The Deep Blue Alibi

Sixteen

In the span of seven minutes, Judge Alvin Schwartz- eighty-one years old, nearsighted, absentminded, and cantankerous as a hemorrhoid-threatened Steve with contempt, ordered him to put his pants back on, reserved ruling on his motion for summary judgment, tossed all lawyers out of his chambers, but commanded Ms. Tami Stepford and all her silicone charms to remain behind, while His Honor considered the weighty legal precedents concerning injuries suffered while wrestling bikini-clad women in vats of Jell-O.

On the way out of the courthouse, Steve felt elated. Victoria had made the legal arguments, and he'd handled the single-leg takedown and crotch-and-a-half pinning move. Surely Victoria must realize they were a terrific team. "We're gonna win," he predicted cheerfully.

"Great," Victoria said, without enthusiasm. "We'll get more work from. ." She couldn't bring herself to say it. Even the name sounded dirty. "That place."

"Hey, The Beav pays the bills."

"Not just in lap dance coupons?"

"C'mon, Vic. You know I don't mess around with The Beav Brigade." Referring to the pole climbers, lap dancers, and bar-top booty shakers.

It was technically true, thanks to his use of the present-tense verb "don't." It would have been completely true if he'd added "anymore."

From the day he first kissed Victoria-actually, she kissed him on the dock of a yacht club while her fiance was having avocado vichyssoise inside-he had not been with another woman. Had not even lusted after another woman. In the time they'd been together, he had often told Victoria that he loved her-usually amidst various whoops and snorts while her legs were wrapped around his hips-but even so, he figured he meant it.

"So, how 'bout Nemo for dinner?" he asked. "My treat. You're crazy about their pan-seared yellowtail."

"Ah. Uhh. Ah," Victoria said.

She was either buying time or was in desperate need of a Heimlich maneuver, Steve thought.

"Actually, Junior's in town," she admitted after a moment.

"No problem. Tell Junior to join us. He can pick up the check."

"The thing is. ."

"Yeah?"

"He already asked me to dinner."

Steve felt like he'd been slugged in the gut. "You mean, like a date?"

"Not a date-date. Just a chance for us to catch up on old times without you cross-examining him."

"No fucking way."

She shot him a harsh look. He knew she hated the F-word, and he'd curtailed using it as the modifier of choice. No more "fucking hot out there." He'd cut back on the action verb, "fuck him," and the noun, "the fuck you doing?" And he was working on not using it as a suffix of the word "mother."

So when he chose to smack Victoria with a "no fucking way," it was a calculated verbal slap on the kisser to let her know just how pissed he was.

How pissed was he? Fucking pissed.

"Ste-phen," she dragged out his name, showing her irritation, "just chill. Having dinner with Junior is no big deal."

"Where you going?"

"Norman's. In the Gables."

"A date restaurant. The most romantic place in town."

"Then why don't you ever take me there?"

"Because we're not dating. We're together. We don't need a dark, expensive place with fancy food."

"Meaning what? Romance is dead?"

He'd walked into quicksand, and struggling was useless, but he flailed about, anyway. "C'mon, Vic. I've taken you there when a client paid."

"Which would make it a business restaurant, correct?"

Touche. The woman was a born cross-examiner.

"That's irrelevant," he scrambled, trying to counter-punch. "You're not going to talk business. You're going to relive the joys of playing strip poker at Bunny Flagler's."

"You're overreacting."

Was he?

No. This is how you react when the woman you're crazy about might jump ship.

He remembered the day he met Victoria, the ultra-proper, rigid-postured, long-legged young prosecutor in a conservative glen-plaid suit. She'd had a meltdown when he tried to call Mr. Ruffles, a talking toucan, to testify. Face flushed, she'd lost her cool and called Steve unethical and sleazy, diabolical and dangerous, a disgrace to the profession. How could he not fall for her?

That day in the courtroom, she was still a novice, and he'd caught a tremor in her lower lip as she rose to speak. But when she did speak . . Oh, Lordy, as his father might say. In her tailored suit and velvet-toed shoes, with her short, butterscotch hair tousled just a whisper, with her commanding height, and her voice, growing stronger and more confident by the minute, Victoria Lord conveyed intelligence, competence, and unshakable integrity.

She had what every great trial lawyer desires, something that cannot be taught, bought, or even forgotten; she had presence. You couldn't not watch her.

Still, Steve the Slasher was the wilier practitioner, and he'd tricked her into a mistrial, which got her fired from the State Attorney's Office. He'd been regretful about that, at first. But no more. Had she not been sacked, they never could have hooked up to defend Katrina Barksdale on charges she'd strangled her husband.

Victoria had been engaged to the Avocado King then, and she'd stiff-armed all of Steve's advances. Until she came to the conclusion-not rationally, Steve figured, but chemically, magically, hormonally-that he, Last Out Solomon, was the man for her. Not Bruce Bigby. Which, at this moment, gave him precious little solace. For it stood to reason that if he stole Victoria's heart from Bigby, could not another man do the same to him? Was he this year's Bigby?