The Devil's Advocate (25 page)

Paul's become the worst. He's Beelzebub," she added, leaning into him, the madness in her eyes making his heart pound.

"Helen, let me help you back .. ."

"No!" She backed away. "It's too late for you, isn't it? You've won one of his cases.

You're his, too, now ... his. Damn you. Damn you all!"

"Mrs. Scholefield!" Mrs. Longchamp cried from the apartment doorway. "Oh my!"

She rushed into the hallway. "Now you come back inside, please."

"Get away from me." Helen lifted her arms over her head, threatening to pound the nurse.

"Now just calm down, Mrs. Scholefield. Everything will be all right."

"Should I get some help?" Kevin asked. "Call her
doctor?"

"No, no. It's going to be fine. Just fine," Mrs. Longchamp said, holding her smile.

"Won't it, Mrs. Scholefield? You know it will," she added in a soothing voice.

Helen's arms began to shake. She lowered them slowly and began to cry.

"Here, here, now. It's going to be all right," Mrs. Longchamp said. "I'll take you back and you'll rest." She embraced Helen Scholefield around the waist firmly and turned her. Then she looked back at Kevin. "It's okay," she mouthed and nodded, moving Helen down the corridor toward the apartment door. Kevin watched until they reentered and the door closed. He wiped his face with his handkerchief before going to his own apartment.

The instant he closed the door, Miriam came running to him. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

"Oh, Kev, I'm so excited. It was just on the early evening news. And I saw them talking to you as you were coming out of the courtroom! Your parents called just a minute ago. They saw it, too! And my parents. We'll go out; we'll celebrate. I've already made us a reservation at Renzo's. You'll love it. Norma and Jean said that's where they and their husbands always go to celebrate by themselves."

He just stood there, staring at her.

"What's wrong? You look . . . pale."

"A terrible thing just happened in the hallway. Helen Scholefield was out there in her nightgown. She had run away from her nurse."

"Oh no. What happened?"

"She said some wild things, but..."

"What kind of things?"

"About us, about John Milton and Associates."

"Oh, Kevin, don't let it get you down. Not now. Not when we have so much to be happy about," she pleaded. "You know she's been very ill, mentally sick."

"I don't know, I.. . how did you get that black and blue mark on your neck?"

"It's not a black and blue mark, Kevin." She turned and looked in the hallway mirror.

"I guess I'll have to add some more body powder."

"What do you mean, it's not a black and blue mark?"

"It's a hickey, Kev." She blushed. "You vampire. Don't worry about it; it's nothing.

Come on, shower and change. I'm ravishingly hungry."

He didn't move.

"Kevin? Are you just going to stand here in the hallway all night?"

"We've got to talk, Miriam. I don't know what's going on, what's happening, but I swear I don't remember doing that to you."

"Nothing's going on, silly. You've been distracted by the pressure of this case and worried! It's understandable. The girls told me something like this would happen to you in the beginning. You'd go around in a daze, forgetting this, forgetting that. They've been through it with Ted and Dave, too. It'll pass once you gain confidence in yourself and grow as an attorney. And what a start, huh? My big New York lawyer," she added and hugged him. "Now, come on. Let's get the show on the road." She started away. "I'll fix my makeup."

He watched her go and then followed slowly. He paused at the living room, thinking once again about the scene with Helen Scholefield in the hallway. Then he went into the living room to look at her painting.

But it wasn't hanging there, nor was it on the floor.

"Miriam." She didn't reply. He hurried to the bedroom to find her by her vanity table. "Miriam, what happened to Helen's painting?"

"Happened?" She turned from the mirror. "I just couldn't stand looking at it anymore, Kevin. It was the only depressing note in this apartment. The girls agreed we had been very kind to have kept it up this long."

"So where is it? In a closet?"

"No, it's gone," she said, turning to look at herself again.

"Gone? What do you mean? Gone where? You threw it out?"

"No. I wouldn't do that. It's still a work of art, and, believe it or not, there are people who like that sort of thing. Norma knew a gallery in the Village that would take it on. We thought we'd put it there, and if it got sold we'd surprise Helen with the good news. We thought it might cheer her up."

"What gallery?"

"I don't know the name of it, Kevin. Norma knows it," she said, annoyance slipping into her voice. "What are you so concerned about? Both my mother and your mother thought it was a horrible thing to have on our living-room wall."

"When did she take it?" he asked insistently.

Miriam turned back again. "Just shows how observant you've been these last few days. Two days ago, Kevin. The painting's been gone for two days."

"It has?"

She pressed her lips together and shook her head. "Are you going to shower and get dressed already?"

"What? Oh, yeah . . . yeah." He started to undress.

"It's so exciting, isn't it? You'll be in all the newspapers and on television stations throughout the country. I bet Mr. Rothberg's grateful, huh?"

"Rothberg?"

"Rothberg, Kevin. The man you defended?" She laughed. "Talk about your absentminded professors . . ."

"No, Miriam. You don't understand," he said, approaching her. "I won because a witness made a complete reversal of her original story, and I don't know why she did. I didn't know until it happened right there in court. Mr. Milton sent me a note to ask the right questions. He knew she would change. He knew!"

"So?" She smiled. "That's why he's Mr. Milton."

"What?"

"That's why he's the boss and you, Ted, and Paul are only associates."

He simply stared at her. She sounded like a little girl.

"Don't worry," she said, turning back to the mirror. "Someday you will be just like him. Won't that be wonderful?" She paused, her eyes growing smaller as if she were gazing into a crystal ball instead of a mirror. "Your own firm .. . Kevin Taylor and Associates. You'll send an associate around to find new, promising talent just the way Mr. Milton sent Paul to find you, because by then you'll know who to look for."

"Who to look for? Who put such an idea into your head?"

"No one, silly. Well, Jean and Norma said something like that at lunch the other day. They said that's what Mr. Milton wants to see happen." She threw her head back and rattled it off: "Dave Kotein and Associates, Ted McCarthy and Associates, Paul Scholefield and Associates, and Kevin Taylor and Associates.

The four of you will cover the city. Mr. Milton will start with new associates, of course, and before you know it, there won't be a defendant in town who will want to go to any other firm but one of yours."

She laughed again and then stood up and turned to him. "Kevin, will you take that shower already?"

He thought for a moment and then stepped closer to her. "Listen to me, Miriam.

Something strange is going on. I don't know what just yet, but maybe Helen Scholefield isn't as off the wall as we think."

"What?" She retreated from him quickly. "Kevin Wingate Taylor, will you stop this and take your shower. I told you, I'm starving. I'll wait for you in the living room. I'll play the piano, but I hope you'll be out and ready before I do an entire concerto." She left him standing naked at her vanity table.

He turned and looked at himself in the mirror. The reflected image made him recall his strange erotic dreams. Were they dreams? They weren't dreams to Miriam. It was all very real to her. And those black and blue marks on her legs were real, too.

What about all those times she claimed they had made love and he couldn't remember doing it? No one could be that absentminded. Either she was going mad or he was.

"... but if he's made her pregnant," Helen Scholefield had said, "then it's too late." He? Whom did she mean?

He turned away from the mirror. Could any of this be possible?

"We don't lose," Paul Scholefield had said. The three of them wore that same look of arrogance.

"You won one of his cases. You're his, too, now," Helen Scholefield had told him. "Damn you. Damn you all!"

He recalled how strange he had felt when Mr. Milton had said, "You're a true John Milton associate now."

He turned back to the mirror and looked at himself.

What was Helen talking about? Was he any different?

His reflected image did not respond, but there was something ominous in merely thinking the questions.

He made up his mind. Tomorrow he would go to see Beverly Morgan, and he would know before he left her how Mr. Milton had gotten her to change her story.

He called his parents and Miriam's parents before he and Miriam left to celebrate.

During both phone conversations, he did nothing to let either set of parents suspect he was troubled. The only negative note was sounded by his mother, who said, "Now that you've finished this big case, Kevin, see if you can devote more time to Miriam.

She sounds high-strung to me."

"What do you mean, Mom?"

"No one can be that up all the time. It's just a mother's instinct, Kevin. She's at such a feverish pitch. Maybe she's trying too hard to please you. Arlene feels the same way about it, Kevin, only she didn't want to say anything and appear to be an interfering mother-in-law."

"But she told me she thought Miriam was very happy."

"I know. I'm not saying she's not happy. Just... pay more attention to her, will you?"

"Okay, Mom."

"And congratulations, son. I know this is something you've always wanted."

"Yeah. Thanks."

He knew what she was saying was right. Miriam was so different and she had changed so quickly, he should have been more alarmed. He had ignored what was happening because he wanted all this so much—the wealth, the luxury, the prestige. Who wouldn't? He had brought her here; he had exposed her to all of it. To a large extent, what was happening, what already had happened, was his own fault.

He spun around as if someone had tapped him on the shoulder. "Uh-huh." His gaze went to the patio. Again he wondered why Richard Jaffee had taken his own life. What did Helen mean by "Only Richard had conscience"?

"I'm waiting, honey," Miriam called.

"Coming."

They left the apartment and went downstairs to get into the waiting cab and went to Renzo's, a five-star northern Italian restaurant, and he tried putting his worries aside.

But he spent his time noting how different Miriam was at this celebration from the celebration at the Bramble Inn in Blithedale after the Lois Wilson case-Gone was her concern about whether or not the client had really been guilty. Of course, she knew little or nothing about this case, so she had no questions or comments about the court proceedings.

He had to admit she looked good in her new bright red, snugly fitted pants and sweater outfit. The sweater had a ribbon of pearls criss-crossed over the bosom.

She was still wearing a lot more makeup than she used to, and Kevin realized that without the rouge and the lipstick, she did appear pale.

He didn't think she would be as fond of a restaurant like Renzo's as she was, nor want to choose it for this occasion. It was a gaudy, brightly lit place with mirrored walls. Despite the poor weather, it was quite crowded, and tables were placed practically on top of each other.

Miriam was far more outgoing than she had been at the Bramble Inn or, for that matter, than she had been while they lived in Blithedale. How could he have missed such a dramatic change in her? He chastised himself for being too occupied with his work. He was surprised at how many people she knew and how many knew her, from the maitre d' to the waiters. Some other patrons nodded and smiled as well. She and the girls, she told him, had been there for lunch and dinner when he was tied up with work.

However, he found her very distracted by all this, dividing her attention between him and looking to see who had come in, who was sitting with whom, what other people were eating. How different this was from the intimate, candlelit meal they had enjoyed at the Bramble Inn, he thought. Yet she didn't mind or appear to notice.

Even their lovemaking afterward had a different character to it. She was impatient, demanding, and assertive. She turned and twisted beneath him and then took a commanding role, moving his hands to where she wanted herself touched more aggressively. He almost lost all interest, feeling more like a male prostitute, feeling like someone being used to bring pleasure. There wasn't the usual sense of consideration, the mutuality, the attempt at oneness.

And afterward she still appeared dissatisfied, frustrated.

"What's wrong with you?" he demanded.

"I'm tired. Too much wine, I guess," she said and turned her back to him. He lay there thinking, afraid to close his eyes, afraid that if he did, something . . . someone .. .

would come. Finally he did fall asleep, but he awoke at about four in the morning and realized she was not beside him.

He listened for a moment and heard sounds coming from the front of the apartment. He got up quickly and put on his robe. The lights were on in the living room and in the entryway. Was this another erotic episode? Was he really up or dreaming? He moved forward slowly, his heart pounding with anticipation, until he saw Miriam standing in the doorway, holding the door open and looking out.

There were other voices.

"Miriam. What's happening?"

"It's Helen," she said, turning back.

"What is it?"