T. Bunn - Winner Take All

“Like munching on glass shards.”

“You know I have to ask if you can suggest an attacker’s name for the record.”

“And you know I can’t answer.”

Omar pointed to where Hamper Caisse now dealt with a sullen teenage client and a frantic mother. “I’d say that little exchange you just had with opposing counsel would make fair copy, if only I’d understood what was said.”

“No comment on that either.” Marcus started to excuse himself, then decided to offer the reporter a bone. “You might want to go have a talk with Sephus Jones.”

“Spell that first name?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Marcus caught sight of Hamper’s head cocking slightly. Most courtroom lawyers picked up the ability to listen to peripheral conversations, a trick that served them well in urgent negotiations. “He works at the rock pit off Blue Ridge Road.”

“You think he might have a bearing on the explosion or this case?”

“If he does, I can’t tell you how.” Marcus sketched out the assault in his front yard, and his supposition that the New Horizons check was a forgery. “Whatever you do, don’t mention my name.”

Marcus waited for the court papers to be completed, then personally carried them down to the clerk’s office for the ruling to be registered and notarized. He entered the central foyer to spot Kedrick Lloyd frowning at him. The crabby Englishman was seated on one of the hard foyer benches alongside a woman far too groomed for this tawdry spot.

Marcus crossed over and offered, “Good afternoon.”

The foyer’s fluorescents made the aging Brit look even more decrepit than he had in Dale’s kitchen. “Spare us the false friendliness, will you?” He waved an aged hand of china and translucent flesh. “Leave us be, that’s a good fellow.”

The woman beside him had the horsey features of inbred money, and the low voice of one who had endured much. “Kedrick, please.”

“Well really. He’s only here because he wants me to spend my last few breaths defending Dale in a trial they can’t possibly win.”

“We’re already past that,” Marcus replied. “The hearing was today, and the court has issued-”

“And I tell you these legal maneuverings hold all the significance of a leaf in a storm.”

An attorney Marcus knew vaguely pushed through the courtroom doors and called over, “Firing squad’s armed and ready, Mr. Lloyd.”

Kedrick brought himself fully upright. Marcus faced a lion’s mane of snow-white hair, a king’s bearing, and shoulders that should have carried far more flesh than they did. “You and your ilk are an abominable stain upon the scrolls of human history. Dale approached you in a moment of blind and drunken panic. You, on the other hand, have no excuse save cruel and soulless greed.”

Kedrick Lloyd crossed to the waiting attorney with scarcely a limp. Even in his decrepit state, Marcus could see shadows of the man’s former strength. At the courtroom’s entrance Lloyd turned and added, “Go back to digging worms out of your small-town garden, Mr. Glenwood. Leave these larger matters to people who actually fathom the world’s workings.”

When the doors sighed shut, Lloyd’s wife said, “I keep telling myself, if only he would give in to the pain, admit how close he is to death, he would be so much easier to live with. But Kedrick has never been an easy man.”

Marcus took that as an invitation and lowered himself into the seat beside her. It was still warm from Kedrick’s presence. He offered a hand. “Marcus Glenwood.”

“Evelyn Lloyd.” A trace of humor flickered across her wounded features. “My husband had some rather choice things to say about you.”

“You’re American?”

“From Philadelphia. I met Kedrick at Duke.” Her attention slid back to the burnished doors. “The doctors have given him a month to live four times over the past year and a half. That is the kind of fighter my husband is.”

“There’s no need to explain anything.”

Another faint flicker, remnants of a more pleasant time. “Shall we start over?”

“Gladly. I was hoping to ask your husband about Erin Brandt.”

“Erin, Erin.” She scanned the foyer, seeing none of it. “Kedrick introduced her to Dale.”

“So I heard.”

“And then flew into a memorable rage when they decided to marry. Kedrick did everything but order Dale not to go ahead with it.” She shook her head. “What a vain and stubborn man.”

Marcus was uncertain whether she was speaking about her husband or Dale. “Erin Brandt’s pictures make her out to be very attractive.”

“Erin Brandt can’t possibly be captured by photographs. She is the most magnetic creature I have ever come across. I suppose it is what one might call star quality. Even so, I never understood why Kedrick remained so intently focused upon having her sing at the Met.”

“Your husband was on the board of the opera house in New York, is that right?”

“He still is. His work for the Met keeps him alive.” Her gaze continued its long-distance roving. “Erin Brandt is two persons. The diva is warm and alluring and utterly captivating, with one of the finest voices I have ever heard. When she smiles at you, you cannot help but return the gift.”

“And the other?”

“Ah, that is the question, is it not.”

“The woman is secretive?”

“I have never met anyone who could say they truly knew Erin Brandt.”

Marcus found himself thinking of another lovely woman. One with eyes like an Arctic sunrise, softest indigo and shattered ice. “Maybe Dale came to know the real Erin.”

“Perhaps so, Mr. Glenwood. Perhaps that is why she left him.”

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to prepare these documents for overnight shipment to London.”

“We are at the Wyndham another two nights. Come by tomorrow afternoon and I’ll tell you a little more about the woman you oppose.” She offered a hand long and tapered as a man’s. “It is seldom I meet someone able to shrug off one of my husband’s broadsides.”

Marcus turned away as swiftly as was polite. “Maybe I’ve just got more pressing matters on my mind.”

Kirsten found it strange that she had missed the threat until she came out of the dressing room, since people in the shop had already begun casting glances her way. She had entered the Escada boutique on New Bond Street because she knew the place and liked the dark little number in the window. She figured she’d make a quick in-and-out, grab what she needed, and be gone so fast she could pretend it hadn’t really happened. For any moth, however, there was grave risk in flirting with the flame. She opened the dressing room door and aimed for the floor-length mirror on the opposite wall, only to be stopped by a far more ominous reflection.

The framed poster was a blowup of an ad they had run all over Europe. She was standing in heels and a fluffy hotel bathrobe, her hair still wet from the shower, giving a sultry inspection both to the viewer and an array of four Escada dresses and jewels and bags laid out on the bed. The company had made it their trademark ad for three seasons, beyond eternal in the rag trade. Kirsten turned away with the speed of retreating from a white-hot oven. But the salesgirl was there with an old copy of Vogue opened to the same page, asking for her autograph. Which drew over the store manager and another salesclerk and one of the patrons, all of them saying how great it was to meet her, where on earth had she been, the girls these days were just empty faces. Which was precisely Kirsten’s thought as she stared at herself staring back.

She returned to the hotel and pretended to sleep. But the internal din was resettled now into audible confines. This was not a random series of events. The game was stalking her. She was being drawn back, and to a new level whose appeal was so strong she could feel it grip her middle and twist with exquisite pain.