“Why can’t we talk about both?” Nora asked Lance who replied with only a glare. “Fine, back on subject. So Lance got screwed. What can he do about it?”
The judge adjusted his glasses as he spoke.
“I can help. Definitely. If everything you’ve told me is true—”
“It is,” Lance said.
“Then there is some hope. I know the judge you had—Hawkins? Hate that self-righteous bastard. He sides with the mothers in ninety-five percent of his cases no matter what the circumstances. I can suggest a good attorney, and we’ll get your case moved to another judge. We’ll have to petition the court for a new hearing based on new circumstances—”
“What new circumstances?” Lance asked. “Nothing’s really changed.”
“Considering your fitness as a parent was called into question, you’ll probably need a psychiatric evaluation, a thorough one. Once the psych eval clears you of being an unfit parent, then you’ll have plenty of ammunition in your fight.”
“I can do that, definitely. You think it’ll work?”
The judge nodded. “Yes. Once we get you in a new courtroom, which I can handle, and your attorney presents your psych eval and any other new evidence…should at least get you joint custody.”
“That’s all I want. I don’t want to take Maya from her mom.”
“That attitude is the right one to have. This battle is for your daughter, not against your ex-wife. A bad attitude can doom a case. But speaking of dooming a case…”
Judge B. turned his gaze from Lance and onto Nora.
“What?” Nora asked. “What did I do this time?”
“You exist,” Judge B. said.
“That’s not my fault,” Nora said. “I didn’t ask to be born. Which is good because my mother probably would have said no.”
The judge gave a tired, nervous laugh.
“My dear…I could not be more grateful that you exist,” he said. “But am I correct in assuming this young man is slightly more than just a bodyguard?”
“We did have sex today. A lot of it,” she admitted without shame.
“That’s going to be an issue.” The judge looked from Nora to Lance. Nora felt her stomach starting to tighten with fear.
“How much of an issue?” Lance reached out and took Nora’s hand. The touch comforted her, but her stomach remained taut with worry.
“A big one. This beautiful young lady lives and works on the outskirts of legality. She assaults people for money and is paid in cash, probably under the table.”
“I take the Fifth.” Nora’s stomach knot twisted tighter.
“Does he know the rest?” the judge asked her and Nora winced.
“No. Not yet.”
“There’s a rest?” Lance looked at her with a gaze that said “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” “You mean more than you being a professional dominatrix?”
“Sort of,” she said.
“More than sort of.” The judge walked over to his bookcase and ran his hands along the spines. He pulled out a rather battered-looked paperback novel. Nora held her breath. “Here you go, son. Ever read the books by this lovely lady?”
Lance stared at the cover. “The Runaway by…Nora Sutherlin. Nora, you write books?”
“I am exercising my right to remain silent.”
“Guilty on all charges. And I might throw the book at you.” Judge B. tossed her book at her. “Even if no one in the courtroom knew about Miss Nora’s moonlighting as a dominatrix, it’s public record that she’s an erotica writer.”
“I had no idea you were famous,” Lance said, looking both impressed and concerned.
“I’m a writer. I’m the opposite of famous.”
“Infamous,” the judge supplied. “Shall I tell him what the book’s about or will you?”
“I write my own copy all the time. I’ll do it. It’s loosely based on the story of Daphne and Apollo, except in this case Daphne is a sixteen-year-old girl who lives in a group home and is being pursued by the handsome older off-duty cop who accidentally killed her violent twin brother while restraining him during a fight. It’s actually a sweet love story. You know, apart from all the statutory rape.”
Lance buried his face in his hands.
“In a child custody case, everything is evidence including the works of fiction written by the father’s new girlfriend.”
“You’re not helping my case here, Judge B.” Nora pointed her finger at him. He raised his hands in surrender.
“You wanted the truth and my help. I’m simply telling it like it is.” The judge sighed heavily. “Of course, it does get worse.”
“Worse?” Lance’s eyes widened in horror. “What’s worse?”
“The lovely Miss Nora works for Kingsley Edge who I assume you also work for, yes?”
“Yes,” Lance said, his lips tightening into a thin line of worry.
“Kingsley Edge is the last person in this city you want to be involved with when fighting for custody of a child. No matter his virtues as an individual, his enterprise is slightly…What’s the word I’m looking for?”
“Illegal,” Nora said, swallowing a hard knot in the throat.
“More than that,” the judge continued, “it’s dangerous. With that much money involved, that many important people who have a lot to lose are involved…let’s just say it’s not going to reflect well on you to be on his payroll.”
“So I quit the job?” Lance asked. Nora could hear the disappointment in his words, the reluctance.
“You’ll have to if you want your daughter back. You’re no longer in the Navy?”
“No. Medical discharge. Honorable discharge,” he said.
“Were you awarded any medals?”
“Maybe,” he said and left it at that.
“That’s good. I can make sure we get you a new judge, a judge who has a military background. As a veteran, a wounded and decorated veteran, you should have a very good chance for equal custody. Have you considered rejoining the Navy?”
“Not really an option. I was offered a job in defense contracting from a company that works with the Navy in Rhode Island.”
“With SPECWAR?” Nora asked.
Lance narrowed his eyes at her. “How do you know about that?”
Nora mimed locking her lips and throwing away the key.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell.” She had a rather important client there she would hate to piss off. Damn good tipper.
“How’s the pay?” the judge asked Lance.
“Stellar. But it’s a desk job. I like to be active. That’s why I wanted to work for Kingsley running security at his clubs, helping people in a hands-on way. Sitting in front of a computer isn’t my idea of serving people.”
“It might be worth swallowing your pride over. Getting your paycheck from a legitimate employer will reflect much better on you than a paycheck from Kingsley Edge. There’s no bones about it, young man. I can get you in front of a sympathetic judge, I can help you find a good lawyer, I can tell you which psychologist to call for your psych eval, but the rest is up to you. If you want your daughter back, you’re going to have to say goodbye to this world, goodbye to your job with Kingsley and goodbye to Mistress Nora.”
Lance fell silent. Nora looked up at Judge B. who could only smile apologetically at her. She leaned forward and squeezed his hand, grateful for his honesty even if his honesty hurt.
“So let me get this straight…” Lance stood up and started to pace the small cluttered office. “I have dreamed for two years about getting my daughter back. I have dreamed for sixteen years about finding the perfect woman for me. I find the perfect woman for me and find out how to get my daughter back, but…to get my daughter back, I have to give up the perfect woman.”
“If it makes you feel any better,” Nora said, turning to face him, “I’m not the perfect woman.” If Lance thought she was perfect, maybe they should go their separate ways.
“Perfect or not,” Judge B. said, “you are correct. Being
involved with her would give your ex-wife’s attorney all the ammunition they need to keep you away from your daughter. Is it fair? No, not at all. I have nine grandchildren and would let Miss Nora babysit for them in a heartbeat. But what is fair is rarely a question the courts bother answering. What is right is often thrown under the bus in favor of what looks right.”
“But you’re a client of hers.” Lance faced the judge and pointed at Nora. “How is it okay for you to be involved with her and not me?”
“That’s a good question but with an ugly answer. I’m a judge, you aren’t. Also, I have money and influence, and I’m only a year or two away from retirement. I could retire tomorrow, but I love my work and feel like I still have something to offer. My children are grown and they all have an inkling about my interests so they’d hardly be shocked by a scandal. They certainly would never try to keep my grandchildren from me. If it came to light that I saw this lovely lady once a week, I’d retire early, taking some ribbing from friends and colleagues, and move down to Boca with my wife.”
Lance sat back down again with a heavy sigh.
“There’s no other way?” he asked, looking up at the judge with imploring eyes.
“Son, I wish I could tell you something different. I wish I could tell you that there weren’t two sets of rules out there for rich, important people like me and normal people like you. I wish I could tell you there wasn’t a separate set of rules for men and women. I could tell you that but it would be a lie and you know it. And lying to you won’t help you get your daughter back.”
“What do I do now?” Lance asked after a long and heavy silence.
“You get out of this world and you don’t look back,” Judge B. said. “Cut off contact with her, with Kingsley Edge, with the entire community. You get your psych evaluation to prove you’re a fit parent. Take the job with a civilian defense contractor if it pays well and looks good for the courts.”
“But Lance is kinky,” Nora protested, ready to scream at the unfairness. “That’s like telling a gay man to be straight so he can have custody of his kid.”
“Yes, and if that gay man wanted custody of his child badly enough he’d do it or at least put on a damn good show for the court. Look, I’m not saying you have to give up this lifestyle forever. If in a year or two after you win custody back you find a nice girl who has a job at a bank or is a schoolteacher…and she just happens to enjoy role-play in the bedroom, then that’s fine. It’s between you two. You won’t do it while your daughter’s in the house. You won’t leave any evidence of it lying around. But you running around town with a professional dominatrix who writes hard-core erotica and gets arrested every other week is going to get you and your case laughed right out of court.”
“I have to do it now?” Lance asked, and Nora’s heart broke at the question. Broke for him and broke for her. She already knew the answer before the judge gave it to them.
“I would suggest it. The sooner the better. The more time you spend with her the more likely it is someone will find out, the more likely your ex-wife will find out. There’s no privacy in this world anymore. The Internet has killed that fantasy. All it takes is one person knowing or one picture or one rumor spreading…your ex-wife can hire a private detective and get all the evidence she needs in an hour to keep you away from your daughter. Most judges don’t know their asses from a hole in the ground, so trying to explain the difference between a dominatrix and a prostitute…Well, you’d have a better chance teaching me how to tap-dance on the moon. Or teaching Miss Nora here…”
“Math,” she suggested. “I’m really bad at math.”
“Here’s some math even you can do then,” the judge said, giving her a kind but hopeless smile. “You plus Lance equals no custody for his daughter.”
Nora swallowed a hard lump in her throat. “I fucking hate math.”
Nora and Lance thanked the judge for his honesty and his time, and they left the house with nothing but heavy hearts and another bag of Mrs. B.’s chocolate chip cookies.
“What do you want to do?” Nora asked once inside the car. “I can take you home.”
“I don’t want to go home.” Lance leaned his head against the window. “I want to go to your house, spend the night with you, and never leave your bed again.”
“I want that, too.” Nora put her hand on his knee and squeezed. “But you heard what Judge B. said.”
“I heard.”
“Lance…Listen to me. This is your Mistress talking.”
“Fine, I’m listening.”
“I’m crazy about you. But we just met a few days ago. The sex is amazing and you’re amazing, but this is something bigger than both of us.”
“I know. I know I’ll do it.”
“Of course you will. But not yet.” She took the exit.
“Are you kidnapping me?” Lance asked as they left the city.
“Don’t tempt me. I just might. I’ll knock you out and when you wake up we’ll be in the middle of nowhere France in a beautiful little cottage with all the bondage and S&M equipment we could ever need.”
“Sounds like heaven.”
“It is heaven. Except it’s a No Children Allowed sort of Heaven. Is that your version of heaven?”
“No.”
“Thought so.”
Once they entered Wakefield, Nora had to consciously force herself to drive in the opposite direction of Sacred Heart, Søren’s church…her church. Instead, she steered her car a mile away into a small residential neighborhood on the outskirts of town.
“Where are we?” Lance asked as she parked in a cul-de-sac in front of a shabby pre-fab duplex with sickly pale green aluminum siding and a dead lawn. Behind the cul-de-sac stood a wall of trees, windblown and tired.
“It doesn’t look any better now than when I lived here.” Nora got out of the car and leaned back against the door.
“You used to live here?”
“Yup. Grew up in this house.” She pointed at the left side of the duplex.
“It’s…” Lance paused and Nora laughed.
“Shitville, USA?”
“I didn’t say that,” Lance raised his hand.
“You didn’t have to. Admittedly, it’s not like I grew up in the projects or anything. Just on the wrong side of the tracks. Anyway, it’s not pretty. It’s worse on the inside.”
“Worse?”
“It’s probably the one bad neighborhood in this entire town. But no one lives here anymore. Not in the house or the neighborhood.”
She looked up and down the street and saw only a car or two parked and no signs of life.
“Why not?” he asked.
Nora started to answer but closed her mouth when the sound of an oncoming train started up in the distance. She smiled at Lance and put her hands in her jacket pockets.
“One…” she said, counting the seconds, “two…three…Brace yourself.”
At the end of the three, the train barreled past with ear-splitting loudness. Lance covered his ears but Nora only waited it out.
“What the fuck?” Lance lowered his hands from his ears.
“The railroad tracks are right behind the trees here. I grew up with that sound—every day and every night. I can still sleep through a hail storm because I grew up with that in my backyard.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Nora shook her head.
“Nope. A decade ago a train derailed about fifty yards that way.” She pointed east. “It was carrying some nasty chemicals on it. This entire neighborhood was evacuated. Lots of people moved out then and never moved back.”
“Is it safe to be here?”
“It’s clean now. But no one wants to live near the tracks.”
“I can’t blame them.” Lance kicked a rock in the front lawn.
“Me neither. It was nothing but plastic plates and plastic cups growing up. We literally could not have nice things in our house. They’d fall off the table and break into a thousand pieces. When I bought my
house, the one you’ve been in, the first thing I did was buy a whole set of crystal glasses and vases and everything I could get my hands on, the more breakable the better. I like having things I can break, knowing they’ll only break when I want them to.”
“Not because you live right on the train tracks.”
“Exactly.”
“Were you happy here?” Lance stepped onto the sidewalk and Nora followed. So weird to be back in this neighborhood. So many memories came rushing over her that she felt she could drown in their murky depths.
“I did okay here,” she said. “I never learned how to ride a bike. I got one, a pink Schwinn, but it got stolen before I could learn to ride it. We couldn’t afford a new one. I cared more about motorcycles than bicycles by that point, anyway.”
“You lived here with your parents?”
“My mom.” Nora walked up to the front door. She peered in a window and saw the emptiness inside—no furniture, no people, no life.
“Where was your dad?”
“The Iron Triangle in Queens. That’s where his chop shop was. Or he was in jail. I was a baby when my mom realized her mechanic husband actually ran a chop shop. She left him. They got divorced and Mom refused any child support. She didn’t want my father anywhere near me.”
“I don’t blame her. God, I can’t imagine growing up like this.” He pointed at the decrepit house, the abandoned neighborhood. “I can’t imagine growing up with my father in prison. Dad…he and I are buddies. He was a sub commander, not that you’d ever know it. A very humble man.”
“Sub commander? Sounds like me. Different sort of subs, obviously.”
“Submarines,” Lance said, laughing. “He was on his last deployment right before the Gulf War broke out. Instead of coming home, he stayed in. I think that’s the one time I remember my mom breaking down while Dad was away. She was already planning his welcome home party.”
“God damn, that must have been hard.” Nora took his hand in hers.
“It was. I asked him about it, asked him if he was angry he had to stay in. He said he wasn’t. He knew Mom had things under control, that my sister and I were doing fine. He said…”
Lance paused and swallowed. A smile flitted across his face.
The Last Good Knight (The Original Sinners Pulp Library) Page 12