Solomon Vs. Lord Part 31

"Who says?"

"You jog. You Rollerblade. You play volleyball at the topless beach."

"That's my rehab."

Steve was ready to roll Harry Sachs out of his office, but instead said: "These lap dances you get-"

"Used to get."

"You ever kiss the girls?"

"You crazy? I don't even kiss my wife."

Twenty-six.

THE l.u.s.t FACTOR.

Harry was gone. The office was quiet, except for the steel band across the alley, playing some sort of conga that seemed to use hand grenades instead of tambourines. Victoria was still AWOL. If she didn't show up in five minutes, Steve would . . .

What? What will you do, smart guy?

Call the police, the hospitals, the Bigster?

Calm down. She's fine. You're just being neurotic.

Then his mood shifted east to west, like squalls in a thunderstorm. He sensed something positive might be in the air. She might be sitting under a palm tree on the beach, writing a Dear Bruce letter.

"I've met someone else. I hope you'll understand. We can always be friends. And by the way, I hate avocados."

Cheered by that thought, he leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head, feet propped on his desk, eyes closed. Wearing nothing but his Speedos, he was at the wheel of a sailboat on a turquoise sea. Victoria appeared on deck in one of her herringbone trial suits. Leaning against the mast, her hair tossed by the wind, she peeled off her outfit, piece by piece, revealing a black thong bikini. Speedo Steve approached, placed a hand on her bare, sun-warmed hip. They kissed, long and slow, with acres of bare skin against bare skin, and this time, she did not pull away. He tasted her moist lips, listened to the wind fill the sail, felt the bulge in his Speedos. He could hear Bob Marley and the Wailers singing "Waiting in Vain."

A moment later, Steve was vaguely aware that he was the one singing: "I don't wanna wait in vain for your love."

"Oh, Jesus," Victoria said. Not the bikinied Victoria on the sailboat. The real model, cloaked in a charcoal gray, tweedy pantsuit, carrying her briefcase and a cup of coffee into the office. "Auditioning for American Idol?"

"There you are," Steve said, trying to recover his dignity.

"Sorry I'm late."

"No problem." He checked her body language. Spine straight, jaw set, no eye contact. In trial lawyer's lore, if the jury refuses to look you in the eye, they've ruled against you. Along with most such fables, he told himself, it's right half the time.

He vowed to stick to business, not even mention THE KISS. Let her bring it up. Maybe the initial shock and denial had worn off.

Sooner or later, she's gotta break down, gotta admit it was a pulse-pounding moment.

She moved quickly to her desk. Outside the window, the steel band was banging out a Caribbean tune that should have been called "Carnivale Migraine."

"We need to see Katrina today," Steve said, in his most professional tone.

Any second now, she's gonna come over here, jump my bones.

"I was going to work on jury instructions," she said.

"This is more important. Kiss off the instructions for now."

Did I really say, "kiss off"?

She didn't seem to notice. He told her Bobby's theory that Katrina bought the dive watch for a man other than her husband, a thick-wristed, scuba-diving guy who, in Steve's opinion, probably did not require latex d.i.l.d.os and leather restraints to become aroused. Listening, she chewed on a pencil. To Steve, at this moment, she was so naturally beautiful and innocently seductive as to be-what's the word he was searching for?-bewitching. In that same instant, he realized that "bewitching" was a word that had never before worked its way into his brain.

Jeez, I'm starting to sound like a perfume commercial.

"So you're going to ask Kat about the watch?" Victoria said.

Steve shook his head. "I don't want her thinking we've lost faith in her. If she really bought the watch for Charles, it'll still be in the house."

"What are you going to do, ransack the master bedroom?"

"Yep. While you're talking to her downstairs."

"You're not serious!"

"If the watch isn't there, we'll confront her. If it is there, no harm done."

"Invading a client's privacy. This one of Solomon's Laws?"

"Then, when we get back, we need to work on our exhibit list."

"I hope you're leaving off the security video."

"Why would I? It backs Katrina's story."

"How many times did you watch it?"

"Once."

"You watch some old football game half a dozen times on the cla.s.sics channel, but a murder scene video only once."

"Accident scene," he corrected her.

"Has Pincher filed his exhibit list?"

"Not yet."

What was she getting at? Both state and defense had gotten the tapes from the home security system. The house had been wired with hidden cameras. None in the bedrooms, so no p.o.r.n shots of trussed-up Charlie Barksdale with Katrina riding him, cowgirl style. But a camera was fitted into a picture frame in the corridor just outside the master suite. With the door open, the wide-angle lens had caught a sliver of the wet-bar area, maybe twenty feet from the bed. Steve remembered everything on the tape; there wasn't that much. At 11:37 P.M., according to graphics on the screen, Katrina walked into the frame. She was wearing black leather chaps, crotchless panties, and a laced corset with openings in the bra for her peekaboo nipples. Her Sunday church outfit, no doubt.

As Katrina poured herself a drink, she suddenly turned and headed back toward Charlie. Even though the bed was out of camera range, Steve could argue to the jury that what could be seen corroborated Katrina's story: Standing at the bar, she heard Charlie in distress and ran to him. She tried to loosen the leather collar, but it was too late.

"So what's the problem with the video?" he asked.

Victoria dug into her briefcase, came out with the tape, and slipped it into the VCR on the bookshelf. "Did you watch it in slo-mo?"

"No slo-mo. No instant replay. No Telestrator. So what?"

She turned on the VCR and the TV, and the grainy black-and-white video came on. Thirty seconds of nothing but an empty corridor with a gray granite bar visible in a corner of the room. Then Katrina sashays into the frame. If there'd been audio, Steve figured, he could have heard her leather chaps rustling. She pours what looks like vodka into a gla.s.s. Suddenly-well, not that suddenly in slo-mo-her head whips back toward the bed. Steve knew what came next, but now he saw something he hadn't seen before. Just a split second before hurrying to the bed, Katrina's eyes flicked toward the corridor.

Victoria froze the frame. "What's she looking at? Who's in the corridor?"

"No one."

"Keep looking. Against the wall."

"What?"

"Don't you see the shadow?"

Steve blinked twice. There was a shaded area on the wall. Or was there? With the frame frozen, the screen pulsated, maybe creating an optical illusion. "It could be the pattern of the wallpaper. Or a trick of the lighting. Or just something the camera lens does."

"I see the outline of a person," Victoria said.

"And some people see the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich."

Victoria hit the PLAY b.u.t.ton. The shadow, if that's what it was, seemed to fade away.

"We could take the tape to a photogrammetry expert, have it enhanced," she said.

"So could Pincher."

"Sure, if he sees the shadow. But if he's like you-if he's like most men-he'll miss the details."

"Which is why we make a good team. I see the big picture. You see the shadows. I attack with a saber. You jab with a rapier. I drop the bombs. You . . ."

"Clean up your bird c.r.a.p."

"Remember, Judge Gridley said we were like Solomon versus Lord. But now . . ."

"Now what, Solomon?"

If she didn't have the guts, he did. "Shouldn't we talk about last night?"

"Nothing to talk about. Chapter closed."

"I thought maybe, with the benefit of a night's sleep, you'd-"

"I didn't sleep."

"All the more reason to talk."

She walked to the window, looked across the alley toward the balcony where the steel band was taking a break and pa.s.sing around a joint the size of a salami. "We have a case to try. That's all we're going to talk about. And when it's over, I'm out of here."

"What's that mean?"

"After I marry Bruce, I'm going in-house with his company. It's the best move for me."

"You're running away."

"From what?"

"Last night-"

"Never happened, and even if it did, it won't happen again," she said, employing the lawyer's technique of alternative pleading. "Look, I'm sorry if I sent out any signals you misinterpreted."

"You kissed me. How'd I misinterpret that?"

"I've been under a lot of pressure. I cracked. That's all it was."

"So you won't talk about what you're feeling right now? What you're thinking?"

She wheeled around. "I'm thinking I liked you better when you were an insensitive jerk."

"I'm not buying it."

"Don't you get it? I'm unavailable. That makes me more desirable. You're inappropriate. That makes you more desirable. It's a flaw in our genetic code. We can't help ourselves, we're drawn to the flames. It's what makes us the screwed-up human beings we are."

"And that's why you kissed me? And I kissed you back?"

"If you have a better explanation, let's hear it."

"I'm not sure. There's something about you that . . ."

He stopped, unable to continue, and she pounced. "That what?"

"That makes me, I don't know . . . I . . . I have these feelings," he stammered.

"C'mon," she prodded. "You're the one who wants to open up. Just how do you feel about me?"

"You had me from 'Get lost.'"

"No I didn't. Can't you be sincere?"

"Only if I fake it."

"I mean it. Either tell me how you feel or just shut up."