Heartbalm

by Malachi Stone

  Snug stood there for a moment wearing an expression as though somebody’d snapped his picture before he was ready. He pitched forward like Goliath and lay still.

  The woods were deadly quiet. Rodney spoke first. “Anybody got a shovel?”

  “I thought the Assassins threw a Viking funeral for the loser in one of these,” I said, giddy like any man who has just dodged a bullet and lived to tell about it.

  “Where’d you hear that bullshit?” Rodney said. “Without no shovels, all’s we’re fixin’ to do is drag this piece a shit into the woods and toss him in a ravine somewheres. Raccoons’ll do the rest.”

  “I thought he was your leader.”

  “Leader, shit,” Rodney said. “This pussy-whipped motherfucker single-handedly brought the cops down on all of our asses, what with his bustin’ into your office twice and tearin’ it up, kicking your ass and shit, and over nothing more’n a pair a big tits. I like tits as well as the next guy, but goddamn! They ain’t nothing more than mostly skin and adipose tissue, along with some lymph nodes, glandular structures and that.”

  “I didn’t know you’d studied anatomy and physiology, Rodney.”

  “Back when I was goin’ for my EMT certificate.” He looked around nervously. “I tell you what, Mr. Galeer, you better get the hell out of here in case somebody heard the shots. Me and him, we’ll take care a business at this end. We’ll ditch him and his bike.”

  “Say, let me ask you something, Rodney: did anybody else ever fight a duel over Heart Robbins?”

  “That’s another story for another day. Ask me over a couple of brews some time, pardner. For now, you better vamoose.”

  I extended my hand. “Thanks, Rodney.”

  He went for my left hand instead, clasping it in some kind of biker handshake. “What for?”

  “For all that happened here.”

  “Nothing happened here. Matter of fact, none of us ever been here. Me and him been over to Pinckneyville all night doin’ a little drinkin’ and woman chasin’. Maybe you oughta think about doing the same.”

  “Got me a woman in mind already,” I said, “a little closer by. Think I’ll see about chasing her down instead.”

  “The women they got over to Pinckneyville, you don’t never have to stare down no bullet to get what you want.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Rodney: I’m bulletproof.”

  “Seriously. She worth getting killed over?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  He shot me a look that said some guys never learn. Then each one grabbed a leg, hunched forward and began dragging Snug’s body toward the cover of the woods. Snug’s arms trailed behind, as though in a final gesture of surrender.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN - WHO’S COMPLAINING?

  I turned and headed back. Keyed up when I started, by the time I came within sight of the cabin my legs were heavy and I felt numb all over with something I couldn’t identify or understand. Snug’s bike stood outside like a riderless mount.

  The lights were on, although I was sure we’d turned them off when we left to hide Heart’s car. This time of year, none of the other cabins were occupied. It was as though we had the entire park all to ourselves. I opened the door to find Heart building a fire in the hearth. She ran to my arms and threw hers around me, hugging me tight and forcing a kiss as hard as a punch against my wired-together teeth.

  “Oh, Johnny, I knew you could do it! My dough was on you the whole time! I knew you’d win!”

  I pulled away and regarded her. Her eyes were wild with excitement, her lips parted in an eager smile.

  “Win? Is that what you’d call it?”

  “You killed him, Johnny. You killed him fair and square.”

  I reached over and set the latch to the cabin door. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Oh, but you gotta talk about it, Johnny. Who else can you talk about it with, other than me? Why, as soon as I broke away from those mugs I went scooting straight back here to wait for you. The whole entire time it was going on I was waiting here for you, waiting and praying, knowing before long you’d be walking right through that door and we’d be free of Snug at last. You killed him, Johnny. You killed him so we could be together.”

  “I don’t ever want to talk about this again, see? Talk is what gets everybody in trouble. The penitentiaries are full of talkers who talked their way inside, guys who didn’t know when to shut up. I figure if we keep from talking about this long enough, maybe after enough time goes by we can start to believe it never really happened in the first place.”

  “That sounds screwy, Johnny. One hundred per cent nerts, you ask me.”

  “Maybe I am nuts. Maybe you and me and whatever the hell we’re doing here is nuts. Maybe I’m back at the Santa Claus parade and got hit in the head and knocked colder than a mackerel and dreamed up the whole works.”

  “I don’t know as I like the sound of that, Johnny. It’s like now that you’ve won me for yourself, all of a sudden you don’t want me anymore.”

  I stared at my right hand, flexed and extended my thumb and then my trigger finger. Here is thumbkin, here is trigger man. Heart took my hand in hers and caressed it against her cheek, kissing my index finger before taking it into her mouth and sucking on it, peeking upwards into my face and batting her eyelashes. I heard two choppers outside gun to life, then roar away into the distance, heading west.

  We lay in the lumpy bed embracing in the flickering light of the dying fire. I heard the chattering scold and snarl of the raccoons outside. Heart had thrown out some leftovers for them. Once those leftovers were gone, how long would it take the raccoons to find other tasty treats? A nose, fingertips perhaps, still warm and fresh out there in the dark? Would an eye be all that tricky a prize to extract? Would they wash the eyeball in a nearby brook before eating it whole?

  Heart stirred. “Gotta use the little girls’ room,” she whispered. The low fire could no longer take away the chill. “Johnny, be a doll and throw on another log, would you?”

  The sway of her ass was a thing of beauty. I thought of Drey. So much had happened in so short a span of time. “I love watching you go to the bathroom,” I said.

  “Beattie was the one who taught me how men like to watch. I thought Ma would have a fit the first time she saw that video. I mean, who’d ever guess the kinds of things you men like to look at? If the shoe was on the other foot, none of us gals would give two cents to see some guy drain his radiator for the camera.”

  “What do you mean, the first time?”

  “Huh?”

  “You said the first time your mother saw that video of Beattie peeing. She told me she’d only seen it that one time in open court.”

  “Darlin’, I’d love to stay and chat, but this gal’s gotta go.” She was gone for five minutes. I got up, poked the fire and placed another log in the grate, then went back to bed. When she returned she slipped under the sheets to join me, saying nothing.

  “So what did you mean?” I asked.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “About the first time?”

  “Doll face, I don’t know what you’re driving at. My big sister peed for the cameras. My mother saw it in court and went batty. Case closed. You told me you never looked at the video. Were you lying to me?”

  “What if I was?”

  “Then I’d think it was a stupid thing to have an argument over.”

  “You’d be right,” I said. “What say we quit talking about your family and make love again?”

  “Now you’re cooking with gas.”

  Hours later, when the fire had burned down to embers once more, I nuzzled her awake. “It’s all right if your mother saw the video before, Heart.”

  “Oh, jeepers creepers! That again!” She sat up, exasperated. “What is this bug you seem to have about my mother? Don’t tell me you’re getting the hots for her!”

  “It’s what you said about her being two-faced. If there’s a side of her, the artistic side, that’s not shocked by anything, a
side of her that celebrates every defiance of conventional morality, then why is she so affronted by that one video? It’s a natural function, right, going to the bathroom?”

  “Yes, Johnny, going to the bathroom is a natural function. I’ll make it unanimous. Now that we agree on that, can we get some sleep?”

  But I couldn’t let it alone. “When did Ruth find out about Russell R. Russell’s little porno business?”

  “When they were arrested I guess. Why?”

  “No reason.”

  “G’wan, Johnny; forget about her. My mother is the biggest phony anybody ever met. And my sister is worse. C’mere and warm me up under the covers instead. You’re my hero; don’t you know that by now?”

  “Funny, I don’t feel like a hero.”

  “Are you kidding? You sounded just like Bob Hope out there, telling that guy how you felt cheated.”

  “What?”

  “You know, pulling their leg about how you felt cheated from not hearing about the rabbit punches.”

  “I thought you were back here waiting for me the whole time. That’s what you said.”

  “I was. I mean, after the duel really got started and they did a second count—”

  “Second count? You saw the whole thing from the woods, didn’t you? Why did you lie to me?”

  “Aw, Johnny, don’t get sore. I thought you’d worry is all, you being a lawyer, knowing about how I was an eyewitness to you killing a guy in cold blood. But you know what, Johnny? You haven’t got a thing to worry about, so relax. All your secrets are safe with me. This gal knows how to keep her mouth shut. My lips are sealed.”

  With the tip of my trigger finger I traced little circles around the nearer of her nipples. “Clockwise,” she sighed.

  “Is that how it’s done?”

  “Depends. My second husband always went counterclockwise. Said he was trying to turn back the hands of time. I guess the age thing bothered him.”

  “Does the age thing bother you? I mean, my age?”

  “Since you’re asking about age, you want to hear something?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Ever since you plugged that guy you’ve been like a stallion in bed. You’ve always been big down there since the time I’ve known you, but after the duel? You’re huge! Kinda scary huge, now that I think about it. But hey, who’s complaining?”

  I reversed direction, traded nipples and asked, “Why did you want to know whether they’d search Uncle Boaz’s house?”

  She recoiled and said, “Ick! You sure know how to queer a romantic mood, you know that?”

  “Sorry. I was just curious.”

  “All I meant was, a pervert like that probably has all kinds of weird stuff stashed away. Stuff that might go back years and years.”

  For a long time I debated asking, then went ahead. “Did your uncle ever photograph you and Beattie, Heart?”

  She stiffened like I’d just informed her my pet rattlesnake was sharing the bed with us. “Cocksucker fucking asshole to ask me that,” she spat.

  “Forget about it, Heart. Forget I said anything. Please.”

  “Please? As long as you ask me nicely, we consider the subject closed, is that it? Fucker!” She sprang out of bed and began getting dressed in the cold gray light of dawn.

  “I had no idea, Heart. I am so sorry. Forgive me for asking. Come back to bed, my poor darling.”

  Standing with her back to me, her hands shook with rage.

  “C’mon, Toots; it’s cold out there. Toasty warm here in bed, though. Whaddaya say?”

  The shaking subsided; Heart half-turned. A smile spread across her face like morning.

  “You’re a right guy, Johnny. How’s a gal supposed to stay sore at ya, anyhoo?”

  Even though we had provisioned the cabin with food for a week, the next morning I treated Heart to breakfast at the park lodge, where she ordered a la carte and ate like a lumberjack. After breakfast while Heart freshened up in the ladies’ room I borrowed the desk phone and called the office. Nothing at all from Diane, but other messages were piling up already: Howard Kuhn, two from Ruth Holstein, Lieutenant Grimm, three creditors, a horny sigh from either Drey or Tyranno, a couple of telemarketers, and a recording asking if I would accept a collect call from a correctional institution. The recording allowed only about a half-second interval for the name of the caller to be spoken. I had to play the message twice to make out the name before I erased it.

  Russell.

  I knew of only one Russell who fit the bill: Russell R. Russell, doing forty-five years in Menard Penitentiary outside of Chester, Illinois.

  Curiosity is a funny thing. Or maybe I was acquiring a taste for visiting penitentiaries. During the advent fast one’s thoughts naturally incline to visiting captive souls in prison. I asked the desk clerk for an area-wide telephone directory, a pen and paper. Hoping Russell would have had the foresight to include me as one of his lawyers on his visitors list, I wrote out a note on hotel stationary asking them to schedule me an urgent attorney visit with my client Russell R. Russell at one PM that afternoon—right after chow—then called Menard to confirm, and for Russell’s inmate number and the warden’s fax number.

  It cost twelve dollars to fax that one page. Howard Kuhn paid.

  “Miss me, Dreamboat?” Heart cooed behind me, slipping her arms around my waist.

  “Does Gable miss Lombard? What took you so long, Toots?”

  “Wanted to look my best for my lover man.”

  “You always look like a million bucks, Toots. Trouble is, I have to go in to the office for a while, take care of business.”

  “I’ll drive you.”

  “Nix on that. What with this duel thing, I think it’d be better if nobody spots us together for a while.”

  “The Assassins’ll keep their yaps shut. You heard Rodney: as far as Snug is concerned they’re calling it good riddance.”

  “Even so, I don’t want to get you mixed up in any jams. I’d die if anything ever happened to you, Toots. Relax; I’ll be back by the cocktail hour. So instead of driving all that way, how’s about you make like Betty Crocker and fix us a nice dinner?”

  “I’ll cook us up a batch of Hamburger Helper that’ll melt in your mouth, Johnny.”

  Heart drove us back to our cabin, where Snug’s bike—the riderless horse, last evidence that Snug had ever been there—was still parked nearby. Probably Rodney couldn’t catch a ride back from Pinckneyville after last call.

  Heart showed me how to touch the right two wires of her Trans Am together and activate the starter. Leaving the motor running for me, she sent me off with a kiss that made my head reel halfway to Pinckneyville. I kept it under the limit and still managed to arrive at Menard fifteen minutes early. Judge Mudge would have called it “the politeness of kings.”

  Menard penitentiary is a truly scary place even from a distance. Built on a limestone bluff overlooking the river like a medieval fortress, the maximum–security stone edifice looms as one approaches. Whoever said ‘stone walls do not a prison make’ never set eyes on Menard. Unlike other correctional facilities, there is no pretense at Menard that they are running a college dormitory or a fraternity house. This is the hard-core prison of your nightmares where the walls sweat cold blood.

  First you wait. Then, when they are damn good and ready, you undergo tough security, pass through a keystone hell-gate right out of Dante to enter the bullpen, and stick very, very close to the guard as he leads you down a long passageway to the interrogation room, a dank, dark confessional built into the wall like an alcove. Then you wait some more.

  The first thing I noticed about Russell R. Russell was that he was missing an eyetooth. He didn’t smile; rather, he was one of those guys who goes around with his mouth perpetually half-open. But when he spoke, other than for a slight whistle or slur now and then, it was the same speaking voice as the one behind the camera on the pissing video.

  “You Beattie’s lawyer?”

  I was reluctant to tou
ch him but extended my hand anyway. “Ricky Galeer, Mr. Russell. How they treating you in here?”

  “Can’t say much for their dental care, know what I mean? A fresh-faced young guy like me comes in, with a kiddie porn jacket no less, and what do these assholes do? Steer me right into general pop. It wasn’t two hours later some Aryan Nation enforcers rolled out the welcome wagon and knocked out my front tooth while I’m standing in the chow line. It was a perfectly good tooth, too. Some cocksucker’s wearing it around his neck like an elk’s tooth as we speak.”

  “Must have been tough.”

  “Oh, it was enough to ruin the entire fine dining experience.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “I had to scream like a woman for them to put me in protective custody.”

  “That had to’ve been hard on a macho guy like you.”

  “Yeah, funny.”

  “They tell me I’m a funny guy.”

  “The Aryans put the word out, funny guy: first asshole to gouge out one of my eyes wins a prize.”

  “Really? What’s the prize?”

  “People are right. You are a funny guy. Careful, I might split my sides laughing.”

  “Pretty scary stuff.”

  “Scary? I don’t know about you, but I’ve kinda gotten accustomed to binocular vision over the years. Not to mention its usefulness to me as a filmmaker. I’m about half-sick of Caucasians. These Aryan bastards are making a racist out of me. I’m ready to join up with the niggers. What do you think?”

  “I think you better stay right where you’re at until they transfer you to Big Muddy with the rest of the perverts.”

  “Nice talk from my lawyer.”

  “I’m not your lawyer.”

  “Yeah, but you’re representing Beattie, right?”

  “No comment.”

  “No comment? You’re a tight-lipped motherfucker, I’ll say that for you. I like that in a lawyer. You’re so close-mouthed you even talk like your jaw’s wired shut.”