Yes, she knew of the vow Randy, Robbie, and Charlie had made and told them they had honored it, but they didn’t think so. She also knew Randy and Charlie had several girlfriends they had broken up with because of that vow. The women didn’t like the fact they would drop what they were doing and jump in a vehicle if they ‘thought’ Kristi or one of the others needed them.
Cody had had two girlfriends but hadn’t stayed with them for long. Kristi believed Cody didn’t feel they needed him like the group did. Kristi knew for a fact, one girlfriend left Cody because Lena had told the little tramp if she hurt Cody, she would be fed to the hogs. To be honest, everyone was glad for that intervention because the girl had been a tramp.
Then there was Robbie. Kristi knew Robbie, Randy, and Charlie before her husband Frank had died. They were his boys. When the three arrived at base right after Ranger School, they’d been assigned to her husband, and the group stayed together.
Robbie, as long as she had known him, had always been a ladies man. Frank had always called Robbie a male whore. That, coming from a fellow Ranger, was funny to Kristi until she got to know Robbie. After she did, Kristi agreed with Frank.
Never once had she ever heard Robbie say he had a girlfriend. He had a Miss ‘Right Now’.
Hearing the door open, Kristi looked behind her and saw Lena bringing out more food for the table. “Where’s your sister?” Lena asked, and Kristi could hear the edge in her voice.
Forcing a smile, “She went to an art showing today. Tabitha said she would bring Emily’s present over later in the week,” Kristi said, trying to sound cheerful. Tabitha, her younger sister, was the only person in her family she talked to regularly. This was because of Kristi making the effort, not Tabitha.
Putting the food on the table, Lena turned to Kristi and saw the forced smile. Reaching up, Lena caressed her cheek. “That is five birthday parties she has missed,” Lena reminded her, and Kristi noticed Lena’s eyes narrow slightly.
“Mom, that’s just Tabitha. She has made it here every Christmas and Thanksgiving,” Kristi offered, turning to look at the men working. Kristi knew nobody in her new family liked her sister, but always went out of their way to make Tabitha and her family feel welcome.
Shaking her head, “An art show doesn’t compare to family,” Lena huffed, carrying an empty tray inside.
Moving the food from the tray to the picnic table, Kristi smiled at everyone and then headed back inside.
“Why was she looking at us so hard?” Randy asked as everyone stopped working.
Shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders, “Shit, I don’t know. But she was smiling, so we won’t get a lecture,” Robbie reasoned. “I swear, she sounds just like Wheat.”
“You don’t think she found out it was us that talked to Victor, do you?” Cody asked in a low voice.
“Not unless you told her,” Charlie huffed, wiping sweat off his face. He glanced over at the wives and kids and saw one of the younger ones staring at him. None of the others did because they were used to the scars.
Four years ago, Kristi had started dating a nurse she worked with; Victor. At first they’d liked him, then he’d started acting jealous about them. Charlie couldn’t blame him, with men coming to see and help Kristi without being asked. Each one had keys to the house and codes to the alarm.
They did try talking to Victor several times. One at a time and then as a group, Kristi was a sister to them.
It was Clark and Emily who’d brought the situation to a head. One day when he came over, Victor told Kristi he didn’t want the guys over anymore unless he was there. Oh boy, did the kids throw a fit. The guys had gone to their games, competitions, carried them to Boy and Girl Scout meetings and to karate classes, and Emily to gymnastics.
They had helped them become better in any activity they did. Not to mention all the trips to the retreat, vacations, camping and hiking trips.
Then Victor comes along and says no, the group who the kids called ‘uncle’ with ‘granny and grandpa’ can’t come over anymore unless he said so? What really didn’t help was the kids blew up at Victor when he’d said it. Victor started yelling at the kids and Kristi told him to leave. He did leave when the cops came after Victor shoved her around. After that, Victor started following Kristi.
When the kids told the boys, because Kristi wouldn’t, the boys started staying closer to Chicago. Robbie was the one spending the weekend at the house when Victor started calling. Of the four, Robbie was the one with the shortest fuse and the quickest to act when his fuse was lit, so that didn’t go well for Victor.
The only thing that saved Victor from a beatdown and disappearing right then was Kristi hiding Robbie’s motorcycle keys, and Robbie refused to hotwire his beloved Harley.
Several weeks after that, Victor showed up at Emily’s school when she got out. He told her he was sorry and wanted to come back and live with them. That evening, Kristi called Charlie and talked to him about Victor showing up at Emily’s school. Out of the four, Charlie was the slowest to get angry and was very level-headed. This was the reason Kristi discussed her fears with Charlie. He talked to Kristi for several hours in a calm, soothing voice and told her it wasn’t anything to worry about.
It was true Charlie was the slowest to anger, but when he got there he would stay angry for weeks. And the object of his anger was forever on his shit list.
When Charlie hung up, he grabbed the keys to his car, calling the others on his cell phone. They met up in Chicago. Using his computers, Cody found out everything there was to know about Victor. The next night when Victor got home, four men were inside his house and beat the ever-loving shit out of him.
Then Victor was gagged, stripped, held down, and painted bright yellow. When he wouldn’t be still so they could paint him, one mean man took a hammer, hitting Victor’s toes until he stopped moving. It only took two toes for Victor to get the message.
Painted and gagged, Victor was pulled out to his front yard and chained butt naked between two trees. That’s how the neighbors found him the next morning. There had even been news coverage.
The boys had all hauled ass back to Randy’s house, getting there before sunrise and sat down around the kitchen table playing poker. When she woke up, Lena saw their cars and she ran over, wanting to know when they’d gotten there because they hadn’t come over to say hi. Everyone told her they got there yesterday evening and thought she was asleep.
Getting to work that afternoon, Kristi found out about Victor and called Charlie. Not getting him, she called the others until she called Lena. When she asked where the boys were, Lena told her the boys had played poker all night and were sleeping now. Relieved the boys were cleared, Kristi thought it was because Victor was an asshole and someone else had come calling.
“She finds out, we are in deep,” Cody mumbled, sitting down.
Oliver walked over and smiled. “I should tell her because you didn’t invite me.”
The four all paled. “Pop, if you would’ve come, Mom would’ve known,” Charlie offered carefully.
A big grin split Oliver’s face. “I know, and you boys did good,” he chuckled, then grabbed a board. “Think Victor knows who did it?”
“Yep, someone took their mask off when they pissed in his face,” Charlie snapped, and everyone turned to Robbie.
“What good is a warning if they don’t know who delivered it?” Robbie shrugged.
“He never told the cops?” Oliver asked shocked.
“Nope. I went to school with one of the ADAs and he got a hold of the report. I did a little snooping, and confirmed Victor never said anything,” Charlie chuckled.
Helping his dad line up the board on the deck, Randy grinned. “He moved from Chicago two days after he was released from the hospital.”
“I hope he never shows up here,” Oliver said, grabbing his hammer.
“He won’t, he lives in New York now. He’s under the impression if he comes back to Chicago, someone will cut off his dick and
make him eat it,” Randy said as his dad nailed the board down.
“Wonder why?” Cody laughed, pulling a knife out and flicking the blade open.
Hearing a squeal, they turned to see all the kids playing chase. “If he would’ve hurt Emily, Clark, or Kristi, he never would’ve lived till morning,” Robbie said with a stern face.
“Got that right,” Randy nodded.
Pounding the nail in, Oliver looked up at his son and then turned to look at the others. A part of him wished one of the boys would go out with Kristi, but he knew they viewed her like a sister. Even though Robbie, Charlie, and Randy were thirty-six and Kristi was forty, they viewed her like a little sister. Turning back to Cody, Oliver could see even Cody, at thirty, looked at Kristi like a younger sister.
The funny thing was, Kristi looked at them like younger brothers and had even told Lena so.
Standing up, Oliver watched as they pulled over more boards, finishing the deck off. Turning back to the pool, he saw the water level was rising faster than he’d thought it would. Charlie and Randy had gone to the neighbors’ houses and had given them a hundred dollars, then ran water hoses from their backyards and over the privacy fence around Kristi’s backyard. With three water hoses going full blast, it wouldn’t take much longer.
Randy turned to the others. “Just to tell you, I’m not swimming until that water gets warmer.”
“You are a Ranger, punk,” Robbie snapped.
“Yep, and that means I know that water is cold and there is no mission, so I don’t have to get in.”
Shyly looking up, “Randy, the kids will want us to swim with them,” Cody said in a soft voice.
“I will tomorrow. We bought a heater,” Randy told everyone with a straight face.
“Guys, let Randy wear his dress,” Charlie chuckled.
Robbie and Cody broke out laughing. Hearing the laughter, Aaron and the others came over to find out what was so funny.
Hearing what was going on, Aaron looked at Randy. “You swam across a river during the spring thaw. There were chunks of ice the size of cars,” he chuckled.
“Had a mission,” Randy nodded with pride. Even out of the Army for this long, the group still had that same bearing in life.
“Yeah, he climbed out and yelled over the radio he couldn’t find his manhood and had to wipe after he peed!” Robbie yelled out, laughing.
The group busted out laughing as the wives came over to listen. The only element really missing from normal military banter was the swearing. When the kids were near, everyone watched their mouths. A few words would sneak out but for the most part, to military standards, the conversations were clean.
It wasn’t always that way. That started when Emily was five and she asked what a ‘bitch boy’ was. The language stopped. Kristi never said anything, she laughed more than the others. She was a nurse and cussed as bad as the boys did. The boys just didn’t like the fact the little girl had said that word. Charlie gave Emily twenty dollars and bought her half a dozen toys to never say the word again.
Walking out the back door, Kristi saw everyone gathered around the almost finished deck. Seeing them laughing, she smiled and grabbed a tray, loading it with bottles of beer. Carrying it over, Kristi held it out as everyone took one.
“You remember what Shadow said when Captain Winnfield told him to swim back across?” Charlie chuckled, taking the top off the bottle. Kristi smiled, watching him put the cap in his pocket. That was what Frank had taught them to use to mark a trail.
Robbie collapsed in laughter and shocked everyone that he never even spilled his beer. “What did he say?” Elizabeth, Aaron’s wife asked, laughing.
Standing up straight, Randy lifted his chin. “I told the captain I would be more than happy to swim back, once he went in the river and found my balls that had frozen and broke off.”
“I thought Wheat was going to wet his pants,” Aaron laughed.
“He did, Cobra!” Robbie howled from the ground.
“Why did Shadow need to get back across?” Cody asked, laughing.
Wiping his eyes and taking a drink. “We were playing war games and the captain wanted to call in an artillery strike because Shadow had found the enemy’s camp,” Charlie explained in several octaves.
“Hey, I told the captain to call in real artillery, at least I could’ve gotten warm,” Randy huffed. “I have never been that cold.”
“Yeah,” Robbie laughed, setting his beer down as he stomped the ground. “The captain threatens Shadow with an article fifteen for disobeying a direct order. Shadow gets on the radio and tells the captain if he wants his damn stripes so bad, he would put them on a log and float the damn things back across the river because he wasn’t swimming it again till the end of summer. Because he had to squat to take a piss!”
Spitting out a mouth full of beer, Aaron howled out. “The captain started yelling at Wheat to get him to talk to Shadow, but Wheat was rolling around in the snow laughing because Shadow started singing My Ding a Ling over the radio.”
When the laughter died down, Clark looked up at Randy who was wiping his eyes. “Did you get in trouble?” Clark asked.
“Yep,” Randy laughed. “Had guard duty for the next month.”
“Yeah,” Kristi chuckled. “It’s really a shame a horse broke into Captain Winnfield’s apartment while he was gone for the weekend.”
The men busted out laughing as the wives turned and looked at her. “Frank didn’t like anyone messing with his troops. So somehow, a horse broke into the captain’s apartment,” she explained, chuckling.
“It was ankle deep in shit when the captain got back!” Robbie bellowed.
Randy stood up as the laughter died down and held up his beer bottle. “To the Wheat!” he cried out.
The others held up their bottles and the kids held up cups of Kool-Aid. “To the Wheat!” they all yelled out to the toast.
Chapter Six
Cleveland, OH
After a quick shower at the gym, Charlie took thirty minutes to painstakingly shave the creases and folds of his face before “suiting up” in his best work outfit. Wearing a suit was second nature to Charlie after three years of law school, two years at the DA’s office, and another four years in private practice, but there were degrees of formality when it came to the business suit you wore. For a simple hearing, you wore the average, off-the-rack Sears number.
For a mediation with retired Judge Myers on a million-dollar case, Charlie broke out the navy Brooks Brothers number, a crisp white shirt from the same source, and a red tie with subtle stripes that caught the eye. He remembered the tie had been a gift from Emily and Clark, and that thought made him smile as he remembered Emily’s birthday party. Then he fished out a new pair of leather dress shoes from the tree in his closet, and he checked the shine. Perfect.
After jockeying his truck into a pay lot nearly three blocks from the Judge’s office, Charlie pulled his heavy rolling briefcase from the rear seats and shouldered his padded computer bag for the hike. Nothing to it, he thought with a sly half-grin as he watched his portly counterparts huffing and puffing down the sidewalk. Even after all the years since his discharge, Charlie kept himself in good shape, and the swimming was only half of the workout.
The receptionist, an older woman named Molly, who according to the rumor mill followed the judge from his long stint at the courthouse into private practice, gave him a pleasant smile when he arrived. She was in her early fifties and maintained a pixie-cut hairstyle that somehow reminded Charlie of Joan’s short cut blonde locks.
Get your mind off the girl and onto the case, he chided himself as he followed Molly into the small office set aside for his use. The room boasted a six seat conference table, a modern speaker phone claiming a place of honor in the center, and a whiteboard mounted on one wall he could use as a projection screen.
“Anyone else here yet?” Charlie asked, his voice deferential and polite to the older lady. Always be nice to the staff, his current employer and men
tor, Billy Carpenter, constantly preached.
“Just you, hun,” she replied. “Well, and the Judge, of course. He always gets here early. Turns the lights on and starts the coffee.”
“Thank you. This will be perfect.”
“You want some of that coffee?”
“Yes, ma’am. Just point me in the right direction, please.”
Molly smiled, showing a dimple. “No trouble, Mr. Tucker. How do you take it?”
“Just black and call me Charlie.”
“You got it, Charlie. I’ll leave you alone now, so you can get set up.”
Charlie, as was his practice, showed up at least twenty minutes early for anything, including this mediation. That gave him enough time to lay out the marked deposition excerpts he wanted to use with opposing counsel, as well as multiple copies of the lost earnings reports, medical documents, and still gave him time to cue up his PowerPoint.
For their part, the ‘three wise men’, actually two men and a lady representing the power plant, arrived ten minutes late for the scheduled nine a.m. start time. Typical. Through the heavy wooden door of his temporary office, Charlie heard the familiar deep but somehow whiny voice of Nelson Bentson in the reception area, complaining about the lack of parking and the overall inconvenience.
Charlie knew Nelson all too well. The lead partner at Foley, Fley & Bentson, Nelson Bentson was a fine figure of a man in his mid-fifties, with a headful of dark hair going artfully gray at the temples. As head of the litigation department at FF&B, Nelson seldom darkened the courthouse steps anymore, but he was a rainmaker for the large defense firm. Since Luminous Power, one of the largest power plant operators in the northeast after their merger with Great Northern, Inc., was hip deep in this case, Nelson took a personal interest in the ongoing litigation.
Maybe too personal. Charlie remembered the way Nelson went after Mrs. Melton in her deposition and involuntarily flexed his fingers as he remembered the deposition exchange from nearly four months prior. When asking about whether the widow was dating since the death of her husband of nearly twenty years, he’d listened to the poor woman explain how she didn’t know how she would go on without her Floyd. That question had skirted the edge of politeness, Charlie had thought at the time, but he’d let it pass. Nelson, however, had been just getting started. Next, he had produced a copy of a change of address form for one Stanley Obregon moving to the same residence and went on by insinuating the firm’s investigators had uncovered Mrs. Melton moving her new lover in just weeks after burying her husband.
Stolen Liberty: Behind the Curtain Page 7