Excerpt of Dangerous Lies by Lisa Smith

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.