Lost Girls Read Free Page B

piled into a crystalline white anthill, my inspiration sits. Reduce its mass to a circle of powdery residue in two sinus-burning whiffs and with this I am able to swiftly conclude that the only chance Leonard has is Lisa, the accused's eighteen-year-old girlfriend.
    Leonard Busch himself is fifty-two, barrel chested, butter nosed, and the owner of Pelican Beach, a nightclub located in a former auto parts warehouse stuck beneath the cement buttresses of the Gardiner Expressway next to the harbor. It's one of those hangar-size places that boast ''coed'' beach volleyball in February, wet T-shirt contests in April, and Ladies' Night every Tuesday (a free rose and half-priced tequila until midnight, at which point the ''ladies'' are in generally good enough shape to be hauled back to a stranger's futon). Leonard ran the whole vile affair from his office suspended above the dj booth with mirrored windows overlooking the seething dance floor. It was there that he conducted his business, where business means the counting of receipts, the consumption of Ballantine's on the rocks, and the interviewing of girls seeking waitress positions. Early evidence from a number of them indicated that Leonard took these opportunities to ask questions of dubious purpose (''Are you wearing any underwear right now?'') and to squeeze bottoms in the interest of determining the applicants' qualifications.
    All of these details, however unseemly, were not of any particular concern to me. But Leonard's fondness for plying certain female staff with liquor, taking them for early morning drives down to the docklands, and heaving himself on their half-comatose bodies was substantially more troubling from a legal perspective, especially given that one of his dates came forward the next day and insisted that Leonard Busch, her employer and friend (''At first I thought he was kinda sweet''), had taken his pleasure with her without her consent. Indeed, as she testified, she would've been unable to voice her permission even if she'd wanted to, as her brain had been made so mushy with booze, she could only slap her palms against his back and try to remember the names of the teddy bears in her old bedroom at her parents' house.
    Shower, shave, stick a hastily assembled margarine sandwich into my breast pocket for the rare moments that hunger visits, and head up Spadina and over Queen Street to the courthouse. The air is unseasonably chilly but I only half notice, concentrating instead on the approach to take with dear little Lisa. More stupid than the prevailing standard among mall vixens of her vintage, she was not only foolish enough to be Leonard's sole long-term lover, but to be in love with him as well. Attended every day of the trial, finding a place in the back row and trying to make eye contact with her beloved every time he rose to be shackled and led away to his cell. Initially I thought the girl might be a potential asset to our case, but when asked about it, my client dismissed the idea.
    ''Forget it. She's fuckin' nuts. Besides, my wife don't know about her'' was Leonard's exact phrasing.
    It wasn't clear to me how Mrs. Busch would be more upset over the disclosure of a mistress than the conviction of her husband as a rapist, but I said no more about it.
    Until today. When I arrive at the court I descend to the basement holding cells, shake my head at Leonard, and voice my suggestion through a hole in the Plexiglas wall between us.
    ''We got anything else?'' he asks.
    ''Not a thing.''
    ''Then talk to her. But I dunno what she could say to help. I didn't even see her that night.''
    When the court convenes the judge begins by asking if I'm prepared to deliver final submissions. I advise him that I require a brief adjournment to make a final survey of the defense's evidence before concluding the case. The judge orders us all back following lunch. I have three hours.
    After the few courtroom spectators mill out into the hallway I snake up behind my prey and,