nodded, understanding his client’s feelings. This well-publicized suit they had brought against Binick had more to do with revenge than money. What’s more, Marc was happy to be a part of that revenge.
A couple of hundred years ago, Marc would have been acting as second to Louie Demerchant as Demerchant and Binick drew pistols and aimed for each other’s hearts. Today, Marc acted as Louie Demerchant’s lawyer.
Time had changed the mode, but not the emotion. Wounded human hearts cried out for justice in their pain. And justice was Marc Truesdale’s business.
Marc studied Binick as the clerk swore him in. He had gotten to know the man and his attorney, Quon Sato, over the two long years it took to get this case to trial. He respected the dark, compact Sato, who had a quiet manner and considerable knowledge of the law. But whenever the shifty, skin-shedding Binick was around, Marc instinctively kept checking to be sure his wallet was still in his pocket and his watch on his wrist.
Binick had refused to settle. Sato had consistently and competently stalled with every legal trick imaginable. Marc had countered them, overcome them. Now the defense attorney could stall no longer. Finally, Binick was in Marc’s sight.
Marc got to his feet and moved as close as permitted to the witness box. He kept his tone pleasantly neutral. That was how one dispatched an offender in these more civilized times, with indisputable facts and irrefutable logic—a bloodless separation of the incompetent from his professional reputation and financial resources.
A lot of these incompetents, Marc knew, would have preferred the quick bullet to the heart.
“Please state your name and occupation for the record.”
The man’s thin voice came out in a high rasp as he rubbed his sweaty hands together in jerky little movements. “Stanley Binick, president of Bio-Sperm.”
“Mr. Binick, would you please explain to this court what Bio-Sperm does?”
“Bio-Sperm collects human sperm, stores it and makes it available for artificial insemination.”
“Is your business commonly called a sperm bank?”
“Yes.”
“A moment ago you said you were the president of this sperm bank, but aren’t you also the sole owner of Bio-Sperm?”
“Yes.”
“You have no silent partners, no investors? You are totally in control of this private company?”
“Yes.”
“What did you gross last year?”
“Your honor, I object. Irrelevant,” Sato interjected.
The judge turned to Marc. She was an older, gray-haired gal in her sixties. This was her last year before retiring from the bench. Marc had been up before her countless times. She was one of his favorite judges, because he knew he was one of her favorite lawyers. He sent her a small smile.
“Your Honor, this jury must be presented with a clear understanding of all aspects of Bio-Sperm, including its solvency. Only then can they fully appreciate the extent of the improprieties and damages done to my client, Louie Demerchant.”
“Objection overruled,” the judge said. “You may answer the question, Mr. Binick.”
He may, yes, but he was clearly hesitant to do so. He sank lower in his chair as his raspy voice got fainter and his nervous tongue shot out to wet his lips. “A little more than four million.”
“Four million?” Marc said, repeating it loudly, letting his voice rise in surprise; although, of course, he’d already known the answer. A smart attorney had better know the answer to every question he asked of a witness sitting in front of a jury.
“You made four million in one year?”
Binick’s nervousness over the emphasized point caused his eyes to squint as he rubbed his tiny scale of a nose. “Gross, of course. And I work hard for that money. My rules are very stringent for donors. I accept applications only from college graduates. I personally do the interviews to make sure we get good-looking men.”
“So your hard work is to pick out good-looking men?”
“Well, partly...yes.”
“How do you define good-looking?”
“Tall. Physically appealing. Certainly no short men or men with big noses or receding chins. Our clients definitely wouldn’t want to have such a man’s child.”
Marc smiled to himself as he caught the dark looks erupting on the faces of the jury, a group of the shortest men with the biggest noses and most receding chins he had been able to find. So far, this testimony was going exactly as planned.
Binick’s eyes darted to the jury’s expressions, too. Realizing his mistake too late, he sank farther into the witness chair. Marc planned for him to be so low in the witness stand by the time he got through with him that the bailiff would have to get a spatula to flip him out of it.
“Mr. Binick, what procedures do you employ in collecting and storing this sperm?”
“The prospective donor men fill out a comprehensive questionnaire, and then we give them a cup and send them to the cupping room with a Playboy magazine or a videotape and—”
Marc held up his hand to interrupt. “You don’t have to go into that much detail.”
Marc guffawed along with the members of this all-male jury, purposely reminding them that despite the formality of his custom-made suit, beneath it he was just one of the boys.
“Now, Mr. Binick, after the sperm is collected, what do you do with it?”
“The sperm is frozen in liquid nitrogen at approximately three hundred degrees below zero Fahrenheit. It can last for ten years that way.”
“Who receives this preserved sperm?”
“Most of our clients are women married to infertile men. We provide healthy, anonymous donor sperm from men who approximate their husband’s size and coloring in order that they may conceive a child who will resemble them both.”
“Is providing anonymous sperm for women the only service you perform at Bio-Sperm?”
“No. We also store sperm from specific men who don’t wish to start a family right away, but want their sperm to be safeguarded for later use.”
“Why would a man wish to safeguard his sperm—for later use—as you term it?”
“Any number of reasons. An example would be men whose current medical problems require a procedure like chemotherapy that could render them infertile. They are looking for insurance.”
“So you store their sperm in order to ‘insure’ that these men will have the ability to pass on their genes in the future should they so desire?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Binick, did a man by the name
