win. That would make the value of your services a lot less than thirty thousand dollars. See what I mean? But putting a price on abstractions, like the value of legal services, is a lot tougher than dealing with diamonds and granite, Bob.
So why don't you start by guessing the price of a common, everyday item.'
'Look,' Packard said angrily, 'I just told you. I don't have time for this nonsense.'
Deems ignored Packard and pulled a pair of soiled woman's underpants from his pocket, then laid them on Packard's desk.
Packard leaned forward and stared. The cotton panties looked familiar, but he could not remember where he had seen them.
'What's the value of these panties, Bob?'
'Where did you get those?' Packard asked.
'Let's see if you can guess. I'll give you a hint.'
Deems leaned forward and grinned in anticipation of Packard's reaction to his clue. He pitched his voice high and, in a falsetto, said, ''Get off of me, now! If you can't get it up at least let me get some sleep.''
Packard turned white. His wife, Dana, had said that to him last night after a failed attempt at sex with the same tone of disgust Deems had so adequately imitated.
'You know, Bob,' Deems said with an air of feigned concern, 'your technique leaves a lot to be desired. You completely ignored Dana's nipples. They're yummy. Fiddle with them a while tonight. They're like the knobs on a radio. If you twirl them the right way, you can find a mighty nice station.'
Packard suddenly recognized the panties as the ones Dana had taken off just before they got in bed. Dana had dropped them next to the bed before they started to have sex. That meant that Deems had been in their room while they were sleeping.
'You were in my house?'
'That's right, Bob.'
Packard bolted to his feet and shouted, 'Listen, you prick . . .'
'Prick?' Deems interrupted in a bemused tone. 'That's a fighting word.
Now, a fight between the two of us might be interesting. Speed and youth against size and power. But I want to give you a word of advice, Bob. If you start a fight with me, you better be prepared to kill me.
If you leave me alive, I'll come for you when you least expect it and you'll die like Harold Shoe.'
Packard remembered Shoe's autopsy photographs. It was the medical examiner's opinion that Shoe's hands and feet had been removed with a chain saw while he was still alive. All the fight went out of Packard and he collapsed in his chair. He tried to compose himself. Deems watched patiently while Packard took several deep breaths.
'What do you want from me, Charlie?'
'I want you to play the game,' he said grimly. 'You don't really have a choice. Now, what is the value of these panties?'
'Three-fifty? Four dollars?' Packard guessed, on the verge of tears. 'I don't know.'
'You're too literal, Bob. Think about how I got these undies and you'll know their true value. I'd put it at about the same price as a lifetime of good sleep. Wouldn't that be worth fifteen thousand dollars? I'd say a lifetime of sound sleep is cheap at that price.'
Packard's jaw trembled. 'Charlie, you have to be reasonable,' he begged. 'I don't have fifteen thousand extra dollars. You paid that retainer over a year ago. It's gone now. How about something less?
What about three? Three thousand? I might be able to manage that.'
'Well, Bob, to me three thousand sounds like a kiss-off.'
Packard knew he could not afford to pay the money. His rent was due, there were car payments. Then he thought about the price he would pay if he could be assured that Charlie Deems would never slip into his room at night and spirit him away to a twisted world of torture and pain.
Packard took his checkbook out of his drawer. His hand was shaking so badly that his signature was barely legible. Packard gave the check for fifteen thousand dollars to Deems. Deems inspected it, thanked Packard and opened the door. Then he turned, winked and said, 'Sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite.'
Chapter THREE
Salem, Oregon's capital, was a sleepy little city surrounded by farmland and located about fifty miles south of Portland on the I-5 freeway. The Oregon Supreme Court had been in its present location on State Street since 1914. The square four-story building was faced with terra cotta and surrounded on three sides by a narrow lawn. In the rear was a parking lot that separated the court from the back of another building that housed the Department of Justice and the offices of the Court of Appeals.
There were vans with network logos parked in front of the court when Tracy Cavanaugh arrived for work at 8 A. M. She glanced at them curiously as she strolled down the side street that divided the court from the grounds of the State Capitol. A radiant July sun made the gold statue of the pioneer on top of the Capitol building shine and gave the grass in the small park that bordered the Capitol the brilliance of a highly polished emerald. In keeping with the spirit of the day, Tracy wore a bright yellow dress and wraparound shades.
Tracy was at the tail end of a year serving as Oregon Supreme Court Justice Alice Sherzer's law clerk. Judicial clerkships were plums that fell to top law school graduates. Each justice had a clerk who researched complex legal issues, drafted memos about other justices' positions and checked opinion drafts to catch errors before the opinion was published. A judicial clerkship was a demanding, but exciting job that lasted one to two years. Most clerks moved on to good positions with top law firms, which coveted these bright young men and women for their skills as well as their intimate knowledge of the way the justices thought.
Laura Rizzatti was as pale as Tracy was tan and possessed the delicate features and soft, rounded figure of a Botticelli model.
When Laura was deep in thought, she played with her long black hair. She had several strands wrapped tightly around her left index finger when Tracy poked her head into Laura's closet-sized office.
'Why are the TV reporters waiting outside?'
Laura dropped the transcript she was reading and rose halfway out of her chair. 'Don't do that!'
'Sorry.' Tracy laughed, tilting her head sideways to see what had occupied Laura's attention so completely. She saw the title of the case and 'Vol. XI' before Laura turned the transcript over so Tracy could no longer read the cover.
'The Deems case?' Tracy said. 'I thought we reversed that a month ago.'
'We did. What did you just ask me?'
Tracy looked up from the transcript and noticed the dark circles under Laura's eyes. Laura's clothes were disheveled and she looked like she'd been up all night.
'The TV people. What are they doing here?'
'Matthew Reynolds is arguing Franklin v. Pogue at nine.'
'Reynolds! Let me know when you go up to court.'
'I'm not going.'
'How come?'
'Justice Griffen took himself off the case, so there's no reason to sit in on the argument.'
'Why'd he recuse himself?.'
'His wife is arguing for the state.'
'No shit.' Tracy laughed.
'No shit,' Laura answered bitterly.
'She is one smart cookie.'
'She's a bitch. She could have asked another DA to argue the state's position.'
'Then Justice Griffen would have sat on the case. Now he can't sit because the state is represented by a member of his family. So she gets rid of the most liberal justice on the court and ups her chance of winning. I call that smart lawyering.'
'I think it's unethical.'
'Don't take this so personally.'
'I'm not,' Laura said angrily. 'But the judge is such a nice guy. The divorce is eating him up. Pulling a stunt like this is just pouring salt in his wounds.'
