Running From The Law

“No, I saw that girl’s picture, I saw that girl’s face, and I’m tellin’ you, she’s not doin’ it for the money.” He flopped the chop over and trimmed the remaining streaks of fat from the moist, pink flesh. A trickle of thin blood oozed onto the carving board, a lighter color than the Jackson Pollock bloodstains on his apron. This was why I became a vegetarian, no question.

“Dad, why are you still mad about this? It’s a done deal. I take her deposition tomorrow.”

“I don’t care how classy the judge is, I don’t like him usin’ my daughter.”

It stung. “He’s not using me.”

“The judge was screwin’ around on his wife and he thinks you’ll cover it up. He’s bluffin’ you and you don’t even see it.”

“He’s not bluffing. I asked him, I watched him answer.”

He wagged the knife at me. “Don’t watch the player, watch the cards. You got the cards in front of you and you’re not lookin’ at them. He’s playin’ you for a chump.”

“But I know Fiske. He’s Paul’s father. He’s family.”

“Whose family? You’re not married, so the judge ain’t family. I don’t know him, wouldn’t know him if I ran over him.”

I stifled a laugh at my father’s choice of words. His eyesight was so poor he ran over two bicycles and a child’s foot last year. Remarkably, the foot was fine, but the Schwinns were DOA.

“Dad, Fiske is a federal judge.”

“Oh, yeah? So what’s he got between his legs-a gavel?”

So genteel. My father loved to talk dirty; it was his favorite thing, after butchering lambs and running over the toes of small children. His coarseness drove my mother nuts until she fooled us both and had the last laugh.

“Mark my words,” he said, making circles in the air with the pointy knife. “I’ve been around the block a few times.”

“Not in the car, I hope.”

LeVonne actually laughed out loud, or at least audibly. My father managed a smile, too, but I think it was at the lamb chops. There on the carving board, in carnal tribute to his skill, stood twelve pink chops, evenly sliced and arranged like a king’s crown. “Ain’t that pretty?” he said.

“It’s art, Vito.”

“Miss Fresh Mouth.”

“You’re the one. You.”

Silence fell while we both cooled down. I knew we would, we always did. Coming apart and coming together, like pigeons fussing on a street corner. It had been like this for as long as I could remember. He had raised me by himself, in this shop. I cut my first chicken at age eight and my first deck of cards the year later. An atypical girlhood, we’ll leave it at that.

“All right, the chops are pretty,” I said finally.

He nodded. “So. You want something to take home? I got nice Delmonicos in the back.”

“No thanks. I don’t eat dead things, remember?” I watched him set the lamb on an old white scale. On its side were yellowed stickers from Licenses and Inspections and a gold star from some forgotten something when I was little. He peered down through his bifocals to read the numbers on the scale.

“Miss Priss. You need red meat. It’s good for you, gives you protein.”

Right. “Anyway, I want to go out and eat. To celebrate.”

“Take the steaks, honey.” He winked and wrapped up the chops. “Stay in and celebrate.”

I forced a smile. My father didn’t know Paul and I hadn’t been getting along. I’d been trying not to worry about it, it happened in a relationship. I’d hoped it would change with Sullivan. Paul was close to his parents and was already showing an interest in his father’s defense. We were talking more than we ever had. It was the reason I’d taken the case, even though judges and butchers apparently disapproved.

And it didn’t matter, really, whether Judge Hamilton had harassed his secretary or not.

All that mattered was that I had to win.

3

I sat at the dining room table next to a half glass of chardonnay, waiting for Paul to come home. The day’s mail littered the table’s smooth walnut finish. I had opened the bills and flipped through the catalogs, had read all the mail except for the letter that mattered. I wasn’t ready just yet. I took a sip of wine, the crystal goblet knife-thin at the edge. The wine was cold, too chilled even to taste.

I looked around the room that Paul, a forensic architect, had designed. The walls were painted a slate gray with a creamy molding, harmonizing with a gray and burgundy Tabriz. Against the far wall was a walnut sideboard that had been in the Hamilton family since the Triassic, and above it hung a watercolor of a still life. I was beginning to wonder if the furnishings were compatible in a way that Paul and I could never be.

The unopened letter was from my doctor. The envelope had a linen texture, its color was a stark, cool white. It made an almost luminous oblong on the table as twilight fell and the room darkened. I didn’t get up to turn on a light, though. There was nothing I really wanted to see.

I took another sip of wine and rolled it around on my tongue. It was developing a taste as it warmed up, it was too young. Paul had taught me what “young” meant as applied to the taste of wine, as he had taught me many other things you couldn’t learn on a stool in a butcher shop. We’d been together for five years but were no closer to marriage than our fifth date. It was my reluctance; trying to build a practice, I had postponed the decision. Now it was upon us, and we were in trouble.

ALEXANDER EHRLMANN, M.D. I had almost forgotten about it during the trial, then Sullivan heated up. Dr. Ehrlmann had been one of the messages on my voice mail, but I hadn’t had time to return the call. Hadn’t made time to return it. Didn’t know what to do with what he would tell me.

Most of all, I didn’t know what to tell Paul, who was God-knows-where, way past dinnertime. I no longer felt like celebrating. I felt like sitting and drinking, so when he came in he’d feel guilty about being late on my big night. Then I wanted to open the envelope, throw it in his face, and make him feel guilty about that, too. But I knew I would do none of these things. I had kept it to myself since the initial finding, grown used to the idea. Accepted it, prepared myself to talk about it. If it turned out to be bad news, that is.

Maybe it would be good news.

My gaze fell on the unopened envelope. It challenged me to turn it over, like the last down card in a poker hand. Could be the worst news you ever had, could be the best. Come on, big shot, you’re a player, turn it over. Play.

I took a last swig of wine and didn’t care that it was underage. I picked up the envelope and inserted a taupe-polished thumbnail under the back flap. It only took a second to read. It would take longer than that to understand. Suddenly I heard Paul’s Cherokee rumbling onto the gravel driveway. I put the letter back in the envelope and slipped it into the stack of catalogs.

In a minute Paul opened the front door and set down beside it whatever he was carrying. A tube of blueprints, a briefcase. Paul placed things down with care, he moved things aside to make room for other things. I used to watch him play chess with his father; they both handled the wooden chesspieces as if they would explode if dropped.

“Rita?” Paul called out. “Where are you?” He came into the dining room and turned on the sleek halogen light, then dimmed it when I shielded my eyes. “What’s the matter, did you lose?”