Perri O’Shaughnessy - Breach Of Promise

Susan Lim said on local television, “Anybody can come up with a good idea. Anybody can get it built. What really counts in business is marketing. If nobody buys, you make no money. Ms. Markov struck me as an intelligent person who definitely played a large part in their success. Who came up with their biggest product? She did. That was our reasoning, based on careful and objective consideration of the evidence.”

The jury had heard the evidence, and they had reached a decision for Lindy. It was the American jury system at its best.

And it was over.

Paul flew back to Sacramento from Washington on Friday. He heard the news about Nina’s verdict from a television set while biting down on a thick cheeseburger at Sam’s in Placerville. Sam’s was closing after thirty years and he was sure going to miss the old barn with the sawdust on the floors, and the hokey nostalgic decor.

As Nina wasn’t taking his phone calls, he was going to see her personally. He had hoped to make it up there for the verdict, as she was usually at her most accessible at the moment the pressure let up, but this would have to do.

He was still angry at the way she had treated him, but he knew the stunt he had pulled had merited a slap on the wrist. However, that should not have included this telephone silence or such a prolonged lack of contact.

Still, he was not surprised by her overreaction. Big trials always brought with them a loss of control. Lawyers belted each other, clients turned to drink, witnesses left town, strong judges turned into wimps. He himself had possibly overreacted slightly to Riesner. What was the big deal? He had barely hurt the guy.

He didn’t give a shit if he never worked for her again. He wanted something else from this warm female encased like Sleeping Beauty under cold glass. He wanted to break the glass and grab her, shake her back to life. But he couldn’t do that. She would never forgive him for doing that. She had put up that glass to protect herself in the working world, and that was a place she had always liked too much to give up.

Until now. Now she had won her big case, the big case. She couldn’t expect another with stakes like this one in her lifetime, could she? Like Sam’s in Placerville, a phase in Nina’s life seemed to be ending.

Barring any unforeseeable circumstances, Nina was now a millionaire. Markov still had thirty days to appeal. He would probably settle instead, and even if he did appeal, the lawyers would receive their due sooner or later.

She had been evasive with him about the details, but Paul knew a canny lady like Nina would not pass the opportunity up to make a killing on a case like this one. She had struggled along for almost a year while working the Markov case. She was on top. She had nothing more to prove.

She could even quit working.

She could move to Carmel and live with him, break open her glass coffin on her own.

A brilliant future stretched out before her. He finished his meal, quaffed a beer, and stopped to plunk a quarter into Madame Zelda’s slot for what would be the last time.

The impassive, scarfed wooden gypsy shifted in her glass case, unseating a layer of dust. A ruby light lit up behind her. Her finger roved among the yellow cards laid out in front of her. The finger stopped. A card fell into the slot.

The serpent crawls and does his harm

The thunder raises a distant alarm

The waters shift in restless lake

You face great danger for her sake.

A fool and his money are soon parted.

“Have a good retirement, you old witch,” Paul murmured uneasily, and he could have sworn Madame Zelda’s eyes flashed back.

That night, they lay together in Nina’s four poster bed, having made love twice in an hour, first on a lounge pad under the moon on a private piece of deck, and again on the bed, or at any rate, partially on the bed. Bob was in Monterey with his grandfather, and would be flying out of San Francisco on a school trip to Williamsburg on Sunday. He would be gone for the next week.

Nina put a hand on Paul’s cheek and rubbed.

“I love a warm welcome,” Paul said lazily, his eyes closed. “We should argue frequently.”

“No. Let’s never argue again.”

“If we got married and lived in Carmel, we would never argue.” He had said what he came to say. He reached out a hand and ran it over her soft thigh.

“Why don’t you move to Tahoe, Paul?” she replied, not entirely unexpectedly.

“Would you marry me if I did?”

She pushed her head into his chest sleepily, saying, “I would think about it.”

“Yeah, but would you do it?”

“Don’t you know you complicate everything?”

“I don’t see it that way. To me, it’s simple. Man, woman, desire, love, to quote the great Eric Burdon. Oh, I’ve thought about it. But I have a very good business down there. I’ve been working in Carmel longer than you’ve been working in Tahoe. Seriously. Come to me.”

“What about your Washington job?” Her voice was very drowsy.

“I’d drop it like a hot potato for you, my love.”

But Nina had stopped listening. She appeared to have fallen into a nap. Paul yawned. The big bed was a universe unto itself, the covers so thick and warm… he drifted off, too.

Paul woke up about one, his stomach growling. Nina still lay on her side, her long brown hair spilling onto her white shoulder. What a shame he was starving. He shook her gently and said, “Awake, my little honeybee. We skipped dinner. Let’s eat.”

She opened her eyes and seemed glad to see him. What more could a man ask for? Except a good meal?

“But I do have one more question about this business before we throw back the covers and you expose that enticing body of yours to the air and my worshipful gaze.”

“Wha’?” she said.

“About Clifford Wright.”

“What about him?”

“You sure got lucky there.”

“Huh?”

“Doesn’t it strike you as odd?”

She was waking up fast now. “Odd?” she said, the intelligence returning to her eyes. As he watched, absorbed by the transformation, the emphases of her face shifted from soft cheeks and full lips to jawbone and eyebrows. “There’s nothing new on him. Case closed. Just a freak medical occurrence.”

“Did you get a chance to look at the coroner’s report on his death?”

“Why would I?”

“Monumental coincidence or act o’ God?” said Paul. “Only Madame Zelda knows, and she’s getting out of the business.”

Her lips drew a hard line. “You smell fish everywhere you go, don’t you? There’s no mystery here. He died of anaphylactic shock from eating something.”

“Most people with allergies find out about it before keeling over in the jury room.”

“Oh, he knew he had food allergies,” Nina said. “He talked about them to everyone, practically. We even knew from all those super-duper quiz sheets we got about the jurors. Didn’t anyone tell you?”

“I don’t remember hearing about it.”

“Apparently, he had medicine that might have saved him, but nobody knew. What’s it called…”

“You mean an adrenaline kit.”

“Yes. You poke yourself in the leg with epinephrine, which immediately stops the allergic reaction. Sandy told me about a doctor down in southern California with an allergy to shellfish who recently died from anaphylaxis. Stuck his nose over a pan of boiling seafood. He had forgotten his allergy kit.”

“Why didn’t Wright use his?”