The Baxter Trust

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.