Chapter 1
Charles Aiken watched the defendant from the bench, convinced that his attitude toward her was one of amusement and pity rather than disapproval and indignation. She was hardly more than a child for all her superficial sophistication, twenty-two, to be exact. And while it was obvious that she was far from innocent, there was a subtle and childish helplessness to her manner.
He gazed admiringly at her butter-colored hair that shone beneath the fluorescent lights of the courtroom. Shoulder-length, it was made even brighter by her deep tan. She was indeed a treat for the vulgar, he speculated, considering her profession. He could easily picture her marvelous body moving in time to rhythmic drums while bathed in a sensuous spotlight. Even as she testified in her unlettered words, her suntanned breasts threatened to pop out of the low bodice of her dress.
Charles Aiken wondered if the undulations were deliberate and then decided it didn't much matter. Until the girl's entree, his evening in night court had held the smell of sorrow and the color of misery. The cases presented had brought a succession of drunks, pickpockets, hoodlums and prostitutes, all no doubt in need of his humaneness but none appearing in any way deserving of it. But the girl with the butter-yellow hair and jiggling tan breasts had no smell of sorrow ... No, indeed.
Still pretending to be absorbed in the testimony, Charles Aiken allowed his mind to jump to his personal life. It had been two weeks since he'd enjoyed the comfort of his wife's body. Helen was becoming moodier by the day, it seemed. Perhaps some women lost interest in men as other demands on their time increased? Or perhaps she was just reaching that time of life? No, not yet. It was simply that as a judge's wife, Helen had a responsibility to the community. While he was glad that she was active on various committees, she seemed to be more concerned with her social life than with her personal one. And to a man of only forty-five, this could become quite a problem....
Charles Aiken blinked back to reality and tried to concentrate on what the policeman was saying to him. "Yes, go on, Officer Smith," he murmured briskly, leaning forward.
"Well, sir, when we entered, Miss Miller was seated on the bed and this man here was fixing himself a reefer." The officer paused for a moment. "A stick of marijuana, that is."
Aiken nodded slowly, allowing his eyes to slide to the dark-skinned youth flanked by the two arresting officers. "Then Miss Miller was not actually smoking one of the marijuana cigarettes?" he surmised, stealing a quick look at the girl's tiny waist and subtly veiled hips. "Is that correct, Officer Smith?"
The other officer responded. "No, your honor, but-"
"Simply answer my questions, Officer Argon," Aiken snapped, turning his attention to the bigger and burlier of the arresting policemen. Ben Argon was a familiar figure in night court, as might be expected of an officer with his outstanding record. Wide-shouldered, well muscled and intimidating in his craggy ugliness, the tough cop fell silently respectful with only a tiny suggestion of impatience.
Charles Aiken turned to look down at the blonde girl once more. Her beautiful blue eyes returned his stare and he had the curious feeling that she was being as tolerant and amused toward him as he was being toward her. He watched the pink tongue slide over her scarlet lips, moistening them, making her half-smile extremely sensuous. "Do you have anything to say, Miss Miller?"
"I want to talk to my lawyer," she answered defiantly, her shoulders tilting with a hint of arrogance. "I've got my rights just like anybody else."
"Was she allowed to make a phone call?"
Argon nodded wearily. "Yes, sir. We gave them each an opportunity to make a call."
"Is that true, Miss Miller?"
The beautifully shaped girl shrugged. "I called my girl friend. I had to tell her I'd be late getting home, didn't I?"
Charles Aiken sighed and clasped his hands. He was aware that there were other cases waiting to be heard and that night court was hardly the place for such friendliness and tolerance. At the same time he didn't want the girl to leave and the ugly drabness of lost souls to return. "Tell me. Miss Miller," he began in a modulated voice, "did you smoke the marijuana when it was offered to you by this young man? Did you know he had it in his possession?"
The golden lashes fluttered. "No, sir. I was seeing him on business, that's all. I don't know nothing about marijuana."
Aiken leaned back and saw the two officers exchange wry smiles of disbelief and cynicism. Beyond them, the usual three sleepy crime reporters from the news bureau were more interested in the racing form they shared than the case before the bench. Only the bailiff, Al Rudd, seemed to be appreciating the breath of fresh air that had stolen into the musty courtroom. He was openly gaping at Julie Miller as a matter-of-fact.
Aiken made a mental note to censure the bailiff for his impropriety and then turned his gaze on the young musician. Unquestionably an addict, he was apparently still floating on his private cloud. What a strange young man, Charles Aiken thought, wondering about the new breed of young people that so suddenly populated the world.
He straightened up and slammed his gavel. "Court will be in recess for one hour while I interrogate Miss Miller in my chambers." The few people in court stood as he rose from the bench and walked down the stairs to the door of his offices, the same offices his father had occupied when the population of White-bank had been two hundred and forty rather than thirty-eight thousand.
As he closed the door behind him, he wondered fleetingly if his father had ever been faced with such a situation and if so, how he'd have handled it.
He took off his robes, opened the top button of his shirt and turned back the convertible collar. He wished vaguely that he had shaved closer before leaving home that evening-his grooming for the nightly roll call of vags and pimps had grown a shade haphazard. But who could have guessed that this was the night when such a beautiful child would get arrested?
The door opened behind him and the bailiff, Al Rudd, admitted Julie Miller. Al's eyes looked wistfully over the girl before he shut the door.
"Sit down, Julie." Charles waved a hand in invitation.
She selected the chair in front of his desk and crossed her legs. The hem of her skirt rose high, showing smoothly tanned thighs. He pictured her days of leisure after nights of dancing-and whatever else she did-and wondered what had become of his own days of leisure.
Before he could speak, she leaned forward with elbows propped on the desk, the large breasts almost fully visible as the bodice fell slightly away. "Do I look like a junkie, Judge?" she asked, her lovely blue eyes gazing at him amusedly.
He said sharply, "Don't make a joke of this. Your friend's an addict-and very likely, a pusher. If I handled this the easy way, I'd send you to the prison farm just to teach you a lesson."
Her pretty face showed fear for the first time. She had been teasing him, he realized, merely out of natural impishness. But now she was no longer teasing. "But I'm innocent."
"That hasn't been decided as yet," he replied crisply. "In any case, oy the time you're finished with court costs and legal fees, to say nothing of the loss of income from employment, it wouldn't make much difference whether you were guilty or not. You'd be ruined. No night club would dare hire you with the suspicion of a narcotics charge in your past. It's not fair, I agree, but a prolonged legal battle can do more to destroy a person than a quick conviction."
She looked sullen as he paused. "What do you want me to say?" she asked.
He leaned back. "You're not in a wholesome atmosphere," he said. "In your work you meet the wrong people. You were just lucky to get me on the bench this time. Do you know what might have happened if you had gotten one of the others? Jameson, for instance, or Greenspun?"
"I don't know those men."
"I do. Either one of them would have held you over for questioning and the grand jury. I'd like to see you make something better of your life. Now, my wife is active with a group that rehabilitates young girls. You could meet her."
Julie Miller laughed aloud. "You're kidding."
He did not realize that he was staring at her breasts. He told her sternly, "You don't seem to understand. You're in serious trouble. You need a friend."
He stood up and walked around the desk, feeling confused and angry. He noticed that she was watching him intently and he was glad that he'd at least captured her attention. The heavy breasts were drawing his eyes like twin magnets, rising and falling with her every breath, almost like a woman in passion. "Are you listening to me?" he asked sharply.
She nodded fearfully. "You said I needed a friend."
"That's right," he murmured, nearer her, a nameless and turbulent emotion stirring within him. "A friend. A good friend. Someone to help you. Someone to guide you. Someone to ... to ... take care of you." He was standing over her and a voice within was shouting warnings but he was beyond paying any attention to it. The smell of her perfume was too heady and the trembling of her young breasts was too entrancing. "Someone like me," he heard himself muttering.
A slow and knowing smile tilted the red lips. "You?"
He swallowed, feeling weak and dizzy, and nodded. "I like you, Julie. I know that you're not a bad girl. All you need is-"
"Someone to take care of me, right?"
"Yes."
"Okay."
He blinked. "Pardon me?"
She laughed huskily and eased her luscious body up out of the chair. "I said, okay."
Suddenly her arms were around his neck and her warm and sweet-flavored breath was playing against his cheek and her full body was swaying against him. He groaned and kissed the butter-yellow hair and then the smoothness of her neck. He felt himself jolted out of the present, out of the difficult year he'd spent with a wife who had little time for him. His hands were moving over a pair of incredibly round buttocks and his mouth was tasting the slick fruit of her lips. He felt drunk and reckless and only vaguely conscious of the madness that was gripping him.
"What can I call you?" she giggled, moving with him to the leather couch set against the wall, her mouth tickling his ear.
"Charlie," he stammered. "Call me Charlie."
"Okay, Charlie."
He placed her on the couch and knelt at its side, plucking off her shoes and fumbling with her skirt. "We haven't much time," he offered, sweating profusely, trembling uncontrollably as the wondrous perfection of golden thighs became exposed to him. "Let me show you how much I like you. Let me show you how much I think of you."
She drew in her breath at his first kiss and then slid her fingers into his hair. "All right, Charlie, honey, show me. Go ahead and show me good." The fingers tightened, goading him on, and the gorgeous legs quivered. "Oh, yes, Charlie, baby ... show me ... show me...."
He heard her ecstatic moans and passionate exhortations and thrilled to the fact that she wanted him. After Helen's indifference, he was powerless against such a fervent manifestation of desire and pleasure. He labored joyously, immersed in a sweet earthy scent that clouded his brain like a lovely mist. Sensation after sensation came like rolling waves and he shuddered happily as he showered his love upon the groaning and writhing girl on the couch.
Every so often there would be an unwanted moment of clarity and he'd face the fact that he was being unfaithful to his wife for the first time in his life. Unfaithful to his oath of office, as well. In the matter of a few minutes, he had betrayed both trusts without ever having intended to do so. What was happening to him? Was it simply Helen's neglect?
No, that was too feeble an excuse. It was as if he'd been away from home too long. Home had changed. At some point, it had become unfamiliar to him. All of it. His wife, with her civic duties, was no longer the same person, the same woman. Everything had changed and had changed him along with it. Through exposure to the newness of it all, he had become one of the shiftless and reckless people he'd always pitied and despised.
It didn't seem possible. It didn't seem real.
And yet, sprawled beneath him across the couch, her flaring skirt hiked and bunched high around her thrashing body, a yellow-haired, twenty-two-year-old girl was speaking his name and begging him to continue and telling him all that he was making her feel. A young girl, not much older than his own daughter, Kathy. But on this night, not even Kathy seemed real.
The only real things at that breathless and insane moment were the sight of flailing tanned legs and the scent of youthful femininity and the sound of fierce passion. "Oh, sweetie, that's wild ... wild ... don't stop ... oh, baby, baby, baby, don't stop ... don't ever stop ... not yet ... not yet ... not ... yet!"
Judge Charles Aiken struggled to keep pace with the savage tempo of the girl's delirium while, at the same time, worried as to the thickness of the office door and walls. It wouldn't do to have the people in the outer courtroom hear so un-likely an interrogation. They might think he was giving her the third degree. Actually, in a way, there was a-
"Oh, Charlie!"
Al Rudd, the court bailiff, looked up at the corridor clock and then at the massive door of the judge's chambers. What in hell could he be talking about for so long anyhow? Probably giving her one of his right-teous sermons, Al decided, snorting derisively as he leaned back against the wall to pick his teeth. Old Judge Aiken is crammed full of sermons.
Well, he knew damned well what he'd be doing if he ever had that bit of fluff alone in those chambers. Al Rudd wouldn't be making with no sermons, that was for sure. No, sirree. First off, he'd let her know who was boss and what it would be like if he sent her up to jail. He'd pour it on thick and even make up a few things just to make sure she was really scared. And then....
Al Rudd shifted his position, looking quickly up and down the corridor to see if anyone was watching him. Reassured, he allowed his mind to return to the exciting fantasy that had him the judge in place of Charles Aiken.
He'd make her take off all her clothes to start with ... every single piece ... and then maybe, walk around for him so he could get a real good look ... and then, he'd put his hands on those big boobs of hers and squeeze until she was begging him to be nice to her ... and then, he'd push her down on that old leather couch and forget everything else but all that juicy, golden-skinned flesh that maybe never had the kind of pleasure he could give it.
Yes, sirree....
Al Rudd sure as hell wouldn't be wasting no time with no sermon. He'd leave the sermons to crusty characters like Charles Aiken. Funny how dumb smart people could be at times ... judges, in particular ... never stopping to figure what they got going for them and how to make the most of it. Well, Al Rudd would know ... that's for damned sure.