Heartbalm

by Malachi Stone

  No fun intended.

  “So you wanna take me out to supper? Is that what’s on your mind, Ricky?” Not a single mention of Diane or my kids. This woman was a true find, a confirmed slut in denial.

  “I was really hoping we wouldn’t have to wait that long, Drey. Of course if you have to work—”

  “I s’pose I could call Chandralee in early; tell her some shit or other how I have to see my lawyer and that.”

  “How soon?”

  “How soon you want me?”

  “You kidding? Right this minute, Drey. I can hardly wait to see you. But what would you say to two hours from now?”

  “I’d say name the place.”

  “What about Alderman Park?”

  “What, outside? We’d freeze our asses off. It’s too cold for a picnic lunch, Ricky. Or anything else two consenting adults might have in mind. I got a better idea.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I stay five minutes up the road from work. 1722 Chartres. We could meet there, if you don’t mind lookin’ at a mess.”

  “Drey, don’t say that; you’re beautiful.”

  “I didn’t mean me, goddamnit. I was talking about my housekeeping. Or lack of same.”

  “Say one-thirty?”

  “Say two o’clock. Gives me time to freshen up for company.”

  “Seventeen Twenty-two Chartres. It’s a date.”

  “Is it?”

  “I’d call it a date. What would you call it, Drey?”

  “I’d call it long overdue. See ya.” She hung up.

  I rose, checked my beaver wedge, and stacked some big red rope files on the other chair. I opened my door and said, “Heart, would you come in here, please? Leave the door open in case anyone drops by.”

  Heart stood and walked languidly as a cat toward my inner office. God, the swing of her hips was beautiful! She wore her dark hair shoulder-length with bangs in a classic movie star look. Those big wide-set eyes of hers could have been looking out at me from the screen of a movie palace in 1942. She had a classic Hollywood face if there ever was one, full and healthy, and a Max Factor way of wearing makeup where the typical male observer couldn’t tell she had any on, except for the lipstick, which was inviting cherry red gloss. And those tits! I revised my opinion: definitely a pair of double D home wreckers under that sweater, the kind to drive men wild with passion. Her eyes were the lightest imaginable shade of hazel—magical she-wolf’s eyes alive with vulpine glee; in the morning light they seemed to shimmer with impudence at her minor deception.

  “Sit down, Heart.” I gestured to the right-hand wingback chair facing my desk.

  “Shall I bring a steno pad?”

  “Not unless you want to take notes for your own use.”

  A disarming flinch. “Am I fired?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. We need to talk salary, remember? After that we’ll get into your sister’s case.”

  Seeming relieved, she crossed the room toward the chair on my left.

  “These will leave an impression,” she said, indicating the files. “I’d better move them for you.”

  “Don’t bother; I’ll take care of it in a minute.”

  Heart seated herself in the right-hand chair, exclaiming “Whoa!” I furtively watched from a standing position behind my desk, sliding my scales of justice aside a foot or so to gain an unobstructed vantage point. Sure enough, before I even sat down those comely knees began to part.

  “Now tell me a little about yourself, Heart. I know you’re very efficient and helpful; hell, you even brought a new client with you.”

  “I’m sorry if I misled you, Mr. Galeer—”

  “Ricky. Unless there are clients present.”

  “Mind if I call you ‘Boss’ instead, Ricky? I think it’s kind of cool when the gal Friday calls her employer ‘boss’ like in the old movies. I love old movies.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “Thanks. I’m sorry if I misled you, Boss, but my mother is so distraught over this whole thing I’ve begun to worry about her health. She’s not very strong, you know.”

  “Really? What’s wrong with her?”

  “Oh, I should probably let her tell you,” Heart said.

  “I hope you made her an appointment.”

  “You bet; nine AM tomorrow.”

  “That’s a Saturday.”

  “I hope you don’t mind; your calendar is so full otherwise, and there are such strict time limits on appeals.”

  “Tell her not to give up on me if I’m five minutes late. And Heart?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ll expect you to be here, too.”

  “Yes. And thank you, Boss. Thank you very much.”

  “ Now, about your experience.”

  “Well, I got straight A’s in my paralegal classes at SWIC, Phi Theta Kappa honorary fraternity, recording secretary two years running—”

  “Not so much résumé stuff. I already know you’re academically qualified. I also know that you’re being sponsored by COBAW, and that raises certain issues we might as well get out of the way.” There, those thighs parted a bit more; darkness within. Could it be? Hair?

  “You mean personal stuff? Like what?”

  “Oh, nothing you’re not comfortable discussing with me. Frankly, I’m most impressed with the idea that you were able to excel in your educational pursuits despite what I’m assuming was a history of domestic, shall we say, conflict?”

  Heart’s breasts heaved with her breath. And from what I was able to see, she was definitely not wearing panties despite the cold. I stared, unabashed.

  “I slipped them off while you were at the parade,” Heart said evenly. “I wanted to make a good first impression.”

  “Well, you certainly have.”

  “Uh-huh.” She looked at me with disgust. Or was it attraction? Sometimes, for me at least, the two are difficult to distinguish. At any rate, she made no effort to bring her knees together or cross her legs.

  “I want you to know, Heart, that I do not make a habit of—”

  “Save it,” she said. “I Googled you, remember? You want to know my sordid past? Okay, here goes. My uncle was pastor of a church where we grew up. My sister Beattie is two years older than me. He started in on her first. Did you know every pedophile is different, the same way every turd is different, but that all pedophiles focus on one narrow age range or another? For Reverend Unc the magic age was seven through eleven. Believe me when I tell you, seven and eleven were definitely not lucky numbers for my sister or me growing up. Of course my mother never believed any of it, that her perfect clergyman brother could be capable of such a thing, so of course it went on and on.”

  “Heart, you don’t have to—”

  “No, I want you to hear this. It’s good for me to tell it. So anyway, the women in my family have some kind of hormone thing where our breasts start developing at an early age, and keep on developing. When you meet my mother you’ll understand what I mean. Anyway, because of that, Beattie and I were always the first to get asked out on dates, first to use makeup, first to make out, first to go all the way. It may sound funny, but those are the terms we used, growing up in a small southern Illinois town. Of course, Beattie and I had to keep it all from my mother, who is such a denial queen it wasn’t that hard to do.” She caught me staring again and added, “I could prop my feet up on your desk like stirrups if you want, give you a better view.”

  I tried a sheepish laugh. “Could you?” I asked.

  She gave a crooked smile before disappointing me by straightening her skirt and locking her knees together. “Don’t get me wrong; I believe nudity has its place. Just not in the office on a Friday morning. But as long as I’m being so forthright and all, let me tell you one other thing that might amuse you: my ex-husband and I were both nudists.”

  “Really? What was his name?”

  “Why? You want to look him up as a reference?”

  “I may know him. Professionally, that is.”

&
nbsp; “You ever represent a Harold Robbins?”

  “You mean like the writer?”

  “I mean like the biker. Harold Robbins, shaved bullet head, tats all over, rode a Harley panhead when he wasn’t beating on me for drill. His street moniker is Snuggle. I called him Snug, for short.” She laughed, bitterly, I thought.

  “Who’d he ride with?”

  “Hades Assassins, mostly. Every year we’d make the big run to Sturgis, where I’d ride up and down the street topless. It was no big deal. Like I said, we were both confirmed practicing nudists.”

  “Where can you practice that sort of thing around here?”

  “I’m surprised someone of your experience would have to ask me that. Ever hear of Giant City Pines Resort?”

  “Can’t say as I have, no.”

  “It’s about an hour and a half east on Route 13. That’s if you don’t take your life in your hands driving there at suicide speed. Snug always made it in under forty-five minutes, and I mean by that time he had the bike parked, beach blanket spread and us with all our clothes off. He bought me and him a timeshare there. He got it in the divorce, along with most everything else.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “I’m not. ‘Let’s go lay out,’ he’d say. It was his code expression for screaming off to Giant City Pines and getting naked. Seemed like there was always a drunken fistfight going on out there, generally over me. See, the Giant City Pines crowd is mostly college. Carbondale yuppies, I call them, pale thin wasted types daring each other to go naked as a means of living their tree-hugging back-to-nature philosophy or whatever. Whereas Snug just liked to gawk at all the naked women with his cock hanging out in plain view. He never seemed to get tired of that sort of thing. What is it with you men, anyway?”

  “You mean some of us actually get tired of that sort of thing?”

  She gave me an ironic snort. “Now that you mention it, I’ve yet to meet one. Snug was a special case, though. I guess we have the United States Army to thank for some of it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Snug always told me there were things he’d learned things in Special Forces.” She stared at the grouping of license, diploma and certificates over my shoulder.

  “Yeah?”

  “Bad things. Like ways to really hurt a man without any weapons involved, using only his hands and that training of his. Pressure points, major ganglions—a sadist’s eye view of advanced anatomy, I don’t know. Things you could do to instantly turn another man into jelly, make him whimper like a baby, even render him permanently impotent.”

  “Yuck.”

  “Yuck is right. He wasn’t kidding, either. I’ve seen one or two of his techniques in action during some of our nudist excursions to Giant City. See, Snug is an insanely jealous bastard. No sooner would some assistant professor or grad student happen to glance at me for more than a millisecond and there’d be Snug calling him out. And Snug never lost a fight, even though he started plenty.”

  “But you’re divorced, right?”

  “Thanks to COBAW helping me with the filing fee. I handled my own divorce, drafted all the papers and filed them, got Snug served, even went before the judge and represented myself in court when he didn’t show up. Thank God there were no kids, especially now that I see what Beattie’s going through with Eve.”

  “But you said he got everything.”

  “All I wanted was out. And I got out. Sort of.”

  “What do you mean, sort of?”

  “See, what drew me to Snug in the first place was his devotion to his religion. At that time I didn’t see all the hypocrisy and violence that was in him. But one of the things Snug believes with all his heart is that line where they say: ‘What God hath joined let no man put asunder.’ He’s got the whole verse tattooed across his abdomen in ginormous gothic letters.”

  “I guess that’s his problem, isn’t it?”

  “Well, see, that’s what I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

  “What?”

  “That third phone call this morning? It was from Snug. He’s threatening to come after you.”

  CHAPTER THREE - PERMUTATIONS AND COMBINATIONS

  I tried explaining to Heart how to go to the courthouse and get herself an order of protection—that is, until I discovered she already knew the drill. Apparently she had interned in the Women’s Crisis Center helping other women obtain such orders. Why she’d never bothered to get one for herself was beyond me. That answer was lost in the mysterious maze of the tangled relationships between man and woman.

  Telling Heart to take the rest of the day off, I gave her a spare office key and reminded her to be sure and open up tomorrow morning before nine for her mother’s appointment. After watching Heart get into her car and drive away, I locked the office and hurried home where Anna’s camcorder lay waiting. My cell phone was not equipped with video. No one home; I scurried upstairs, remembering to pocket a card of bubble-wrapped little blue pills from our bedroom, and made my way to Anna’s room. I tiptoed over the mess of clothing and magazines on Anna’s floor. In her cluttered closet I found her camcorder but not the charger.

  I heard Diane’s key unlocking the side door to the kitchen. “Ricky?” she called out from downstairs. At that very moment, as though the fates were taunting me for my evil intentions, my eyes lit on the charger. I cradled camera and charger in my arms. Diane was coming up the stairs.

  “What are you doing home so early? My goodness, it’s not even noon yet. And where on earth are you going with those?”

  “Car accident call,” I shrugged, trying for the grudging put-upon tone of the hardworking legal practitioner. “Need to shoot some video of the scene right away. May be money in it for us. You never know.”

  “But you don’t do auto anymore, Ricky; you said you were sick of it. When you left the other firm you said you’d never take on another auto case as long as you lived.”

  “Money’s money,” I said. “If it turns out to be any good I can always refer it for a fee split—that is, if I don’t feel like handling it myself. I’m only thinking of you and the kids, dear.” Standing there holding the camcorder, the charger and a mess of wires. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

  “How’s that new secretary working out, that Heart Robbins?”

  I swallowed; my throat was dry. “I dunno; too soon to tell. I haven’t really committed to anything yet. She did refer me that new criminal appeal. They’re talking twenty thousand,” I reminded her.

  “Dollars, right?”

  “You already asked me that. Yeah, dollars. I’ve talked to the client on the phone already. Unfortunately the only time she can come in is tomorrow morning at nine.”

  “But you always sleep in on Saturdays.”

  “Not this time.”

  “I should come with you.”

  “No, no, no. You stay home; that way at least one of us can sleep in. Hey, Babe, I’m sorry but I’ve got to rush out to that scene before the insurance adjuster beats me to it and starts doing donuts and laying patches in the street until no accident reconstruction expert can make heads or tails of it.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “By the way, I closed the office and referred the calls home.” That last part was a lie; I didn’t want my Diane picking up the phone and catching what might prove to be another threatening call from Snug. And my home phone was unlisted.

  The lying and sneaking was coming back to me easily after a two-year layoff. There must be something to that telescoping.

  As I left the house I heard Diane reminding me to keep my Blackberry turned on just in case. I checked it in my jacket pocket. Then pressed the off switch.

  I let myself in through the back door of the office and sat at my desk while the camcorder charged. It really needed eight hours but I had less than two. While I was waiting a call came in. The caller ID said Belleville PD. I picked up a split-second before the answering machine.

  “Law office.”

  “Ricky?”
It was the tweaked-out voice of my sponsor.

  “Kevin?”

  There was a peep. Naturally the call was being recorded.

  “Kevin, listen to me. This call is being recorded by the police, so don’t say anything. I’ll ask you the questions. Have they charged you yet?”

  “No, see, but when I—”

  Another peep.

  “Kevin! Just stay focused and try to answer yes or no. Have they said when they’re taking you before a judge?”

  “No.”

  “Have you said anything to the police yet? Anything at all?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Don’t say anything to anybody until I get there. I mean don’t say a word.”

  Peep.

  “All I done is told them what happened. But they’re sayin’ they’re gonna put me away in Big Muddy this time, Ricky. They’re callin’ me a sexually dangerous predator or some damn thing. They got this one asshole cop sayin’ he’s gonna teach me what happens when I wave my prick at the mayor and his wife. I’m scared, Ricky.”

  Peep.

  “Don’t be scared, Kevin; I’ll handle it. But promise me you’ll relax and won’t say another word, okay? I’ll be there in five minutes.” I glanced at the camcorder beside the outlet; its charging light seemed to be winking at me. “I have to be somewhere at two o’clock but I promise to do everything I can for you before then.”

  I parked behind the police station and climbed the steep concrete stairs that led into the lobby. Identifying myself as Kevin’s attorney I asked to speak to the detective in charge. There was a fifteen-minute wait. Finally a young kid who looked ex-military led me into a cramped interrogation room that smelled like a gym.

  “I’m Detective Forrest,” he said.

  “I understand you’re holding my client Kevin Quarles.”

  “Oh, yeah, Kevin. Kevin really shit in his mess kit this time.”

  “Is he receiving medical attention? He’s under a doctor’s care, you know. He needs regular prescription meds.”

  “Think maybe he mighta skipped a dose or two, counselor? Think possibly that’s the reason we caught him paradin’ up and down Main Street this morning, waving his prick at little kids like it was a candy cane?”