Compelling Evidence m-1

by Steve Martini

Acosta’s impatience grows and finally he stares openly at Gibbs. “Did you come here for a purpose, counsel, or are we assembled for your entertainment?”

  Gibbs begins to stutter. “Y-Your Honor. The lady was running a bordello out of her apartment. She was caught soliciting payment for sexual intercourse on behalf of another hooker,” he says.

  In fact, this is a gross exaggeration, which I protest to Acosta. Hawley shared an apartment with another woman. She paid the rent and the telephone bills while her co-tenant bought the groceries and paid for the remainder of the utilities. The fact that the phone was in Hawley’s name and was used for incoming calls to hire dates for both women forms the basis for charges that she was pimping for the other woman. I put on the facts like a suit of clothes and verbally pound the table. It’s an explanation that seems to fit well, to the discerning eye of Armando Acosta. He has never been one much for the finer intricacies of the law.

  Acosta’s now shuffling papers on his desk. He speaks in a staccato with a faint Mexican accent, not the intonations of street Spanish, but elegant and precise, as if the next phrase from his lips will hawk the rich qualities of “Corinthian leather.” It is an articulation that, like the judicial bearing, has been learned, for despite his Hispanic surname Acosta does not speak the language. The affected inflections of voice are just another concession to the politics of demography in a state with a rapidly rising Latino population. I have heard the poverty lawyers-the young Hispanics on their steeds tilting at the bastions of the establishment, the ones working for La Raza and the Mexican-American Defense Fund. In their circle, Acosta is known as the “Castilian Coconut,” brown and fuzzy on the outside, but white as driven snow at the core. He worships regularly at the altar of affirmative action, but anyone even vaguely familiar with the jurist knows that he has more in common with the Anglos on the board of directors of the Del Prado Country Club with whom he serves than with the brown grounds-keepers who rake its sand traps and mow its manicured greens.

  But for the moment Acosta is a good judge, of sound discretion. He sides with me.

  He stares at the DA. “Is this true, counsel? Are you trying to leverage this case to a felony, for purposes of plea bargaining? Because if that’s what’s going on here, this court will not countenance it.”

  “No, Your Honor.” Gibbs’s denial is hollow.

  There’s a momentary vacuum as Acosta waits for a further reply. Finally the void is filled, but not by Gibbs. It’s a gravelly voice to the far side of the prosecutor. “Not exactly, Your Honor.” Lama has waded in. “We’re just askin’ for her cooperation,” he says.

  This is a little dance that we’ve been doing now for nearly two months-Lama, Gibbs, and I. It seems that my client is part of a larger group-ladies of the night who franchise their services to lobbyists and others who use the women to influence votes and other public actions. Lama wants their client list. Harry has dubbed mat list “the boink book.” The police have been conducting a white-collar-crime investigation, and the list of clients has become pivotal.

  “She wants our consideration,” says Lama, “me lady’s gotta lay down and roll over.”

  “Excuse me?” says Acosta.

  “Feed us some of the bigger fish,” says Lama.

  “Oh,” says the judge.

  “What the officer’s trying to say,” says Gibbs, “is that the defendant is a key witness. She knows the identities of significant public officials who have partaken of her services in return for votes and other official acts.”

  “So we’re talking bribery?” says Acosta.

  “In a big way.” Lama’s nodding now as if the judge has finally caught on.

  “What would you have me do, officer, package the lady for felony trial just so that you can squeeze her a little, based on this-your bald allegations?” Acosta has a look of wonderment on his face.

  “In a word, yes.” It is Lama at his deadpan best.

  “Your Honor, all we want is her cooperation.” Gibbs tries to put a face on it, tries to silence Lama before he can do more damage.

  “We are prepared to allow her to enter a plea to a single misdemeanor charge of prostitution, in return for her testimony.”

  “I don’t like this,” I say. “If the state has evidence of my client’s complicity in other crimes, I have a right to see it, Your Honor.”

  “You don’t have a right to anything, counsel,” Lama shoots from the lip. “This information is confidential. It’s got nothing to do with the prosecution of your client.”

  “Well, excuse me,” I say, “but I’d like something besides your word for that.”

  Verbally we have stepped around Acosta. I’m now toe to toe with Lama, my words directed down the line past Gibbs, who sits fidgeting in his chair, flustered by the eroding decorum.

  I ask Lama what he’s doing here. I note that he did not make the arrest on my client. “I didn’t know that the police department was acting as a mouthpiece for the DA these days.”

  Gibbs is stung by the remark. He looks at me, an injured expression. Lama begins to rise from his chair.

  “Enough, gentlemen-enough.” Acosta passes his hand over the desk like a prophet trying to calm the waters.

  “My client’s not copping a plea, and she’s certainly not testifying until I know more.”

  Here the Coconut finally takes note of my presence. “Of course, of course, Mr. Madriani is correct.” He smiles. I have given him a way to bring this thing to a head. “If you have a deal, you must, of course, offer it through counsel.”

  “All we want are some names,” says Gibbs. “A little cooperation.”

  “The court can’t give you that, only my client can.” Gibbs has opened the door a crack, and my foot is in it.

  “We can subpoena her.” Lama wallows about like a water buffalo in the mud.

  “And she can take the Fifth,” I say. “You can’t compel her to testify if that testimony will incriminate her-and the last time I looked, it took two to commit an act of prostitution-or bribery.”

  Acosta is growing restive, distracted by something else, some other, deeper concern. I can read it in his eyes, which have wandered from us.

  “Perhaps I should bring my client in here, and we can see if she’s willing to testify, and if so under what conditions.”

  Like an ammonia capsule, my suggestion delivers the Coconut from his comatose state. “No, no, we do not have time for that. I have a crowded docket today.” His hands flail the air, palms out in protest. “Besides, I have learned from long experience that it is best to separate clients and their emotions from the details of plea bargaining and settlement negotiations.”

  It is as I suspected: Susan Hawley has been a busy woman.

  I play me final trump card. “Well, I think it’s only fair to explain that my client has given me precise instructions not to accept any offer short of an outright dismissal of all charges. I believe that in return for such an offer she might be persuaded to testify.”

  “Bullshit.” Lama’s on his feet.

  “Maybe. But unless she gets it, you don’t have a witness.”

  “Listen …” He begins to move around Gibbs.

  “Officer, sit down.” Acosta’s in no mood for a brawl. His baritone voice echoes off the walls. “I think we’re going to have to continue this matter on another date.”

  Acosta tells Gibbs to start thinking about immunity for my client. He says that with the crowded court calendar this is not something he wants to see tried in his court. Lama’s fuming. But the Coconut is tired of humoring him. There’s some haggling over calendar conflicts. We settle on a date three weeks off. It’s the first line of defense in any criminal case-delay. I waive time. At this point the last thing Susan Hawley needs is a speedy trial.

  “Counsel!”-Acosta looks at me-“I don’t think there will be any need for you to bring your client to court when we next convene on this matter. There’s no reason to inflict any unnecessary inconvenience.”

  “Certainly,
if the court pleases-and there’s no objection from the prosecution.” I look at Gibbs, whose mouth is about to open.

  “Well, the court pleases,” says Acosta, “and there is no objection from the prosecution.” Gibbs’s jaw slacks, his lines usurped by the court. As we rise to leave, Armando Acosta leans back in his chair and arches his spine, an expression of relief etched on his face. I suspect it isn’t the first time Susan Hawley has had this judge by the balls, though the last was unquestionably in more private and provocative surroundings. It would appear that her expectations of dismissal are not idle thoughts after all.

  CHAPTER 6

  In the days following Ben’s death, my mind has been playing tag with thoughts of recrimination, of my role in his misery with Talia. The funeral is now past, part of yesterday’s news. Alone in my office I study a copy of the Trib, which lies on my desk next to a tall glass of bourbon. I look at the three-column photo above the fold.

  Talia was, I think, at least in that moment when light hit Mr. Kodak’s emulsion, heavily into appearances. She has made the front page. Her face shrouded by black lace, her mourning suit by Armani, she is the chic picture of stoic sorrow. She stands three steps up on the cathedral stairs for the world to see, head held erect, a slight breeze ruffling the lace about her face. All that is missing is the toddler at her knee dressed in long coat; saluting the coffin. Under the picture a bold lead for the cutline: WIDOW GRIEVES. Talia knows how to set a scene.

  I sip my drink and remember our last meeting. A dim hotel room across the river, ensconced in a once posh tennis resort now turned to seed.

  I rolled to her side of the bed and felt the cold wetness of my own passions, a small portion of which had pooled in the creases of the sheets beneath where her loins had rested.

  She moved about the room a picture of indolent calm, gathering wisps of lacy underthings. Silence seemed Talia’s special refuge after passion.

  In my own time I came to understand that Talia was an innocent, in the way that rich men’s daughters are often innocent, as if they are somehow immune to the usual social conventions. In the months that we met, following my separation from Nikki, whenever we registered at a hotel I huddled under a broad-brimmed hat behind the heavy collar of a long coat in the winter or oversized dark glasses that concealed a good part of my face in the heat of summer. I used more aliases than there are characters in a Tolstoy novel.

  But with Talia, what you saw is what you got. To my chagrin she was soon on a first-name basis with the clerks at the myriad of no-tell motels and roadside hostelries we frequented. To her, discretion was a word without meaning.

  “How’s Nikki?” she asked. “And your daughter. How’s Sarah?”

  “We agreed not to talk about them, remember?”

  “She’s so cute.”

  Talia’s interest and concern were genuine. She had helped me on two occasions make support when my take from the firm, my bonus after salary, was a little light. These were short-term loans, which at the time I attributed to our relationship. Now, in retrospect, I wonder whether they were so much for my benefit as Sarah’s, for Talia possesses the universal maternal instinct. She lacks all capacity to harm small animals and children.

  “They’re fine,” I said.

  She turned and noticed that I was staring wide-eyed at her from the bed. “A penny for your thoughts,” she said.

  “Is that all they’re worth?”

  “Won’t know “til I hear them.”

  She was standing at the foot of the bed, a sheer teddy gracing her body, facing away from me, gazing into the mirror as she arranged her hair, long brunette locks in a mock bun high on her head. Her left foot was raised-resting on the low stool in front of the vanity, the muscles of her thigh flexed in an athletic pose. The filigree of lace trimming the right leg was cut high on the hip and pulled into the crack of her buttocks. Her stance revealed the erotic and distinct crease separating her thigh from the gentle hillock of her ass. I remember the surge of desire. That is how it was, always, with Talia-instant arousal. Moments after spending every ounce of my manhood locked in her embrace my eyes were again drawn to her long legs and tapered waist, the delicate wisps of hair at the nape of her neck.

  “Well?” she said. She was waiting for some deep revelation, some mirror into my inner being.

  “You really want to know what I’m thinking?”

  “I do,” she said.

  “I’m thinking about jumping you one more time before you can get out of this room.” I strove for a little wickedness in my smile-a touch of Jack Nicholson captured in the squint of my eyes. Watching her there in the dim shadows of that room, I was a bundle of lust.

  She giggled. “Sorry, can’t. Have to meet Benjamin.” Talia insisted on using his full Christian name in their social circle. It was, at first, one of those things they cooed over in public. But as with so many older men with younger women, it had begun to go sour and now rubbed like a burr under his saddle whenever she called him by name.

  “He called me this morning before I left the office. Some dark, brooding secret,” she said, her eyebrows arched in mock suspense.

  There was an instant knot in my stomach, the kind that accompanies dark prophecies. “What did he want?” I ask.

  “Who knows? You know Benjamin. If he’s of a mind, he can breathe intrigue into last week’s grocery list.”

  “Maybe we should discuss a little business,” I said. “These are supposed to be business meetings.”

  But instead of concern, I drew indifference from Talia.

  “You do remember? Business?” I said. “What if he asks what we’ve been doing twice a week for the past four months? Wants to know why we haven’t finished putting the limited partnership together?”

  In his own way, Ben had cast the die that led to this thing between Talia and me. He felt that she needed a little legal talent to lead her through the morass of fine print in a couple of real estate transactions. I knew little enough about real estate. But the duty fell to the junior associate, Ben’s trusted protege. Talia held a real estate broker’s license, but Ben made the deals, fed her the commercial clients that kept her in business, that allowed her to buy her own pearls and run the Mercedes through a corporation that Ben had set up in her name.

  “Don’t be so uptight. Lighten up. Remember,” she said, “you are getting paid by the hour.” Then she laughed.

  It fed some prurient fantasy in Talia, in the shell game that was Potter’s system of accounting for my time with her, that at least on the books I was pulling down $175 an hour. In one of my less satisfying performances when I peaked too early, when passion erupted a little too quickly, she sat frustrated at the edge of the bed, turned, looked at me: “You oughta be ashamed,” she said, “billing in minimum increments of every six minutes.”

  But on that day, as I lay in the bed watching her dress, Ben’s furtive meeting with Talia had my full attention. I was not going to be put off.

  “What are you gonna tell him if he asks?” I persisted.

  The vision of this woman in that moment is fixed in my mind like a cast bronze. She stood there with this vacant stare. I knew it-she had nothing prepared. Great, I thought, if Ben hits her with a question she’s gonna wing it. After what seemed like an eternity, she looked at me, winked, and said: “I’ve got it. I’ll just tell ’im what you lawyers always say when you sell a piece of property. I’ll tell him I was busy ‘conveying a little fee tail.’ “ She bent at the waist, her back arched, flattening her hands on the stool, and gazed lustfully at me over her shoulder and hitched the tight globes of her buttocks in a pert wiggle for my benefit-and then did that schoolgirl giggle she does so well.

  In her words and antics there was a distinct fragrance. I could not place it at the time, but in retrospect I can now identify it with clear precision. It was the aroma of my career going up in smoke.

  It was one of Talia’s less endearing qualities, her unquenchable penchant to face life and all of its drama with un
faltering whimsy. She could never fathom that I am of that vast generation for whom the drug of choice is now Maalox.

  “This is serious,” I say. “What are you going to tell Ben?”

  She had straightened up, arching her back, the fingers of one hand feathering the fringe of lace at the crease of her thigh. My nether-part was at full attention, under the sheet.

  “You know, you really are an ‘A’ type,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “An ‘A’ type personality. A lot of undirected hostility, purposeless time urgency-the whole nine yards.” She’d been gathering jargon like kindling from her analyst again.

  “You weren’t complaining five minutes ago.”

  She turned, looked at me, and smiled. “Can I help it if I like a good, compulsive fuck?” She didn’t laugh, for there was some truth to this, but she did show a lot of flashing teeth-even pearls of whiteness against her country-club tan.

  In the months that I had known her, she carried me to a level of erotic excitement that I, in the early throes of middle age, had never before experienced. Dealing with Talia was a sojourn, which I am now convinced I will never again experience-one of those periods of your life that in later years you replay in your mind like the movies of your childhood.

  Without warning she was on her hands and knees at the end of the bed, crawling toward me, the scissoring, slender, bronze globes of her behind, the crack ruffled by lace, reflected through muted light in the mirror behind her.

  She looked at me-large, round, dark eyes-and giggled. Then without warning her head sank beneath the sheets-toward my rising prominence, toward the art of persuasion that surpasses all reason.

  CHAPTER 7

  On my way to the University Club I pass Saint Ann’s, the place of Ben’s funeral. It’s a Greco-Roman edifice that in any other setting might inspire respect if not awe. Here it is merely an architectural redundancy, dwarfed by the copper-domed state capitol with its white cupola and golden sphere scarcely a block to the south. I set a brisk pace along the mall, which on this noon crawls with busy bureaucrats, scurrying secretaries, and loquacious lobbyists all moving like maggots on the remains of some half-devoured meal.