“It’s too late for that.”
“Of course it’s not too late,” Ben assured him. “Reconciliations happen all the time. Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner got married three times!”
Loving appeared to consider this. “I don’t know.…”
“You’ve got to court her, that’s all. Like when you were first dating. Bring her flowers, candy. Write her a poem. Hold hands in the moonlight.”
“We never did any of that.”
Ben frowned. “You must have done something romantic when you were courting.”
“Courting?” Loving snorted. “I met Babs in a bar downtown. After a few drinks, we did the hokeypokey in the back of my semi. It wasn’t no big deal. Damned if she didn’t turn up pregnant, though. So we had to get married.”
“Well then,” Ben said, trying to salvage himself, “so much the better. This will all be new to her.” He snapped his fingers. “I bet I have some old love poems I could loan you.”
“You really think this could work?” Loving asked. He began to smile, however slightly.
“You’ll never know until you try. But I think you two crazy kids could patch things up, assuming you don’t make a tragic mistake that sends you to the penitentiary for the rest of your life.”
“Babs might come back to me?”
“I think it’s entirely possible.”
“Well, I don’t,” Loving said. The last vestiges of a smile faded from his face. He leveled the gun at Ben’s nose and fired.
Jones cracked the ice out of the tray. He wrapped the ice in a washcloth and tied it with a rubber band. After struggling with the person-proof bottle cap, he popped a few Tylenol tablets into his pocket. Just in case. He returned to Ben’s tiny office and walked to the ratty sofa on the far wall.
He brushed Ben’s hand aside and placed the ice pack on his forehead. “How does that feel?”
“Cold,” Ben answered.
“Is it having a calming effect?”
“At the moment I don’t think a hundred winged seraphs strumming Brahms’s Lullaby on their harps would have a calming effect. I just got shot at, remember?”
“Well, yeah,” Jones said, “by a man with a toy pistol containing a little flag with the word BOOM! on it. We’re not exactly talking Lee Harvey Oswald here.”
“Easy for you to say. The little flag didn’t poke you in the eye. I nearly lost a contact.” He read the expression on Jones’s face. “I was startled, okay?”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Jones said. “I was there. I saw you swoon.”
“I did not swoon. I lost my balance.”
“If you say so.” Jones tried not to smile.
“I can still hear that man’s maniacal laughter. What was it he said? ‘You put me through hell, Kincaid, so I decided to let you see what it was like.’ What a sicko.”
“Yeah. It was kind of funny, though.” Jones glanced at Ben’s somber expression. “In a sick sort of way, I mean.”
“That’s what I thought you meant.” Ben covered his eyes with the ice pack. “Incidentally, Jones, this may be none of my business, but why are there chickens running all over my office?”
“Frank Brannon finally decided to pay his bill. He didn’t have any money. But he has a surplus of hens.”
“Great. This is what I get for taking a tractor repossession case.”
“I wasn’t aware you were in a position to choose.”
“Yeah, well, nonetheless.” Ben rubbed the ice pack up and down the sides of his face. “Chickens. Jeez, that’ll help pay the rent. And think of the convenience, if a famine should suddenly strike Tulsa.”
“Speaking of paying the rent, Boss—I don’t like to be a nag, but my paycheck is overdue.”
“That’s true. Unfortunately, I’m fresh out of cash. But feel free to take all the chickens you want. By the way, is all that toilet paper still littering the lobby?”
“No. I cleaned that up right after the police hauled off Mr. Loving for assault with a practical joke.”
“Jones,” Ben said, pointedly ignoring the jibe, “may I ask who T.P.’d my office?”
“Who do you think?”
“Right.” Ben stretched out on the sofa. “If you’ll be so kind as to close the door on your way out, Jones, I’m going to lie here quietly for a few hours and see if I can bring my heart rate back down to the three-digit numbers.”
Jones didn’t move. “Boss?”
“Yes?”
“Was that true, what you said?”
“About my heart rate?”
“No. About Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner.”
“Well…they divorced and remarried once.”
“Oh. You lied.”
“I did not lie. I…exaggerated.” He touched the reddened skin around his eye gingerly. “Under the circumstances it was the best I could come up with.”
Jones still hesitated.
“Yes?”
“Wasn’t the Simmons trial scheduled to continue at ten o’clock today?”
Ben looked at his watch. “Ohmigosh. It’s already ten till! Jones, you’re supposed to keep me on time for my appointments!”
“Sorry, Boss. I was distracted by the gunplay.”
Ben grabbed his briefcase and bolted out the door, still pressing the ice pack to his head. If he ran all the way to the courthouse, he just might make it.
2
BEN FOUGHT HIS WAY out of the crowded elevator and scrambled toward Judge Hart’s courtroom on the fifth floor of the Tulsa County Courthouse. Christina was waiting for him just outside.
“What’s the matter, Ben?” she asked, grinning from ear to ear. “Forget to set the alarm clock?”
He ran up to her, gasping for breath. “I’ve been awake for hours. It was the gunfight that slowed me down.”
“Gunfight? What happened?”
“I’ll tell you later. Where’s Judge Hart?”
“She hasn’t taken the bench yet. She had some arraignments she had to call before the trial resumes.”
“Thank God for small miracles.”
“Yeah. Your planets must be in alignment.” Christina tossed her long strawberry blonde hair behind her shoulders. She was wearing a short leather skirt, hip boots, and yellow leotards. Standard Christina accoutrements. “Incidentally, Ben—happy birthday.”
Ben gave her a quelling stare. “You promised you wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Chill out already. I haven’t told anyone. But I do have a little something for you. Will you be in your office later?”
“As soon as the trial ends.”
“Mind if I drop by?”
“My door is always open to you, Christina. As long as you don’t start snooping around for information your boss can use against me in court.” He glanced at the courtroom doors. “Is Mrs. Simmons inside?”
“Yeah. I think you need to comfort her. She looks les miserables.”
“In what way?”
“Oh, the usual. Sweaty palms, knocking knees.”
Ben nodded. “Everybody gets the jitters before they take the stand. But thanks for the tip.” If Christina said talk to the client, Ben talked to the client. She had first-rate instincts, in addition to being the best legal assistant he had ever known. Pity she was on the other side.
Ben and Christina met and first worked together during Ben’s brief tenure as an associate at Raven, Tucker & Tubb, Tulsa’s largest, swankiest law firm. After he got the boot, she quit in protest and started working for Swayze & Reynolds. The change seemed to be good for her; the managing partner, Quinn Reynolds, was giving her important assignments and access to their most prominent clients. As far as Ben could tell, she was very successful, although success hadn’t improved her wardrobe or her penchant for abusing French clichés.
As they entered the courtroom together, Ben saw Reynolds shoot Christina a nasty look. She’d probably get chewed out later for fraternizing with the enemy. Although he was the managing partner at Swayze & Reynolds, Reynolds was, as a rule, arrogant, pretentious, and generally unlikable. Worst of all, he was a lousy lawyer—always obstreperous and unwilling to compromise. He liked to promote settlement by way of harassment and delaying tactics, both of which Ben had been fighting throughout this entire case. Reynolds would probably be ostracized by the majority of the legal community, but for one minor detail. His wife sat on the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Ben had heard people complain about Reynolds for months, but the stories always ended the same: “Hell, I’d like to tell the jerk what I really think of him, but what can you do? He sleeps with the judge.”