Kane

by Jennifer Blake

  Melville Brown was in his office when Kane poked his head inside. His law partner was on the phone, holding the receiver under his chin and taking notes at the same time. He glanced up and a grin slashed the clear, cinnamon brown of his face. Waving Kane inside, he ended his phone conversation, tossed his pen down on his neat stack of papers, then leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers across his waist. “I hear,” he said in a smooth, molasses-rich voice, “that you’ve had yourself a busy morning. Or a busy couple of days. Now what’s this about a coffin?”

  “Don’t start,” Kane said with a grimace as he dropped into the chair in front of the desk and stretched his long legs out in front of him.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “I made a jackass out of myself. But I swear Regina Dalton is up to something.”

  “Excuses, excuses,” his partner murmured.

  Kane’s glance was jaundiced. “You’ll be talking out of the other side of your mouth when she sets us up.”

  The humor faded. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “As a hanging judge.”

  “You really think she has something to do with the case?”

  There was no question which case Melville was talking about. For the two of them, there was only one these days. Kane said in brooding answer, “She’s from New York.”

  “Lots of people are,” the other man said with calm reason.

  “I don’t like the coincidence. Besides, I’ve got this feeling.”

  “Oh, well, that’s different. Logical, even.”

  “She bothers me.”

  Melville said nothing.

  As Kane met his gaze, he could see his partner was trying not to grin. “Not like that.”

  “Sure. Whatever you say. Carry on, then—in a manner of speaking. In the meantime, want to hear what I dug up today?”

  Melville enjoyed puns. Kane awarded this pair a long-suffering sigh as he said, “Give it to me.”

  “Seems Berry struck a deal with a black religious conference a while back to buy their graveyards and give thousands of black church workers jobs selling burial contracts in Berry Association, Inc. How about that?”

  “Sounds good on the surface. What’s the catch?”

  “The contracts were only for burial. None of them included normal services such as embalming and viewing at Berry’s funeral homes. Unlike similar deals struck with white church groups, which did include those things.”

  “Good grief.”

  “Exactly.” Melville’s smile was grim. “Berry’s making several million a year off these church folks while paying them peanuts. On top of that, they can’t go to his funeral homes for their services, but have to put poor old black granny in a hearse and drive miles to find a more accommodating funeral home. When they’ve done that, and paid extra for it, then they can use a Berry-owned graveyard.”

  “Isn’t that a blatant example of discrimination for this day and age?”

  “Guess he didn’t expect to get caught. But I can’t wait to see if his lawyers dare introduce Berry’s record for creating jobs for African-Americans.”

  “And you think they might?” Kane said, alerted by an undertone in his partner’s voice.

  “It’s possible. I have it on good authority they expect to pack the jury with black faces.”

  Kane’s thoughts moved at the pace of lightning while he met his partner’s expectant expression. “They intend to frame the trial along regional lines—Northern liberal versus Southern conservative.”

  “Your granddad will be portrayed as the hidebound Southern gentleman in his mansion, a regular Legree of the funeral industry, trying to block progress from coming to our fair community. Berry will be shown as modern, reformist, and from the Northeast, therefore naturally without prejudice.”

  “A flimflam show,” Kane said in disgust.

  Melville gave him a tight smile before segueing from his normal, cultured tones into a Gone with the Wind parody. “They be thinkin’ they can come down here and pull the wool over the eyes of us po’ sharecroppers, that we be easy led by our feelings and don’t know from nothin’ ’bout the law.”

  “Are they in for a shock?” Conviction layered Kane’s tone.

  “We hope.”

  A small silence fell. After a moment, Kane said, “So did Pops’s settlement offer go out today?”

  Melville gave a judicious nod. “I spoke to the head legal honcho at the New York firm myself, with a follow-up in all the proper legalese by Express Mail. They’ll get back to us after the offer has been presented to their client.”

  “Any feedback on how it might go over?”

  “It was all very cover-their-asses cagey. No discussion, just thank you and good day. Frankly, I think it has about as much chance of being accepted as a poodle at a polecat convention.”

  “Berry doesn’t have long to make up his mind, not if jury selection begins in less than a week.”

  “True.”

  With a thoughtful frown, Kane said, “You want to handle that part?”

  “Jury selection? You thinking it might play better to the media if I’m the one to object to too many black faces?”

  “I’m thinking,” Kane said, “that you’re a good judge of character, no matter how it’s packaged. I’m also thinking that African-American jurors might be a good thing if you can spring that surprise you have in mind.”

  “Berry’s use of the black churches? You’ve got a point. But this will be district court, not Turn-Coupe. The black community around here knows Mr. Lewis. That won’t be the case in Baton Rouge.”

  “Think we can take the chance?”

  Melville gave a decided nod. “It’ll be pure pleasure to make it work.”

  They exchanged a glance of easy and wordless understanding. The two of them had been roommates at LSU when both were in prelaw, then had gone on to Tulane together. There had been raised eyebrows when they set up a joint practice in a renovated mansion on the courthouse square, but they’d kept it low-key, accepting whatever came their way until people got used to the idea. They’d both worked long, hard hours, and their clientele had built slowly but surely until it was now as much as they could handle.

  Kane rubbed a hand over his face, then gave a rasping sigh. “You know, I’ve got so used to looking for an angle behind everything, some devious purpose like this jury business, that I automatically think everybody must have an agenda. Do you think I’ve lost all ability to tell the difference between a scam artist and someone doing their job?”

  Melville opened his eyes wide. “You talking about this bunch of New York pinstripe lawyers?”

  “Wiseass,” Kane said amiably. “I’m talking about Regina Dalton, and you know it.”

  “Yankee woman’s got your thinking so screwed you’re not sure how to place her, that it?”

  Kane shifted a hard shoulder. “I can’t believe what my instinct’s telling me. Or don’t want to believe it. She doesn’t seem the type to con an old man.”

  “Sounds complicated.”

  “It is. She is. She says one thing, but I see something else in her eyes.”

  “Oh, man,” Melville said with a quick shake of his head. “This one I’ve got to meet.”

  “Suit yourself. But I can handle her and I will, one way or another.”

  “You’re sure of that, are you?”

  Kane gave him a jaundiced stare.

  “Right,” Melville said, speculation joining the bright amusement in his eyes. “I’m dying to see how it turns out.”

  “So am I,” Kane answered. “So am I.”

  Regina stood to one side of the window and carefully shifted the drape so she could see out. The car was still there, across the street from the motel.

  Her chest felt tight, and her tension headache drummed behind her eyes. It had been bad enough fending off Sugar Kane Benedict’s insidious questions and comments all day. She didn’t need this added trouble.

  For a few seconds, she played with the idea that K
ane might have posted the man to watch her. Then she dismissed it. For one thing, she’d given him no reason to think it was necessary. For another, he seemed too open and aboveboard for such tactics. The best reason, however, was because he’d proven that when he wanted something, he went after it himself. As he was after her.

  That was exactly what was behind his attention. She had suspected it when he first showed up this morning, but after the hours they had spent together, she was positive.

  If Kane hadn’t posted the man across the street, then who had? Lewis Crompton, perhaps? It seemed unlikely, but stranger things had happened. Of course, the watcher could also be after someone else entirely, such as a girlfriend sleeping around on him, a straying wife, or a drug connection.

  There was one other possibility.

  Swinging away from the window, she moved to the bed and sat down beside the phone on the bedside table. Drawing a deep breath, she closed her eyes and touched the pendant at her throat for luck and reassurance. Then she picked up the receiver.

  The phone on the other end rang once, twice—distant, strident sounds. Then the voice of her cousin’s houseman and bodyguard came on the line. “Gervis Berry residence. Who may I say is calling?”

  “Regina, Michael. Let me talk to him.”

  “Good. He’s anxious to hear from you.”

  The hold button clicked and strains of a Mozart concerto came on to pacify her while she waited. She listened impatiently, thinking it was just like Gervis to put something so foreign to his own personality on his phone system in pretense of a cultural background he secretly despised. At the same time, she could imagine the houseman stalking through the rooms of the spacious 72nd Street co-op, knocking on the door of the study.

  She began a mental countdown from ten, betting with herself about how long it would take her cousin to answer the phone. He wouldn’t pick up at ten or nine because he had to impress on her that he was a busy man. He wouldn’t answer on eight or seven because he’d want to make her anxious so he’d be in control. He wouldn’t get it on six or five because he enjoyed having people wait on his convenience. He wouldn’t touch it on four or three because he liked thinking he could master his own urges. He would answer before one, though, because he couldn’t stand to wait for what he wanted.

  Five, four, three—

  “Gina, baby, what’s going on down there?”

  Right on time.

  “Not a lot,” she answered, her voice carefully neutral. “I’ve made contact with Mr. Crompton and have an agreement to do a full appraisal of his jewelry.”

  “Forget the damn jewelry. I want to know what you’ve found out.”

  “I haven’t had time to—”

  “Well, make time, because I don’t have all year. Get your fanny in gear. Why else do you think you’re down there?”

  “It’s crossed my mind to wonder,” she said tightly. “Gervis, you didn’t send someone to check up on me, did you?”

  “Come again?”

  “Some goon has this motel staked out. I think he may be watching me.”

  There was a small silence on the other end. Then her cousin spoke in pained disbelief. “Jeez, Gina, you don’t think I have anything to do with it?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”

  “I trust you like nobody else, you know that. It’s probably nothing, some reporter or something.”

  “All right.” She dragged air into her lungs and let it out again. “I guess I’m getting a little crazy with this whole thing. You have to hear what happened.” In a few succinct phrases, she told him about being locked in the coffin.

  “I can’t believe this stuff,” Gervis said, irate for her sake. “What kind of people are they down there?”

  “Intelligent ones who don’t mind going a little over the edge,” she answered. “They are also very careful, especially Kane Benedict.”

  “Come on, baby, you know you can run rings around this guy.”

  Her cousin meant he thought he could, Regina thought. He fully expected his team of lawyers to squash the competition like stepping on a poison-drugged cockroach. She had felt virtually the same way before coming to Turn-Coupe. Now she wasn’t so sure.

  Speaking distinctly, she said, “You may have to rethink this situation.”

  “What makes you say that?” His query was sharp. Gervis didn’t miss much, even if he was going a little soft as he let the good life he’d made for himself get to him.

  “Crompton’s grandson didn’t shut me up in a casket for fun, no matter what he said to pass it off that way,” she replied, hearing the strain she couldn’t help in her voice. “He suspects something, suspects me.”

  “Now why would he do that?”

  “Because he isn’t some Southern bumpkin without brains or imagination, a point you might remember for future reference. Because I turned up at his grandfather’s house a bit too conveniently to suit him, and because he caught me smiling just a little more than I should while his grandfather and I were looking at the jewelry. I just don’t know, Gervis. I didn’t like this from the start, and now I have a bad feeling about it.”

  “You’re shook, that’s all. Take my word, it’ll get easier once you get used to it.”

  “I don’t want to get used to it!” Regina cried. “If I had known what it would be like, I’d never have agreed. I can’t imagine what you were thinking to ask me.”

  “You have the credentials, baby. You’re a natural.”

  “Yes, but to send me down here with so little advance preparation was criminal. You didn’t tell me nearly enough about Crompton’s grandson!”

  “Who knew he was a maniac? Anyway, you think I wanted to send you? I care about you, kid. But there was no one else, especially no one I can trust the way I do you.”

  The words sounded sincere. They gave her the courage to say what she was thinking. “I’m not sure I can go through with it. I’d really like to come home.”

  “Don’t get cold feet on me now, baby. We’ve got them on the run. They’re offering to settle.”

  Relief washed over her. “You’re going to accept?”

  “Not on your life. They’re caving. They know they can’t win. All I have to do is reach out and take it all.”

  “You don’t understand these people, Gervis. The settlement may be like a—a peace offering because they prefer to be fair. Throw it back in their faces and you’ll be sorry.”

  “So now you’re an expert on Southern gentlemen? Just what happened in that casket, baby?”

  “Listen to me, Gervis. I’ve met Lewis Crompton and Kane Benedict, talked to them, seen them in action. You haven’t. They aren’t playing games, and they won’t run. You’ll be fighting this battle on their turf, before a judge and jury they understand but about whom you don’t have the first—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” her cousin interrupted. “We got that covered.”

  “I’m trying to tell you—”

  “Well, don’t, because I’m not listening. You got a job to do down there. You said you’d do it, and now I want results.”

  “Gervis, please.”

  His voice softened as he said, “You owe me, Gina. You know you owe me.”

  Old guilt, as predictable as it was inconvenient, rose inside her. Wincing at its sting, she said, “You’ve been more than generous, done more for me than I can ever repay. I know that. But this is different.”

  “You and me against the world, Gina. We’re family. We stick together. We help each other out. That’s how it’s always been, how it’ll always be.”

  The words triggered a thousand memories, each of them colored with gratitude and fleeting affection. The two of them lying on the grass in Central Park and eating cotton candy, taking in movies, staring out at the world from the top of the Empire State Building, going to ball games at Shea, riding out to the beach at Fire Island. All the rare treats of her childhood had come from Gervis. Later, he had held her hand, stayed close after the terrible time with that cr
eep, Thomas. He’d been there at the hospital, been there for her every time. He was always there for her, as she should be for him.

  A lump rose in her throat as she said, “I know, Gervis, really I do. I’m just not sure this is going to work.”

  “You’re doing fine. Sounds to me like you’ve got the old man’s grandson running after you because he’s interested instead of suspicious. You could be thinking about how to use that, you know.”

  A note of impatience could be heard beneath the surface approval. He was getting ready to hang up. “It doesn’t mean anything,” she said despairingly. “He thinks I’m up to no good.”

  Gervis laughed, a coarse sound. “Then you’ll have to change his mind, won’t you? It shouldn’t be hard. You can string him along as well as the old man.”

  “I told you—”

  “I know what you told me, baby,” her cousin said, his voice hardening. “I heard every single word. But I don’t think you’re really trying. You’re holding back, Gina, and that’s not good. I’ve got millions riding on this suit, you hear me? I don’t have time for excuses, can’t sit around while you wring your hands and worry about everything under the sun except my problems. I need you to get your job done. I need it now.”

  He was right, she had been thinking of herself. “I’ll do my best, but it takes time to get close to people.”

  “I don’t have time, baby. Maybe you should concentrate on Benedict since you’ve got him going your way. Find out what strategy he plans to use in court, what tricks he’s got up his sleeve. I want every detail you can wring out of him or pick up when you’re around him, right down to whether he means to wear Skivvies to the trial. I want it all, you hear me? Every last scrap. But most of all, I want the dirt on Benedict’s old granddad, the secrets he’d off his own sweet mama to keep. You find out for me, or—”

  “Or what, Gervis?” she asked, holding the receiver so tightly her fingers were numb.

  The only answer was a dial tone.

  Dudley Slater watched the light go out in the motel room. He yawned and stretched, trying to work the kink out of his back. He was getting too old for this crap. What he wouldn’t give for a nice, soft bed. Especially if it had that red-haired piece in it. She’d be a handful, he figured. He wondered what color her nipples were, if they were pale pink to go with her pale skin, or more a light brown. Yeah, and if she was as red down there as she was on top. He’d give a lot to find out. Wouldn’t take much. He’d opened the cheap lock on her door once already today, and nobody the wiser. Doing it again would take maybe ten whole seconds. Then it would be, “Hello there, honey pot. Drip some of it on old Dudley.”