“Uh-huh.”
“I am!”
She grinned. “If you say so.”
“Anyway, it’s none of my business. Just try to stay out of trouble.”
“Don’t worry about me, Ben. I can take care of myself.” She headed toward the door. “Have fun with the cat. And happy birthday.”
The second Christina left the office, Giselle began to mewl.
“Calm down,” Ben said. “It looks like you’re stuck with me. At least for a little while.” He stared deeply into Giselle’s marble green eyes. “I wonder if you would be any good at hunting chickens?”
4
CHRISTINA SHOVED ANOTHER BOX of documents onto the top shelf. If Reynolds didn’t insist on requesting every document generated during the last ten years by each of his adversaries in every case he had, there might actually be some wall space available for a poster—maybe even a photo or two. Instead, she was stuck with an office that looked more like a government storage depot. No windows, and temporary shelving lining all four walls. Oh, well, what did she expect, being a lowly legal assistant? She was permitted to save Reynolds’s butt on a daily basis, but a decent office would be entirely out of the question.
She hoisted the last box of documents onto the shelf. There. Once she had Lombardi’s signature on the dotted line, the Simmons case would be officially retired.
The after-hours receptionist, Candice, appeared in Christina’s doorway. “Message for you.”
“Thanks.” Christina took the pink message slip. It was from Tony Lombardi: Sorry—Emergency business meeting—A thousand apologies—How about meeting me at my apartment?—I may be late—Help yourself to a drink. His address was written at the bottom.
Hmmph. Well, at least he wasn’t standing her up. Not exactly. The address was about fifteen miles outside Tulsa, but she knew how to get there. It seemed a bit forward—inviting her to his apartment—but it would probably save time. Heck, she was a modern, liberated woman; she could meet him anywhere she wanted. Even if her mother wouldn’t approve.
She crumpled the message and tossed it into the trash can. You’re being silly, she told herself. She grabbed her briefcase and left the office. I’ll just do as he asks. After all, why shouldn’t I? No harm in that.
Ben parked his Accord close to the corner, beneath the street lamp. It meant he would have to walk half the block to reach his rooming house, but it somewhat increased the chances that his tires would still be there in the morning.
He grabbed a large bag of groceries and cat food. After depositing Giselle in his room, he’d made a run to Petty’s for supplies. Gourmet cat food—that was the stupidest Madison Avenue marketing ploy he’d heard of yet. He’d bought an assortment of reasonably priced cat foods. Giselle would just have to learn to like one of them—that was all there was to it.
He headed toward his house, past a row of faded yellow brick buildings, most of them dating back to WWII. Nothing ever seemed to change on the North Side.
The Singleton twins, Joni and Jami, were sitting on the steps outside, talking to two Hispanic boys wearing tight white T-shirts. Imagine—twins named Singleton. Ben had tried to discuss it with them once, but they didn’t seem to grasp the irony.
“Hey, Benjamin,” Joni said, fluffing her curly brown locks. “How go the wars?”
“Oh, about the same.”
“Get any of my friends out of prison today?”
“Not yet,” Ben replied, “but the day isn’t over.”
“True.”
“Hey, Benjamin,” Jami said, as he passed by. “I don’t want to catch you sneaking any women into your place tonight, understand?” All four of them laughed uproariously.
“All right,” Ben said, trying to be a good sport. “I promise not to let you catch me.” He opened the torn screen door and stepped into the building.
There were only four rooms in the house. Mrs. Marmelstein, the landlady, took one ground floor flat, and Mr. Perry, whom Ben had never met, took the other. Ben had one of the upstairs flats; the Singleton twins and the rest of their family had the other.
Ben knocked on Mrs. Marmelstein’s door. He heard Wheel of Fortune blaring inside, then her feet skittering toward the door.
“Oh, Ben,” Mrs. Marmelstein said, opening the door. “I’m so glad you stopped by. I don’t know what to do.”
“What happened?”
“A man from PSO came by. A very nasty man. Terribly impolite. Told me I hadn’t paid the electric bill yet.”
Uh-oh.
“Of course, I told him that just wasn’t possible. I have a professional attorney on retainer to supervise my business affairs, and I’m quite sure he wouldn’t neglect paying a trivial little utility bill.”
“Of course not,” Ben said. “Why don’t I take a look at your books, though, so I can try to figure out what their problem is?”
“Well, if you wouldn’t mind.” She pointed to her kitchen table. She already had the records waiting for him.
Ben examined the collection of shoeboxes and loose-leaf notebooks that constituted Mrs. Marmelstein’s books. Since he’d moved into the room upstairs, Ben had tried to help her with varying degrees of success. Mrs. Marmelstein had moved to Tulsa in the 1940s (when the North Side was a swank neighborhood) with her husband, one of the oil barons of the early days. The Marmelsteins had owned properties throughout Tulsa, had been members of Tulsa high society, and had traveled all over the world. Mr. Marmelstein died in the late Seventies, and the oil boom died soon after that. Mrs. Marmelstein’s holdings dwindled to next to nothing. She still owned this building, a low-rent four-room house in the Bad Part of Town, but that was about it. Her only regular income of any significance came from rent payments. Unfortunately, Mrs. Marmelstein still thought she was as rich as ever. Ben did the best he could to stretch, save, delay, and otherwise make her limited income satisfy her creditors.
To make matters worse, Mrs. Marmelstein was a notoriously soft touch, empathizing with every hard luck story she heard, often permitting late payments or forgiving them altogether. Just as Ben might get the bank to accept a payment plan so he could make ends meet for the month, he would learn that Mrs. Marmelstein had pledged $200 to a telephone solicitor for the Fraternal Order of Police.
Why not? she would say. It was her God-given duty to aid those less fortunate. So true, Ben would say, pulling out his calculator and starting over again.
This time, the problem was much simpler. She just didn’t have enough money to pay the electric bill last month, so he’d set the bill aside, hoping the coming month would be more bountiful. He checked the envelope where Mrs. Marmelstein kept her petty cash. (Sometimes, for a variety of reasons, most of them illegal, her tenants preferred to pay in cash.) He found six bucks, hardly enough.
He glanced over his shoulder. Mrs. Marmelstein was sitting in the La-Z-Boy recliner beside her bookshelves, lined with Readers’ Digest Condensed Books and every volume of the Warren Report. She was absorbed by the television, trying to come up with the name of a Fictional Character that fit SNO_ _HIT_. Ben withdrew his wallet, removed three twenties, and slid them into the envelope.
He walked back to the living room. “I don’t know how I overlooked that electricity bill,” he told her, “but it’s hardly worth worrying about. You can pay it out of the petty cash envelope. Since this man is in such a hurry, why don’t you walk it over to the PSO office tomorrow?” He smiled. “You’ve been saying you need to get more exercise.”
“I guess I have time to do that,” she said, as if mentally checking her calendar.
“Good.”
“Anything else in the mail of interest? A…party invitation perhaps?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Oh.” Her hand fluttered against her cheek. She never quite understood that Tulsa high society had passed her by. Or perhaps she did.
“It’s really too early in the year for the big social events,” Ben said. “Perhaps next month, when it’s cooler.”
“Perhaps so.”
“I’ll stop in and see you again tomorrow.”
“Oh, Ben—”
“Yes?”
Mrs. Marmelstein took a small plastic vase from the table beside her door. The vase was filled with fresh-cut flowers, mostly peonies and daisies, obviously from her garden.
“These are for you.” She put the vase in his hands. “Happy birthday.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Marmelstein.” He brought the flowers to his face and inhaled deeply. “That was very thoughtful of you.”
“Oh, well,” she said, patting her bodice. “I had some extras.”
The last thing Christina remembered clearly was the scent of her mother’s perfume. How strange, she thought. It made her feel like a little girl again, watching her mother plant her begonias and hyacinth, listening to her hum “Annie Laurie” over and over, seeing her agonized expression when asked for the millionth time when Daddy was coming home. It was Mother’s perfume, all right. She never knew what it was called, but that’s definitely what it was; the aroma was unmistakable. And then she could smell…nothing.
Then she was asleep. No, not asleep; she couldn’t be asleep because she could still see—blurred, sketchy images, bathed in the blue glow of the flickering television screen. Someone was there, but hard as she tried, she couldn’t focus, couldn’t tell who it was. Her eyelids closed, and she was back in her mother’s garden. They were smiling and laughing, planting tulip bulbs for the following spring, until suddenly, there was a tremendous explosion. Her eyelids struggled to open, to see what was happening.
She had no idea how long it took. It was the whiteness that finally parted her eyelids a little. She tried to comprehend the indistinct figure before her. It was—Frosty the Snowman? It was, but it wasn’t, too. There was something wrong with him, something bitter, something malignant. Another violent explosion rocked the room, then another, again and again. His face began to melt, to change to something else, something horribly different. Christina closed her eyes and saw herself running, as far and as fast as she possibly could. And then she was swimming, drowning in his melted remains. The waves were crashing all around her, but then she remembered she couldn’t swim, and she was sinking.…
She opened her eyes. Where was she now? She wasn’t sure, but at least she seemed to be on dry ground. The scent of perfume was fading; in its place, she detected a new odor, a nauseating, putrid smell. The room seemed altered, strange.
With considerable effort, she pushed herself to her feet, then congratulated herself on this supreme accomplishment. And then she saw his body sprawled on the floor, just a few feet away. Who was that—Tony? She kneeled beside him and put her hand over his. It was still warm.
It was then she noticed his head, or more accurately, the place where his head should have been. She tried to suppress her gag reflex; she had to stay in control, to find out what had happened. A large star-shaped crater replaced the right side of his head; she could almost see straight through. A puddle of blood formed a grotesque halo around what was left; bits of skull and brain tissue were splattered on the floor.
She saw a gun nearby. She picked it and held it close to her face. It was still warm, too, or so she imagined.
The sound of the door slamming open was like a thunderbolt crashing in her head. She jumped, startled, and screamed. The gun fell to the floor.
Several men rushed into the room. Was it three? Four? It was too hard to focus, too hard to see.
“Freeze!” one of the men shouted. “Put your hands in the air.”
What? Everything seemed shadowy, unreal. What is going on? Why are they pointing at me? I can’t understand you.…
“I said, put your hands in the air,” the man yelled, even louder than before. “Jim. Go.”
A second man rushed forward. He forced his hands under her shoulders, pressing the heel of his palms against her breasts. He jerked her to her feet and slammed her face first against the wall.
She began to cry. She felt his hands slapping her body. Why is he hurting me? Why is he here? Why can’t I understand anything?
“My God,” she heard the man say, “look at this!” There was a short silence, and then the man was back, pressing his face next to hers. “You killed him!”
She stared at him, barely comprehending. “I killed him.…”
“God Almighty!” the man shouted. She could feel the spray of his spittle against her face. “What kind of monster are you?”
He grabbed her long hair at the neck and shoved her across the room. But I can’t go yet, she thought. I’m not finished here; I’m not finished! But the man kept on pushing. It was no use. It was too late. It was much too late.
5
BEN AWOKE TO AN unusual sensation—scratchy and suffocating and…furry! His eyes opened. And all he could see was a vast expanse of cat hair.
He shot upright in his bed, coughing and sputtering and wiping cat hair out of his mouth. It was Giselle, snuggling against his face. She jumped into his lap and purred, obviously glad he was finally awake.
“Look, Giselle,” Ben said, “we’re going to have a few rules around here. Number one, my bed is off limits.” He picked her up and tossed her out the door. After a quick stop in the bathroom, he went into the kitchen and hunted for the cat food he’d bought the night before. She hadn’t eaten any of it last night, but he figured by now she would be hungry enough to come down off her pedestal and eat ordinary food like the rest of the household.
He poured the food onto a plate on the floor. Giselle scampered up to it, sniffed for a moment, then stalked away with a sour expression on her face.
“Look, cat,” Ben said, “I’m not giving in here. If I start giving you that expensive gourmet food, you’ll want it for the rest of your life.”
She pattered into the living room, not deigning to look back at him.
“You might as well give it up now, Giselle. I’m not going to let some cat run my life. This food is every bit as tasty as that expensive stuff, and much better for you.”
Giselle settled into Ben’s only easy chair without so much as looking back at him. If it was possible to get the cold shoulder treatment from a cat, Ben suspected this was pretty much what it would be like.
Fine. He wasn’t going hungry just because his cat wouldn’t eat. He opened the refrigerator and scanned the contents. Nothing there that would traditionally be called breakfast, but there was an unfinished carton of Vietnamese. Why not? Ri Le’s was the best carryout in Tulsa, even three days after purchase.
Just as he got the double-delight cashew chicken in the microwave, the phone rang. “Yeah?”
“Boss, this is Jones. Have you read the newspaper yet?”
“Not yet. You think I could train Giselle to bring the paper to me in the morning?”
“Boy, do you have a lot to learn about cats. Check out the front page, Boss. The FBI picked up a woman on a murder rap last night.”
“What do you expect me to do? Run over to the jailhouse and give her my business card? Look, Jones, I know you’re anxious to be paid—”
“This isn’t just any woman,” Jones said. “Take a look at the paper.”
Ben felt the short hairs on the back of his neck rise. Surely…
He put the phone down, walked to the front door, and retrieved the morning edition of the Tulsa World. There it was, right on the front page. The woman was arrested at the scene of the crime, crouched beside the corpse, and charged with the murder of a man the paper linked to organized crime and South American drugs.
The photograph accompanying the article removed all doubt. Red hair, freckled face, yellow leotards.
It was Christina.
Ben knew the way from the Federal Courthouse on Fourth and Denver to the holding cells so well he could walk it with his eyes closed. He’d been a frequent visitor during the past year, since he was unceremoniously dismissed from the world of high-tone, blue-chip corporate litigation at Raven, Tucker & Tubb. Unable to find a job with an
yone else, Ben opened his own office, but he soon found that building a practice from scratch was hard work, especially since he had no contacts, no connections, and worst of all, no money. Ben refused to advertise; he considered that bad form—low class and lousy lawyering. He’d build his practice the proper way or not at all.
Ben had rented a small office on the North Side of downtown—not a great location, but the best he could afford. He put a listing in the Yellow Pages and opened shop. His practice consisted principally of debt collection, divorce, and penny-ante felonies. His clientele was increasing somewhat—word of mouth was spreading—but customarily one drunk driving case led only to another drunk driving case. His chances of breaking into the big time, of working for rich corporate entities that could be billed out the kazoo, seemed pretty slim.
Ben pushed open the bullet-proof glass door that led to the holding cells. Lester Boggs was standing guard in the outer office. Lester had thinning black hair and was more than a little overweight—too many years at desk jobs like this one. He looked silly in his extra-large sheriff’s uniform, with the slick black leather belt and holster. There really should be restrictions, Ben thought, on the people permitted to pack guns. He wondered if Lester had ever even held it, much less fired it.
Lester looked up from the black-and-white Watchman on his desk. “Morning, Kincaid.”
“Morning, Les.”
“You must be bailing out those two drunks we picked up on Osage territory last night.”
Ben steeled himself and tried to seem convincing. He hated lying, and he wasn’t particularly adept at it. “No. I’m here to see Christina McCall. I’m representing her.”
Lester’s eyebrows rose. “Really? I’m impressed.” He fumbled around in a desk drawer for his keys. “A drug-related homicide. You are coming up in the world.”
“She’s a friend. Any chance they’ll O.R. her? I brought my Bar card.”
“ ’Fraid not. You’ll have to make bail.”
Lester opened the clanging barred gate separating them from the holding cells. He led Ben down a long concrete corridor; his footsteps echoed as Lester brought his considerable weight down on his patent leather shoes. The derelicts and assorted sleazebags in the cells called out to Ben as he passed by; he tried to ignore them. As always, the cells were atrocious, nauseating. They reeked of booze, vomit, and human waste. Ben held his breath and tried not to be sick.
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