Running From The Law

“Ooh, I feel tingly all over.”

Fiske eased back into his tall leather chair. “Do you know why I didn’t move the Queen’s Pawn?”

“What if I told you I didn’t give a shit?”

“I’d tell you anyway.”

“I figured.” I laughed. Fiske wasn’t really a bad guy, it was just his upbringing. He’d had a stable family, a stone mansion, and a trust fund, when what he really needed was a butcher and a vinyl stool.

“I didn’t move the Queen’s Pawn because that would have exposed your King and made him vulnerable to attack. Too much risk without good reason.”

I booed.

“Exactly.” He smiled, then it faded. “You know, Rita, you took a risk-too much risk-in that gambit of yours at City Hall. I should never have agreed to it.”

But you did. “You didn’t have a choice,” I said, and let it go at that.

“I am grateful to you. Thank you, if I haven’t said so already.”

“You have, and you’re welcome, but I didn’t do it for you. I did it for me. I had a good reason.”

He paused. “That’s just what Paul said, you know, when I took him to task for going to City Hall after you. He said he couldn’t just sit back and see you harmed. That’s the kind of man my son is, Rita.”

I felt a guilty twinge. “I do appreciate what he did.”

“I know you do. But I also know he’s moved out. He told me you two were having problems. The stress of the trial, the demands of your two careers.”

I guessed Paul hadn’t told him about Patricia. Wise move. “Is that what he said?”

He nodded. “He wants to come home, Rita.”

“I understand that.” Paul left messages on the machine every day, but I didn’t call back.

“He loves you very much.”

“I understand that, too.”

“You have a lot invested in this relationship, a lot of time. You own a house together, you’ve made a life together.”

Hadn’t I heard this somewhere before? “Like you and Kate.”

“Yes. Like Kate and me. Although I feel terrible for what happened with Patricia, I’m lucky to have Kate. We’re happy together.”

I thought of Kate’s French plates, the figures facing each other on the kitchen walls. “And you want me to take Paul back.”

“I do. Whatever he has done, whatever is your point of disagreement, there is one fact that cannot be denied and certainly shouldn’t be overlooked. He risked his life for you, Rita. He put himself in jeopardy, for you.”

Ouch. “So I should take him back, out of guilt?”

“Of course not. But the point is, how many men would do something like that?”

I thought of Tobin, wondering. “Did Paul put you up to this?”

“No. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that I put him up to this.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s your move, Rita,” Fiske said, and looked beyond me, over my shoulder. I twisted around.

There, in the open doorway, with a look of surprise on his bruised face, stood Paul.

31

My secretary Janine shivered with excitement as she closed the door behind her. “Are you ready?” she asked, mascaraed eyes agleam.

“Ready.” I nodded and sipped a steaming mug of coffee. It felt good to be in the office again. My gray couch was covered with case files, large trial exhibits were stuffed between the cabinet and chair, and correspondence wafted on my desk in white drifts, like new fallen snow. Everything in disorder. I wiggled my toes happily.

“Are you sure you’re ready?”

“Show me, child.”

“Okay, here goes.” She strode to the front of my desk and yanked up her black blouse to the edge of an orange bra. Sure enough, pierced through the tender pink fold of her navel was a golden ring. It glinted cruelly in the morning sunshine. “Cool, huh?” she bubbled.

Not what immediately came to mind. I leaned closer and caught a whiff of baby powder and the Body Shop’s vanilla oil. “You did this over the weekend?”

“Yeah? It’s my sixth hole?”

“You sound like a golf course.” I stared at her belly button. The new hole looked puffy and red.

“I have three in one ear, two in the other, and this one makes six?”

Not counting the one in your head. “Did you put anything on it to clean it, like a salve or antibiotic?”

“The man put some stuff on it, like Goop?”

Goop. I was guessing motor oil. “What about this morning, did you put anything on it?”

“Just spit?”

Jesus. I’d stop by Thrift Drug for her at lunch. “Did it hurt when he pierced it?”

“Not hardly?”

“You mean it hardly hurt?”

“Right?”

“You’re brave, child,” I said, meaning it, and Janine beamed down at me over her perforated midriff.

“Not as brave as you? I mean, I used to think you were kind of, like, boring? Only into work?”

Oh.

“But now I think you’re kind of, like, cool. And brave. You totally inspired me.”

I was more surprised by the form than the substance. “Janine, did you hear that?”

“What?”

“The way you just said what you said.”

She nodded. “A sentence goes down at the end. Like you told me.”

I was about to congratulate her, but just then the door burst open and slammed back against the wall. Janine gasped and dropped her blouse. My managing partner, Mack, was standing in the