Spider Webs

II Donnelly

In high school Charles Donnelly had been voted the boy most likely to succeed. In college he was the man most likely to succeed. In law school he was second in his graduation class and finally succeeded: He married a copper heiress. By anticipating the computer revolution, he turned a great deal of copper into gold, and a millionaire at thirty, he discovered that money bored him. He went back to the practice of law, specializing in criminal cases.

He enjoyed the challenge of pitting himself against the system, and his happiest hours were spent in the law library of the courthouse, checking back through previous trials and decisions, or sitting alone in his office planning and replanning a brief.

He often worked nights, sometimes with Bill Gunther, discussing cases with him and listening to the results of investigations Gunther was in the process of making for him.

It was through Gunther that he became acquainted with Cully King.

“A black man was booked for murder tonight,” Gunther said. “Did you hear about it?”

“No. Interesting?”

“Well, certainly not your usual stabbing in a barroom brawl. It was a drowning at sea.”

“Who was drowned?”

“Wife of an oil executive from Bakersfield.”

Gunther had a quiet voice which combined with his smooth pale skin and steel-rimmed glasses to give him a scholarly look that didn’t fit the image of an ex-cop from Las Vegas. He’d come to Santa Felicia to get away from the gambling which was a way of life in Las Vegas. Here, in Santa Felicia, he was confined to betting on horses, fights, football and basketball games and an occasional election. He still lost a lot but not as much, not so often.

Donnelly said, “Did you see the man?”

“Yes.”

“Get any hunches?”

“Not real hunches. More like curiosity. I can’t recall a single case of a black man being arrested for drowning a woman at sea.”

“Was the woman white?”

“Yes.”

Donnelly paused, then said, “Find out some more details and get back to me.”

“When?”

“Tonight.”

“It’s nearly eleven o’clock.”

“You have connections. Use them.”

“I was figuring on some dinner.”

“Billy boy, you’ve just had your priorities rearranged. Work first, eat later.”

Donnelly’s wife had changed her name from Alexandra to Zandra, her hair from brown to blond and her figure from plump to thin. But she made no attempt to change the habit which most irritated her husband. Like many wealthy people, she had a number of small stinginesses which at first Donnelly found amusing. She haggled with shopkeepers, and when she got an $800 dress marked down to $750 she thought she got a bargain and boasted about it to anyone who would listen. She clipped coupons from newspapers and magazines for introductory offers, twofers and special-purchase items on sale. She sent the cook all over town to take advantage of these bargains.

Donnelly pointed out that her bargains were not actually bargains. “You’re saving a couple of bucks on groceries and spending three or four times that much on gasoline.”

Her reply was triumphant. “We have oil stock. Don’t you see?... I’m investing. Gasoline comes from oil, and when I buy gas, I’m simply investing. Don’t you see?”

“I see a semblance of logic in your argument. Unfortunately it’s based on a false premise.”

“What does that mean?”

“We don’t own any oil stock.”

“Of course we do. We must. Everyone does.”

He shrugged and turned to leave. She put out a hand to stop him. She was wearing one of the flowing silk caftans she usually wore around the house. When she reached out her hand to stop him from leaving, the sleeve of the caftan slipped back to reveal her arm. It was so thin he could have spanned the upper part of it with his thumb and middle finger. Its covering didn’t look like flesh but like paper wrapped around a bone to take home to a dog.

They were in the second-floor sitting room, which was smaller and more cheerful than the formal one downstairs. A trio of unseasoned eucalyptus logs burned in the grate, hissing and sputtering and oozing their vital juices at each end. Sparks flew against the screen like imprisoned birds.

He stood in front of the fire with his back to the room, to her, to their whole life together.

“You’re taking those diet pills again,” he said.

“This is the first evening in weeks that you’ve been home and you want to spoil it by—”

“How many?”

“I take one now and then. Not regularly.”

“Show me the bottle.”

“I certainly will not. If a husband can’t trust his wife enough to take her word for—”

“How many are you taking, Zan?”

“One a day. Maybe two.”

“Why?”

“You know perfectly well how easily I gain weight. I can’t even walk past a chocolate éclair without putting on a pound. The pills help me. They make me feel good.”

“They don’t make you look good.”

“How would you know? You never look at me.”

“I’m looking at you now. You look sick.”

She began to tremble, then to sway. She kept her balance by leaning on the back of the couch and feeling her way along it like a blind person until she reached the end and fell among the cushions.

“You filthy beast. You didn’t like me fat; now you don’t like me thin.”

“I don’t like you hooked on amphetamines.”

“I’m not hooked.”

“Then why take them?”

“I told you, they make me feel good. God knows I need something to make me feel good. I have no children, no husband—”

“Get yourself a hobby.”

“A hobby instead of a hubby. How cute.” She mimicked his flat, quiet tone. “Get yourself a hobby. Christ, no wonder I look sick. You make me sick, not the pills.”

He drew back the fire screen and poked one of the logs with his foot. It sent off a shower of sparks. One of them landed on the rug, and he stood and watched it burn, wondering with a strange sense of excitement whether it would spread and ignite the whole rug, the coffee table, the couch, the drapes, the room, the house. Then he remembered the smoke detectors which Zan had had installed in nearly every room, and he put his foot on the ember. It left just a small scar that would be noticed only by one of the anonymous maids the next time she vacuumed.

He said, “How many doctors are you conning?”

“I’m not conning anyone. I have my own personal physician, Dr. Stoddard. He believes in weight control.”

“Stoddard doesn’t prescribe amphetamines. So where are you getting them?”

“None of your business.”

“I can find out, of course.”

“Oh, sure. Put Gunther on my trail.”

“Gunther has more important things to do.”

But even as he spoke, he wondered if this was true. Gunther was helping him save a man’s life, but Zan’s life might be in almost as much jeopardy as Cully King’s. Of the two, Cully had a better chance. He wanted to live; Zan seemed to have lost interest.

“Zan, please listen to me.”

“No. Go away. Leave me alone. Go back to the office or wherever.”

She had burrowed into the cushions with the caftan wrapped around her, as if the silk were returning to its original state, a cocoon. Only her face was visible, its pallor and hollow cheeks making her eyes look enormous. They were as gray as storm clouds.

The only sound in the room was the eucalyptus logs still fighting the fire.

Then Zan spoke, in a voice he hadn’t heard for a long time, soft and sad. “Why can’t we have a conversation like two nice, normal people?”

“Perhaps because we’re not two nice, normal people.”

“We could try.”

“All right.”

“Tell me what’s going on in court. There was something about it on TV tonight, and I saw a picture of the murderer. He doesn’t look like a murderer. Is he?”

“That’s for the jury to decide.”

“What do you think?”

“What I think is immaterial.”

“You won’t tell me?”

“It would be unprofessional.”

“I bet you’ve told Gunther,” she said. “I bet you tell him everything.”

“He’s my partner.”

“I’m your partner, too.”

“Not in the practice of law.”

“Or in anything else.”

She stirred inside the cocoon as if she were getting ready to emerge, to stretch her wings and fly off to some place warmer and gentler.

“Zan, for chrissake, don’t cry.”

“Things used to be so different.”

“I’ll pour you a drink. Would you like a drink?”

“I’m nervous. I’m so t-terribly nervous.”

“I’m going to make an appointment for you with Dr. Stoddard.”

“No. Please don’t, Charles. It’s just nerves. I’m just shaky, you know?”

“Yes, I do know. I’ve seen dozens of speed freaks, in the jail, in the courthouse, on the streets. They all have the same look, Zan, and you’re getting it.”

He poured some bourbon from the decanter on the coffee table and handed the glass to her. She was shaking too much to take it, so he held it for her while she sipped. Some of it dribbled out of one corner of her mouth, and he turned his head slightly so he wouldn’t have to look at her.

He said, “Does Dr. Stoddard know about the pills?”

“You keep harping on the pills. It’s not the pills. I’m just nervous.” She finished the bourbon and asked for more. “Aren’t you drinking with me?”

“Not tonight. I have to finish some work at the office.”

“We never do anything together anymore, never go to the beach club or the country club; we never even have breakfast together.”

“I can’t afford to sleep until noon,” he said. “You used to have interests of your own, Zan, golf, tennis, bridge. Have you given them all up?”

“Tennis tires me out. And I can’t sit all afternoon at a bridge table or stand around a golf course watching a bunch of bitchy women cheat on their scores. Maybe we could take a trip together, Charles. Paris or someplace exotic like Morocco?”

“When this case is ended, maybe.”

“When this case is ended, there’ll be another case,” she said with bitter truth. “There’ll be no Paris, no Morocco. Hell, we won’t even get as far as L.A. Why don’t you level with me?”

“All right. There probably won’t be a Paris or Morocco, but I’m sure we’ll be able to get down to L.A. once in a while.”

“Oh, wow. Big deal.”

“It’s the biggest I can offer right now.”

He poured her some more bourbon. This time she was able to hold the glass herself, not steadily but well enough to drink from it. The liquor didn’t have the effect he’d hoped for, of making her change the subject.

She said, “A month ago, when you went to the Virgin Islands, you didn’t even tell me in advance. Were you afraid I’d invite myself to go along?”

“It never occurred to me.”

“Of course not. The Virgin Islands is a honeymoon spot. Why should you take me when you had Gunther along?”

“It was a business trip. We were there two days.”

“Oh, a lot can happen in two days.”

She made many snide references to his relationship with Gunther. He denied nothing, admitted nothing, treating her like a child whose tantrums would go away if they were ignored.

“Just answer one question, Charles, will you?”

“I’ll try.”

“Why did you marry me? Why in hell did you marry me?”

She unfolded herself from the couch, a pile of bones suddenly articulated into a skeleton. She walked unsteadily toward the doorway, and he knew where she was heading, to her bedroom and whatever drawer she had hidden the pills in — the medicine chest in the bathroom would be too obvious. He knew he couldn’t stop her and he didn’t try.

She walked out into the hall, her heels ticking on the parquet floor like the clock of a time bomb.

When he went back to the office, he told Gunther about the scene.

“Well,” Gunther said, “why did you marry her?”

“She was very pretty and sort of defenseless. She kept phoning me, asking my advice on investing in this or that and what was the difference between a stock and a bond and so on. Finally she invited me to a party at her house. Afterward we made love in the back seat of her father’s Rolls-Royce.”

“Cute. Classy, too.”

“Then later she told me she was pregnant. I was not only gullible in those days, I was actually rather flattered, even intrigued by the idea of having a kid. Of course, the kid never materialized and probably never existed. She didn’t want children... Did you ever think you might like a family, Gunther?”

“Hell, I had a family. There were twelve of us. We were always hungry, always fighting. My old lady died trying for thirteen, and my old man went off on a religious binge and disappeared into some obscure cult. Nobody ever saw or heard from him again.” Gunther’s laugh was bitter with remembered rage.

Donnelly nodded. When he had first rented the office, he used to have his diplomas and credentials framed and hung on the wall, a cum laude here and a cum laude there. After a few months he took them all down. They made him self-conscious, and anyway his clients weren’t usually the kind to be impressed by pieces of paper printed in Latin; a lot of them couldn’t read any language at all.

“I’m not smart enough to know what I want,” Donnelly said. “But I’m smart enough to know what I don’t want, and that’s some guy sitting on my desk kicking the side of it with his heels. Can’t you sit in a chair like a normal person?”

“So that’s what normal people do, they sit in chairs. Anything else?”

“They show respect towards their boss.”

“That part’s going to be tougher, especially if the boss is in a lousy mood. I think I can handle the sitting okay. Is this right?” He turned a chair around, straddled it and leaned against the back with his chin on his forearms. “Is this how normal people do it?”

“Cut out the crap and get down to business.”

“All right. I’m driving to Bakersfield tonight. I still think Mrs. Pherson sounds too good to be true. And if she sounds too good to be true, she probably is. I’ll find out. I’ve got a date with her maid, Lucy. Lucy wants to better herself. She goes to night school, which is the reason why we’ve got a late date. I’m taking her to the Kern County Boll Weevil Barbecue.”

“The what?”

“The Boll Weevil Barbecue is put on by a bunch of cotton growers and they don’t barbecue boll weevils; they barbecue steak and ribs.”

“What’s the plan, to ply Lucy with food?”

“That shouldn’t be necessary. She’s naturally talkative, and she likes the intellectual type.”

“Is that what you are?”

“The glasses help.”

Donnelly leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. It was as blank as the walls except for one tiny round spot about the size of the peephole often put in the front doors of residences. He knew it couldn’t be a peephole — his office was on the top floor of the building, which had a tile roof — but he was sometimes acutely conscious of it and altered his actions to meet its approval.

“I suggest you begin your trip now,” he said.

“Jeez, you really are in a lousy mood. I need money.”

“Use your credit cards.”

“The boll weevil boys don’t cotton to credit cards... Hey, smile. That was a funny.”

“Indeed? I have about a hundred cash. You can buy a lot of steak and beer for a hundred. And maybe a lot of Lucy.”

“Not Lucy. I said, she wants to better herself.”

“What’s she look like?”

“Like she needs bettering. Eyes blue, hair brown, measurements nice. Oh, yes, and her father doesn’t own a Rolls-Royce; he owns a Ford van. Not as classy but more comfortable.”

“I’m sorry I told you about the Rolls-Royce... You’re going to be even sorrier if you ever mention it again.”

Donnelly opened his eyes and rubbed them, but the mark on the ceiling remained unerasable. Gunther was at the door, and Donnelly called him back.

“Wait a minute. See that little circle up there just left of center?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you suppose it is?”

“A bug. I mean, a bug bug, not an electronic bug.”

“It never moves.”

“So it’s a lazy bug.”

“No, it’s not a bug at all. It’s my conscience. I guess you’d call it my conscience.”

“You have a very tiny conscience.”

“It only looks tiny. In that small space I see all the thousands of eyes that have stared at me in disapproval and the thousands more waiting their turn.”

“Have it painted over,” Gunther said. “Or cover it with tape.”

“I’d still know it was there.”

“Well, what do you expect me to do about it?”

“Nothing. You’re the last person in the world I’d ask to do anything about it. Those eyes are looking at you, too.”

“Jeez, I can’t stand all this heavy stuff. I’d better get going.”

“When will you be back?”

“Day after tomorrow. I should arrive about the time court convenes.”

“Good. Dr. Woodbridge will be on the stand, their pathologist. He’ll spend at least an hour listing his credentials and adjusting the projector and screen. Maybe the jury will be impressed by all that, but they won’t be impressed by him. He talks very slowly and hesitatingly as if he isn’t sure of his facts. And of course, he isn’t. Pathology is not an exact science, and there’s nothing one pathologist enjoys more than to disagree with another pathologist. That’s why we’re paying big bucks to bring in Thorvald from Minneapolis and Nesbitt from Baltimore.”

“How big?”

“Five and four respectively. Plus expenses, of course. Both are retired and have become what could be called professional witnesses. I don’t begrudge them the money — they’ve got a lousy job.”

Gunther had a narrow gap between his two front teeth, and when he blew air through it, it made an expressive hissing sound. “You’re blowing a wad on this guy Cully King.”

“So?”

“I can’t figure out your angle. Besides, I think he’s guilty as hell.”

“Really? Then perhaps you should be working for the district attorney.”

Again Gunther made the hissing sound between his teeth. “You usually ask for my opinion.”

“That’s right. And when I want it, that’s what I’ll do, ask. It will help our relationship, by the way, if you’ll remember that our clients are always pure as the driven snow.”

“In my hometown the only snow we saw was either gray or mud-colored. That pure white stuff is only on postcards of ski resorts. Cully King’s not ski resort. He’s mud, wouldn’t you say?”

Donnelly didn’t indicate whether he’d heard this or not. He took out his wallet and removed five twenty-dollar bills. “Here’s your money. And remember, if you get a traffic ticket, it’s on you, not me.”

“Why should I get a traffic ticket?”

“My point exactly. Why should you?”

“You’re always coming up with a smart answer.”

“That was a question, not an answer. Don’t slam the door on your way out. You might disturb my little bug.” The door slammed.

Donnelly picked up the phone and called the county jail. The deputy in charge of inmates reminded Donnelly that it was late, about nine o’clock, and Donnelly reminded him in turn that an attorney was permitted to see his client at any time except during meals and linen changes, when the guards were all busy. There was no further protest.

The county jail was only two years old, and on the outside it looked very modern, a school perhaps, or a hospital or office building. Inside, it was like any other jail, the same sights and sounds, the same smell of disinfectant and of something fainter and harder to identify. The men who came to this place even for a week would never forget it, the sour smell of regrets.

The small consulting room where Donnelly waited for the guard to bring Cully King was windowless. The air blowing in from a vent near the ceiling was cold and very dry, so that almost immediately Donnelly’s mouth felt parched and he wanted a drink, but there was no water cooler or drinking fountain. The only furnishing was a steel table and three chairs, all bolted to the floor.

It was ten minutes before Cully King was brought in, wearing jail fatigues and looking drowsy. “I was watching a movie and went to sleep,” he said. “I already saw it three times anyway.”

“I’d like to go over some things with you. Sit down.”

Cully sat in the chair on the opposite side of the steel table. “I’m tired. I think they put stuff in the food to keep us quiet. Somebody told me that tonight at supper.”

“Who?”

“The guy sitting next to me.”

“So you stopped eating?”

“Yes.”

“What happened to the rest of the food on your plate?”

“He ate it.”

“What’s two and two?”

“Four. But I could see for myself that he was getting sleepy the more he ate.”

“You were had, Cully.”

“I don’t care. The food was no good anyway. I bought three chocolate bars at the commissary. Chocolate is supposed to keep you — well, you know. I don’t want to lose my... my... well, you know, my abilities.”

“Harry Arnold tells me your abilities are well known throughout the islands. In fact, he called you a horner. I’m not sure what the word means, but I can guess.”

“It’s talk for a man who fools around with other men’s wives. Don’t listen to Harry. He’s crazy jealous.”

“Why?”

“Maybe because Richie’s copper like me.”

“Did you have anything to do with that?”

“There’s a lot of coppers in the islands. And when Harry’s at work, his wife’s at play. She’s a slut.”

Donnelly tapped the table with his fingers one at a time, as if he were playing a five-note scale up and down on a piano. “I’ve met Harry Arnold’s wife. She’s very black, Richie’s more like you.”

“Richie’s not my son,” Cully said with conviction. “I wouldn’t mind if he was. He’s a good kid. He treats me like some kind of hero.”

“Why did you pick the Arnolds to go with you on this trip?”

“They know their business, they work hard and they’re strong. This wasn’t a pleasure cruise.”

“You took some time out for pleasure, I’m told.”

“You got that from Harry, too,” Cully said without rancor. “Harry’s mouth gets big after a few drinks.”

“Did you take any women on board the Bewitched?”

“Not till Mrs. Pherson. The others were just floozies. They’d steal the smell off a goat. I wouldn’t let any of them near my ship.”

Donnelly was playing his five-note scale up and down on the table more and more rapidly. It was the only sign he gave of quickening interest. He said, “Repeat your story about how you met Mrs. Pherson.”

“I already repeated it ten times.”

“So one more won’t hurt, will it? You were sitting in the bar at the Casa Mañana Hotel. Why did you pick that place?”

“It looked classy. I was sick of waterfront dives and the stink of sweat and fish. I wanted to go someplace where I could wear my new navy blue blazer and white slacks and turtleneck. I must have looked pretty good, they served me right away. After I had a couple of margaritas, a lady comes in and sits down beside me. There were other seats she could have taken, so I figured — well, what else could I figure?”

“You figured damn fast when all you had to go on was the fact that she sat down beside you. She had to sit someplace if she wanted a drink. So how come all the figuring?”

“I’ve been around plenty of women. It doesn’t have to be spelled out to me.”

“Who started the conversation?”

“She did. She said hello or hi, the usual thing.”

“Was she wearing any makeup?”

“How do you tell a thing like that? All I know is she looked pretty good. I heard later she was forty, but she seemed much younger. Maybe it was makeup; maybe it was the dim lights in the bar, maybe the margaritas. Women look a lot better after you’ve had a few drinks. She wasn’t exactly sober herself, so maybe I looked better to her, too. Maybe she didn’t even realize I was black.”

A guard stopped at the barred window of the door and peered into the room. Cully waved at him, and the guard waved back. The brief exchange seemed to bolster Cully’s self-confidence.

“I don’t need all that stuff like booze and dim lights,” he said. “Women are just naturally attracted to me.”

“Remember what I told you this morning, Cully. Humble, humble.”

“Why should I pretend women don’t like me? I say nice things to them, I do nice things. Why shouldn’t they like me?... Do they like you?”

Donnelly thought of his last conversation with Zan. He didn’t say nice things or do nice things, and she hadn’t liked him for years. “No.”

“You’re married, though. You must have looked good to one of them once.”

“Yes.”

He remembered the night in the back of the Rolls-Royce. It was dark so he couldn’t see Zan, but she felt all soft and round, and her skin was cool in the summer night and smelled of flowers. They weren’t those picked fresh from a garden but dead ones sprayed with preservatives to make them look alive.

“You’re not a bad-looking guy for your age,” Cully added.

“Thank you.”

“I bet there’s plenty of women who’d—”

“I’m not the subject of this conversation,” Donnelly said brusquely. “You are, you and Mrs. Pherson. So go on with the story. She came into the bar and sat down beside you and started talking. Then what?”

“I asked her if she wanted a drink.”

“And?”

“She sort of hesitated, putting on an act of being the kind of woman who didn’t drink. I wasn’t fooled, especially when she ordered a double martini.”

“How did she drink it?”

“What do you mean, how?”

“Fast, slow, medium?”

“It must have been fast because she ordered another pretty quick.”

“Who paid for that one?”

“She did.”

“Did she have it put on her hotel bill?”

“No. She paid cash. I figured her husband — she was wearing a wedding ring — had a habit of going over the bills, and she didn’t want any bar tab showing up.”

“How did the conversation get around to cooking?”

“I can’t recall exactly, but I think she asked about good French restaurants in the vicinity. She said she liked French cuisine and did a lot of it at home. Right away I thought of Mr. Belasco because he likes French cooking best. On the spur of the moment I just asked her if she ever cooked professionally, and I told her about the Bewitched and the big race coming up and our needing a cook for it. She said, ‘Where are you racing to?’ and I said, ‘Honolulu.’ Then she seemed real interested. The word ‘Honolulu’ is kind of exciting to people who’ve never been there.”

“How do you know she’d never been there?”

“She told me. She said she and her mother had planned to go but her mother got sick and they never made it. I said, ‘Well, then, why not sign on as cook for the race? The pay’s no good but the trip’s great.’ She said she would, just like that.”

“Right away?”

“Right away.”

“Without even thinking about it?”

“Maybe she thinks fast. Or maybe” — Cully attempted to look modest — “maybe she had other things in mind besides cooking. I explained that the Bewitched was set to leave in the morning before dawn, and it might be easier for her to come aboard that night... You know.”

“I know,” Donnelly said. “Did she know?”

“She knew. She went up to her room, put on a coat and came down again. I waited in the lobby. I saw her standing at the desk talking to a man behind the counter. Then a few minutes later she came across the lobby, carrying her handbag and a green leather case. She was beginning to look better and better to me. I hadn’t had a woman since Panama.”

“Mazatlán.”

“A long time anyway. We went out, got in a taxi and drove to the slip where the Bewitched was tied up.”

“The green case, did you offer to carry it for her?”

“What do you think I am? Of course I did. But she wouldn’t let me. The way she hung on to that thing I guessed something valuable was in it. Actually I didn’t think much about it at all. I mean, I was getting pumped up, not having a woman since—”

“Mazatlán.”

“Mazatlán. Right.”

“And incidentally, watch your language in front of the jury. You were not getting pumped up, you were becoming intrigued.”

“Becoming intrigued. Hey, man, that doesn’t sound like me?”

“I don’t particularly want you to sound like you. I want you to sound like an innocent man, a gentleman, caught in a cruel web of circumstances.”

“Becoming intrigued. Is that what a gentleman would say?”

“No.”

“Then why me?”

“Because you’re on trial for murder. And every word you utter and every action you take, down to the merest twitch of an eyebrow, are going to be fed into the computer each of the jurors carries in his head.”

Cully rubbed his eyes as if he were trying to erase images he didn’t want to see. “That computer business, it kind of scares me.”

“The green case Mrs. Pherson was carrying, what do you think it weighed?”

“I told you, she wouldn’t let me touch it.”

“So you can’t estimate its weight or tell whether the contents made any kind of jangling noise, jewelry, for instance.”

“She handled it real careful, gentle almost. It made me suspect there might be drugs inside.”

“You thought she might be smuggling drugs?”

“Nearly every week you hear of respectable people being caught smuggling drugs.”

“From Bakersfield?”

“I don’t know where that is.”

“It’s a place where they grow oil, not coco leaves or opium poppies. Oh, yes, and cotton. They grow cotton. So they can have the Boll Weevil Barbecue.”

Cully looked puzzled but didn’t ask any questions. He regarded Donnelly with awe and with gratitude, and even this far into the trial he still didn’t understand why Donnelly had offered to defend him without charge. Cully wasn’t used to feeling either awe or gratitude, and the new role made him nervous.

Donnelly said, “The prosecution has witnesses to testify that Mrs. Pherson left the house carrying a green leather jewel case. But because something is a jewel case doesn’t necessarily mean it contains jewels. The probability, however, is that it did.”

“Well, I didn’t know that. I swear on the Bible I didn’t know.”

“I believe you,” Donnelly said, and for the moment he did. In a different light, a different room, he might change his mind. But right now Cully sounded and looked completely sincere, with just the right touch of reproach that anyone could ever doubt him. If the jury could see and hear him now, he would stand a good chance of walking out a free man. So much depended on his demeanor in court, and there was no way Donnelly could control that. He could advise, certainly, but he couldn’t be sure the advice would or could be taken. Cully wasn’t accustomed to controls. At sea he was the boss, he made the rules; on land it was hard for him to accept other people’s.

“Tomorrow,” Donnelly said, “will be your first real test. The district attorney will offer in evidence pictures taken by Dr. Woodbridge, who performed the autopsy on Mrs. Pherson. His testimony will carry a lot of weight because he is the only forensic pathologist to see the actual body. The others who’ll take the stand have based their opinions on what may be regarded as secondhand information, tissue slides, lab tests of blood samples and the like. The credentials of these later pathologists may be equally impressive, and their opinions equally valid, but not to a jury. The district attorney is bound to repeat this over and over, that his pathologist is the only one to believe because he was the only one to see the actual body.”

“What kind of pictures will the jury be shown?”

“All kinds. The first will be of the body itself from various angles. After the clerk numbers each exhibit, it will be shown to the judge, then to me — and to you, since you’ll be sitting beside me — before it is passed along to the jury. All right, when you see the initial picture, how are you going to react?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen it yet.”

“You’ve seen dead bodies before, haven’t you?”

“A few.”

“How did you feel?”

Cully considered this for a moment. “I felt, I’m glad it’s him and not me. And I felt very alive, you know, like going out and getting a woman. My blood was racing.”

“You will be looking at pictures of a woman you are accused of murdering. That ought to slow your blood down to a crawl. And while it’s crawling, you’ll have time to consider this fact: Twelve regular jurors, six alternates, and the thirteenth juror, the judge, will be watching your reactions as you study the pictures.”

The statement made Cully uneasy. “Well, how am I supposed to act to give them the right impression?”

“You are an ordinary man confronted with the picture of a woman drowned in the sea. Are you sorry for her?”

“Sure. Naturally.”

“So you will exhibit sorrow. Turn away, shaking your head, perhaps closing your eyes. I don’t suppose you cry easily.”

“I don’t know. I never tried.”

“When was the last time you cried?”

“I think it was at a movie.”

“You saw a dead person in a movie and it brought tears to your eyes?”

“No, it was a horse.”

“A horse?”

“It broke its leg and someone shot it. I don’t think it was fair, shooting a horse just because it broke its leg.”

“Forget the goddamn horse.”

“Okay.”

“I want you to imagine that I am showing you on this table the blowup of a picture of Madeline Pherson’s body when it was brought into the autopsy room. Remember, she didn’t want to die any more than the goddamn horse did. So how are you going to act?”

“I don’t see why you always get mad at me. I haven’t done anything.”

“Don’t change the subject. The picture is here on this table. Now look at it, dammit.”

“I’m looking.”

“Indicate shock, sorrow, pity.”

“All at once? That’s going to be hard.”

“One at a time,” Donnelly said through clenched teeth. “Now turn your head away, shaking it slightly, blinking your eyes.”

Cully did as he was told. His performance was ludicrously exaggerated as if he were on a large stage in front of thousands of people, not playing to an audience of one in a small, cold cubicle of a jail. “How’s that?”

“Can’t you make it more real?”

“If you make the picture more real.”

Donnelly wanted to laugh but didn’t. He had to keep this man under control, to avoid any camaraderie. “The pictures will be quite real tomorrow. And they will hit you. Whether or not you think you’re prepared, they will hit you. And my advice is to show some emotion. Don’t deadpan. I had a client a few months ago who dead-panned himself right into San Quentin, where he’ll spend the next ten years. In the adjoining courtroom another murder trial was going on. It was a vicious crime committed by a vicious man. The judge in the case had decided to permit television cameras during the trial. The murderer took full advantage of those cameras. Whenever one was aimed at him, he broke into the most heartrending sobs. Every night on the local news there was this clown crying up a storm. Both men were found guilty, but the deadpanner got ten years and the murderer got three.”

“You want me to sob?”

“I want you to show some emotion. If you feel bad, let the jurors see it.”

Both men were silent. The guard passed the window; the air conditioner whirred; someone screamed in the distance.

Cully said, “Do you always tell your clients how to act, like they had no feelings or brains or anything of their own?”

“No.”

“Why me? Do you think I’m going to make a fool of myself?”

“Whether you make a fool of yourself is your business. Whether you make a fool of me is mine, and I don’t intend to lose this case because some hard-nosed smartass won’t take advice.”

“That’s the second time you’ve called me that.”

“There’ll be others.”

“I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

“I’m not so crazy about talking to you either. But there are things we have to go over. What time did you and Mrs. Pherson arrive at the Bewitched?”

“About twenty-one hundred hours.”

“Better avoid sea slang. A jury is put off by expressions they don’t understand. Before I forget, there’s one more thing I want you to do which may turn out to be very important. Let me see your hands.”

Cully raised his hands, fingers spread apart.

“I see you bite your nails,” Donnelly said. “How long have you been doing that?”

“All my life. As long as I can remember anyway.”

“You’ll have to stop.”

“Why?”

“There isn’t time to go into it right now.”

“It’s tough to stop doing something you hardly know when you’re doing it, but I guess I can try.”

“Trying’s not good enough. Let your fingernails grow. Don’t bite, clip or file. Now to get back to Mrs. Pherson, what time did the two of you arrive at the Bewitched?”

“Between eight and nine o’clock.”

“What did you do for dinner?”

“Picked up a pizza on the way.”

“Not very French cuisine.”

“It was her idea, not mine. She said she’d never tasted pizza, and she wanted to do a lot of things she’d never done before. As it turned out, she didn’t even taste it. As soon as we reached my quarters, she passed out on the bunk without even taking off her clothes. How’s that for lousy luck?”

“My heart bleeds. What did you do then?”

“Ate the pizza. Had a couple more drinks. Then I slept for a few hours and got up again at three-thirty to check the engine. Once we cleared the harbor, Harry took over and I went below again for some more sleep. When I woke up, she was standing there staring down at me, the kind of stare that makes a man feel like he’s being — you know, measured. It was a funny feeling because I had a blanket over me at the time, she couldn’t see—”

“Go on with your story. Did she speak?”

“Not at first. I asked her what was the matter, and she said she wanted to go swimming and I was to come up and stop the boat.”

“What was she wearing?”

“Same clothes as the night before; only now they were kind of beat up and wrinkled. So was she. She didn’t look so good in the morning light. Also, I had a hangover.”

“So she looked beat up — an unfortunate choice of words under the circumstances. Better alter it.”

“Okay, she looked pale and sort of sick. She probably had a hangover, too. Maybe she figured the cold water would fix it. I explained how cold the water would be in mid-channel at that time of year, no more than fifty-five degrees. I said we were doing about twelve knots, and it would be crazy to stop the boat just so she could go swimming. She said that maybe I wouldn’t have to stop it. That she could keep up, she was an excellent swimmer. I said, so are the sharks. The shark business was what changed her mind.”

“Do passengers often go swimming off the boat?”

“Only when it’s anchored in tropical waters and Mr. Belasco is having a party.”

“So she changed her mind about swimming. What then?”

“We went to the galley, and I made some scrambled eggs and toast, and we drank some of the coffee Harry had left on the stove. We didn’t talk much. There wasn’t anything to say. The whole thing began to seem like a crazy idea, me and her, the French cuisine, everything.”

“I’ll emphasize once again how important it is for you to tell me the truth,” Donnelly said. “If I don’t know what really happened, I’m sunk and you go down with me.”

“Why?”

“Let’s look at the truth like a destination. If I don’t know where this destination is, I can’t prevent the prosecutor from getting there. In other words, I have to head him off at the pass.”

“I’m telling the truth. I always do. The trouble is people don’t believe me because of the color of my skin.”

“Cut out that crap, will you?”

“It’s not crap. You watch that district attorney; see the way he looks at me like I was scum.”

“He looks at everybody like that. Including me.” Donnelly said, then added thoughtfully, “Maybe especially me. After the scrambled eggs and toast, what did you do?”

“Relieved Harry so he could get some sleep. I saw the lady only a couple of times that day. Once she was talking to Richie, and later she was standing at the rail, watching a school of porpoises. That night we had a few drinks in my cabin, and both of us began to feel a lot better. In fact, she started to come on strong to me, and one of her earrings scratched my face. She was wearing diamond studs that screwed into her earlobes.”

“Another unfortunate choice of language. No studs, no screw. Just tell the jurors she was wearing earrings.”

“Anyway, the scratch hurt. I felt there was something deliberate about it like — well, like she wanted to play rough. I don’t like women who play rough, so I pushed her away.”

“How?”

“Maybe I grabbed her throat.”

“No maybe about it. You grabbed her throat. You’ll see pictures of it tomorrow or the next day.”

“I had to protect myself.”

“You’re going to have a hell of a time convincing a jury that a man of your size and strength had to protect himself against a woman just slightly over five feet who weighed one hundred and ten pounds... What happened then?”

“She took off the earrings and told me to keep them.”

“Repeat what she said.”

“I just told you. She said, ‘Keep them.’ ”

“Her exact words are important. Just ‘Keep them’?”

“Yes.”

“What was she wearing?”

“Why do you harp on what she was wearing?”

“Harping is my specialty. What was she wearing?”

“Nothing.”

“This woman stood there naked, removed the earrings and there was no conversation while she was doing this except ‘Keep them’?”

“She wasn’t much of a talker. Also, it wasn’t much of a talk situation. She might have said something about being sorry she caused the scratch on my face.”

“What did she call you? Mr. King, Cully, Skipper, Captain?”

“I don’t think she called me anything.”

“No endearments?”

“No.”

“All right, she’s standing there naked, taking off her diamond earrings. The jurors might find it difficult to picture this scene. For one thing, a woman usually removes her jewelry before she starts undressing.”

“It happened like I said. I can’t help it if they believe it or not.”

“Did she take off one earring and hand it to you, then take off the other and hand it to you and so on? Or did she remove both before giving them to you?”

“What did I say the last time you asked me that?”

“I want to hear what you say this time.”

Cully shook his head. “It happened last spring. That’s a long time ago. You can’t expect me to remember every little detail.”

“Yes, I can. I do. So will a great many other people.”

Cully’s eyes were fixed on the door with a kind of desperate intensity as if he were willing it to open and let him out. “I can’t remember.”

“Maybe we should take all your answers and average them out and arrive at the truth that way, though it’s a little unscientific. You don’t recall the order in which she took off the earrings, but you recall her saying, ‘keep them.’ ”

“Yes.”

“What do you think she meant by that word ‘keep’?”

“Keep is keep. She meant they were mine; she was giving them to me.”

“It never occurred to you that she was merely asking you to keep them for her in a safe place?”

“No. Women have given me presents before. They like me.”

“How many have liked you thousands of dollars’ worth?”

“None until her.”

“You still think she intended you to keep the jewelry for yourself?”

“Yes.”

“And you acted on that assumption.”

“Yes.”

“By doing what?”

“First I put them in a drawer beside the bed. Then the next morning I went ashore and found a pawnshop.”

“So women give you presents,” Donnelly said. “Why?”

“I told you, they like me, they think I’m a good guy. Ask anyone in the islands whether I’m a good guy.”

“The islands are several thousand miles away, and the only people whose opinion counts are sitting in the jury box and on the bench. They’re the ones you’ve got to convince what a good guy you are.”

Cully took a comb from his shirt pocket and ran it through his hair with quick, compulsive strokes.

“Why are you combing your hair?” Donnelly said. “You’re not going any place.”

“I do that when I’m nervous.”

“Well, don’t. I don’t like it; the jury won’t like it. And why should a good guy like you be nervous anyway?”

“I got the wrong color skin.”

“You’ve got an overactive pecker, that’s what you’ve got. And that’s what might do you in.”

Cully struck the table with his fist, then took four strides to the door and rapped on the window. A few seconds later the guard appeared and unlocked the door. He looked tired and bored.

Nobody said anything.

Driving home, Donnelly began to weigh once more the pros and cons of putting Cully King on the stand. It might be a necessary move since the average person believed that an innocent man would insist on taking the stand in his own defense. If everything went well — that is, if Cully was able to avoid losing his temper and taking offense at some of the district attorney’s accusations and implications — he might make a good witness. In appearance and speech he was quite presentable. On the other hand, his behavior was unpredictable. He would probably do well under direct examination if he could keep from contradicting himself. But on cross-examination he might freeze up. Donnelly had seen many blacks and members of other minority groups, guilty and innocent, withdraw behind a wall of silence like children confronted with the disapproval of an authority figure.

It was hard to imagine Cully freezing up. He was more likely to become talkative. If he were lying, he would pile lie on lie like bricks until the whole thing toppled over on his head. Once Cully had been sworn in as a witness, Donnelly could do nothing to stop the proceedings, no matter how badly they were going for him. This was what bugged Donnelly the most: the thought of having no control over events or over Cully.

He took an exit ramp off the freeway past a café that catered to truckers. It made him think of Gunther. Gunther loved truck stops, claiming that they must serve the best food in town or so many truckers wouldn’t stop there. He was probably parked at one right now, eating a hamburger oozing grease and bleeding ketchup and drinking a cup of dishwater coffee. He would sit quietly at the counter, looking completely absorbed in his own thoughts. No one would suspect that he was listening to several conversations simultaneously and would finally settle on one as a target and focus his ears on it, filtering out the other voices and sounds, the rattle of dishes and pots and pans, the local radio station transmitting the hysterical screams of rock singers and the nasal three-chord self-pity of cowboys riding guitars.

Gunther was a gifted eavesdropper. In addition to his acuity of hearing, he had a genuine interest in other people, a detached interest unclouded by approval or disapproval. Just as surely as his ears focused on one thing so did his mind. He had tunnel vision, tunnel hearing, tunnel thinking, and he would eat the hamburger without tasting it and catch the odor of onions and garlic and cologne over sweat without smelling any of them.

Donnelly was irritated that he was thinking of Gunther, but Gunther would not be thinking of him. (“Donnelly? Donnelly who?”) The fact that Gunther would not be thinking of Lucy either offered some solace.

The Donnellys lived in the house built by Zan’s grandfather. It was in an old, established section of the city, off limits to nouveaux riches because no more land was available for construction and the existing houses were sold under restrictions that were illegal and hence never publicly acknowledged but were strictly adhered to. A property seldom changed owners, and when it did, the new owner would be basically the same as the old. Rich white Republicans were replaced by rich white Republicans. It was the kind of neighborhood the district attorney would like to live in and Donnelly hated. But he needed its protection as well as Zan’s protection. No one questioned his background, position in life or the way he voted, although some people were surprised at the kind of client he chose to represent.

The iron gates opened at the touch of a button under the dashboard of his car and closed again behind him. He drove around the side of the house to the garage, which had once been part of the stables for the family’s horses. The horses were long since gone and had been replaced by Zan’s two Jaguars, a golf cart, a sailboat and the housekeeper’s VW convertible.

The old three-story house was spangled with lights. Donnelly knew this was not intended as a welcome home for him but was simply the result of no one’s caring enough to turn the lights off, certainly not Zan and almost as certainly not the housekeeper, whose contract stated that she didn’t have to lift a finger after eight o’clock at night.

He turned off the lights in each room as he went through the hall and up the stairs. Zan’s bedroom door was partly open. This was not a welcome home any more than the lights had been. She’d simply forgotten to close it.

Zan was asleep in her four-poster canopied bed, lying on her side, her hair falling across her face. She looked unreal, a wax profile on a pink satin pillow, and under a pink blanket was a collection of bones not yet assembled. (Assemble this yourself! No tools required! Amazingly lifelike! Batteries extra. Money-back guarantee!)

Her breathing was labored and irregular, fast, slow, stopping completely for two or three seconds, then hurrying to catch up.

“Zan?”

A tortoiseshell cat curled up at the foot of the bed began to purr at the sound of a voice. But the purring was purely reflexive and no more a welcome than the lights left on or Zan’s door left open. If he touched the cat, it would get up, arch its boneless back and move away. If he touched Zan, she would wake up moaning.

On the table beside her bed was a glass half filled with water and a bottle of capsules. He picked up the bottle and read the label. “Nembutal 1½ grains, Dr. Casberg.” Dr. Casberg’s office was in Westwood, and he had issued the prescription to Sarah Killeen, the name of the Donnellys’ housekeeper.

Donnelly had no way of knowing how many capsules Zan had swallowed, but obviously it was enough to counteract the amphetamines. Zan was no longer a human being. She had become a battleground in a war between amphetamines and barbiturates, and the battleground was already strewn with dead and dying cells.

He stood looking down at her, feeling the terrible responsibility of doing something he was incapable of doing, saving her life.

“Zan, don’t,” he said in a whisper. “Don’t kill yourself like this. I never meant to hurt you in any way. I wanted to love you. I don’t know what happened. But please don’t do this to yourself.”

He put the bottle of Nembutal in his pocket. Then he began a systematic search of her bureau and desk drawers, looking for other containers of pills and capsules, not sure what the names would be either of the drugs or of the doctors who’d prescribed them.

Zan’s drawers were as confused as her life. The housekeeper and maids had probably been instructed not to touch them. Panty hose and nightgowns were entangled with slips, pieces of costume jewelry, bottles of perfume, golf socks, handkerchiefs, keys, letters, bras, cachets. He found twenty-nine containers of different drugs prescribed by a number of different doctors. There were also two soiled unlabeled envelopes containing capsules which were probably street drugs. He put them all in the pockets of his jacket, Dexedrine, Desoxyn, Plegine, Percodan, Valium, Tenuate, Seconal. He had no plan what to do with them except check out the various doctors named. The only name he recognized was that of Zan’s own doctor, who had prescribed the Percodan. The checking would have to be done by either himself or Gunther since he couldn’t afford to let the office staff start any further gossip.

He began walking across the room, and with each step he took, the plastic bottles clicked against one another in his pockets. He felt like a burglar. He had, in fact, committed an act of burglary. He refused to think of the consequences of his act or to consider putting the stuff back in her drawers and letting her go on her way, undisturbed. He felt he must make an attempt to stop her destructiveness. Talking did no good. Self-control, willpower, discipline, these words had never meant much to her; now they meant nothing. Direct action was necessary. Her sources of supply must be dried up. It would be easy enough to contact the doctors whose names were on the labels and give them a warning. The street drugs in the envelopes were another matter. How had she gotten hold of them? She avoided even driving through those sections of the city where drug transactions were routine. In fact, she seldom left the house, so her supplier must be someone who could deliver them to her, a maid, a gardener, a mechanic at the foreign car service garage, an operator at the beauty salon where she had her hair and nails done, a clerk in one of the dress shops, a grocery deliveryman.

He closed Zan’s door and went back down the stairs, past the library with his collection of lawbooks, the formal dining room, where the bouquets on the long mahogany table were changed daily though no one had eaten there for years, the family dining room, the kitchen and, at the end of the hall, the housekeeper’s quarters, a bedroom, sitting room and bath.

He knocked on the door. A dog barked and was ordered to be quiet.

“Who is it?”

“Charles Donnelly.”

“It’s after eight o’clock.”

“I know.”

“I’m off duty. My contract specifically states that I am not obliged to perform any services after eight o’clock.”

“I merely want to ask you a question, Mrs. Killeen.”

She unlocked and opened the door but didn’t invite him inside. Instead, she stepped out into the hall, pushing a little black dog back into the room with her foot. Before the door closed again, Donnelly had a glimpse of a steamy scene from a porn movie.

“It is precisely eleven o’clock, Mr. Donnelly. Surely you recall the terms of my contract.”

“Surely I do. I wrote it.”

“Well?”

“I went in to say good night to my wife. She was asleep. On the table beside her bed was a bottle of one-and-a-half grain Nembutal which had your name on it and the name of a doctor in Westwood.”

She was immediately on the defensive. She pulled her plaid bathrobe up around her throat, tightening the belt with a yank. She was a tall, heavyset young woman with a slight Celtic accent.

“Of course, it had my name on it, Mr. Donnelly. The capsules were prescribed for me. I pulled a muscle in my back when I was helping my sister in Westwood move and I had trouble sleeping. My sister’s doctor prescribed Nembutal.”

“How is it they were in my wife’s room?”

“She asked me if I had something to help her sleep, so I gave them to her.”

“Is that all?”

“What do you mean by all?”

“Is that all you gave her?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever, at her request, provide her with any other controlled substance?”

“I see what you’re getting at,” she said, giving her belt another quick yank. “The answer is no, I’m not her supplier. I know, the whole staff knows, that she’s on something. She acts like a lunatic.”

“That is not the proper way to refer to your employer.”

“I’m off duty.”

“If you find it offensive to work for someone who acts like a lunatic, send in your resignation and I’ll be glad to accept it.”

She recognized a bluff when she saw one and merely smiled. “Oh, I’m quite happy here. Unpredictable behavior is what one expects in domestic service.”

“Where is she getting her supplies, Mrs. Killeen?”

“Judging from the bulges in your pockets, you’ve seen the bottles. So have I. She’s getting the stuff from doctors. And if you think you can stop her, you’re wrong. Put the lid on one, she’ll find others. There are hundreds of doctors in this town. Some of them own planes and helicopters and yachts, and you don’t get those by swabbing throats and bandaging knees.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Good night, Mrs. Killeen.”

“Good night, Mr. Donnelly.”

She went back into her room, where the little black mongrel had settled in her chair in front of the television set.

“I don’t have to be nice to him if I don’t want to,” she told the dog. “I’m off duty. Anyway, these damn fags shouldn’t get married in the first place.”