Extreme Justice (40 page)

Ben was so overcome he threw his arms around his father and hugged him tightly. Of course, he thought. This is how it was. This is what I should remember.

Tears spilled out of his eyes. “We—we should probably go back with Mom and Julia,” he said between sniffles.

“No hurry,” his father said, patting Ben on the back. “Let’s just stay here a little while.”

That’s right, Ben thought, clinging to that warm and wonderful embrace. Let’s just stay here. Let’s just stay here …

“Ben? It’s Nurse Tucker.”

Oh, please, not again!

“I don’t think you were listening to me. Or maybe you just forgot.”

He felt that touch again, that presence. Whatever it was.

“Ben, I know escape is very close to you. Very tempting. But your time is not over. You’re needed here.”

Just leave me. Just let me go.

“Ben, I know it must seem hardly worth the trouble right now. Everything worth doing is so hard. But you can’t take the easy out, Ben. There are too many people who need you. In fact, here’s one now.”

The voice changed. “Ben?”

Christina? Christina is someone who—

“I’ve been stopping in to see Mrs. Marmelstein. She’s all right for now, but—well, you know. You’re the one she really wants.”

There was a long silence. He could feel her grasping, searching for words …

“Ben, I know I’ve been giving you a hard time lately, hassling you, telling you to be who you really are. It’s only because I care, you know? But—” Her voice broke off. “But I’m supposed to be your friend and now I’m afraid that maybe I’ve given you such a bad time that, like, maybe you don’t want to come back. Maybe you’d just as soon not have me pestering you. Maybe you’d like a little peace.”

Her voice seemed to dissolve. “And I just couldn’t stand that, Ben. Do you hear me?” Her voice swelled. “So if you’re in there staring at some stupid bright white light thinking about how nice and cozy everything would be on the other side, forget it, okay? You belong here, and I want you back!” She was shaking the side of his bed. “
I want you back!
”

Did I feel that, he wondered, or did I just think I did?

“And if you won’t come back on your own … I swear—I’ll resort to desperate measures.”

Christina, please—

“I’ve been going by your apartment every day. I don’t know why; I just like being there, after visiting hours end at the hospital. Someone had to get your mail. I suppose I didn’t have to
read
it … but when I saw this letter from a New York publisher, I thought—” Her voice sounded so hurt, so broken. “—I just thought that if I could find something new or exciting, something that would give you a
reason
, well, then I could make you come back.”

He heard the rustling of the envelope, the unfolding of the paper.

“Are you listening, Ben? They want to publish your book. Did you hear that? I’ll say it again. They want to publish your book! I’m not kidding.”

My book?
My
book?

“They think it has real commercial possibilities. Of course they want to make some changes.”

Changes? What—

“They say your use of language is a bit awkward in places, but they think their editorial committee can fix it.”

Fix it?
Fix it?

“The art department wants you to add more vivid descriptions of the murder victims so they’ll have something to use for cover art. And the publicity department wants you to pump up the action. Maybe add a car chase.”

Now wait a minute …

“And of course, they want to change the title.”

Change the title? Change it to
what
?

Scales seemed to fall from his eyes. The gummy blackness faded away. He was aware of his arms, his legs…

“Change … the … title?”

He opened his eyes.

“Ben!” Christina exclaimed. “You’re back!” She lurched forward and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly. “I asked you to come back and you did! You came back!”

The muscles of his jaw were like rusted gate hinges, but he made them move. “Have … I… ever … denied … you … anything?”

T
HREE WEEKS AFTER
he was discharged from the hospital, Ben made his way back to Jones and Loving’s offices. He still didn’t move with quite the bounce he once had; a broken rib was knitting and his head hurt whenever he moved too much or too fast. But all things considered, he was recovering quite well. Of course, all things considered, it was a miracle he was alive.

He rode the elevator to the seventh floor. He had left many of his belongings there while he was working on Earl’s case, and he didn’t want to abuse his friends’ generosity by trashing up their office space.

He crossed the corridor and headed for their office. He pushed himself through the double doors and …

“
Surprise!
”

The place was decorated in a cross between Mardi Gras and a nine-year-old’s birthday party. The lobby was festooned with crepe paper and brightly colored balloons. Streamers trailed down from the ceiling and across the walls. Christina and Jones and Loving and Paula all stood in a row blowing noisemakers and those party favors that stick out their tongue when you blow into them.

“Welcome home!” they shouted.

Ben stared at them, stunned. “Well … thank you, but you know, I just came to—”

“Let me show you your office.” Christina wrapped her arm around his and escorted him down the hallway. The others trailed behind.

“We gave you the largest office in the suite,” Christina explained. They swerved into the dark room and she flipped on the light. A fully furnished, fully equipped office sprang to life.

“See? It’s just like your old office. Well, except that the furniture is nicer. And the carpet is nicer. And the phone is nicer. Actually, everything is nicer. But other than that, it’s just the same.”

Ben’s eyes floated across the room, drinking it all in. It did have a pleasant look to it. A good feel. He could be comfortable here. Of course, Christina would know that. She would know how to decorate to his taste, just as she somehow knew he was coming to the office this morning.

“There’s more,” she said, shoving him back into the corridor.

“Right,” Jones said. He dropped Paula’s hand and skittered back to his desk, returning seconds later. “This is for you.”

What he held out to Ben was a snazzy brown leather briefcase with a bright red ribbon tied around the handles.

Ben took the gift from him, lightly brushing his hands over the smooth brown surface. “You shouldn’t have,” he said quietly.

“ ’Course we should, Skipper,” Loving said, piping in. “You can’t be a lawyer without a briefcase. I think that’s in the code of ethics or somethin’, ain’t it?”

Ben held the briefcase close to him and smiled.

Paula cut in. “Have you people forgotten this man was injured? Get him a chair.” Jones and Loving raced to be the one to do it. “How do you feel, anyway?”

As he took the proffered chair, Ben let his eyes wander all around, to the spanking new office, the new briefcase, and best of all, the beaming faces of his coworkers. His friends.

“I feel …” He paused, drawing in his breath. “I feel like I’ve come home.”

That evening, when Ben returned to his apartment, he found Christina sitting on the sofa and writing on a scrap of newspaper.

“There you are,” she said. “What took you?”

“I’ve been downstairs. What are you doing here?”

“I’m taking over your apartment by adverse possession
ab initio
.”

Ben sighed. More legal Latin. “Christina—”

“I thought now that I know all this Latin, you’d think I was more sophisticated.”

“Christina, you don’t have to switch from French to Latin for me. You don’t have to change anything for me. I like you just fine the way you are.”

Christina sat bolt upright. “You do?”

Ben turned away from the penetrating gaze. “Uh … what are you doing?”

“Well, I saw that you were stuck on your crossword, so I finished it for you.”

“I was not stuck,” he said, bristling. “I was pacing myself.”

“Ben, this puzzle is a week old.”

“Is there a rush?”

Christina set down the paper. “So … did you see Mrs. Marmelstein?”

Ben nodded.

“I suppose you told her about the nursing home.”

“I’ve worked out a schedule,” he said. He plopped a sheet of paper down on the coffee table. “Joni and Jami and their mother all said they would help. With four of us, and you pitching in for emergencies, we can manage to have someone looking after Mrs. Marmelstein all the time.”

“You mean—”

“That way, she can stay right here, where she wants to be.”

“But your tour—”

“There’ll be other tours. Besides, I need to focus on my law practice. Now that I have a spiffy office, it’d be nice to have a few clients to go with it.”

Christina raised a hand to her mouth. “Mrs. Marmelstein must’ve been … very happy when you told her.”

“Well … yeah. I think she was, actually.” He grinned. “Surprised?”

“That you did the right thing? No. I knew you would.”

“And how, may I ask, did you know?”

She pressed forward on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “Because that’s who you are.”

About a week later, after Ben finished up at work, he hopped into his van and drove toward St. John’s. It had been a great day at the office—new clients, new cases, new challenges. Somehow it all seemed fresh again; he was recapturing the pleasure of practicing law.

Why had he ever quit? he wondered. What was it about life that made people want to be something other than what they were? Sure, some changes were improvements: Tyrone leaving the gang, Christina going to law school. But some changes weren’t; some were just people hiding from themselves. Professor Hoodoo, trying to bury himself in his brother’s life. Jones trying to create a false cyber-persona that almost chased Paula away. And Ben—running away from the thing he did best.

He was just lucky he’d managed to get himself straightened out. Lucky he had people who cared.

Which was why he was making this little trip. He passed through the electric doors outside St. John’s with a jumbo box of chocolates and a bouquet of roses tucked under his arm.

The nurse on duty recognized him as he approached the receiving station. “Mr. Kincaid. Good to see you again. How are you feeling?”

“Fit as a fiddle, thank you.”

“I can’t tell you how nice that is to hear. When they first brought you in here, well, I didn’t hold out much hope. But look at you now!”

“Well, I’ve been very lucky.”

The nurse nodded. Her eyes diverted to his goodies. “Got a girlfriend here?”

Ben laughed. “No, no. Actually, these are for a nurse. When I was here before—when I was in the coma—well—” He swallowed, started again. “There was one nurse who was very special to me. Some of the things she said—really helped. Meant a lot to me. So I just wanted to give her a little something.”

“That’s very kind of you. Who was it?”

“Well, I was hoping you could help me find out. Her name was Nurse Tucker. She told me to call her Angela.”

The nurse blinked. “Angela?”

“Right. She had a soft voice, very soothing.”

“Angela Tucker? There’s no one by that name on this floor.”

Ben’s lips parted. “Perhaps—perhaps she came from another floor.”

The nurse shook her head. “Not without my knowing about it. What did she look like?”

“Well, I never actually saw her.” He frowned. “Perhaps she used a different name—”

“What, a nurse with a pseudonym?”

“Perhaps it was a nickname. Perhaps—”

“Mr. Kincaid, I’ve been working here for eighteen years. I’ve seen the personnel records on every nurse in this hospital. Believe me—there’s no Angela and no Nurse Tucker, much less an Angela Tucker.”

“But—” Without even thinking about it, Ben’s hand went to Christina’s Saint Christopher’s medal, still dangling from his neck. The beacon.

“Then—I—” He stumbled, not knowing what to say. “Th-thank you,” he said finally. He dropped the candy and flowers on the counter. “Here. Give these to … I don’t know. Someone who needs them.”

He turned and shuffled back down the corridor, a million questions racing through his mind. How? and who? and most of all why? He continued his contemplation on the drive home, for the shank of the evening, and into the dark of the night until finally, by the time he lay his head on his pillow and surrendered to sleep, he thought that, at last, perhaps, he understood the meaning of jazz.

O
NCE AGAIN, IT’S THANK-YOU
time.

I want to thank everyone who read this book before publication: my wife, Kirsten, who talked me out of the “telltale vibrator” scene; Arlene Joplin, at the OKC U.S. Attorney’s Office, who gave me a refresher course on the Fourth Amendment; Kim Kakish, who provided much needed background information on Oklahoma street gangs; and my editor, Joe Blades, who always manages to deliver a better book to his Out box than the one that came to his In box. I also want to thank Gail Benedict for typing my virtually illegible handwritten revisions, and Vicky Hildebrandt, whose life I continue to plunder for most of my best plot twists.

Since this book is about music, it might be an appropriate time to thank my piano teacher, Julia Thomas, for a gift I’ll cherish all my life. I must also thank my friend and fellow novelist Teresa Miller, the best friend Oklahoma writers ever had.

Special thanks to our family angel, Angel Taylor, for her constant assistance and support.

I want to thank John Wooley for his incisive coverage of the Tulsa jazz scene, which I cribbed from repeatedly, and all my friends who invited me to their favorite jazz nightspots. I want to thank Gwen Gilkeson, daughter of Oklahoma jazz great Bob Gilkeson, for all her help and insight. I should also mention Dr. John’s remarkable memoir,
Under a Hoodoo Moon
(St. Martin’s Press), which helped me learn the lingo and formulate the backgrounds for many of the old-time jazz musicians in this book.

This book is dedicated to my boyhood hero, Harry Chapin (1941-1981), who not only wrote some incredibly moving folk music, but also managed to donate fifty percent of his concert profits to charity, to counsel young people and speak at hundreds of schools, to financially support a Long Island theater, to raise millions of dollars for organizations dedicated to preventing hunger and malnutrition, and to lobby into existence a Presidential Commission to study the causes of world hunger—all before dying in a car accident at age thirty-nine. I leave you with some of Harry’s words, the ones chosen for his epitaph: