by Parnell Hall
34
For once, Sheila Benton was subdued. She was doing her best to keep up a good front, but her perky facade was so transparent Steve Winslow could see right through it. She was really scared.
“Well,” she said, “how bad is it?”
“You want information or reassurance?”
“Information.”
“Well, the way it looks right now, the only way I could make any money on this case would be to bet on the prosecution.”
“That’s not funny.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“The trial really starts tomorrow?”
“Well, not the trial itself. Jury selection will probably take a couple of days. But we have to be in court, if that’s what you mean.”
“Couldn’t you have gotten a continuance?”
“Why would you want one? The longer we stall, the longer you have to stay in jail.”
“I don’t see why you couldn’t have pushed for bail.”
“Well, it probably wouldn’t have done any good. And the thing is, I have a big problem there. See, one of the main points in our defense is that you have no money, and therefore no one could have been blackmailing you. If I pushed for bail, I’d be in the position of arguing that on the one hand, you had enough collateral to post bail, but on the other, not enough to pay blackmail. That would seriously weaken our position.”
“What do you mean ‘our’? I’m the one in jail.”
“This is true. I feel it’s only fair to tell you, if you’d let Uncle Max handle this, Marston, Marston, and Cramden probably could have arranged bail.”
“What? Why?”
“They’re a highly reputable and conservative firm. Their assurances carry weight. Besides, you’d have Uncle Max and his millions behind you. It wouldn’t even be a question of a bail bond, then. Uncle Max would post cash bail for you.”
Sheila bit her lip. “I see.”
“But there’s other reasons for not getting a continuance. I want to rush this thing to trial before the D.A. finds out about your little habit of sticking drugs up your nose.”
Sheila started to protest, but stopped. It just wasn’t in her today. Instead she looked searchingly into his face.
“You don’t like me, do you?” she said.
Steve laughed. “Hey, come on.”
Sheila kept looking at him. “No, it’s true, isn’t it? You don’t like me. You think I’m just a rich bitch. And you don’t like me.”
Sheila looked down. Sighed. Looked up at him again. “Do you know what it’s like to be me? I don’t mean here, now, in jail. I mean me in general. Would you like to know what it’s like to be me?”
Steve felt like saying, “No, but I know you’re dying to tell me,” but realized that would be terribly cruel. He said nothing.
“Well, it’s hard,” Sheila said. “It’s very hard. Rich bitch? Well, I am, but I’m not. When I’m thirty-five I’ll be a rich bitch, but right now I’m not. I have all of the disadvantages, and none of the advantages.
“I’m young, and I’m pretty, and I’m fun, and men like me. They love me. They go nuts about me. But always in the background there’s Uncle Max’s millions, and I can never be sure. Is it me? Do they like me for me?
“And I have no money. None at all. I live like a pauper. I get by. And you know how I get by? Men. I live off men. That’s what Uncle Max has done to me. That’s what he’s reduced me to. If I wanna go out to dinner, I have to find some man to take me. And if I do, I never know if he’s taking me because he likes me, or because he’s trying to hit on me, or because of Max. Is he thinking of spending money on me as a long-term investment? I can never be sure.”
She paused, and a new look came into her eyes, and for a moment Steve wondered what it was. Then he got it. Defensive. She’d had no problem with what she’d said so far, but for what she was about to say she was taking a defensive stand.
“Except for Johnny,” she said. “I love him. We’re in love. I don’t know if you can understand that. But he loves me. Just for me. Not for the money. He doesn’t need the money. He’s young, and brilliant, and he makes all the money he needs. He takes care of me.”
She paused again. Steve said nothing. Waited.
“All right, there’s the coke. I guess I should stop it. All right, I know I should stop it. It’s just that Johnny was so perfect, so right, you know. It didn’t seem that bad. I mean if Johnny did it, how could it be wrong? And I was in love and I went along, and you can’t understand that. To you I’m just a cokehead. As far as you’re concerned, I deserve to be in jail. That’s what you think, isn’t it?”
“What do you care what I think? You don’t like me, anyway.”
Sheila’s body tingled when he said that. It was a strange sensation. Something new. Something unexpected. And something very unsettling. She shivered slightly, and the sensation passed.
“Right,” she said, mustering up some of the old spunk. “I don’t like you and you don’t like me. But we’re stuck with each other, so what the hell are we gonna do now?”
Steve smiled. “We’re gonna go to court.”
Sheila felt another sensation, and this one was entirely unpleasant. Her face lost a little color.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Hey,” Steve said. “It’s not gonna be that bad. What you’re having now is stage fright. Opening-night jitters. When you get in the courtroom you’ll be fine. Just remember, you don’t have to do anything. You just have to be there. I’m the one who’s gonna do all the work. All you have to do is sit there and look innocent.”
“How the hell do you look innocent?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then how the hell am I supposed to do it?”
“All right, then. Just try not to look guilty.”
“Oh, hey,” she said, sarcastically. “Great advice. Thanks. And just what do I do when you put me on the stand?”
Steve took a breath. “Look,” he said. “Let me tell you a little bit about our plan of attack. Right now, our best strategy is to sit back and try to poke holes in the prosecution’s case. There’s bound to be some, and we can find ’em. The money thing, for instance. How could you be blackmailed if you have no money? See what I mean? The prosecution has to prove you guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Always remember that. All we have to do is raise a reasonable doubt.”
Sheila was looking at him suspiciously. “Wait a minute. Are you trying to tell me you’re not going to put me on the stand?”
“All right, look, we have a big problem here. You told your story to the police. And you lied. If you change your story, you have to admit you lied. Unless you have a damn good explanation, that’s suicide, and you don’t have one.
“If you stick with your story, you’re sticking with a lie. And if the D.A. catches you in a lie in front of the jury, you’re done.
“So the answer is no. I can’t afford to put you on the stand.”
“But why not? They can’t prove I wasn’t window-shopping. Why, I can remember every store I went to.”
“I bet you can. Unfortunately, there are other little matters, which you can’t explain.”
“Like what?”
“Your uncle gave you a hundred bucks. How much money did you have when you were arrested?”
“About eleven dollars.”
“Sure, cause you spent the hundred on cocaine. Well, the D.A. is gonna wanna know where that hundred dollars went.”
“Can’t I say I bought something for my apartment?”
“You don’t own anything worth a hundred dollars. That’s just the type of lie I’m talking about. They’d catch you in it right away. They’d want to know what you bought and where, and they’d check the stores for the sales records.”
Sheila bit her lip. She thought a moment. Then she got a gleam in her eye. It was the old fire. The old spunk. Steve was glad to see it.
For a moment.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll say I gave it to you for
a retainer.”
“Whoa! Back up!” Steve said. “Now you’re asking me to commit perjury.”
“Well, why not? You’re a lawyer, aren’t you? If anybody knows how to commit perjury, you ought to.”
“Well forget it. I’m not putting myself on the witness stand. In the first place, it’s questionable ethics for an attorney to testify in behalf of his client, even when he’s telling the truth. In the second place, the jury would never believe me anyway.”
Sheila put on a pout. “All right, be that way. But let me tell you something. If you can’t beat the prosecution’s case, you’ll have to put me on the stand. And when the D.A. asks me what happened to the money, I’m gonna tell him I gave it to you. Then if you try to prove that I didn’t, it’s gonna make you look like one hell of a lawyer, isn’t it?”
Steve looked at her. Sighed. She was back in form, all right.
35
Steve Winslow sat in the barbershop, waiting his turn and thinking about the case. The old man in the chair near the window looked about done. Then a quick clip, and he could get out of there and hunt up a clothing store and buy a suit off the rack- no time for alterations, thank god he was average build-and go home and hit the law books.
The case. The goddamn case. His first, his one and only case. Tomorrow he’d be in court.
Jesus.
Steve thought about what he’d told Sheila Benton. Stage fright. Opening-night jitters. Well, he had ’em all right. God was he nervous.
Nothing to worry about, he told himself. It’s just another play. You’re an actor, and it’s a play. Think of the courtroom as a stage set. That’s all it is. Just a bit of courtroom drama.
Then it hit him. A cold chill ran down his spine. It was a play all right. A play he hadn’t rehearsed. A play in which he didn’t know the lines. The actor’s nightmare come to life.
Steve felt a moment of panic. It was immediately replaced by something else. Anger. Anger at himself. Selfish bastard, he thought. So concerned about how he was going to look, what impression he was going to make in the court. A young girl’s future was at stake. A silly, irresponsible girl, perhaps, but still, one that deserved better. It was his job to defend her, and damn it, he had to be up to the task.
But what a task. To convince twelve people that Sheila Benton didn’t kill Robert Greely. Steve wondered if there were twelve people in all of New York City that didn’t believe Sheila Benton had killed Robert Greely.
There was a pile of old magazines and newspapers on the table next to him. On top was a copy of the New York Post. “BAXTER NIECE INDICTED” screamed the headline. “Baxter niece,” that was the thing. This wasn’t the Sheila Benton case. It wasn’t the Robert Greely case. It was the Baxter case, and the media wasn’t going to let anyone forget it. Maxwell Baxter’s niece killed someone, that was the message the media was putting out loud and clear, and the public was lapping it up. People always loved to see someone big, and rich, and powerful in trouble. An heiress with a multimillion-dollar trust fund killed someone. That’s what everyone believed. Even Mark Taylor. So how the hell was he gonna make anyone think different?
Sitting there in the barber shop, Steve thought back to the first time he’d ever dealt with a lawyer. The first and last time he’d ever been up against one. Steve remembered him well. That smug, oily son of a bitch, smiling and nodding and explaining to the arbitrator at the hearing just through what legal loophole, on what technicality the State of New Jersey would be able to get out of paying the grant money awarded by the Arts Council. Money on the promise of which Steve had organized and performed a tour of children’s theater to the New Jersey public schools. Money that was owed to six actors, including himself, who had subsidized the program themselves by drawing no salary for the three months of the tour, and who were now all hopelessly in debt. Steve had been the one who’d had to argue with the lawyer, since he’d been in charge of the tour and felt responsible. “What about the actors?” he’d argued. “They gave their services on the promise of that money. The work has been performed and has to be paid.”
“On your promise of the money,” the lawyer had answered. “On your mistaken belief that the money would be forthcoming. If you acted in ignorance of the law we can be sorry for you, but we can’t be held accountable.”
Steve had been stymied. He couldn’t argue the case on legal grounds. He couldn’t cite some legal precedent that could have swung the decision. He could only argue the case on what was fair and just. On the grounds that just because a loophole was there didn’t mean the state had to take advantage of it. That the state should feel compelled to do what was right.
The state did not agree.
And Steve had wound up paying off the other five actors himself, in some cases, in spite of their protests.
It had taken him four years.
Later, when he had finally given up all hope of ever making it as an actor, the incident with the Arts Council was not the only reason he decided on law school.
But it sure didn’t hurt.
Steve thought about that now, thought about how he felt standing in that hearing room, listening to the lawyer talk. The feeling of helplessness, the feeling of being totally at sea.
The feeling of being outclassed.
He knew the law now. Or thought he did. But he’d never been in a courtroom before.
He wondered if he’d feel that way tomorrow.
Snap out of it, he told himself. It’s just a play, and the jury is just an audience. A small audience, to be sure, but still an audience. And like any audience, their emotions could be swayed. They could be moved to laughter, to tears, to sympathy, to anger, to regret. It was just a question of dynamics. Whatever the prosecution was doing, do the opposite. Change the pace. Break the mood.
Give them a show.
The old man in the chair by the window got up. The barber snapped the apron, shaking off the hair.
“Next,” he called.
Steve got up and walked over.
“Changed my mind,” he said, and walked out the door.
He flagged a cab and took it home to study, to prepare himself for court. He stayed up till two in the morning, poring over his books. But he didn’t read his law books.
He read his Erie Stanley Gardners.
36
District Attorney Harry Dirkson glanced nervously around the courtroom. It was packed. The defendant and her attorney weren’t even in court yet, but it seemed as if everyone else in New York City was. People were elbowing each other for every inch of available space. It was a zoo. A media circus.
Dirkson was jumpy, and for good reason. Steve Winslow. He hadn’t even met the guy yet. That was unprecedented, at this stage in a murder trial. He’d talked to him on the phone, and the guy had sounded perfectly rational. Too rational. Dirkson smiled, as lines from a movie flitted through his head: “It’s quiet out there. Too quiet.” Right. The settlers in the fort wondering where the Indians are. Funny, but that’s how he felt. This Winslow wasn’t making any waves. Great, but why? What was his game? That was Dirkson’s great fear. The fear of the unknown.
Yeah, Dirkson was scared. Scared enough that he didn’t want to go through with the trial, but he had no choice. This was one case he couldn’t pass off on any assistant D.A. He’d have taken too much flak for it. The press would have crucified him. No, this was one he had to handle himself.
And he needed a conviction. He needed it desperately. But he wasn’t even thinking about that now. His only concern was getting out unscathed. With all the media coverage, with all the publicity focused on this trial, he couldn’t afford to make any mistakes. Above all, he could not let himself appear foolish.
Which could very easily happen in a circus like this. Jesus, he thought, look at the clowns in the audience. Why was it that so many of the people who came to trials turned out to belong to the lunatic fringe? The zanies. The crazies. Jesus, look at that guy coming down the aisle now-some long-haired hippie who’s so stoned out
he thinks it’s still the sixties. Why do they let them in here? Why don’t they screen them out and… Wait a minute. He’s coming through the gate. Why isn’t the bailiff stopping him? Is everyone asleep here? Is no one doing his job? Can’t they see some clown just wandered into- Oh my god.
Steve Winslow walked over to the defense table. So. Sheila Benton wasn’t here yet. But they’d be bringing her out soon. He should sit down. Was this his chair and that hers, or vice versa? He’d never done this before. No, this was his chair on the end, near the middle of the courtroom. He was the one who had to get up and down. She just had to sit there and look innocent. Great advice he’d given her. He wondered if other attorneys had given their clients the same advice. “Try to look innocent.” Words of wisdom.
Steve looked over at the jury box, empty now, but soon to be filled with prospective jurors. And up at the judge’s bench, imposing, regal. And at the witness stand, where he would do battle, where he would have to shine.
Last he looked over at the prosecution table. And there he was. The pudgy, bald man in the custom-tailored suit that was failing to do its job of hiding his excess weight had to be Harry Dirkson. The Dirk himself, as the attorneys at Wilson and Doyle used to refer to him. Jesus, Steve thought. The guy doesn’t look like that much. Can he really deserve his reputation as a demon cross-examiner? As he thought that, Dirkson looked at him and their eyes met. Steve nodded and smiled.
Dirkson stared at him. Oh Jesus, he thought. He’s a clown. A goddamn clown. It’s a circus and he’s the clown, and there goes my political career.
The door at the side of the courtroom opened, and the bailiff ushered in a police officer, a matron and the defendant, Sheila Benton. The bailiff led her to the defense table.
Sheila stopped, stared, then slid into her seat next to Steve.
“Jesus Christ,” she said. “What’s the matter, couldn’t you afford a suit?”
“Shhh. Don’t worry about it.”
“How the hell do you expect to make an impression on the jury dressed like that?”