“This guy know you?” I said.
The bartender returned with my beer, grunted back to his stool, and exhaled into a another mouthful of soft noodles. The Cubs game came up on a TV in the corner. It was the bottom of the fourth and they were losing twelve to two.
“I come here now and again,” she said.
I took a sip of my beer and pretended to look around. “Yeah, you fit right in.”
“They leave me alone. Give me some space to think.”
“You come in here to do your thinking?”
“Sometimes. If that’s okay with you.”
Janet took off her glasses as she spoke. The eye had healed nicely, which was good because the scarf was covering a cheek and jaw that were ruined.
“He hit you with a fist?” I said.
Janet pushed the scarf up close to her skin. I pulled it back.
“Started with an open hand, didn’t he?” My fingers traced the edge of her jaw and the soft bruises she called lips. “Lip’s cut on the inside. Teeth probably went right through when he caught you. Had to be with a fist. That’s why it’s all swollen.”
The bartender was edging his eyes my way. I wondered how much he knew about my client’s bruises. I wondered why he cared.
“Put some ice on it if you haven’t already,” I said. “It’ll help. Still, I wouldn’t get rid of the scarf.”
“Thanks. Is that all you came in here for?”
“Taylor came to see me the other day.” I dropped it in without missing a beat and looked straight ahead. I felt her head swivel, her focus tighten.
“My Taylor?”
I nodded.
“What did she want?”
“She wanted to talk about her step-daddy. About how we could maybe figure out a way to kill him.”
I caught her eyes in the barroom mirror, then they swam away.
“How do you feel about that?” I said.
“How am I supposed to feel?”
“I don’t know. Sick? Scared?”
“Taylor’s a kid. She’s upset and angry.”
“That it?”
“She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
“You sure about that?”
“Kill Johnny? You can’t think she’d ever seriously consider…” Janet dismissed the notion with a shake of her head. “No one’s going to hurt Johnny, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’m not worried. Just thought you might want to talk to your girl. Explain some things to her.”
“My kid’s not a murderer.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Fine. I’ll talk to her.”
Janet sank her eyes into her drink. I scratched at the label on my bottle of beer. The old man in the corner leafed through a Sun-Times. He read it from back to front, two fingers played up the side of his face, a lit cigarette dangling there. He moved his mouth to the smoke without ever taking his hand from under his chin and turned the pages slowly.
“You think I’m making a mistake, don’t you?” Janet said.
“I told you what I think.”
“The face isn’t as bad as it looks.”
My client’s reflection played like some sort of cruel joke above the row of bottles behind the bar.
“It isn’t?”
Janet slipped the glasses back over her eyes and folded the rest of herself back into the scarf.
“No, it isn’t. Besides, I get my pound of flesh.” She said the last part with a measured cadence, a rhythm, soaked in some sort of very private satisfaction.
“And how does that work?”
I didn’t expect a window into how or where my client took her marital pound. I wasn’t disappointed.
“Not now, Michael. When I have it together, I promise, you’ll be the first to know.”
She turned as she spoke, and I could see a splinter of myself reflected in the dark lenses. I wanted more from my client, but I wasn’t going to get it. I could walk, but that didn’t play for me either. Never did.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “Take a ride.”
Janet tilted her head toward the street. “My car’s here. How about I make us some dinner? Taylor’s at a friend’s for the night and Mr. Charming is staying downtown.”
I finished my beer and threw down some money. The bartender kept his eyes glued to the set. Maybe Lou’s team was really that interesting this year. Being a Cubs fan myself, I knew better.
CHAPTER 27
D inner was roasted chicken and some salad. Afterward, we sat at the kitchen table with a bottle of wine and cigarettes. That’s when my client decided to tell me how it started.
“He took a dozen eggs out of the fridge.” Janet nodded her head as if I didn’t believe her. I hadn’t said a word.
“We were married less than a month. It was a Saturday morning and I had to take Taylor to a soccer game. Told him I didn’t have time to pick up his dry cleaning.”
She topped off her glass and offered the bottle to me. I shook my head.
“He comes downstairs. Hungover like a dog. Asks me what I said. So I told him again that I couldn’t pick up the dry cleaning. He goes to the fridge and gets the eggs. Grabs me by the back of the neck and sits me down at the table.”
“You try and stop him?”
“Honestly, I didn’t know what was going on. Besides, he was stronger than I knew. At least he was then. So I sat right here. And he cracked an egg. Over my head. Right down my face.”
Janet turned at an angle and took a hit off her cigarette, a single eye fixed on me as she blew a stack of smoke into the space between us.
“He didn’t say anything. Just held my shoulders and head and cracked the egg. First one, then another. Probably about a half dozen in all. Then he left. Went back upstairs to bed. His way of telling me who was boss.”
“What did you do?”
She laughed and I caught a flash of her eyeteeth. “Hard-ass Janet, right? Should have left, run for the door? Well, I didn’t. Mostly because of this.”
Janet waved her glass around the house in Sauganash.
“I didn’t want to lose all this. For Taylor, I told myself. So I cleaned up and I stayed. Course it got worse. The eggs were just the message. After that came the pushing. Yelling. Slaps turned into fists. Rough sex, whenever and however he wanted. You know how it goes. You’ve seen it.”
I took a sip of wine and the two of us sat with things. However they were.
“I knew someday he’d be done with me,” she said. “Then he’d go after Taylor.”
“So it is like that.”
My client nodded to herself and something moved behind her eyes. “Not yet, but it could be. Anyway, I couldn’t take the chance. Couldn’t just wait around.”
“So you came to see me. Almost a year ago.”
“You were a friend. Okay, once we were more than friends.” She took a cautious look up from under her bruises. “You thought any more about that?”
“About what?”
“About us. About what I told you.”
“I try not to.”
“It never would have worked, Michael. You know that.”
“There might have been other options.”
She began to speak, then settled for a hard grimace.
“Let’s not get into this again,” I said. “What’s done is done. In your next life, just tell the guy.”
She shook her head. “It was my body. My decision.”
“Then why do I have to live with it?”
It was a selfish question. One without an answer. One that, once asked, couldn’t be undone.
“We’re talking more than fifteen years ago, Michael. I was a kid. And I was scared.”
I nodded. “Yeah, you were a kid. We both were.”
“You think there’s something more to it?”
“I think you had plans.”
Janet toasted her plans. “You mean I was about the money. That’s why I hooked up with Taylor’s dad right after you. Mr. Board of Trade. Then, Mr. City Hall. Thought a guy with a little bit of green would take care of all my problems. Get a house, nice car. All that security.”
“Not so secure, huh?”
“Take a look around. From now on, I take care of my own.”