Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 01 - TRIAL - a Legal Thriller by Clifford Irving Page B

Charm's shoulder, seemed to squeeze it. Then he placed his palm on her cheek and kept it there a few moments. Charm bowed her head slightly.
    In their gestures there was an eloquence which Warren understood at once.
    Slowly he braked to a stop next to another car about fifty feet away from them. The cul-de-sac prevented him from driving past — his house was near the end of it. He could make a U-turn and leave, or back up to the avenue, but they would notice that. And he couldn't bring himself to embarrass them by wheeling the car into the driveway. He waited, the air-conditioning vibrating gently, until finally the man stopped talking, bent to kiss Charm briefly on the lips, and ducked into his car.
    He drove past Warren with not even a glance. Hands tight on the wheel, Warren stared at him as the car moved by. He saw a suntanned man of about forty with a mustache. The word
paramour
formed in his mind. He was aware that his lips, dry as bone, had pulled back over his teeth in a grimace.
    Charm turned and walked quickly, heels clicking down the driveway, into the house. From his car Warren saw but didn't hear the front door close behind her. Yet he could imagine the sound as clearly as if he had heard it: the sounds of doors closing in your own home are so familiar, so personal.
    Farther up the block, children shouted at each other. Roller skates rasped on concrete. Warren parked at the outer edge of his driveway.
    Go in? Slink away? Go out and get drunk?
    He wanted to shout in anger. He had a sudden yen for a cigarette and realized he had never lost the craving. He felt disgusted with himself. The heat of the moribund evening pressed against his forehead.
    It was still his home. His clothes were there, and he needed them. He slipped his keys out of the ignition, got out of the car, unlocked his front door, and stepped into the cool hallway that led to the living room. Oobie stumbled up to him, wagging her tail violently.
    I wish you could talk, Oobie. I'd ask you a lot of questions.
    Charm was seated in a rocker at the pine kitchen table, drinking a glass of cold white wine. The creaking of the rocker was the only sound as she looked up with blurred eyes. There was a certain wild look too, and an anger equal to his. Anger masks fear, he realized.
    "I saw you out there," he said. "I was in my car."
    She stared at him in silence.
    Warren's heart fluttered but everything else felt numb. "Can we talk in the bedroom, Charm? I have to change."
    With what Warren perceived as counterfeit obedience, she followed him, carrying her glass of wine, and Oobie trailed behind, tail tucked hard between her legs. Oobie knew. Charm sat on the edge of the king-size bed while Warren took off his suit and folded the edges of his trousers properly into the press of the wooden hanger. The numbness was gone but now there was a ringing in his ears. I don't know what to say or do, he thought. It's up to her.
    "Okay," Charm said at last, sighing.
    "What's okay?"
    He began the hunt for his baseball cap, stuffed somewhere among sweats and old tennis shoes and torn T-shirts with various logos.
    "He's a man I've been seeing," she said quietly.
    "Seeing?"
    "Having an affair with."
    He found the black Astro cap and decided to put it on his head right then and there. Each of his hands felt like twenty-five-pound weights, and he kept fumbling stupidly with the brim, aware that he was breathing as in a workout at the gym.
    When he turned around, Charm said, "You look silly."
    He was wearing a white shirt, red Jockey shorts, and the Astro cap.
    "That's because I feel silly," he explained, while he felt the blood hum through his veins.
    "What are you going to do?" Charm asked. "What's the traditional response down here when you find out your wife's having an affair? Do you beat her up? Stomp on her with your cowboy boots? Yell and walk out the door in what y'all call a mother huff?"
    Her eyes had misted with tears.
    "We do that sometimes," Warren said, "and