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Jackboot

Page 3

by Will Van Allen


  “Shouldn’t you be down on one knee?” he asked.

  “Shut up.” She slapped at his arm. “I know you hate gifts, but don’t worry, I didn’t spend a dime.”

  “It’s not a diamond?”

  Inside was an old French coin, indented in the middle, a hole drilled near its top with a silver chain strung through it. Though worn smooth by the many hands and years it had traversed, there was still visible the vague outline of a long dead king, and on the reverse a faint cross with “H”s in each quadrant.

  “I can’t take this,” he said, sliding the heirloom back.

  “Take it. Give it to your daughter.” She sighed. “Lord knows I’ll probably never have one. And Marissa—she’s all about her career.”

  The story went that the coin along with its six brethren had saved the life of one of her ancestors while a young man in the Hundred Years War. He had been at the Siege of Orleans. The coins in the pouch tucked under his uniform over his heart had caught a primitive pistol ball, the deflection sparing the young officer’s life. As these things tend to do the coins took on sacramental significance and had been dispersed to the soldier’s seven children, on down through the centuries to their descendants, imbued with the belief that they provided mortal protection. Four of the coins were still known to exist. Angela’s grandmother had given this particular one to her when she was fourteen, the day before the stricken woman had succumbed to cancer. This was no trivial thank you.

  “I’ll keep it for you for a while,” he said. “You never know. Your sister, you should call her—”

  “Don’t start.” She kicked him in the shin under the table, grinned and cocked her head. “Truth?”

  “Truth.”

  “You really need to lose that beard. It makes you look ugly.”

  “Well,” he sighed, “you look more beautiful than ever.”

  She smiled as if she believed it. And maybe that night she did.

  “And start playing ball again. Being round doesn’t suit you, either.”

  Wasn’t quite the girl of old but her wit was encouraging.

  As they said goodbye she cried a little, that odd amalgamation of sadness swirled with relief overwhelming them both, his presence now a reminder that something horrible had happened and that she had needed him and he had come. But his continued ministration would only serve to impede her progress and foil her return to self-reliance. It was time to toss away the crutch.

  She hugged him, holding on a bit longer than necessary, squeezing him a little harder than intended, but pulling away with her smile intact, her eyes wet but sure.

  He promised he would be back down as soon as possible and she said she couldn’t wait but nudged him on his way nonetheless.

  CHAPTER 3

  MARCH

  Spokane, Washington

  It doesn’t matter where you go, there you are.

  He had expected some numinous change upon his return to Spokane, believing things would be different somehow, he felt different, a little, but nothing was really different here. He looked skyward for a revelation, a great, white light divining from the opaque heavens, but no enlightenment was forthcoming from that drab slate.

  Routine beckoned and he took up step with the quotidian trudge. As expected Rich was more bark than bite and looked relieved to have him back on the team. John plugged along. Anj texted regularly, just to say hello or share a funny thought throughout the day, human contact for the new millennium. The brief communications were a flickering warm flame in the chilly, austere dungeons where he toiled among the server racks. They talked every evening, and he had to acknowledge that she had turned a corner, maybe wasn’t going to ever be her old self, but maybe she would become something better, stronger even.

  On a cold morning dusted with still-falling snow he was driving up the wind of freshly graveled Grande Blvd, running late (he had bullshitted too long with Judge Scolari at the law firm) when his cell rang.

  “Hey, I was just thinking about you,” he said.

  “They’re letting him go! They’re letting the bastard go!” Anj screamed.

  “Who?”

  She sighed in exasperation. “Alan Odom! Who do you think?”

  Alan Odom? “I thought his name was Cordell?”

  “It’s Odom. His grandfather’s Andrew Odom!”

  “The newspaper guy?”

  Andrew P. Odom was something of a media mogul.

  “The family didn’t even know he’d been arrested. They thought he was sailing in the Caribbean or hiking in fucking Peru!” Her voice cracked, then shrieked, “They bailed him out!”

  “So who’s Cordell?”

  “It’s a fake name, Johnny! Christ! Keep up!”

  “Sorry. Anj, I know you’re upset—”

  “Don’t!”

  “The case is solid, the prosecutor said as much.”

  “That’s not what he’s saying now.”

  “What?”

  “There are witnesses, they saw us kissing in the bar, saw us laughing and kissing, claim we were practically screwing in the booth! Like that means he didn’t rape me!”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it? For fuck’s sake, Johnny, you can be so damn infuriatingly dense at times! His lawyers are going to say that it was consensual! That he doesn’t know anything about who beat me up, that I wanted it rough. Begged for it!” She was crying. “They say I have a history.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Silence.

  “Anj?”

  A long, shuddering sigh. “When I was in San Fran at that dot-com, I met someone. He got me to try some stuff, you know?”

  “Stuff?”

  “S&M type stuff. Nothing crazy, but I did it. I was with him for like three months, but it just wasn’t me, so I broke it off.”

  “That was what, a decade ago? That’s not a history.”

  “…They say they have pictures,” her voice broke.

  “What? How?”

  “I don’t know. They’re lying. Maybe.”

  “You need to talk to your sister.”

  “No, and don’t you either. Understood?”

  “She’s a lawyer for Christ’s sake.”

  “She’s a law student.”

  “Still—”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She was crying harder. “I don’t remember anyone taking pictures!”

  His anger was rising. Midmorning traffic wasn’t helping. He pulled the truck over.

  “The prosecutor said I’m going to have to give them a full list of all my ex-lovers. Like I have a freakin’ Rolodex! They want to investigate so they can rebut when Odom’s lawyers say I’m some crazy slut who asked for it, some whore!”

  “They can’t—”

  “And I’m going to have to testify.”

  “Look, Anj—”

  “The prosecutor said he’s willing to drop the case.”

  “What?”

  “It’s up to me, he’s leaving it up to me. He said the Odoms will fight dirty, they’ve got the money and the influence and they’ll try and ruin me! God! I can’t go through this! I can’t! I can’t handle that he’s out! I can’t!”

  “What about the bruises? All of that?”

  “He claims he left me that night at my front door with a big shit-eating grin! I can’t believe this. It doesn’t matter.” But it did. “I can’t fucking believe this!”

  “This can’t be right, Anj.”

  But it was. The next day was worse, she was implacable in her incessant, distraught calls. He did his best but knew she needed more. He begged her to call her mom or sister but she refused and made him swear he wouldn’t call them either. She was no longer seeing her “no-good fucking shrink.” She was already feeling betrayed but he had to do something. He decided he would tell her tomorrow that if she didn’t tell them he would tell her mother and sister. She would be furious but there was no other option.

  The next day he called her cell several times but she didn’t answer
. He called her work and they told him she hadn’t been in for days. He grew worried, was about to call the police when she finally answered her phone around eight that night. Her voice was a subdued monotone.

  “It’s going to be in the papers soon.”

  “Your name won’t be.”

  “Just a matter of time. Look at that girl in Colorado with Kobe Bryant. Her name and picture were all over the internet.”

  “Anj, we’ll do something. I promise.” Though he had no idea what.

  Silence.

  “Anj?”

  “I’m tired. So tired of being scared. I don’t wanna stay here anymore.”

  “Come back here. You can stay with me.”

  “That’s nice of you, Johnny. You always were so sweet to me.” She went silent again.

  “Anj?”

  “I want to tell you. About that night.”

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  But she needed to tell it. “Tell someone who really cares.”

  She spared nothing in her graphic depiction, or in describing the shame, the utter naked vulnerability that saturated her every waking moment and smothered her dreams. She had brought this upon herself was an unrelenting reminder during her somnambulant days and a constant companion in her sleepless nights, wearing away her mind. The raw, scathing fear had returned, the nerve-racking, everlasting, god-awful terror that sapped her spirit even while she did something as trivial as stepping outside to check the mail.

  “I’m coming back down there.”

  “You get rid of that stupid beard yet?”

  “No.”

  “Then I don’t want you here. I don’t. I want you…I want you to call your daughter. It’s important.”

  “Angela—”

  “You were here for two months. Nothing’s gonna change if you’re here for two more. Not now. Not ever. Call her. Tell her you love her.” She let out a long sigh. “I think I was faking it, you know? That I was okay? I’m quite good at faking things.”

  “I think we should call your mom.”

  “No.”

  “Either I’m coming down or I’m calling them. Take your pick.”

  She was quiet for a long time. “Come down.”

  “I’ll leave tonight.”

  “In the morning. The morning will be fine. But only if you promise me you won’t tell my mom or sis. Don’t ever tell them. Promise?”

  “Anj—”

  “Promise?”

  He was holding his breath. He let it go. “Promise.”

  “You worry too much, Johnny. Things will be better in the morning.”

  “I’ll be there by noon.”

  “Johnny?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you. You’ve always been so good to me.”

  “Don’t worry, this’ll all work out.”

  “You should really shave that damn beard. And call your daughter.”

  The knock on the door was insistent, and he answered in boxer briefs and T-shirt, semi-awake, semi-not, noting the time was still too damn early, the sky still too damn dark.

  Two guys in rumpled suits and overcoats were impassively stomping on the stoop in the wintery predawn. It had snowed, was still drifting down large flakes. The dull lullaby of the river could be heard floating up from the slope beyond the street. Later, some profiteering writer would interview these cops and come away with describing that pivotal moment as serene; the “calm before the storm.”

  The men were all business. Spokane’s finest, detectives, they said something about violent crimes and flashed a badge. One he knew from around, never caught his name, didn’t catch it this time either. They didn’t ask to come in. They knew better.

  “Got some bad news, I’m afraid, McConnell.”

  At first he thought it was his daughter but they dismissed that readily enough. As far as they knew she was tucked in bed at her mother’s, safe and snug from the Alan Odoms and other horrors of the world. For her, for now, the fates were still in flux.

  But they weren’t for Angela Flynn. Not anymore. She had known everything would work out, had told him so. Then she had slit her wrists and bled out in that monstrous bathtub.

  She had sent a text to the Portland police around nine. A few thoughtful words. An apology for the mess. Nothing more.

  What needed to be said she had done instead.

  CHAPTER 4

  MARCH

  Spokane, Washington

  Drew Desmond chalked up his stick, tossed back the last gulp of his ESB (with a nod to Mace for another) before approaching the pool table with a practiced cocky yet fluid flow to the music as he appraised the pockmarked, burn-scarred felt. Tool’s “Undertow.” He had punched up all the CDs tracks on the juke because, well, he could.

  The Quarterhorse, Quarterwhore or just The Whore as it was more affectionately known by both its patrons and detractors alike was dead tonight, not unexpected for a Thursday. That didn’t stop Desmond from coming down to the downtown bar. It was, after a fashion, his home away from home.

  While Spokane had plenty of dives, The Whore was a favorite of the young, raucous and disillusioned. Located on a corner just up from “First & J,” where the seedier element—pimps, dealers, hookers and addicts—and their eternal adversary Johnny Law danced their nightly rhumba, the brick three-story bar wasn’t much to look at, the top two floors in fire-blackened abandonment, the bottom with windows boarded up to protect the glass. It was not what one would label as welcoming. Yet the clientele was content with the draw of cheap drinks, cheap pool tables and an irrefutable reputation for quick, cheap sex. That trifecta won over the décor of sticky, faded maroon carpet, seventies mirrors and half-burned-out neon overwhelming smoke-tarred walls (Ol’ Milwaukee, still as great as its name).

  Wednesdays and Saturdays The Whore had live music and customers flocked in droves to rock and drink and flirt and fornicate in their escape from the conservative burg that was more small town than metropolitan, more mind-narrowing than mind-expanding. Some nights the noise on stage just stank to high heaven but not so much now that The SugarThumpers had become something of the house band. Drew was the band’s lead singer and they were thankful for the steady two gigs a week. They’d been back east touring to promote their indie-label CD for the past few months, so broke again, anything to help them make the rent. Sunset Boulevard success it wasn’t but it would make decent fodder for their VH1 Behind the Music.

  He took a drag from his smoke, left it to dangle off his lip while he shot the seven into the far corner.

  “Nice shot,” said the kid leaning against the bar in a black Slipknot T-shirt with a chain keeping his wallet from wandering off his baggy jeans. He’d been marinating most of the evening in cheap, garishly green leftover PBR from Saint Paddy’s day.

  Desmond tossed his dreadlocks over his shoulder and shot again. One ball in the side. Then the three in the corner, followed by a bank of the five in the other side. He could feel the kid’s eyes on the row of rings in his ear, the nose ring, the one poking out of his eyebrow. Looking at him like he was the king of cool, like he was a rock star, and he should be a rock star, damn it, and Drew knew it. Even his ink said rock god; the colorful sleeves covering his arms up to his threadbare Vampire Lesbos shirt, his only regret the Kanji on the neck, supposed to represent spiritual ecstasy, bygone shit of a bygone era when he was seeking peace and harmony and all that bygone nonsensical bullshit.

  Now it was all about the Benjamins. As long as that didn’t entail actual work. Evolution was a real bitch. Times man. They be a changin’.

  Drew drained the last few balls.

  “’Nother one?” the kid asked.

  “Rack ’em.”

  Drew broke, sending the thirteen down the far left rabbit hole. He was about to stroke the eleven to follow when the prolonged gust of cold, wet winter across his back didn’t stop.

  “Shut that door, asshole!” he barked over his shoulder. He shot and missed. The chill draft went unabated. He turned.
“I said shut that fuckin’—” He stopped midsentence. “McConnell? That you? Jesus! Been forever, man. Damn, bro, you been hittin’ the Twinkies or what?”

  A fat, shaggy John McConnell sporting a dark suit and big winter coat stood in the doorway, his bleary eyes staring around but not seeing much.

  “Johnny!” hailed Mace from behind the bar, his ugly mug split in an uglier grin.

  McConnell’s gaze slowly came into focus and he stepped inside, kicked shut the door behind him.

  Desmond met him at the bar. “Whas’ up, man?” McConnell was old school. They had kicked it in a band together but McConnell had lost his way. What can you do? “You come down here to jam?”

  McConnell’s look was as cold as the outside weather. “I don’ even own a guitar anymo’, you prick.” He stumbled over to the bar. “’Coup’ shots.”

  Mace gave McConnell the fisheye. He hailed back from the good ol’ days, too. Had been a big high school baseball star; the Dodgers had farmed him out, then Cleveland, but he just hadn’t the swing to make it to The Show so he opened up a bar instead, where no one knew his real name.

  “You look like you’ve had a few already.” Mace pulled down the dusty bottle of Jameson from the top shelf anyway. Not many drank the Irish there. Jack Daniels, well vodka and cheap tequila by the gallon, that demon Jägermeister, and beer of course, beer flowed like, well, like goddamn beer should in a barroom called The Whore.

  Mace wiped the bottle clean and poured two deep shots of the blended malt.

  McConnell tossed them back one after the other, wiped his mouth on his suit sleeve. His glazed eyes took in his surroundings as if remembering where he was. “Angela Flynn’s dead.”

  Mace and Desmond looked at each other as Tool piped through the speakers.

  “No shit, Johnny?” Mace finally said.

  “When did this happen?” Desmond added.

  McConnell gave a wobbly glare. “You eve’ read the paper?” He shook his head. “Doesn’ matter. Nothin’ fuckin’ matters.” He threw a twenty on the bar.

  “That’s no good here,” Mace said shoving it back but McConnell was already staggering back into the night. The Whore’s door slammed shut behind him.

 

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