The bail hearing went exactly the way each and every one of them wanted it to go.
Norman made the argument that Robby had already proven himself to be no flight risk -- the primary concern for judges while hearing bail cases. Theresa countered with the severity of the crime, as she had done during Robby's previous bail hearing. Norman came back with the argument that Robby was innocent until proven guilty and only the flight risk was at question, then he repeated his argument why Robby was not one. The Asian judge was not impressed with the repetition and reprimanded Norman accordingly. Theresa couldn't help but smile, then brought up the rape charge as an example of how Robby had a history of coercing witnesses to change their testimony. Norman objected, since there was absolutely no evidence for such an accusation. The judge concurred, then reprimanded Theresa for such an unsubstantiated argument. It was then Norman who suppressed a smile, until Theresa launched into a brand new and unprecedented point.
"Give me three days, Your Honor," she said. "Hold him for three days while I gather the evidence to prove that he coerced his rape victim."
"She is not his rape victim," Norman corrected. "She is his fiancee. Several days ago she was his ALLEGED rape victim, but now she's not even that."
"You got it backwards, Counselor," Theresa insisted. "She is his ALLEGED fiancee. She was most undoubtedly his rape victim."
"Your Honor..." Norman began to counter before he was cut off.
"Three days is all I need," Theresa calmly yet loudly spoke over him.
All the while Robby studied her. Norman had been successful in keeping him out of the general holding cell, so THAT fear was alleviated. And he still couldn't conceive of being tried for killing those skinheads since (a) he didn't do it, and (b) even if he had, it would've been in total self-defense. So he spent his time watching Theresa at work and play, picking up new facets and mannerisms that he could add to the dark depths of Dr. Kincaid. What he garnered now was that she simply didn't care if she won or lost -- she just wanted to stick it to him so she could blame the loss on everybody else.
He had no idea how correct he was -- all he knew was that it would help him play the shit out of tomorrow's big scene.
Norman, on the other hand, was out to win at all costs. Robby was glad to have such a man representing him, but dramatically speaking, he didn't hold a candle to the D.A.
She wasn't a bad looking woman, thought the actor. If things were different...
Before issuing a decision, the middle-aged Asian judge chastised them both for their potential conflicts-of-interest. Each lawyer took the criticism without argument because they both knew they were guilty as charged and that they would come back to a trial with the exact same prejudice.
Then the judge set bail at two hundred thousand dollars. Since Robby's original bond had never been returned to him, the amount would be transferred over, so it didn't cost him one new dime. Norman had beaten Theresa once again.
And Theresa was thrilled.
She not only expected this decision, but she had counted on it. She could now schedule another press conference for the morning where she would blame the judge for overlooking the "obvious fact" that Robby had coerced his rape victim into changing her story. That would be the entire subject of the conference, and the headline in every newspaper across the country the day after. So she acted horrified and dismayed at the lack of justice in our system, threatened to file an official complaint for the judge's lack of insight, then scurried out of the courtroom to go have dinner with her new publicist.
It took Robby and Norman quite a bit more time to get out of there because they still had to deal with all the paperwork that accompanies a bail release, monetary burden notwithstanding.
Seventeen-year-old Lisa Docks didn't know any of this was going on. She hadn't watched the news that day, nor had she heard anything about it. She had spent most of the morning with Robby at the Polo Lounge or on the "Gun Butt" set, and Ralphie got her back home just moments before her parents returned from work to take her to see Dr. Joe. In fact, they came damn close to getting busted.
Ralphie picked the Docks' front door lock with the same relative ease that he had that morning. He said good-bye to the scrawny teenager and told her he would pick her up tomorrow around the same time for the exclusive interview he had been promised. She went into her bedroom, and he jammed the chair back under the doorknob just as her father had done earlier that day. He made sure the front door was locked as he walked out of the house, and closed the door behind him. He had only taken one step off the front stoop when he saw Cameron and Janice Docks pull up in the driveway in their five-year-old Lincoln.
Ralphie's first instinct was to run, but then his pride took over. Amateurs caught in this situation may run, but Ralphie ought to be more clever than that. So he headed back to the front door and knocked on it repeatedly, pretending to notice Cameron and Janice for the first time only as they approached.
"Who the hell are you?" Cameron bellowed at him.
"Mr. and Mrs. Docks!" Ralphie responded quickly as he flashed them his press card. "Ralphie Sullivan, the Gazette. As the bride's parents, are you going to be paying for the wedding?!"
He took his camera off his neck and began to snap pictures of them that he knew he would never use, leaving the flash on in daylight only because it was more annoying.
"Is Mrs. Rockman going to be invited? What do you think about your new son-in-law? Will you consider yourselves grandparents to his present child?"
"Get the hell out of here!" Cameron shouted as he led his wife around the pesky reporter and proceeded to unlock the front door.
Ralphie made no attempt to block him since they were not the story, but instead continued to annoy the hell out of him.
"Okay, okay," Ralphie said quickly. "Can I just ask your daughter a couple of questions? Just two. Just two. Okay one. Just one. I just want to know how Robby is in bed. Was he her first? Did she come?"
"You fuck!" Cameron bellowed as he threateningly turned back to the longhaired hack. But the door was open now, and Janice stopped him.
"Honey, don't," she said. "Let's just go inside. Forget him, forget all of them. Please."
Cameron agreed, but not before shouting one final threat to the New Jersey kid. "If I ever see you near my house again, I'm going to kick your scrawny, hippie ass and shove that goddamn camera down your fuckin' throat!"
Then Janice led him into the house as SHE slammed the door behind them. Ralphie could only smile proudly as he got back into his leased Jag and drove home.
Lisa could see most of this through her tiny bedroom window -- a window so tiny, in fact, that even a girl as skinny as she could never crawl through it -- and she couldn't help but laugh at the photo-jock's brilliant manipulation of her mom and dad. Of course, in an attempt to avoid any questions from her parents, she feigned total innocence and timidly asked if it was time to go see Dr. Joe.
It was a special day for Lisa. In the past, it had only been her mom who took her to see Dr. Joe, but today her dad was coming as well. Maybe it was simply because it was her first office visit since her second suicide attempt, or maybe it was because he really did care about her after all. She had no reason to believe that Cameron actually had ulterior motives of his own.
Don't let me suggest to you that his motives were evil -- they weren't. Janice had told him how there was usually a parent conference after the girl's session, and he simply wanted in on it this time. Yes, he wanted to know everything the professional had to say about his daughter's situation, but he also wanted to know how to stop hitting her. Hurting Lisa was the last thing he had ever wanted to do, but his inability to help make her a better human being caused him to lose self-control time and again.
"Spare the rod, spoil the child," his own father used to say as he pummeled young Cameron across the face with his forearm or lashed him across the back with his belt. Little Cameron had vowed that he would never treat his children so, yet there he was, unable to be any less cruel to his beloved daughter.
But in the end, if I may jump forward for a moment before I jump back, Cameron simply didn't have the guts to bring any of this up to the high-priced shrink.
Now let me go back.
Lisa was relatively honest with Dr. Joe in her fifty-minute hour. The only things she kept from him was how she had snuck out of the house that morning and all the wondrous events and offers that followed -- and that was only because she was never sure what Dr. Joe told her mom in that post-session session that followed her session. Now that her dad was here, it was all the more frightening.
These weren't the first things she had kept from Dr. Joe -- she also never mentioned how Cameron periodically beat her because she knew how the law worked and she didn't want to get her Daddy in trouble.
She had already told him that she hadn't met Robby before that night up on Mulholland. She told Dr. Joe that she didn't know why Robby had come up with his scam since she had already cleared him of the rape charge. She was dying to find out, she said, but her father hadn't let her speak to him even though he had phoned for her all weekend. These were all her true feelings before she had had breakfast with Robby, so it was easy for her to rationalize it as a little white lie.
But maybe Robby did love her, she confessed to her shrink -- it was the main thing that she wanted to discuss. She told him she knew the idea was ridiculous, but she couldn't rid her mind of the possibility. Maybe he saw her police file and fell for her right then and there. Why couldn't he? She was smart, and fun, and kind, and witty. Didn't Dr. Joe say that those were the most important attributes? So what if she was homely?
"You're not homely," he insisted. "Beauty is only skin deep."
"So why couldn't HE see that?" she asked.
Dr. Joe was at a complete loss as to Robby's motives -- yet he had no doubt that Robby would make contact with the girl sooner or later. So the good doctor proceeded to tell his patient why a relationship with a forty-year-old man would not be good for her, even if Robby's feelings were pure. She would always be his teen-child with whom he could have sex, and he would simply be her father-figure. A decade or so from now, she would grow into her own and the whole thing would end dismally.
But she didn't want to hear it. She would love Robby forever, and he would grow to love her in time.
"What if he doesn't?" asked the shrink.
Lisa thought about the question a long time before answering.
"It doesn't matter," she finally explained with total truthfulness. "It doesn't matter if he's just using me and he goes away completely. When the cool kids at the Noho see me next, boy, will I be important or what?! It'll be better than being a cheerleader, better than being beautiful. I'll be the most important person in the whole school! So I don't give a shit what he thinks about me."
That was true, too -- or at least she thought so when she said it.
Dr. Joe had no reason not to believe her. She was being completely honest with her feelings, and that was all he was looking for. He viewed her infatuation with Robby as an ultra-heightened schoolgirl crush that would ultimately hurt her, but was a natural part of adolescent development nonetheless. In the end, she would come back to him crying, and they would deal with it. It was all completely normal, and he had treated such things many times before.
But what concerned Dr. Joe far more -- what had been his primary concern all along -- was her ultra-obsessive devotion to the "cool kids." He was dubious as to their sudden acceptance of her just because they thought she was involved with an older man, yet he knew Lisa had to learn for herself how unimportant any of that really was. Her true value came from within -- it had been his mantra to her all along -- and the others would ultimately have to accept her for who she was. If not, she had to learn that that was okay, too.
So in the post-session session -- the one in which Cameron lacked the guts to say what he had shown up to say in the first place -- he told Lisa's parents that although their initial impulse to keep their daughter locked in her room was understandable, it was not beneficial. Lisa had to learn that her value came from her intelligence and sensitivity, and not from a connection to cheerleaders and athletes. Hence, she required more contact with her social peers, not less. The contact might prove painful if the cheerleaders and athletes were bad people, but in the long run she would learn a crucial lesson -- and she had to learn it on her own. If it tore her apart, Cameron and Janice must respond with kindness and sensitivity, and they should call him immediately. But Lisa simply had to embark upon this journey alone.
He walked them out to the anteroom as he told them he wanted to see Lisa back on Thursday. Even with health insurance, therapy twice a week was a pretty big financial burden to the Docks', but neither parent complained. The time was set up, and that was that.
Cameron hated the doctor's advice and didn't buy its validity for a second, but he knew that he was out of his league. He had seen how, left to his own devices, he had botched everything. He decided to keep his mouth shut and go along with the so-called expert simply because he wanted what was best for his daughter, and he was finally willing to concede that HE wasn't it.
They drove Lisa to the Noho Cafe where she would have burgers and fries for dinner -- and God knows what else -- with her new cheerleading friends.
Cameron told her daughter that if she wasn't home by eleven, he would call the police to find her. He knew it was a bullshit threat -- the last thing he wanted was more cops bringing on more reporters -- but he hoped that the mere risk of such humiliation in front of her peers would scare the girl into coming home on time.
Lisa couldn't have been more thrilled. She would've tongue-kissed Dr. Joe just for putting her parents in their place! She was ninety per cent sure her father's bluff was a bluff -- but even if it wasn't, who cares? She would get accolades from the cool kids the second they dropped her off. She would get a swanky dinner in an exclusive Beverly Hills restaurant. And best of all, she would get Robby!
She just knew it.
*** Up Next: "A Big Night At Royalties" ***
The main characters in this e-novel are fictional and are not intended to portray or resemble any actual individuals, whether living or dead (except for Jeff Abugov who is a real screenwriter, director and producer.) Although certain real people and companies are mentioned in this e-novel, all of the events are fictional and are not intended to portray or resemble any actual events.
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