Perfect Justice

44.

“DON’T FORGET DINNER,” BELINDA said as she and Ben left the courtroom. “You promised.”

“And it’s a promise I don’t intend to break,” Ben replied. “But I have tons of work to do before the trial resumes tomorrow. And there’s another stop I want to make before it’s too late.”

“How about you pick me up outside the Hatewatch office around eight-thirty?”

“Deal.”

Ben walked three blocks down Main Street, past the autoparts store, Ed’s Gas’M’Up, and the Bluebell Bar. He resisted the temptation to stop in and chat with Mac. He had a hunch Mac wouldn’t be that happy to see him; in fact, he might try to bill Ben for the damage to his pinball machine. Instead Ben kept walking until he arrived at the offices of The Silver Springs Herald.

Unfortunately The Herald saw him coming. As he approached the streetfront window, a middle-aged man in a tweed suit jumped up and made a beeline for the entrance.

Ben managed to get his foot in the door just before it was shut.

“Sorry,” the man said. “We’re closed.”

“I want to speak to the editor,” Ben said.

“He’s not in!” the man insisted. He was wearing a name tag: HAROLD MCGUINESS—EDITOR.

“You’re McGuiness!” Ben shouted. “You’re the man who keeps writing about me. I have a bone to pick with you.”

“I write all the articles for The Herald. What of it? We’re still closed.” McGuiness tugged on the doorknob, trying to pull it shut.

“My name is Ben Kincaid.”

“You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t read my own paper?”

“I’ve been misquoted in your distinguished journal. Repeatedly. I want you to print a retraction.”

“Sorry. Can’t be done. Now, if you’ll kindly remove your foot—”

“I’ll remove my foot when you agree to print the retraction. Bad enough you’ve convinced everyone in town I’m a sleazebag. Now you’ve got the judge thinking I’m badmouthing him. I never uttered a single syllable that you attributed to me.”

“Never said you did.” McGuiness yanked the door so hard the glass rattled in its frame. “Now get out of here.”

“I could sue you for libel. You put quotation marks around a statement I didn’t make.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s an exact quote. Least that’s what the United States Supreme Court says. And as long as I didn’t act with malice, I’m well within the bounds of the law.”

Unfortunately, Ben was familiar with the current case law on libel. “Look, I don’t want to sue anyone. I merely want to set the record straight. Why don’t you interview me—”

“Thanks, don’t care to. Got what I need from secondary sources.”

“You’ve ruined my reputation. Everyone in town thinks I’m going to use city-slicker tricks to put a murderer back on the street.”

“Well, aren’t you?”

“My goal is to see that Vick gets a fair trial. And your newspaper is making that almost impossible.”

“If that’s supposed to make me shed tears for your client, it doesn’t.” He kicked Ben in the shin. Ben’s foot involuntarily drew back and McGuiness slammed the door shut.

Ben picked up Belinda around nine, and together they walked arm in arm to Bo-Bo’s Chinese Restaurant. It was the only place still open other than the Bluebell, and Ben definitely wasn’t taking her there. He did have some doubts about Bo-Bo’s authenticity, however. First, there was the question of the owner’s name. Second, Bo-Bo’s was the first Oriental restaurant Ben recalled that also served red beans and rice, grits, and fatback.

As Ben and Belinda waited to be seated they stood behind a middle-aged Vietnamese woman who was picking up a carry-out order. The teenage girl who was supposed to be the cashier was standing in the doorway to the kitchen fighting off (not very hard) the amorous advances of a boy about her age in a chef’s cap. Eventually the Vietnamese woman captured her attention. The girl passed the woman a plastic-wrapped bundle of cardboard cartons, still giggling at the boy in the back.

“Seventeen fifty-two, please.”

The Vietnamese woman passed a bill across the counter.

“Seventeen fifty-two out of twenty. Your change will be two forty-eight.” The girl pulled two ones out of the cash register and counted them into the Vietnamese woman’s hand. “That’s one, two—”

She glanced down at the register. “Wait a minute. You gave me a ten, not a twenty.”

The Vietnamese woman stared blankly at the girl.

“What are you trying to pull? You can’t take seventeen outta ten.”

“Seven dollar,” the Vietnamese woman said. “Paid.” She reached out for her ten, still lying on top of the cash drawer.

“Oh, no you don’t.” The girl slammed the drawer shut. “Now give me back that food.”

The woman clutched the food package tightly in her arms. “Paid already.”

“My daddy was right,” the girl said. “He told me you people have to be watched every single second. Sneaky gooks. Barbara!”

An older woman with a beehive hairdo emerged from the back of the restaurant. “What’s going on?”

“This lady tried to pass a ten off as a twenty. Now she won’t give back the food.”

The older woman frowned. “I’ll call Sheriff Collier.”

“Now just a minute,” Belinda said, interrupting. “This poor woman didn’t try to pass off anything. She obviously barely knows the language and probably misunderstood you.”

The teenage girl pressed her fists against her hips, annoyed at this interloper. “She tried to pass off a ten—”

“She thought you asked for seven dollars, not seventeen. You assumed she would give you a twenty and didn’t notice when she didn’t.”

“Who do you think you are telling me—”

“The fact is, you were flirting with that boy in the kitchen and you weren’t paying enough attention to your job. And now you’re trying to make this innocent woman take the blame for your screwup.”

The teenage girl shot daggers at Belinda with her eyes. “I don’t understand why you’re sticking up for this stupid chink.”

Barbara, the older woman, pushed the girl aside. “The lady still owes us seven dollars and fifty-two cents. Do you have that much, ma’am?”

The Vietnamese woman stared back expressionlessly. It was obvious she wasn’t following any of this.

“Here’s ten more bucks,” Belinda said, tossing the bill across the counter. “Keep the change.”

The teenage girl stomped back into the kitchen.

After they were given a chilly seating by Barbara, Ben said, “Well, that was disturbing.”

“That,” Belinda said, “was the entire race-hatred problem in a nutshell. It starts as a stupid misunderstanding. The stranger makes a mistake, the local makes a mistake. It’s a minor incident. But tonight that teenage girl will tell her daddy about how that Vietnamese lady tried to rob the restaurant, and how she got in trouble with her boss as a result. Daddy will say, yeah, I’m not getting paid as much for my chickens as I used to, either. Pretty soon, every time something goes wrong in their lives, it’ll be the fault of the Vietnamese.”

“And then ASP gets invited to town.”

Belinda nodded. “That’s about the size of it.”

Ben and Belinda maintained an animated conversation all through dinner. He was amazed at how much he had to say to her—and how easily the words came. He was not normally a smoothie with the fair sex; on the contrary, he was prone to stutter, trip over the carpet, and inadvertently insult his date’s mother, all in the first minute. But tonight seemed to be going fine. He and Belinda liked all the same books (Bleak House, Wuthering Heights) and the same movies (Twelve Angry Men, To Kill a Mockingbird). They believed in the same things.

They liked each other.

Ben was halfway through dinner before he noticed Christina was sitting two tables away from them. She was with a large group of people—fellow boarders at Mary Sue’s, probably. Contrary to his own chilly reception from Silver Springs, Christina appeared to be getting along famously with the local populace. They were chatting amiably, laughing at her jokes.

The kid sitting next to Christina looked familiar. Ben stretched forward to get a clearer view. It was Garth Amick!—the kid who slid on the brass knuckles every time Ben came into view. It seemed Christina had no such problem.

After finishing cashew chicken that contained more celery than cashews or chicken, and moo goo gai pan that was mostly rice, Ben and Belinda called for coffee.

“Actually that wasn’t bad,” Ben said, “although it wasn’t Ri Le’s. When you come to Tulsa, I’ll take you there.”

“I’d like that.”

The waiter returned with coffee and fortune cookies. “Can I take your plate?” he asked Belinda.

“Oh, not yet. I want to save the leftovers.”

“I’ll bring you a doggie bag.”

“Never mind. I have my own.” She opened her purse, withdrew one of several small plastic bags, and scraped in the leftover moo goo gai pan.

“You carry your own doggie bags with you?” Ben asked.

“Waste not, want not. That’s what my aunt always said. I suppose I don’t really have to do this anymore, but old habits die hard.” She filled the bag, sealed it, and carefully put it back in her purse. “Deep down I guess I’m always afraid I’ll go bust, and I’ll be back to stealing candy bars from Mr. Carney’s drugstore just to get through the night.”

“You didn’t really do that, did you?”

“I’m pleading the fifth.” She stirred her slow-drip coffee and poured it over ice.

Ben followed suit. “How did you come to found Hatewatch?”

“After I managed to get through law school and survive my first marriage—which was a major-league disaster—I started looking for ways to use my degree to make a meaningful contribution. I’d seen how bad life was for some people, and I was determined to do what I could to make life better for them. I started at the Southern Poverty Law Center, then worked for some other organizations that are fighting hate groups and organized racism. I actually met Morris Dees—now there’s a modern-day hero if ever there was one. He does great work, but he can’t do it all alone. That’s why I started Hatewatch five years ago.”

“Only five years ago? For such a relatively new organization, it’s been amazingly successful.”

“Too successful, as far as some people are concerned. Such as Grand Dragon Dunagan. The Supreme Court said penalty enhancement for hate crimes was constitutional in Wisconsin versus Mitchell, and we’ve made the most of that in criminal and civil cases. This is the third time Hate watch has come up against one of Dunagan’s little hate camps. ASP has gone after Hispanics in Florida, blacks in Birmingham, and now the Vietnamese. Torture, rape, murder—they’ve done it all. Not exactly boy scouts. Hey, I haven’t opened my fortune cookie yet.”

She broke the shell and read the message. “ ‘Soon you will cross over the great waters.’ ” She frowned. “Well, I don’t care much for the sound of that.”

“Relax,” Ben assured her. “Probably means you’re going to Bermuda.” He cracked open his own cookie. “ ‘Birds are entangled by their feet, and men by their hearts.’ ” Ben grimaced. “I think these cookies came from the Transylvania factory. I’m surprised the management permits this. Restaurants usually screen out anything that might possibly upset the clientele.”

“Did you major in restaurateuring?”

“Music, actually. How about you?”

“Funny you should ask.” A delightful smile played upon her lips. “Why don’t you come up to my place, and I’ll give you a demonstration?”

Ben looked at her warily. “Is this dangerous?”

“No.” She took his hand in hers. “The dangerous part will be sneaking you into my room while Mary Sue isn’t watching.”

“Are you sure about this?” Ben said through the bathroom door.

“Positive,” Belinda replied. “Get out here.”

“Well … turn down the light.”

“They’re down. I can barely see the table.”

“And you’re looking the other way?”

“And my eyes are shut—cross my heart and hope to die. Would you get out here already?”

Ben opened the bathroom door slightly and confirmed that she was looking the other way. He tiptoed out of the bathroom. He had stripped down to his boxer shorts. Actually Belinda had instructed him to strip, period, but there was no way he was parting with his shorts. A boy had to have some modesty.

He lay flat on the table and pulled the towel over him. “Okay. I’m in position.”

“Good.” Belinda turned around and smiled. “Cute boxers.”

“How … ?” Ben yanked the corner of the towel over his rear. “I never met anyone who majored in massage therapy before.”

“Well, you’re in for a treat.” She placed her hands on his shoulders. “Didn’t I say I wanted to make a meaningful contribution to the world? Now, this is an example of a Swedish massage.”

“Perfect,” Ben murmured as she soothed his neck and shoulders. “I’m feeling very Swedish tonight.”

“The Swedish massage derives from Chinese techniques of physical manipulation. It’s composed of five basic strokes—the effleurage, the petrissage, friction, tapotement, and vibration.”

“A massage and a lecture,” Ben said. “Such a deal.”

She began the effleurage, which, she explained, involved long, gliding strokes in the direction of the heart. “Boy, are you tense!” She moved her hands systematically down his back. “Your muscles are really knotted up.”

“Well, it’s been a tense week.”

“Lucky I got you on this table before you exploded in the middle of the courtroom.”

She took him through her repertoire of strokes—kneading, pressing, tapping, and vibrating. “Of course, this is just one example of each stroke. There are several variants.”

“I think we should try them all,” Ben murmured.

“This is the Anara massage technique.”

Ben could tell the movements of her hands had changed, not that it made much difference. It all felt delicious.

She started working on his thighs. “Strong legs for a desk jockey,” she commented.

“I get plenty of exercise chasing my cat.”

“Who’s looking after her while you’re on this extended vacation?”

“My landlady, Mrs. Marmelstein. She’s always happy to help out. Cat-sitting gives her an excuse to go through my closets.”

Belinda continued moving down his legs. “Man, you are just unbelievably tense. You keep it all locked up inside, don’t you?”

Ben chose not to comment.

“Now, this is an example of the Shiatsu massage technique.”

To Ben’s surprise, her fingertips danced lightly over the soles of his feet. “Hey, that tickles.”

“So there’s life in you after all.” She used her thumb and forefinger to rub out the tension in his feet. “Finally I want to demonstrate the famed Montgomery massage.”

“The Montgomery massage?”

“Right.” She began lightly kissing his back, then worked her way up the nape of his neck. Goosebumps rose on his skin. “Does this tickle?”

“That’s one way of putting it.” Ben rolled over and took Belinda into his arms. “Can I play?”

“Please do.” The first kiss was followed by several others, each more passionate than the first.

Belinda pulled away for a moment and reached behind her back. A second later her business suit lay in a pile on the floor.

Ben felt his heart palpitating. “You’re beautiful,” he murmured.

Belinda lay down beside him. She kissed him again on the lips, then let her own lips roam where they would. “I’m not sure, but I think you’re becoming less tense,” she said quietly. Her fingers ran up his chest and through his hair.

Ben explored the soft contours of her perfect body. “Did you really major in massage therapy?”

She smiled, then rolled over on top of him. “Nah. But I thought it was a great way to sneak a peek at your boxer shorts.”