by J. D. Mason
What would he think if he found out that Desi was having a book published? What would be in that book? How much would she be willing to tell? And would anybody even believe her? Did it matter?
Julian Gatewood, Ida Green, and Desi. For a time, they were the only three people in the world as far as Desi was concerned, and the night he died, people took what they had and turned it into something that never was. The three of them loved each other, and they loved being together, and the only way Desi could’ve ever made it through prison was by fueling herself on what they had together. They had been so good at taking everything away from her, except her memories. Not even Jordan could touch those. Desi had been afraid for a long time, and she was tired of it. Finally, she was tired.
“Keep your mouth shut, Desi, or else they’ll twist your words. They’re good at that. And they’ll make it sound like you said something you didn’t. Let ’em believe their lies. Let ’em tell their lies. Take the truth with you and keep it close to your heart. It’ll be safe there.”
She’d heeded her mother’s advice for more than twenty-five years. Desi’s silence had been a sort of homage to Ida Green’s memory. But now she was starting to think that maybe her mother wasn’t so wise. Maybe Ida was just foolish.
Solomon
His opponent outweighed him by at least fifty pounds, but since when had Solomon ever let a little thing like size stand in his way of a good fight? The big man, Nick, swung a heavy roundhouse which was surprisingly fast, and would’ve knocked him out of the ring if it had landed. Solomon crouched low, feeling the warm whip of air as it passed over his head. He leaned in close and sucker punched the dude just below the rib.
Hitting his body was like hitting a cement wall, though, and he wondered how much if any affect body blows were having on this giant. He spun low, and sunk deep into his knees, as the big man attempted an uppercut, and missed, when Solomon fell backward on his hands. Using moves from Brazilian martial arts called capoeira, he twisted, turned, and spun around on his hands and feet until he magically appeared behind Nick, sprung up on the balls of his feet, wrapped his arm around Nick’s neck, and punched him hard in the kidney.
“Ugh!” his opponent grunted, caving in to the pain.
Solomon smirked, released his grip, and let him stumble off toward one corner of the ring. Yeah. That hurt.
The other fighter managed to spin around, but Solomon was too quick for him. He dropped to his side on the mat and swept a muscular leg out from under Big Nick, catching him by surprise and sending him tumbling to the floor like a giant oak tree, down on his back. Solomon bounced up onto the soles of his bare feet, rushed to the man’s head, and stood over him. He grabbed a handful of Nick’s hair, drew back his fist, and was just about to deliver what would’ve been a fatal blow to his Adam’s apple, before Carl, the referee and coach, blew the whistle.
Solomon stopped short.
Carl laughed. “You’ve known Nick too damn long to kill him now, Sol!” he said, holding out water bottles for both men.
Solomon helped Nick to his feet, and patted him on the shoulder as Nick left the ring. “Good job, man.”
Nick grunted.
“You sure you don’t want to get back in the ring and make some money?” Carl grinned, handing Solomon a towel.
Solomon caught his breath enough to laugh. “I’m too old for this,” he said, gasping. “Those young cats would kick my ass.”
“Nick didn’t.”
“That’s because he’s as old as I am,” Solomon retorted. “And fat.”
“I heard that!” Nick shouted from the locker room.
After his workout, Solomon quickly showered, dressed, and hurried back to his office in downtown Dallas. He had to fly out later this afternoon for a funeral in Allen, Texas, after a meeting with Desdimona Green.
Solomon Jones was a senior partner in one of the top law firms in the state. He was an entertainment attorney and his client list included the names of professional football and basketball players, musicians, and even a few actors. But when her name came on his schedule, he couldn’t help but do a double take. Desdimona Green was as famous in Texas as she was infamous. As soon as he found out about the meeting, Solomon gathered every bit of information he could on the woman.
She was eighteen when she killed Julian Gatewood in her mother’s living room. It came out that the old man was having an affair with the mother, and had been for years in a town called Blink, less than a hundred miles northeast of Dallas. Desi shot him, and was sent to prison for the murder. She got out twenty-five years later and inherited a shitload of his money, which he’d left to her mother in a trust that no one could touch, including the Gatewood heirs, in particular, his wife Olivia and oldest son, Jordan. Apparently, Jordan Gatewood had tried everything in his power to stop the inheritance; he’d spent millions, and lost to Desi’s team of lawyers who’d heard about her case all the way over in San Francisco, and took her case on contingency. If she didn’t get paid then they didn’t get paid, which served as motivation for them to win.
Solomon had only seen grainy, newspaper photos of Desdimona Green on the Internet. He was not prepared for how lovely she was in person. But money could make anybody look good.
Desi walked over to him with her hand extended. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Mr. Jones.”
At six-one, Solomon quickly sized her up at five-three, maybe five-four. Like most men, he wouldn’t recognize a weave if it bit him on the lip, but weave or not, the thick tresses of silky black hair hanging past her shoulders made him wonder what it would feel like to touch it. Red-framed glasses perched on her nose and framed warm, dark eyes, and a rich wine color stained her lips. Desi wore designer jeans, a pink satin blouse, and low-heeled pumps. If it weren’t for the fact that the woman had spent way too much time in prison for murder, he’d have been in love already.
Desi had an elegance to her that contradicted every assumption he’d made about her before she’d stepped into his office. She had an air of privilege that he hadn’t expected. Desi Green hadn’t been born rich, but she wore it like second skin.
She sat quietly while he flipped through the pages of the contract she’d received from Leviathan Publishing.
“I have to say I’m a bit surprised by your visit, Miss Green,” he finally said.
“Why?” she asked, staring at him.
“I would think you’d have your own attorney who could look this contract over for you. Why come to me?”
The publisher had offered her a half-million dollar advance for the publishing rights to her life story.
“I’d heard that you were the best entertainment lawyer in town.” The expression on her face suddenly tensed. “Not that anyone should find stories like this entertaining.” She glanced away, looking embarrassed.
“Of course not,” he agreed.
“Since it’s a publishing contract, I just thought you’d be more experienced with things like this.”
“They approached you?”
She shrugged. “I was as surprised as you are now.”
He’d seen footage of eighteen-year-old Desi Green in handcuffs, being dragged into a courtroom and eventually, off to prison. The girl in that footage had been painfully young, innocent, and scared. The woman sitting across from him now was none of those things.
Despite his best efforts to be objective, Solomon felt uneasy about this. A good lawyer seldom let his personal feelings come between him and his client. But there was something not right about a convicted murderer being paid money like this to write a book. A man was dead because of her. Sure, she’d served time for his death, but she’d also reaped some serious benefits from it too. She’d slapped Julian’s family in the face with those benefits—his money—and now she wanted to rub their noses in the mud even more by writing a tell-all book?
“You intend to accept this offer?” he asked, cautiously.
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.” Desi forced a smile.
He knew Jordan Gatewood, if only in passing. They traveled in the same social circles, even had some of the same friends, and were members of the same country club. The man was a successful businessman. He’d taken over his father’s business dealings when he was just a kid, and stunned everybody by taking an already successful oil business, refining it, and then turning it into the global empire that it was now. Gatewood had expanded his father’s business beyond oil, and had branched off into construction, manufacturing, and even dabbled in some aerospace. To say the man was a mogul was an understatement. He respected him, and for Solomon to facilitate a transaction like this, after what this woman had done to the Gatewood family, felt disrespectful.
Solomon immediately recognized the queasy feeling gnawing at his stomach. It was nausea brought on by a serious lack of moral fortitude. And he’d almost compromised himself for pretty brown eyes and pretty hair.
“Honestly, I don’t feel comfortable about this,” he said, decidedly. “Maybe I can recommend someone else who can assist you with this matter.”
An unexpected flash of disappointment reflected in her eyes. For a moment, she looked like that vulnerable kid again that he’d seen on the internet.
“You were recommended to me. I was told that you were the best in the state.”
“I cannot, in good conscience, represent you in this matter,” he told her. “It’s a pretty straight-forward contract, Miss Green. Any contracts attorney can help you with this.”
For a moment, Desi Green looked as if she would break down and cry. But it didn’t last long.
“There’s always more than one side to a story, Mr. Jones,” she said, holding on to her resolve.
“I understand that.”
“But you’ve made it up in your mind that I don’t deserve to tell mine?”
“I never said that. I just said that you’ll have to get yourself another attorney.” He placed the contract back in the envelope and slid it across to Desi. “I can have my assistant provide you with a half dozen names of capable attorneys who would love to sign on to a deal like this.”
Desi didn’t budge. She just stared at the package in front of her. “I loved him, too,” she said, softly. She looked up at Solomon. “My mother loved him,” she continued. “And he loved us. The Gatewoods knew, and they hated us for it.”
“They were his family, Miss Green,” he said, holding her gaze.
Desi swallowed. “And so were we. Everybody thinks they know what happened that night, but the only person who truly knows is me. Everything they have to say about us and Mr. J is wrong, and it’s not true,” her voice trailed off.
“Who’s to say what you have to put in that book is true?” he argued.
“Maybe nobody will buy that book.” Desi swallowed. “I don’t really care.”
“Why do it?”
“I owe it to them, Momma and Mr. J. All anybody thinks is that she was a homewrecker, and he was a cheat who had the misfortune of getting shot for his troubles. There’s so much more.” Her voice trailed off. “So, much more to him than that.”
Solomon couldn’t help but to find her argument compelling, and like any good lawyer, he was a sucker for compelling arguments.
“The fact is,” he finally said, “this is going to be your word against theirs.”
“It’s my word.” She shrugged. “That’s all it is. I just want a chance to say what I have to say.”
Solomon paused and thought for a few moments before finally voicing his decision. The longer he listened, the more that sick feeling in his gut began to subside. The woman’s whole life had been played out in the media since she was a kid. It only made sense that she should be able to tell her side of it in hardback.
“Can you leave it with me, and let me look it over?” He glanced at his watch. “I have to leave. I have a funeral to attend.”
Desi looked hopeful. “Yes,” she said, getting up to leave. “That’s no problem.”
He stood up and walked her out to the reception area. “I can call you in a couple of days.”
She nodded. “Thank you,” she said appreciatively. “Oh, and I’m sorry for your loss too.”
“Thank you.”
“Someone close to you?”
“My mother’s sister, Mary.”
She hesitated for a moment. “I know a woman named Mary who just passed away too. What was her last name?”
“Travis. Mary Travis.” He waited for her response. “Same Mary?”
Desi lied. “No. Someone else.”
It’s Who You Know
Lonnie went into every investigative situation with an open mind, but she always followed her gut. Sometimes her gut was right on, and sometimes it was off a bit, but not by much.
Damn mosquito bites were all over her arms and legs. Served her right for traipsing through Texas backwood country in shorts and a T-shirt. The nasty little critters feasted on her sweet, black ass for a good hour before she fired off her camera for one shot that was worth anything.
Lonnie couldn’t believe how hard she had to argue her point, for Desi to let her do this. The woman was too damn afraid of the munchkin from Munchkin land as far as Lonnie was concerned. She’d done her homework. Fleming was sixty-eight, wasn’t much taller than Desi, thick around the middle, and balding with a swath of no more than fifty strands of gray hair that grew long enough on one side of his head, to be painstakingly combed over to the other side and glued down with some sort of gel. Lonnie had seen pugs who looked scarier than he did, but still, to an eighteen-year-old girl on trial for murder, a troll like him, who held the fate of your life in his hands, could be pretty frightening. Her girl was starting to come around, though. Desi had told Lonnie about her agreeing to write a book with a New York Times bestselling author about her life.
“This is huge, Des.” Lonnie was so excited, she almost turned flips. “This is what I’m talking about, girl. Time to do your thing, Des. Stop running, stop hiding, and stand your ground.”
“They’re not going to be happy when they find out,” she said, looking more proud of herself than Lonnie had ever seen her look.
“Fuck their happiness,” Lonnie shot back. “They had no problem fucking yours.”
A long-range lens could tell stories no one wanted to be told.
“Tsk! Tsk!” she said, shaking her head. Desi’s judge was a perv.
One by one, she studied black-and-white photographs of this man’s journey into his sin. Each picture told more of the story of his transgression with a lover young enough to have been his grandchild. Lonnie stared at one photo in particular of the man coming out of that windowless building after dark, his tie undone and hanging loose around his neck, his collar unbuttoned. In the next one, she saw his lover, thin, frail, trailing behind him like little kids tended to do, desperate for attention and approval. In another photo, the old man stopped at the driver’s side door of his car, gazed deeply into the eyes of his lover, and laughed.
Lonnie’s favorite was the last one. It was nearly touching, and if she didn’t know better, she’d have truly believed that the two of them were in love. It was the image of the old man, gently cradling his lover’s lean, prepubescent face, pressing his lips tenderly against goth-like lips painted black.
Lonnie uploaded the digital images to her computer and studied them closely on the two large flatscreen monitors on her desk in her home office. Lonnie hit the speed-dial telephone button on one of the computer screens and waited for Desi to answer.
“Where are you?” Lonnie asked.
“At the salon.”
“I keep telling you to ditch that place. I know a great barber who’ll give you a tight-ass buzz cut and get you in and out in less than forty-five minutes,” she teased.
“Somedays, girl, I’m tempted.”
“Guess what I’m looking at?”
“Is it long, thick, and hard?” Desi joked.
“I wish. No, it’s short, round, old, and bald, and nasty, very very nasty.”
Desi paused. “Where are you?”
“I’m at home, and I’m looking at pictures of that judge of yours, creeping in the worst way.”
“There’s only one way to creep, Lon.”
“Show’s how little you know.”
“So, what’s in the pictures?”
Lonnie took her time answering. “People pay me a lot of money for what I do, Desi. Do you know why?”
“You want me to pay you?” Desi asked, surprised.
“Not from you. Never from you. I’m just reminding you of how good I am at what I do.”
“Damn good.”
“You got it.”
“So, he’s having an affair? We kind of suspected that, though, Lonnie.”
“He’s having an affair with a pup young enough to be his grandchild. Strike that … great-grandchild.”
“What?” Desi sounded shocked.
“Baby can’t be no more than fifteen, sixteen.”
“C’mon, Lonnie. Don’t tell me that. Maybe you made a mistake.”
“Might be younger than that,” Lonnie continued.
“He’s a pedophile?” Desi asked in a hushed tone.
“A big one, Des. They’re pimping kids out in that place. A bunch of old farts and a few young ones, in and out of that place all day and all night long. It’s disgusting.”
Desi was speechless.
“I guess we should call the police or something,” Desi finally suggested.
“Won’t do any good,” Lonnie sighed. “The police were in the place. I saw a couple of cop cars parked out back.”