Eliana started sobbing.
Angela hugged her and looked at Kurt. “William just told her his girlfriend’s already pregnant.”
Kurt sized up the two women. He wasn’t getting out of this.
“Eliana?” Kurt broke up the sob-fest. “I’ll help. I’ll do a response to his latest demand letter, and maybe get some gratis assistance if he sues you, subject to my firm’s approval.”
“I won’t have to pay him the extra money?”
* * *
Eliana was oblivious to the value of Kurt’s billing time upwards of three hundred fifty dollars an hour, and, for that matter, so was Angela. Only an attorney at a major firm groveling to get to the top of the heap would understand this petty fight’s potential time-sucking burden and the personal cost to Kurt.
“Hopefully, a simple, tough letter back might work after what he’s done … and not done. The settlement agreement shows blatant malpractice. He forgot about William’s retirement fund. You’d have lost half of that three hundred and fifty thousand.”
“Unbelievable,” Angela said.
Kurt said, “I need a written chronology of what happened from the first day you met this scumbag.”
“Okay,” Eliana said. “But some of it’s embarrassing.”
“Give me everything. Embarrassing or not. Leave nothing out. Even if you think it’s not important. Promise?”
“Promise.” Eliana hugged Kurt. “Thank you so much.”
Angela took her turn to thank Kurt with a long sensual kiss.
Kurt felt good—big, important—and he knew he would get what Gary Stockton wanted from Eliana in spades that night from Angela. And would as long as the case lasted.
Was life this simple? Kurt asked himself.
* * *
From there the evening was a slippery slope of thank yous, dinner, Angela bragging about Kurt’s legal conquests, and putting Eliana to bed in the guest bedroom—rarely, if ever, used.
In bed, Kurt fucked Angela to please himself, ignoring her sexual needs as she had ignored his needs after the courthouse bloodbath.
Asking Angela to move in with him had been a mistake. He hated being cornered by the bombastic melodrama of Angela’s Greek family. He couldn’t stop comparing her to Regina, who was smart, straightforward, controlled, and a damn good lay—with no associated cat hairs.
⌘
Copyrighted Material
Chapter 28
In San Bernardino, the day after the Skip’s rampage, Gary went to his stucco fiefdom, late.
“Good morning,” Vicky said.
“Yeah.” Gary smiled and unlocked his office door with his own sacrosanct key. “It is.”
Gary thought, With Skip gone my luck will change.
He was ready to milk his cases: set depositions, assign forensic accounting for kickbacks, and have Vicky do her forms he billed at his lawyer hourly rate. His monthly nut loomed menacingly again because of his renewed and cumulative gambling losses. He had dipped more than ever into the client trust funds over the last few months before Skip’s trial.
Gary rebooted his well-oiled routine—he churned cases, and Vicky churned forms.
He had no remorse over Skip’s death—just anger at the wasted months. He ignored anything in his inbox that didn’t bring in hard cash.
But he couldn’t ignore the humiliation of Eliana’s brutal rejection.
A woman of her class didn’t come along often for a San Bernardino sole practitioner. Certainly not to a man like him. He would have her, her money, and his revenge—now.
* * *
After several hours, with his money-machine jump-started, Gary again honed in on Eliana. He had Vicky call to set up appointments. Eliana refused. Then, she stopped answering or returning Vicky’s messages.
To Gary, that was a declaration of war.
He drafted another demand letter, including the bill for scheduling another temporary support hearing, and getting it continued. His demand now was seven thousand six hundred fifty dollars more than the twenty-five thousand drained retainer. The new bill was as inflated and as phony as the rest. He would take her down—in every way.
As Vicky input Gary’s demand letter, a messengered letter from a Kurt Townsend at Payne, Jenkins, Mullin & Stein, arrived. It was short and to the point. Eliana had retained Townsend and his firm to represent her. Townsend demanded that he turn over all of her files within ten days of the date of the letter.
Gary’s blood surged with anger. That bitch! I’ll show her.
He added a couple of quick sentences to his demand letter, stating that it was a final notice, denying that he had in any way committed malpractice, and concluding that if he did not receive payment in five business days, he would sue.
He did not respond to the demand for Eliana’s files. That was more complicated.
* * *
The five days came and went, with no word from Townsend or Eliana. True to his word, Gary filed suit against her for the seven thousand six hundred fifty. He filed in San Bernardino Small Claims Court because that amount was below the ten-thousand-dollar jurisdictional limit. That meant Eliana would have to defend herself without Townsend or any other attorney. That was the rule unless the litigant also happened to be an attorney which, of course, Gary was.
He had outmaneuvered Eliana and Townsend. He’d cow and intimidate little Eliana in Small Claims court. He was in charge again. He’d waive the fees, but only if she agreed to come to his office—on his terms, of course.
Skip’s death had put Gary back on the road to normalcy—his normalcy. Eliana would come crawling back and pay, one way or another.
Meanwhile, he’d settle for Brianna. She may have thought she was off the hook, but he would dispel that brutally when she came in.
Vicky buzzed Gary, “Randy Birch on the line again.”
“I’ll take it and get Brianna in here at four today. It’s urgent.”
* * *
Gary couldn’t dodge Randy’s call any longer. Randy was a long time professional comrade and president of the San Bernardino County Bar Association.
Howdy-doo’s … wives fine … business good … hot Fall … Yeah, he got the messages … so busy … understand … but … the expected request and elaborate spiel about representing the Association’s Family Law Section at the annual California Bar Association meeting up in San Francisco … time was short … blah, blah, blah.
“Sure, Randy. Sorry I didn’t get back sooner. You know how solo practice is.”
“Unfortunately, I do.”
Gary had to accept and he did. That engendered a quick goodbye on the other end. Gary slammed down the phone.
“Damn. Trapped again.” Gary pulled out a bottle of vodka to calm himself—nothing would ruin his new lease on life.
This was his third time as chair of his small legal community’s even smaller family law contingent. The first time he did it for business-getting and the second for stature and ego-feed. This time, he had only agreed because he was cornered—cornered by his still-ambitious friend—aiming for a judicial appointment.
Gary chuckled as he poured another drink into his coffee mug. There would be no judicial appointment for Birch. Birch was less than an ambulance chaser, if that were even possible. He was President because no one else wanted the job. Volunteer bar work was a time-waster in this small berg with clients scarce and their money even scarcer.
Gary shunned all County Bar Association events now, except the dinner honoring the San Bernardino County judge of the year—no matter who it was. There he rubbed elbows and ingratiated himself with every black-robed, gubernatorial-appointed blockhead he could.
At the event, he charmed and sucked up particularly to all the fair-minded, political ax-grinding public servants he appeared before. They controlled his life, all lawyers’ lives, and the citizens who were swept into their vortex—the courtroom. He never missed that dinner or any chance to break bread with the bench inhabitors—some smart, some not, some new, some
old, some who regretted sitting on that bench listening to people’s problems and some who didn’t.
Gary let the eager young studs do the other bar activities, looking for their livelihoods and feeding on their own anxiety.
As far as the commitment he’d just made to Randy? He’d get food poisoning at the last minute or sprain his ankle. He had some old crutches at home—a wonderful prop for a myriad of excuses to his wife, clients, court appearances, and Bar events. Often used, always successful for him.
* * *
Gary leaned back in his chair. He was content. He aspired to nothing beyond what he had—his own fiefdom and harem. He had a Skip-free, focused, fresh start.
To Gary, lawyers were crazy not to do divorce work. Given the padded bills and collecting from the forced sale of homes, divorce lawyers made out fine—Gary finer than most. He began billing again and recording double the time he spent. Just as he’d been doing for more than thirty years.
* * *
At four o’clock, Vicky, the wielder of legal forms and templates, interrupted Gary with a knock at the door.
“I’m going. Brianna’s on her way. Here’s that opposition to the motion for a continuance you wanted.”
It was boilerplate, a guaranteed loser, and he used it often because, as every divorce lawyer knows, the more continuances by either side the more money in each lawyer’s pockets.
“Need anything else?” Vicky put the motion on the paper-cluttered desk she was never allowed to straighten. “I have a parent-teacher conference tonight and –”
“No.” He cut her off. “Go get your kids. You’ll be late.”
Gary, the middle-aged pouch-bellied man, just wanted this functional hermaphrodite secretary gone—in fact, five minutes ago. With Skip dead and buried, he craved his old routines again—his little pleasures—this time by default with Brianna.
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
Disgusted, Gary watched as Vicky’s elephant-like back-side jiggled out his office door under her Wal-Mart dress, too short for her hefty thighs. She loved to blabber about her two brats in elementary school and her oh-so-happy marriage. He shut her up when she started on that crap. Besides, his four o’clock time slot was for his special clients.
I should fire her ass and get some eye candy in here, he thought.
Mary never dropped by to harangue him about her anti-eye-candy rule anymore anyway. But then, a bit nervously, he wondered how much Vicky really knew.
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Copyrighted Material
Chapter 29
Gary stared at the door Vicky closed behind her. Kim’s death was on Vicky. That bitch had taken the call and given Gary the note that set the inevitable chain of events in motion.
She was the messenger, Gary thought. Why not just not kill the messenger, too? Then all his little billing secrets and four o’clock appointments would die with her.
He grabbed his empty coffee mug jerked the bottom desk drawer open. It clattered with cheap vodka bottles, the Old Crow, and one single malt for special occasions. He poured two more fingers of vodka and took a drink.
A slip and fall in the rain? Gary fantasized. No. A robbery gone wrong here at the office? A premature inflicted heart attack?
He finished his drink and fantasizing about Vicky. There were too many deaths, too many choices, within his wingspan. Besides, Vicky’s interpretation of the message pointing the finger at Skip had saved him.
Gary read Vicky’s boilerplate opposition to a client’s motion to continue the hearing on a temporary support order.
“Good enough.” He put it in his outbox and smiled with his cheaply done mismatched capped teeth. “The hell with eye-candy.”
Gary’s divorce practice involved straightforward simple law, which was also simply lucrative the way he practiced it—assembly-line, one-size-fits-all law. He screened his clients carefully and had learned over the course of thirty years how to cherry-pick them. Only the ones with assets. Hard . . . or soft.
With Skip gone he was back in rare form. Confident.
Gary chalked Kim up to a cautionary tale. But Eliana made him rage, especially after a few.
She’s no better than me.
* * *
As Vicky left the beige one-story office building, she ran into Brianna’s red, puffy crying eyes face-to-face on the small covered porch.
“Hi, Brianna, everything okay?” Vicky’s rote question sought no response.
“Sure.” Brianna looked down at her purse. “Now it is.”
“I know it’s hard.” Vicky served up insincere sympathy.
“Do you?” Brianna glared up at Vicky.
“He’s waiting. I’ve got to get my kids.”
Vicky ignored her boss’s late-day, liquor-laced appointments and had for years. She walked away into still-bright December afternoon
She couldn’t stand the women who came to him, always upset, angry, helpless, and needy. She was a woman and a mother, too. Her marriage was good, and she hated seeing the end of marriages every day—not that it hurt hers or ever would.
Vicky hated the unceasing female divorce fury she had to face in her job. She grudgingly respected Gary because he specialized on the woman’s side—even if he overbilled. After all, that’s how she got paid. She chose not to think beyond that. Gary paid her a lot for someone with only one semester of community college and he let her work around her kids’ school hours. She was firmly ensconced in his little divorce money-making machine.
As Vicky turned the corner, she glanced in her rearview mirror and saw that Brianna had not gone in yet.
She’s late, Vicky thought idly as she drove off. Gary doesn’t like that.
⌘
Copyrighted Material
Chapter 30
As Brianna shut the front door, she clenched he purse. She could feel the Ruger LC9 inside. She hid it when her husband left. He had gotten it from a friend when their marriage was intact. It was untraceable.
She went into Gary’s office. He shut and locked the door.
“You’re late.” With the Skip-threat gone, Gary felt his power again.
“I’m sorry. My shift went over.”
Gary was pleased with the slender blond standing before him once again, hugging her purse. Subdued and submissive. He walked around his desk. Brianna knew the routine, but this time she stepped back.
“No.” Brianna reached into her purse. “Please. No. Just tell me why he wants this thing delayed.”
“Do you want me to fight his request for a continuance or not?”
“I . . .” Brianna’s trembling hand found the gun, but she froze.
“Your retainer’s long gone, honey. You’re lucky I still do your work.”
“Yes … I’m lucky.”
Brianna wanted to shoot him, but she hesitated as Gary approached She was afraid of going to prison and leaving her kids to her ex.
Then, Gary was too close. He’d grab it. Besides, Brianna thought, Vicky knew she was there.
“Now, get on your knees or, if you’re tired of that we can try something else. We haven’t fucked for a while.” Gary grabbed her crotch.
“No. No.”
Brianna threw her purse on the floor and knelt in front of him. From the corner of her eye, she saw that part of the gun barrel had slipped out along with her clutter of keys. All she could do was hope he didn’t spot it.
* * *
When Gary unzipped his suit pants, he was already erect—Eliana erect—and bursting out through the fly of his undershorts. He dropped his pants and leaned back on his desk—his hairy belly folding over.
Brianna shut her eyes. He grabbed the back of her head before she could change her mind.
“Oh, baby.”
Gary felt her lips purse defiantly.
“Come on baby … come on.”
Her lips parted just enough. He pushed himself into her and her warm wet mouth cupped his erection. He grabbed her hair and plunged it further down her
throat, pumping her head up and down. She choked and he eased up. He didn’t want vomit to end the act as it had once years ago with another Suzie-Q.
As he controlled her head and his come, he looked down at the prom queen. All he saw was Eliana’s mane of dark hair. He flared with anger. He decided he wouldn’t come until Brianna cried just to teach her a lesson. That was his choice today—and he had the choice—the power. Brianna wouldn’t be here if Eliana had played ball.
* * *
In high school, Gary had grasped at any chance to get laid. He put himself out as a nerd—the brain. No one knew he was just really a cheater. Then, again, no girl let him get in her pants either. Nothing had worked.
He cheated his way through his years at Cal State San Bernardino, too. Then, he went to a barely-accredited law school in San Diego, now defunct. He even cheated to pass the bar. He hired a smart kid to take it for him. That was just before the California Bar imposed its impenetrable identity controls.
Gary was lucky with the timing of the bar controls, or his dick would not be in this stupid bitch’s mouth. She thought her five thousand dollar retainer was used up, but it wasn’t.
“Come on, baby. I know you like it. You little bitch. You whore.”
He moved her head hard—harder when she whimpered—hardest when she cried. She choked again. He was out of control imagining Eliana’s black mane bouncing beneath him. He decided to throw Brianna face-down ass-up on his desk and rape her. But before he could do that, he came.
Instead of releasing her to tissue his come, he held her face, entrapped and slippery with salty tears. She struggled. He held on tighter. She looked up, tight-lipped and gagging. He hated Eliana’s resistance and made Brianna pay for it.
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