A Man's Game

by Newton Thornburg

  “So you will identify me in court,” he said now. “As one of the two men.”

  “Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”

  “But it’s also true that you didn’t see the other man.”

  “That’s what I keep telling Lucca. But he says I did see him, that I had to see him.”

  “But you didn’t, Terri. You never saw the man behind you. And if you say you did, that would be perjury.”

  “I know, I know.” She shook her head in confusion.

  “You would be lying, and I would probably go to prison for that lie.”

  “I don’t want that,” she said. “I won’t lie for Lucca—I promise.”

  “You mean that?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I really mean it.”

  Baird felt as if a boulder had been rolled off his chest. “Thank you,” he said. “You’re a good girl, Terri. Not just beautiful, but good.”

  She shrugged in embarrassment. Smiling slightly, she sipped at her drink again, and for a time, neither of them said anything. Like a shy child, she stared down at her hands, folded in her lap. Then finally she spoke.

  “You know, my father never called me honey or anything like that. Not even my name much.”

  “That was his loss,” Baird said.

  “In high school, if I came home late, he’d call me a harlot. Or a painted woman, he’d say, like we were living in Bible times. He was real religious, especially after my mom ran off. He never smiled. And he never called me honey.”

  “Maybe he wanted to,” Baird suggested. “Some people just shut off their feelings. They become like cripples.”

  The stereo had switched to an album of songs by Carly Simon. And Baird caught himself looking at the nude photos again. The girl caught him too, and he smiled in embarrassment.

  “It’s hard not to look,” he confessed. “They’re not your average living-room pictures.”

  “You know, it’s funny,” she said. “I remember couch-dancing for you and that Slade. And you wouldn’t look at me then. You kept turning away.”

  “Well, it’s not that easy. I mean, when you’re right there, so close.”

  “Why?”

  Baird wasn’t sure how to answer her, or even that he wanted to. “Maybe because I felt a little naked myself,” he tried.

  She looked puzzled. “How do you mean?”

  “Well, look at you,” he said, indicating the pictures. “You must know that every man who sees you wants you. And there I was, a man old enough to be your father. I guess I felt that if I looked right at you, you’d see what a dirty old man I was.”

  “I’d never think that.”

  “Well, I did,” he said. “And listen, it wasn’t easy—I mean, not looking at you.”

  “You really think I’m beautiful?” she asked.

  “Of course I do.”

  “Most guys, they say I’m sexy or that I’d be a good piece of ass. Stuff like that. They make you feel like meat.”

  “You don’t look like meat, believe me.”

  She smiled again. “You’re real nice, you know that?”

  “Sergeant Lucca doesn’t think so.”

  “Screw him.” The girl put her drink down on the coffee table and sat back on the sofa, clasping her hands in her lap again, all the while looking over at Baird in a way he couldn’t read. For a few moments he thought she was amused by him, but then her eyes suddenly filled.

  “Lucca says your daughter looks like me.”

  “It’s true. She does.”

  “You love her a lot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Lucca says that’s why you killed Slade—to protect her.”

  “He’s entitled to his opinion.”

  “Would you kill to save her life, though?”

  Baird raised his glass and drank, wishing—not very logically—that he was more sober, more in control of his tongue. “I think most fathers would,” he said.

  Satin shook her head. “Not mine. He wouldn’t lift a finger.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  She was still sitting there with her hands in her lap, and her eyes were streaming now. Getting a handkerchief out of his jacket, Baird went around the coffee table to give it to her, but she didn’t seem to notice it. He sat down next to her then, still holding the kerchief. Finally she took it.

  “When my mom left, I did everything I could,” she said. “I did the cooking and cleaning, and I did my best to keep my grades up. But he never thanked me. He hardly ever spoke. Only when I’d come home late. Then he’d holler and yell all that Bible stuff. And I’d wonder what I’d ever done to make him hate me so.”

  She began to cry, and Baird patted her on the shoulder.

  “You should try to forget him,” he said. “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”

  “But I don’t like my life that much. I don’t like what I do, most of it anyway. The dancing is okay, and the money, but the guys make you feel like a whore.”

  Baird took another swallow of rum, and it was like the water drop that bursts the dam. Suddenly he felt hopelessly drunk, stupid, tongue-tied. In fact he felt much the same as he had that second night with Slade, when it had seemed as if he were driving through a tunnel. He had the feeling that his consciousness, like his vision, was beginning to fray and blur.

  “Hell with those guys,” he said. “You’re a good girl, Terri. A good, beautiful girl.”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m not.”

  “Sure you are—and remember, I’m bigger than you.” As he patted her arm, she moved closer to him.

  “Would you hold me?” she asked.

  He put his arm around her, all the while continuing to pat her as if she were a child. But he could feel her body even through his jacket, and the smell of her—light perfume and secret sweats—hit him as hard as the rum. She tilted her face up to him, the tears still welling out of her eyes. And she absently crossed her legs in such a way that her tiny skirt climbed almost to her panties. As tired as he was, he closed his eyes for a few seconds and it seemed as if he were in the park again, feeling the light rain on his face and seeing it on hers, the diamond-tipped eyelashes.

  “Why would he hate me so much?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, honey. I can’t imagine.”

  “I’m so unhappy.”

  She turned her face in against his neck and he unthinkingly began to kiss her on the forehead and in her hair. She raised her head then, her eyes half-closed, and he kissed her lightly on the lips. Her tongue moved into his mouth and he pushed his hand under her sweater, onto her breasts, which were bra-less, full and firm. Later he would have a hard time remembering how things had developed after that. He would remember feeling that he was still only consoling the girl, holding and patting her. Yet there were the other things too, scraps of memory blowing through his mind. He remembered seeing her pull her sweater over her head, and he remembered the taste of her breasts and the feel of her hand pushing into his pants and closing on him. It seemed that only moments later they were both naked on the sofa and he was taking her in his arms, and he had the impression that a wind was blowing and that her body was slick from the rain.

  Then he heard her voice, a soft cry of pleasure, nothing more. Yet it struck him like ice water in the face, for he realized suddenly exactly where he was and with whom he was, and worse, what he was. He pulled away then and staggered to his feet, barking his shin on the coffee table. He lurched across the living-dining area and made it into the bathroom, where he fell to his knees in front of the stool, retching violently, wanting to vomit, needing to vomit. But nothing came.

  When he finally emerged, Satin gave him a commiserating smile. She had put on a terry-cloth robe and was sitting in the wicker chair.

  “What a lousy time to get sick,” she said.

  She had picked up his clothes and laid them on the coffee table, which meant that he had to dress in front of her. He did it quickly and clumsily.


  “If you want to call me sometime…” she suggested. “I guess you could say we have some unfinished business.”

  He wondered how the girl could even stand to look at him.

  “I don’t know—there’s the trial,” he said.

  “After, then.”

  “Yes. After.”

  She got up as he started for the door, but he didn’t wait for her. Mumbling good-bye, he left the apartment and hurried down the stairs. By the time he reached his car he was blinded by tears and the car keys were shaking in his hand.

  Eighteen

  On the following Wednesday, at nine in the morning, Baird again found himself sitting in the same cozy courtroom, this time for the preliminary hearing, which Steiner claimed he was going to turn into the final hearing, convincing the judge to drop all charges against Baird. Should he fail, though, he assured his client that the trial itself was going to be “big, really big,” because even the present hearing had filled the courtroom and left scores of would-be spectators lined up in the corridor, hoping to get in.

  The media also were in full attendance, even the TV people, since Steiner had persuaded Baird to go along with the prosecutor and Judge Swanson, neither of whom objected to having cameras in the courtroom.

  “We ain’t got nothin to hide,” Steiner said to Baird, the bad grammar a continuing affectation that miraculously disappeared whenever the little lawyer addressed the court or a TV camera. “We keep our chin up, and we look bright and interested,” he went on. “Cuz we ain’t killed nobody. But we’re curious, like everyone else. We want justice.”

  It was obvious to Baird that the person who wanted TV coverage the most was Steiner himself, who seemed to grow a foot every time a camera was turned his way. In the end, though, Baird approved the coverage only because he didn’t care one way or the other.

  Among the crowd, he saw a number of his friends and coworkers, including an entire row of regulars from Leo’s, with the man himself and Sally sitting nearest the aisle. Not far from them were Satin and another dancer and one of the bouncers from the Oolala. Again Lucca and Lee Jeffers and Sergeant Holcomb were sitting in the row behind the prosecutor’s table. Lee looked noticeably uncomfortable, perhaps because she was wearing a dress. Lucca, though, had the expression of a man who had just sat down to a lobster dinner. All he lacked was a bib.

  Ellen and Kathy and Kevin were right behind Baird. And there would have been other family members too—brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, from Illinois and points east—but Ellen had convinced them not to come until the trial itself, and even then, only if they insisted. He was innocent, she had told them. He would be acquitted.

  Baird was wearing a gray business suit, white shirt, and blue knit tie, certainly an improvement over the orange jumpsuit and manacles he had worn at the arraignment. On that score alone he knew he should have felt better than he had on the earlier occasion. But he did not. In fact, ever since he’d left Satin’s he had felt a pessimism and depression like no other in his life. He had come to realize as never before how thoroughly and unspeakably he had betrayed his wife and daughter, loving the one not enough—and the other too much, and in a way he had never suspected, never dreamed of.

  It was a failure—an evil—that seemed to strike at the very heart of his life, making him suspect almost everything about himself, everything he was, everything he had done. He had even begun to wonder about the killing of Slade. All during the past week he kept asking himself why he had not stayed with his original plan and called in the police once he had subdued the man and rescued Satin, and his answers no longer satisfied him. Yes, the creep eventually would have gotten out of prison, and yes, he undoubtedly would have come after Baird and Kathy, and yes, he would have posed a perennial threat to other women. But still—to just stand there in the starry night and pump bullets into the man’s chest and head—did an adulterous pervert really have that right?

  Baird was not so sure anymore, not about that or anything else. So it had been a difficult week, with everyone but Ellen asking him what was wrong, why he was so quiet, why he wanted to be alone so much of the time. Steiner had even warned him that he had better shape up and stop brooding or they would surely lose the case. As usual, Kathy was the worst. Over and over she would come to him for reassurance and love, only to get a pained smile and a pat on the shoulder. And even when her eyes would fill and she would beg him to tell her what was wrong, all he could do was shake his head and walk away.

  These feelings of guilt and remorse were not so overwhelming, however, that they sapped his will to live or made the prospect of imprisonment any more appealing. He followed the proceedings with the consuming interest of a man on trial for his life, which of course he was.

  At the moment, the prosecuting attorney was holding forth, and on this day Baird did not find Jimmy O’Neil’s voice at all appealing as the large young man verbally reconstructed Baird’s crime brick by brick, like a mason building a wall. He told the judge about Slade’s juvenile crimes and how much of his childhood he had spent in various juvenile facilities; he explained about Slade’s time in Hollywood, living with a gay art director whom he ultimately robbed and crippled by beating the man with his own Oscar statuette, a crime that resulted in Slade’s one incarceration as an adult: two years in Soledad prison.

  O’Neil told about the rape of Barbara Evans in the Ravenna area and why the detectives on the case held Slade to be the chief suspect. The prosecutor then moved on to Baird’s case and the similarities in the way Slade had stalked both Evans and Kathy, saying many of the same obscene things to both women. Then O’Neil called Sergeant Lucca to the stand.

  The detective made his way to the witness chair just as Baird had known he would, shuffling forward, looking tired and bored, the old pro wearily going to work. Indifferently he tried to button the jacket of his single-breasted blue suit, then gave it up as he took the oath and sat down. O’Neil had him identify himself, then began the questioning, asking about his first contact with the defendant. Lucca told about Baird coming to the squad room in late June with his wife and daughter and making the complaint against Slade.

  “And when you told the defendant that all the police could do was help him get a restraining order against Slade, was he grateful for this help?”

  “No, not at all,” Lucca said. “He was disappointed and angry. I got the feeling he expected us to arrest and incarcerate Slade, just based on his complaint.”

  Steiner objected strenuously, and Judge Swanson sustained.

  “Withdrawn,” O’Neil said, like the others content to play their silly game, pretending something said and heard could be rendered unsaid, unheard. He then asked Lucca whether he or any other members of the Metro Squad had had any other contacts with the defendant, and Lucca told him about Detective Joe Daniels seeing Baird and Slade coming out of Harold’s Club together on the thirtieth of June.

  “Did this worry you, Sergeant?” the prosecutor asked. “Did you do anything about it?”

  “Yes,” Lucca said. “I went out of my way to do so. I went to the defendant’s house and warned him against trying anything on his own against Slade. I told him he was playing with fire.”

  “And as far as you know, was that the last contact the defendant had with Slade?”

  “No, it was not.”

  Lucca went on then, telling about the burglary at Baird’s house, giving special emphasis to the mutilated teddy bear and Baird’s stolen watch. O’Neil brought out that Baird had insisted to the police that Slade was the burglar. The prosecutor said that Detective Jeffers would testify to this at the trial. Lucca then testified about Lester Wall coming in voluntarily after Slade’s body was found. The sergeant said that Wall had told him about the meeting at Gide’s bar, recounting how Slade had said to Wall—in front of Baird—that Baird had threatened to shoot him if he didn’t stop pursuing Baird’s daughter. Lester Wall, O’Neil said, would also be a witness at the trial.

  Steiner at that point le
aned toward Baird and wheezed in his ear, “What a putz this O’Neil is. I’m gonna make mince meat out of him.”

  “We are now at the heart of the state’s case,” the putz said, “the point at which things move from motivation to action. Why the defendant, this college graduate, this forty-seven-year-old family man, would be running around drinking and taking in strip joints with a drug-dealing ex-con, a possible rapist and murderer—that’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, Your Honor. And the answer is this: the defendant wanted Slade’s guard down. He wanted to give Slade enough rope to hang himself. Only in this case, it was the defendant who did the hanging.

  Judge Swanson tapped her gavel lightly. “Just the evidence, Counselor, all right?”

  “Of course, Your Honor.” The prosecutor returned to Lucca. “Now, Sergeant, once you learned of James Slade’s death—once his body was recovered—how were you able to link his murder to the defendant? In other words, what is it that led to the arrest of Jack Baird?”

  Baird knew that this was a special moment in Lucca’s life, one of those rare occasions when a man is able to demonstrate before the world what it is that sets him apart from his peers. But as Baird expected, the man did not preen at all, did not sit up straighter or speak louder or clearer. Still, Baird had no trouble seeing his joy.

  “Well, I knew where the body was found and the approximate time of death, because of the defendant’s watch—found on the body—and the statement given by the maid, Mrs. Jessup, who heard Slade’s car being dumped in the lake. But there was no real connection with Mister Baird until I started looking into crimes committed at that same time and in that same area—with particular attention to the sort of thing Slade might have been involved in. That’s when I came upon the assault on Miss Terri Dean—a very odd assault, I might add.”