When he found no slip on the cart, he stooped down to see if one had fallen to the floor. Nothing. He scarfed two more shrimp. Really, he thought, standing over the cart, is there anything better than good cocktail shrimp? He chomped on three more while he tried to figure out when he had eaten last. It was a while, longer than he should have let himself go without fueling. In the middle of the plate was a bouquet of lemon wedges, and he took a few and squeezed them over the plate. Yes, he thought, jamming more shrimp into his mouth, the necessary touch of lemon.
In the distance he could still hear the music, the talk and laughter, the quiet clink of glasses. Carefully he lifted the other silver dome.
Caviar. Lovely.
He reached with two fingers and let the salty black pearls slip down his throat, then went back and snapped off another shrimp. The combination was brilliant, like swimming with his mouth open in fresh seawater. More caviar dripped down his throat, more shrimp. He looked around for something to drink. There was only the champagne bottle, and he couldn’t open that without the telltale POP! giving him away. He took the ice bucket and, wincing at the noise of shifting ice, poured out what water he could into a champagne goblet and drank that.
He put down the glass and decided it was time to check out the party. But first he took a final scoop of caviar and a final shrimp, took another final shrimp, and then another, until the once-bounteous plate held nothing but squeezed lemon wedges and discarded shells. Within the small caviar bowl was only a black smear. He looked at the desolation queasily before sticking his teeth back in his mouth and making his way, at long last, toward the music.
He kept close to the wall, moving carefully, until he could peek around the corner. His eyes widened at the sight.
The wide room had a mirrored ceiling and a huge hot tub roiling in the center. The space was lit by two lamps, the base of each a plaster cast: one of a naked couple sensuously entwined, the other of a single huge phallus. Baldly pornographic paintings hung on the dark walls. But it wasn’t the decor that caught his attention and held it rapt. He had expected to find a brutal, pragmatic killer in that room. He had expected to find a criminal mastermind, a magician. He had expected, somehow, to find his future. But what he found instead was a breathtaking assortment of breasts and thighs, calves and lips, finely shaped asses.
Naked women, four of them, three in the tub, one bending over the edge, all with champagne glasses in their lovely hands, were moving languorously. They were laughing and talking and ministering, it seemed, to a figure in the middle. Without thinking, Scrbacek took a step forward. One of the women in the tub turned around, startled for an instant, and then smiled.
“There you are,” she said.
They were beautiful, these women, young, like sirens, smiling at him and calling him forth. The girl who had answered the door, now leaning over the rim of the tub, stood up straight in her nakedness and stepped toward him. Her breasts were like . . . Her lips were red as . . . She had legs long as . . . And an ass like . . . like . . . And she came unabashedly up to him and smiled and reached out a filled champagne glass for him to take.
He was so entranced that he didn’t notice the three women in the tub moving to the sides, stepping out, wrapping themselves in towels, and leaving the room, so that when he glanced back at the water now, in the middle of the roiling white, he could finally see the old man they had been ministering to. He lolled in the tub, the old man, his head back, a champagne goblet in his hand, his narrow shoulders, his thin chest, his face falling apart from age and something more ravaging than age. The old man lolled and smiled a dreamy I’ve-just-been-sucked-off smile, and Scrbacek gasped audibly when he saw him.
“So what have we here?” said the man in the tub. “A casino dealer? His face black with my caviar and his vest stained with my shrimp sauce. Come forward. What is your name, boy? Can someone read his name tag?”
“Lee Chon Yang,” said the naked woman standing beside Scrbacek, still offering him the champagne.
“Funny,” said the man in the tub. “You don’t look like a Lee Chon Yang. In fact, if it weren’t for those glasses, that ridiculous goatee and, what is that, fake teeth? Marvelous. If it wasn’t for all of that, I would have sworn that you look just like a student I once had.”
Scrbacek took a step forward.
“His name was J.D. Scrbacek,” said the man in the tub, “and last I heard, he’d been very naughty and was in way too much trouble for his own good.”
Scrbacek’s jaw hung loose in shock as he stared at the man in the tub. The fake teeth tumbled from his mouth.
“Welcome, Mr. Scrbacek,” said Professor Drinian DeLoatch from the depths of the roiling hot water. “We’ve been wondering when you would come and join our party.”
43
A SIMPLE TOAST
Have a drink with me, Mr. Scrbacek. Join me in a toast. Come now, don’t be shy. Take the glass from Sheena.
Your name is Sheena, isn’t it, my sweet? Oh, close enough.
In fact, Mr. Scrbacek, I ordered this champagne just for you. A nice vintage, too, if I say so myself. It should be, it cost enough. Your friend Vega came running this morning, and I knew you’d follow. Funny how obvious you all can be. Take the glass, Mr. Scrbacek, and raise it with mine in a simple toast. Ready?
To the criminal law.
Hear, hear, no? What a marvelous guide for us all. How else can we know how we’re doing? Oh, of course, money can tell us, or our surroundings, or the number of naked women who share our hot tub, but really, what tells us more clearly of our status in the world than the criminal law?
There are only two classes of people, the innocent and the guilty, and all of us are among the innocent until the bastards have proven otherwise. And they have to go through us to do it, right, Mr. Scrbacek, we great defenders of the despised? Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law with a defense lawyer snarling down the prosecutor’s throat. Now that is an innocence worth defending. Quite the opposite of the catechism drilled into me as a child. Guilty, guilty, guilty before I even breathed my first. How Draconian is that? If that is God’s law, then I’d far sooner put my faith in the penal code. I’ve spent my life pursuing innocence, Mr. Scrbacek. It is my calling. Along with pursuing the occasional whore.
Join me, Mr. Scrbacek. Join me in my toast. Join me in my hot tub. Join me in tasting all the delicacies this town can offer. I need a junior partner, someone to carry my briefcase and arrange for my entertainments. I need someone I can piss on for a price. We’ll be DeLoatch and Scrbacek, PC.
DeLoatch and Scrbacek. It doesn’t have much of a ring to it, does it? How about DeLoatch and Associates? Much better, no? You’d be one of the associates. Sheena here would be the other, wouldn’t you, sweetheart?
Yes, I know, you already told me.
You have objections, Mr. Scrbacek. You’ve seen through the mists, latched onto the truth of things. But what have I done that you wouldn’t have done in my place? Joseph Torresdale entered my office with a pending racketeering indictment that I successfully thwarted. Frances Galloway hired me to defend her against attacks by the city over real-estate properties her husband had saved from the wrecking ball. And then serious questions were being raised by the Casino Control Commission about Mr. Diamond’s silent partners, questions that Mr. Diamond believed needed to be addressed by a criminal law attorney. That these three citizens should turn to me was no surprise. Who better to help them maintain their status as innocents in this world?
What was it I told you was the most crucial characteristic of a great trial lawyer? Do you remember, Mr. Scrbacek, or were you too busy making eyes at the beauteous Ms. Ling? Imagination. How often did I stress that in class? Gather the facts you are given, the facts you can’t avoid, and use your imagination to weave a story that will capture the jury. You know of what I speak, you’ve done it yourself. With my help, of course.
Oh, I had my eye on you, Mr. Scrbacek, all through law school. You were dead in my sights from t
he first. Day in and day out I worked on you, and it was sweet vindication when you came to me and declared your interest in the criminal law. You asked for my help, and I promised to give it. And I did, yes, I did, in the worst way. It was I who directed this small case and that small case to your office, all surreptitiously. No need for you to know you had a secret benefactor. It was I who whispered in old Judge Newsom’s ear that he might give the Amber Grace defense to you. Your first death penalty case, and you shocked me, boy, by not screwing it up. Tracking down that child was lovely, simply lovely. The first of many surprises you gave me. And after, when you had become famous, it was I who told the drug lords of Crapstown that you were the perfect lawyer for their particular legal problems. I knew the very moment you began to take product in lieu of fees. It seemed so out of character at first, but then I supposed your character was changing under my influence, even from afar. And so, naturally, it was in your talented hands that I entrusted Caleb Breest.
It was more than an inconvenience to us all when Mr. Breest was arrested. We were delighted when he went after that fool Malloy, but to do it with his bare hands, to leave so much evidence, that was more than we expected. He deserved to languish on death row for his stupidity. But still, we needed him out of jail, where he could be disposed of properly. No sense waiting with bated breath to see if Caleb Breest ever found his singing voice. We were relying on you to do your job, and then for Mr. Bozant, from Nevada, to do his.
You were marvelous, I must say, better than ever I expected. All that dramatic finger-pointing at prosecutor Surwin. I was in control throughout, of course, through my intermediary Mr. Torresdale. I handed you the case, spoon-fed you the strategy, ensured through my contacts that there were enough flaws in police procedure for you to create a compelling case for our Mr. Breest. But still, Mr. Scrbacek, bravo. Bravo. After your brilliant performance, you were bound to rise to great heights in this town. I would see to it. You had quite the future ahead of you.
Pity then about Trent Fallow and his foolish file. But there was nothing to be done. So we added your name to Mr. Bozant’s to-do list. I must tell you, he was quite thrilled with the assignment. For some reason he desperately wants to kill you. Have you any idea why? Hmm?
Imagination. We were talking of imagination. There come to me three businesspersons. One has dreams of moving out of crime, of partnering with an established legal business. One learned from her husband to buy and sell slum real estate, looking only for the gross profit. One seeks to expand his empire across the wasteland of a ruined city. It took a lawyer of imagination to see how all three desires could be met in one masterstroke. Let’s have the crime lord create a wave of terror across the whole swath of desired land to lower drastically the value of the real estate. Let’s have the slumlord buy up the necessary properties and hide them among her other myriad of ruins. Let’s have the casino mogul pave over everything, creating by fiat his highway to a new megaresort in the Marina District.
Oh, please, don’t talk to me of costs. Don’t talk to me of communities devastated, neighborhoods lost, of families thrown from their homes. Don’t talk to me of Crapstown. What did Robert Moses care of long-lived communities when building the modern megalopolis that is New York? What did our own city fathers care when they let the casinos usurp the boardwalk, leaving the rest of the city to rot? For every plus there is a minus. Such is life in the real world. Try asking the lion to weep for the gazelle. Don’t talk to me of morality, talk to me only of innocence and guilt.
Answer me this, Mr. Scrbacek. I slit your throat, leave no evidence, the police are dumbfounded. Am I a criminal? Is the perfect crime a crime at all? Didn’t we discuss this already, lo those many years ago? Whatever we do, my associates and I, we do as innocents, because we have not yet been proven guilty. Only when we are proven guilty have we committed a crime. Isn’t that the logical conclusion of all you have learned in the law? In the eyes of the law, nothing matters until the jury returns and the gavel is slammed. And if there is no jury verdict, and if there is no gavel, and if there is no evidence, then there is no guilt.
Whatever we are, our little group, we are not criminals. There is no evidence. There has been no trial, no verdict from a jury of our peers, if such a jury could ever be found. In the eyes of the law, we are as innocent as a newborn pup. And, trust me when I tell you this, Mr. Scrbacek, we will maintain that status. Whatever we must do we will do. We honor the law too much to bar any action that will keep us on its right side.
Which brings us to your friend Vega. I had much faith in Cirilio, but he lost his nerve. He threatened me, Mr. Scrbacek, can you imagine? I once thought it would be DeLoatch and Vega. A nicer sound, don’t you think, the symmetry of an iamb and a trochee? DeLoatch and Vega. Too bad. So now, Vega—dead. He thinks the documents he stashed away are his protection, but we have them already. I expect he’ll prove easier to kill than you. But we won’t stop there. Fallow—dead. He’s more of a fool than we can afford. Breest—dead. He has proven too brutally unpredictable to be trusted. And as for you, Mr. Scrbacek? As for you? You, too, are as good as dead. I can already smell the sweet rot of your corpse. Dead, dead, dead.
Unless . . .
You have impressed us, Mr. Scrbacek. Your exploits in your current travails have interested even Mr. Diamond in his Far Eastern fortress. You have demonstrated a wiliness that has been nothing less than shocking. And, just as important, you show a taste for the finer things in life. The caviar stains on your lips prove that, as did your messy little habit of not so long ago, one that I still favor. Tell me, Mr. Scrbacek, wouldn’t you like a little taste? Just ask, and it is yours. Or maybe you would like to take sweet Sheena into the bedroom. Of course you would. Look at her. How lovely. I wouldn’t want to work with a man who didn’t know the meaning of such pleasures. Where does the root of ambition lie, after all, if not in the deep-seated desire to wrap Sheena’s legs around our necks?
We need someone like you, now that Vega will no longer be available. Join me. We’ll be DeLoatch and Associates. We can send word that you are no longer to be hunted, yea, that you are now to be protected. Bozant will be disappointed, but he knows how to obey. And the unpleasant murder charge, the mysterious phone message and convenient cache of guns and explosives in your basement, they can all be cleared up, explained. With one call your travails can disappear. We can give you back your life and more, more than you ever imagined. Sheena, dear, turn around and bend over. Provide Mr. Scrbacek a preview of coming attractions.
What, not in the mood? Sheena is quite the talent, I assure you. Oh, don’t mind me, Mr. Scrbacek, please. Go right ahead. Frankly, I like to watch.
No? Oh, all right, if you insist, I’ll put your name on the door. I can get used to it, I suppose. One can get used to anything.
DeLoatch and Scrbacek, PC.
I made you what you are. Think of all you owe me. And now I offer you this, more than most men can dream of in a lifetime.
Join with me, Mr. Scrbacek. Raise your glass. A toast to the good life. A toast to life itself, which is far preferable to toasting death. To DeLoatch and Scrbacek, PC. To the grand practice of the criminal law. Are we to traverse this landscape of work and pleasure together, arm in arm?
What say ye, partner?
What say ye?
44
CHINA, MY CHINA
“You almost had me,” said Scrbacek.
“Only almost?” said DeLoatch. He sipped his champagne and leaned back in the hot tub, steam weaving a pattern before his ruined face. “What was it that caught your interest most? Lovely Sheena? The cocaine? That’s it, yes. The blithe white powder. What if I promise you oceans?”
“It wasn’t the drug. You almost had me with that ‘defender of humanity’ patter you laid on us in our very first class in law school. That ‘champion of those most in need’ crap. You remember, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. A staple of my first-year criminal law course. ‘What is a criminal defendant?’ ‘What i
s a prosecutor?’ Sometimes I am too precious for words.”
“I bought into it. All of it. The romance, the stirring image of the defense attorney holding back the mob at the prison gates. I wanted to be young Abe Lincoln with his almanac. I wanted to be Atticus Finch. I wanted to be the great defender of humanity you told us about. God help me, Professor, but I wanted to be you.”
“Good choice.”
“And then the world shifted, and suddenly I knew what it was to be you, knew it with a certainty that stunned. And I didn’t know what else to do but embrace it.”
“And wasn’t it wonderful?”
“No, it truly wasn’t. I dived into cocaine because I could forget what I had become for small periods of time. But never for long enough. And the women, well, I dived into them too, yes, but in the end, when it’s one after the other, it’s a sad, empty exercise. True, seeing their breasts come loose from their shirts and dropping each into its own lovely pattern was, I have to say, glorious. But, frankly, and no offense, Sheena—”
“China. My name’s China.”
“No offense, but all the loose sex with high-priced women was never as good as it sounded. I gave up what I had for what I was getting, and the trade was the worst of my life. Only love lives up to its billing.”
“Oh, please,” said DeLoatch, “you’ll make me puke.”
“And the nights, the dangerous nights with the dangerous men, riding around in their big black cars, meeting and plotting, eating big meals and drinking magnums of champagne and making crude jokes at others’ expense.”
“The best part, if you ask me.”
“I lived it, and hated it, and hated myself as I lived it, and still I felt I deserved every stinking inch of it. As punishment.”
“So what was it, Mr. Scrbacek? What pushed you over the edge?”
“Amber Grace,” said Scrbacek.
“Your big success. It went to your head, of course.”
“No, it wasn’t the success. It was the failure. It was after I pinned the murder of that pimp on Remi Bozant. It was after I reversed her conviction and released her from death row and picked her up in the rain outside the jailhouse when they let her go free. It was after all the interviews on national television and the interviews for the national press. It was after all of that, as I was driving her back into the world. She talked about seeing her daughter again, and starting over, and I said that sounded like a fine idea. And then she turned to me and smiled and said, in the sweetest voice, ‘You know, he had it coming, Mr. Scrbacek. Lucius, I mean. I loved the man, I did, but he hurt me once too often, and I had no choice. I want you to know that. I want you to know that whatever happened, he had it coming.’”
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