No aces testified on Mark's behalf. The Aces High crowd was laying low these days. Besides, most of them seemed embarrassed by Cap'n Trips and his plight.
He just wasn't an eighties kind of guy.
"Dr. Meadows, are you an ace?"
"Yes."
"And would you mind describing the nature of your powers?"
"Yes."
"What do you mean by that?"
" I mean, -I, uh-I would mind."
"Your honor, I ask that the court take notice of the witness's lack of cooperation."
"Your honor-"
"Dr. Pretorius, you needn't gesticulate. You and Mr. Latham may approach the bench."
Pretorius always thought the rooms of the New Family Court on Franklin and Lafayette had all the human warmth of a dentist's waiting room. The too-bright fluorescents hurt his eyes.
The media were back in force, he noted with displeasure as he gimped to the bench. After the publicity that attended Mark's getting served, the press had lost interest; lots of nothing visible had happened for a while.
"Dr. Meadows is refusing to answer a vital question, your honor," Latham said.
"He can't be compelled to answer. Indiana v. Mr. Miraculous, -I964. Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination apply."
With blue eyes and blond hair worn in a pageboy cut, judge Mary Conower looked more pretty than anything else-ingenue, belying her reputation as a hard-ass. A slight dry tautness to her skin gave her the appearance of a cheerleader gone sour on life.
"This isn't a criminal trial, Doctor," she said. Pretorius bit down hard on several possible responses. He was getting kind of old to pull another night in the Tombs for contempt.
"Then I object on the grounds that the line of questioning is irrelevant."
Conower raised an eyebrow at Latham. "That seems valid."
"Mrs. Gooding contends that the fact of her former husband's acehood constitutes a threat to the welfare of her daughter," Latham said.
"That's absurd(" Pretorius exclaimed.
"We intend to demonstrate that it is not at all absurd, your honor."
"Very well," Conower said. "You may attempt to so demonstrate. But the court will not compel Dr. Meadows to describe his powers."
Latham stood a moment before Mark, staring holes in him with reptile eyes. In the audience someone coughed. "You have friends who are aces, Dr. Meadows?" Mark glanced at Sprout, busy drawing doodles on one of Pretorius's legal pads, at Kimberly, who was dressed like the centerfold in Forbes and wouldn't meet his eye. Finally he looked to Pretorius, who sighed and nodded. "Yes."
Latham nodded slowly, as if this was Big News. Mark could feel the press begin to rustle around out there like snakes waking up among leaves. They sensed he was getting set up; he sensed he was getting set up. He glanced at Pretorius again. Pretorius gave him a drop-'em-and-spread-'em shrug.
"It's been suggested that you play a sort of Jimmy Olsen role to several of New York's most powerful aces. Is that a fair assessment?"
Mark tried to keep his eyes from sidling to Pretorius yet again. He didn't want Conower to think he was shifty-eyed. This justice trip was a lot more complicated than he ever thought.
… It came to him he had no idea how to answer the question. Other than, No, more of a Clark Kent role, which he badly did not want to say. He turned red and stuttered.
"Would it be fair," Latham continued, with a fractional smile to let Mark know he had him right where he wanted him, "to say that you are on intimate terms with certain aces, including one who variously styles himself Jumpin' Jack Flash and JJ Flash?"
"Um… Yes."
"Briefly describe Mr. Flash's powers for us, if you will. Come, there's no reason to be coy; they're not exactly a secret."
Mark hadn't been being coy. Latham's smug unfairness didn't make it easy to answer.
"Ah, he, ah-he flies. And he, like-I mean, he shoots fire from his hands."
Plasma, schmuck, a voice said in the back of his skull. I just pretend tit's fire. Jesus, you're making a royal screw-up out of this.
He looked around, terrified he had spoken aloud. But the mob showed blank expectant faces, and Latham was turning back from his table with a manila folder in his hands.
"I'd like to call the court's attention," Latham said, "to this photographic evidence of the damage done by just such a fire-shooting ace."
In the crowd somebody gasped; someone else retched. Latham pivoted like a bullfighter. Mark felt his stomach do a slow roll at the sight of the eight-by-ten photo he held in his hand. Judging from the skirt and Mary Janes, it had been a girl not much older than Sprout.
But from the waist up it was a blackened, shriveled effigy with a hideous grin.
Pretorius's cane tip cracked like a rifle. "Your honor, I object in the strongest possible termsl What the hell does counsel think he's doing with this horror show?"
"Presenting my case," Latham said evenly. "Preposterous. Your honor, this picture is of a victim of the ace the press dubbed Fireball, a psychopath apprehended by Mistral this spring in Cincinnati. Whatever his relationship to Mark Meadows, JJ Flash had no more to do with it than you or I or Jetboy. To show it here is irrelevant and prejudicial."
"Do you suggest I might be swayed by evidence not germane to this case?" Conower asked silkily.
"I suggest that Mr. Latham is attempting to try his case in the press. This is rank sensationalism."
Conower frowned. "Mr. Latham?"
Latham spread his hands as if surprised. "What am I to do, your honor? My opponent avers that ace powers are harmless. I demonstrate the contrary."
"I aver no such damn fool thing."
"Perhaps he would put it, Ace powers don't kill people-people kill people. I intend to demonstrate that the destructive potential of these powers is too enormous to be dismissed with a flip syllogism."
Pretorius grinned. "I have to hand it to you, St. John. You are stone death walking to straw men."
He shifted weight to the cane from his bad leg and turned to the judge. "Mr. Latham is trying to drag in atrocities with no connection to JJ Flash other than that they were committed by an ace with fire-related powers. And even if Flash were involved, to indict Dr. Meadows on that account smacks of guilt by association."
"If Dr. Meadows commonly associated with known members of the Medellin Cartel," Latham said ingenuously, "would your honor say that fact lacked relevance to his suitability as a parent?"
Conower squeezed her mouth till her lips disappeared. "Very well, Mr. Latham. You may present your case. And may I remind you, Dr. Pretorius, that I'm the one charged with evaluating the evidence?"
Mark felt more exposed and humiliated than he ever had in his life. This was worse than one of those balls-outon-Broadway dreams. All his life he'd shunned attention, in his own persona at least. Now all these strangers were looking at him and Sprout and thinking about those awful pictures.
Pretorius turned away from the bench. His eyebrows bristled over blue-hot eyes. Latham approached the witness stand with a look like an Inquisitor with a fresh-lit torch.
Kimberly was studying her fingernails. Mark looked at Sprout. Seeming to sense his attention, she looked up into his eyes and smiled.
He wanted to die.
"We need to do more, Mrs. Gooding," St. John Latham said.
"Such as what? You seem to be doing a marvelous job of emasculating my ex-husband as it is."
Latham stood. She sat on the couch, to the extent sitting was possible on a chrome-framed Scandinavian slab. It was more a matter of trying not to slide off onto the black marble floor. If the lawyer noticed the bitter sarcasm in her voice-as if she and Mark were on one side and he on the other-he didn't acknowledge it.
"Dr. Pretorius is a chronic romantic, and his notions of human nature and interactions downright quaint. Nonetheless, he is not a total fool. He is cunning, and he knows the law. And you are not without your vulnerable points." She threw her cigarette half-smoked into her drink an
d set the tumbler down on the irregular glass coffee table with a clink. "Such as?"
"Such as your breakdown in court during the first custody hearing. It lost the case for you then. It cannot help you now"
The two exterior walls that met at one corner of the Goodings' living room were glass. Kimberly gazed out over Manhattan and thought about how much the view reminded her of a black velvet painting. Apartments with panoramic views like this one always came off better in the movies, somehow.
" I was under a lot of stress."
"As are you now. It is not inconceivable that Pretorius might try to reduce you to another such breakdown on the stand."
She looked at him. "Is that what you'd do in his place?"
He said nothing.
She lit another cigarette and blew smoke toward him. "Okay. What did you have in mind?"
"A concrete demonstration of your husband's ace powers. Or solid evidence of the actual nature of the connection between him and Flash and Moonchild and the rest, if he is no more than a Jimmy Olsen figure."
Her eyes narrowed. "What are you saying."
"If your former husband loves your daughter as much as he claims, a perceived threat to her would certainly lead him to employ any powers he might have."
She went white, tensed as if she were about to leap up and attack him. Then she settled back and elaborately studied her manicure.
" I shouldn't be surprised that you're a bastard, Mr. Latham," she said. "After all, that's why I hired you. But it occurs to me-"
She lowered her hand and gave him a smile, poisonous and V -shaped. "It occurs to me that you're insane. You want me to use my daughter for bait?"
He didn't flinch. Didn't even flicker.
"I said perceived threat, Mrs. Gooding. I am talking about a set-piece-a stratagem. There would be no real risk."
Showing as little emotion as he, she picked up her glass and threw it hard at his head. He shifted his weight. The glass sailed past to shatter against the window. In New York, people who live in glass houses have to have stoneproof walls; it's in the building code.
"I'm paying you to win this in court, you son of a bitch. Not to play games with my daughter's life."
He showed her the ghost of a smile. "What do you think the law is but playing games with people's lives?"
"Get out," she said. "Get out of my house."
"Certainly." Calm. Always calm. Infuriating, impermeable, irresistible. "Anything the client desires. But reflect on this: Not even I can get your daughter for you if you don't want her badly enough to sacrifice."
Sprout clung tightly to her parents' hands. "Mommy and Daddy, be nice to each other," she said solemnly. "In that court place, everybody always sounds mad all the time. It makes me afraid."
She clouded up and started to sniffle. "I'm afraid they'll take me away from you."
Her mother hugged her, hard. "Honey, we'll always be with you." A hooded look to Mark. "One of us will. Always."
Sprout let Kimberly lower her onto the mattress among the stuffed toys and gazed up with wide eyes. "Promise?"
"Promise," her mother said.
"Yeah," Mark said around an obstruction in his throat. "One of us will always be around. We can promise you that much."
Kimberly sipped Chianti from her jelly jar. "Your room looks so naked without all the psychedelia." Candlelight struck half-moon amethyst highlights off her eyes. "I mean, who'd -imagine you without that huge poster of Tom Marion over your bed?"
He smiled ruefully. "The worst part is this futon I got in place of my old mattress. It's like nothing at all sometimes. I wake up with sore patches on my knees and elbows from the floor."
Kimberly drank wine and sighed. Mark tried hard not to think about the way her breasts rode up inside the thin cotton blouse. He'd been alone too long.
"Oh, Mark, what happened to us?"
He shook his head. His eyes grew misty. Way back and down, he felt derisive sounds coming out of Flash and Cosmic Traveler, sitting like hecklers in the cheap seats of his mind. It was rare enough they agreed on anything. He felt wordless care and concern from Moonchild, nothing at all from Aquarius. Starshine was vaguely disapproving. He was probably afraid Mark was going to have fun. It wasn't socially conscious.
She moistened her lips. "I know St. John is being awfully hard on you. I wish it didn't have to be this way." He looked at her with eyes that felt as if they had no moisture in them, parched by each random breath of air. It was strange, considering how close he was to tears. Would it do me any good to beg? he wondered. Oh, please, the Traveler said.
She settled back on his pillow. Even in the eighties a man got to have a pillow. For a moment she half lay that way, one leg cocked, her hair hanging in her eyes and around her shoulders with just a little bit of perm kink still in it. He thought she'd never looked so beautiful. Not even when she was carrying Sprout and they were both breaking their necks to make believe that everything was going to work out.
She sighed again. "All my life I've had this feeling of shapelessness," she began.
Mark's mouth said, "Oh, baby, don't talk that way, you're beautiful," before he could stop it. Flash and Traveler hooted and twirled noisemakers. Even Moonchild winced.
Kimberly ignored him. "It's like I've always been searching for landmarks to define myself by: jocks, radicals." A smile. "You."
She smoothed her hair back and let her head drop toward one shoulder. "Does any of this make any sense?" Mark made earnest noises. She smiled and shook her head.
"After we split I spent a few years in heavy therapy. I guess you knew about that, huh? Then one day I decided it was time to try something new, just completely different from anything I'd done before. I did the furthest-out thing I could think of set out to become a by-God businesswoman, a real hard-charging lady entrepreneur. Entrepreneuse. Whatever. Is that strange, or what?"
She laughed. "And I did, Mark, I did it. I do it. Racquetball and power lunches. I even have a muscular male bimbo for a secretary, even if he is gay. You can't imagine what this is costing me in lost time, aside from dear St. John's astronomical fees."
Mark looked away and felt selfish for reflexively thinking of what all this was costing him, and not at all in terms of money.
"Then I met Cornelius. He's really a wonderful man."
"I'm sure you'd like him if you got to know him. Only you and he are… worlds apart."
She poured them both more wine. "Domestic little creature, aren't I? I'm starting to have the horrible suspicion that no matter how liberated I think I am, my gut notion's Norman Rockwell. You know, all those Saturday Evening Post covers when we were kids-don't make faces like that, I know it's silly. But I want to capture that feed."
She leaned toward him. He ached to stroke her hair. "Anything you want is fine. I want you to be happy." She smiled at him, sidelong. "You really mean that, don't you? In spite of what's going on."
He wanted to say-well, everything. But the words tried to come so fast they jammed tight in his throat. She brought her face close to his. Her mass of hair shadowed both their faces.
"Remember that guy I went with in high school? The big guy, blond, captain of the football team?"
Mark winced at long-remembered pain. "Yeah."
She laughed softly. "About three weeks after he broke your nose, he broke mine." She set the jelly glass down beside the futon and kissed him lightly on the lips.
"Funny how things turn out sometimes, huh?"
His lips were numb and stinging all at once, as if somebody had punched him in the mouth. She slipped her hand behind his head, drew his face to hers. Almost he hung back. Then their mouths touched again, and her tongue slid between his lips, teased across his teeth. He grabbed her like a drowning man and clung, with his hands, his lips, his soul.
In her sleep, in her room, Sprout cried out.
They were both on their feet at once. Mark just beat Kimberly through the door of his microscopic bedroom. Lying on her own lumpy mattress, Spr
out murmured to herself, hugged her Pooh-bear closer to herself, and rolled over and back deeper into sleep. Mark and Kimberly watched her for a moment, not speaking, barely breathing. Kimberly disengaged, went and sat on the futon. Mark practically melted beside her, reaching for her. She was tense, unyielding.
"I'm sorry," she said without looking at him. "It won't work. Don't you see? I've tried this. I can't go back."
"But we can be together I'd do anything for you-for Sprout. We can be, like, a family again."
She glanced at him over her shoulder. Her eyes gleamed with tears. "Oh, Mark. It can't be. You're too much the free spirit. "
"What's wrong with freedom?"
"Responsibility took its place."
"But I can be what you wannl I'll do anything for you. I can help give you shape, if that's what you need." Smiling sadly, she shook her head. She stood up, faced him, took his face in her hands. "Oh, Mark," she said, and kissed him lightly but chastely on the lips, "I do love you. But really, it's all you can do to get up feet-first in the morning."
She was gone. Mark lurched to his feet, but her Reeboks were already doing a muted Ginger Baker number down the stairs. He hung there in the door frame, heart pounding. He could feel it especially in the scrotum; his belly and inner thighs ached and trembled with frustrated tension.
He had almost forgotten what the blue balls felt like. This shit, JJ Flash said, has got to stop.
"Dr. Pretorius, what do you mean by appearing in my court like this?"
"You mean this, your honor?" He gestured at his right leg. The immaculately tailored trousers ended at the knee. The limb below was black and green and wanted like a frog's. Yellow pus oozed from a dozen lesions. Judge Conover's nose wrinkled at the smell.
"This is my wild card. It makes me a joker-except the condition is spreading upward by degrees, and when it reaches my torso, it will kill me. So I suppose it also qualifies as a Black Queen, albeit slow"
"It's disgusting. Do you intend to make mockery of this court?"
"I intend to display only what exists, your honor. Be it the physical disfigurement of a joker or the emotional and mental disfigurement of bigots who would condemn people for having drawn a wild card."