Since your last letter affirmed your expertise in reading between lines, I will not spell out the matter more specifically. As I have already noted, I do not wish to make a weapon out of excessive honesty.
I realize that my failure to confess to this relationship, in its earliest manifestation and then again in its recent reappearance, reveals not one but two sins of omission. You no doubt wonder how many more deceptions lie in wait, with each new secret bearing an additional dose of betrayal.
I can offer nothing in self-defense to mitigate such reproach. Like every sinner, I am reduced to begging for a mercy I in no way deserve.
But let me, at least, in as clear and straightforward a manner as possible, describe the basic framework of Kate’s and my understanding.
We share a strange and barren tenderness, and it is nothing to envy. Even at its most agreeable, our connection more resembles a contract of convenience than anything that might be mistaken for an intimate bond.
By the time we met up again, my physical condition had reached the point where I often despaired of my body. I recognized the symptoms from Mother’s decline: Throat ulcers so bad I could barely eat or talk above a whisper. Racking coughs, almost constant, mitigated only by liquor. And the phlegm that emerged looked all too familiar, clitchy and green with yellow streaks, laced with blood. I certainly sought no comfort that would require Kate to ply her previous trade.
Instead, we agreed that, when my condition deteriorated, as it so often did during the colder months, she would serve as my nurse and companion.
In return, I agreed to care for her financially, obviating the need for her to work. I became, as the saying goes, her meal ticket, and as long as my winnings exceeded my losses by sufficient degree, I proved capable of supporting what she considered a suitably respectable lifestyle.
I also, perhaps alone among men, can withstand her dramatic distempers, to which she is exceedingly prone. The woman’s rage, especially when primed with drink, can reduce a barn to cinders.
Mind you, I am only too aware of how often I have rightly stood accused of a similar disposition. Perhaps that is why and how she and I found each other, to withstand the gale-like fury of each other’s whiskey hate.
All of which brings me to the ultimate point.
I would have no need of Kate, nor any other woman, if not for your absence. Had you joined me it would be your care I relied upon, your affection I gratefully cherished and returned. Do not for a moment think otherwise.
Let me share, in that regard, an observation very much on my mind of late. As it turns out, it comes from another consumptive—Spinoza, the great stoic Jew.
He argues that we are only free with respect to objects that we moderately desire, because that want can easily be controlled by the thought of something else. However, we are by no means free with respect to what we seek with violent emotion, for our longing cannot then be allayed with the remembrance of anything else.
As I said at the outset, the silence between us has withered my soul. I have never sought freedom from you or your memory. Nor do I now seek such liberty. You remain the one and only person in my life whose image I cannot blot out with remembrance of someone or something else.
Regardless of all I have admitted here, that truth, my bondage to the violent emotion I feel for you, remains certain, fixed, and absolute. Never doubt that. Never.
With all the love I possess,
John Henry
CHAPTER 37
Lisa stepped off the elevator, turned into the hallway, and spotted Boonie, the process server, waiting down the corridor outside her assigned courtroom, clutching a sheaf of papers.
“Top of the morning,” he said with a smile, Lisa hearing, Stop all your moaning.
“Nice to see a friendly face,” she said. “Got something for me?”
He handed over his documents. “Proofs of service all signed. The hotel owner—Phin, Phineas Honnicutt, out at the Whetstone—ran me off with a rifle, called me every kind of so-and-so you can think of. Wrote that up in my supporting affidavit.”
He offered Lisa a game wink. It conjured an unexpected warmth.
“Never could find the Giordano fella. Went to his office and condo, back and forth, several times.” A big hapless shrug, arms crossed. “Zip. Nada. Nobody home.”
“I appreciate all the work, the effort, the…”
“It’s my reason for being.”
“Diligence,” she said, finally managing to pinpoint the word.
“You gonna need me for anything here on out?”
It was like a hole opened up in the floor. “I honestly don’t know. I hope not.”
“I’ve gotta make tracks, unfortunately. Business is off the hook—which is good, of course. You need me, though, just hit my cell. I can hightail it back here, no problem. Or testify by phone if the judge’ll allow it.”
Let’s not hope for too much, she thought, at the same time wondering why every man wishing her the best this morning couldn’t stick around.
“Thank you. For everything.” She held out her hand. “You’re a wonder.”
***
The courtroom was high-ceilinged but small, about the size of a hospital chapel, its walls paneled in a kind of industrial corduroy, its color a sedate beige. Except for the Court Security Officer, the courtroom sat empty. How long, Lisa wondered, did Littmann intend to stay out there on the courthouse steps, wailing away at the cameras and crowd?
As she passed through the modest spectator’s section toward the counsels’ tables, the CSO, dressed like a marshal’s deputy—blue blazer, gray slacks, striped tie—put down the print-out he’d been studying, pocketed his reading glasses, and rose from his perch atop a stool in the left-hand corner behind the judge’s bench.
“I’m Lisa Balamaro,” she said as he approached, “the plaintiff’s lawyer.” She nodded toward the jury box. “I assume you’d like me on the usual side?”
He offered a cordial nod—classic jaw, lawman eyes, brushed gray hair—and extended his arm to the table on her right. “I believe her honor would prefer that.” His voice was a gentle baritone, just a hint of twang. “Judge Numkena’s no stickler, but she does like her routines.”
Lisa went to the table and began laying out her documents, the complaint, the supporting affidavits, the motion and proposed order for preliminary injunction, the signed restraining order to preserve the letters, the various proofs of service and supporting documents provided just now by Boonie. Last, the now largely irrelevant motion to seal the proceedings.
The simple task of arranging the papers across the tabletop helped calm her, for now that she was here, inside the arena of battle, only moments away from the fight, her heart had started hammering against her ribcage like it was hoping to break out and run.
The doors behind her banged open. Despite herself, she turned. Littmann and Rankin strode forward, the two bodyguards trailing behind. A scrum of thugs. The bullyboys.
Littmann didn’t meet her gaze, but simply marched to the defendants’ table and took a seat. Rankin pulled what looked like a small-town phone book out of his briefcase and slammed it down in front of her, scattering the documents she’d so painstakingly arranged.
“Oops,” he said. “There’s our Verified Answer to that legally incoherent farce you submitted, plus a counterclaim for harassment—blame that moron you hired as a process server. Get ready for sanctions. The scene he caused at the restaurant where I was eating lunch? Pathetic. You’re apparently as lame a judge of character as you are a lawyer.”
He began to turn away then stopped, noticing the empty seats beside her. “Where’s your skank client? Afraid if she showed up, she’d end up in jail?”
“Listen—”
“Or good old Tuck Forger.”
“Where’s your buddy the would-be wise guy? Where’s—”
“We’re going to assert our right to cross-examine,” Rankin said, brushing her off. “But you knew that. It’s why those two weasels aren’
t here. Because those affidavits you filed?” He shook his head, laughing, like it was just too rich. “You must be such a goddamn embarrassment to your old man.”
“Do you honestly think,” she said, clenching her hand to hide its trembling, “that you can scare me with this kind of—”
He’d already turned away, sauntering over to the defense table where he pulled up a chair beside Littmann and sat.
Shortly the CSO approached. Directing his words at both tables, the man said, “Recording devices of any kind are forbidden in the courtroom. This means as well that all cell phones get switched off.” He glanced face to face. “Not later, folks. Now. I need to see you power them down.”
He waited as Lisa, Littmann, and Rankin complied then directed his gaze at the pair of bodyguards. “That means you fellas, too.”
They took out their phones, thumbed them off.
“Very good. If I see a phone turned back on, I will have no choice but to confiscate it for the duration of the proceeding. Thank you for your cooperation. The judge will be out shortly.”
***
Lisa tidied her documents back into order while, behind her, the courtroom door began swinging open and shut, each time with a creak and a muted hush.
Glancing over her shoulder, she vaguely recognized some of the faces from the scene outside. Littmann supporters, perhaps—oh how lovely, the home-team crowd. She wondered if some had been hired. And how many more were waiting in the hall?
A few looked like reporters, and she’d already had a taste of how this was playing in the local press. Their being here hammered one more nail in the closed-proceedings coffin, making her wonder if she should even bother submitting that motion. Regardless, how would this group manage with only ancient technology—pen and paper—for notes?
Sure enough, only a moment later, the no-nonsense CSO ambled back into the spectator section and in that soft, handsome, gray-haired voice offered the same admonition on cell phones and such, then waited as everyone performed as ordered.
Lisa took her seat and began paging through Rankin’s Answer. Shortly she wondered if it was meant to be serious—he’d asserted virtually every imaginable equitable defense under the sun, over eighty total. Talk about throwing everything you could think of against the wall.
Several of the arguments were obvious enough, if a bit of a reach:
Unclean Hands. (Could see that one coming a mile away. Oh yeah. We’re the bad guys.) Unjust Enrichment. (How about just return the letters, hotshot.)
Assumption of Risk. (Like we should have known we’d get robbed. Right.)
Even Force Majeure and good old Laches, can’t forget them. Okay, fair enough, raise it or waive it, blah-blah whatever. But a handful of the other defenses weren’t just speculative or irrelevant, they were frankly nuts:
Restraint of Trade. (An anti-trust argument—really?)
Innocent Infringement. (And how exactly does copyright figure into this?)
It was as though he’d found a list of every defense imaginable and added the whole bag of cats, regardless of whether any given thing applied or even made sense. Did he actually expect the judge to read all this, let alone consider it?
Okay, she thought. You say I’m lame, call my pleadings legally incoherent. Have at it, big fella. But you just walked into a trap.
If only that bravado could have lasted. As she read on, page by dispiriting page, she realized that Rankin and Littmann weren’t just aiming for some kind of elaborate distraction. They were lying through their teeth. And were brilliantly shrewd about it.
CHAPTER 38
All four guards at the ranch had been collected—the last, the one patrolling in his car, getting jumped by Chalky at the guardhouse upon return from his most recent circuit of the property. They now lay on their sides on the dining room floor, trussed up hand and foot with duct tape, gagged for good measure.
Wander watched over them from his backward perch on a high-back chair, dragged from the nearby table. He wasn’t sure what to make of them. One was a certified blubber butt, another so clean-cut he looked like he combed his hair to suit his mother. The other two had that scruffy, badgered, hollow-eyed look that Wander knew only too well. Maybe they’d served, he thought. Then again, looks can fool you. Just as likely they were wannabes, tinhorn patriots, pogues, same as the first two.
He glanced at his hunting watch—the laminated hands seemed to be moving backwards. What the hell was taking so long? They were supposed to be in-and-out, grab the letters and go. What was there to discuss?
***
Beyond the French doors, in the living room, Rags felt his frustration mounting as he leaned over the lady of the house, the woman Tuck called Meredith. What was that about? Apparently, they knew each other—since when? One more thing about the folksy forger that didn’t quite add up.
She was barefoot, dressed in nothing but pajamas and a robe, a somewhat slight but attractive, fortyish woman with dark, shoulder-length hair, sitting on a raft-sized sofa.
“Ma’am? I don’t know how else to say this, so I’ll just back up and repeat what I’ve already gone over. Those letters do not belong to you. Or your husband. Or anyone else except my friend here.”
He nodded in Rayella’s direction. She sat swallowed up in an armchair that matched the sofa. A little gamey from lack of a shower like the rest of them, her hair a misshapen thicket of wiry tufts, she glared at the older woman with an expression that hovered somewhere between abject fury and stunned disbelief.
“We didn’t come here to hurt you or your men or cause any harm whatsoever.”
The woman responded with a soft, barking, irritated laugh. “A little late for that.”
“All things considered, ma’am, I’d say we’ve been pretty thoughtful in that regard.”
“Oh, come on. You’ve taken over my home by force. I’m sitting here this moment at gunpoint.”
“No one’s pointing a gun at you, ma’am. I’m not, he’s not.” Rags nodded at Tuck. “She’s not.” Ditto Rayella.
Chalky was outside watching the front of the house, BBK the back.
“Oh, stop playing innocent. I’m being held against my will. And ownership of the letters, as I understand it, is currently at issue. That’s why my husband and that young lady’s lawyer are in court this morning.”
From the depth of her voluminous chair, in a voice that could slice tin, Rayella said, “How about we do to her what they did to me? Then let’s talk about being held against your goddamn will.”
“The point,” Meredith responded, rising to Rayella’s pitch, “as I have already explained more than once, is that the letters lie inside my safe. You can’t get them without my agreeing to open said safe. Capiche? So far, I’ve heard nothing whatsoever to convince me I should.”
It was like a hook holding Rayella in place had snapped. She lunged up from the big soft chair, shoved Rags aside, and if not for Tuck grabbing her around the waist just in time she’d have backhanded the woman across the face so hard they finally would have seen some blood.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa—” Tuck held the girl up off the floor. She kicked to get free. “Okay. I get it, I understand. You’re right. Absolutely.” He spoke in an urgent hush, as though trying to calm a colt. “How about you give me a chance here?”
He eased up on his grip, and the girl tumbled a step backward, colliding with Rags, who circled an arm around her, as much to control as to comfort.
Tuck turned back, knelt down before the woman like a suitor, and spoke softly. “Okay, listen. I know this is messed up. Whole damn thing is. But I can explain a lot of it. If you’re willing to listen.”
The woman said nothing, just stared back glassily. Gradually, a sly grin appeared. “Why yes, Mr. Mercer,” she said, like this was the thing she’d been waiting for all along. “I would be most grateful for an explanation of these most vexing circumstances.”
“All right then.” Tuck glanced over his shoulder at the others, nodded. Turning back: “So—w
here can we talk?”
She extended her hand, palm down. Ladylike. “Mr. Mercer, would you please accompany me to my boudoir?”
***
As Meredith led him arm-in-arm into the long corridor leading to her half of the residence, Tuck stopped dead-still, like a man barely recognizing himself in a mirror.
“Don’t mind the mess,” she said, fluttering a hand at the wreckage. “Gideon took exception to my artistic taste. Can’t imagine why.”
Tuck knelt down at the edge of the first ruined painting and lifted it gingerly to get a look at the other side of the canvas. It was the variation on Blakelock’s The Captive.
“That was always my favorite,” she admitted, lowering her voice to just above a whisper. “I identified with it, as you might imagine. And I thought it was rather daring—forging a Blakelock, I mean—since rumor has it fakes outnumber originals two-to-one. Or maybe it’s three-to-one. Four? I can’t recall. Regardless, it’s some outlandish number.”
“Most of the fakes are pretty obvious.” Tuck spread the canvas out, fingering tenderly the edges of a six-inch gash. “They never get that sensation of light emerging from within the painting itself. You have to layer the pale greens and silver just right.”
Leaning down closer so she could peer over his shoulder, see what he saw, she whispered, “Tell me more. How did you go about it?”
He ran his fingertips across the textured layers of paint. “I used bituminous washes for the dark areas, created the shapes with scumbled colors thinned with Blakelock’s own varnish—copal resin with a few drops of cold-pressed linseed oil.”
“How long did it take you to get it right?”
“My God, months. This is maybe the fiftieth version of this painting alone. Took me forever to make it look the way I wanted. The way it needed to be.”
“To fool people?”
The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday Page 19