“There were no little kids; I was there, I saw the whole thing. The guy is sick, that’s all. He needs psychiatric care, not jail.”
“That ain’t up to you, now is it?” the kid sneered. These self-righteous bastards always focused their hatred on sex offenders. I figured this kid for twelve years of Catholic school. Maybe I was getting more and more like Kevin.
“And if you’re a material witness, how can you be his lawyer? Ain’t that unethical or something?”
He had me there. A lawyer’s duty as a witness trumps his duty to his client whenever the two conflict, and they always do somewhere down the line.
“This is being charged as a misdemeanor, right? Dis con or public indecency at worst?”
“That ain’t up to me, neither. Tomorrow or the next day we’ll mosey on down to the warrant officer with the results of our preliminary investigation. I’m thinking our boy Kevin’s a danger to society and they’ll opt to get him committed as a sexually dangerous person. That’d be best for everybody, don’t you think?”
Not for Kevin. “So no bond’s been set?”
“Not before sometime this weekend. Word to the wise: we’re about half sick of this crazy fuck. He’s gonna get the book thrown at him this time, no two ways about it. He’s gonna get sent away to a place until he’s all better.”
“Can I see him?”
“He ain’t much to look at.”
“Take me to him, please.”
I could tell at ten paces that Kevin had suffered a beating. Both eyes were black as raccoon’s; there was an angular red blotch across one jaw that traced the line of his mandible. He was doubled over, hugging his ribs and moaning.
I turned to the kid and said, “What the hell’s the matter with you guys? Belleville doesn’t beat up suspects like this.”
“He musta faw down go boom,” the kid said. “That’s the way he come in. He looks the exact same way as he did in the booking photos. You can check if you want.”
“I want to videotape him. Now. Then I want him hospitalized for a complete physical examination.”
“I want I want,” he said, adding, “No problem, counselor. Long as you hand me a signed certified court order from a judge.”
I thought of my two PM assignation with Drey. Then I looked at Kevin huddled in the far corner of the lockup.
“You got it,” I said.
Luck was with me. Or more accurately, I sought out my own luck in the corpulent form of Judge Walter J. Mudge. Judge Mudge at the age of sixty-four was the senior circuit judge in the county. Genial, portly, with a rosy complexion that deepened to the ruddy hue of port wine whenever he laughed, which was often and easily, kindly Judge Walter Mudge of all the circuit judges would sign anything that was set in front of him. He called it “cleaning his plate.” Judge Mudge arrived at the courthouse before eight every weekday morning, where his clerk brought down the gavel at the stroke of eight-thirty AM and Judge Mudge had the crowded courtroom cleared by eight-fifty, signing agreed orders and cleaning his plate. Judge Mudge loved agreed orders. The wheels of justice turned swiftly in Judge Mudge’s courtroom, so swiftly that by nine AM he was ensconced back in chambers reading the paper and by ten-thirty was sound asleep. After a leisurely luncheon Judge Mudge resumed the bench promptly at one PM where once again he cleaned his plate, freeing the rest of the afternoon for receiving guests in chambers. Old friends and new, he called them. Judge Mudge was the first judge to arrive in the morning and the last judge to leave at night, as could be readily noted by the presence of his ten-year-old Buick Century parallel-parked in his assigned parking space in front of the courthouse beside the big sign bearing his name. Judge Mudge didn’t want the taxpayers getting the idea they were paying him too much money. It had been Judge Mudge’s own idea to have each circuit judge assigned a parking place marked by his or her own personalized sign directly in front of the courthouse to be observed by anyone driving by. His promptness, which Judge Mudge invariably called “the politeness of kings,” as well as his long working hours and efficient disposition of his workload, earned him a reputation as a hard-working judge. Every election, Judge Mudge managed to garner glowing endorsements from the local newspapers and the highest recommendation for retention from the county bar.
When I entered Judge Mudge’s outer office around one-twenty-five his court reporter and his clerk were nowhere to be seen. The door to his chambers was open a crack. I could hear him in there snoring. Quickly I captioned a blank tripartite order form with the number from Kevin’s citation and began writing up an order granting my own oral emergency motion for an extraordinary writ. The content wouldn’t have gotten me a “C” in my first-year law school legal writing class but I wasn’t bucking for Solicitor General; I was only trying to help my client. I had nearly finished and was bringing it into chambers when Judge Mudge snorted himself awake.
“Ricky!” he beamed. “Ricky Ticki Tavi! Tricky Ricky! How goes it?”
“Can’t complain, your Honor. Wouldn’t do me any good if I did.”
Judge Mudge laughed uproariously at that remark, as he always did every single time I used it. “You do wonders for my sugar diabetes, Ricky,” he said after he had caught his breath and wiped his eyes from the hilarity of it all.
“How is the diabetes, Judge?”
“I’m reading this book right now, an older book but still in print, about how you can laugh yourself back to health. Make sense?”
“If anybody can do it, Judge, my money’s on you.”
“What’s on your mind, Ricky?” Judge Mudge always wanted to get business out of the way first.
“As it happens, your Honor, I have this client I need to get examined pronto.” I gently slid the proposed handwritten order across Judge Mudge’s desk until it was as close to under his nose as I could reach. He eyed it without picking it up, his half-lenses sliding down his nose.
“Don’t see one of these every day,” he mused. “An extraordinary writ like this is a rare bird indeed. A rara avis, as they used to say in the chancery courts back in merry olde England.”
“How right you are, Judge.”
“Peterson’s office okay with this?” he asked as an aside, pen poised.
“They don’t have a problem with it, Judge.” Mainly because nobody from State’s Attorney Peterson’s office knew of its existence. “I’ll make sure and take it down to them for initialing after it’s entered,” I rattled on as Judge Mudge signed the order. Of course, nobody could blame me if I got sidetracked from the press of a busy law practice and simply forgot to make the trip. “That way I’m not riding the elevator all morning and barging in here again bothering you.”
“No bother, Ricky. You know me; my door is always open. Stop by anytime.”
Armed with my ex parte emergency order granting the videotaping and the exam, I dashed back to the office, grabbed the camcorder and then raced to the police station where I confronted Detective Forrest with the order.
“Whatta you, got time on your hands? Why are you running around for this piece a shit?”
“Let me see him.”
“Velly solly, counselor; you’re too late. They transported your wiener wagger over to St. E’s psycho ward not twenty minutes ago. At this very moment they’re probably strapping him in for a long Thorazine winter’s nap. No visitors.”
I looked at my watch: one forty-five.
In the car I dry-swallowed a little blue pill.
It was a fifteen-minute drive to Drey’s. I made it in ten.
Drey’s house turned out to be a double-wide located mid-block in a mixed neighborhood. I drove past her address, parked three blocks down at a package store and walked back cradling the camcorder under my coat.
A tiny dog yipped with rage when I rapped at the door. “Come on in, the water’s fine,” Drey yelled, answering my knock in her best hog-calling voice. I tried the door. The storm door was off-kilter and took two pulls to open. The hollow front door gave easily. The house smelled of dog feces
and freshly-sprayed Glade.
“Drey?”
“Over here, Hon. How you take your So Co?”
I entered the trailer. The dog, a Pomeranian, growled with midget menace from the safety of a nearby chair. Drey herself was standing in the galley kitchen with a half-gallon jug of Southern Comfort readied for pouring. She had let her long honey hair down and brushed it out.
“Help me with this here?” she said. “It’s way too good to waste.” She was wearing an advertising t-shirt from another casino, and obviously no bra.
“Sure. Little ice is good for me, thanks.”
“Icemaker’s been on the fritz. Hope you don’t mind store-bought ice.”
I set the camcorder down on the snack bar and moved forward to assist her with the jug. Then something I saw stopped me short.
It was when she stepped aside and opened the freezer that I observed she was not wearing anything below the waist. Searching for a quip to lighten the tension I said, “I ever tell you I like my drinks the same way I like my women? Bottomless.”
“Whoo, that’s funny, that is,” she said as she reached into the plastic bag and removed two handfuls of cubes. She turned and divided the ice between two tumblers. Her clean-shaven pussy resembled a doughy pastry.
“Thought you might enjoy a little peekaboo I see you, to melt the ice so to speak. Most men do.”
“You can add me to the list,” I said. “You’re really beautiful down there, Drey. Hope you don’t mind my saying so.”
“Don’t mind at all, Sweetie. That’s what it’s there for. You know what they say.”
“What’s that?”
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”
With thumb and forefinger she took a single cube from one of the glasses and, playful expression fixed on me, rubbed it between her pussy lips, mimicking a hissing sound. “Speakin’ of melting the ice,” she said. Then she returned the cube to the glass, saying, “Like a little pussy spice with your whiskey? My own ingredient. You ain’t a gonna find it listed in no bartender’s guide I know of.”
“Only way I ever drink it.”
“It do help warm things up, don’t it?” Noticing the camcorder she said, “Looks like you brung me a present.”
“Oh, no, I happened to have it along with me for work.”
“What kinda work you have in mind, Sweetie?”
Still concealing my intention I told her everything I could about Kevin.
“That crazy bastard,” she said, filling the two tumblers with whiskey like it was ice tea. “Why do them crazy guys never stay on their pills like they’re supposed to? That’s the whole problem right there.”
“The guy’s my sponsor; I don’t know if you knew that.”
“Everybody knows that, hon. Kind of an unusual choice, you don’t mind my saying so. Takes all kinds to make a world, to coin a phrase.”
On top of the refrigerator was a mock motor fuel additive can labeled Whup Ass, with a curved metal spout. I got it: somebody had opened up a can of Whup Ass on me. Then an unaccustomed thrill of fear coursed through me as I thought of Snug. The Pomeranian yapped some more rage-fueled threats.
Drey yelled, “Pepper!” startling both me and the dog, who looked at her with twitchy canine perplexity. “His bark’s worse’n he’s bite,” she said.
“It’d about have to be.”
“I’d put him out back, but he’d still bark his fool head off, I have to warn you.”
“Consider me warned.”
She looked at me oddly. “How’s come me and you never got together before now? You’re cuter’n a baby’s butt, you know that?”
“The things you do say.”
Leaving Pepper in the front room to fend for himself, Drey gathered up a drink in each hand and sashayed down the short narrow hallway, taking her time for my viewing pleasure. The ice tinkled invitingly like finger cymbals as she walked. She really did have a beautiful ass, although maybe on the large side, but smooth, well-proportioned and with very little cellulite. I barely noticed the ceramic dog collection in a cheesy display case on the way to the bedroom.
“You comin’ or what?” she called over her shoulder.
“More than once I hope.”
“There, now. See how you are?”
A queen-size bed took up most of the bedroom. She had hung an unframed poster, its corners beginning to curl, covering most of the wall opposite: a poster featuring beatific cloud-borne images of Martin Luther King and Barack Obama with the phrase I Have a Dream on the top and I Am the Dream on the bottom.
After setting the drinks down on a night table she raised both arms and said, “Help me with this here?” I stood behind her and grasped the lower hem of her t-shirt, peeling it up over her shoulders as she wriggled out of it. She turned to me, hands on hips, proudly waggling her breasts. They were pendulous and fulsome. Her nipples were big and smooth as eggs over easy, only darker.
“Like what you see?”
“What do you think?” I gasped, voice hoarsened with desire.
“Told ya I ain’t shy,” she said, although she’d never told me that before in so many words. Maybe at one of the meetings. “And here’s some more good news for ya: I’m fixed. Plus I’m dee dee free, so you ain’t gotta use protection.” I thought about that one, finally realizing she meant D/D free like they say in the personal ads, in other words drug and disease free. “You gonna take your clothes off and stay awhile?” she twanged.
“Thought you’d never ask.”
“Didn’t know as I had to.” She selected one of the drinks and took a big pull. “I saved the special triple X-rated tasty one for you,” she said impishly, offering me the other as she watched me undress.
By the time I’d stripped down to my skivvies she’d gulped half her drink. I peeled off my shorts and sang out, “Ta da!” as my cock sprang forth. The little blue pill had come through as always.
“Whoo Baby!” Drey marveled. “You must have some black in you!”
“You’re gonna have some in you before long.”
“Slow down, Darlin’,” she said. “Prolong the anticipation, prolong the pleasure. What say I start turnin’ down the bed for us while you go fetch that little ole camera a yours—the one I know you been just dyin’ to use on me.”
I raised my right hand in a mock oath and said, “Guilty.”
“Long as there’s discretion I don’t necessarily mind cameras; it’s kinda like fucking for an audience.”
“You must have read my mind.”
“It’s what I do best.”
“Why not let me be the judge of that?”
“There, now. See how you are?” she said once more. “Hope you brung along plenty a film for that there camera.”
Pepper erupted into renewed paroxysms of wild barking at the sight of me naked, interspersed with throaty trilling growls in the upper range. I connected the charger and brought the whole works back to the bedroom, where Drey had folded back the fuzzy maroon bedspread and now reclined spreadeagled for me on black satin sheets.
“He didn’t bite you on the peeder, did he?” she asked.
“Not this time.”
“Guess he knows he’d better save that particular job for Momma.”
“There, now,” I said. “See how you are?” I found a convenient outlet and plugged it in to save the battery.
“You like to eat pussy?” Drey asked.
“Believe it or not, you’re the very first person to pose that question to me today. The answer is an unqualified yes.”
“Momma’ll keep you busy then. Better show me how that camera works first. You ain’t getting’ off that easy. If my ass’s gonna wind up in the movies, so’s yours.”
“You just look through the viewfinder like so, press this little red button on the side here, and point it. Easy peasy.” I demonstrated it for her, aiming it first at her exposed breasts and then panning up and down, taking her all in.
“You have to keep holding the button down, or what?”<
br />
“No, just press it once for on and once more for off.”
“There enough light in here?”
“More than enough. It works on available light.”
“How do you focus?”
“Everything’s idiot-proof, Drey.”
“Why thank you so much, kind sir.”
“I didn’t mean you’re an idiot, Drey, just that this thing practically runs itself. So relax and enjoy the show. I know I’m going to.” I passed her the camera, which she aimed at me as I climbed over the foot of her bed, positioned myself between her legs, bent forward and went to work. The only sounds were Pepper’s barking, my slavering, and Drey’s intermittent whimpering moans and endearments, such as, “Oh, Ricky baby, eat my pussy every night,” or simply, “Mister Ricky Galeer!”
The sound of hanging beads clattering. A quiet voice behind me said, “Guddamn, girl.”
“Fuck’s sake, Tyranno!” Drey complained, pointing the camera at the surprise visitor. “How long you been standin’ there behind them beads gawkin?”
“Long enough.”
“Serves me right for not gettin’ that front door lock fixed. Who told you you could just pussyfoot in here uninvited?”
“Huh huh. Pussyfoot.”
I interrupted my attentions and twisted to face a black man in his mid-thirties, easily six feet tall with collar-length motherland braids and gold-rimmed glasses, staring at us with easy amusement. “Lucky you got yourself a good watchdog,” he said. Pepper continued his undifferentiated yapping in the background.
“Don’t you know they’s a law against trespassing?” Drey said, mild irritation creeping into her voice, although not to the level of exasperation. “And if you don’t, this here’s my lawyer, Mister Ricky Galeer, Esquire. I’ll let him explain it to you.”
Tyranno laughed out loud. “Your lawyer? Show me the lawyer won’t eat pussy I’ll take his clients away from him.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” I said.
“That’s why you ain’t got many clients. Hey, man, you be makin’ a house call or what?”
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