He had specifically told her to dress conservatively —
nothing low-cut or too short — appearances influenced
juries. Today she was wearing a white knit turtleneck dress
that flaunted every provocative curve — another outfit
destined to make the six o’clock news. They couldn’t get
enough of her: the sexy walk, the clothes, the face. Her
face. Each feature in itself was memorable: high
cheekbones, delicately carved nose, precisely drawn mouth,
and enormous, violet, heavy-lashed eyes. A mass of dark
brown, writhing curls framed her face. Reporters battled one
another describing her. One reporter insisted that she
‘combined the sensual and the serene’. But despite their
overblown sketches they all used the same label to identify
her: Tina Davis, Former Mob-Mistress.
From the time she was fifteen until she was twenty-nine,
Tina Davis, born Bettina Berenson thirty-nine years earlier,
was the mistress of several underworld titans. At
thirty-one, she had married Laurence Paxton Davis,
flower-child turned drug-dealer. Jake had deliberately
outlined her history in his opening statement. He had no
intention of giving the defense an opportunity to shock the
jury with the lurid details after she testified. Jake knew,
if he told the jury right up front that Tina Davis had
chosen to consort with the scum of the universe, they might
not like her, but they would believe her. The maneuver
seemed to be working. The eight men and four women of the
jury nodded sympathetically as she testified. And she was a
good witness; she spoke slowly and distinctly and her story
was consistent.
Jake allowed himself a pleased inner smile, confident his
stony face would mask his thoughts. It was almost fun
watching the defense’s attorney sputter like a defective
firecracker as he attempted to derail her. Back in law
school, Willard was an arrogant, pretentious ass — an
ass who enjoyed waving his money in everyone’s face. But he
was no fool. The slightest indication of weakness and he
would go for the jugular.
"You claim, Mrs. Davis, your husband died owing my client
twenty-five thousand dollars, and that my client tried to
collect the debt from you. Supposedly, he sent the two men
who testified earlier, to threaten you. We’ve heard a lot
of fuzzy, distorted tapes that supposedly support your
assertion. May I remind you, those two convicted criminals
have admitted, under oath, they’re receiving consideration
in the form of reduced sentences for their testimony?"
"Is there a question here, Mr. Willard?" the judge prodded.
"Just getting to that, Your Honor. As I was saying,
twenty-five thousand dollars is a lot of money to most
people. It certainly is to me," Willard informed the jury.
"But as Mr. Stern pointed out, you have some powerful
intimate associates." A number of people, including three
members of the jury, tittered. "Intimate associates with
considerable financial resources. If what you claim is true,
why didn’t one of your very close friends come to your aid?"
Jake didn’t wait for Willard to complete the sentence
before standing. "Irrelevant, Your Honor."
"Sustained," the judge declared.
Jake would have loved to hear the answer to that one.
Why hadn’t she gone to one of her former playmates for help?
Jake was aware of two who outranked the defendant. Either
one could drop twenty-five thousand dollars on a bet and
never flinch. Surely one of them could have given or loaned
her the money, or at the very least, pressured the defendant
to cut her a deal. Instead she had waltzed into the nearest
precinct and offered to get the cops enough evidence for a
conviction — volunteered to wear a wire. Volunteers
always made Jake nervous. Nervous and suspicious. What made
her so anxious to repeatedly risk her life? Over a period of
three months, with a recording device neatly tucked in her
handbag, Davis had strolled into parts of the city that
seasoned officers were reluctant to patrol. Then she had to
pretend not to understand or hear, so the threats would have
to be repeated. That sort of hot-dog heroics could have
gotten her killed.
Jake shook his head. The cops she worked with idolized
her. How could cops admire a woman who had chosen to live
with gangsters, the very men they saw as their enemies? But
cops have their own set of rules. If they had to list the
traits they admired most, ‘courage’ would be at the top. Of
course, her looks didn’t hurt. When the detectives had first
played a few of the tapes for him, they stood around
laughing and punching each other — like kids reliving
a Halloween prank. Jake knew they viewed most prosecutors as
educated, spineless, chicken-shits who got in their way
— and that didn’t exclude him.
Normally women with her sort of background had
horrendous childhoods. But Davis’ mother wasn’t a
prostitute and her father wasn’t a pimp. She was born into a
typical middle-class family — two parents, a brother,
a sister — a family like the one Jake had lost. And
she had grown up in Queens, less than three miles from his
old neighborhood. A gesture made the bulge in Jake’s shorts
quiver. She was a beautiful woman, an exceptionally
beautiful woman. Maybe he could be more sympathetic if she
was stupid or just ignorant, like most of the city’s
sidewalk hostesses. But she was neither stupid nor ignorant.
During preparation for the trial, Jake had had a number of
conversations with her. She asked intelligent questions and
anticipated his strategies while taunting him with those
searing eyes or smiling that knowing smile.
The judge consulted her watch. It was four o’clock on a
Friday afternoon, an unseasonably hot Friday afternoon. They
were minutes away from halting for the weekend.
During their last break, the two detectives who had
worked with Davis had unnerving news for Jake. There was a
contract out on her. She was gutsy, but she wasn’t going to
laugh that throaty little laugh when Jake informed her that
someone planned to silence her permanently.