Blind Justice

1

THERE WAS SOMETHING WRONG with Ben’s office, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what. Maybe it was the dozen or so chickens running amuck on the linoleum floor. Perhaps it was the toilet paper strewn throughout the lobby. Or possibly it was the man pointing a gun at Ben’s face.

“Is there something I can do for you?” Ben asked, trying to appear calm.

“Not really,” said the large, unshaven man holding the weapon. “I just come in to blow your head off.”

“Oh,” Ben said. It was hard to know what to say.

Jones, Ben’s male secretary, stood up behind the small card table he called his secretarial station. “Is there something I should be doing, Boss?”

“Call 911,” Ben said succinctly.

“Right away, Boss.” Jones picked up the phone receiver and began to dial.

The intruder adjusted his aim slightly in Jones’s direction. “You try it and I’ll shoot the phone right out of your hand.”

Jones hesitated. “Come on. You don’t look like you’re nearly that good a shot.”

“You’re right,” the man replied, “I’ll probably miss.”

Jones hung up the phone.

“Look,” Ben said, “at least tell me what this is all about. You know, grant the last wish of the condemned.”

The man looked at Ben suspiciously. “Why should I?”

Ben thought for a moment. “So I can rue my fatal error in the hour of my doom?”

The man did not seem impressed.

“So I know what file to put the coroner’s report in,” Jones offered. “I hate it when the filing backs up.”

Ben rolled his eyes. Thanks, Jones.

This line of reasoning, however, seemed to engage the man’s attention. “Try the file labeled Loving versus Loving,” he said bitterly.

Ben remembered the case. The surnames stuck in his mind; they were pretty ironic, given that it was a divorce case. “You must be Mr. Loving.”

“Damn straight,” Loving said, pushing the gun closer to Ben’s face. “And you’re the man who took my woman away from me.”

“I’m the attorney who represented her in the divorce,” Ben corrected. “Why didn’t you show up at the hearing?”

Loving’s broad, strong shoulders expanded. “Some things is between a man and a woman,” he said. “I don’t hold with airin’ dirty laundry in public.”

“When you didn’t appear at the hearing or send a lawyer to represent you,” Ben explained, “the matter became uncontested.” He saw in the corner of his eye that Jones had quietly lifted the phone receiver again and was beginning to dial. He tried to keep Loving distracted. “The judge granted the divorce by default. She had no choice, really, under the circumstances.”

Loving took a step closer. “I heard you told some disgusting, filthy lies about me in that courtroom.”

Ben cleared his throat. “I…merely recited the allegations of my client.”

“Like sayin’ I liked to dress up in high heels and panty hose?”

“Uhh…I believe that was one of the reasons your ex wanted a divorce,” Ben said weakly.

“And what was that stuff about barnyard animals?” Loving growled.

Ben stared at the ceiling. “Oh, was there something about barnyard animals? I don’t recall exactly.…” He felt a bead of sweat trickling down his forehead. Couldn’t Jones dial any faster?

“You made my life a living hell!” Loving shouted. He was waving the gun wildly back and forth. “You took away the best woman I ever knew. Now you’re going to pay for it.”

“I don’t suppose it would make any difference if I told you today was my birthday?” Ben asked.

Loving cocked the hammer. “Consider this your present.”

“If you really love your wife so much, why don’t you try to win her back?”

“Win her back?”

“Yeah. Maybe you two could get remarried.”

“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.