“Bullshit,” Marlowe said, “they believe it and it scares the hell out of them.”
They laughed and toasted each other.
Deirdre said, “I hear you’re going down to San Diego with Chunky Chucky for the Weinstock products liability case. Have you ever been there?”
Chunky Chucky was Charles Bellman, the head of the Law & Motion Department. New to the firm and position, he had been head of the unit for six months. Chunky Chucky wasn’t a name they called him to his face. He wasn’t overweight enough for anyone to castigate his belt line, but he had a fat face that twisted into a scowl whenever he was displeased at a subordinate’s work product—which was almost all the time. Chucky was a rainmaker. His father-in-law, a deputy city attorney, directed business his way. It was enough to guarantee him a job as a section chief when he wasn’t capable of supervising the maintenance crew.
He was a bureaucratic swine, ruthless and arbitrary to anyone weak, and the only human being that Marlowe regularly prayed would fall under the wheels of the cable car he rode to work on every day down California Street.
“Never been to San Diego, and in answer to your unasked questions, yes, I will hate the place just because he will be there, and no, I’m not willing to sleep with Chucky to get transferred over to the trial unit.”
“He’s taking Eileen along, too.”
“Uh-huh, he’s a predator. He knows Eileen will fuck him just because he makes a show of authority.”
“Another Margo.”
Margo had been a new hire last year. She only lasted three months. After she worked on a case into the evening with a senior partner more than twice her age, he took her to dinner at the Mark Hopkins Hotel. After dinner, he took her by the hand and led her up to a room he had already rented and had sex with her. A couple weeks later, Margo tearfully told Marlowe and Deirdre the story of her “rape.” Both of them had listened openmouthed at the tale and offered no sympathy.
“You can’t rape a grown woman with a show of executive authority,” Marlowe told her. “You should have told him you were out of there when he started for the elevator.”
Not getting any sympathy, and angry at herself for letting her boss get into her pants, Margo quit and went back to St. Louis.
Part of Marlowe’s lack of sympathy was related to the fact that Margo had asked Marlowe where she had gone to school and had gaped when Marlowe rattled off a junior college and an unaccredited law school.
Marlowe said, “With Eileen, he’s playing with fire. She’s going through a divorce and she’s emotionally distraught and vulnerable. She’s liable to freak out and run down the hallways at work screaming that Chucky’s just a little prick.”
“And a premature ejaculator!” Deirdre howled.
* * *
SAN DIEGO WAS A nightmare. The firm equipped a satellite office at the Desert Princess Hotel near the courthouse to support the products liability trial. Desks and chairs, cases of lawbooks, IBM Selectric typewriters, secretaries, the whole nine yards were there along with Marlowe and Chunky Chucky. Eileen had taken ill with the flu and didn’t make it. That left Marlowe having to work side by side with Chucky.
“Someday we’ll have business computers as small as travel trunks that will be able to hold dozens of lawbooks,” Chucky told her confidently over dinner.
Marlowe smothered a yawn. She personally didn’t think a computer was something mobile, and couldn’t care less—who could improve upon books and the IBM Selectric?
They had been in town three days and it was the first evening she had to share alone with her boss. The other dinners had been business sessions with the trial attorneys. The case had been settled and they’d be packing up and returning to Frisco in the morning. Marlowe told herself she could stand being alone with Chucky for at least another twenty or thirty minutes before she ran screaming from the hotel’s lounge. She had thought she’d be a free woman once dinner was over, but he steered her toward the lounge as soon as they walked out of the adjoining restaurant.
She had to keep reminding herself that he was her boss, and that she now had a condo and a car to support. She ordered a soda and went into a catatonic state, staring at him with glazed-over eyes as he popped down Jack Daniel’s on the rocks and told her the utterly boring details of his life. The only saving grace was that the lounge was dark and they were in the dimmest corner, making it unnecessary for her to cringe when people saw her with a man she considered a total loser.
She was tapping the table with the long wooden spear that had pronged the cherry that came with her soda, her mind a million miles away, when she realized that he had changed the subject to career opportunities for her at the firm—and that his hand was up her skirt. It was a hot day and she had shed her panty hose before dinner.
He leaned against her and blew whiskey breath against her neck. “Let’s fuck.”
She sat perfectly still. Her mind and body were frozen, but she smelled the bad breath he was panting on her and felt the finger that was trying to violate her.
She reacted without thinking, jabbing at his face with the cocktail stick. It caught him in his right nostril. He yelped and grabbed his nose.
He shook with rage as he stopped the bleeding from his nose with a napkin. “You’re fired, you fucking bitch.”
She was ready for him. “No, I’m not finished, you are. I’m calling the police and having you arrested for rape, then I’m calling your wife and telling her you raped me, then I’m calling your father-in-law. You slimy bastard, you’ll be out on the street and selling your ass to chicken hawks in the Tenderloin when I get through with you.”
* * *
CHUCKY ARRANGED HER TRANSFER to the trial section immediately upon their return to San Francisco.
Marlowe prided herself on the fact that she had not blackmailed him to get the transfer. That would have been unethical, she told herself. However, after tears and pleading on his part, she decided she wouldn’t push the matter, rationalizing that she was protecting his wife and kids from his indiscretions.
Back in her condo in the city, she asked herself if it was really right for her to benefit from the incident, whether the world would have been better off had she had him arrested. She decided that, one, it would be a cold day in hell before he ever tried anything with another woman; two, she really did feel sorry for his family; and three, it was a tough world, no one was cutting her any slack, she had to fight for everything she got and had to work twice as hard as everyone else because they all seemed to have the right family or good fortune to have things come easier than they came to her.
She believed in an-eye-for-an-eye justice, that if you lived by the sword, you had to be prepared to die by the sword.
Chucky was just lucky she took the transfer and didn’t cut off his dick.
29
“Boring, boring, boring,” Marlowe told Deidre. “I’ve been in Trials for three months and all I’ve done is carry the briefcase for those bastards.”
She and Deidre were in their favorite watering hole again, the Albatross, the neighborhood body exchange. “Those bastards” were the four senior lawyers in the unit.
“Do you know James Stapp, the blond, good-looking guy with the cute southern accent? He’s two years older than me and he’s been in Trials for four years and has never done a trial. Can you imagine? Four years and has never done a trial. He’s only appeared as second chair in small cases and third chair in big cases and he never gets to open his mouth in any case. He has to wait for one of those bastards to die before he’ll get a chance to stand up and clear his throat and say ‘Your Honor—’” Marlowe emphasized the last two words in a southern accent.
“Stop it, you’re killing me,” Deirdre moaned. She was laughing so hard she spilled her drink.
“Look at all this talent going to waste,” Marlowe said. “I’m at least a hundred and thirty pounds of dynamic lawyer and my talents are being employed to gofer for fossils who probably went to law school with Lincoln.”
“Irrelevant, immaterial, inadmissible hearsay. Here’s the bottom line: My basic legal education is that I’ve read fifty-two Perry Mason books. I’m best qualified to represent beautiful people who murder their millionaire spouses and come into my office and lay the smoking gun on my desk when they hire me. I can’t get up a passion when Big Corporation A sues Big Corporation B because B is selling widgets that resemble those made by A. Do you know that some idiot in the office has suggested we all wear T-shirts around the office that say BORN TO BILL?”
“That was my suggestion.”
“I rest my case.”
They were silent for a moment, then Deirdre said, “Look, you’ll never be satisfied until you’re your own boss. You should become a sole practitioner before you bitch yourself to death.”
“Three terrible mistakes keep me from hanging up my own shingle. I don’t have parents who would support me while I get a practice going, I don’t have a man to support me while I get a practice going, and I already have an overhead to support. It’s the trap a steady job snarls you in. A steady paycheck lets you buy things on time, get a cool apartment in the Marina, buy that cute little Mustang convertible I can’t live without.”
“You’re right, we’re trapped because we’ve reached a comfort zone.”
As they chatted, Marlowe noticed a young man about her age across the bar. He was interesting on several counts, not the least of which was that he was a new face rather than the same old, same old that came to the place. But she liked everything about him, including the casual, rugged way he dressed in a city where suits and ties were the uniforms of almost any day—khaki pants, a brown leather aviator jacket that had come into vogue, tough hiking boots, plus he was over six feet. His light brown hair complemented light blue eyes, his tush was round and firm, with more shape than most men had.
“Good God, I’m in love.”
Deirdre gave him the once-over. “I wouldn’t kick him out of bed.”
“You’re never going to get the chance,” Marlowe said. She sat her drink on the bar and went across the room. “Hello.”
The man with the aviator jacket grinned at her. “Hi.”
“My name is Rockefeller,” Marlowe said. “I’ve got so much money, I can’t spend it all. I’m looking for a man to amuse me. The right man will find himself the possessor of wealth and erotic pleasure beyond anything he ever imagined.”
“My kind of woman,” he said. “Rich, beautiful, totally immoral. Would you like to go someplace quiet and romantic where we can get together for five minutes and learn each other’s names before we make love?”
“Sure, but just one thing,” Marlowe said with a straight face. “My chauffeur drove away with my purse. Can you pay my bar tab?”
He patted his pockets. “Funny thing, but my valet forgot to give me my wallet. I’m afraid you’re going to have to pick up the tab or we’ll both be washing beer glasses.”
She picked up the tab. It would become a habit.
30
She married Barry Park two weeks later on impulse when they were in South Lake Tahoe gambling.
She hadn’t realized how lonely she had been. She had no family to fall back onto and had few friends. Other than casual dates and occasional short-lived love affairs, she had no serious entanglements with men. Barry brought light into her life, filled the voids.
She soon came to realize that she and Barry barely knew each other. They had an intense, almost violently sexual attraction. But they were strangers who had to get to know each other. Their compatibility was entirely in the bedroom.
Barry had rugged good looks, prime-time TV if not movie-star quality. But the genetic lottery that gave him good looks wasn’t backed up by the mental qualities of a winner. Barry managed to step into it in almost every aspect of life, but never getting close to succeeding. He got through three years of college, but never went back for the final year and a degree. His doting mother, who was successful herself as an entrepreneur of a small business producing high-end baby clothes, paid for his expensive business school program despite his lackluster college record. He failed to complete that also.
When Marlowe met him, he was working for a Financial District brokerage firm. Good stockbrokers made big money and he boasted he was the best. He certainly looked the part, expensive clothes and cherry-red Corvette convertible, but she discovered the morning after the impromptu wedding that she had to cover his overdrawn checking account and that he was behind in his bills.
His doting mother, whom he had bled for money on a regular basis, was having health and financial problems and was only too happy to turn management of her son over to his new wife. Marlowe paid his back rent and he moved into her Marina condo.
Something had happened at work during their first month together, she wasn’t sure what because he wouldn’t discuss it with her.
She also discovered that he had a short fuse.
It happened when she suggested they drive over to Sausalito for dinner. Coming down the hill from Highway 101, Barry got angry when a driver behind him honked his horn as Barry came to an almost dead stop on the roadway to point out a house he said he’d like to buy someday. The house was worth more than what she and Barry would earn over the next twenty years, but it was nice wishful thinking.
Marlowe was stunned when Barry slammed on the brakes, nearly causing the other car to rear-end them. He got out of the car and confronted the other driver, grabbing the middle-aged man by the throat.
“Don’t fuck with me, asshole.”
Marlowe half stood in the convertible Corvette. “Barry! Barry, for God’s sake, stop it!”
He came back to the car and they left the scene burning rubber. He was still fuming when they came into town a few minutes later at twice the speed limit. “Slow down, Barry, you’re going to get a ticket.”
They pulled into the wharfside restaurant and turned over the car to the valet parker. They hadn’t spoken about the incident. “There’s not a scratch on the car,” Barry told the parking attendant. “Bring it back that way.”
She grabbed his arm and pulled him aside before they entered. “What happened back there?”
“That prick got on my ass.”
“It was just a guy honking his horn because you almost came to a stop on the road.”
“It’s my fuckin’ fault? Some asshole wants to push me around? Fuck you, lady!”
He stomped off. She called his name and stared at his retreating back. She was leaning on a railing, staring at the Golden Gate Bridge, when he came back.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He gave her a hug. “I’ve been told I’ve got an anger management problem.”
Anger management? Back in Modesto, they would have said he was a bully with a bad temper. That’s what bothered her the most. Her father was a bully. Her brother had suffered under the blows of bullies. Had the man he grabbed been a husky young guy, Marlowe would not have been as disturbed.
She didn’t know what to do. She loved him. He fulfilled a need in her life for family. She was already thinking of babies and a house in the suburbs. But she realized she hardly knew him, that she knew her neighbors and co-workers better than her husband.
A week later she witnessed his anger again. He hit a man in the stomach in an argument over a parking space. The man had pulled a small sports car into a parking space as Barry pulled forward and stopped to back into the space.
They left fast, tires screeching again.
“Why did you do that?”
“I was right, fuckin’ right, don’t fuck with me!”
He was going so fast he almost hit a woman stepping off a curb.
“Slow down!”
She leaned over in her seat and held her head in her hands.
He reached over and grabbed her by the back of her neck, squeezing hard. “I was right, that parking space was ours!”
“Take your fuckin’ hands off
me!” He pulled to the curb and they stared at each other, breathless.
“I’m sorry, Jesus, I’m really sorry.” He started to sob and beat his head against the steering wheel.
Marlowe collapsed in her seat, her heart racing. “I’m sorry, too.”
“You’re sorry you married me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I heard it in your voice.”
She sighed and closed her eyes. “Can we go home? I think I need to throw up and go to bed.”
Later, in bed, they made love. For the first time she faked both the desire and her orgasm.
Propped up on a pillow, Marlowe said, “That man may have gotten your license number and called the police.”
“Don’t worry, that’s why I gave him a plex shot.”
“A what?”
“I punched him in the solar plexus. When you hit ’em right in the pit of stomach, it’s a crippling blow but there’s no bruising, they can’t prove it.”
“I’ll have to remember that next time I beat up someone. Why did you hit him?”
He shrugged. “I saw red. He took our parking space.”
“But you can’t go through life hitting people who do things you don’t like.”
“Why don’t you give the other guy the lecture? I don’t need it or deserve it.”
* * *
“I MARRIED A STRANGER,” Marlowe told Deirdre.
“Get a divorce. They’re easy now, no fault.”
“I can’t. It’s crazy, but I love him, I really do. Like in the movies, the first time I saw him, bells rang and music played.”
“What you heard was the margaritas you drank gurgling between your ears. Get a divorce. It’s all just an accounting for the property split now, no emotions involved. And you two haven’t really gathered any assets together.”
It was more complicated than Deirdre’s simple math. She not only loved him, but she felt a need to care for him, to work out his anger problems and the problems that were growing with him. It was the same thing with her brother. She loved him and wanted to protect him. But she didn’t want to end up like her mother, a frightened, bullied woman.
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