The Ditto List

by Stephen Greenleaf

  “Good for you.”

  “Will you please leave now?”

  He nodded, knew he was surrendering too soon, no longer cared. “Be at my office at nine sharp. Bring the kids. Be clean and sweet and alert. Pray to whatever you pray to that I know everything about you I need to know.”

  She closed her eyes. “Why do I feel as though it’s Judgment Day?”

  “Because that’s the day it is.”

  Still enraged, he drove against the rush hour to his apartment. On the deck with a drink at his side he checked the Sporting News and the sports pages from the L.A. and New York papers he subscribed to, then called his bookie and put fifty on the Beavers against the Bruins, because Ralph Miller was Ralph Miller and the game was in Oregon and the California boys just hated it up there. Then as an afterthought he put another fifty on the Spurs against the Lakers because the A-Train had made them whole. When he was finished, Sol reminded him he was four hundred down. D.T. said he knew it. Sol swore and bemoaned his fate. D.T. cursed the collapse of the Chargers, which was what had caused it all.

  He hung up and sat silently for a time, weary, convinced of the nightmare that frequently assailed him—that every day of the rest of his life would be exactly the same as this one. When his glass was empty he went to the bedroom and looked up Dr. Haskell’s office number and dialed it. The woman who answered asked if it was an emergency. He told her it was. He didn’t tell her that the emergency was legal, not medical, and was of his own making.

  After several minutes Haskell came on the line. “Dr. Haskell, this is D. T. Jones. I’m an attorney. I spoke to you a couple of months ago about Nathaniel Preston? Your former partner?”

  “Yes. I remember. How are you?” Haskell was tense, irritated.

  “Fine. I wanted to ask you a couple more questions about Preston.”

  “What?”

  “First, is there any chance at all that Preston was an abortionist back when he first started in practice?”

  Haskell was silent for several seconds. “What on earth gave you that idea?”

  “Just a hunch. Is is possible?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Are you saying you would have known if he had been doing something like that?”

  “Yes. I think I would. I was down there day and night.”

  “Okay, how about drugs? Could Preston have been an addict? Or a dealer?”

  “My God, Jones. What are you trying to prove, anyway?”

  “Anything I can.”

  “Are you saying Esther’s still going ahead with this trial business?”

  “Yep.”

  “But I thought …”

  “What?”

  “Well, I heard Nat had done something to her. Threatened her, or something.”

  “Threaten’s a rather benign term for it.”

  “And yet she’s still going after him?”

  “Full speed ahead. Preston made her mad.”

  “I really don’t think that’s a good idea, Mr. Jones. If it’s only a question of money I can probably help Esther out a little. How much does she need?”

  “A million dollars.”

  “Come on. Be serious.”

  “I am serious. How much do you need to get you through the next thirty years?”

  “But …”

  D.T. hung up and hooked up his video recorder and got out the cassette he ran at times like this and shoved it into the machine.

  The tape was entirely of Heather, age approximately one and a half, filmed over the period of months when she was learning to walk and talk. All comic, all marvelous, all his only legacy to the world. He watched raptly in his blackened bedroom, as poisons and acids drained from his body and his mind, as he took silly solace in the fact that he had once done something holy. As Heather was falling into a plant, the phone rang.

  “Leaving the office a little early these days, aren’t you, sport?” Dick Gardner chided.

  “On the track of a surprise witness. Claims to have photos of your client committing unnatural acts with a goat.”

  Gardner laughed. “One last chance, D.T. Save yourself some embarrassment.”

  “Hell, Dick. I try to be embarrassed at least twenty minutes a day. Aerobics, you know.”

  “No time for mirth, D.T. My guy wants to avoid trial if he can. To spare the kids. He’s thinking of their welfare, even if their mother isn’t.”

  “Save it for the judge, Gardner. Let’s get to the ingrown toenail. Does your offer include exclusive custody to Mrs. Stone?”

  “Joint. Both legal and physical. The boy goes with Stone and the girl stays with the mother. Or, six months a year at each place, both kids together.”

  “Two interesting proposals, Dick. I don’t know which is more specious. Your man’s just in this to save face, isn’t he? He wants a legal judgment that he’s a great guy. For political reasons. He doesn’t give a damn about those kids.”

  “Come on, D.T. She could lose them both at trial. Mary Poppins she ain’t.”

  “Mary Poppins she don’t gotta be, thank God.”

  “Stone will give her a quarter million plus the house and car.”

  “What’s she going to do with that house without kids to put in it?”

  “The way I hear it, she’s found a few things to put in it already, and most of them have cocks hanging between their legs, or did when they went in there. I hear you were out there this afternoon, by the way. Have a nice chat?”

  “He must be pretty good, Gardner. What was he, disguised as a dog turd?”

  Gardner laughed easily. “That reminds me of those old Lone Ranger jokes. Remember? ‘Tonto, not recognizing the Lone Ranger disguised as a pool table, racked his balls.’”

  “Old isn’t the only word for that joke, Dick. And the answer is no. No deal without custody. So how many of that warren of witnesses are you really going to call? The shrink?”

  “Who knows?”

  “The kids?”

  “Who knows?”

  “The lover?”

  “Who knows?”

  “You met with the kids today, didn’t you?”

  “Who knows?”

  “Jesus, Gardner. I’ve had more intelligent conversations with Judge Hoskins, for God’s sake.”

  “He’s got the case, did you know that? Clerk called just before five.”

  “No. Christ. I thought it was Buchanan.”

  “Buchanan has the flu.”

  “Hoskins hates me,” D.T. blurted.

  Dick Gardner laughed. “With good reason, I’m sure. And with that knowledge I hereby withdraw our offer of compromise.”

  “See you in court, you prick.” D.T. dropped the phone, his concern about the Stone case approaching panic.

  The more he thought the more worried he got. Hoskins. An angry, impulsive client. A lawyer who’d done less than he should have to prepare his case. An opponent among the most skilled in the city. Sweat crawled forth and chilled him. He put away the video equipment and picked up the phone and called his secretary.

  “Bobby? D.T.”

  “Hi.”

  “You got anything lined up on Stone yet? I’ve got to try to set it up with someone else if you haven’t.”

  Bobby hesitated. When he spoke his voice lagged with resignation and regret. “I was about to call. You know the Lakeview Inn?”

  “By the golf course. Sure.”

  “Do you want a tape or just pictures?”

  “Just pics.”

  “You got a photographer lined up?”

  “Right. Ready to go.”

  “Okay. Have him ask at the desk for the key to Room 214.”

  “What?”

  “He asks for the key. The room’s already reserved. He should be there by ten.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Tonight. Tell him to go to the room and get his camera ready and keep the lights out and not make a sound. No TV, no nothing. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “There’s a connecting door
from that room to Room 212. Have him unlock it right when he gets there. That’s all, just unlock it.”

  “Check.”

  “Sometime tonight two people will check into 212. I don’t know what time, probably not before ten or after midnight. When he hears them come in have your guy keep his eyes on the connecting door. When the light under the door goes out, have him count ten and go through the door and snap two or three shots and then take off. The bed’s against the far wall, the head at the corner.”

  “How far from the door?”

  “Twenty feet, maybe.”

  “Okay. It’ll be dark, right?”

  “Right. He’ll have to have a flash or infrared. After he snaps the pictures have him get out of there fast. The stairs are at the end of the hall, just around the corner. Stone might try to come after him, so he shouldn’t dawdle.”

  “Who’s the guy?”

  “No names.”

  “Trustworthy?”

  “As much as anyone.”

  “He know about me?”

  “No.”

  “How much?”

  Bobby paused. “Five hundred.”

  “High.”

  “It’s what he needs.”

  “You absolutely sure they’ll be there tonight?”

  “As sure as I can be.”

  “How’d you get it fixed so fast?”

  “I guess Stone is always ready to play, provided the arrangements are discreet. As for the room, well, those of us who are more adventuresome than others, well, sometimes we need to make a record of a relationship ourselves, for various reasons. I don’t expect you to understand.”

  “Okay, Bobby. I’m sorry I had to go to you for this, but I need an edge in this one. I need one bad.”

  Bobby E. Lee ignored his plea. “Tell your guy to be on time. And not to leave anything behind.”

  “Bobby?”

  “Yes.”

  “One more thing.”

  “What?”

  “The guy in the next room with Stone?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s not going to be you, is it? I don’t want it to be you, Bobby.”

  Bobby E. Lee hung up without a word.

  D.T. went over in his mind the list of people he could call who might take the pictures, investigators and photographers he knew of or had used in the past as witnesses or collectors of evidence. There was a score or more of them, and afterward he would be hostage to the creep for life, subject to having done to him exactly what he was preparing to do to Stone. One word, and his license goes. One word, he gets sued, or jailed, or both. He would have to take care of it himself. That way his trust would extend only to Bobby E. Lee, where it had already resided for years.

  Blackmail. That was a first. But it was only a difference of degree, right? Another price of victory. They all did it, one way or another. The personal injury boys solicited clients, the class action boys split fees, the corporate boys phonied registration statements and bought stock on inside tips, the criminal boys bought experts, and each and every one of the boys suborned perjury in every case that had ever gone to trial in the history of the world. So what the hell? The ingrown toenail was that Stone was gay and gays couldn’t be parents. Right? Right. Hell, he could do it in open court if he had to, even without Bobby’s help. Find one of Stone’s playmates and move for amended custody and subpoena him. Put him on and ask him how Stone liked his sex, whether he used K-Y jelly or only a dab of oleo. Any judge in town would feign a faint and give the kids to Mom. So the result was right, the kids were better off, and who was hurt? D.T. went to the hall closet and dug out his good camera, the one with the automatic film advance and the electronic flash. He wound in a roll of the high-speed Ektachrome he had on hand, set the shutter to the flash indicator, opened the aperture as wide as it went, put new batteries in the flash attachment, and aimed and shot his bedroom door. The flash exploded, momentarily erasing the room, permanently erasing his illusions of legitimacy.

  He checked his watch. Eight-ten. He made himself a peanut butter sandwich and drank a glass of milk, at one point conscious that it would be his final brush with wholesomeness. Then he stuck his camera in his briefcase and got in his car and drove to the Lakeview Inn and reconnoitered.

  It was a large and popular place, modishly decorated, proximate to tennis, golf, swimming, and a trendy shopping mall, perpetually full of convening salespeople, energetic engineers, reuniting high school classes, or dancers who were charitably motivated. The leather lobby chairs were full, the desk clerks harassed, the floor littered with the luggage of the checking-in or -out. The bar off the lobby rollicked with warbled laughter and a banjo that was strummed, not picked. The dining room opposite the bar dripped with chandeliers and ferns. And Muzak maligned it all.

  D.T. took the elevator to the second floor, found his room, found the stairs around the corner at the end of the hall, took the stairs to the main floor, and exited into the parking lot through the nearest door. He walked to his car and drove it to a place just outside the exit door, then took his briefcase and walked back to the main entrance and waited in line until he could ask the desk clerk for the key to 214.

  The clerk slid the key his way without looking at him. No one else in the lobby seemed to notice him either, not even the woman he briefly wished would do so. Had his face not clashed with his emotions, every eye in the place would have been on him and every voice would have screamed for a cop. He crossed the lobby and took the elevator up a floor, sharing it with a Latin waiter who tended a cart of dishes topped with silver domes.

  The elevator stopped at two. He walked quickly to his room, turned on the lights to check the layout, pressed his ear to the wall and listened for soundless minutes, then unlocked the connecting door. Retracing his steps, he wiped his prints off everything he’d touched, turned off the light with his elbow, and took out his camera and lay on the bed to await his victim. Before long, D.T. had convinced himself that he would not be altering history but merely hastening its pace.

  He floated gently on time, exercising the skill he had developed in college to think of the erotic when confronted by the dreadful. The only light in the room came from the languid digits on his watch, the only sound from the toneless whistlings of his breath. He closed his eyes and watched the liquid colors that formed behind his lids. He took his pulse and tried to make it race and subside to his will. He held his breath for seventy-six seconds. He unzipped his pants and scratched his balls. He thought of Barbara and Michele, of Heather and Lucinda Finders. He thought of Bobby E. Lee, of how to apologize for this. He heard a sound and wished he hadn’t.

  Light spilled under the door, a yellow dash of doom, just as Bobby E. Lee had predicted. Motionless, D.T. listened for words or telltale sounds but heard nothing coherent. Water ran, a toilet flushed, water ran again. Drinks, he guessed. Or drugs. Coke would be good. Amyl nitrite, maybe. Free-basing? Who knew? Who cared? For thirty minutes more he was left to his imagination and his conscience. He cradled his camera like a baby chick and thought of every naked woman he had ever seen.

  The light under the door went out. He got up as quietly as he could and went to the connecting door, counting to himself, readying his optic weapon.

  On the count of ten he turned the knob. He pushed; nothing happened. He pressed harder, swore silently, then pulled. The door swung toward him quickly, squeaking only when it was open wide enough for him to pass beyond it. He stepped back, then stepped quickly into the other room. He heard vocal rumblings from the far corner, querulous, not yet frightened.

  D.T. raised his camera to his eye, aimed for the sound, pressed the button, filled the room with light and lovers, was aware of only generality—their presence and predicament. He kept his finger down, and the motor whirred and the flashes came again and again, blinding him, preventing his sense of who he was shooting, of whether his pictures were anything he needed, or anything at all.

  A voice beyond him cursed and ordered him to stop. He retreated,
slamming the door and locking it. He grabbed his briefcase and ran toward the stairs, listening for pursuit, hearing nothing but his swollen, throbbing heart and his coward’s fleeing footfalls.

  Halfway down the stairs he tripped and almost fell. At the bottom he slowed to a homely walk, stepped into the parking area, and encountered a young boy with a sports bag over his shoulder, a racquet under his arm. They eyed each other nervously. D.T. walked on, opened the door to his car, got in, closed the door, inserted the key, turned it. The car started, no traffic impeded him, and he was on the boulevard that led to his apartment before he thought to look back.

  Nothing followed. It had all gone perfectly. Perfect, perfect, perfect. So perfect it was bound to fall apart.

  When he got home his phone was ringing.

  “You the lawyer?”

  “Yes.”

  “You do divorce?”

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “The name is Kates. The wife just threw me out. How much you charge to get me a divorce?”

  “It depends on what—”

  “How much?”

  “Two hundred dollars, minimum. Cash up front.”

  “Fucking asshole bastard.”

  At the very least.

  NINETEEN

  The photographs—crisp, shiny glossies, developed and printed in D.T.’s makeshift darkroom—imprisoned Chas Stone and a tawny Aryan lad of about twenty-five, the pair of them snug and naked in the rumpled bed of Room 212 in the world-famous Lakeview Inn, American plan, all credit cards accepted, AAA-approved, group rates upon request. Their eyes were pinkish from the bounce of the flash off the rosy carpet, and the focus was a touch blurred since the darkness and distance reduced the depth of field, but the essentials were there for the looking, preserved on a borderless print.

  Stone was covered from the waist down by an electric blue acrylic blanket, a preliminary pose of modesty or enticement, but in the chest and shoulders he was a Carrara bust—hairless, trim, and eager. And his partner, well, his partner had taken care to display himself in all his oiled perfection, from his tapering calves to his stubby, angled prick to his yellow curling locks to his knowing sadist’s smirk. He was clearly teasing Stone, and Stone was clearly teased. The pictures wouldn’t make Popular Photography, or even Male Muscle, but they would carry out their function, when and if D.T. had the need and the will to use them. He patted the pocket where they lay, glanced across the courtroom at Stone and Gardner, then looked at the client who he was about to call to the stand in the case of Stone v. Stone.