"Lawyer's here, Sam." Noteboom grinned as if he had a secret.
Noteboom stopped outside the interview room and gestured grandly with one beefy arm. "Ill be back in half an hour to see if you're finished."
Sam walked into the little room, expecting to see Mark Nelson. Instead, a woman stood there, her back to him, her head bent toward the file folder on the table. The scent of her filled the room, a scent so familiar that his stomach turned over. Yardley soap and linen and English cigarettes. Nina's smell.
He absorbed her image in a second; the long hair was gone, replaced by a rough shag cut. The suit—beige and well cut, the long slender legs in low-heeled, plain brown leather pumps. Nina.
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He turned and tried the door. Locked, of course. No way to get out without buzzing for a jailer.
He had thought he would never see her again. For five years, he had done without her. Done badly, done so-so, and finally, done well. He had thought of her and dreamed of her and gone without loving anyone but her.
Until this moment.
She turned and stared at him without smiling, searching silently with her brown eyes. She held out her hand and he stepped forward and took it; there was nothing else he could do.
"Sam."
"Nina."
"Sit down. Talk to me."
The five years had not been particularly kind to her. She had been a youngish woman, a woman who could have been anywhere between thirty and forty. She was not youngish now. Her skin stretched too tightly across her cheekbones, thin dry skin that ages badly. There were tiny lines around her eyes and the corners of her mouth, and her neck was no longer the taut smooth column he remembered. Still, she was lovely. She watched him watching her and picked up on his thoughts as if he had spoken them out loud.
"Time got to the old broad, huh?"
Caught, he stammered. "You look well. You look wealthy and successful—like a rich lady lawyer."
"I am. Rich and successful—and well. You won't believe this, but I haven't had a drink of anything stronger than tea for four years. But I know how I look. My dance card is empty. The men I meet are old fools and young guys who could be my sons. How about you?"
"Me?" He grinned slowly and reached for her hand again. "Old fools and young guys too. None of them come on to me. I guess I've lost my charm."
'I meant do you still drink like it's going out of style?" 'Not lately. They don't serve much in here. Not that much before—before it happened. Beer mostly. What are you doing here?"
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"You fucked up, Sammie."
"That depends on how you look at it. You didn't answer my question."
"I came because I read about you in the papers. I saw you on the six o'clock news and the eleven o'clock news. After a while, it occurred to me that you needed a good attorney, and you always said I was the best working lawyer you knew."
"This embarrasses the hell out of me. I suppose you know that Anyway, I've got an attorney."
"I met your attorney. When his ears dry out, in about ten years, he might make a criminal defense attorney. You deserve better than that."
"Maybe, but I'm broke, babe. I spent my entire life savings renting helicopters and a peerless Indian guide— who I managed to get killed. I am what you legal types refer to as indigent."
She looked away. He felt her hand cold in his.
"I'm not for hire. You're a famous defendant, and we big-time criminal defense attorneys thrive on patsies like you. Me and F. Lee and Melvin B. lust after defendants who'll bring us headlines. You're money in the bank."
"That's not why you're here."
"You haven't seen me for five years. How could you know why I do things?
You didn't even know me then."
"I tried."
"You did that. Like they say, Sammie—if only I'd met you ten years earlier." She pulled her hand away from him, and opened her file. "I dismissed Nelson."
"The hell you did."
"He was glad to go. He told me he was 'terribly overloaded.' Actually, I think you frightened him. I assume you didn't want a defense attorney who could be scared off so easily. In your situation, you need a tough guy."
"You're a tough guy, are you?"
"You bet your sweet ass I am. I'm the Iron Maiden—well, maybe the Iron Matron now—and you're stuck with me representing you. Unless you say no."
"How could I say no to such a proposition?"
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"How's Pistol? Did he survive the exodus as well as you have or has he gone to the gnat kittyland in the sky?"
"He's fine the last I heard. He asked for you often."
"He never. He used to sit it the window and watch for you to come home, ... to show up." She stuffed her handful of papers back into the brown file, and reached for the handsome attache case beside her on the floor. "Let's go see him. We can work over these later."
"They get real funny about prisoners walking out of here—something about maximum security. And we're having macaroni and cheese for lunch. It's my favorite."
She laughed, an unnatural sound. "You'll have to forgo that. I bailed you out."
"You're kidding."
"I never kid. I never, neverkid. You should know that."
"That's $5,000 on the barnlhead. You have that kind of money?"
"That—and more. I'm very good at what I do. I told you that. You're not going to skip on me, are you? I'll get it back. You can pay me 18
percent interest if you like, and we'll be square. Why don't you push that buzzer and go and pack your gear? I'll wait for you outside. I'll be the lady in the silver Mazda. The sun is shining; the leaves are what they call a lot of fall color. We'll g> get a steak and you can tell me what really happened. Then we'll go see Pistol and Joanne Lindstrom and we'll rearrange the pieces of this odd puzzle until they fit the way they're supposed to."
"I don't have to tell you that's the best offer I've had today."
"No."
"... and how grateful I am."
"Wait until you have something to be grateful about." She held the file and briefcase against her chest. "And Sam .. ."
"Yeah."
"Nothing's changed. I'm in a comfortable place now. I don't want to lose hold of it. I like my life. Do you understand?"
"Gotcha."
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He rang, and Noteboom let them out The air outside smelted wonderful.
Nina drove well, if too fast. The wind through the driver's side window picked at her hair and ruffled it, and he wished that she had not cut it, wanting to see it whipping behind her as he remembered it. He was too aware of the movement of her right thigh as she accelerated and braked, of her elbow inches from his hand as she shifted down. He had not thought of sex in jail, where all men are said to be obsessed with it, but she brought all of his libido back.
The silver car left Wenatchee behind, skirting the rolling bare hills and plunging past miles and miles of orchards and their windbreaks of poplars, the fruit trees so pregnant now that they seemed to creak under their burden of red and yellow delicious apples.
Sam experienced again the sense that the seasons had accelerated and telescoped upon themselves—heat and then frost and then snow, and heat, and now it was fall again. The apple smell filled the wind and drifted into her car.
She turned south and the Mazda took the foothills approaching Blewett Pass, its engine a throaty purr. He remembered his truck and wondered idly what had become of it. He'd left it in the cruise ships' parking lot in Chelan during one of the spells of summer, and it probably waited someplace in an impound lot, had, perhaps, even been sold at auction by now. She picked up on his thoughts as she always had.
"What do you think of my jalopy? Beats your truck, huh?"
"Anything would. What happened to your Volkswagen? I always liked your bug."
"Somebody pushed it into Lake Union in—oh, probably 1978.1 found it sitting there underwater one morning. We had a funeral for it and a dock party, threw flowers in, and said words over it. It's still there. The crawfish use it for a condo."
He shivered involuntarily, remembering cars with bodies in them that he'd seen winched out of Puget Sound. He
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thought often of death now, dismissing calm memories and going straight for the macabre. She looked younger—not young, but younger; the fluorescent lights of the interview room had not been kind.
"Are you happy?" He hadn't meant to ask it and was surprised to hear himself speak the words.
"Was I ever?" There was neither gloom nor lightness in her inflection.
"I guess I meant to ask how things were going with you— beyond the obvious. Private practice has certainly raised your standard of living."
"Sammie, you'd pee your pants if you saw my houseboat now. Nothing's left but the flotation. Cedar shakes, skylights, a greenhouse window, a sleeping loft—it's two stories now, honest to God. I've even got a cleaning lady. I drive her nuts."
He smiled. "I would imagine she'd find you confusing. You seem happy."
"That was always so important to you—being happy. Hardly anybody is. I finally found the formula for—what would I call it? Equilibrium. No big highs; no more excruciating lows. I juggle. I've got my career. I've made some friends on the dock. No lie. You may not believe it, but I have. And I have young lovers ..."
She looked quickly at him, saw nothing on his face, and looked back at the road. "Nothing heavy. Their bodies are wee, and they're enthusiastic in bed and they haven't grown up enough to think deeply enough to interest me. When one j^aves, there's always another one. All of it is like walking arefpot on a hot sidewalk. When one foot starts to burn, jump onto the other one. If one part of my life
lsaPPoints me, I concentrate on another part. I never dwell 011 toe hurting part, so I don't feel it."
what if you run out of places to jump to? Your anesthe-aajnjght wear off."
'U find something else. When I told you I was comfort-ao«J. I meant it. I'mO.K."
Am I someplace you jumped to because your sidewalk 801 too hot?" 319
She was quiet for a full minute, shifting into lower gear as the incline rose ahead of them. "Not you yourself, although I do care what happens to you, even if you find it hard to believe. What you are, where you are, and what they're trying to do to you represents a challenge."
"Maybe you should have left me where I was—like your bug. The challenge may get sticky."
"No." She laughed her mirthless laugh. "The bug will stay down, and it's quite content underwater. You're such a stubborn bastard, you'll always try to surface. Now reach into my purse and light me a cigarette and let's get down to business. Tell me what happened . . . every little detail you can remember. When you've finished, I'm going to want to-hear it again—and again—and again, until you get so sick of going over it that you'll want to strangle me."
"What about your young man? Won't he get tired of waiting while you play nursemaid to an impossible defense?"
"If he does, I can always find another."
Before they rolled into Natchitat, he had told her all of it three times over.
He could not tell if she believed him.
Sam watched Nina, saw her sitting on his couch in his trailer, her stockinged feet tucked under her, her thin arms bare in her sleeveless blouse. He had visualized her in the little trailer a million times the first year, twenty thousand the next, and finally, not at all. He was thankful he'd cleaned up the hulk and bought furniture after he'd seen Danny's shock at the mess that last day; she looked out of place enough as it was, too rich for his blood, his salary, his taste. All of her energy was channeled into listening to him. He felt glad to be able to talk freely to someone he not only trusted in the ways of the law, but someone who might be able to grasp and understand what he could not.
Pistol clung to him, a matted lump of gray fur, scrawny but not starved, purring ferociously. The old cat had forgotten to be sullen and full of rebuke and had leapt at-j him the moment he crawled out of her car. Only after be \
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had licked Sam's face had the cat allowed Nina to hold him. She looked at them now, man and cat, and said solemnly, "See, he always liked you best."
"Tomcats cling together."
"No they don't. They walk by themselves. You're both pussycats. Make me another cup of that disgusting stale tea and get me a sheet of paper and a pen. Let's see what we have."
He moved to refill her cup, still carrying the cat draped on his shoulder.
"This time dust the cup out."
When he passed the window over the sink, he felt rather than saw the eyes outside watching them. He knew Rhodes, the manager, and probably half of the park were out there beyond in the cold dark, staring from darkened mobile homes so that they wouldn't be seen. He suspected that Rhodes was plotting at this very moment how to break his lease. Killers in the park certainly were even less desirable than sick old men who didn't mow their grass or haul their garbage. Sam raised his right hand, the middle finger extended and waved it toward Rhodes's triple-wide. He pulled another beer from the refrigerator—only his second; it didn't taste as good as he'd imagined.
"So what do you think? We gonna blow them out of the courtroom and leave it a disaster area?"
She grimaced and ran her hand through her hair, revealing her pale, high forehead, unfreckled like the rest of her skin was. "We might only make them a little nervous with what we have here. There's nothing that will make the Prosecutor foul his trousers."
"She said she saw the bear attack Danny."
"So..."
"She couldn't have. She was in the tree. She admits that. I *s in the same tree. You can't see from there to where she says the struggle happened, to where I found Danny. The toil turns back on itself there; there's no visibility at all ironj where she was—all you can see is rock wall." Then why would she say that?" Nina, it's obvious. She had something going with
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Demich right here in Natchitat. She coaxes and pleads with Danny to go off someplace where her lover boy can fake a death. Then she covers for him."
"From what you've told me about her—and your perceptions were always reasonable, even when you weren't—I can't see her participating in that kind of treachery. She doesn't sound devious. She sounds like a rather simple, naive, dependent woman."