The Baxter Trust

perfectly safe.”
    “Yeah. Sure. So now you’d like me to smuggle cocaine into jail for you.”
    “I didn’t say that.”
    “You implied it. And you can forget it. All we need right now is for the cops to catch you with drugs.”
    Sheila smiled, and, once again, Steve had to admire her spunk. In spite of everything, she was playing with him. Teasing him.
    “Oh, you’re just so conservative,” she said.
    He shook his head, chuckled. “I’m glad to hear it. In the past two days I’ve had to resort to blackmail and possession of dope. It’s nice to know that when I’m brought up before the bar association I’ll have a character witness of your stature to assure them my conduct has always been one of strict legal decorum.”
    “See,” she said. “You even sound like a stuffy old lawyer.”
    “Right, that’s what I am. A stuffy old conservative lawyer. Now if you’d like to talk to a hip, free-thinking swinger, there’s one out there waiting to see you just as soon as we’re through.”
    “Oh?”
    “Johnny.”
    “Oh.”
    “Yeah. Johnny’s here to see you. He’s here today, and I’ll bet he was here yesterday, right?”
    She looked at him. “Why?”
    “Was he?”
    “Yes. Of course he was.”
    “Ain’t love grand,” Steve said. Sheila started to make an angry retort, but he held up his hands. “No, no. No offense. I was just wondering about something.”
    She looked at him suspiciously. “What?”
    “Well, what with you and Johnny being such good buddies and all, and him being here yesterday and again today to see you and all, I’m just wondering why it was you asked me to pick up your coke.”
    “Oh.”
    “Any answer will do.”
    She looked at him as if he were an idiot. “Isn’t it obvious? You were here first. I couldn’t let the cops find it, so I asked you. If Johnny’d been here first I’d have asked him.”
    Steve pursed his lips and nodded. “Good. Not true, but good.”
    Her eyes flickered. “What do you mean, ‘not true?’”
    “Well, let me give you my version of what happened,” Steve said. “I think you’re the type of girl who manipulates men for your own purposes. You always have been and you always will be. You do it by getting them involved with you. I don’t mean necessarily physically involved, just involved. That’s what you did with me. You had me pick up your coke so I’d be involved with you. So you’d feel you had a hold over me.
    “That’s one reason. There was another. You did it to save your pride. You had to tell me the window-shopping was a lie, so you had to tell me about buying the coke. You didn’t like that. That put you on the defensive. It made you feel as if you were a little girl, and I was the grownup in charge. So what you did was, you put yourself back in charge by getting me to do your bidding.”
    “That’s not true,” Sheila said.
    He shook his head. “It has to be. You know why? A minute ago you were asking me if I’d brought it with me. Well, you knew perfectly well I wouldn’t. But if you’d really wanted some, if that was your main concern, aside from getting it away from the cops, well there’s good old Johnny out there who would have been just stupid enough to smuggle it in here for you.”
    Sheila was about to make a reply, but Steve held up his hand to cut her off. “But forget that. You didn’t really want that. You’re not that stupid, and you’re not as much of an airhead as you like to pretend to be. You just asked me if I had it on me so you could needle me about being too conservative. Because that’s how you operate. That’s how you deal with men. Kid ’em, tease ’em, needle ’em, keep ’em off their guard. And the thing is, that’s stupid, ’cause you don’t have to do that with me. I’m your lawyer. I’m on your side. I’m working for you. So you don’t have to play that kind of game.”
    He expected a gruff answer. He didn’t get one. She just looked at him. And there was something in that look, something guileful and crafty that told him that somehow his assessment of the situation was wrong.
    “You’re right. I don’t,” she said, and her manner reminded him of a cat playing with a mouse.
    It didn’t take long for him to learn why.
    “Did you know,” Sheila almost purred, “Uncle Max investigated you?”
    Steve had known this was coming sooner or later. He just hadn’t expected it now. He tried to keep a straight face. “Oh?”
    “Yeah, that’s another reason he