by Nora Roberts
shifted again.
James P. Slagerman sat at the defense table. He was thirty-two, dashingly blond and handsome in a dark suit and tie. He looked precisely like what he claimed he was, a young executive. His escort service was perfectly legitimate. He paid his taxes, contributed to charity and belonged to the Jaycees.
It would be Deborah’s primary job to convince the jury that he was no different from a street pimp, taking his cut from the sale of a woman’s body. Until she did that, she had no hope of convicting him on assault.
As the bailiff announced the judge, the courtroom rose.
Deborah kept her opening statement brief, working the jury, dispensing facts. She didn’t attempt to dazzle them. She was already aware that this was the defense counsel’s style. Instead, she would underplay, drawing their attention with the contrast of simplicity.
She began her direct examination by calling the doctor who had attended Marjorie Lovitz. With a few brief questions she established the extent of Marjorie’s injuries on the night she and Suzanne McRoy had been brought into Emergency. She wanted the jury to hear of the broken jaw, the blackened eyes, the cracked ribs, even before she entered the photographs taken of the women that night into evidence.
She picked her way slowly, carefully through the technicalities, doctors, ambulance attendants, uniformed cops, social workers. She weathered her opponent’s parries. By the noon recess, she had laid her groundwork.
She hustled Marjorie and Suzanne into a cab and took them across town for lunch and a last briefing.
“Do I have to go on the stand today, Miss O’Roarke?” Marjorie fidgeted in her seat and ate nothing. Though her bruises had faded over the weeks since the beating, her jaw still tended to ache. “Maybe what the doctors and all said was enough, and Suzanne and I won’t have to testify.”
“Marjorie.” She laid a hand over the girl’s and found it ice-cold and trembly. “They’ll listen to the doctors, and they’ll look at the pictures. They’ll believe you and Suzanne were beaten. But it’s you, both of you, who will convince them that Slagerman was the one who did it, that he is not the nice young businessman he pretends to be. Without you, he’ll walk away and do it again.”
Suzanne bit her lip. “Jimmy says he’s going to get off anyway. That people will know we’re whores, even though you helped us get regular jobs. He says when it’s over he’s going to find us, and hurt us real bad.”
“When did he say that?”
“He called last night.” Marjorie’s eyes filled with tears. “He found out where we’re living and he called. He said he was going to mess us up.” She wiped at a tear with the heel of her hand. “He said he was going to make us wish we’d never started this. I don’t want him to hurt me again.”
“He won’t. I can’t help you unless you help me. Unless you trust me.”
For the next hour, she talked, soothing, bullying, cajoling and promising. At two o’clock, both frightened women were back in court.
“The State calls Marjorie Lovitz,” Deborah announced, and flicked a cool glance at Slagerman.
Gage slipped into the courtroom just as she called her first witness for the afternoon session. He’d had to cancel two meetings in order to be there. The need to see her had been a great deal stronger than the need to hear quarterly reports. It had been, Gage admitted, stronger than any need he had ever experienced.
For three days he’d kept his distance. Three very long days.
Life was often a chess match, he thought. And you took what time you needed to work out your next move. He chose a seat in the rear of the courtroom and settled back to watch her work.
“How old are you, Marjorie?” Deborah asked.
“Twenty-one.”
“Have you always lived in Urbana?”
“No, I grew up in Pennsylvania.”
With a few casual questions, she helped Marjorie paint a picture of her background, the poverty, the unhappiness, the parental abuse.
“When did you come to the city?”
“About four years ago.”
“When you were seventeen. Why did you come?”
“I wanted to be an actress. That sounds pretty dumb, but I used to be in plays in school. I thought it would be easy.”
“Was it?”
“No. No, it was hard. Real hard. Most of the time I didn’t even get to audition, you know? And I ran out of money. I got a job waiting tables part-time, but it wasn’t enough. They turned off the heat, and the lights.”
“Did you ever think of going home?”
“I couldn’t. My mother said if I took off, then she was done with me. And I guess I thought, I still thought I could do okay, if I just got a break.”
“Did you get one?”
“I thought I did. This guy came into the grill where I worked. We got kind of friendly, talking, you know. I told him how I was an actress. He said he’d known it as soon as he’d seen me, and what was I doing working in a dump like that when I was so pretty, and so talented. He told me he knew lots of people, and that if I came to work for him, he’d introduce me. He gave me a business card and everything.”
“Is the man you met that night in the courtroom, Marjorie?”
“Sure, it was Jimmy.” She looked down quickly at her twisting fingers. “Jimmy Slagerman,”
“Did you go to work for him?”
“Yeah. I went the next day to his offices. He had a whole suite, all these desks and phones and leather chairs. A real nice place, uptown. He called it Elegant Escorts. He said I could make a hundred dollars a night just by going to dinner and parties with these businessmen. He even bought me clothes, pretty clothes, and had my hair done and everything.”
“And for this hundred dollars a night, all you had to do was go to dinner or parties?”
“That’s what he told me, at first.”
“And did that change?”
“After a while … he took me out to nice restaurants and places. Dress rehearsals, he called them. He bought me flowers and …”
“Did you have sex with him?”
“Objection. Irrelevant.”
“Your Honor, the witness’s relationship, her physical relationship with the defendant, is very relevant.”
“Overruled. You’ll answer the question, Miss Lovitz.”
“Yes. I went to bed with him. He treated me so nice. After, he gave me money—for the bills, he said.”
“And you accepted it?”
“Yes. I guess I knew what was going on. I knew, but I pretended I didn’t. A few days later, he told me he had a customer for me. He said I was to dress up real nice, and go out to dinner with this man from D.C.”
“What instructions were you given by Mr. Slagerman?”
“He said, ‘Marjorie, you’re going to have to earn that hundred dollars.’ I said I knew that, and he told me I was going to have to be real nice to this guy. I said I would.”
“Did Mr. Slagerman define ‘nice’ for you, Marjorie?”
She hesitated, then looked down at her hands again. “He said I was to do whatever I was told. That if the guy wanted me to go back to his hotel after, I had to go or I wouldn’t get my money. It was all acting, he said. I acted like I enjoyed the guy’s company, like I was attracted to him, and I acted like I had a great time in bed with him.”
“Did Mr. Slagerman specifically tell you that you would be required to have sex with this customer?”
“He said it was part of the job, the same as smiling at bad jokes. And if I was good at it, he’d introduce me to this director he knew.”
“And you agreed?”
“He made it sound okay. Yes.”
“And were there other occasions when you agreed to exchange sex for money in your capacity as an escort for Mr. Slagerman’s firm?”
“Objection.”
“I’ll rephrase.” She flicked a glance at the jury. “Did you continue in Mr. Slagerman’s employ?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“For how long?”
>
“Three years.”
“And were you satisfied with the arrangement?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if you were satisfied?”
“I got used to the money,” Marjorie said, painfully honest. “And after a while you get so you can forget what you’re doing, if you think about something else when it’s going on.”
“And was Mr. Slagerman happy with you?”
“Sometimes.” Fearful, she looked up at the judge. “Sometimes he’d get real mad, at me or one of the other girls.”
“There were other girls?”
“About a dozen, sometimes more.”
“And what did he do when he got mad?”
“He’d smack you around.”
“You mean he’d hit you?”
“He’d just go crazy and—”
“Objection.”
“Sustained.”
“Did he ever strike you, Marjorie?”
“Yes.”
Deborah let the simplicity of the answer hang over the jury. “Will you tell me the events that took place on the night of February 25 of this year?”
As she’d been instructed, Marjorie kept her eyes on Deborah and didn’t let them waver back to Slagerman. “I had a job, but I got sick. The flu or something. I had a fever and my stomach was really upset. I couldn’t keep anything down. Suzanne came over to take care of me.”
“Suzanne?”
“Suzanne McRoy. She worked for Jimmy, too, and we got to be friends. I just couldn’t get up and go to work, so Suzanne called Jimmy to tell him.” Her hands began to twist in her lap. “I could hear her arguing with him over the phone, telling him I was sick. Suzanne said he could come over and see for himself if he didn’t believe her.”
“And did he come over?”
“Yes.” The tears started, big silent drops that cruised down her cheeks. “He was really mad. He was yelling at Suzanne, and she was yelling back, telling him I was really sick, that I had a fever, like a hundred and two. He said—” She licked her lips. “He said we were both lazy, lying sluts. I heard something crash and she was crying. I got up, but I was dizzy.” She rubbed the heel of her hands under her eyes, smearing mascara. “He came into the bedroom. He knocked me down.”
“You mean he bumped into you?”
“No, he knocked me down. Backhanded me, you know?”
“Yes. Go on.”
“Then he told me to get my butt up and get dressed. He said the customer had asked for me, I was going to do it. He said all I had to do was lie on my back and close my eyes anyway.” She fumbled for a tissue, blew her nose. “I told him I was sick, that I couldn’t do it. He was yelling and throwing things. Then he said he’d show me how it felt to be sick. And he started hitting me.”
“Where did he hit you?”
“Everywhere. In the face, in the stomach. Mostly my face. He just wouldn’t stop.”
“Did you call for help?”
“I couldn’t. I couldn’t hardly breathe.”
“Did you try to defend yourself?”
“I tried to crawl away, but he kept coming after me, kept hitting me. I passed out. When I woke up, Suzanne was there, and her face was all bloody. She called an ambulance.”
Gently Deborah continued to question. When she took her seat at the prosecutor’s table, she prayed that Marjorie would hold up under cross-examination.
After almost three hours on the witness stand, Marjorie was pale and shaky. Despite the defense counselor’s attempt to destroy her character, she stepped down looking young and vulnerable.
And it was that picture, Deborah thought with satisfaction, that would remain in the jury’s mind.
***
“Excellent job, Counselor.”
Deborah turned her head and, with twin pricks of annoyance and pleasure, glanced up at Gage. “What are you doing here?”
“Watching you work. If I ever need a lawyer …”
“I’m a prosecutor, remember?”
He smiled. “Then I’ll just have to make sure I don’t get caught breaking the law.” When she stood, he took her hand. A casual gesture, even a friendly one. She couldn’t have said why it seemed so possessive. “Can I offer you a lift? Dinner, dessert? A quiet evening?”
And she’d said he wouldn’t tempt her again. Fat chance. “I’m sorry, I have something to do.”
Tilting his head, he studied her. “I think you mean it.”
“I do have work.”
“No, I mean that you’re sorry.”
His eyes were so deep, so warm, she nearly sighed. “Against my better judgment, I am.” She started out of the courtroom into the hall.
“Just the lift, then.”
She sent him a quick, exasperated look over her shoulder. “Didn’t I tell you once how I felt about persistent men?”
“Yes, but you had dinner with me anyway,”
She had to laugh. After all the tense hours in court, it was a relief. “Well, since my car’s in the shop, I could use a lift.”
He stepped into the elevator with her. “It’s a tough case you’ve taken on here. And a reputation maker.”
Her eyes cooled. “Really?”
“You’re getting national press.”
“I don’t take cases for clippings.” Her voice was as frigid as her eyes.
“If you’re going to be in for the long haul, you’ll have to develop a thicker skin.”
“My skin’s just fine, thanks.”
“I noticed.” Relaxed, he leaned back against the wall. “I think anyone who knows you realizes the press is a by-product, not the purpose. You’re making a point here, that no one, no matter who or what they are, should be victimized. I hope you win.”
She wondered why it unnerved her that he understood precisely what she was reaching for. “I will win.”
She stepped out of the elevator into the marble lobby.
“I like your hair that way,” he commented, pleased to see he’d thrown her off. “Very cool, very competent. How many pins would I have to pull out to have it fall loose?”
“I don’t think that’s—”
“Relevant?” he supplied. “It is to me. Everything about you is, since I don’t seem to be able to stop thinking about you.”
She kept walking quickly. It was typical, she imagined, that he would say such things to a woman in a lobby swarming with people—and make her feel as though they were completely alone. “I’m sure you’ve managed to keep busy. I noticed a picture of you in this morning’s paper—there was a blonde attached to your arm. Candidate Tarrington’s dinner party.” She set her teeth when he kept smiling. “You switch your allegiances quickly, politically speaking.”
“I have no allegiances, politically speaking. I was interested to hear what Fields’s opposition had to say. I was impressed.”
She remembered the lush blonde in the skinny black dress. “I bet.”
This time he grinned. “I’m sorry you weren’t there.”
“I told you before I don’t intend to be part of a horde.” At the wide glass doors, she stopped, braced. “Speaking of hordes.” Head up, she walked into the crowd of reporters waiting on the courthouse steps.
They fired questions. She fired answers. Still, as annoyed as she was with him, she was grateful to see Gage’s big black limo with its hulk of a driver waiting at the curb.
“Mr. Guthrie, what’s your interest in this case?”
“I enjoy watching justice at work.”
“You enjoy watching gorgeous D.A.s at work.” Wisner pushed his way through his associates to shove a recorder into Gage’s face. “Come on, Guthrie, what’s happening between you and Darling Deb?”
Hearing her low snarl, Gage put a warning hand on Deborah’s arm and turned to the reporter. “I know you, don’t I?”
Wisner smirked. “Sure. We ran into each other plenty in those bad old days when you worked for the city instead of owning it.”
“Yeah. Wisner.” He summed the m
an up with one quick, careless look. “Maybe my memory’s faulty, but I don’t recall you being as big a jerk then as you are now.” He bundled a chuckling Deborah into the limo.
“Nicely done,” she said.
“I’ll have to consider buying the World, just to have the pleasure of firing him.”
“I have to admire the way you think.” With a sigh, she slipped out of her shoes and shut her tired eyes. She could get used to traveling this way, she thought. Big cushy seats and Mozart playing softly on the speakers. A pity it wasn’t reality. “My feet are killing me. I’m going to have to buy a pedometer to see how many miles I put in during an average day in court.”
“Will you come home with me if I promise you a foot massage?”
She opened one eye. He’d be good at it, she thought. At massaging a woman’s foot—or anything else that happened to ache. “No.” She shut her eye again. “I have to get back to my office. And I’m sure there are plenty of other feet you can rub.”
Gage opened the glass long enough to give Frank their destination. “Is that what concerns you? The other … feet in my life?”
She hated the fact that it did. “They’re your business.”
“I like yours. Your feet, your legs, your face. And everything in between.”
She ignored, tried to ignore, the quick frisson of response. “Do you always try to seduce women in the back of limos?”
“Would you prefer someplace else?”
She opened both eyes. Some things, she thought, were better handled face-to-face. “Gage, I’ve done some thinking about this situation.”
His mouth curved charmingly. “Situation?”
“Yes.” She didn’t choose to call it a relationship. “I’m not going to pretend I’m not attracted to you, or that I’m not flattered you seem to be attracted to me. But—”
“But?” He picked up her hand, rubbed his lips over her knuckles. The skin there smelled as fresh and clear as rainwater.
“Don’t.” Her breath caught when he turned her hand over to press a slow, warm kiss in the palm. “Don’t do that.”
“I love it when you’re cool and logical, Deborah. It makes me crazy to see how quickly I can make you heat up.” He brushed his lips over her wrist and felt the fast thud of her pulse. “You were saying?”
Was she? What woman could be cool and logical when he was looking at her?