Heartbalm

by Malachi Stone

  “Yes. A hideous institution, although to the casual observer at first glance I imagine in physical appearance it rather resembles a public school.”

  “I take it the devil’s in the details.”

  “That’s where he habitually lurks, yes. Are you a religious man, Ricky?”

  I was the kind of religious man who hated talking religion, who underwent a sudden visceral reaction whenever a client brought up the subject in an initial interview.

  “We’re Eastern Orthodox,” I said.

  “I see.”

  “Getting back to your daughter’s case—”

  “Don’t you find it rather idolatrous? Kissing those icons? And all that pomp?”

  Here we go. An argument before we had barely dispensed with the preliminaries. But never underestimate the ecumenical power of twenty thousand dollars to tantalize the human soul.

  “These are the things of men,” she went on. “Not scriptural. Contrary to scripture, in fact. We have no such things at Kingdom Hall.” It was beginning to sound like a blow job wasn’t in the cards.

  “I’d love to discuss it with you, Ruth. Perhaps once I’ve had an opportunity to evaluate your daughter’s appeal.”

  “Of course. As you may have surmised, the Appellate Defender’s office is currently handling the case. Mishandling it might be a more precise characterization. Oh, a notice of appeal was timely filed, technically preserving Beatrice’s rights. However, I am not at all impressed with either the capabilities or, quite frankly, the zeal of the attorney assigned to the case. He’s quite young, for one thing. Wet behind the ears, as the saying goes. Not only that, but he makes no effort to conceal his settled albeit mistaken belief that my daughter is in fact guilty as charged.”

  “They generally do a good job, public defenders,” I said, giving her my standard line, a left-handed compliment intended to damn by faint praise, “but they’re incredibly busy.”

  “I know he has no time he feels willing to spare for me. Or for my daughter. Do you know he has made no attempt whatsoever to visit her since her incarceration? In fact, at our latest, and what I hope will prove to be our last, meeting, he flatly stated that he has no intention of doing so.”

  “Is that right?” I exhaled into the phone for her, meaning it to sound like the expelled breath of a quietly exasperated man who knows more than he’s willing to tell.

  “How can an attorney be expected to do a competent job when he’s never met his client or spoken with her face to face? It’s like a doctor diagnosing a patient on paper without even performing a physical examination of her.”

  I debated telling her that’s what insurance company and social security doctors did every day. Instead I said, “I understand why you’re concerned; you’re exactly right.”

  “May I say I’m gratified by your concern, Ricky. Gratified and encouraged for the first time since this whole unthinkable nightmare began.”

  “I do want to help you, Ruth. You and your daughter. I understand the charges against her involved, well, child pornography in plain words?”

  “That’s correct. Intent to disseminate. But it was all the fault of that worthless husband of hers. Russell.”

  “What’s his first name?”

  “Russell.” I absently wrote it on a legal pad. “And his last?”

  “I already told you. Russell.”

  “Russell Russell?”

  “Russell Russell, if you can believe it. Same Christian name and surname: a double name like the child molester’s in that smirking sex novel by Vladimir Nabokov. Even worse, Russell R. Russell. No need to guess at his middle name, is there?”

  “My, my, my.”

  “Will parents never learn to leave their sense of whimsy aside when selecting names for their children? Does no one anticipate the latent psychological damage that can result when one imposes a joke name on a child?”

  “What could they have been thinking?” The tickling repetition of the name connoted the rustling of crinoline petticoats, a blasphemous trinity of murmured obscenities.

  “Having met the parties responsible, I could explain, but the explanation would in all probability exceed the reasonable length of a telephone conversation with a professional man such as yourself.” It was clear to me that Ruth Holstein wanted desperately to come in, park her ass in my office and pour out her tale of woe. And there were twenty thousand reasons why I liked that idea. But even I have enough integrity to turn down a worthless appeal, so I inquired further.

  “What did they prove against your daughter at trial, Ruth?”

  “Nothing, really. This Russell was the bad apple; the forty-five year sentence in Menard was too good for him. Investigators found a prodigious collection of truly despicable photographs on his computer hard drive, meticulously catalogued and cross-indexed by age and perverse practice.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Can you, Ricky? I truly thought I had seen everything until confronted with those vile photos. One found oneself seized with the near-irresistible urge to tear one’s eyes out at the mere sight of them. The depth of human depravity captured in those pictures far exceeded even the diabolical imagination of a Hieronymus Bosch.”

  “Do you teach art by any chance, Ruth?”

  “Why yes. How astute of you to notice.”

  “Not at all. Do Beatrice and this Russell have any children between them?”

  “One daughter, age seven. Little Eve. The light of my life. After both parents were arrested I obtained letters of office to serve as her guardian. Do you know the court has forbidden any visits between Eve and Beatrice until Eve is of age? Isn’t that cruel and unusual punishment?”

  “Eighth Amendment appeals rarely succeed.”

  “May I inquire, what is your success rate overall on appeal?”

  I’d won one and lost one, so rather than take the question head-on I said, “An attorney’s success rate, as you call it, depends on whether he has the guts to take on the tough cases. I’m not afraid of a fight.”

  “That’s precisely what I wanted to hear you say, Ricky.”

  “Tell me, Ruth, was Beatrice herself visible in any of these pictures?”

  “Of course not,” she huffed. Had she been present in the office I would have followed with a sustained stare meant to draw out the truth. Apparently silence worked just as well, because after a countdown of twenty she sighed and added, “There was another computer. There were several, in fact.”

  “Go on.”

  “Russell R. Russell, despite his gag name and apparent total dearth of ambition, turned out to be quite the little entrepreneur. It developed at trial that for some time past he had been exploiting Beatrice in what one might characterize as a cottage Internet business of his own devising.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “Must I say it aloud? A business fueled by the lusts of men. A corrupting business. Yes, there were pictures of Beatrice. And those disgraceful videos.” She paused and may have sobbed before protesting, “but never with a child. You see, Ricky, my Beatrice was a teacher. She attained her master’s degree in elementary education at the age of twenty-two and went on to teach third grade in Mitchell county schools before taking a leave of absence when little Eve came along. She was absolutely devoted to little children in general and to Eve in particular. She called them her kiddoes.”

  “So I take it in your opinion Beatrice had no knowledge of Russell’s pictures of children?”

  “It’s not a matter of opinion; it is a proven fact she had no knowledge whatsoever.”

  “The court disagreed with you.”

  “Oh, that stupid, stupid public defender! It was he who convinced Beatrice to waive a jury and agree to a joint bench trial with Russell. He said they’d have no chance otherwise, that any jury would vote to convict as soon as they saw the pictures. Beatrice had intended to divorce Russell after the arrests, you see, but the public defender advised her to remain married at least throughout the course of the trial so sh
e couldn’t be forced to testify against her husband. Interspousal privilege or whatever it’s called. What he didn’t count on was the judge in that county finding Beatrice guilty because of her profession.”

  “Her profession?”

  “Beatrice was convicted for one reason and one reason alone: because she was a teacher of children. A teacher who’d gotten herself mixed up in…that other business.”

  “Russell’s internet porn game?”

  “Thank you. Yes, that.”

  “What exactly was he up to besides the things he was convicted for?”

  “He abused Beatrice. Abused and photographed her. Abused her by photographing her in, shall we say, disgraceful pursuits.”

  “Such as?”

  “You’re a very direct man, Ricky, I must admit. A very direct man indeed. Much like myself in that regard.”

  “Then answer my question, Ruth. These are things I need to know.” Actually I wanted to indulge my own prurient interest while at the same time causing her discomfort, making her violate her own standards of delicacy by verbalizing everything in detail to a strange man. And I’m one of the strangest.

  “As one particularly dreadful example, he took explicit videos of Beatrice parading around nude in a public park restroom while she delivered a scatological monologue spoken directly into the camera in what was obviously intended to be a come-hither seductive manner, inviting all the men to watch her urinate, which she in fact proceeded to do, in extreme close-up and high fidelity digital sound. Does that description adequately gratify your male curiosity, Ricky?”

  Busted.

  “Speaking as a mother who has diapered two daughters, believe me when I tell you what a truly unsettling experience it can be to witness a video played to a packed courtroom depicting one of those daughters being forced to exhibit her natural functions in such appallingly compromising circumstances.”

  “She was forced?”

  “Of course she was forced. Beatrice was a shy girl by nature, very diffident and quiet, with a pronounced sense of personal modesty. She would have been incapable of participating in the video travesty I have just described, as well as others which I refuse to describe to any man, without some singularly extortionate means of persuasion.”

  “Such as?”

  “To this day, Beatrice adamantly refuses to tell me that. But a mother knows her daughters.”

  “You mentioned another daughter.”

  “Yes. She quite recently joined your employ, in fact. Tell me, how is Heart working out so far?”

  I glanced out the open door of my office to the receptionist area, where Heart sat gazing out the plate glass window pretending nonchalance, a pen poised provocatively in her mouth like a cigarette holder. In that instant I knew I would accept the challenge of her. I would insinuate myself into her life and the lives of her family, successfully represent Beatrice Russell and rescue her from the penitentiary, thereby becoming locally famous for my professional abilities and wresting myself and my law practice from this prison of tedious custody disputes, guardian ad litem reports, social service patronage, judges who thought themselves funny, unpaid statements for professional services rendered and too many good years wasted.

  And I knew as well that what had been for me a long season of fidelity was about to come to a close. I would make it my job to seduce Heart Robbins; of that much I was certain. But first there were a couple of other matters I had to accomplish. One in particular had been preying on my mind.

  In twelve-step groups we acknowledge a phenomenon known as telescoping. It is usually observed in alcoholics after long periods of sobriety but is also present in every other form of compulsive misbehavior. Telescoping means essentially that when you fall off whichever wagon you’ve been riding on, you fall back into the very same gutter you crawled out of in the first place. You pick up right where you left off, in other words. And in my particular case, that’s a pretty depraved place to start.

  I passed the call back to Heart to schedule the appointment for her mother. Pulling the door closed, I searched my office for my specially designed cushion shim, which had fallen into long disuse. There it was in the back of a built-in storage drawer behind some closed files. After swatted the dust off it, I carefully positioned the terrycloth-lined device with the thick side facing me under the cushion of the client chair to my right. Practically undetectable to the person seated, the intended effect was to transform the chair into a bucket seat, elevating the thighs and encouraging them to part along my line of sight.

  I called it my beaver wedge.

  Next it was time to place a long-overdue telephone call. Using the fax line, which Heart could not eavesdrop on, I dialed it from memory. A familiar woman’s harried voice answered, “Grab n’ Go.”

  Suddenly nervous as a schoolboy, I almost hung up at that point, as I had innumerable times in the past after punching in star sixty-seven to avoid detection before calling that same number. She repeated a little louder, “Grab n’ Go.”

  “Hi, is this Kendra?”

  “You got her. Who’s this?”

  “Ricky Galeer, from the meeting this morning? I thought I’d check in with you, see how you were doing.”

  I was afraid she might get suspicious, or mad. Instead, her tone turned all down-home folksy and hearty. “Well, ain’t you sweet? That’s about the nicest thing anybody’s said to me all morning.”

  Line one rang. Heart got it on the first ring.

  “How are you holding up, Kendra? How’s work treating you?”

  “You know me, Ricky. I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.”

  “I hear you, Kendra.”

  “My friends call me Drey these days. You like it?”

  “Yeah. Sounds sexy. Very sexy in fact. It suits you to a T, Drey.”

  “Now, see? You’re gonna give me the big head you keep handin’ out all them nice compliments. Came up with it myself, made it up out of the last part of my name. Thought it sounded kinda exotic or whatever, instead a some dumb ol’ hoosier handle like Kendra. Pump six, you’re authorized. When you’re done come see me inside.”

  “You sound busy, Drey.” Playing the name over my lips and tongue like a lovesick boy. Maybe if I handled my cards right she’d let me videotape her.

  “Hell, I’m always busy, Hon. Keeps me outta trouble. Like last weekend for instance, wish I’d worked a double. Otherwise I’m double trouble.”

  Heart buzzed me on the intercom. Covering the receiver I yelled, “Take a message.”

  “I was just wondering, Drey, whether you ever take a break from all that work, maybe a lunch break where you and I could get together and talk, say?”

  “All’s they gimme’s a dinner break and that don’t get here ‘til five-thirty. I’m free five-thirty to six, then my evening shift starts.”

  “Wow! That’s a lot of hours.”

  “You ain’t just a shittin’ that’s a lotta hours, Ricky. I told ya, this gal’s gotta keep her mind off other things.”

  “What kind of things, Drey?” Had I used too seductive a voice for that last, hesitated a moment too long before speaking?

  Instead, Drey’s voice lowered to match mine. “You know the kind a things I mean, Stud.”

  “So you think we could get together maybe?”

  A long sigh. A nervous cough over the distorted high-pitched chatter of a cash register. “That’s thirty-five eleven with the Marlboros. Outta forty. Woops-e-daisy!” A clatter of coins at her end. “Fumble-fingers me. And four’s forty. Thanks, Darlin’. Come back and see us. Still there, Ricky?”

  I tried it. “My first rule is, never hang up the phone when there’s a beautiful woman at the other end, Drey.”

  “Whoo! You’re steady workin’ wonders for my ego, you know that?”

  “Now see? That’s the nicest thing anybody’s said to me all morning. Maybe we should start a mutual admiration society, just the two of us.”

  A tap at my door. After a brief hesitation, Heart tentatively opened i
t a crack and peeked in. My hand darted away from between my legs not a moment too soon.

  “New call. Divorce,” she said, whispering the last with Victorian propriety, holding a pink message memo in her hand.

  “Give me just a minute, Heart,” I said. “And pull the door closed behind you, if you would, please.” After she had complied, I said, “Sorry about the interruption.”

  “These chips yours too? Sorry. Hang on, okay Hon?”

  “Sure, Drey.” I listened to the convenience store give-and-take, fantasizing what would come next: working out with a practice woman, a fuck-buddy sparring partner before the main event with Heart Robbins. A moment later line one rang again. Heart’s voice out in the reception area sounded stressed but I couldn’t make out a word she was saying. Whatever it was, she sounded like she was dealing with it.

  “I was thinkin’ about droppin’ in to see you anyhoo,” Drey said after she got back on the line. “This whole dealie with Tyranno has me buffaloed.”

  “I’d love to discuss it with you.”

  “I mean professionally.”

  “That too.”

  “What if he goes ahead and does what he said he’s fixin’ to? I don’t need my face plastered all over the Internet. No fun intended.”

  How long had she been going around saying no fun intended? I would have figured you needed a woman like Drey to make a Russell R. Russell video. It surprised me she claimed to be camera shy that night at Tyranno’s. I wondered if she were truly as bashful as she professed to be or if it was merely a sop to her ego. That, and a means of enticing men like me into photographing her in new and tantalizing ways.

  Drey. Anna. It was a season for new names. We’d given Anna a big cumbersome videocam two years ago last Christmas after buying it used. Other than a few tapings of her dance troop, it had sat abandoned on the floor of her closet keeping company with the dust bunnies. She’d probably never miss it. Diane and the kids had most likely gone shopping and wouldn’t be home for hours. I could sneak home and retrieve it, charge it up, buy a couple of fresh tapes, and Drey and I could find a public restroom this afternoon where we could play.