saw him come aboard. Looking like a man with a lot on his mind, he walked right into Lindy’s waiting arms. He was stocky with dark skin, about the same height as Lindy. He embraced her quickly, revealing muscular forearms. “I’m sorry I’m so late,” he said. “I was afraid the boat would be long gone.” He looked around, puzzled. “Where is everybody?” he asked.
“Surprise!” the crowd shouted. The waiters popped another round of champagne. People poured out of the woodwork to pat him on the back.
For a moment, shock poised over his features like the shadow of Lizzie Borden’s ax. Nina had time to think, God, he’s having a heart attack…
He shuddered. In that first second he looked only at Lindy, suppressing some unreadable emotion. Then, like magic, as he turned to his guests a cloak of good humor dropped into place. He began to stroll through the crowd accepting genuinely warm congratulations, shaking hands as he greeted people.
“My God, Mikey. Fifty-five. Whoever thought we’d get there?”
“You look damn good for such an old fella!” This said by a bald man leaning heavily on a walker, who had to be teetering toward ninety.
“Great excuse to have a helluva good time, eh, Mike? Like old times.”
Lindy trailed behind for a bit, then caught up with him, taking her place by his side. Nina stayed behind as hands thumped him on the back and good wishes floated on the air.
The engine started up. The paddle wheel at the stern began to churn up water, and a mournful, low blast from the horn cut through the sound of revelry, of wind, of evening birds and insects chirping away on land.
Just as the paddle started up and the big boat began to move smoothly away from the dock, Nina saw the final guest arrive.
The young woman came onboard quietly. In her midtwenties, with black hair so long it hung almost to the hem of her dress, the girl wore strappy sandals that crept up her calves like trained ivy. Nina thought someone should say hello and show her the way to the bar. She started toward her, but after a quick glance around, the girl dropped her coat on a chair in the corner, collected champagne from a passing tray, and downed the first half of her drink, edging over to blend into a group of people standing by the door who apparently knew her. “Rachel, honey. Somehow we didn’t expect to see you here tonight,” a snickering, booze-laden voice called out to her.
Nina wandered off to find Paul, who was watching the great wheel make its waterfall at the back of the boat.
The enclosed main deck, a huge, dark space alive with undulant bodies, still pitched with music from a live band. Far from deflating once the honored guest had eaten his cake and endured a shower of fantastic presents, the party was heating up. Nina dragged Paul to the dance floor, where they danced and danced some more. When a moment of clearheadedness intruded on her whirling brain, she moved outside to get a breath of fresh air, losing Paul somewhere along the way.
At the front of the boat next to the staircase, she leaned unsteadily against the wall of the cabin. They had reached Emerald Bay and the boat was circling Fannette Island, the rocky islet at its center.
In the shadow of the western mountains the water was indigo streaked with green, like shot silk. Fannette rose in solitary splendor out of the bay into a tree-studded granite hill. At the top, the ruin of a rich woman’s teahouse presided over the whole sweep of bay.
Nina had always wanted to visit the tiny island. The stone ruin at the top looked inviting under the fading tangerine glow of the sky. She imagined what the teahouse must have been like back in the twenties, a rustic table and chairs for furniture, candlelight, a roaring fire; and Mrs. Knight, coercing friends from the city into the steep climb, long dresses hiked up, waiters with trays and tea sets leading the way.
Someone on the deck above spilled a drink and laughed, then complained about the chill. Whoever was up there went back inside, and the night fell into the shushing of the paddle wheel and the drone of the boat’s motor. Nina closed her eyes and sank into a woozy meditation on the high life, and what to do with Paul after the party. Questions swam through her mind as the night’s cool air, balmy and soothing, wrapped itself around her.
The door opened and two people stepped out. They didn’t see her tucked away beside the stairway. She didn’t feel like starting a conversation, so she said nothing. She would be leaving in just a sec, just as soon as she adjusted her shoe around the new blister forming on her heel.
“I thought you were going to wait for me at the marina,” a man said quietly. “We would have been back in another hour.”
“I just couldn’t wait.” The voice was a young woman’s, and it sounded a little defiant.
“Did you know about this crazy surprise thing?”
“No,” said the girl. “Have you told her yet?”
“With all our friends around?”
“You swore!”
“Honey, how can I? I thought we’d be out here with strangers.”
“Liar!” the girl said, sounding near tears.
“I will after this is over, later tonight,” murmured the man. “I promise I will.” The voices stopped. Nina started to rise, then heard whispers. They were embracing, kissing. Oh, great.
Now feeling the cold herself, she waited, hoping they would pack it in soon. Then she heard a cry, and the violent crash of a glass breaking close by them.
Someone new had entered the scene.
“Oh, no. Mike. Oh, my God, no.” Nina immediately recognized Lindy Markov’s voice. “What is this?”
Oh, no, was right. Nina stayed out of sight behind the stairs, stuck like a fox with its leg in a trap.
“Lindy, listen,” Mike said.
The first woman’s voice, younger and more high-pitched than Lindy’s, interrupted. “Tell her, Mike.”
“Rachel?” said Lindy, in a quavering voice.
Nina peered around the corner. No one was looking her way. Markov stood next to the dark-haired girl Nina had noticed arriving late. Lindy stood about four feet away, facing him, her hand over her mouth.
“Oh, Mike. She’s got to be thirty years younger than you are,” Lindy Markov said.
“Mike and I are in love. Aren’t we, Mike?” The girl moved to take his hand but Markov pushed her away.
“Be quiet, Rachel. This isn’t the place…”
“We’re getting married! You’re out, Lindy. We don’t want to hurt you…”
“Oh, shit,” said Mike. “Shit.”
Nina, who for all the attention they were paying to her might as well have been invisible, silently agreed with him.
“Marry you?” Lindy said, her voice shaking. Nina didn’t think she had ever heard such fury contained in two words.
“That’s right,” said Rachel.
“What kind of crap is this? Mike? What’s she talking about?”
In a high, triumphant voice, Rachel said, “Look at this. See? A ring! That’s right. A big fat diamond. He never gave you a diamond, did he?”
“Get out of here before we both kick you from here to kingdom come,” Lindy replied, her voice wobbling.
There was silence. “Lindy, I’ve tried to tell you,” Mike said finally. “You just won’t listen. It’s over between us.”
“Mike, tell her to leave so we can talk,” said Lindy.
“I’m not going anywhere!”
“Calm down now, Rachel,” Mike said, sounding remarkably composed, Nina thought. “Now, look at me, Lindy,” Mike said. “I’m fifty-five years old tonight and I feel every minute of it. But I have a right to choose my own happiness. I didn’t plan this. I’m sorry it had to happen this way… but maybe it’s for the best.”
“Five minutes alone with you, Mike. That’s my right.”
“We don’t expect you to understand,” said Rachel.
“Who are you to talk to me like this! Mike loves me!”
“Oh, now she’s playing that game, where she can’t see the nose on her face,” Rachel continued, lifting her words over Lindy’s. “This is real life, Lindy. Pay attention for once.”
“Shut up!” Did only Nina notice the menace in Lindy’s voice?
“You had twenty years! Five more minutes won’t change anything. Mike, come on. Tell her.”
But Mike apparently could think of nothing to add.
“I said shut up!” Lindy rushed toward the girl, knocking her off balance against the railing. The girl fell backward. Nina and Mike both winced at the sound of her cry, then the splash as she hit the lake.
“Lindy!” Mike said. “Jesus Christ!”
Nina searched for a float to throw to the girl. She found one, but a rope was snagged around it. She fumbled to get it loose, her fingers working clumsily at a knot.
Lindy and Mike stood by the railing, their backs to Nina, too deeply engulfed in their own private hell to care what she did. Mike leaned over the side, peering into the darkness. “Rachel can’t swim!” he yelled.
“Good!” Lindy said.
“Look what you’ve gone and done now, Lindy! My God, you just don’t think! Now, listen. You keep an eye on her. I need to get help.” But before he left, he hurried back and forth along the railing calling to Rachel, reassuring her.
“What I’ve done?” Lindy said, standing close behind him. Nina recognized that she was beyond reason, out of control. “Look at what I’ve done?”
The lifesaver suddenly fell into Nina’s hands.
“Mike!” Nina said, preparing to toss it the few feet between them. He knew where Rachel might be. She didn’t.
Mike turned to face her, putting his arms out to catch.
And Lindy, catching him completely off guard, bent down and took his legs in her hands, heaved mightily and tipped him neatly overboard. “Go get her, then!” she yelled, and the explosion of maledictions that followed was swallowed up by the sound of a second splash.
NINA THREW THE LIFESAVER IN AFTER HIM.
As it turned out, Mike did not save Rachel. Somewhat the worse for the champagne he’d drunk, Nina supposed, he paddled feebly around shouting her name, his voice indistinct, his image a dark blur upon the darker smear of lake.
Not too far from Mike, Nina saw Rachel clinging to the lifesaver. Apparently she could dog-paddle.
Lindy, who had put her hands over her eyes, now pulled them away. “Mike! I’m sorry, Mike!” She shouted into the blackness, into the stars, and finally into the ears of her guests, who heard her cries and flocked to her side.
“Well, what have we here?” said a tall, skinny woman with short, streaked hair, looking amused as she strolled over to the railing and looked out into the night. “Hey, Mikey!” She waved. “How’s the water?” She turned to Lindy. “What happened?”
“Oh, Alice. I pushed them in!”
Alice put her arm around Lindy. “Well, well, well. I guess you showed him. Who’s the woman? There is a woman?”
“Rachel Pembroke. From the plant. I told you about her.”
“Hair to her hips and twenty-five years old. That’s so classic,” said Alice, nodding.
“Man overboard!” an alarmed man in a silk jacket called. “You okay down there?” he shouted.
“Fine, fine,” Mike’s strangled voice replied.
“Hang in there, pal!”
A large, handsome man sporting a black tie and long hair jostled for a place along the railing. “Rachel? It’s me, Harry. Is that you?”
“Help!” Rachel replied, her voice very faint above the sound of the ship’s motor. “Get me out of here before my legs freeze off!”
Leaving Lindy anchored by a couple of concerned guests, Nina ran for help.
But the captain had heard the cries. The paddle wheel slowed to a stop, the engine drone quieted, and the boat halted. A spotlight-hauled out of a musty cupboard and hoisted by Nina and a young man with tattoos-located the wet pair in the black lake not more than a hundred yards away, midway between the boat and Fannette Island.
Before Harry could remove his shoes and jump in after them, the crew lowered a dinghy into the water and rowed swiftly out, first to Mike, who was closer, and finally to Rachel, whose hair stuck to her body and covered her face like tattered black rags.
By the time the dinghy returned to the Dixie Queen and the pair was climbing a ladder to safety, Nina had relinquished her beacon to a nearby crewman. She was standing at the front of the crowd with Paul.
Someone wrapped a wool blanket around the shivering girl’s shoulders. The music had stopped. The guests bunched together to make room for Rachel and Mike, with the exception of the man named Harry, who glared at Mike as he passed. Lindy stood off to one side like a casual spectator, drawn to the event but uninvolved. Red-eyed, with black mascara streaming down her bloodless cheeks, Rachel walked slowly over to her and stopped.
Nina edged toward Lindy, wondering if Rachel was as angry as she would be under the same circumstances. Taking deep, gulping breaths, the girl just looked the older woman over. “I feel sorry for you,” she said finally. Mike came to her side, took her arm, and they walked away together.
Lindy watched them go.
Afterward, very late, Nina treated Paul to a drink at the bar at Caesar’s and then they went up to bed. Paul was playful and warm, and while her body responded with mindless happiness, she couldn’t yank her thoughts entirely away from the evening’s events. When she finally tried to untangle herself, explaining that she had to get home to Bob, Paul pulled her back.
“Don’t leave yet. There’s something I have to tell you,” he said.
So here it was at last, whatever had been bothering him all evening. “What?” she asked, positioning herself on the side of the bed while a dozen unpleasant possibilities flashed through her mind. Another woman. A fatal illness. He was broke. He had committed murder…
“They’ve offered me a job. A permanent job.”
“They?” she repeated, as her speculations ground to a screeching standstill.
“A private company. Worldwide Security Agency.”
“But… you didn’t go to D.C. to apply for a job, did you?”
“No. I was hired to consult on the design of some new security systems for a block-long office and shopping complex they’re building right outside the city in Maryland. I ran into a friend I worked with years ago back in San Francisco…”
“When you were with the police.”
He nodded.
“And…”
“We were talking, and this thing came up. At first, I thought, no way. Then I discovered I’m interested.”
“I knew there was something.”
Paul, who was facing her, pushed a pillow that had gotten between them out of the way and sat up straighter. “They want me to run all the checks, hire all the personnel, and work with the systems designer to eliminate bugs when the complex opens sometime early next summer.”
When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “It’s a long project, big on money, high on hurdles. My kind of thing.”
“What about your business?”
“I’ve hired a guy to learn the ropes while I’m traveling back and forth between D.C. and California for the next six months or so. I plan to keep the business on a small scale.”
“Until…”
“Until I can come back.”
She didn’t like the way his answer sidestepped the issue so neatly. “What if you fall in love… with Washington? You’d lose everything you’ve worked for.”
“I’m already in love… with Washington,” he said with a sly grin. “That doesn’t mean I won’t come back.”
“You talk like you’ve already decided.”
“Do I?” He raised his eyebrows. “I’m just giving it serious thought.”
“Why now?” asked Nina.
“I wanted to talk to you about it. I could have more free time.”
“Free time? For what?”
“There are a few things I’d like to do before they put me out to pasture.”
“Such as…”
“Never mind.”
“No, really. Tell me what you want to do that you aren’t doing.”
He shrugged. “Climb Everest to the top before I croak?”
“Oh, come on,” she said. “You love what you do.”
“Sure,” he said, “but the job does not make the man, my workaholic friend.”
Worried, Nina rubbed his whiskers with her finger. “What about our work here? What about… I thought… I mean. Don’t you want…”
“Nina, it’s not over. Right now, this job in Washington is still long-term, but temporary.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I can keep things alive in Carmel, and maybe come back here when you need me.”
“That won’t last,” Nina said. “They’ll book you for every minute.”
“I need to know how you feel about this.” He waited quietly, and only a slight tension at the corner of his lips suggested to her his question was anything but casual.
She got up, reaching for a hotel robe and covering herself. “I don’t know what to say.” Rummaging under the bed, she located her party dress and underwear.
Paul grabbed for her, taking hold of her wrist. “Oh, no. You’re not getting off that easy.”
“Okay, Paul,” she said, trying not to blow up under the pressure of the moment, afraid to say the wrong thing and damned if she’d beg him to stay. “Imagine yourself working under a jerk, with a lot of other jerks. Imagine how you’ll love that after being your own boss for years.” Paul had been fired from the police department for insubordination.
“Ah, but I was so much older then,” he said, his tone light again.
Why had he bothered to ask her what she thought of his job offer? He would decide whatever he decided, and she had no real say in the matter. She let herself be drawn back to him. Putting her arms around him, she said, “Don’t…” then paused.
“Don’t what, Nina?” he asked. He had his hands around her waist and had moved his head in closer to her neck, where he breathed softly. “Don’t go?”
“Nothing,” she said. She stayed long enough to leave him happy. Then, slipping back into her clothes, she said good-bye with a kiss to his forehead. She couldn’t tell him how to live his life. They were colleagues and friends. He would come and go, and that was the way it had to be. She could not allow this to drag her down. Right now, she needed the strength of a light spirit in order to carry the heavy weight of her own responsibilities.
Early Monday morning, alone in the office, feeling the way a sculptor might on the day a big block of uncut marble was to be delivered, Nina abandoned herself to a feeling of edgy anticipation. A new case was about to materialize. On Sunday, Lindy Markov had left a message that she would be coming in first thing in the morning to see her about an urgent matter that concerned the party on the boat. When Lindy had assaulted Rachel, she had turned a private problem into a public one, and in America, a public problem usually ended with the parties in court.
Setting an armful of pending files down on the credenza, she squirmed around in the chair until it fit, kicked off her shoes, and picked up the recorder. First case: petty theft, a senior citizen caught shoplifting a carton of Camels from Cecil’s Market after his Social Security check had run out for the month. An ornery man in his seventies, Fred wanted to go to trial on the matter. The trouble was, he had no defense. Better to go to the deputy DA assigned to the case and coax, barter, ingratiate, and con. Maybe she could get the charge dropped.
But not today. Time to get other things mobilized. “Sandy, please set up an appointment for me with Barbara Banning at the DA’s office for tomorrow,” she said into the recorder, clicking it off as a soft knock interrupted the silence.
Nina felt a thump inside her chest as her heart responded within her rib cage like an answering knock. Lindy Markov had arrived, announced by the scent of her French perfume.
And because Nina had been waiting for exactly this-this strained face peeking around the door, that fabulously cut vermilion suit, and that sheaf of official-looking papers in a long, manicured right hand-she felt a thrill run right through her, and she thought, God, I love practicing law in spite of everything.
She got up and showed her to a client chair, making pleasant small talk and pouring coffee. Lindy Markov sat down, pulled a finely embroidered handkerchief out of a brown leather handbag, and blew hard into it, collapsing like someone who has just found a safe haven.
A lawyer’s chair was about as safe as the copilot’s seat in a burning airplane. Still, this spot must be preferable to sitting back in the cabin, choking to death on smoke and not knowing why.
Nina sat across from Lindy at the broad desk. Silence fell. The traffic outside had stopped for a red light, maybe that was the explanation, but the silence between them seemed faintly furtive, as if they had cooked up a scheme to commit illegal trespass and were poised on the verge of it.
“So have you heard anything? Are they all right?” Nina asked at last.
“Rachel and Mike are fine. Nobody’s pressing charges.”
There was another pause. Lindy didn’t seem to know where to start.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Mrs. Markov,” Nina said matter-of-factly.
“Call me Lindy, please,” she said. “And you saw what happened. Don’t tell me you can’t understand why I did it.”
“Yes. I guess I might have pushed them in the drink, too.” Nina smiled.
“My temper got the best of me,” Lindy said. “I just hate it when I do things like that. But you want to know something worse? It actually made me feel better.” She shrugged her shoulders. “And now I pay the price-I just got served with these.” She handed over the papers.
“May I see?” Nina asked, reaching for the papers. While Nina jotted quick notes on the material, she heard Sandy arriving, just in time to catch the first batch of Monday morning calls. Good. She could focus entirely on Lindy.
Lindy had been served two sets of papers. First, an Order to Show Cause why Lindy shouldn’t be summarily evicted from a residence on Cascade Road. In the accompanying Declaration of Petitioner, Mikhail Markov averred that on or about October 10, a Friday night, during a social event, the Respondent, Lindy Hawkins Markov, had begun acting erratically, had threatened the Petitioner, assaulted another guest, and had caused Petitioner to be placed in such apprehension that he was compelled to vacate his residence, leaving the Respondent in possession thereof.
It was further respectfully declared that Petitioner was the sole owner of the premises, as set forth in the exhibit attached thereto and incorporated therein, consisting of a deed in fee simple for the real property, and it was further declared that Respondent Lindy Markov had no right, title, or interest therein, and had been living there for some time temporarily and solely as a guest and invitee of the Petitioner…
“How long have you lived at the house, Lindy?” Nina asked, not raising her head.
“Nine years-almost ten.” Lindy said. Nina flipped to the exhibit. Lindy’s name was nowhere mentioned on the deed to the house and property. Strange. She went back to the petition and declaration, which in dense legalese declared that Lindy now, after repeated demands, refused to vacate the premises. The court was asked to render a judgment finding Lindy guilty of forcible detainer of the premises, to order the sheriff’s office to secure the premises, and to issue a restraining order forbidding Lindy Markov from approaching within two hundred feet of the premises or the person of Mikhail Markov.
“He’s trying to throw you out,” Nina said, translating.
Lindy’s eyes, an unusual amber color, began to tear up, but she blinked hard and lifted her chin. “You want to know something about me?”
“What?” Nina asked.
“My dad didn’t raise me to be a crybaby. We grew up poor, and that makes you strong. We learned how not to lie down and let a truck flatten you when it comes at you full speed.”
“Ah,” said Nina.
“I am not giving up without a fight,” she went on. “But tell me, can he really do this to me?”
“We’ll talk about that in a minute,” Nina said, skimming the second set of papers. Notice of Termination of Employment, said the top sheet. In accordance with Article XIII and Bylaw 53 of Markov Enterprises, Lindy Hawkins Markov had been terminated from her position as executive vice president by the president of the Corporation, Mikhail Markov. In the same manner, she had been terminated as an executive of two subsidiary corporations.
The next sheets looked a lot like the first. Upon a majority vote of the stockholders of Markov Enterprises and its subsidiaries, Lindy was hereby removed from her position as secretary of the corporations and directed to turn over any books, records, or memoranda in her possession relating to her duties and obligations in the said terminated capacity. Exhibit 1, attached to that set of papers, was the written record of the said majority vote of the said stockholders. “Fast work.”
“Mike was in a hurry.”
Nina turned the page to look at that exhibit. Sole stockholder of all stock in the parent company: Mike Markov. Sole stockholder of the subsidiary corporations: also Mike Markov. So the voting had been expeditious.
Why wasn’t Lindy’s name on the stock, too? And the deed? But before Nina could ask, Lindy began to talk.
“I got to the plant this morning at seven, when it opens. A security guard met me,” she said. “He took me to my office. Inside, my secretary was putting my stuff into boxes. They wouldn’t let me touch anything, and people were trying not to look. Oh, no wait, not everyone. Rachel was right down the hall. She watched me. I took a step toward her just to ask her where Mike was and another security man came running. They marched me right out of there like a criminal. Luckily, George came along to give me a hand with the boxes.”
“George?”
“A friend at the plant.”
“Is that when they gave you these papers?”
“No. A sheriff’s deputy came to the house Sunday morning and served me. I just threw them on the hall table and went running like I always do. When I got back, I saw them there, but I had this fund-raiser at the rec department I’d promised to attend, so I just told myself I’d read them later. I never did. I got up and got dressed this morning thinking now that we’d had time to cool down, I’d talk to Mike first thing.” Lindy took in a ragged lungful of air. “After twenty years, he’s dumping me for another woman,” she said, “and I never saw it coming.”
“The bum,” Nina said, unable to hold her tongue.
“Yeah.”
“But… you still love him?”
“Yeah. Why do you think I’m here? I want you to help me get him back!”
Nina read some more. Something had bothered her during that brief exchange with Lindy. Something about the signatures on the paperwork had begun to register. Casting her eyes down to the signature line on the termination notice she thought, oh, hell, because Mike had naturally gone over the weekend to the biggest law firm in town, and of course had been pincered and gathered into the claws of the greatest bottom feeder at Lake Tahoe, Jeffrey Riesner, the one guy who could spoil all the legal fun she had been anticipating.
Jeffrey Riesner. Just seeing his name on a piece of paper made her eyes itch. Since first meeting him when she’d hired Sandy, Nina had fought a few pitched battles in court against him. Each contest had taken a little more out of her. Always predatory, Riesner was rabid when it came to Nina. He hovered over her like a vulture, watching for the first sign of weakness. Then he pounced.
All she had done was to win a case against him once, and of course, there was that time when she’d sort of stolen his client… but those reasons were incidental, only excuses, not motives for the mutual loathing that descended deep down to the molecular level.
Bad luck that he was representing Mike Markov.
Lindy must have been busy organizing her own thoughts, because she burst into passionate speech. “Mike is not himself. His brother died recently. He told me, ’I’m getting old.’ He checks his hairbrush every day to see how much hair has fallen out. Fifty-five isn’t so old. His health is good. I mean, we don’t jog together anymore but that’s because he’s so busy.
“Then a few months ago he was getting ready to go to work one morning. Counting his wrinkles in the mirror after he shaved. Mad about all the new moles… I asked him if he regretted never having children. He told me he did, sometimes, but he’d always said the business is our baby, and he still felt that way. But before he said all that, he hesitated, you know? Sometimes you can tell people aren’t telling the truth.”
“What about you, Lindy. Did you want kids?”
“I would have loved it, but Mike never wanted them and I accepted that. He needed me to be right there beside him, working the same hours. And I’m so oriented toward work. I guess children weren’t what I’m about. I’m at peace with having none.”
“So that morning, what happened?”
“He studied himself in the mirror like he hated what he saw. Then he said, ’I’m not happy.’ “
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. You know how, even in a warm room, a draft can hit you? I was blown over by the cold air coming off him. But I thought, this will pass. We had been through so much together. We had everything you could want. How could he be unhappy? Was I ever wrong about that.” She inhaled deeply, as if pulling her feelings back inside herself.
“I’m glad you came Friday night,” she said finally. “The only lawyers I know handle business for the corporation, and then there’s Mike’s lawyer. I never needed a personal attorney before.” She took a sip of coffee and smiled tentatively. “You can help me, can’t you?”
Sandy knocked and entered at this suspiciously propitious moment, carrying a retainer agreement that she placed ceremoniously on Nina’s desk. “Forgot to bring this in earlier,” she said.
“My secretary, Sandy Whitefeather,” Nina said.
“Hi,” Lindy said.
“A pleasure,” Sandy replied. “I see you have your coffee.” She glided out as if on rollerblades.
“Is that the same Sandra Whitefeather who organized the Casino Night for the women’s shelter this summer?” Lindy asked, looking after her. “And that protest against logging in the National Forest this spring?”
“The very same.”
“That’s right. I remember reading about her. She was with the group who met with the vice president about returning Washoe ancestral lands along the lake last July.”
“The vice president?”
“That’s right.”
“She was?” Sandy had never mentioned it.
“It’s the first hopeful thing that’s happened in a long time for the native people. You’re so lucky to have her. She’s being considered for one of the boards I sit on.”
“No doubt.” No doubt Sandy would retake all of Lake Tahoe for the Washoe in a decade, but in the meantime Nina forged on. “Before I know what I can do, I have to ask you a few questions, Lindy. First of all, tell me a little more about your relationship with Mike.”
“Well, we met in Nevada at a club called the Charley Horse-that would be twenty years ago in December. Mike was a bouncer. I booked talent, or what we called talent back then. Dancers and comedians, mostly.
“I was pretty good at my work. We even got Paul Anka for a weekend engagement, and a one-nighter with Wayne Newton. I had some money socked away, but I was lonely. Mike was lonely, too. Next thing we knew, we were living together. We both wanted out of Ely so after thinking about it for a while, we decided to start up our own business.
“Mike is an ex-boxer. All he knew was boxing. The exercise craze was just starting then. I got the idea of building a boxing ring as part of an exercise studio, to get the guys in. After a short time living in a trailer outside of town, we moved to Texas and rented a warehouse in downtown Lubbock, did a lot of renovating, and then I went around and put up flyers everywhere. Like that,” she snapped her fingers, “we were in business. The boxing studio worked so well we opened up another one and then another one.”
“Who put up the money to move you and get you started?”
“I did. We used my savings. Plus, a little business loan from the bank.”
“Did Mike contribute?”
“No, he was broke. But he sure knew how to box. He could slug a guy down in a knockout, first round, until some problems with injuries forced him to retire from competition. Seven years later, we got crowded out there so we moved our operations to Sacramento. Politicians would leave the State Capitol Building at lunchtime and come down the street to spar a little. They loved it. That was about the time, thirteen years ago, that I thought up the Solo Spa idea.”
“What’s that?” Nina said.
“A combination hot tub and swimming pool. Shaped like a big tin can, big enough to stand a person up in and let them move around a little, small enough to install inside your house, in the bathroom or the den or the garage. You can soak in it, but the main purpose is for water aerobics and exercises at home.”
As she spoke about the business, Lindy became more animated. She obviously loved her work. “Mike built a prototype and applied for the patent, and we took out a big loan. I modeled for the first brochure. Mike made me hang myself all around the spas in a bikini.” She laughed a little at the memory. “Pretty old-fashioned, huh? But that was a long time ago, remember.”
“Do you still model?” asked Nina.
“I did workout videos to demonstrate the product, but I haven’t done that for years. No, I did a lot of the planning but Mike stayed up front. We used to joke that he was the obligatory man. In a big way, that was true. Even now, a lot of people are more comfortable writing large checks to a man.”
“Hmmm,” said Nina. Maybe that explained the scarcity of big checks awaiting deposit in her own office.
“At first nobody seemed that interested, but then some of the hospitals started recommending it for their patients who couldn’t go to public pools for a lot of reasons. The Solo Spas turned out to be great for relieving arthritis, helping with osteoporosis, oh, all kinds of conditions. Clinics all over the world started buying the spas for physical therapy. That’s when I dreamed up phase two. We designed the smaller, less heavy-duty model and marketed it to the public.
“That same year, we bought the house. We’ve been there ever since. Mike renovated the basement to be his workshop and we called it the corporate headquarters. Money started coming in so fast we couldn’t count it.” She shook her head in disbelief. “We hardly had time to spend it. We both were working so hard to keep up with the demand.”
“Mike was the president of the corporation and you were the secretary of the board.”
“Right. And Mike was the CEO and I was the executive vice president. Several years ago we formed the two subsidiaries, one for the spa business and one for the exercise studios.”
Nina picked up the stock certificate attached to Lindy’s removal notice and asked the question that was bothering her. “Why is all the stock in Mike’s name? Why don’t you have half?”
“Mike hates red tape. He said it would be easier.”
“The California Community Property law will protect you on that,” Nina said. “Right down the middle, I would think. Now, along the same lines, I don’t understand why the house is in Mike’s name, too.”
“Everything’s in his name,” Lindy said, wavering in her control. “The apartment in Manhattan, the house in St. Tropez. The only thing I have is my car, which is a Jaguar-very extravagant, leather interior, two phones…” She blushed faintly. “My biggest indulgence. Then there’s this worthless mining claim my father left me, and my personal bank account, where I put my salary checks-my fun money-”
“Ah. You’re paid a salary?”
“Well-up to today I was. Seventy-five thousand a year. Mike took the same amount for himself. Our accountants said we were employees of the corporation.”
“Have you lived together all this time?”
“Yes.”
“No separations?”
“No. Mike has always been a good man. Faithful. And I’ve been loyal to him. We love each other. We promised to stand by each other through thick and thin in the eyes of God. And we did. This Rachel thing… it’s so unlike him.”
“You obviously know her.”
“Rachel Pembroke. She’s our vice president in charge of financial services. She’s been sucking up to him for months but it didn’t scare me because Mike and I were so tight. This has to be just a crush. Male menopause, like the women’s magazines call it.” Lindy studied Nina’s desk, concentrating hard. “I have to get him back. He’s like bread to me. Like air.”
“Yes,” said Nina.
“I don’t like to analyze things too much. My way of dealing with problems is to act. I can’t just sit on my hands and do nothing. That’s why I need to talk to Mike, Nina. Then he’ll come back.”
“I hope so,” Nina said. “But have you considered the possibility that he won’t come back? That it’s over between you?”
“I’m considering that now.”
“How much do you reckon your companies are worth, Lindy? Do you have any idea?”
“Depends on who you ask. At our last audit, not quite two hundred fifty million dollars for everything, lock, stock, and barrel,” Lindy said. “Mike would say more like one hundred with equipment wear and tear, depreciation, all that jazz figured in.” Coming from her mouth, the amount sounded as prosaic as pudding.
Nina sat back in her chair. “That’s… a lot of money.”
“It’s not like there are piles of it lying around. Mike calls it the lifeblood of our business. We don’t personally get to spend it. Well, not usually. So tell me. What do you think? Will you be my lawyer?”
“Let’s get to that in a minute. There’s something I should tell you first. Mr. Riesner, your husband’s attorney, normally is a litigator-his business is to try cases. If your husband has retained him, I think we have to consider the possibility that you and Mike might not reconcile-that this might be the opening salvo of a divorce case. At least I can tell you that we will handle whatever comes. California’s law is very clear-all property obtained in the manner you’ve described, during your marriage is as much yours as his, even if he’s splashed his name all over everything.”
“No!” Lindy said. “This can’t happen. No litigation. I just need to see him…”
“Well, let’s take it step by step. You want to talk to Mike. I’ll call Mr. Riesner and try to set up a meeting. There’s a hearing on this eviction notice set for November first, about two weeks from now. No reason Mike should live there instead of you, is there? It’s half yours, no matter what the deed says. It’s community property. As far as the termination and your removal from the board, I think it’s probably illegal, since you’re actually a half owner in the company. I can’t understand why you let him do that, put everything in his name.”
“He just… he was so touchy about it. We’re a unit, Nina. You see? What difference did it make?”
“Not much. Since you were married and the law protects you.”
Lindy leaned over the desk and stared at Nina with red-streaked eyes.
Nina thought, she has to understand somewhere behind those weary eyes that he is never coming back. But there are things I can do to help her get through all this. I can handle her legal problems. It’s a major divorce, and they’ll put up a fight, but when it is over, she’ll be a very wealthy woman worth millions of dollars. A mountain of millions.
For once, a big, easy case, Riesner notwithstanding. Some good hard work, some hand-holding, a great big fee. An enormous fee, a lawyer’s coin in the fountain. Nina observed in herself a feeling she did not welcome, the first faint stirrings of greed.
While she berated herself silently, Lindy spoke.
“Sorry, what did you say?” Nina asked.
“I’m telling you that Mike’s a good man. A decent man. He promised me we’d always share everything. He just never wanted to-I never could get him to-”
Riding high on her excitement, Nina felt ready to handle anything. “To what?”
“What I’m trying to tell you is…” She paused, her mouth open. She closed it, swallowed and tried again. “Mike and I never got married.”
You could have heard a pin drop. Or a telephone receiver, when Sandy, eavesdropping in the outer office, dropped hers. Or a big, easy case dropping right off the winnable spectrum.
“EXCUSE ME FOR JUST A MOMENT,” NINA SAID TO Lindy. She slipped her shoes on under the desk, pushed her chair back, and walked out the door, past Sandy, who was watching her quizzically, and down the hall to the women’s rest room.
“Why, oh, why?” she asked the rest room mirror, which maintained a prudent silence.
Nina threw cold water on her face and dried off with a paper towel. While running the rough paper over her cheeks, she started laughing. For just a nanosecond there in the office, before Lindy had spoken those crushing last words, Nina had thought she was going to have her first deep-pocket client, the kind that can actually afford experts and exhibits, investigators and appeals. And attorney fees. She had been mentally rubbing her hands together thinking of the fees like a greedy old Scrooge.
Instead of deep pockets, she now appeared to be talking to a black-hole client, a cast-off girlfriend who had squandered her rights years before.
“Palimony,” she told her reflection. Her reflection grimaced. Her cheeks were burning, and her long, fluffy brown hair had expanded and now threatened to take over the room. She wet her hands and tried to smooth it down.
As usual, the man had been careful and the woman had been in love. Lindy wasn’t going to have any proof of an agreement to share everything, just a lot of memories of sweet pillow talk over the years. Palimony cases were poison and every family lawyer knew it. She had handled a palimony appeal herself while still doing appellate work in San Francisco three years before, and she had lost.
The more she thought about it, standing there at the sink trying to squeeze her hair down, the madder she felt. Lindy didn’t yet understand that she had been given a swift kick in the pants and a bounce out the door. She was still talking about how she loved the guy! But how could she possibly understand what was coming?
Mike Markov and Jeff Riesner would crush her, then condescend to a paltry agreement to pension her off if she promised to be a good girl and shut up. If she was lucky, she would end up with enough money to join those other middle-aged women who filled the casinos and tennis clubs, unable to find fruitful employment, shell-shocked survivors who had lost twenty years of work experience as well as the relationship.
She was angry at Lindy for being such an idiot, and at herself for not asking right away about the date of marriage.
The worst thing about the whole situation was Riesner. She couldn’t take the case now, even with all the other problems, because she couldn’t take on Riesner and the team he would assemble without at least a fifty-fifty chance. He was too smart and too pit-bull ferocious. She wouldn’t have the resources or the law on her side. She would lose. She would be humiliated. This would be his chance to drive her law practice right into the ground.
Admit it, Nina, she told herself, you’re afraid of him and you don’t want to go up against him unless you’re pretty sure you can beat him. He’s too mean.
The other lawyers in town feared him, too. Lindy wouldn’t find a champion at Tahoe; no one would want to take on Riesner. The only lawyer he never fazed was Collier Hallowell, a deputy DA in town, who had referred to Riesner as their “resident dickhead,” she remembered. And even if Collier had not taken a leave of absence, as a prosecutor he would be useless to Lindy in this case.
Giving up on the unruly brown mop that blew in all directions around her head, Nina washed her hands, then pumped lotion from a dispenser and rubbed it in. It was so damn discouraging to see another good woman go down, though. Damn discouraging.
She went back down the hall trying to harden her heart. Lindy, sitting where she had left her, looked a little better. What had Nina been saying before she left? Oh, yes. Something along the lines of, you’re well protected, no problemo. Nina fell back into her chair. “Why didn’t you get married?” she asked.
“He had one nasty divorce already. That made him reluctant. He said we were married in every way that counts.”
“And you?”
“I wanted to marry him, and we did go through a ceremony in a church at the beginning, just privately, without any papers or anything…” Her eyes teared up. “But remember, Mike and I met in the seventies. Plenty of girls my age were not getting married. And my own divorce had been painful. At one point years ago, we came very close to getting married. Mike seemed ready. Then he was called out of town for two weeks. When he came back, he started making excuses.
“As time passed, I think the iron wasn’t hot enough. There was no urgent reason to get married. And he told me a million times that we shared everything, work, home, love. We had nothing to gain from making it legal.”
“You mentioned a ceremony?”
“We just kneeled in a church together, and promised to love and cherish each other forever. To share our lives.”
“No priest or pastor?”
“No.”
“But you have the same last name.”
“I started using the name Markov within a few months of moving in with Mike. We were trying to start the business in Texas and dealing with all these bankers. Everyone thought we were… you know. People still do.”
“Did he introduce you to other people as his wife?”
“Of course he does. I am his wife.”
“Lindy. Listen closely. This is important.”
“I’m listening.” Lindy’s fingers tightened on the desk.
“Forget what I said before. Your situation is a very difficult one.”
“He’s not himself at the moment. He’s acting crazy. This will all blow over,” Lindy said.
“Listen to me. Mike’s left you. He’s fired you, and he’s about to throw you out of your home. Do you honestly think it’s going to blow over?”
“He won’t do that. He can’t.”
“I think he can,” Nina said. “Unless you have a letter, a contract, something in writing, or some very credible witnesses who will swear that Mike told you half of everything was yours.” She waited, crossing her fingers mentally.
In vain. Lindy coughed, then adjusted herself in the chair, looking troubled. “I don’t have anything like that. But he always called me his wife. We were married in the eyes of-”
“Not in the eyes of the State of California. California doesn’t recognize common-law marriages. You have to go through the process and get a marriage certificate.”
Something must have penetrated the fog of Lindy’s denial. Every jittery line of her body registered alarm. “Do you mean-could I really lose everything?”
“The burden would be on you to prove that you and Mike had such an agreement. It’s difficult, because there’s a presumption that the assets in his name are his property.”
“But Mike wouldn’t let that happen.”
“I imagine he’ll offer you something,” Nina said. “What we have here is often called a palimony case, though you won’t find that word in any statute. It’s not unusual in this country for a woman to live with a man without being married, and it isn’t even so unusual anymore for her to go after some assets after termination of the relationship.
“But I can think of a long list of people who have sued the rich and famous and come out of the litigation feeling like Titanic survivors, only poorer. In general, they lose. I happen to have done some work on a similar case a while back and I still remember some of the defendants in other cases.” She named a few of the many that came immediately to mind: Lee Marvin, Rod Stewart, Merv Griffin, Martina Navratilova, Clint Eastwood, William Hurt, Joan Collins, Bob Dylan, Alfred Bloomingdale and Van Cliburn. “Jerry Garcia’s estate was sued after he died.”
“Do they always lose?”
“Not directly. Most cases end up settling out of court, being dropped, or lost on appeal,” said Nina. “The problem is that often the case boils down to her word against his, and that’s not enough to meet the burden of proof.”
“I’ve slept with him all these years! I was his wife in every way. Doesn’t that mean anything?”
“I hate to sound so blunt, but an agreement to provide money in return for sexual services is not compensable. A relationship like that is called a meretricious relationship.”
“But he promised we would share everything. He promised he would marry me someday. I always operated based on that idea. It’s a breach of promise!”
“Actually, if you sue Mike, you can’t sue for breach of promise.”
“But that’s exactly what he did. He made promises and broke them.”
“Unfortunately, California doesn’t permit a lawsuit to be based on a breach of promise of the type you’re talking about,” Nina said. The last series of questions and answers between her and Lindy had been rapid-fire, as Lindy’s distress grew more intense.
“I don’t believe any of this is happening,” Lindy said. “We have always been so close. To quote John Lennon, which he used to do all the time, ’I am he.’ We’re practically one person. Anything that separates us is temporary,” she said stubbornly.
“What you need to look at,” Nina said gently, “is what is happening right now. You may be right about Mike. People do change their minds. Meanwhile, you have to decide what you want to do, if anything.”
“I can’t just sit back. If that means I have to fight him, I will,” she said. “I’ll fight for what’s right.” She looked at Nina. “There’s something else I should probably tell you. When I got in to work this morning, one of my friends there took me aside just long enough to tell me he suspects Mike’s moving company assets. I didn’t believe him, but if you’re right about him preparing for a lawsuit…”
“That’s more evidence that he probably is.”
Lindy seemed to make a decision. “Listen. I’ve got some money. I want you to get going on this. Get an associate. Get whatever you need.” She took a checkbook out of her pocket. “How’s a hundred grand as a retainer? I know you’ll need more as you hire people. Write up an agreement with a schedule of payments, and I’ll sign it.”
Nina examined the check. A hundred thousand dollars. So much money. “Lindy, I…”
“Please, Nina. To tell you the truth, I don’t think this thing will go very far before he comes back to me. He needs me. Once he comes to his senses, he’ll remember that. But I can’t sit back and let his momentary insanity ruin my life. It’s not right for him to take everything. It’s not right for me to have to beg for crumbs. And remember, this is not just about me. I’ll bet there are a lot of women in this boat.”
“I’m sorry, Lindy,” Nina said as gently as she could. “But this kind of case costs a fortune. And unfortunately, you can’t use your old business accounts.” She handed the check back.
Lindy’s face turned gray. She couldn’t just throw her checkbook at Nina and get what she wanted. Everything in her life had changed in an instant.
“Where will you find that kind of money?” Nina asked.
“Hold on,” Lindy said, pulling out another checkbook. “I have about twenty thousand in my personal account. Take that.”
“I can’t do that. You’ll need it to live on.”
“Please.”
“I have to do some research,” Nina said, “and some thinking before I can give you a decision.” She couldn’t take the case, but Lindy needed some time to adjust herself to her new situation. “I realize you have to respond to these papers right away. I’ll call you tonight or at latest tomorrow morning.” She stood up, averting her eyes.
Lindy sat there, as deflated as the red party balloons back on the boat must be now. “Okay. If you have to,” she said. Reluctant to end an argument she had not entirely won, she took a long time to gather her things and leave. Sandy, who had been hovering at the door, showed her out.
Then Sandy came into Nina’s office and sat down in the chair just vacated by Lindy, turning two dark pebble eyes on Nina, her broad face smooth and unwrinkled as Truckee River rock. Today, her single long braid of black hair was laced with a strip of leather. In the outer office the phone rang but she gave no sign of hearing it.
“Well?” she said. “Good party? Does she have some work for us?”
“I knew that party was a mistake,” Nina said. “And don’t pretend you weren’t listening.”
A minute stiffening of Sandy’s shoulders signaled Nina that she had guessed correctly. “I missed a lot, although I caught the shattering climax,” Sandy said. “What happens now? You can’t exactly divorce a man you never married.”
“Eight letters,” said Nina. “Starts with a p.”
“Paranoia?”
“You’re good. But let’s hope not.”
“Hmmm. Give me a minute.”
“I’ve got court at ten. I’ve got to get going.”
“I’ve got it,” she announced as Nina put her hand on the doorknob. “Paramour. She takes a lover and shows him what he’s missing.”
“Well, not exactly what I had in mind, but that’s a possibility.”
The pebbles flashed with light. “Not palimony.”
“Bingo.”
“But the plaintiffs never win those cases, do they?” said Sandy. “Speaking strictly about money, which we don’t do often enough, you’re on the wrong side.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“Who’s the lucky guy representing Mike Markov?”
“The lucky guy would be Jeffrey Riesner.”
Sandy made a sound low in her throat. Her eyes narrowed to a squint.
While she grappled with this latest abominable turn of events, Nina escaped out the door.
That afternoon, Nina hit first the on-line computer resources, and then emptied her pockets of change at the copy machine, collecting everything she could find in a cursory overview at the law library.
Palimony. The word had been coined in the seventies when Michelle Triola sued the movie actor Lee Marvin for a share of his earnings after a relationship without the benefit of marriage. Unfortunately for Ms. Triola, although the jury awarded her some money for “rehabilitation,” an appeals court had thrown the decision out. She got nothing, but Marvin v. Marvin had put the concept onto the legal map, and that was almost as good as setting a precedent.
Nina skimmed the cases she already knew and a few she didn’t. Liberace’s estate had been sued by his lover, a young fellow who felt stiffed, so to speak. It was hard to take some of the cases seriously. There was a border area of frivolous cases in which aggrieved lovers simply felt entitled to something after their partners died or moved on. The cases were full of the ingredients the press loves the most: romance and fame.
And, considering the pot of money involved, how they would love this one.
For some time she lost herself in the suit filed by Kelly Fisher, the model who had been Dodi Fayed’s lover before Princess Diana, and who had actually been able to sue for breach of promise in a French court. As Nina had told Lindy, there would be no such luck in hard-nosed California. There had to be some kind of contract to share income and assets, and the contract had to be provable. At least, that was how the issues had been decided in the past.
As she sat at the library conference table straining her eyes on the fine print of opinions, she thought to herself that she had never seen the word “love” in any of the thousands of pages of California laws. “What’s love got to do with it,” she hummed to herself as she read.
Love was yin, traditionally the province of women, female, subjective. Law was yang, male, objective. She felt uncomfortable about Lindy’s position. Show me the hard evidence, the lawyer in her said. Promises of marriage, sex, talk of love, midlife crises, affairs-the legal system had washed its hands of these. She didn’t want to be associated with such sloppy emotional matters herself. A woman lawyer had to take special care to be more objective than anybody else.
Yet these matters were now inextricably intertwined with a huge amount of money, and the legal system was being used to keep the money in the hands of Mike Markov. It wasn’t right. Her anger worked on her, as it always did, seeking a productive outlet. But what could she do all by herself in a fight against these big boys?
She found herself thumbing through the Civil Code, skimming mindlessly through the sections on marriage. They wouldn’t be applicable to unmarried people, but what were Lindy and Mike if not married? Lindy was much more than a girlfriend.
Frustrated, Nina thought, we need more laws to cover this, and caught herself just in time. Her entire wall was covered with the Annotated Codes of the State of California, with so many new ones passed each year that no one could keep up.
All right, make an old law fit, she thought. She went through the statutes again. This time her eye caught on a humble little statute that would probably be repealed as obsolete the first time some modern lawmaker noticed it: Civil Code section 1590 said, Where either party to a contemplated marriage in this State makes a gift of property to the other on the basis or assumption that the marriage will take place, in the event that the donee refuses to enter into the marriage… the donor may recover such gift…
Nina repeated that to herself. She thought of dowries, of handsome men in high collars, of jilted fiancés.
Suppose Paul gave me a wildly expensive diamond engagement ring, she thought, but I refused to marry him after all. The ring would have to go back, or at least, the jury could give it back to him if he took me to court.
Say she gave him something. I will give you my fortune if you marry me, she said to herself, trying to paraphrase the code into words she easily understood. She still didn’t quite get it. She tried again. I promise you something, and in return you marry, or promise to marry, me. Yes. That’s what the code said in plain language.
She thought again about her interview with Lindy, about what Lindy had said.
Looking down at her legal pad, which had more doodles than notes, she saw that she had drawn a pair of wedding bells with a ribbon on top. Musical notes made a circle around them.
Certainly bells had begun to ring in her brain.
She planted a big kiss on the homely phrase before copying it down.
At five o’clock she slammed closed her last book of the day, then drove to her brother Matt’s to pick up her son. Matt and his wife, Andrea, lived with their two children in a neighborhood known as Tahoe Paradise, only a few blocks from where Nina and her son now lived. Matt ran a parasailing business in the summer and a tow truck business in the winter. Andrea worked at the local women’s shelter, a way station through which a steady and burgeoning stream of battered women and their kids flowed.
Tucked into a clearing in the woods in a small wooden house with a stone fireplace that smoked for most of the year, they lived the way people had lived a hundred years ago at Tahoe, the only visible nod to suburbia being the struggling lawn that was now, with all the rain they had been having, a silky-looking iridescent green patch.
She pulled the Bronco up to the house, removed her shoes, and marched across the damp grass. Might as well enjoy it. Winter was just around the corner.
Andrea opened the door before she could knock. “Nina! We expected you for lunch,” she said.
“I’m sorry. I just got busy. Is Bob still here?”
“He and Troy are up in Troy’s room working on the computer.”
Nina reached out to squeeze Andrea’s arm. “How’s everyone doing? Have they been at it since they got home from school?”
“Pretty much.”
“Did Bob do any homework?”
“I doubt it.”
“Uh-oh. It’s going to be a long night.”
“They work awfully hard. He needed to do something besides the usual grind.”
“I wish he’d gone outside to play. It’s so beautiful this time of year,” Nina said, breathing in the pine air, feeling the kiss of a breeze.
“Like mother, like son,” said Andrea, leading her into the house. “Put ’em in a dark room with a computer and they’re as happy as Bill Gates.”
“We’re not going to hit you up for dinner. I’ve got to get him home.” Nina went upstairs to get Bob.
Other than the difference in size, Troy and Bob looked identical from the rear in their California boy uniforms, Van’s two-toned suede sneakers, emblemed T-shirts, baggy plaid shorts, hair a modified monk style. Troy, a year younger, turned around to say hi when she came in. Bob continued to stare hypnotically at the screen in front of him.
“Hey, Mom. Come and look.”
From the time he could talk, Bob had demanded that she witness and convey her blessing upon his every act. She wondered if this was unique to male children. Bob’s cousin Brianna, who was younger, seemed more self-contained than either of the boys. Nina applauded the improved Web page, then bribed and threatened him out the front door. “Where’s Matt?” she asked Andrea as they stood in the doorway and Bob ran down the path to the car.
“Packing up the last of the parasails, and if I know him, paying a final tribute to summer’s end with a little ride around Emerald Bay. Hey, isn’t that where you went on the Dixie Queen last weekend?”
“Yes, it is.” Nina gave her a brief rundown of the party and its grand finale without naming its participants.
“Did you see the little island in the middle, Fannette?”
“Yes.”
“I heard the most interesting gossip about that place last week from a woman whose grandfather created some of the handmade wrought iron light fixtures at Vikingsholm.”
“That’s the Scandinavian-looking mansion on the bay across from the island.”
“Right. Built by Lora Knight, who also built the teahouse on the island.”
“What gossip?”
“Before the teahouse was built, a sailor built a tomb in the rocks.”
“Who for?”
“Himself.”
“Is he buried there?”
“Nope. Drowned in the lake. His body was never recovered. You know Lake Tahoe,” she said. “It’s too cold for bodies to float.”
“So what happened to the tomb?”
“She said tourists used to visit it, but that by the time the teahouse was built, nobody knew where it was or what had happened to it.”
“You’re trying to spook me.”
“It’s the solemn truth.”
“Well, one fine day, let’s get Matt to load up the boat and check that place out. Can you go on the island?”
“There’s no dock anymore. You have to swim from a boat, or kayak there. Besides, his boat is chronically ailing.”
“First chance I get, I’m going.”
“You’re not going anywhere. I recognize that gleam in your eyes. Something wicked has come your way.” Andrea was looking at her appraisingly. “You always look happiest when you’ve got some horrible problem at work.”
“True,” Nina said. “Horrible problems are my beat.”
Andrea laughed in a girlish treble that went with the curly red hair and the blue jeans and the flannel shirt.
“Andrea, have you ever met Lindy Markov?” Nina asked.
“Of course. She’s involved in some charities and nonprofits around town. She gives fund-raisers at her house. Everybody comes, partly because of their curiosity about her home, which she’s happy to satisfy in the service of her pet causes.”
“Have you been there?”
“Yep. Cost me two hundred bucks, too. A worthy cause, but money we couldn’t afford.” Andrea made a face. “Oh, Lord, how Matt moaned. A dent in that untouchable college fund for the kids. He practically cried. But sometimes there are more immediate problems that need attending.”
“Andrea, you’re such a good soul.”
“No. I found help when I was desperate.” Andrea had weathered a rough relationship with her first husband, the father of her two children, and a shelter like the one she now managed had helped her get free. “This is just another token dime to the dollar.”
“Where do the Markovs live? What’s the house like?”
“Near Emerald Bay on Cascade Road, on one of the most magnificent estates on the lake, bar none. They must have acres of lakefront property. Mrs. Markov has been generous with the shelter. Wish we had more like her. She propped up a lot of women who needed help.”
“I wish I hadn’t asked. You make her sound like a saint.”
“She’s no saint. Just generous.”
Nina heard the horn on the Bronco. “I have to go.”
“Wait. Is Mrs. Markov in some kind of trouble? Anything to do with that scene on the boat you witnessed?”
“You know I couldn’t talk about it if she was.”
“Well, I just want to say, please let me know if there’s anything I can to do to help her. She’s one in a million.”
Bob honked the horn of the Bronco again and Nina trotted out to the car and caught sight of him in the driver’s seat. His head nearly scraped the ceiling. In three years he would be driving. The thought was appalling.
“Mom, Christmas is coming,” he said as they approached the corner of Kulow.
So it was. She hadn’t given it much thought, but like most kids, Bob had.
“There’s this program I want for the computer. Troy and I can use it on our website to make things three dimensional.”
“That sounds nice,” she said, swinging the Bronco into their driveway. “You be sure to ask Santa for it.” Bob knew the truth about Santa but liked keeping on with the fairy tale, protective of their few family traditions.
“It’s kind of expensive.”
“Oh?”
“About three hundred dollars.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll just hope Santa can bring it, and if he doesn’t, I won’t be disappointed.”
“Bob, since we bought the house, this year is going to be tight. Isn’t there anything else you want?”
“Just one thing. It’s what I really, really want.”
“What’s that?”
“You don’t want to know.” He got out and slammed the door. Nina could see Hitchcock inside the house, scrabbling at the window and barking a greeting.
“I do. What do you really want?”
“I want to visit my dad.” He ran for the door, slipped his fingers under the potted plant to extricate the key, and unlocked the door while she stood on the driveway feeling as if she had been hit with a snowball the size of a snowman.
Bob’s father, Kurt, a man she had loved once but never married, now lived in Germany. A ticket to Germany would wipe her out.
So this would be one of those holidays where she would worry that she could not do right by Bob. She worked too hard, she worked long hours, she lived in a little cabin, and she couldn’t be both mother and father. And she couldn’t afford to give him what he really, really, wanted.
At eight-thirty, while Bob was in the shower, the phone rang.
Sandy, who never called Nina at home, spoke. “I was cruising around the Net,” she said, chewing on something. Nina wondered, not for the first time, where Sandy lived. She had never been invited to find out. “I was thinking about that Mrs. Markov.”
“What’d you find?”
“A case. I wasn’t sure you knew about it. Maglica v. Maglica.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Down in Orange County. You ever hear of the Maglite?”
“A little flashlight? I use it to take the dog out for a walk.”
“Well, there you go. The guy invented it. And he and his so-called wife built up this huge company. They had a falling-out and she sued him.”
“For what?”
“Breach of contract. She asked for half the company. Unlike these other cases in this old brief of yours I’ve been looking at, this one went to a jury.”
“And?”
“The jury gave her eighty-four million dollars, mainly for her services to the company.”
“Wow.”
“Of course, I’m just a badly paid peon without a brain in her head getting it all wrong.”
“Oh, stop it, Sandy. It sounds interesting. Give me the Web address and I’ll look it up before I go to bed.” Sandy gave it to her.
“Are you taking the case?” Sandy asked.
“I’m still deciding. Most signs pointed to no, but then I got the glimmer of an idea at the law library-too soon to talk about, though. And now this case you’ve found shows somebody has won at least once in a similar lawsuit.”
“Markov’s another Maglica,” Sandy said.
“What’s so special about this case that you’re spending your evenings doing research without being asked?”
“Lindy Markov helped some girlfriends of mine a few years ago without putting them through a lot of bureaucratic bilgewater. Now she needs help.”
“And here’s another thing,” Nina said. “She needs a firm in Sacramento or San Francisco, a firm with the resources and capital to carry the case. There’s so much money at stake.”
“But…”
“Think about what your average thug will do for fifty bucks on the street.”
“I’d rather not,” said Sandy.
“Now multiply that take by a couple of million… and consider how far our friend Jeffrey Riesner might be willing to go to mug Lindy Markov.”
“That’s exactly what I have been thinking,” Sandy said. “Now listen. He had a palimony case out of Placerville some time back. And here’s what he did.” Sandy avoided saying Riesner’s name the way some people avoided curse words. “He associated in this dude from L.A. who handles all the Hollywood people. Winston Reynolds. He’ll want to do that again for this case.”
“Unless we beat him to it,” Nina said.
“You see the beauty of it. Slip the big gun away before he even notices your fingers in his pocket.”
“Mom!” Bob yelled from the bathroom. “Bring a towel, quick! Bring a bunch of towels!”
“Hang on, Sandy,” she said. “What’s the matter?” she shouted holding her hand over the mouthpiece.
“Oh, man,” he said, “too late. Oh, man, oh, man.”
An hour later, after the flood in the bathroom had been cleaned up and Bob was finally in bed, Nina threw on a sweater and took the dog out for his last walk. The moonless night blazed with stars, a sight she had forgotten about while living in San Francisco in the days before she became downsized and divorced. She could hardly believe that she was into her second year of solo practice, hanging in there and even developing a reputation.
Hitchcock ran with his nose to the ground, nuzzling at the foot of the tall trees and around the bases of the dark cabins. His black fur blended into the dark. Cassiopeia and Orion splashed across the sky. She gazed up, waiting for a shooting star with the same feeling of anticipation she had been fielding all day. Why was it when you wanted to see one of those silver streaks lighting up the black sky, you never saw it? That kind of thing liked to tickle and tease the corners of your peripheral vision, and never gave any warning.
At the door to her house, she hurried in to catch the phone.
“Nina,” Lindy said, “I couldn’t wait till morning. A friend gave me your home phone number. I know it’s late. I promise I won’t talk long.”
“A friend, eh?” A flinty-eyed friend built like the Rock of Gibraltar, Nina bet. She had a strict rule about giving out her home number, but Nina was beginning to understand about how it must be for spectacularly successful people like Lindy. The usual rules did not apply to her. She assumed a smooth pathway over obstacles and found one, or threw money down to create it. “What can I do for you?” she asked, trying to insert the brisk professional note back into her voice that a barking dog awaiting his ball had a way of dispelling.
“I borrowed some more money,” Lindy said. “Five thousand. Could we start with that? I may be broke, but I still have my friends. Alice Boyd just took out her checkbook and wrote me a check, and some other women have offered to do what they can.”
“But Lindy, I’m a sole practitioner. I’m really sorry but that won’t be enough.” She felt terrible. She really wanted to help Lindy but five thousand wouldn’t scratch the surface of the kind of expenses they would incur. Nina didn’t see how she could take the case under the circumstances without bankrupting herself.
“I believe I can get my hands on at least another twenty thousand, maybe even thirty before the trial. And then, when we win…”
“You mean if.”
“When,” Lindy said firmly, “we win, I’ll pay you ten percent of whatever I’m awarded by the court.”
The words rang in Nina’s ears. Ten percent. If the court awarded her half the Markov assets, that would be in the realm of ten million dollars. Cut that in half to be realistic, and you still came up with an unbelievable figure.
Her fingers clenched the phone. She was unable to speak. So here it was, streaking across a black sky. Her big chance. A case with a heart to it, and issues that were unresolved in California law. Something that might set a precedent for other women like Lindy, who had worked behind the scenes only to be left with nothing. A case that might make her rich.
A case with one big flaw: a client with no money.
Even if she could somehow scrape together the money to keep them afloat as they prepared for a trial, how could she justify taking such a risk? If Lindy lost, Nina could lose everything.
But an opportunity like this one wouldn’t come knocking again. She had lived long enough to know that.
She had some assets left. And there had to be lots of ways to get the money they would need. Maybe she could associate someone else in who would assume some of the risk for a big payoff…
Lindy was talking. “People are so amazing. Everyone’s doing what they can for me.” She sounded moved. “I treasure my friends.”
“I guess they treasure you, too.”
“If that’s true, I’m lucky,” Lindy said. She didn’t say anything else. She waited for Nina.
“Meet me at my office at nine tomorrow morning,” Nina said. She hung up, pushing away a nasty little feeling that told her she had no business taking this case.
Fifteen days later, Nina stood up as Judge Curtis E. Milne of the Superior Court of El Dorado County materialized from the wall behind his dais. Or so it appeared. Actually, a nondescript, burlap-textured partition extended out in front of his personal back door to the courtroom, and he merely came out and sat down behind his tall desk, but the effect was that of a magical manifestation. A Baraka chief from the Congo would have appreciated this encouragement of superstitious respect.
Unfortunately, many California judges these days got no respect from the office they held-they had to put up with lawyers who no longer bothered to control their tantrums and defendants who dissed them to their faces.
Judge Milne, an ex-district attorney with fifteen years on the bench, was an exception. His bailiff, Deputy Kimura, had toured the courtroom, meticulously collecting bubble gum and newspaper litter before Milne came in. Any disturbance or other breach of protocol while Milne’s court was in session meant expulsion or worse. “The Judge,” as he was called by the little community of Tahoe lawyers who appeared before him on a regular basis, was actually a small, balding senior citizen, but in Nina’s mind he stood ten feet tall in his black robes and his voice erupted like a volcano.
When the judge came in the courtroom fell silent except for the interminable noise of the ventilation system, and all rose. Although the Order to Show Cause had been taken off the morning Law and Motion calendar and had been specially scheduled for two o’clock, the place was packed with reporters and other community members. Photographers lounged in the public hallway outside the courtroom, and several TV vans waited outside the courthouse. The Markovs were private people, but they were monstrously rich. Everyone wanted to watch the action in this particular family feud.
At the plaintiff’s counsel table, Jeffrey Riesner stood in a thousand-dollar suit with Mike Markov, while Nina had taken her place at the other table with Lindy at her side.
Nina had spent several days after her conversation with Lindy trying to get Riesner on the phone, to set up the meeting Lindy had requested. All she got was Riesner’s secretary, who was so sorry, but Mr. Riesner was unavailable.
Markov, barely contained by a charcoal suit stretched tight across the upper arms, hadn’t even acknowledged Lindy when she came in. Dressed in a simple burnt-sienna-colored suit over a soft beige blouse, she had tried to talk to him but Riesner had taken his arm and led him firmly to his chair.
It was just as well. Markov had brewed to a boil; his clenched jaw and bulging eyes made that clear. He had been served with Lindy’s responsive papers just a few days before. Obviously, he hadn’t liked what he had read.
Rachel Pembroke sat in the front row of the audience seats, close enough to Markov to whisper back and forth with him. Her legs in an extremely short skirt were crossed in that very uncomfortable way that makes legs look their best, and she was enjoying the attention of the reporters who took up most of the other seats. A long-haired man nearby had riveted his eyes on Rachel’s face.
“That’s Harry Anderssen,” Lindy told Nina in a low voice, “the model for our new ad campaign. Rachel’s old boyfriend.”
Nina recognized him as the man on the boat who had called out to Rachel when she went overboard during Mike Markov’s party. His hair was shorter and darker than the supermodel Fabio’s, but there the differences pretty much ended.
The judge took his seat with a flourish of his robe. As everyone sat down, Nina noticed her hands were trembling; from the extra cup of coffee at lunch, she told herself. Next to her, Lindy stared straight ahead, her posture proud, her hands folded tightly on the table. Making a show of her support in the first row behind Nina’s table, Lindy’s friend Alice, the one Nina had seen on the boat, turned her thumbs up at them, flashing a smile. Nina stole a look at Riesner. Instantly his eyes swerved to hers, as if programmed to respond to the mildest contact.
He smiled a smile both malicious and somehow smutty. It always made her feel that he had some kind of sexually sadistic feeling for her; that he would enjoy degrading her. At least he couldn’t stare through the counsel table at her body right now. “Ugh,” she murmured, dragging her eyes back toward Milne.
“Markov versus Markov,” Judge Milne said, looking down through his half-glasses at the file on his desk. “Appearances?”
“Jeffrey Riesner of Caplan, Stamp, & Riesner representing Petitioner Mikhail Markov, Your Honor,” Riesner said, jumping to his feet. The weighty firm name contributed to the desired illusion that he and his client had an army behind them.
“Nina Reilly, Law Offices of Nina Reilly, representing Mrs. Lindy Markov, the respondent and cross-complainant,” Nina said, rising. She had two offices if you included Sandy’s.
“Well, let me see what we have here in this blizzard of pleadings,” Milne said. “As I understand it, Mr. Markov has filed an action to eject Mrs. Markov from a residence located at Thirteen Cascade Road. He says she is merely a guest and invitee in his home, or at most a tenant at will, and he says she has threatened him. Am I right so far, Mr. Riesner?”
“That’s correct, Your Honor. Let me clarify an important point at the outset. This lady who calls herself Mrs. Markov is not now and never has been the wife of my client-”
“In a moment, Counselor. Now, Ms. Reilly. You have filed on behalf of your client a Response to the eviction proceeding, alleging that your client cannot be evicted because she is part owner of the premises. You have filed a rather detailed declaration by your client in support of that contention. I understand that. It also appears that you have filed a cross-complaint in the eviction proceeding which has caused the whole proceeding to be kicked upstairs to the Superior Court.”
“That’s right, Your Honor. If I may-”
“Now, this cross-complaint rather widens the scope of the issues, if I am reading it correctly. Your client appears to be suing Mr. Markov for wrongful termination, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, constructive trust, breach of contract, intentional infliction of emotional distress, quantum meruit, suit to quiet title, partition for an accounting and appointment of a receiver, declaratory relief… is that it? Have I stated all the causes of action?”
“Yes, Your Honor. Of course, the cross-complaint may be amended to add additional causes of action later.”
“I would have thought we had plenty,” Milne said to a ripple of laughter. He treated the audience to a throat-clearing that continued long and loudly enough to silence them, then said, “I note you allege that the sum of approximately two hundred fifty million dollars is in issue.” That instantly curbed the chuckles. All activity in the courtroom momentarily ceased.
Nina let the deferential hush linger for a moment, then spoke. “Markov Enterprises has a current value somewhere in that realm,” Nina said, keeping her voice steady. “Our primary contention is that Mrs. Markov is a half owner of all assets the couple has acquired during a twenty-year relationship, including various real property and the assets of Markov Enterprises.”
“So it’s only about a hundred twenty-five million dollars we’re talking about?”
“That’s the approximate figure, subject to proof.”
“That’s a lot of money, Counselor.”
“No shit,” Mike Markov said audibly from the other counsel table. Milne looked over, and Riesner shushed him.
“If I may, Your Honor,” Riesner said.
“Go ahead, Mr. Riesner. Please explain what we can accomplish in the half hour available today.”
“It’s simple,” Riesner said. “I urge the Court not to let the filing of this massive and quite frivolous cross-complaint cause any confusion. What my client needs today is a temporary order of the court, pending any final judgments or orders, that Ms. Markov must leave the residence forthwith. Both of them can’t live there anymore, Your Honor, that’s clear from our supporting papers, and the house belongs to Mr. Markov.
“Our only other request is that the Court order Ms. Markov to stay a reasonable distance from Mr. Markov and from her former workplace, and that she refrain from contacting Mr. Markov. There’s nothing special about this situation, Your Honor. A relationship ends, and one of the people can’t let go. That’s all it is.”
“Ms. Reilly? Do you agree? Are these the issues before the Court today?”
“I agree that some temporary orders are all that’s needed at the moment, Your Honor. But those aren’t the orders the Court should issue. Mrs. Markov is requesting that she be given sole possession of the parties’ residence pending further order of the Court. Also-”
“Let’s talk about the house, then. Mr. Riesner?”
Riesner charged into his argument. He granted that it was a long relationship, but all good things must end. Ms. Markov had stubbornly refused to leave the house, and it belonged to Mr. Markov. She had never paid rent, so that was not an issue. Mr. Markov needed immediate relief from the Court because much of his businesses was conducted from an office in the house, as well as in the workshop in which he was working on a new product with a tight production deadline.
Milne nodded his head, following along. These strong, objective reasons expressed quite logically the grounds for putting Lindy out on her rear.
Riesner went on. Mr. Markov, out of the goodness of his heart, had been prepared to pay for Ms. Markov to stay in an apartment or hotel room in town for the next six months, but it was obvious Ms. Markov was out to get Mr. Markov, so that offer was no longer feasible. Mr. Markov was willing to allow Ms. Markov forty-eight hours to remove her personal effects, but due to Ms. Markov’s jealous and aggressive state of mind, which had caused her to attack a friend of Mr. Markov’s, and Mr. Markov himself, a supplemental order should be issued forbidding her from, well-to be blunt-trashing the house. A security detail from Markov Enterprises could supervise the packing.
In a glib flurry of catchphrases, Riesner constructed his image of the case. The spurned, unpredictable, jealous girlfriend. The important businessman. The clutching, tearful scenes, followed by threats when she realized he was serious. Sloppy female emotions that had no place in a court of law.
“All right,” Milne said. “Ms. Reilly? I note that your client does not claim to be married to Mr. Markov. Nor do I see any written evidence in the paperwork to indicate she has any ownership interest in the house. Would you please address those points first?”
“Although the parties never took out a marriage certificate, they did consider themselves married, Your Honor. Mrs. Markov has been Mr. Markov’s wife in every sense of the term except the technical legal one for twenty years.”
“But the technical legal one is the one we’re concerned with, isn’t it?”
“Not at all,” Nina said. “There is another basis for the claim. Mrs. Markov is half owner of the house because the parties agreed twenty years ago to work together as partners in building Markov Enterprises, and to share the fruit of their labor fifty-fifty. The house was built by the parties together, and Mrs. Markov has lived there just as long as Mr. Markov. She, too, pursues her life and business interests from the house.”
Riesner broke in. “Saying it doesn’t make it so, Your Honor. She hasn’t produced a speck of written evidence that her client had some kind of partnership agreement with Mr. Markov. And, again, I hate to be so blunt, but exactly what business interests does this lady have? Since she no longer works at Markov Enterprises…”
“That remains to be seen,” Nina said.
“Since she’s unemployed at the moment,” Riesner said, raising his voice and drowning her out, “exactly what business interests are we talking about, besides the obvious one of soaking Mr. Markov through the good offices of Counsel here-”
“At least I’m not trying to destroy the woman who helped and supported me and made me what I am,” Nina said loudly.
“Oh, please. Your Honor, are we going to have some sort of emotional outburst now? Is Counsel going to cry until she gets her way?”
Nina held on to the counsel table so tightly that her knuckles hurt, so choked with anger that she couldn’t dislodge a word.
It didn’t matter. Milne had already made up his mind. “Counsel,” he said in an unusually kind voice to Nina, “all I have in front of me in the way of evidence of ownership is a deed to the real property. A deed has to be accorded great weight. It has to be given precedence over mere words. That’s one of the basic tenets of real property law. Clearly, the parties cannot continue to live together. At least until there is a final resolution of the claims you have made in this cross-complaint, one of them must go. The one that stays has to be the one with the deed to the house.
“The Court will grant the petition based on the Order to Show Cause. I’ll also grant the restraining orders to keep the peace in what seems to be a rather volatile situation. Now, let’s move on. What else have we got?”
Without fanfare, Lindy worked a gold band off of her finger and dropped it into her purse. From the table across the way, Mike Markov watched. Nina said, “We’re asking that Mrs. Markov be permitted to continue working at Markov Enterprises pending final resolution of the litigation.”
Milne raised a hand to stop her and said, “I don’t think we need to spend much time arguing that here, Counsel. I’ve read your arguments and I find them unpersuasive. If Mrs. Markov was wrongfully terminated, she will have her remedy at law in due course, up to and including back pay.”
“Actually, she is not an employee, Your Honor. She’s an owner.”
“Mr. Riesner? What do you say to that?”
“It’s just another appeal to sympathy, Your Honor. The stock certificates are right there in your file. She doesn’t own a single share.”
“But we’re contending that is because Mr. Markov has defrauded her, Your Honor!”
“Well. I understand the contention,” Milne said. “Unfortunately, the contention is in dispute. From what I have in front of me today I don’t see a clear probability that your client will prevail on this issue. With regard to Respondent’s request to continue working or to continue receiving her usual salary pendente lite, the request is denied.
“I believe that disposes of the interim matters raised in the Petition, Mr. Riesner. Now, Ms. Reilly. You had requested another set of orders, I believe. Connected with the claim that a partnership exists between the parties. Proceed. Time is running short.”
Riesner offered the judge his familiar sycophantic smile. Markov sat back in his seat observing the proceedings, glancing now and then at Lindy as if to read her true purpose. All Nina had left now was the long shot. She took a moment to compose her mind, acutely aware of the round beacons beaming sickly yellow light into the cavelike room with its panels and green-tinged walls and its shifting, silent crowd of watchers.
“All right,” she said. “The Court has a deed and some stock certificates, and Mrs. Markov doesn’t have much besides her word at this point regarding those issues. But there is another issue that we have become aware of, Your Honor, both urgent and serious.”
“Like hell!” Markov said derisively from the counsel table, and once again Riesner leaned over and said, “Keep quiet!” before Milne could.
“Very urgent,” Nina repeated. “It’s this, Your Honor. Mrs. Markov has learned that Mr. Markov is hiding assets. He’s contracted to sell two warehouses and an apartment in New York in the last week, to a holding company based in Manila, which is so new I couldn’t even get the S.E.C. paperwork on it, Your Honor. By the time a final hearing occurs on all these matters, he’ll have transferred most of the assets of Markov Enterprises overseas at this rate. That’ll be the end of Mrs. Markov’s right to have these matters decided as part of a judicial process.”
Nina went on with her argument. She told Milne that she knew little of these transactions because she knew little about what was going on at Markov Enterprises. They had had no time to investigate what was hidden up Mike Markov’s sleeve. After this hearing, Lindy would have no access to the records of the business, except what Nina could extract bit by bit in the discovery process. That information would be censored and abbreviated. Even if the Court issued a restraining order forbidding Markov from moving assets overseas, the vast sums involved ought to be enough to convince the Court that Lindy Markov had a right to have that money protected until her claims were adjudicated.
Openly anticipating his midafternoon break, Milne’s eyes glanced at the clock on the wall above the jury box. Nina hated losing her audience.
“We therefore ask the Court to appoint a temporary receiver for Markov Enterprises,” she said, making her voice louder than usual, trying to gather back the judge’s attention, “a certified public accountant from the list of names we’ve provided the Court, to make an accounting of the assets and debts of the businesses and to prevent waste of the assets,” Nina said.
“Mr. Riesner?” Milne said.
Riesner just smiled, though Mike Markov looked ready to take Nina on bare-fisted. “Well,” Riesner said with a wave of his hand, as if swatting off a buzzing fly, “I hardly know how to respond. The request is so utterly capricious, so potentially damaging to the companies, so patently designed to bully and bedevil my client…” He knew he had it in the bag, and his voice took on the note of pretentious urbanity that always made Nina want to smash her code book over his head.
Instead she took notes.
Then Mike Markov, who also appeared to think it was in the bag, interrupted his own lawyer. “This is a load of horse crap,” he said over Riesner’s voice.
All eyes turned to him. He was shaking with fury.
Riesner froze midsyllable, and Milne said sharply, “What did you say, sir?”
Rachel Pembroke leaned forward and touched Mike’s arm in a futile gesture to calm him down. When he moved his arm away with a jerk, she pulled back, startled.
“It’s bullshit,” Mike said. “That’s what it is. Lindy doesn’t want my business. She wants to get back at me. I can accept that. But don’t think I don’t know who’s responsible for putting this idea into her head.” He glared at Nina, then turned slightly so that he faced the judge and audience equally. “Here’s how it is. If I want to trade my company to the king of Siam for an elephant, I’ll make the trade. Nobody but nobody else runs my business. I’ll see myself bankrupt before I let that happen. That’s my response.”
Someone in the audience clapped and said “Attaboy.” Riesner leaned down, whispering urgently to Mike.
Milne looked at Mike, looked at the audience. Then he slowly stood up from the bench, leaning forward. Nina had never seen him lose his temper.
“So you’ll do whatever you want with it?” he said to Mike very deliberately, as if intentionally goading him further.
“You’re damn right I will,” Mike said, rising out of his chair.
Riesner pushed him down and this time, though still in the grip of a combative frenzy, Mike finally seemed to comprehend that he had made a grave error.
“I want to apologize for Mr. Markov,” Riesner began, but Milne cut him off.
“You’re going to get that receiver, Mr. Markov,” Milne said. “The receiver will assure that no business assets are sold or transferred until further order of the Court. The receiver will perform an accounting of every dime you take in and pay out. Do you hear that, sir?”
“Your Honor, please-this isn’t fair-we request-” Riesner pleaded desperately.
“Is that clear, Mr. Markov,” Milne asked, without bothering with a question mark.
“Very clear,” Riesner replied.
“So ruled. Court is adjourned until two-forty-five.” Again, the courtroom rose. His robe billowing behind him like a kite tail, Milne disappeared behind his partition.
A dozen conversations burst out. Riesner sat down. He and Mike Markov looked at each other. Nina grabbed Lindy and said, “Not a word until we’re outside.” Lindy nodded. The reporters rushed forward and Deputy Kimura motioned his head toward the door by the jury box that led to a private hall and a way out past the clerk’s office. Nina and Lindy ran for the door, pursued by at least a dozen people, and once they made it through, the deputy closed the door behind them.
They waited in the hallway visiting with the clerks, then jogged out to the parking lot without interference and got into Nina’s Bronco. As they began to drive away, they noticed a commotion on the south side of the lot right near the exit lane.
“What’s all that shouting?” Lindy said. “Oh, no! Look!”
Nina craned her neck and saw cars had stopped exiting. All of the television cameras were pointed at one spot, where two men in suits stood facing each other. “It’s Mike and Harry, Rachel’s ex-boyfriend,” Lindy said.
Mike Markov stood absolutely still in a clearing between trees, while Harry yelled into his face.
“Harry looked mad in court today,” Lindy said, lowering her window. “What a waste. He must still have feelings for Rachel.”
Nina could see Rachel in the crowd that had formed around the two men, looking inconspicuous but engrossed.
“You dumb thug,” Harry said to Mike in a voice loaded with contempt. They could hear each word clearly.
“Harry,” Mike said, “why don’t you shut the fuck up? This is no place to argue.”
“Poor Mike,” Lindy said. “He’ll never understand guys like Harry. To Harry, any camera is an invitation.”
“You and your goddamned money,” Harry said. “You think you’ve got it made. You think you can buy her!”
Mike was silent, although Nina and Lindy could observe the heat of his emotions in the redness of the muscles in his neck.
“How much are you giving her, Mike? A million? More? How much are you promising her to play house with you for one whole year? Does she get a bonus for sticking it out for two? Isn’t that the way rich old farts do it these days with pretty young things? Buy them?”
“You’re making a mistake, Harry.”
“No, you’re making the mistake. Because, Mike, she loves me. Your money’s not going to affect that in the long run. She’ll come back to me after she’s grown up a little and realizes what she’s gotten herself into. But you’ll never get it until she leaves, will you? Because you’re old, and you’re vain, and you’ve had way too many slugs to the brain to see how it really is.”
So fast his arm almost blurred, Mike threw a punch, but before it reached Harry, two uniformed policemen grabbed him. They pulled him back and escorted him away. On the patio in front of the courthouse, they stopped and sat him down on a bench. One took a position in front of him, arms folded, mouth moving. Nina could imagine the lecture he was giving.
“Doesn’t look like they’re going to arrest anyone,” Lindy said with relief.
Another policeman escorted Harry to his bright-yellow car. A few seconds later he flew by Nina and Lindy looking as pretty as the quick, colorful, visual splash of a billboard advertisement.
“What was that all about?” Nina asked.
“Rachel. They were fighting over Rachel. She’s the focus now.”
“Harry’s just lucky Mike didn’t land a punch on that faultless jaw of his,” Nina said.
“That wouldn’t help his modeling career,” Lindy said, rallying.
“Doesn’t he work at Markov Enterprises?”
“Not anymore. He was my assistant in marketing, but Mike fired him recently. I guess he found out about Harry and Rachel, how close they used to be.”
“Didn’t you say he modeled for your new ad campaign?”
“Yes. He didn’t start as a model with us but it’s hard not to notice Harry’s looks. One night a few years back, Mike and I brainstormed a way to cut some corners. We started using posed photos of Harry in all our print media. Well, business really picked up. Other businesses saw him and liked him, too. Now, he’s really in demand. We finished some ads with him for television right before Mike fired him.” Lindy looked in the side mirror. “Let’s go. Oh, boy. Here come the television trucks,” she said.
“Hold on.” Nina pulled into the street and took off down Al Tahoe, watching the rear window. They zigzagged through the shopping center and out another entrance.
“A stimulating day,” Lindy said.
“Yes. More than usually dramatic, even in court,” said Nina, noting with satisfaction that no one seemed to be following them. Her mind slipped back to the earlier events of the day. Markov and Milne had both lost it. And if she hadn’t been thinking about sloppy emotions, she might not have focused in on the anger that had circled like a storm in there, and now that she came to think about it, always did orbit the courtroom. But nobody considered anger sloppy, because anger was so very masculine.
“They do get emotional,” said Lindy, “don’t they?”
Nina laughed. For the next few blocks, they listened to the radio, while Nina ruminated and Lindy leaned tiredly back against her seat.
“Nobody won in there today,” she said, breaking the silence. “I lost my home, and he’s losing control of the business.”
“That’s true.”
“Seeing Mike blow up in court shocked me. No wonder he almost broke Harry’s face afterward. He’s like a stranger, with just glimpses of the old Mike peeking through once in a while. A receiver’s going to drive him nuts. He’s very hands-on.”
“Your interests will be protected,” Nina said. “It was the right thing to do.”
“Maybe legally. But suddenly, this is not about Mike and Lindy anymore,” she said sadly. “It all comes down to money.”
Nina didn’t have a response, so she concentrated on her driving.
“Nina?” said Lindy.
“Yes?”
“Do I really only have two days to move out?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Then, will you do me a favor?”
“Of course.”
“Stop by tomorrow. There’s something I’d like to show you.”
After dropping Lindy off at the parking lot next to her office where she had left her car, Nina drove directly on to her next appointment. For the first time in months she turned on the car heater and shut out the dusty dry scents of autumn by rolling up the windows. Along the parkway between the highway and the lake a steady stream of joggers and skaters cruised along. High cirrus clouds blocked some of the sun and the lake had turned choppy in a rising breeze.
Sandy was waiting for her after lunch along with several clients. She followed Nina into her office and said, “I finally got a call back from Winston Reynolds’s assistant. She says he can only meet with you at eight tonight.”
“He’s here in town?”
“He’s in L.A.”
“Well, that won’t work. The Tahoe airport’s closed to commercial planes, even if there were direct flights. Reno’s airport is sixty miles of hard driving from here. He can talk to me tomorrow.”
“He’s in trial. His assistant said he’s making a big effort to free up dinner tonight, but you have to get down there.”
“I could charter a flight,” Nina said. Her normally frugal nature balked at the thought, but this was no time to pinch pennies. “Call the airport and see if I can get a charter.” She went into her office, feeling grand, and pulled out her office checking account records, which didn’t look grand. How far would twenty-five thousand dollars go? How would she snatch Winston Reynolds away from Riesner without paying a whole lot of money up front?
She needed him. She would think of something.
Sandy buzzed and said, “Six hundred round trip. Six p.m. You’ll be there by seven. The pilot will wait at LAX until you’re ready to return.”
Nina raced to the school to wrest Bob from a street hockey game he was playing with friends on the asphalt field. He didn’t want to leave and sulked through the ride home, growling at her when she said he’d be sleeping at Matt and Andrea’s that night. “There’s no place quiet to do my homework there,” he said. “Troy’s got way less than me and then him and Bree play around. And I don’t even have a desk there. I’m old enough to stay home alone.”
“Not overnight, you’re not,” said Nina automatically. “And I’m sorry to do this to you on a weeknight. But I’ll make it up to you on the weekend.”
“How?” Bob asked as she pulled up to their house.
“How about a bike ride around the Baldwin Mansion and Pope House?”
“What day? I’ve got a science project.”
“Sunday afternoon. Without fail. Try to finish your project on Saturday.”
“Mom, don’t make promises you can’t keep. What are the chances?”
“Cynic,” she said. “But you’re right. It’s not a promise. I’ll just do my best. Don’t I always?”
Bob relented then, and together they climbed the steps to the front porch of their house. Throwing her most expensive, new powder-blue suit and matching heels into a suit bag, she helped him stuff his backpack with books, called Andrea, and got Matt instead.
“Matt, I’m embarrassed to ask you this, but I’m in a pickle,” she said, without preamble.
“Hi,” said Matt. “And how are you?”
“In a rush. Sorry.”
“What’s up?”
“I need a favor,” asked Nina, “just like I always seem to need a favor.”
“You sound so guilty.”
She felt so guilty. She had never fully expressed her deep gratitude for all that Andrea and Matt had done for her and Bob when they arrived in Tahoe, friendless and practically destitute. They had given the best thing anyone could, a home for the single mom and the confused little boy.
“I wouldn’t ask except it’s the best place for Bob. I need to go out of town on business tonight.”
“You know, when you say you wouldn’t ask, you make me feel bad. If we don’t want to do something, we’ll let you know, I promise. And you need to promise that you’ll continue to ask, anytime, for anything, okay?”
Lindy treasured her friends, but Nina treasured her family. “You’re the best. Can I drop him at four?”
“Tell him it’s taco night. That ought to excite him.”
A female pilot, pleasant and polite, had charge of the sporty little two-seater Cessna. Lolling in the leather seat, staring out the window at the lights of Tahoe Valley spread out below twinkling like a bejeweled Indian tapestry, Nina decided she would never fly coach class again. She could get used to living this way…
She felt relaxed when she disembarked at LAX. After a short conversation with the car rental agent, who told her there would be a slight delay, she grabbed a large, caffeinated cola at a bar masquerading as a restaurant. Taking a stool next to the black windows overlooking the airstrips, she watched lonesome-looking business travelers nuzzle their drinks like lovers, and observed as a dozen planes took off and landed without crashing, marveling at the survival of all the fragile little packages of flesh crammed inside.
She stopped at the restroom to change, removing her official travel clothing of soft stretch leggings and a sweater and exchanging them for the snug-fitting suit, stockings, and shoes she had brought. At the mirror, she liberally applied makeup, including red lipstick. When in the Southland, she would do as the Southlanders do. Anyway, once in a while she enjoyed turning into a glamorous stranger.
Standing in line at the rental car agency, she studied a map of the maze of freeways and streets she needed to memorize if she was going to arrive only fashionably late. The car, a radiant-blue Neon with turquoise trim, was low to the ground and zippy as a sports car. She joined the million other cars flowing through these arteries into the night, another bright corpuscle in L.A.’s lifeblood.
She turned the radio on to a song with a lot of bass and let the music travel through her, all the way down to the toes in her high-heeled shoes. All her life she had climbed a ladder routinely and without thought, slipping more often than she wanted. For the first time, she had glimpsed the top. And there, in that upper region, shiny and bright, was the payoff, a glorious mountain of gold, the Markov money.
A share of that kind of money would set her up for life. She could buy her house outright, or a bigger, better house, and finally create the kind of stable home life Bob needed. She could work less, be more available to him, maybe even be more available to a relationship that would put a man in her life and in Bob’s on a more permanent basis. She could buy Bob all the things she couldn’t afford now, the fancy athletic shoes he wanted, the computer software that was out of her price range, all the tickets he wanted to visit his father in Europe. She might even turn into the parent she wanted to be, patient, generous, and undistracted.
Pulling up in front of the hotel that housed the Yamashiro Restaurant, she handed her keys to the parking valet.
The maître d’ was expecting her. He led her past the regular restaurant, where silverware and glasses clinked and people talked in muted tones, where sounds and colors were as discreet and perfectly balanced as in a Japanese temple, into a private room of bamboo and scrolls.
A black man about six feet four, at least a foot taller than she was, stood up and held out a big hand with a diamond band on his ring finger.
“I appreciate your making time for me,” she said.
“You’re so very welcome.” She got a brief whiff of spice and starch before he stepped away. “It takes my mind off the case in progress. We’ve been in trial for two weeks. I’d forgotten there was an outside world and beautiful women with propositions for me,” he went on, “even if they happen to be the legal kind.”
With a deep, compelling voice and a solid, athletic body, Winston Reynolds inspired total confidence. He wore metal-rimmed glasses and a navy-blue suit with a crimson tie, standard trial attire. About forty-five years old, he had hair that receded a little to expose a broad brown forehead. Notes scribbled on his napkin revealed that he had kept himself occupied while waiting for her, no doubt recording things to remember after a long day in court, but he didn’t seem as wiped out as she would have expected. In fact, his eyes had caught and held hers as she came through the door. She saw his interest and brushed it aside. He had too many impersonal reasons for turning on the charm with her tonight.
“It’s a lovely restaurant,” said Nina, adjusting her skirt and setting down the ever-present attaché beside her.
“It is, isn’t it? This is a real treat. Please thank your generous client for me.” He had already ordered wine. He poured her a glass, studying her openly, approvingly. “Let me say right now how much I appreciate you flying down here just to take me out to dinner tonight.” He took a sip of his wine. “My mama would get a kick out this situation, a woman like you wooing me. Dad, too, God rest his woman-loving soul.”
A waiter silently arrived before she could respond, and they ordered. The restaurant featured fresh fish of every kind. Nina wanted shrimp but it could get messy, so she ordered beef, figuring she should concentrate on Reynolds, not on whether she was dripping sauce all over her best suit. Reynolds went for the duck.
He leaned back in his chair, swirling his wine in the glass, and looking into its red depths gave a half smile. “Tell me about the Markov case,” he said.
“I’ll tell you what I can without violating the attorney-client privilege. Lindy Markov lived with Mike Markov as his wife. She worked alongside him for over twenty years, building a business from scratch. Those two crucial facts are undisputed.”
“I understand everything is in his name. Your secretary mentioned a few things to my assistant. I hope you don’t mind.”
“He put everything in his name and she agreed to that, because they had a deal to share everything equally.”
“So she says.”
“Yes. And so she will testify in court.”
“Has she got anything in writing?”
“You must understand we can talk more about her position when you commit to taking the job.”
“I see. You want me to get involved without letting me have a chance to evaluate the case?”
“Not at all. Here are the basic pleadings and a summary of the issues and the basic facts about the Markov relationship.” She pulled up her case as she spoke, opened it, and passed over a manila folder. Reynolds spent a few minutes looking it over, sipping thoughtfully from his glass from time to time. He was a fast reader.
“You got any rabbits in the hat?” he said when he had finished. “Because you’re gonna need lots of magic to win this.”
“Well, there is one case that has enough in common with our situation to be potentially useful,” Nina said.
“Maglica versus Maglica,” said Winston. “That’s been news for years around here. We’re all waiting to hear how she does on appeal. But I believe the lady in that case was older. She devoted her adult working life to building that business. The relative youth of your client might adversely affect your outcome.”
Nina smiled, happy he had passed his first test. “Yes, but Mr. Maglica had already established something of a track record as a businessman. The Maglites venture was his second undertaking. I think Lindy’s primary role in developing this, the Markovs’ only successful business, will be easier for us to demonstrate.”
“I like the sound of that,” said Winston.
“And while we haven’t found much in the way of legal precedents to encourage us yet, we’re confident Lindy Markov is entitled to a substantial share of Markov Enterprises. We’ve sent out our first set of Interrogatories and we’ve already scheduled Mr. Markov’s deposition for December.”
“Moving right along.”
“The Superior Court is very efficient in El Dorado county, Mr. Reynolds. We’ll be in trial in six or seven months in spite of the magnitude of this case. Mr. Markov’s chafing under the receivership the court ordered, and Mrs. Markov is in financial difficulty.”
“You don’t think you can settle it?”
“Mr. Markov has hired Jeffrey Riesner. I believe you know him?”
“I do.”
“Then you know what we’re up against. He’s hard-line and uncompromising.”
“And that’s just the beginning with him.” He was teasing.
“He hates to settle. And my client wants something she’s not going to get.”
“Which is?”
“Mr. Markov. She wants a reconciliation with him, but I don’t believe that’s a possibility. The lawsuit will drive them further apart.”
“So it’s a battle. Palimony cases are very difficult to win,” Reynolds said, “but you knew that, didn’t you, Ms. Reilly?”
“Yeah,” Nina said, feeling disappointed. She knew, but she hoped she hadn’t blown her evening and a thousand bucks just to hear a final nail being driven into the coffin of her case. “I know it, but I’m going to fight it with or without you, Mr. Reynolds.”
He laughed. “Well, at least you don’t come down here talking trash. I appreciate that.”
“You don’t think the case is winnable?”
“I didn’t say that. Every case is winnable but only if it gets to the jury. That’s the hard part. Get it to the jury and you always have a chance. Actually, a couple of our colleagues, and I won’t name names, have been in touch with friends of Mrs. Markov to offer their services to her.”
“Really? If her case is so hopeless, why?”
He stared at her as if scrutinizing an idiot for some small hint of intelligence, then shook his head. “Money. All that money up for grabs! Enough money to make a sane man mad with greed. Enough money to get big firms all over the state wondering how to steal your case. You understand?”
She nodded. For the first time since considering the case, she felt the sheer power that so much money exercised. Well, she had felt some of it, too, on the drive over, the tickling of her own desire for money, for what it could buy, for the freedom it represented.
“It’s a big case,” he said. “Too big for you, but you know that. That’s why you’re here.”
“Well, now,” Nina began, but Reynolds wasn’t finished.
“So you know what I overheard today at the racquetball club? I heard what Mrs. Markov did when the other guys came knocking,” he said. “She told them to go piss up a rope. She said she already has excellent representation.” He laughed heartily. “She may be right. You’ve made a good beginning in court, and you’ve got a loyal client. I couldn’t have done better myself.”
Nina lowered her eyes, so he wouldn’t see the mingled relief and pleasure she felt. That other lawyers would want this case should not surprise her, but it did. She had actually thought she was doing Lindy a favor. Now she was starting to see the Markov case in a whole new light.
“Have you ever handled a really big piece of litigation, Nina?”
“I’ve handled jury trials in homicide cases,” Nina said. “I doubt that it gets much worse than that.”
“Have you ever had a jury trial in a civil case?”
“No,” she said.
“I’m not trying to undermine your confidence. I just want to see if you appreciate what I can do for you. I do jury trials in civil cases. Cases a lot like the one you have. That’s all I do. You know how they used to call Mel Belli the King of Torts? Well, here they call me the Prince of Palimony.”
“I wouldn’t be here all dressed up in a restaurant in L.A. when I ought to be home putting my kid to bed if I didn’t appreciate what you can do for me,” Nina answered.
“Well, then. What do you have in mind?” He ran his thumb absently around the rim of the wineglass, his brown eyes gazing steadily at her. “You want me to handle the trial?”
“No. I want to handle the trial. I want to associate you in as a cocounsel, but I want to have the final say as far as strategy. I realize you don’t usually play second chair, Mr. Reynolds, but even second chair could make you a rich man if we win this case. I’m operating on a reduced hourly fee basis with an additional contingency fee of ten percent of the final recovery. I’ll give you half the ten percent, plus pay your hourly billings each month at the rate of a hundred dollars an hour.”
Reynolds had knit his brows and sunk his chin into his shirt. He usually charged three hundred an hour, she knew, but he didn’t usually have such a massively abundant pot of gold waiting for him at the end of the rainbow. Nina let him think about what she had said for a moment, then added, “If we ask for only half of the value of their business, our claim is for over a hundred million.”
He was nodding. “Now that’s what I call money,” he said. “Five million for each of us if we won that much. I could pay all those back taxes the IRS is asking for. I could pay off the place in Bel Air and the alimony. I could take that vacation my doctor’s been ordering. But…”
“But?”
He spilled a drop of the wine into his plate. “There’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip,” he said. “Somehow, with all my wins, the amount of money I really need to solve all my problems always seems to hover just out of reach. Have you noticed that? It’s like a dark force out there that steps between us and our just deserts, leaving us to salivate and starve and wonder why. Even if we win at trial, appeals take years. And nobody ever comes out with any money on appeal.”
“Not this time. Working together, we can make it happen if anyone can. Everyone tells me you’re the top attorney in this field.”
“Those are kind words,” he said. “Thank you. You’ve probably guessed, I like being flattered, even when it is necessary.”
He was mocking her. She refused to be waylaid. “I doubt Jeff Riesner’s made an offer as generous,” she said.
“Ah. So you’ve guessed. Yes, Jeff and I worked together on a case last year out of Sacramento. He has called my office several times in the past few days.”
“You haven’t talked to him?”
“No.”
“You knew it was about the Markov case?”
“That’s what the message said.”
“So…”
“I can’t abide the guy,” Reynolds said, smiling. “Even if he’s going to be the one on the winning side.”
Now she felt offended. “Mr. Reynolds,” Nina said, “am I wasting my time? Because I get the feeling you’re not listening. And if you can’t take me seriously, I should probably leave.”
“Now, hold on,” he answered, “I’m hanging on every word. You’re offering me the chance to spend time at Lake Tahoe, which I love, and to take a gamble on big money, which involves a minor weakness of mine, as you may already have surmised. And I think we have something in common. We’d both rather represent the underdog. I apologize if I’ve given the wrong impression. It’s a bad habit that comes from keeping people off balance as a matter of course. Even playing second fiddle, I’d kill to get on this case.” He raised his glass. “A toast,” he said, “to you.”
Nina raised her glass, too. “You’re in?” she asked.
“You betcha.”
By the time the food came, presented so artistically on exquisite plates she hated to disturb it, they had finished the wine, started using first names with each other, and hammered out the beginnings of a deal. She offered him an office across the hall, and he said he would come up for a meeting as soon as his trial was over.
“I’ve got a jury consultant for us that might just be available. Young and the hottest ticket in town. Her name’s Genevieve Suchat,” he said, as they started on their green tea ice cream.
“I think I’ve heard of her, but…”
“Now, this is no time to scrimp on help. You’ve got to spend money to make money.”
“Winston, I…”
“She’s got a slight hearing problem, but that doesn’t slow her down for a second. Wears a little thing in her ear but you don’t strike me as the type who’s going to hold that against her.”
“Well, of course not!”
“She worked with me on a case down in Long Beach. Just as smooth and cool as this ice cream.”
“Did you win?”
“We did. She has won almost every case she’s been associated with.” He took a sip of water and pushed the ice cream saucer away. He had finally slowed down.
“Jury consultants spend a lot of time on research, don’t they? I have to think about keeping our expenses down,” Nina said.
“Now, wait a minute here. It doesn’t make financial sense to use them in every civil litigation, but with so much money at stake in this case, you’d be nuts not to use one. I’ve never heard of a case of this size that didn’t have jury consultants on both sides. Nina, you want to be a winner, you have to leave no stone unturned. And you know our friend Riesner’s going to get the best.”
He didn’t say “again,” although they both thought it. He knew how to play her already, didn’t he?
“Why not talk to her?” he went on.
“Fine,” she agreed. “I’ll talk to her. Maybe we can limit her involvement…”
“Bold strokes,” Winston said. “No limits. This case is too big. We go for broke, with Genevieve, with everything. Because that’s what real winners do. You know I’m right.”
He was right, but the “go for broke” line had chimed louder than everything else he’d said, and continued to ring in her ears. Her dad used to say that all the time, and one day he had woken up flat broke.
“I’ll call your office and arrange a meeting right away,” he said, then ordered another bottle of wine. He talked about his background, his football scholarship to UCLA, the shock of his teachers and coaches when he walked away from it and immersed himself in academics, his law school studies at Yale, the two ex-wives and the three children he supported. He was full of himself, but maybe he had a right to be. She couldn’t help liking him.
The coffee came, and the frightful check. Her watch said eleven o’clock. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ve got a plane waiting. I’ll call you tomorrow.” She paused, then said, “I’m thrilled to be working with you, Win.” She stuck out her hand.
“Cinderella,” he said, taking her hand between both of his, “better find both dancing slippers, fast. We’ve got a long way to go if we’re gonna avoid getting stuck with a pumpkin.”
The next morning, Nina called Sandy to tell her she might not get into the office until after lunch. Sandy said that Genevieve Suchat, the jury consultant, was due in the afternoon. Apparently determined to convince Nina to hire her, Winston had made the arrangements with impressive efficiency.
After taking two white pills to quiet the pounding in her head, she drove straight to the Markov house on Cascade Road. Rain slammed the road outside and her wipers slapped a quick, useless path through the river flowing down her windshield. An unexpected skid around a hairpin curve forced her to slow as she wound along a dirt road that hugged the lake’s edge.
Iron gates with gilt-tipped arrows on top stood open, and behind them a massive stone mansion met her eyes, turreted like a castle, surrounded by grounds so well-groomed the plants looked manufactured.
She pulled into a spot close to the house, awed at the ostentation and thinking how very, very much money it would take to build such a thing in California, on the shore of the state’s most desirable lake.
No umbrella presented itself in the box of emergency items on the floor of the littered backseat, so she rushed to the front door and rang the bell, narrowly avoiding a fatal slip off of the slick doorstep. In the relentless rain, the gigantic house loomed over her like a pile of boulders ready at any moment to give way in a landslide. Even the lake, merging its gray into the sky, had a leaden pull to it, as if the heavy gray water exerted more gravity than the rest of the earth.
Lindy answered, looking gaunt in a loose-fitting kimono over a black bodysuit. In spite of her impeccable hair and makeup, Nina could detect signs of the recent travails in her face.
“Thanks for coming,” Lindy said. “Let me take your jacket. You can leave the boots there.” She pointed to a stone bench under which resided the cleanest-looking shoes Nina had ever seen outside of a store display. Next to the bench were a dozen stacked cardboard boxes.
Lindy led Nina down a hallway, past two octagonal foyers, and through an oak-floored room as big as a ballroom. Above them, fighting to conquer the dismal day, crystal chandeliers lighted the way, swaying slightly in an invisible breeze.
They walked on. With blackened slate over many of the passageway floors, stone walls and rain pouring down the windows, the most brilliant lighting could not entirely exorcise a Gothic creepiness from the house.
In a room with a view of the lake, the sun hidden behind ribbons of clouds, Lindy apologized and asked Nina to wait just a minute.
She left. Nina sat down on a long bench that ran the length of the room, at least a hundred feet long. Some exercise equipment and objects she couldn’t identify filled one small alcove. The rest of the space, mirrored on one side, might function as a dance studio. She and Bob lived in a house that would fit into this one room.
Lindy reappeared. “Sorry. I’ve got our housekeeper, Florencia, helping me with the packing.”
“It is a magnificent house,” Nina said. “I’m sorry about all this, Lindy.”
“You’re not responsible. Blame Rachel. That’s what I do.”
“What’s it like,” Nina asked suddenly. “I mean, to be rich?”
“What a funny question.”
“Forget it. I don’t mean to be rude.”
“No, it’s interesting.” They walked across the room. Lindy stopped when she reached the area full of equipment. “The truth is, maybe because I had so little growing up, I really loved having money. It’s addictive as any drug that gets you high. Money blunts all the rough edges, soothes your soul, makes you feel special and powerful. There is nothing in the world as seductive.
“Have a problem? Throw enough money at it and I promise it will go away. Worried about the environment? Fund a cleanup project. Feeling sad? Plan a fabulous vacation. You feel like you can do anything when you have enough money, and there are so many things I still want to do in my life.”
“You mentioned power.”
“A real high, and easy to buy. People, too.”
They were in an area that held a stationary bike, a treadmill, a stand holding up a set of shiny silver free weights, and a number of odd things Nina had noticed while Lindy was talking. The biggest item was a transparent, cylindrical tank nearly as tall as Nina, full of water as clear and beautiful as a glass of turquoise Caribbean seawater.
“So I want my money,” Lindy said, sticking her hand over the top to wet her fingers. She took them out, looking satisfied. “And most of the time, I believe I deserve it, too.”
“You worked hard for it, Lindy.”
“Mike won’t see that. Plenty of other people won’t either. But money is only one reason for suing Mike. The other reason is that this case will make him face me and make him keep his promises to me.”
“No system can force someone who has wronged you to stay with you or love you again,” Nina said. “Money is the only compensation available, the objective standard. Your loss has to be quantified somehow. Emotions… they can’t be quantified.”
“I refuse to give it all up on demand. I refuse.”
“Lindy,” Nina said slowly, making ripples in the water with her fingernails. “What you said before… Are you by any chance thinking that you’ve bought me?”
“Of course not, Nina.” Lindy looked hurt. “You know this is about an issue that’s important to women, not just to me. And you’re doing this because you want to help me personally. Those are all the right reasons. And now we’re a team. No, the people you can buy are a whole different type.”
“What type?”
“Money is God to those people.” Drying her hands on a towel, as if physically expressing that she was done with that unpalatable line of thought, she stepped away from the tank. “Forgot to tell you to bring a swimsuit.” She rummaged in a cabinet near the spa.
“Oh, I wanted to mention I’ve hired one of the best palimony attorneys in the state to help me with your case.” Nina described some of Winston’s recent wins to Lindy. “Plus I’m interviewing a potential jury consultant this afternoon.”
“That sounds great. We’re going to win, whatever it takes,” Lindy said. She handed Nina a swimsuit. “This is probably about your size. Hop in the tank.”
When Nina shook her head Lindy said, “Nina, it means a lot to me that you see what I do. What I’m good at.”
Oh, why not, Nina thought. She’d just jump in and out and everybody could go back to work satisfied. She donned the simple black suit Lindy handed her as quickly as she could, imagining what Sandy, back at the office fielding irate inquiries, might say if she could see her now.
Against the wall a set of steps led to the top of the tank. Nina climbed up and stood looking into the water, the skin on her body rough with goose bumps.
“In you go,” said Lindy. “Need a push?” Suddenly realizing what she had said, she began to giggle, a nervous laugh tiptoeing along the brink of tears.
Nina slipped in feet first. Warm and supple as velvet, the water embraced her. The tank wasn’t wide or deep enough for diving. It hardly contained her up to the neck but she could extend both arms out to their full length. Air began to simmer up from the bottom.
“It’s like… a vertical spa.” She wondered if she would float on the air. The bubbles blew up around her, popping like tiny balloons. She didn’t float, but she felt like she weighed about ten pounds.
“That’s right.” Lindy turned the music down.
The sensation of the air bubbles and water felt fantastic.
“Now get ready,” Lindy said. “I’m turning on the surf.”
What the hell? Jets of water began to shoot upward. Nina had to struggle to keep her feet down. “Hey!” she said. “Hey, wait a sec here!”
The jets stopped. Lindy, smiled at her from the stairway beside the tank. “Don’t you just love it?”
Buoyed by the water and her own improving spirits, Nina had begun to bounce up and down. “It’s… stupendous. And now am I supposed to do water exercises?”
“That’s a big part of it. We’ve produced a whole series of videos to go along with it. Actually, several series, all new every couple of years. Want to learn a few moves?”
“Lindy,” said Nina, then stopped herself. Might as well take advantage of the moment. “Okay, maybe just one.”
“This will just take a few seconds more, I promise.” Lindy ran her through a few exercises. For one, Nina used only her toes to propel her entire body up, then down, her arms tightly pushed to her sides so that she rocketed smoothly through the water.
“Aqua-dynamics,” said Lindy. “You move faster and work those ankles. Now try bouncing on your knees. You’ll have to hold your breath and go under to get your knees down to the ground. Then push off as hard as you can. Don’t worry about splashing. The tank’s designed for that.”
The exercises took some getting used to. Nina had to work to get her knees to touch, and to bend at the waist, positioning herself so that she had room to complete the maneuver, but after a few minutes she could see that this was wonderful, vigorous fun.
“Then, of course, you can jog ninety miles or stretch like a prima ballerina. The Solo Spa is also great for getting people that weight-bearing exercise they need without destroying their feet. We have a lot of disabled clients, and people who are trying to thin down.”
“You said the exercises are only part of what you can do with this spa.”
“That’s right. In the past few years, we’ve been marketing the spa as more than an exercise aid. Water’s an ancient healer, and there’s nothing more primeval than submerging in this warm womb to mend a broken spirit or stoke the creative fires. People are seeking spiritual solace. What could be better comfort than this blending of the physical and the spiritual? You’ll like this.” She turned a knob in the tank and the bubbles increased.
Nina felt weightless. She stopped moving and hung in space, supported by the bubbles. “Words like solace, healing, and spiritual usually send me running for the hills, but I can see exactly what you mean. This is a hot bubble bath for the gods.”
Lindy looked happy. “I see we have a convert.”
“Are they all see-through like this one?”
“No. This is a demo, like the one we use in the videos. Most of the ones we sell are trimmed in wood like a regular outdoor spa.”
“Most?”
“Well, a couple of the casinos in Reno have special-ordered a pair with two layers of glass and acrylic, with twinkling lights between layers, for floor shows.”
“Good God.”
A distant phone rang and Lindy disappeared around a corner.
Nina closed her eyes, basking in the comfort of the warm water. A moment later, she opened them and was so startled to see a sturdy man with round ears peering in at her that she let out a small scream.
She stopped moving and hung there in her transparent bubble. When he didn’t say anything she said, “Hello.”
“You’re Lindy’s new lawyer?” he asked. He took his hands out of the pockets of his dirty overalls and placed them on the spa.
“Yes. And you are?”
“A friend,” he said, examining her body through the plastic. “I’m glad I caught you here.”
She wasn’t. Not at all. She debated getting out, and decided climbing a ladder would make her feel even more vulnerable.
“I want you to know something.” He spoke slowly, running a finger along the wet condensate on the outside of the tank, tracing a circle with a smaller one inside of it.
Like a target, Nina thought.
“I know you’re in it for the money,” he said, all motion suddenly halting. His face was so close to the tank, his breath made a fog on it every time he breathed.
“Who did you say you were?” Nina asked, by now very frightened at his tone and the strange look in his dark eyes.
“I know a few things about you lawyers. And I want you to know, if you dump her or hurt her or accept some kinda under-the-table payoff from that slob Mike to drop this case, I’m going to…”
Lindy came back into the room. “Oh, George, here you are. That was Alice. She’ll be here any second to drop off a set of keys.”
All sense of threat fading from him the minute Lindy entered the room, he ambled off toward the door. “I’ll get started, then.”
“Who’s that?” Nina asked.
“George Demetrios. He works at the plant.”
“Scary guy,” Nina said, beginning to climb a clear acrylic ladder up the side of the tank that led to the steps down.
“What, George?” Lindy laughed. “Yeah, I guess he does come off that way sometimes, but you don’t have to worry about him. He’s devoted to me. George is really just a lovable lunk. He’s helping me move a few boxes over to Alice’s house today.”
At the bottom of the stairs, Lindy handed her a towel and a white robe. Nina dried off. “Lindy, thanks for the demonstration. This is a fantastic product.”
“Only one of many. Our centerpiece. Now, let me show you how we market our spas. It’ll just take a minute and it’s warm in the showroom.” Located down a winding stairway, the showroom turned out not to be the display of pools Nina expected, but an intimate, plushly carpeted space with armchairs for ten, and a five-foot screen.
“This is a quickie selection reel,” Lindy said. “The workout videos last longer.”
They watched as a series of swimsuited bodies in all shapes and sizes and colors, old and young, took to the pool, running through exercises as light-footed as astronauts at zero gravity, moving rhythmically to jaunty music.
“We used to use only young, pretty girls. It was my idea to get all kinds of people on tape. Real people always come off clunky and fake when you try to use them in advertising, so these are all actors. They look great don’t they? Just like real people only just enough better-looking to make you happy to identify with them.”
Nina didn’t answer. The actors did look great, but businesspeople made Nina nervous when they talked so blithely about the subtle forces they wielded to coerce and manipulate her.
After the tape ended, Nina put her clothes on and gathered up her briefcase.
“Thanks for taking the time,” Lindy said. “Before I moved out I wanted to show you a little bit about our business, so you could see that I haven’t spent twenty years living off Mike and just twiddling my thumbs.”
“You have worked hard,” Nina said, “and you obviously know your business.”
A tall woman with streaked hair, wearing a short aquamarine sweater dress appeared in the doorway with a gun in her hand. Amused gray eyes peeked out between uneven bangs that swept the curves of her cheeks.
“Oh, Alice,” Lindy said. “Have you met my attorney, Nina Reilly? Nina, my best friend, Alice Boyd.”
Alice set the gun casually down on a chair and strode rapidly up to Nina, her high heels clicking on the oak floor. She shook her hand. “So Lindy has subjected you to the ritual baptism,” she said, gesturing toward Nina’s wet hair.
Nina touched her head. “I guess that’s true,” she said.
“Now you belong to us.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Lindy said comfortably. “She’s never been the same since that time she spent in the loony bin.”
“That’s such a lie. I’m the same, only much more devious about expressing my feelings,” Alice said.
“Excuse me,” Nina said, “but didn’t you just set a gun down over there on that cushion?”
“Almost forgot,” Alice said. She walked back and picked up the gun. “This is for you, doll,” she said, handing a silver snub-nosed gun to Lindy.
“What for?” Lindy said.
“Meet your new best friend.” She held it up for them to admire. “Isn’t it something? You can kill someone with this adorable, polished-nickel designer special from thirty feet away. No need to get blood all over yourself. You see someone coming to do you harm, and bam. You lay them low.” She walked around, taking aim at various items around the room. “Pow,” she said. “There goes the mirror from France you’re always bragging about. Not to Mike’s taste anyway, was it? Pow,” she said again, pointing toward a vase. “Down goes the Ming.” She stopped and stared at the gun. “What strikes me as strange is that most women have yet to recognize the power of this little equalizer. With guts and a little practice, we have finally been handed just the tool to win that war against our oppressors.”
Lindy looked a little embarrassed. “Alice, I don’t know what Nina will think. Put the gun away.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alice said. “No, really. Here you are in these gorgeous surroundings for what is probably the last time.” She nodded toward the room. “If I were you, I’d grab the moment. Why leave all these nice things for the king of shit and his sleazy little consort to play with? Know how to operate one of these?” She flicked the safety off.
Lindy took the gun away, and pushed the safety back in place. “I don’t want it.”
“For twenty years you’ve lived in your fortress. Now you’re going to be rubbing shoulders with the peasants. That would be us,” Alice said to Nina. “Lindy, you don’t know how bad us peasants can be. You ought to protect yourself.”
“Take it back, Alice. I mean it.” Lindy handed the gun carefully to her friend.
Alice shrugged and stuck the gun into her handbag. “Suit yourself.” Saying she needed to freshen up, she excused herself.
“Now here we go again. You’re going to get the wrong impression of Alice, too,” said Lindy. “She’s the best person, but I’m afraid this stuff with Mike has reminded her of some bad things in her past. She’ll settle down.”
Nina wondered if Lindy was one of those rare people who could read souls, or if she was simply a blind fool when it came to picking friends and family.
As they approached the foyer, she became aware again of the rain eddying down gutters, drowning the view from the windows. At the sight of the boxes stacked high by the door, Lindy stopped short. Then she composed herself and said good-bye.
Nina was so late leaving Lindy’s that she headed straight to court for the morning criminal calendar without stopping at the office, the Bronco leaking transmission fluid all the way. Her mechanic had already advised her to replace the carburetor. She would need a new truck soon. These thoughts occupied her as she negotiated the puddles at every corner.
Back at the office by lunchtime, she saw that Genevieve Suchat was already waiting.
“Hi,” Genevieve said brightly, springing up from a chair across from Sandy’s to shake Nina’s hand. A Southern lilt made it sound like “Hah.”
Sandy’s son, Wish, sat in the chair next to Genevieve’s. A very tall, gangly nineteen-year-old, he thumbed through his latest fixation, a magazine full of surveillance tricks for spies. He had recently announced his plan to become a detective like Paul, and to that end was taking courses in criminology and photography over at the community college.
Wish was their odd-job man. From the sparkling looks of the place, Sandy must have had him doing some cleanup. He glanced up and nodded hello to Nina, then returned to his apparently absorbing read.
Nina shook Genevieve’s hand. Her light, breathy voice reminded Nina of one of the scantily dressed girls sending out suggestive invitations from an on-line website she had recently forbidden her son access to, but her curly, sprayed wheat-colored hair and the tailored black jacket trimmed in burgundy over a long burgundy skirt were quite demure, if fashionably cut.
In one ear, Nina glimpsed the silver hearing aid Winston had mentioned, catching the light behind a pair of small silver earrings. Genevieve looked more like a Genny than a Genevieve-a modern working girl who had just stepped out of a big-city highrise and into the mountains without changing her style a bit-but Winston had warned Nina that she preferred the more formal sound of Genevieve in her work relationships.
Genevieve already knew Sandy, she told Nina, sounding as confident as if she felt she’d been eating at Sandy’s dinner table for years. “Sandy and Wish were telling me all about the Washoe Nation,” she said. “And they have quite the extended family.”
Sandy rarely got personal with visitors. Genevieve must have a way about her.
Because Genevieve requested it, they went to Planet Hollywood, the restaurant at Caesar’s, for lunch.
“Casinos aren’t known for their fine dining,” Nina apologized. The babbling patrons and clamorous kitchen must be hard on someone with a hearing problem. “We do have some nice places.”
“But I love it here,” said Genevieve, eyeing the movie relics that lined the walls surrounding the faux palm trees. Apparently the din would not be a problem for her. “Is that Darth Vader over there?” she said, getting up from her seat to study the cases.
She returned a moment later. “His suit looks littler than in the movies.” The waiter appeared, asking for their orders. She studied her menu. “The blackened shrimp is probably great, but I’ll just have a salad. You a gambler?” she asked Nina.
“Um. I confess to a taste for the slots,” Nina said, a little put out by the question. They were on what really amounted to an interview, after all.
“Me, too,” Genevieve said, handing the waiter her menu. “Also poker, blackjack, roulette… I’m a real slut for a quick buck. Maybe we’ll have a little time to hit the tables before you have to go back to work.”
The waiter turned to Nina. “Pomodoro,” Nina told him, glad for the distraction. She was amused by Genevieve’s inappropriate candor but not interested in spelling out her own proclivities on that front. Studying the menu, she realized she had worked up an appetite in the spa. “Can you bring extra Parmesan for the table?”
“How wonderful for you to be able to eat like that and stay skinny,” said Genevieve when the waiter left. “I could never eat a big, heavy pasta meal in the middle of the day, although during trials I stick to comfort food. Peanut butter sandwiches, chocolate chip cookies, whole milk.”
“I order fancy when I eat out because I’m a lazy cook,” said Nina. “My son and I live on canned tomato soup.”
“Then you both ought to take supplements,” Genevieve said disapprovingly. “I take a multivitamin plus extra vitamin E and folic acid and ginseng every day.”
“And I suppose you like high doses of vitamin C for colds.”
“Yes, I do,” said Genevieve.
“And you think I should, too.”
“You are under a lot of stress,” said Genevieve in a supportive tone, “aren’t you?” And the little voice in Nina’s head started up, saying, uh-oh, better straighten up, you’re being assessed.
Genevieve had a Master’s degree in statistics from M.I.T. and a Ph.D. in psychology from Duke. She told Nina she had considered law school. Then, with a decidedly wicked smile, she said she had eventually settled for being the brains behind the brawn.
By overnight courier, along with Genevieve’s impressive resume, Winston had sent Nina a copy of her thesis on “crowd psychology,” with its special emphasis on the decision-making process of jurors in the American legal system. The whole thing looked mathematical, filled with charts and formulae and statistical gobbledygook that she couldn’t follow.
Taking a leaf of lettuce onto her fork and tasting it, Genevieve said, “This morning on the plane I read all the pleadings you sent down to Winston, and I talked to Winston late last night. If he wins his hospital malpractice case, I’m predicting one point seven to one point nine.”
“How can you make a guess like that?”
“Went for a split-the-difference jury, then had Winston ask for three point six.”
“But the standard jury instruction is that you can’t have a compromise verdict. Juries aren’t supposed to-”
“You know they do it all the time,” Genevieve said. “They just get cagey to avoid trouble. See, they’ll go one point seven because one point eight-exactly half of what we asked for-would be too obvious. Problem for him in this case is the judge, plus he got saddled with a couple of wild cards on the jury he couldn’t keep off,” she said, shrugging, but obviously more than irritated by the thought. “No matter how good you are, there’s still some risk.”
“Will he take time off after this is over?”
“Not Winston. He’s got trials back-to-back. The next one’s in San Diego, nonjury.” With the discipline of a drill instructor she ate another lettuce leaf, detouring around a nearby crouton. “He said to tell you Sandy faxed him the minute order with the trial date, and he’s freed up the two weeks after that. I like May twenty-first, too. I’ve got a double murder case coming up next July.”
“I hope we can go with that date. Both sides want to get this over with. Mike Markov is furious that we’ve interfered in the business by getting a receiver and an accounting. Lindy Markov is broke for the first time in years. I’m fronting a lot of the costs myself…” including two hundred an hour for you, Nina thought. “I can’t afford to let it drag on.”
“From what I’ve read and what Winston tells me, this is your big one, Nina,” Genevieve said, smiling. “You could hit the jackpot with what I reckon your fee agreement must be. None of my business, of course, except I want to help you make it happen. Can we sit down with Miz Markov real soon? I’d like to ask her a few questions and get a good picture of her fixed in my mind.”
The soft voice, which occasionally slipped into a kind of countrified dialect Nina thought she must use for emphasis, coupled with the royal blue eyes, had distracted Nina for a second while she contemplated the extreme contrast between Genevieve’s savvy talk and the delicate girl sitting across the table. Genevieve probably made good use of that contrast when it suited her. Good. Maybe her looks would fool Riesner into underestimating her.
Genevieve was saying, “Right off the bat let me tell you women might not necessarily favor Lindy, unless we strike fast and make sure they do. They might think she got what she deserved. She knew what she was getting into. She knew he didn’t want to marry her. She knew he kept things in his own name to maintain his ownership. So we’ll need to be cunning as the little snake that slips through the grass and zaps the dragonfly before he even knows she’s there.”
“I understand you and Winston have worked together before.”
“Right. On a worker’s compensation case against a bank down in Long Beach. Remind me to tell you all about that sometime after I’ve had a few and we’ve got some time to burn. He’s quite a lawyer. In the beginning, nobody liked our client, but Winston spun their heads around and lined ’em up just the way we wanted by the end. I can’t wait to work with him again, and with you for the first time, Nina. I’ve read about you, which, if you think about it, is remarkable. L.A.’s about a million miles away from Tahoe, psychologically speaking.”
“You live in Los Angeles?”
“I grew up in New Orleans. Now I live in Redondo Beach, a half block from the ocean on Catalina Avenue in a little Spanish bungalow.”
“Any family?”
“No. My parents are both dead, and I don’t seem to have time for a steady guy. Just another lonely gal, lookin’ for love,” she said. Dimples peeked through her cheeks. “When I first got there, I learned to surf. Had to give it up when I started workin’ twenty-hour days.”
“You did? So did I. In a wet suit of course. I grew up in Monterey.”
“Well, it’s warmer in Redondo, but my favorite spot was the wedge in Newport.”
They shared some stories. Nina couldn’t help liking Genevieve. She wouldn’t put it past her to be fibbing about surfing, although she couldn’t catch her in an outright lie. But wouldn’t it be just like a person with her speciality to research Nina’s background, seeking some common ground before showing up for an interview? She enjoyed the conversation and had to admire Genevieve’s strategy, if that’s what it was.
“I have to tell you, I’ve never used a jury consultant before. And I have my doubts about it.”
“I’m your first,” said Genevieve. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You need to realize that you’re coming on as a consultant. I want you to give me the benefit of all of your knowledge, but I reserve the right to make my own decisions.”
“You’ll listen to me if you plan to win. What exactly do you know about jury consulting?”
“Very little.”
“It all started over twenty years ago with the trial of the Harrisburg Seven. That was the first time I know of when some of these techniques were used to help the defense team in selecting jurors.”
“Did they win?”
“That case was settled the night before the trial began,” said Genevieve. “But since then, social scientists have shown that, when employed by a knowledgeable pro, these techniques can work. Name any recent major trial, and I’ll give you five to one odds they used a jury consultant.”
“I’m not sure why it makes me uncomfortable,” Nina said. “Maybe I just don’t like the idea of manipulating a jury… but of course that’s exactly what I’m trying to do myself every single moment.”
“It’s war out there, honey. And it’s not like you know for sure how people will vote once those doors to the jury room shut behind them.”
“You’re right. There are always facts to muck up the works.”
“Too true,” Genevieve said vehemently. “The dominant factor in any trial outcome, no matter how carefully you handpick your people, is still the facts. But what people will come to believe are the facts and how they will react to them, that’s where we come in. I’d say it’s legal malpractice not to use a jury consultant in a big case these days.”
“Funny, Winston said the same thing. I guess that makes me just a little old small-town lawyer committing malpractice left and right,” said Nina.
“Yes, just a small-town lawyer. Not much, is it, when you could be a superstar?” Genevieve said without a hint of sarcasm. “You’re attractive; that’s a big plus for most juries. A little short, but a session with a shoe salesman should cure that. All that long hair“-she shook her short hair disapprovingly-”you might think about cutting. If not, we’ll work on style. That leaves your clothes and your… um… attitude for later.”
“Mighty nice of you to hold off.”
Genevieve couldn’t ignore Nina’s irritation this time. She laughed. “You’ll get used to me. I’m going to be after you worse than your own mother. Now, what’s the word? Are we doing this thing together or not? I’ll do a damn good job for you.”
“If we can work out the financial details. You’re going to have to receive the bulk of your fee at the end of the trial…”
“We’ll work those details out later. Meanwhile, just let me tell you what else I’m going to do for you.”
Nina pushed her empty plate away and sat back to let the meal settle heavily into her stomach.
“I’ll be up here a lot from now on. We’ll begin with a telephone questionnaire to people in the local venire. That’s to get a handle on who lives here, their prejudices, type of work, political leanings, group affiliations, etcetera. From that information, I determine whether the jury list reflects that population. If it’s not a favorable group, we might want to request that the pool be increased. I believe in this county, El Dorado, you can request that the pool be expanded to include jurors from adjacent counties. That might be useful to us. I’ll find out.”
“What kinds of questions do you ask?” said Nina.
“Questions that will help us determine underlying personality characteristics. Then you and I will get together to analyze the survey results. I do what’s called a factor analysis-bottom line, I create a scale of factors predicting juror favorability. That’s where we decide what the crucial issues are in this case and what critical set of opinions, determinants such as economic status, racial prejudice, distributive equity positions, and so on will end up being deciding factors.”
“No graphs, please!”
“I’ll hide them in a hole in the wall and never tell you where,” Genevieve promised.
“And that last thing you said. Distributive equity?”
“That’s an old idea. Aristotle defined it first. You’ll be hearing a lot from me about it. The question is, to what degree will a certain prospective juror tolerate inequity in a relationship?”
“Like the one between Mike and Lindy Markov.”
“Correct. I’ll figure out which types of people are most likely to recommend specific remedies for the particular perceived inequity in this case, a good specific remedy for our client being stacks of leafy-green money.” The thought fired her up and she extended her empty hands over an imaginary pile of money.
“I can’t knock that,” Nina said slowly.
“So the most important part of what I do before the trial is to work with you to develop two juror profiles, one of your friend and one of your enemy. That involves juggling information, using at least two common approaches, multiple regression and automatic interaction detection, to find out what characteristics we need to know and how they can be combined to create our good and bad Frankensteins.”
“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m sorry, I’ve degenerated into jargon. You don’t have to worry about that stuff.”
“Okay.”
“After that, I’ll be working with you on your voir dire questions. And I’ll help you figure out which facts to emphasize and deemphasize in your opening statement. And how to present your evidence. And-”
Nina’s mind reeled with the possibilities Genevieve raised at the same time as it mused over the compromise of her own principles. Her way was not Genevieve’s way. But she had no choice. She needed Winston, and he insisted on Genevieve, so she would make the most of the situation, taking what served her purposes and discarding the rest. “Can you do all this on your own?”
“I’ve got two assistants in L.A. who’ll conduct the phone interviews and help me collate what we gather. Later, we’ll need a private investigator. I can recommend…”
“That’s okay. I work with someone from Carmel, Paul Van Wagoner.”
“If we can get hold of the potential jury list ahead of time, he’s going to have to run around and talk to the neighbors and friends to give us some early info. If not, while the judge and attorneys are interviewing candidates during the voir dire, he should be out there digging in the trash cans so we can make a more informed decision about your peremptories and challenges for cause.”
There actually seemed to be some cockeyed attempt at science behind what Genevieve did. Maybe it actually would work, giving certitude to an area of legal practice that had always been pure hunch. Genevieve was like an army sneaking up on Riesner’s flank… of course, he’d have a jury consultant, too.
Though she had been ready to dislike and merely tolerate this upstart, she found she enjoyed the grinning Genevieve, who now sat across from her, all attention turned to twirling a fork between fidgety little fingers.
“Maybe I’ve been missing a bet, not using a consultant before.”
“You have indeed, but it’s never too late to start doing it right,” Genevieve said. “You and me and Winston, we’re going to give that rich man a lickin’ he won’t forget.” She patted the napkin to the edges of her lips and said, “Do we have time to play a few slots? I won eleven hundred last time I was here. Three red sevens. Had to have a row of red, white, and blue sevens to win the car. I was so very pissed!”
Genevieve played like a kid with Monopoly cash, tossing a hundred dollars down the progressive slots in the quarter of an hour they stayed. Nina stuck to her regular quarter slot machine and lost twenty. One thing she learned about Genevieve in those fifteen minutes: she could talk about statistics until she had the whole world snowed, but she was a gambler to the bone. The casino brought out that basic personality trait in sharp relief.
And, she thought, that makes it unanimous. Genevieve, Winston, and Nina. Rub-a-dub-dub, three gamblers in a tub.
Lindy lay facedown in the cold sand listen-ing to the black water brushing the shore beside her. This strip that ran along the edge of their property belonged to her, and now a judge had ordered her to stay away from it.
Sometime long after midnight her eyes had snapped open in Alice’s guest bedroom, after a dream that had left no images, just an urgency. Urgent! Her chest burned with the moment.
This urgency felt like sexual anticipation, potentially explosive, and as her physical cravings had for years, it fixed on Mike. She needed him and the comfort of his arms, as she always did when things got rough. She had to talk to him. So she had gotten out of bed, thrown on her cross-trainers and her jacket, and gone in to the dark dining room to find her keys.
At the gate to the estate, though, her mood had altered. A new sign on the curved iron arrows of the gate said KEEP OUT. Mike had probably put it up for the reporters, but it applied to her now, too, so she walked the perimeter of the fence to the little gate on the far side in the woods and climbed right over it, and walked down toward the water, and lay down near the dock until she could figure out what to do, her chest feeling tighter every moment, as if her heart wanted to rupture. She wished she had pebbles to toss at his window, something that would tell him she was here, waiting. Tell him how angry she was. How hurt.
For a while she lost herself in the rhythmic sound of the wavelets and the cold, grainy feel of the sand. Geese honked above, flying overhead, late for their appointment down south. The breeze moved gently over her back, stirring her hair. She remembered the other times she had awakened in the middle of the night, after her father had died.
When he died he left her with no support. She would lie in her bed looking at the ceiling, imagining death, wondering what it was like to be nothing and nowhere, getting so far into the blackness she could barely claw her way out in the morning.
Aunt Beth, who had often stepped in when times were bad, took her in permanently, and when Lindy was seventeen, helped her find a job at a coffee shop in Henderson and a room in town. Lindy spent only her base salary, saving all her tips in a big pickle jar, an antique her aunt had kept around, God knew why. When she saved enough, she moved on, putting on her suit jacket from the Salvation Army store and applying for a job as a secretary at the Burns Brothers’ Car and Truck Stop in Mill City.
After a few years she was booking the acts at a casino in Ely, making enough to rent an apartment and send a hundred dollars to Aunt Beth every month, taking night courses at the business school. She earned a reputation as hardworking, never late, never missing a day, always giving it a hundred fifty percent.
After a brief, disastrous marriage, she had met Mike. He worked as a bouncer in the club, a guy on his way down at thirty-five, ten years older than she was but like a kid in so many ways. He stood the exact same height as she did, five feet eight, and he had a surprised, boyish expression, eyebrows raised high like he still couldn’t believe he’d been given a knockout punch. After sixty fights, thirty-two as a pro, he’d cut open his eye one too many times and the Nevada Boxing Commission doctor had said he would lose the eye if he kept fighting.
He didn’t care about that, Mike had told her; he still had the other one. He wouldn’t accept that his fighting days were over. He came from a family of poor Russian immigrants who had settled in Rochester, New York, in the forties, and they had all the faith in the world he would still someday make it big and send his smart younger brother money for school.
On her way out at five o’clock he would come on duty and stand by the door to say good night to her. Laughing at the stupid jokes he made, she worried about him and finally worked up the nerve to invite him over to her place for dinner.
It was midsummer in the high desert, about a hundred ten degrees in that town, and the air-conditioning had quit on her. She couldn’t cook at all, so they ate olives and crackers and cheese and drank cheap Russian vodka with 7UP, sitting out on the shady fire escape above the main street. He didn’t even kiss her, but the next day he came by with a new air conditioner and put it into her window for her, and then they did a lot of kissing on the dusty red couch in the living room.
That day had been the happiest day of her life, because she mattered to someone again.
“Dad,” Lindy breathed, and rolled over and looked into the California sky. “You out there?” No answer. He was gone, gone somewhere forever where she couldn’t follow, leaving behind a tender indentation in her heart. She pulled herself to her feet and started walking up the hill toward the big house.
Sammy, their rottweiler, came rushing toward her, wagging his whole rear end when he recognized her. “Sammy,” she whispered, crouching a little to scratch him behind the ears. “What are you doing outside? Your job is to stay in the house. You’re supposed to guard Mike,” she said, rubbing him on the back. Then she remembered. Rachel didn’t like Sammy. She probably didn’t want him inside. He followed her silently as she climbed the wide wooden stairs up to the back door.
She turned her key in the door, which unlocked without a squeak. Her watch told her it was three-thirty.
In the dark kitchen the only sound was the humming of the refrigerator. How strange to creep around her own house. She opened and closed a few drawers, maybe to reassure herself that this was the place in spite of how alien it felt. Without giving it any thought, she picked up their sharpest knife from one of the drawers, a favorite she used to cut the tips off of carrots. She had bought the knife herself at Williams Sonoma on a trip to the Bay Area. She had used it often, helping the housekeeper with party preparations. This knife definitely belonged to her.
She passed through the dark silence into the hall to the reception room where the great staircase wound upstairs. Her footsteps in the big rooms seemed to echo with the sounds of parties gone by.
The banister felt warm to the touch. She led with her free hand, running it along the smooth surface upstairs, around the curves she had been so proud of when they first had the stairway built. At the landing she paused, waiting for a sign, but there was no sign. The house slept. Tuesday was the housekeeper’s night off, and Florencia lived far away in what Mike called the dungeon, a two-bedroom apartment on the basement level that opened out onto sloping gardens at the side of the house.
The heavy Persian rug in the upstairs hallway muffled her progress. She approached the bedroom door. How outlandish everything seemed. She was a foreigner in her own home. On its stand by the door, the big blue Chinese vase was still filled with the same willows and reeds she had arranged three weeks before, dried and dusty now, looking like plants arranged by some other woman’s hands, the new woman of this house.
She used the knife to push open the door. In the dusky light, Mike was lying on his back, snoring lightly, asleep. Rachel lay on her stomach beside him, her lower leg and bare foot free of the covers, her right leg looped over his, her beautiful long hair covering her shoulders.
She looked at them for a long time, clutching the knife in her hand, struggling to accept the proof of her eyes so that she might finally allow the umbilicus that still tied her to Mike to disintegrate, feeling the shaky instability that comes when death is very close.
Mike’s eyes opened. He had always been a light sleeper, awake at any sound. He didn’t move. Neither did she. For a long moment they stared at each other.
Then, while Rachel slept on, he carefully pulled the covers off himself and got out of bed, not taking his eyes from Lindy’s. In the dimness his bulky nakedness shifted like a shadow among shadows. Bending down, he picked up his old wool robe from the floor, pulled it on, tied the belt. He stepped into slippers. Lindy watched, hypnotized.
He came to her and touched her. That corporeality of his touch, the blanket-warmed fingers, shocked her out of her reverie.
“Mike?” she said softly.
“Who else?” he whispered, and she wondered if he was smiling.
She took in the familiar smell of his body.
He nodded toward the door. Then, holding on to one of her wrists, he drew her out of the room. In ghostly procession they drifted down the stairs, back through the kitchen, out the back door. Sammy picked them up at the door and followed close behind.
Out on the path, where they could hear the lapping of the lake, Mike looked at the knife, then at her face. Standing across from him she saw again how well they fitted together. It was as if their bodies had been molded exactly in reverse, so that her curves disappeared to accommodate the knobs and slopes of his physique. After a moment, while the breeze hushed and the sounds of the lake receded, she reveled in their mutual awareness. Breathing deeply a few times, she thought about the knife in her hand, not wanting to give it up.
“What’s the plan here?” Mike asked, sounding so much like his old self, she almost melted.
“No plan.”
“All action, no talk,” said Mike, teasing gently. “The knife, Lindy. Give me the knife.”
“No.”
“Lindy, if you don’t give me the knife, you’re going to have to use it. You don’t want to hurt me, do you?”
She didn’t know what to say to that. He stood there patiently, fearlessly, the breeze ruffling his robe, looking the same as he did in the ring years ago, not a care in the world in spite of the tough punk across the way wanting to rip his heart out. Deciding, she lifted the knife from her side and raised it so that the tip just brushed his stomach. He didn’t move, didn’t even blink. This was the Mike she knew. She turned it around so that he could take it by the hilt.
He dropped it into a low bush beside the path. She buried her head in the scratchy wool, and his hand came up to stroke her hair.
“I’m having a hard time, Mike,” she said. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Lindy,” Mike answered, like in the old days when they had just met. They went down to the beach, clear of the forest, while he half-supported her, and they crumpled to the sand together.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “So sorry. I think I was dreaming about you.”
“Won’t you-will you please-”
“It isn’t right-”
But her hand was pulling at the tie around his waist and the robe fell open.
“Please,” she said.
“Oh, Lindy.”
She put her arm around his neck and drew him onto her, and after lying there with her for what felt like a long time, his hands tugged at the zipper on her pants, then pulled them down to her shoes. He lay on top of her for a moment, his heavy weight lulling and comforting her.
Then he gave her his love, like he always had.
Afterward, when they were dressed again, sitting together and supporting each other, looking out at the lake, he said, “I’m ashamed. I should have known better.”
“Is there-any chance-”
“I’m marrying Rachel.” He spoke without malice, sounding almost as confounded by his own words as she felt.
“She’s so young.”
“It’s a fresh start. I looked around one day, and everything looked different. It was like another man was living my life, doing all the usual things, paying bills, making love, on the phone, and I was outside looking in through a window at him, mixed-up as hell. I couldn’t hear the words anymore. I didn’t like what I saw there, this old face and these wrinkled-up paws of mine.” He held his fists up. They both inspected them in the dark, until he dropped them again. “They were…” He thought, but couldn’t come up with the word he wanted.
“Beautiful, Mike.” She had told him that many times.
“You remember? Like bowling balls, smooth to the touch, cruising down the alleyways… fast.”
“Oh, I remember.”
“Now, see that?” He tried to flex. “I can barely bend the fingers. I got arthritis in them, I think. I’m just so tired…”
“Of what? Of me? The business?”
“I don’t know. I don’t feel the same as I used to about anything.”
“I just can’t believe it.”
“I still care for you.”
“You have such an odd way of showing it.”
“Don’t leave yet, Lindy. We may never get to talk like this again. It’ll always be the lawyers, the reporters…”
“The money,” Lindy said.
“I’ll take care of you like I always have.”
“Was it you taking care of me, Mike? Or me taking care of you?”
He shrugged.
“We worked so hard. Remember when we started up the first exercise studio in Lubbock? I called everybody in town to find somebody, anybody for you to instruct. I got that phone slammed down in my ear so many times I still don’t hear right.”
“We put everything we had into it.”
“Why didn’t you ever marry me, Mike? I proposed to you lots of times.”
“I don’t know.” He lifted a handful of sand and let the granules sift through his fingers. “Were you going to kill me with that knife?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, thank you. That you didn’t kill me.” They both laughed a little. “You’re such a wild thing, Lindy. Remember what you did to Gil before the divorce, when you two broke up? Sixty-two stitches. I know I haven’t forgotten.”
“Don’t remind me. But he really had it coming. That shitheel married me for the sole purpose of getting his hands on my savings. He plotted to rob and humiliate me. Anyway, who knew that vase would break all over the place like that?” Lindy said.
“I guess that’s your biggest fault, and maybe the cutest thing about you, too. You’re just reckless, and I never knew anyone else that could blow a gasket like you do.”
“I do have a temper, but I’m not mad now. I’ve been thinking about the first year we were in the black. Now that was a Christmas. You in your Santa Claus suit, making love to me on the dining room table. You can be so funny.”
“You think I’m happy about what I did to you? And what you’re doing to me? Ah, Lindy. Things took a turn.”
“So you’re getting married.” Lindy blew into her hands to warm them. “You stupid bastard. I doubt she cares about you. She sees the money. She’s following the dollar signs.”
“She says she loves me. Maybe there will be a baby.”
“I gave you the business. That was our baby.”
“It was my business. I started it. My fists and my hands made everything happen.”
“My brains and my words. Both of us made it happen, and you know it.” She wanted to go on objecting but something held her back, some unquenchable faith in the future that told her not to say anything unforgivable. “What a waste, us talking like this,” she said. “It’s not going to change anything. It doesn’t mean anything. Might as well listen to Sammy bark.”
“I don’t want to string you along. You and me… we’re finished. Let me take care of you. I’ll send you a check every month.”
“Thanks for the offer. But I don’t want your charity. I want you to remember the two of us, what it was all about. Love for each other. Respect. A generous spirit. What has happened to you? Have you forgotten everything?”
“Speaking about that, Lindy, I need you to do something for me.”
“What?”
“Get your lawyer off my back and get that receiver out of my company. You know how we’ve always done business at Markov. Our deals are based on trust, and we need to be flexible to take advantage of our markets. A receiver will kill us.”
“Nina explained that to me. He’s just there to oversee-”
“He’ll oversee us right out of business!”
“You won’t let that happen, Mike.”
“Please don’t let it come to that, Lindy. Think about what I’m saying.” He looked back toward the house. “I’ve got to go in before she wakes up,” he said, lifting Lindy’s chin with two fingers, his mood shifting as quickly as day had begun to break. “Isn’t it unbelievable,” he said, “us coming to this.” He didn’t point to the knife, but she knew they both had it on their minds. “Isn’t it crazy?”
“Crazy,” Lindy agreed. They stood across from each other, a matched pair of champagne glasses, bookends, socks. Two that belonged together.
He brushed his hand along her cheek with all the old tenderness, and for that instant Lindy remembered what a great couple they made.
Then, in the gray light, Rachel appeared, running toward them in a satin robe, her long black hair flying behind her like the wings of a raven. “What’s going on?” she cried, pulling up beside Mike, panting.
“Nothing. Lindy and I had to talk.”
“At this hour?”
“No,” Lindy said. “He’s not telling the truth. He’s trying to protect you. But you have a right to know,” she said. “Mike and I just made love, right there in that spot where you’re standing. And it was fantastic, Rachel. Better than ever.”
“What?” Rachel said, stepping back. “No. You’re lying. Mike?”
“Let’s go back inside,” he said, taking her arm and casting a furious look back at Lindy. “We’ll talk there.” He tugged her arm but she shook him off.
“No, we’ll talk now,” Rachel said. “Is it true?”
“Yes, it’s true.”
Mike had been standing almost exactly between the two women, but now stepped up to stand closer to Rachel. At the same moment, Sammy took his place beside Lindy. She put a hand down to pet him, but even Sammy’s warm fur was no solace. She watched Mike with Rachel. She saw by the way he looked at Rachel he was lost to her, enchanted.
Mike took Rachel’s hand. “Rachel, for as long as we’re together, I swear I’ll never touch another woman. This was…” His mouth moved, but he couldn’t articulate whatever it was he was thinking.
During the pause that followed, Rachel seemed to calm down. She appeared to be thinking. “I know what it was,” she said finally, breaking into a terrible smile. “A consolation prize, right, Mike? It’s only fair to offer a cheap consolation prize to the pathetic loser.”
“Now, Rachel, let’s just go. Don’t start something,” Mike said calmly, trying to pull her up the path to the house.
“He loves me,” Lindy said. “He has always loved me.”
“If he loves you so much,” Rachel said, “what’s he doing over here with me? No, wait. Don’t say anything. Let me answer that for you.
“He’s over here with me because he knows we’re just about to climb right back into that big bed upstairs for the kind of really hot sex you’re too worn out to give him these days. Yeah,” she said looking hard at Lindy. “My suggestion is you stick to dark beaches and rooms without lamps from here on out. The light is not your friend.”
“Don’t speak to me like that! Mike?”
But Mike had no control over Rachel. “Oh, come on,” she said. “I’m not saying anything you don’t notice every morning when you look in the mirror at those icky crowfeet and run for the makeup bag.”
“Stop this!” Mike tugged hard on Rachel’s arm, but she did not budge.
“If Mike didn’t have money you’d be out of here so fast we wouldn’t even have to smell the stink of your exhaust fumes!” Lindy said.
“Temper, temper, Lindy. I understand you get… kind of crazy when you’re upset. Mike warned me about you,” Rachel said.
“I…” Lindy said, unable to frame a sentence, the anger in her welling up so high and so deep it threatened to drown her.
“I have an idea!” Rachel said excitedly. “Let’s be friends. Let bygones be bygones. That’s the civilized way to go about this, isn’t it? And as a token of our new relationship, I’m gonna invite you up to the house right now. Isn’t that a good idea, Mike?” she said eagerly. “Don’t you think that would be just lovely?”
“Well…” Mike said. He shuffled his feet clumsily on the ground as if he were trying to establish a foothold in quicksand.
“Really, how about that for fair?” She took Mike’s arm. “C’mon Mike. Let’s invite her right upstairs with us. Remind the old sow how it’s done.”
Lindy ran toward her and wrenched her away from Mike. “You wouldn’t know love if it bit you right in your bony ass!” She pummeled Rachel with her fists all too briefly before Mike flew up behind her, pinning her arms to her side.
“Sammy, get her!” she shouted, fighting frantically to free herself from Mike’s iron clench.
Sammy jumped. Rachel screamed as he knocked her flat to the ground.
“Get her!” Lindy cried.
Rachel continued to scream.
“Sammy, down! Down boy!” Mike roared at the same moment.
“Go Sammy! Bite her face off! Tear her eyes out! Sammy, go!” Mike’s hands gripped her. “Ow! Mike, that hurts!”
“Down, Sammy!” Mike commanded.
The dog, who had listened to this garble of incoherent commands with increasing agitation, looked at them. Confounded into paralysis, he stepped slowly off Rachel.
Rachel scrambled up. Bursting into hysterical tears she ran for the house. Sammy walked up to Mike and Lindy, wagging his tail tentatively. “Good boy,” Mike said. “What a good boy.”
He held on to Lindy until Rachel had made it back inside, then he dropped his hands from Lindy’s arms. “Don’t come around again,” he said. “Next time, we’ll press charges.”
“Mike,” she said. “Wait. Talk to me.”
Without another word, he turned and followed Rachel up to the house.
“He won’t marry her,” Lindy said to herself, brushing the sand off of her clothes and watching his back as he melted into the bright background of morning’s first sun. “One day he’ll wake up, and the devil that’s holding him will let go. He’ll feel his power again. And then he’ll want me back.”