days-before Atlantica-he was on his way up. Big dreams, boundless energy and optimism. He’d scratched and clawed until the dreams came true. So why was he so unhappy now? There was the crash of Flight 640 three years ago and the lawsuit, of course, but she knew there was more, and lately, Max wasn’t talking.
She poured him another Scotch, hoping to mellow him out. “I went to the Court today, just to look around. Jesus, Max, you walk through these giant bronze doors with scenes of ancient Greece and Rome molded into them. Then there are marble statues and busts everywhere. Lady Justice, Moses, Confucius…”
“Confucius?” he said, puzzled.
“I went into the library. All hand-carved wood, giant arches, a quiet, peaceful place. It’s almost holy, like a church or a cathedral.”
“Exactly!” he agreed, smiling now. “That’s what they want you to think. Like all those churches you hauled me to in Italy. Why do you think they built them like that? For the glory of God. Hell, no! They did it to scare the shit out of the peasants. You walk into a church, what’s the first thing you do? You lower your voice, you whisper. Same thing in your fancy Court, right? The judges are the priests- they even dress like priests-and everyone else is a peasant. They want to scare you into thinking you’re on hallowed ground, that they’re doing sacred work. Hypocrites! They don’t want you to know what they’re doing under the robes.”
Lisa walked to the window, looking past her balcony into Dumbarton Oaks Park and the creek beyond. Max had chosen the apartment, but unlike the old days, he wasn’t paying for it. At least not on the books. Two years ago, when she was still in law school, he began erasing the paper trail-the canceled checks, airline passes, credit card receipts-that would link her to him. It was his idea that maybe one day she’d be able to help him in a way no one could know about. It sounded crazy at first, just as crazy as taking a money-losing air-freight forwarder with three aging jet props and turning it into Atlantica Airlines, poster child of deregulation and booming international air carrier… until the disastrous crash of Flight 640.
“You’re very persuasive, Max,” she said, at last. “You should have been a lawyer.”
Max laughed. “No way, baby! That’s why I spent a hundred grand on you.”
“I don’t think I’ll get the job,” she said, softly. “I think Justice Truitt will look at me and see I don’t belong there.”
Or is that what I want? The easy way out, sparing me the hassle of refusing to do Max’s dirty work.
“That’s where you’re wrong. You belong anywhere you want to be. You’re the most powerful woman I’ve ever known.”
“I learned from you,” she said.
“No! You had the power as a seventeen-year-old but didn’t know it. All I did was mark the trail for you. You climbed it all by yourself.” He studied her for a moment, and she averted her eyes, her shyness a childhood trait. He smiled. “Anyway, don’t worry. The judge will take one look at you and want to adopt you.”
“Max, he’s your age.”
“Even better… he’ll want to screw you.” He laughed again, his mood softening, maybe pleased she was confiding her fears. She so seldom showed any insecurity.
“Stop worrying,” he said. “You’re going to get the job. You’re going to be the sexiest smartest law clerk in the history of the Supreme Court.”
“Maybe,” she said.
“You’re being interviewed by a man, and deep inside, we’re all alike.”
No, Max, you’re not. You and Tony were not alike. And I doubt you and Sam Truitt share much in common despite the same configuration of x and y chromosomes.
She’d never told Max that she’d become Tony Kingston’s lover after their break-up her first year in law school. As far as Max knew, Tony was just the navy pilot she’d introduced him to, the hometown hero she said would be a great addition to the Atlantica fleet. Well, she was right, wasn’t she?
“It’s different on the Supreme Court,” Lisa said. “You know what they taught us first year in law school?”
“Probably how to overcharge your clients.”
“ Jus est ars boni et aequi. Law is the art of the good and the just.”
“And the meek shall inherit the earth,” Max responded in the sarcastic tone she knew so well. He walked to the window and wrapped his arms around her from behind. “If the law worked so damn well, O.J. would have sucked gas, Klaus von Bulow would have been stuck full of needles, and”-he paused a moment, as if not sure whether to continue-“and your father would have been hung by his testicles.”
She turned around in his arms to face him. “And the victims of Flight six-forty would have hit Atlantica for several hundred million in verdicts,” she added.
“Sort of proves my point, doesn’t it?”
It did, but his cynicism irritated her. If Max were right, then why had she just spent three years studying law and another year clerking for a federal judge? Just to be another manipulator of the system? But even if he were wrong, how could she turn him down? Max had never denied her anything. He had supported her, nurtured her, helped her grow into an adult. In return, she had been his lover for most of the past decade. He’d been understanding when she left him during law school and comforting when she’d come back after Tony’s death. And now, for the first time, he wanted something more, something that collided head-on with everything she had learned the past four years.
“If justice is such a rare commodity,” she said, “maybe I should work for it. Maybe I should help put criminals in jail or defend the wrongfully accused.”
“You’re too smart for that. That’s sucker talk. I don’t see you in the Justice Department or in some public defender’s office with a metal desk and stale coffee.”
“I remember the first time you told me how smart I was,” she said. “It was endearing then. Now, it sounds like an insult.”
“There’s smart,” he said, “like book learning, which can open some doors but otherwise doesn’t mean shit, and then there’s streetsmart, which you can’t buy with a degree. You got both, which knocks my socks off.”
No one had ever expressed admiration for her intelligence before Max came along. Not her teachers, not her mother, not her father. Especially not her father, whose praise was limited to her physical assets.
Max had told her she could be anything she wanted, and she believed him. He gave her confidence and a chance at a new life. Now that she had that life, she didn’t want to risk losing it.
“Do you remember when you told me I was smarter than you?” she asked.
“Sure. It was the night we met.”
Max Wanaker walked into the Tiki Club and sat down on a bar stool in front of the stage. It had a rusty brass go-go pole, chains hanging from the ceiling, a scratchy sound system, and a number of missing bulbs in the multicolored lighting system. In the back was a darkened lap-dancing lounge with black satin couches. The place smelled like a mixture of stale beer and cheap perfume, moist mildew and industrial strength cleaner.
A connoisseur of strip joints, Max preferred the sophisticated atmosphere of Ten’s in Manhattan, where fifty- five exotic dancers stroll onto the stage in full-length sequined gowns, strobe lights blasting, smoke machine billowing. Tonight, he was slumming. Mainly because he had been bored, he told the limo driver to stop when he saw the flashing neon sign, LIVE GIRLS.
As opposed to what? DEAD GIRLS?
The sign, as effective as the Sirens’ songs that lured sailors onto the rocks, brought Max into the club. Now he approached the small stage, scanning the room. The strippers all looked as if they’d been ridden hard-the meaty redhead slouching on stage, out of step with Aerosmith, already down to her ratty gold panties, oversize tits barely bouncing, the two in lingerie at the bar, cadging drinks-all of them with big hair, six-inch nails, and siliconed melon breasts. He had one watery Scotch and was ready to leave when Lisa came on the stage to the music of Billy Joel.
Jesus, she’s just a kid.
She looked like a cheerleader. Small breasts, sleek reddish blonde hair, clear blue eyes, long legs, a full mouth, little makeup other than painted-on whiskers, something he didn’t get until he realized she was wearing a tight leopard skin dress with little leopard ears. She seemed embarrassed, and he was enchanted.
