His generation had been suckled on bloody kills splattered across the big screen and Internet—the 911 New York murders, bombings, knife attacks, and mass shootings. And then weaned on a steady diet of Muslim terrorists across the world. Muslims slaughtering infidels with rented trucks, knifing infidels on public transit, cutting clits on female children, and acid-attacking women who did not cover their faces on the London Tube—acts all ignored by London’s Muslim mayor who was busy eradicating bathing suit ads on public transport as too sexualized for Muslim males.
However, desensitized or not, as Kurt drove his mouth filled with the saliva signaling imminent vomiting. He swallowed hard and forced himself to stop thinking about the blood and the screams. He focused on being alive and on getting back to his high-rise office with its high-rise salary, lobby guards, and secured elevator access codes.
* * *
Nearing downtown L.A., Kurt’s personalized phone ring startled him with Ride of the Valkyries. Joe Greenberg flashed on Kurt’s screen. Joe was the partner in charge of the case who had sent Kurt to the courthouse bloodbath that day. Kurt blue toothed.
“Joe, hi.”
“The shooting is all over the news. The courthouse is closed. Did you get our hearing done?”
“No.” Kurt was pissed. “But I’m fine, by the way. Thanks for asking.”
“Oh … good. I figured you were since you answered.”
“And no. No hearing. I snuck out before they detained everyone for statements. We’ll need a continuance.”
The word “continuance” was literally like waving a red flag in front of a litigator whose client was screaming for results.
Joe asked, “Did they off our opponent?”
“What? Are you kidding?”
“Yes.” Joe exploded into laughter at his own joke. “Got you.”
“You did.”
Kurt forced a laugh, but then mouthed “asshole.”
* * *
Kurt filled Joe in on the barrage of bullets by the convicted wife murderer.
Joe interrupted Kurt. “Well, sometimes murder may be the only option.”
Joe himself was on the down-slope of a divorce with his shiksa wife taking him to the cleaners. She’d had one kid by a surrogate to tie Joe to her the rest of his life, emotionally and financially. Joe’s and other firm divorce horror stories made Kurt even more wary of that sacred institution of marriage, prenups or not. Prenups were useless and only used to leverage a settlement by the disadvantaged signatory. Penniless spouses ended up with a big buyout, simply because the courtroom dances would cost even more than a buyout.
Joe’s anger and sarcasm had ratcheted up since his tall, blonde trophy-wife had recently forced him out of his Santa Monica mini-mansion. He had erupted in too many violent outbursts in front of their daughter. His wife’s top-drawer Beverly Hills lawyer from Joe’s own temple got a restraining order and Joe had to pay the attorney fees.
* * *
Joe ordered, “Get the hearing recalendared … fast.”
“I will, but civil cases take a back seat to criminal ones with all-purpose backwater judges.” Kurt pressed his foot on the gas just enough to risk getting the attention of the CHP.
“Just get it done.” Joe hung up.
“Prick! That fuck’s going to write off all my hours today, even my travel time out to that backwater hell hole.”
⌘
Copyrighted Material
Chapter 24
For Kurt, San Bernardino had brought back memories of his parents and his childhood—memories of the small, dusty town of San Ysidro in eastern San Diego County peopled by illegal immigrants and anyone who couldn’t make it elsewhere.
Kurt’s childhood jaunt was interrupted by his phone again. Damn it. Can’t Joe do anything himself?
“Yeah, Joe?”
“It’s me. Angela.” Angela’s feminine voice soothed Kurt. “What’s wrong, hon?”
“What’s right?”
“Us.”
Kurt smiled. Angela invariably disarmed him. It was the lilt in her voice and her charm. She always wanted her way and got it by pleasing him or, if that failed, manipulating him. Their five-month relationship was new, but the track record sufficient for the monumental “move in”—her to his place in Santa Monica. It was nicer than her Palms apartment.
Angela said, “Don’t forget I’m picking up your favorite Miyagi oysters and swordfish from Santa Monica Seafood.”
Kurt lied. “I didn’t forget.” He hadn’t because technically he had just remembered. “Do we still have the 2014 Chateau de Beru Chablis? ”
“A couple of bottles actually! Are you sure you’re okay? You sound down.”
“I saw some guy get shot at court. A couple of people, in fact. It’s on the news.”
“Oh, God! Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” Kurt relayed a short summary of the courthouse bloodbath.
“Well, couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy! Murdering his wife?”
Angela’s traditional, if attenuated, Greek upbringing spanning three generations made her bridle at the thought of divorce—let alone divorce-by-murder.
“Yeah.” Kurt noted Angela’s focus on the wronged wife and not his own trauma.
“Don’t forget my sister’s coming over. You said you’d get home early. Eliana’s in trouble and it’s beyond my pay grade.”
There was a bleep of silence. Then, another lie—a bald-faced one. “No … no … I didn’t forget.”
* * *
Living with Angela, he learned she came with baggage, family problems that took his time, which was literally money to him. He didn’t like the baggage and on balance didn’t like Angela as much as he had.
“Sorry, but there’s something really wrong. She needs us.”
“She’s getting a divorce and has three kids. What does she expect? Of course, there’s something wrong.”
“I know … I know, but this is more … Her divorce lawyer has gone off the range. He—”
“Look, I have to go. You triage it. I’ll be there.”
Kurt planned to tell this woman with three kids that he knew nothing about divorce law. He suddenly wished he could just go home to his old life without “someone to come home to” and “share it”—or rather suck up his time.
“Kurt, don’t be like that. You have to help. It’s not her divorce. It’s her divorce lawyer. You know the guy I went with her to see last time?”
Kurt remembered now that the lawyer had made a move on Angela and she shut him down. So what? He didn’t need this. Not now. He’d had enough that day, but evidently Angela didn’t care.
“Can we talk about this later?”
“Let’s just see if we can help. Please.”
“Sure.” Kurt lied again. “See ya.”
“I love you.”
“Me too.”
Kurt said the words by rote. He guessed he loved her. What the hell did he know about love anyway? As long as it was easy, he found it okay.
He turned on a Sirius news station. He heard a general blurb about the shooting, but the reporters hadn’t yet gotten to the unfortunate people detained by the cops for the grimy details.
* * *
As Kurt neared his office, he drove past the huge white U.S.C. Medical School and the county hospital off the 10 Freeway in the distance to the right. His eyes then looked homeward to the downtown L.A. high-rises, smog-enshrouded, and radiating heat to add to the ever-newsworthy global warming. He didn’t care. He was just glad to have escaped San Bernardino.
He parked underground down several levels in his assigned space—not a bad one for a non-partner. He took the high-speed elevator dedicated to floors fifteen through twenty-five. He stopped on seventeen and walked into his modern office in the prestigious One California Plaza tower.
It had a view. A partial view—because he was of partial value to the firm, for now—but a view nonetheless.
* * *
“Thank heaven you’re safe
. The shooting is all over the Internet.” Celia, Kurt’s assistant in a sharing pool with three other associates, cared more than Angela. “Here. Your messages.”
“Thanks.”
The pretty Latina mother of four did her best to use makeup to hide the bruises her handyman husband gifted her. Her bigger paycheck offended his machismo. Kurt always kept walking, ignoring the bruises. He didn’t like people with problems, especially women.
Just as he sat at his desk Joe burst in. “Did you reschedule yet?”
“The courthouse is closed.”
“It has to reopen. Keep calling. At least we have a few deaths to keep our client off our backs.”
“If it’s of any interest, I think their lawyer was detained by the cops with almost everyone else.”
“Too bad for him,” Joe chuckled. “So this murderer went nuts when the jury came back with the guilty verdict?”
“Yeah. He was pissed. He kept yelling he didn’t do it.”
“The fuck he didn’t! I’d kill my wife if I thought I could get away with it. I’m going to be paying support forever.”
“You should go for full custody.”
“I should be a rock star, too. No judge will give a rich partner at Payne a break, especially when they get a look at her. Never marry a ten. They get their way.”
“They get their way whether they’re a ten or a five.” Kurt thought of Angela.
“All I know is I should have listened to my mother about this shiksa.”
There was a knock at the cracked door.
“Busy?” Regina Yang, Kurt’s assigned first-year associate, popped her head in.
“No. Come in.”
“Yeah, come on in.” The chubby, balding older lawyer drooled over the attractive woman. “Haven’t seen you lately. Let’s do lunch and catch up. Tomorrow?”
“Uh, sure.” Regina squeezed out a smile for the attention-sucking egotist.
Joe left barking orders. “Kurt, email me with the reschedule when you get it. I’ll call the client about the wife-killing asshole who screwed up his hearing.”
* * *
Kurt smiled at Regina. “I do have an emergency for tomorrow afternoon that will eat up your lunch hour.”
“Please.” Regina shut the door and sauntered up to Kurt.
Kurt handed Regina a thin file. “Draft our answer to the complaint. I need it by two.”
Regina noted the filing deadline. “Tomorrow? Not next week?”
“I think it will take me just about a week to review it.”
“Thank you. That guy is a joke.”
“You’re welcome.”
“How are you?” Her smooth forehead furrowed over her dark eyes. “That sounded like a terrifying situation on the news.”
“It was.”
Regina reached out and touched Kurt’s chest. “Do you know that you have blood on your shirt?”
“Oh, Jesus.” Kurt wiped at the dried minuscule spots.
“Kiss me. I’ll make you forget it.” Regina put her arms around Kurt’s neck and pressed her willowy body against him.
“Is the door locked?”
“Of course.” She drew his lips down to hers. “Like always.”
“Damn. You’re really something.”
⌘
Copyrighted Material
Chapter 25
Back in San Berdoo at his desk, Gary was still shaken. He had dodged two bullets: the ones literally flying through the courtroom, and what would have been a lifetime of Skip asserting his innocence from prison.
Things couldn’t have turned out better for him. A dead Skip could never appeal or file writs to prove his innocence—an innocence that might eventually have revealed Gary’s guilt.
He also had over three thousand dollars of Kim’s unbilled money and had no intention of returning it to anyone. He deserved it. He was pissed she had made him kill her. If any relative came after it, he would do some creative billing and ask for more money. Then, he’d never hear from them again. Maybe he’d sue Skip’s estate for more fees if it had money. He’d keep his eyes on that in probate court. He had a nose for easy money.
Gary buzzed Vicky. “Get Eliana in here at four tomorrow.”
“Sure.”
* * *
Gary surprised himself. His appetite for Eliana had instantly revived. In fact, his appetite for everything was back. He had made a mistake with her, but he blamed Skip’s impending trial. It wasn’t too late for a do-over.
Eliana’s continued hearing was still calendared and he was still her attorney of record. She’d crawl back and play ball because not only didn’t she have money, she owed him big-time bucks according to his expanded and generous billing. He wanted it, and to teach her a lesson too. She had tapped into his uncontrollable attraction—an obsession. She had denied him and she would play or pay.
He was angry, angry at his own lust for her. In his mind, he had never crossed the line to rape—but he would if he got her alone again. She deserved it … so did he.
⌘
Copyrighted Material
Chapter 26
That night Gary went home to his life in the River Ranch enclave where, of course, there were no ranches and certainly no river—only flat half-acre lots with sprawling ranch homes. Homes owned by all the “right” neighbors who belonged to the “right,” indeed only, San Bernardino country club. After all these years, Gary was pleased with the investment Mary had forced him to make.
As he drove through the gate with the pretentious guard, he had to admit that with the economy in the shit-can the protection was good. San Bernardino had recently been named the most dangerous city in California for crime.
Even though the lots were overpriced and the developer-contractor’s preset plans and pricing were outrageous, living there was safe. He liked the tree-lined streets with ten years of growth. The trees and groomed lawns had transformed San Bernardino’s native desert into a lush retreat.
Yet there were trade-offs. The country club gatherings were no substitute for his old neighborhood’s summer beer-bashes with their collection of young little-wifeys in cut-offs and tube-tops bending over to pick up their toddlers.
Still, the 4,500 square foot house was an appreciating asset and a storage unit for his wife, their visiting offspring, and the vacuous couples whom Mary entertained.
The couples, who interrupted his evening cable sports, were ensnared by Mary’s charity persona, gourmet cooking, expensive liquor, and showcase home. He enjoyed the evenings when the better half was a tight ass wifey. He couldn’t touch but looked and planned. Statistically, they would all need him, the divorce lawyer, sooner or later.
Gary endured the parade of San Bernardino gentry and paid for his wife’s expensive self-validation while he played the eunuch, charmed the wives, and waited.
* * *
Gary found Mary in their cavernous kitchen. She was bent over, sliding a cookie sheet full of her famous puff pastry mini-shells filled with a minced mushroom mixture into her Wolfe oven.
Her ass in powder-blue pants was as wide as the oversized eight-burner oven. She blamed her blimping on her pregnancies, not her over-eating and constant drinking.
Gary imagined the feel of his foot on her ass pushing her into the gas oven and holding her in there. Alas, it was already so hot no one would believe it was suicide.
Besides, she’s too happy for a suicide, he thought.
* * *
Mary smiled. “Hello, dear.”
“You look happy.”
“Why not? But you’re late. The Wachowskis are coming. Remember?”
“Sure.” He didn’t, but he knew the puff pastries weren’t for him.
“Go change.”
He got a beer from the fridge. “Are they from that group. The—”
“No,” Mary snapped. “They’re our new neighbors on the right. Remember? You met the husband last Saturday. Mike is the executive V.P. of something or other.”
“Sure. The skinny guy dir
ecting the movers.”
The man had given up Marin County for a stopgap step in San Berdoo to crawl up the corporate ladder. Gary hated him He hated everyone who thought of San Bernardino as a stopover.
“I took my special apple cake over to his wife Bonnie. She’s real nice.”
“Huh.” He didn’t care if she was nice—nice-looking was the key.
Gary went to change.
“Shit.” Gary’s Oxfords were spotted with Skip’s blood. He tucked them at the back of the closet to get rid of them later.
Gary’s wife heard him singing seventies songs in the shower. She paused. It had been years since he sang in the shower. Then the timer for the puff pastries went off.
* * *
When Gary came in the living room late, his eyes riveted on an ass bent over the coffee table —a small, rounded, tight ass in yellow leggings. Long blond hair draped down to the hors d’oeuvres.
That package didn’t eat any of the apple cake, Gary thought.
Mary, carrying in a tray of margaritas, eyed the ass and the girl who had walked in with it. Then she saw Gary’s ogling. How could she fault him when her eyes were devouring the same ass?
“Hi, Mike.” Gary grabbed a glass as he hurried past his wife’s tray.
“Hi, nice of you to have us over.” Mike shook Gary’s. “This is my wife Bonnie.”
“Hello.” Bonnie stood up still swallowing her puff pastry.
“Welcome to the neighborhood.” Gary put his hand out to touch this gorgeous creature.
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