Paul Goldstein - A Patent Lie

Pearsall had already told him he was. The man's insecurity was as staggering as his ego.

“He left you instructions to put me first, didn't he-the poor fellow who jumped in front of the train?”

“Rest assured,” Seeley said, “you will be the most important witness in the trial.”

The last week before the start of a major trial rises and falls on ocean swells of crisis-exhibits to be readied, last-minute motions to be filed, witnesses to be prepared-but the crises had become predictable over the years, their resolution as inevitable as their occurrence, and Seeley had left to Palmieri all but the most daunting of them: where to place Alan Steinhardt in the lineup of witnesses and how to rebut any last-minute claims by Lily Warren.

Still, Seeley knew that he could make better use of his time than chasing down Highway 280 after a gold BMW with Leonard, one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting on the open window, deftly changing lanes three and four cars ahead of him. Leonard had promised that his house in Atherton was no more than twenty minutes from Vaxtek's offices and gave Seeley rapid-fire directions in the event they lost each other in traffic. “I want you to get to know Renata and me,” Leonard said. “You've changed. I want to get to know you.”

Seeley was curious about Renata. He had met her at the wedding nine years ago, a period when he was drunk or hungover most of the time, and he remembered only fragments of the event. He assumed that the attractive woman in the snapshots in Leonard's office was Renata, but could not connect these images to the young bride who had pressed her body into his as they moved across the ballroom floor.

One other memory stood out. As Seeley was leaving to find Leonard in the hotel kitchen, Renata took his hand and, rising to her toes, whispered a message-a goodbye? a wish? a secret? — in his ear. With the music and the noise, Seeley had not made out a single word. From Renata's expression when she drew away, he at once saw the urgency and consequence the words had for her, but he was too drunk or embarrassed, for her or for himself, to ask what she had said. From time to time in the years since, when he passed a wedding party or saw couples dancing, Seeley thought about what Renata's words might have been. He wondered, too, whether he owed her an apology for not fulfilling whatever promise his silence had implied.

Leonard's street in Atherton, when Seeley found it, was a well-shaded cul-de-sac. Magnolia, eucalyptus, and chestnut trees, even an improbable palm here and there, formed a canopy over the narrow lane, and there were no sidewalks. Seven-foot hedges hid lawns and houses from view. Seeley asked himself what these people were hiding and what they were hiding from. The evening had turned cool, and the dusty medicinal scent of eucalyptus filled the rental car.

Leonard's house was at the end of the lane and, from the boundaries marked by hedgerows, was more modest than its neighbors. Leonard was waiting at the front door.

“You didn't get lost, did you?” He already had a drink in his hand.

Seeley said, “I had your directions.”

Leonard put an arm around Seeley's shoulder and led him through the hallway into a tall room that, with its floor-to-ceiling windows and encompassing skylight, could have been a solarium or a green-house. Set into the one wall that wasn't glass was a massive stonework fireplace. In front of it, a slender figure crouched, adjusting logs. Seeley had the sense of a cat ready to spring.

“Well, here he is,” Leonard said. “The prodigal brother.”

Renata turned to face them and, after staring at Seeley for a moment, gave him a hasty, vexed smile. “I'm just setting a fire.” She struck a kitchen match against the stone, put it to the newspaper crumpled beneath the logs, and replaced the screen. The tinder flared behind her and, rising, she momentarily lost her balance. Seeley steadied her with the hand he had extended in greeting.

Leonard gave Renata an unhappy glance. He said, “I'll get the champagne.”

Seeley took a chair close to the fire and Renata sank into the has-sock beside it, drawing her knees up and positioning herself so she could watch both Seeley and the flames. Fair and fine-boned, with a mass of dark hair that fell to just below her shoulders, she was more glamorous than in the photos. Yet, even this close, Seeley had no memory of her as the bride on tiptoe with an urgent message.

She gave Seeley an amused, quizzical look and he wondered if she, too, was thinking of the whispered words.

“Time flies,” she said, not inviting a reply. She seemed to be comfortable just sitting there, watching him and the fire.

A painting crowded with nude figures hung on the wall above the fireplace. The figures were clustered in groups of two and three and, although the faces were indistinct, the painter had artfully used the bodies to convey emotions of sadness, joy, repose. It was far from the bold abstract expressionism that Seeley liked, but there was a sensual quality in the painting that intrigued him.

Renata said, “With all the glass, there aren't many places to hang paintings.”

“Who's the artist?”

“Do you like it?”

The way she asked told Seeley that the painting was hers. “Very much.” The words surprised him.

“I stopped a few years ago. Orthopedic surgery doesn't leave much time for painting.”

Seeley had thought she was a nurse.

She must have seen his confusion. “I was still a nurse when I met you.” She gave him a crooked smile. “That's what a girl did in those days if her father was a doctor and her mother was a housewife. I met Leonard at a med-school mixer at Stanford. There weren't enough women, so they brought in nurses. We discovered we were the only ones there from upstate New York. In California, that's enough of a reason for two people to get together.”

“You're from Buffalo?”

She shifted on the hassock to see him better and tugged at her skirt, where it had ridden above her knees. “Schenectady.”

“Like Daisy Miller.”

“You don't look like a Henry James fan.”

“I'm not,” Seeley said. “I read it in a college lit class. What would a Henry James fan look like?”

“I don't know. Thin, neurotic. Maybe pale and bloated. Anyway, not like you ”

In the kitchen a cork popped.

Even before he stopped drinking, wine was at the very bottom of Seeley's choices. He didn't mind the taste as much as he did the inefficiency, the whole bottles he had to consume just to come within striking distance of the oblivion that three or four quick tumblers of gin could deliver in far less time. It was more than a year since he'd had a drink; Buffalo's enveloping familiarity had cosseted him well. Sometimes he went whole weeks without thinking about alcohol. Other times he could think of nothing else. The smallest mishap could set off the craving. He successfully navigated a long and difficult disbarment proceeding that threatened to finish off what was left of his career without once having the urge to drink. But, a week later, a shoelace broke and all he could think of was alcohol. A sound, like ice being scooped into a glass, could set off the craving. Or a cork popping.

From the doorway Leonard gestured at the painting with the open champagne bottle. “It's good, isn't it?” He set the glasses on the coffee table, filled them, and handed them around, touching his glass to Seeley's-“A toast to Mike on his first visit to our home”-and then to Renata's. Renata tipped hers in Seeley's direction.

Leonard sipped at the champagne, his eyes on Renata.

Renata drained her glass and said to Seeley, “Which is more important to you, to be loved or to be admired?”