Mary, Mary

Chapter 36

AS SOON AS WE WERE gathered back in the courtroom, Judge Mayfield came in and sat at the bench. She fiddled with her skirt, and then didn't waste any time.

“I've considered all the testimony and the evidence put before me, and I've reached my decision. Based on everything I've heard, it all seems very clear.”

Ben looked reflexively at me, but I wasn't sure what the look meant. “Ben?” I whispered.

“Court rules for the petitioner. Residential parentage will remain with Ms. Johnson, upon whose counsel I will lay the burden of facilitating a mutually agreed-upon visitation schedule. I'm going to require mediation for any disputes regarding this agreement before I'll consent to seeing you back here in this courtroom.”

The judge took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, as if ruining a life was a tiresome part of her day she then continued, “Given the geographic disparity, I am, however, encouraging creative solutions, and I am ruling that Dr. Cross will be entitled to the equivalent of at least forty-five days visitation per year. That's all.”

And just like that, she rose and left the room.

Ben put a hand on my shoulder. “Alex, I don't know what to say I'm stunned. I haven't seen a ruling from the bench in five years. I'm so sorry”

I barely heard him, and I was hardly conscious of my family swarming around me. I looked up to see Christine and Anne Billingsley squeezing past to leave.

“What happened to you?” I asked, the words just coming. It was as if every muscle of control I had been exercising for the past couple of days gave out at once. “Is this what you wanted? To punish me? To punish my family? Why, Christine?”

Then Nana Mama spoke. “You're cruel, and you're selfish, Christine. I feel sorry for you.”

Christine turned from us and started to walk away very quickly, without saying a word.

When she reached the courtroom doors, her shoulders hunched forward. Suddenly, she put a hand to her mouth. I couldn't tell for sure, but I thought that she began to sob. Ms.

Billingsley took her by the arm and ushered her out into the hallway I didn't understand. Christine had just won, but she was weeping as if she had lost. Had she? Was that it? What had just happened inside her head?

A moment later I entered the hallway in a daze. Nana was holding one of my hands, Jannie the other. Christine was already gone, but someone else I didn't want to see was waiting there. James Truscott had somehow gotten inside the courthouse. And his photographer, too. What the hell was with him? Coming here. Now. What kind of story was he writing?

“Tough day in court, Dr. Cross,” he called up the corridor. “Care to comment on the ruling?”

I pushed past him with my family, but the photographer snapped off several invasive pictures, including single shots of Damon and Jannie.

“Don't print a single picture of my family” I turned to Truscott.

“Or what?” he asked, standing defiantly with his hands on his hips.

“Do not put my family's pictures in your magazine. Do not.”

Then I yanked away the photographer's camera and took it with me.

Chapter_37 LATE THAT SAME DAY, the Storyteller was driving north on the 405, the San Diego Freeway, which was moving okay at about forty or so, and he was working over his “hate list” in his mind. Who did he want to do next, or if not next, before this thing wound down and he had to stop killing or be caught?

Stop! Just as suddenly as it had begun. The end. Finished. Story over He made a scribbly note in a small pad he always carried in the front-door pocket. It was difficult to write as he drove, and his car edged a little out of its lane.

Suddenly some moke to the right sat on his horn, and Stayed on it for several seconds.

He glanced over at a black Lexus convertible, and there Was this total moron screaming at him - “Fuck you, asshole, hick you, fuck you” - and giving him the finger. The Storyteller couldn't help himself - he just laughed at the red-faced idiot in the other car.

The jerk was so out of it. If he only knew who he was going postal at. This was hilarious] He even leaned over toward the window on the passenger side. And his laughter apparently made the nutcase even angrier. “You think it's funny, asshole? You think it's funny?” the guy screamed.

So the Storyteller just kept laughing, ignoring the irate bastard as if he didn't exist and wasn't worth coyote piss if he did. But this guy did exist, and actually, he'd gotten under the Storyteller's skin, which really wasn't advisable, was it?

Eventually, he drifted behind the Lexus, as if chastened and remorseful, and then he followed. The moke's black convertible got off two exits later. So did he.

And this wasn't in the story. He was improvising now He continued to trail the convertible's taillights up into the Hollywood Hills, onto a side road, and then up another steep hill.

He wondered if the driver of the Lexus had spotted him by now Just to be sure he did, he started honking and didn't stop for the next half mile or so. Figured the other guy might be getting a little spooked by now He sure would if it were him, especially if he knew who he had hassled down on the freeway Then he pulled out and started to pass the convertible. This was the coolest goddamn scene yet - he had all the windows open in his car, wind whipping through. The driver of the Lexus stared over at him, and he wasn't cursing or flipping him the bird anymore. Now who was showing a little remorse? A little r-e-s-p-e-c-t. The Storyteller's right hand came up, aimed, and he fired four times into the other driver's face, and then he watched the convertible veer into the rocky wall on the side of the road, carom off, swerve back onto the road, then hit the rocks again.

Then nothing - the annoying bastard was dead, wasn't he? Deserved it, too, the asshole.

The shame of it, the pity, was that sooner or later this killing had to stop. At least that was the grand plan, that was the story.