Heartbalm

by Malachi Stone

  “Here’s how,” she said before quaffing half of hers. “God, I love beer!”

  “I can see that. You know what they say: beer makes your boobs grow.”

  “Now he tells me.”

  We both drank, reading the water stains on the ceiling like tea leaves.

  “I remember when I was a little kid,” Heart said, “and my folks would have people over in the evenings and everybody would leave their coats on my parents’ bed? I’d always love to lie on those coats and sniff them, trying to remember which coat was whose. You ever do that?”

  “Every chance I got. Only my mother hardly ever had company over and when she did, the bed would be occupied.”

  “You must have had a shitty childhood.”

  “Compared to yours? Give me a break.”

  “I’m not complaining. All’s well that ends well, like the good book says.”

  “That’s Shakespeare.”

  “What?”

  “All’s well that ends well is Shakespeare.”

  “My second husband always said that Shakespeare wrote the Bible. The King James Version, anyway.”

  “It’s a theory.”

  I got up and fetched us two more beers. Heart clinked cans with me, said “Happy days,” and chugged hers without taking a breather.

  A motorcycle roared by on the street outside. Then another. “You think they arrested Snug yet?” Heart asked. “It’s a cinch they must have him locked up in the cooler by this time, right?”

  “I could call Grimm and find out.”

  More motorcycles, idling now, close by. The window panes rattled.

  “Maybe you should have parked the van in a less obtrusive spot.”

  “There you go again, swallowing the dictionary. Obtrusive. You should go on a quiz program, make some real money.” Talking over her panic.

  Angry voices mixed with the thunder of exhaust pipes. “Is there a back way out of this joint?” I asked Heart.

  “All there is is a back way.”

  We heard a stampede of boots coming up the staircase.

  “What about a fire escape?”

  “Got a rope ladder rolled up under the bed for emergencies.”

  “This qualifies.”

  “But I’m not dressed.”

  “Throw on your coat, Rapunzel. Time to climb down from your tower.”

  “I told you you should have fought that duel. Now we’re both in for it.”

  Something that sounded like a battering ram hit the apartment door. Heart whimpered but suppressed a scream.

  “They’ll have to catch us first,” I said.

  It would be raining. Only the retarded guy in the propeller hat marked our hasty descent into the street. Just as my feet touched the sidewalk I heard the door to Heart’s place give way. As if synchronized to that crash, lightning crackled across the sky followed by a deafening thunderclap.

  Heart’s car was still parked in the alley behind the office. We ducked down a gangway two doors east of the coffeehouse and then zigzagged for block after block of back alleys across the seamier side of the business district, crouching behind dumpsters along the way whenever we heard the sound of prowling choppers nearby, not daring to move again until we figured the coast was clear. At last we huddled together inside a shack for storing garbage cans behind a Mexican restaurant a block from my office, running off some cats in the process. The smell was bad but better than Heart’s apartment. We could barely see her car through the rain.

  “Give me your keys; I’ll make a break for your car,” I said.

  “Car keys’re back at my place, along with my purse and the rest of my clothes.”

  “Well that’s just great.”

  “All you told me to take was my coat.”

  “Just following orders, is that it? You seen your duty and you done it.”

  “Lost my head, I guess. Those motorcycle palookas had me scared stiff, Johnny. How’s a girl supposed to think?”

  I couldn’t stay mad at her. “You were aces back there, Toots,” I said, giving her a hug. “Aces.”

  “This is just like in a Hollywood picture, ain’t it, Johnny?” she said, cuddling closer. “Where the Nazis are chasing the hero and his girl all over the place? Time after time you figure they’re done for, but they keep giving those krauts the slip. Finally they put one over on the Nazis and capture the whole lot of them, and he runs out and joins up with the service while she waits for him on the home front. When the camera moves in for the big closeup on him and her kissing and the music comes up loud at the very end you just know once the war’s over they’re gonna live happily ever after.”

  “If you say so.”

  She kissed me hard on the mouth, then pulled back and grinned with excitement. “You ever hot-wire a car?”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Fine, I’ll do it. But first find me something in one of these cans we can use for a slim jim. The fucker’s locked.”

  I rummaged around until I found a thin strip of metal about two feet long. “How’s this?”

  “Like it was made for the job,” she said, bending it into shape.

  Barefoot and wearing only a trench coat and lingerie, Heart sprinted down the alley through sheets of rain toward her car. Mere moments later she had the driver’s side door open. Her head disappeared under the dash for a count of ten. The engine roared to life, the back-up lights lit. She jumped in and gunned it in reverse until her car was parallel with the garbage shack. She rolled down her window and said, “Taxi, Mister? I’m your girl.”

  “Where’d you ever learn to do that?” I asked once I was inside. Heart’s car was as junked up as her apartment; Taco Bell wrappers, MacDonald’s cups and beer cans were everywhere. Someone had peeled a hard-boiled egg and scattered the shell all over the dash.

  “Little Robin Red Breast, my first husband, taught me plenty.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “I never married a man so bad I couldn’t learn something from him.”

  “Pull up behind the office again.”

  “Won’t they be headed there, too? They’ll find us.”

  “It’s a chance we have to take. Maybe they’re afraid of rain.”

  Heart crossed a side street in second, pushed in the clutch and glided to a stop behind the office, throaty glass packs rumbling at idle.

  “Make it snappy, okay, Johnny? I don’t mind telling you this girl’s shaking in her boots.”

  I unlocked the back door and ducked inside out of the rain. All I wanted was the trust account checkbook. The funds in it were earmarked for unearned future fees and client costs, but this was an emergency. I grabbed a book of checks and a pen and locked up again. In minutes we were at the bank driveup. I sucked out all that I dared, including what was left of Howard Kuhn’s retainer; leaving a balance that couldn’t buy a Big Mac.

  “That’s one big bunch of lettuce you got there, Boss,” Heart remarked as we pulled away.

  “We’re going to need it where we’re going.”

  “Where are we going, Johnny?”

  “Somewhere there’s peace and quiet. Where I can think things over.”

  “Just the two of us? I like that. I like that a whole bunch.”

  “I thought you might.”

  “I know just the place.”

  “Really? Where?”

  “Sit back and leave the driving to me.”

  Heart drove flat out, heading east along Route 13, slowing down to around fifty as she passed through the towns along the way, until we wound up at Giant City Pines State Park. “They have these cute little fishing cabins right there on the lake, for tourists. I always thought one of those’d sure make a swell place for a honeymoon.”

  After checking out the accommodations, I paid at the bait shop for a week in advance. I tried my Blackberry but there weren’t any bars. We cruised into Marion, found a Walmart Super Center and bought Hamburger Helper and other assorted groceries, a Teflon frying pan, soap, shampoo, toothpaste, toothb
rushes, deodorant, disposable razors, toilet paper, mouthwash, a hair dryer, cosmetics, towels, washcloths, plastic sporks, paper plates, sheets, pillows, blankets, a Mag Lite, fireplace logs, underwear, shoes for Heart and a couple changes of clothes for each of us. There turned out to be so much shopping to be done in order to set up housekeeping from scratch that we separated for a time in the store, taking one cart apiece. Heart, in a fleeting moment of inspired domesticity, even picked out a red-and-white checked tablecloth. It all took nearly two hours. The tab came to over four hundred bucks. Howard Kuhn paid without any argument.

  Back at the cabin, we unloaded the trunk. Heart and I moved the car to an isolated lot in a nearby glade away from the cabin, parking it behind some trees where it couldn’t be seen from the road. After an impromptu makeout session like teenagers in the back seat, a session I never wanted to be over, we walked hand-in-hand the couple hundred paces back to the cabin.

  The law practice could go to hell. As far as Diane and the kids were concerned, I told myself other couples had gotten divorced before, and to all appearances were probably happier once things calmed down. Why should we be any different? I’d work out the details later. Right now I was alone with a beautiful woman, strolling along a path sheltered by a lofty bower of soaring pines, making our way back to our honeymoon cabin on the sandy shore of a secluded moonlit lake. It was only when we got closer that we saw the bikes parked. One was a panhead with SNUG lettered vertically on the back fender.

  “Oh. Shit,” I said under my breath.

  “That’s Snug’s bike,” Heart whispered.

  “What was your first clue?”

  “He’s got a couple of the Assassins with him. Looks like the baddest ones, too. What are we gonna do, Johnny?”

  “Change our plans, for one thing. Think we can make it back to the car without being spotted?”

  “Don’t count on it, maggot.” Snug emerged from the shadows, flanked by two oversize goons in full outlaw biker regalia, right down to their leather chaps, leather jackets and leather faces.

  “You’re a smart guy, Harold; don’t do anything stupid,” I said.

  “You’ve committed adultery with my wife. I demand satisfaction.”

  One of Snug’s biker bookends pulled what looked like a mini Glock on me, waved it toward the path we had just taken and ordered, “March.” The moon went under a cloud as we walked along, so that we could barely see each other, but I didn’t want to trust the darkness to shield me from a bullet. Other than the bottom of a cave, there is no dark like the woods at night.

  I looked to Snug and implored, “Why don’t you leave Heart out of this, Harold? Your grudge is with me, not her.”

  Snug stood and blocked my way, his face inches from mine. I could feel his spittle like a mist as he spoke through his rage. “She has to see first-hand the ultimate consequences of her betrayal. That the wages of sin is death. That—stop her! Stop the bitch!”

  Heart bolted for the woods, crashing through the underbrush like a deer. In moments the woods were silent and she was gone.

  “Fuck her,” Snug said. “She won’t get far. Me and you, we got us a duel to fight.”

  We continued on, winding up at the same parking area where we’d left the car. The biker with the mini Glock asked, “This here as good a place as any?”

  “It’ll work,” Snug grunted.

  I guess the silent biker was supposed to be my second. He held out two pistols in his hand. One was a large-caliber blue steel revolver; the other a chrome finish forty-five automatic that gleamed in the moonlight. Both looked huge, even in his enormous paws.

  “Choose your weapon,” he said in a deadly soft voice.

  “I’ve never used one of these before in my life, never even held one in my hand. I’m against guns and violence.”

  “Choose your weapon,” he repeated.

  I had heard somewhere that an automatic jams easily. I selected the revolver, then asked Snug, “This is nuts, Harold. Isn’t there any other way we can handle this? Any sensible way? I have four young children who love me, and a wife who doesn’t.”

  “You shoulda thought of that before you started in fucking my wife,” Snug said, I thought a tad self-righteously for a man who’d once had his fingers wrapped around my dick in the dark.

  I got mad. “All right, Harold, have it your way. You know what? Fuck you, Harold. Fuck you and the hog you rode in on.”

  The seconds positioned us back-to-back, just like in the movies. My head fit comfortably between Snug’s shoulder blades. My second advised us, “We’ll count off ten paces. At the count of ten, turn and fire. And may the best man win.”

  Both seconds stepped back. Mine counted aloud slowly as Snug and I paced it off. He made it to seven before I interrupted and said, “What about the no rabbit punches?

  “Huh?”

  “And the no hitting below the belt? I’m not one to complain, but I have to tell you, I feel just the slightest bit cheated here.”

  My second gave us the hand signal for time out like a basketball referee, approached and advised me confidentially, “I don’t think you’re treating this with the appropriate degree of seriousness, Mr. Galeer.” Suddenly I recognized him as a former client.

  “Rodney? Rodney… help me out here. I’m terrible with last names.”

  “Wisniewski,” he said. “You represented me on a shitload of traffic tickets a while back. Kept me my license.”

  “Right, right, I almost didn’t recognize you in that getup. How’s it going?”

  “About average. Dumped my ol’ lady and my job, got me a Harley and took to the open road.” He grinned and so did I; each of us had an eyetooth missing.

  “You what, heard Hungry Heart one too many times on the jukebox, Rodney?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You should have called me, man; I’d have cut you a break on the divorce.”

  “If you ladies are all done exchanging cake recipes,” Snug called out, “we’ll get on with the duel.”

  “Any last words of advice, Rodney?” I asked.

  “What the hell you two cunts whispering about?” Snug growled.

  I saw Rodney’s shoulders hunch at the insult, eyes narrow. “That hog leg you’re packing?” he muttered to me under his breath.

  “Yeah?”

  “Aim high and to the right.”

  The two seconds conferred briefly. Then Rodney said, “Gentlemen, resume your positions. We’re gonna restart the count. And this time, no interruptions.”

  There would be no split decisions here in this glade tonight. No technical knockouts. No neutral corners. Only two men—one blinded by pride, the other giddy with fear—dueling for their lives in the unforgiving moonlight.

  “One,” Rodney counted. “Two.”

  One, two, Snug lives in the zoo. Three, four, Snug’s mom’s a whore. Five, six, Snug’s a prick. Seven, eight, he masturbates. I called upon the same trick I always used walking into a courtroom: deep diaphragm breaths, exude absolute confidence, relaxed expression, shoulders back (even though my dislocated one still nagged like a bastard) and absolute disdain for the opponent. For the briefest of moments I pictured my opponent sitting on the toilet. The opponent is a contemptible pest, a species of vermin lower than a parasite. I am the exterminator hired to do a job, a job at which I am very, very good, and that job is to eliminate the opponent. I always win at my job. There is nothing personal in the way I do my job because the opponent is not a person. The opponent is an insect.

  “Three,” Rodney counted. “Four.”

  And at the same time everything tonight was personal. When the echoes of gunfire stilled, Heart would be mine. There could be no other outcome.

  “Five.”

  I visualized me spinning around at the count of ten, the revolver extended at arm’s length. I knew there would be pain in my shoulder but put it out of my mind, aiming through the pain, transforming the pain into lightning speed, making it work for me, squeezing the tri
gger with steady pressure but not jerking as I aimed the barrel at the center of the opponent’s kill zone. The kill zone glowed blood red in my mind.

  “Six.”

  The opponent was a target, no more. A big dull-witted slow-moving target, so I had the advantage. There was nothing to be afraid of, nothing at all. One clean shot and the job would be done. The threat would be removed once and for all. No taking under advisement. No motions to reconsider. No appeals.

  “Seven.”

  Dueling was now perfectly legal in Illinois. On that narrow point I had the considered opinion of an assistant state’s attorney specializing in homicide.

  “Eight.”

  And I hadn’t asked for this duel, had in fact done everything in my power to avoid it until my back was to the wall. This would be about as pure a case of self-defense to come down the pike since Burr drilled Hamilton on the field of honor.

  “Nine.”

  I willed strength into my legs, determination into my feet. I was a strange man/machine hybrid, the revolver one with my hand and arm, counting ahead by one in my mind, knowing at last which foot I would be standing on when Rodney called ten and the time came at last to spin around on the ball of that foot and stare death or dishonor in the face. And in that moment I refused to be humiliated. I refused to submit my irreplaceable countenance to the tearing, crashing insult of something vulgar as a bullet. No thank you, sir, take this instead. I knew there would be absolute heart-stopping silence in that split-second before I turned and fired, that I would pivot with the easy grace of a basketball player going for the buzzer-beating shot to win the state championship, that my bullet would find its mark and part the flesh of my enemy’s heart with a breathtaking swoosh as effortless as a basketball passing through the hoop and the net.

  “Ten.” The word uttered aloud, like a hypnotist’s command to awaken, stirred something out of the depths of me. All identity fell away like scales from my eyes. I was an automaton summoned to perform a simple task indeed: to fire a single bullet and strike a broad target.

  I spun like a ninja, aimed and fired high and to the right at Snug facing me in a marksman’s stance clutching the forty-five. His body jumped as he fired. The shot from his was impossibly loud, louder than mine, and seemed to echo from everywhere. Something whizzed like a bumblebee past my right ear.