“Boss, you’re outta your head.”
“Maybe it’s the rabies hitting my brain! That dog needs to be quarantined by animal control. Your restaurant is liable for permitting vicious dogs onto the premises where they can help themselves to your customers’ legs. I’m going after compensatory and punitive damages!”
“Fritzy’s had all his shots,” the woman said. “You’re perfectly safe; I should know, I’m an RN. And after all, it was only a playful little nip.”
“Nip this!”
“Oh, grow up! Fritzy is a well-bred dog, which is more than I can say for you!”
“Fuck Fritzy in the ass and fuck you, too!” I guess my last remark proved her point.
“Sir, you give me no other option,” Sparky behind the counter said. “I’m calling the police.”
“Call them! And nobody leaves this restaurant until they get here. I want a report made.”
“Goodness what a crybaby,” the woman with the dog muttered as she headed for the door. “What’s wrong with his mouth? He must have had his jaw wired from the last time he provoked a beating.”
“Hold it right there, lady! You and your mutt aren’t going anywhere!” I screamed. Maybe Heart was right: I was acting out of my head. On a sudden impulse I reached for my Blackberry. No signal. “I can’t even get any bars in this Podunk town,” I complained.
“Boss, calm down,” Heart warned, leaning close enough to whisper in my ear. “Can’t you see we’re the enemy here? What if they charge you with disorderly conduct, or even kidnapping? Do you think a crummy dog bite case in this backwoods county is worth your license? Remember, you’ve been in trouble before. Before this thing turns into a big rhubarb, walk away.”
“You mean limp away,” I said.
“Let’s go find us a nice out-of-the-way motel. I’ll run out and buy you some Bactine, adhesive tape and gauze.”
“Betadine solution is best,” the woman advised Heart. “The Walmart carries it. They’re right up the road.”
“Shove it right up your ass!”
“Boss, geez!”
The woman huffed and stalked out to her car.
“We’ll have you fixed up in no time, Boss. Believe you me, here’s one gal who knows how to make a fella forget his troubles.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - COULD WE AFFORD TO DO THIS?
“That’s two fights I’ve run away from so far today and it’s not even seven o’clock yet,” I said later at the motel, lying naked and spreadeagled on the double bed. The dog bite, now painted with mercurochrome and more than amply covered by a knee-sized Band-Aid with pictures of toy animals on it, turned out to be no bigger than a hickey, and while I was still worried it might turn into rabies, Heart had made good on her promise to help me forget. I rolled over onto my good shoulder, facing her.
“You’re a lover, not a fighter, dreamboat,” she said, sharing my pillow.
“You sure about that, Toots?”
“Ask the girl who knows.” She winked like a model in a billboard ad for tooth powder.
“So what do I tell Beattie tomorrow?”
“The truth I guess.”
“I always tend to overlook that option. Thanks for reminding me.”
“That’s why they pay me the big money. By the way, am I on overtime?”
“Time and a half.”
“Only fair. You’re a man and a half, Boss. Now why don’t you lie back and relax while I check out your boo boo?”
“Is that what they’re calling it now?”
It must have been hours later when I awoke to the splendid sight of Heart walking naked to the bathroom. The TV was tuned to a true crime show.
“Toots, you sure have a gorgeous chassis. Not to mention a beautiful set of gams.”
She turned and did some kind of Betty Grable thing, showing them off for me. “Thanks, Johnny. The things you do say. Why, if you’re not careful, you’re liable to turn this girl’s head.”
“Head. You took the word right out of my mouth. What are you, a mind-reader?”
“Silly.”
“And that caboose could land a man in the calaboose.”
“You say the sweetest things, Johnny. I love it when a man compliments my ass. Let me go tinkle and then we can talk about it some more, okay?”
“It’s a date.”
They put the bad guy away for fifty years. He hadn’t figured on the wonders of modern forensics. By the time Heart returned, the TV channel had gone to a talk-show format infomercial for pills that would double or triple the size of your Johnson, guaranteed. If it didn’t actually work, could they afford to do this?
Heart turned up the heat, climbed into bed beside me and pulled the covers over herself. “It’s such a yummy feeling, lying next to a man on clean cool sheets, completely nude.”
I shuddered. She touched my cheek and said, “What’s wrong, Boss? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
“Déjà vu, I guess.”
The warm weight of her breasts seemed to flow over my chest. “If this is what hiding out is like,” she sighed, “I hope the bulls never get their hands on Snug.”
“There are collateral benefits to elopement.”
“See, there you go again. Collateral benefits, geez. I never would have thought to say that. And is that what we’re doing, eloping? Don’t you think you should get divorced first?”
“Not so fast, Heart. What do you think we’d live on? I’m broke now. Statutory child support guidelines for four kids is forty per cent of my net.” A cold rush of revulsion coursed over me like a bucket of chilled spit. How could I even talk of losing my children in terms of dollars and cents? And my Diane!
“We’ll find the mazuma somehow, Johnny. Face it, we were meant to be together, you and me. We’re a matched set. A lawyer and his gal Friday. Perry Mason and Della Street. Bonnie and Clyde.”
“I have to admit, it’s starting to seem that way. Things appear to be moving pretty fast all of a sudden.”
“Oh, Johnny! Do you sense it too? God, I feel like I’m eighteen again.”
“For the first time in years, so do I.” Try decades.
“I feel so naughty inside, like little fluttery thrills starting in my tummy. And other places that will remain unmentioned. See, I’m even starting to talk like you.”
“Pygmalion reprised.”
“Pig something. Is this what it feels like to be a home wrecker?”
“You’re no home wrecker, Heart. My wife has turned lesbian on me. You ought to know: she turned you out. And now she’s turned me out—into the street. So don’t blame yourself. If you want to blame somebody, blame Diane.”
“I hate to think I was the one responsible for breaking you two guys up. But here I am. And here we are. Funny how things turn out, isn’t it?”
Minutes went by. We held each other. At last she said, “Do you think they’ll search Uncle Bo’s house after they arrest him?”
“I’d be amazed if they didn’t.”
“What do you think they’ll find?”
“Let me put it this way: Pastor Bobo the Christian clown will be making his balloon animals at Big Muddy for a long, long time.”
She started. “How did you know about that?”
“About what?”
“The Pastor Bobo thing. I know I never told you. The whole idea is hideous.”
“Beattie must have told me.”
“Beattie doesn’t know. It was my mother, wasn’t it?”
“Ruth may have let it slip in one of our conversations.”
“I can’t believe she would have confided that in you. Have you had many ‘conversations’ with my mother?”
“What are you driving at?”
“Maybe in her greenhouse of a studio? Did she take you back there for a little art appreciation tour? Big tits in the terrarium?”
“Heart, you’ve got me all wrong. You’re letting your imagination run away with you.”
“My mother is not what she seems.”
&nbs
p; “What do you mean?”
“She has unusual… passions for a woman her age.”
“Passions?”
“Passions about art, for instance. Ever since she retired from teaching, she’s had this… thing about art. Anything for art. The impassioned soul of the artist transcends conventional morality, that sort of hooey.”
“Hooey?”
“She needs to act her age. Her life’s all neatly compartmentalized. Two-faced, if you ask me. There’s the Kingdom Hall, playing the piano at vacation Bible school grandmotherly side of her, all prim and proper. Then there’s the other side of her: the passionate artist living in a garret, taking on life and all of its lusts without compromise.”
“I guess I never encountered that other side of her.”
“See that you don’t.” Heart did something that made my back arch. “Because if things work out the way I hope, she may wind up being somebody’s mother-in-law.”
We rolled into the guests’ lot at Dwight around ten AM. Heart waited in the van. I had to leave my Blackberry with her: it wouldn’t have made it through security. By ten forty-five they had me in a room with Beattie. She looked every bit as hot as last time.
“I’ve found out a few things,” I began. “Things I wanted to relate to you in person.”
“Tell me, Ricky. Everything I suspected is true, isn’t it?”
“I performed a surreptitious home study under a pretext. The first thing I noticed was that the child was not dressed seasonably and appeared to be left alone, often for extended periods of time with no one particularly concerned over her whereabouts.”
“That covers half the kiddoes in Illinois, Ricky. Cut to the chase.”
“All right.” I continued in report dictation mode. “I discovered that your Uncle Boaz, a known pedophile, was being given unquestioned and virtually unlimited access to all three children on an everyday basis. When I inspected what I assumed to be your daughter’s bathroom and opened the clothes hamper where she appeared to be in the habit of depositing her soiled underthings I was met with an overpowering odor of rancid semen.”
Beattie sucked in a sharp intake of breath. I went on. “Given the fact that I am informed and believe your mother as Little Eve’s primary caretaker does not sufficiently appreciate and in fact may be denying the ongoing sexual abuse of the child, I notified DCFS of my findings immediately.”
Beattie looked perturbed. “Why would you do such a thing? You’re not a mandatory reporter.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“You should have asked me first,” she said.
“Asked you first? But why?”
“I have to make a call. Excuse me.” She stood and pressed an intercom buzzer by the door. When at last a static rattle erupted from the tiny speaker she spoke into it, “We’re done here.”
“Beattie, what’s wrong?”
“I never should have given you carte blanche to investigate this matter. Please consider your file closed as far as Little Eve is concerned. I’ll handle it from here.”
“I hope you’re not intending to do anything drastic. Your sister told me she was worried you might.”
Beattie, who had been peering through the wire mesh, shifting her weight from one foot to another while she impatiently waited for a guard to escort her, spun and faced me, saying, “Did she?”
“Beattie, all I’m saying is don’t take matters into your own hands. Let the authorities handle it. They know what they’re doing.”
“Is that why I’m locked up in this dungeon? Because the authorities know what they’re doing? Forgive me, Ricky, but I must confess I find your unquestioning faith in the court system rather piquant, not to mention worrisome under the circumstances. I wonder if my mother has made a wise choice in the selection of an attorney to handle my appeal.”
“If not, she’s out a cool five hundred bucks,” I said.
She turned her back to me again. The Holstein sisters were good at that, although they both looked much better from the front. “Consider yourself discharged.”
Before I could ask her to sleep on it, the door opened and a matron appeared. Beattie walked out the door without another word.
“You should have run the heater now and then while you were parked here, Heart. Northern Illinois’s like Canada this time of year. It’s freezing in this van.”
“Sorry, Boss.”
“I’m only thinking of your comfort. I hope you didn’t get bored waiting.”
“It wasn’t much of a wait. How come you’re back so fast?”
“It doesn’t take all that long to get fired by your client. After years of experience I’m getting really good at it.”
“Beattie fired you? Why? Oh, by the way, here’s your Ameche.”
“My what?” Then I saw she was handing me back my Blackberry. I checked the dialed and received call logs while I considered her question. Both empty, although I make it a point never to delete anything.
“I really don’t know. Understandably enough, she seemed to become very upset when I told her about the semen smell in the clothes hamper. But it was when she found out I’d hotlined DCFS that she all at once decided my services were no longer required.”
“Go figure us dames, huh?”
“Go figure.”
“I’ve given up trying to understand how my sister’s mind works. Maybe all the time she’s spent on the inside has knocked her for a loop.”
“Maybe. I just hope she doesn’t do anything rash.”
“Like hire a hit man?”
“Or a hit woman,” I said. “Although, forgive me, it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”
“You hungry, Boss? I feel like I could eat a horse.”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact I am. Getting fired always gives me a hell of an appetite. It’s a wonder I’m not three hundred pounds by this point in my career.”
Heart drove us to the nearest truck stop and found a twenty-four hour pancake house where we ordered everything on the menu. We had the waitress leave the coffee pot. Over my third cup I told Heart about Tyranno’s attempted shakedown, leaving out the part about my ongoing thing with Drey, recasting her as a one-time indiscretion.
“There was this creepy character I meant to tell you about. He called while you were in there with Beattie, asking for ‘Mister Lawyer Ricky Galeer.’”
“That’s Tyranno.”
“I hate niggers getting smart,” Heart remarked as Toots. “Somebody oughta put that jig in his place. You’s to ask me, there’s one eggplant getting too big for his britches. Nobody makes a sucker outta you, Johnny.”
“Tyranno’s one more reason you might want to think twice about getting mixed up with a sap like me.”
“Say, you ain’t getting cold feet on me, are you, Johnny?”
“You got me all wrong, Toots. Why, every time you’re near, it feels like some wise guy just gimme a double hotfoot.”
“Aw, you’re the best, Johnny. I’m the kind of gal don’t mind carrying a torch for the right guy, but it sure is swell when he returns the favor. And quit worrying about money. We’ll live on the fruits of love. Long as you and that dirty skirt Drey are through. You are through, right?”
“I’m quits with her, Toots. On the level: me and that tomato are strictly past tense. Over and out.”
“That’s jake with me. And another thing, Johnny: this filly don’t pull double harness with no old gray mare.”
We drove as far as Fairview Heights when Heart pantomimed a yawn and stretch routine and said, “I can’t make it another mile, Johnny. Think they got a motel in this burg where the bedbugs don’t bite and the house dick minds his own beeswax?”
It was pushing three in the afternoon. “I know plenty of places,” I said, “but we’re only a few minutes from home. Or at least the house I used to call home. I don’t suppose you could put me up at your apartment for a few days until I can get things straightened out?”
“It’s a studio; we’d be on top of each oth
er all the time.”
“Won’t make me mad.”
Heart’s apartment was a walk-up downtown, over a coffeehouse in a three-block stretch of the business district that was trying for gentrification. In stark contrast to the office, the place was a disaster. Although it was nearly December, a swarm of flies buzzed and dive-bombed the huge slag heap of unwashed dishes in the sink. Mounds of dirty laundry filled every chair and covered the couch and coffee table, spilling onto the floor. The smell was a mixture of ripe sweat socks and spoiled milk. There was an open plastic container of dried-up ravioli with a fork still stuck in it on the kitchen table. Empty beer cans of eclectic brands had been stacked several stories high on her CPU where they resembled a pipe organ. When I dared venture closer to the sink I found maggots working like live rice in a Teflon saucepan balanced atop the dish mountain. Every corner of the ceiling was festooned with buntings of dust that seemed thick as Roman drapes.
“Cozy,” I said.
“It ain’t much but it suits me.”
“Think it’s about time I started earning my keep? I don’t mind a little pearl-diving for a good cause.” I rolled up my sleeves and started the water running in the kitchen sink. No sense embarrassing her any more than necessary, but those dishes were starting to make me gag.
“There’s other ways you can work off your room and board, Johnny.”
“When do you collect the rent around here?”
“What’s wrong with right now? Or as soon’s you can peel off your duds, stud.”
“How’s about a beer first? Got anything cold?”
“Always. Help yourself.”
I opened the fridge. On the lower shelf was an open case of Pabst Blue Ribbon. I pulled out two cans and opened them both. Heart had already stripped down to her underthings. She flopped backwards onto the clothes-strewn bed and accepted a brew from me. The mound of dirty laundry propped her up in a half-sitting position like a recliner. Pulling up my own comfortable pile of clothes I hunkered down beside her fully dressed; we clinked cans and drank.
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