Don't Be Shy 18 (Patreon)

Walsh read. Tears ran down his cheeks and he stumbled over a few words, but he read. He stammered, which I didn’t like, so I slapped him a couple times. He read. Then I read. Then he read again. We keep going, back and forth, until he remembered where he’d seen me before.

“Oh shit… you were in the galley… the bailiff threw you out…”

“Yeah,” I said. “I could’ve ripped his head off, I really could’ve. But then where would we be? I’d be in jail, he’d be dead, and you’d be here.” I glanced around. “With your cute little Murano vase. So darling.”

Walsh gulped. I could see it in his eyes now—he thought he could handle me. I wondered if he knew what he was handling. I wondered if he knew what had happened to her.

“Okay, okay, I get you’re pissed. Of course I get you’re pissed. I would be too. But I was just doing my job. I’m an attorney: I took an oath to zealously defend my client’s interests…”

“Zealously?” I repeated.

“Zealously, yes, it means—”

“Zealously,” I interrupted. I didn’t quite recognize my own voice. It was getting to sound more like my thoughts. “Zealously.”

I walked away from him.

I picked up the Murano vase and threw it against the wall hard enough to show him what I wanted to do to him.

Then I picked up the antique Savonarola chair in the corner and I smashed it against the wall—wham! wham! wham!—with a bony snap each time I bashed it into the plaster. I picked up the fireplace poker next. There was this chest of drawers against the wall—lots of framed photos on top of it, little curios, a candy dish. I hammered the poker down until I’d smashed everything, put a few holes through to the first drawer. Linen napkins. Then I stopped.

I’d probably be the villain of any given episode of Antiques Roadshow, but it felt good to get a little of it out. Cleansing. It really is bad for you to keep all that stuff bottled up.

Spent, I walked back to Walsh, dragging the poker after me. The tip scratched the shit out of the finish on his nice wooden floor.

“Do you want to hear about my oath?” I asked him. “What I’m zealous about?”

“Listen—Jesus—just listen!” Walsh was sweating bullets now. His shirt was soaked through; so were his pants, but not with sweat. I still held onto the poker. “It wasn’t my fault, alright, none of it! It was a show trial! It didn’t matter what I did, the whole thing was fixed from the start! It just had to look good for the newspapers, that was all! Violade didn’t want it following his kid around his whole life, that was—and the other kid—his father’s going to be the next governor! You think he could have his son serving time while he ran a campaign? It was never going to end any way but how it ended!”

“Names,” I said.

“Names? What? What are you talking about?”

“You said it was fixed. Who fixed it?”

“Christ, are you kidding me? He’ll kill me!”

“Implying I won’t.” I lifted the poker, but just to gesture with it. “But you’re right to think that. I won’t kill you. You tell me what I want to know and you’ll live through this.”

He squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment before opening them. “You mean it? You’ll let me go?”

“Why would I want you? You’re just a scumbag lawyer. You clean up messes; I want the ones that are dirty.“

“Jesus.” He closed his eyes again and sucked in a deep breath. “Okay, okay, okay, okay…”

“Who fixed the case?”

“Everybody, fucking everybody!”

“The judge?”

“Yeah, yeah, Judge Homer. He gave us every objection, they bought him a fucking hunting cabin!”

“What about the prosecutor?”

“No, she had to make it look real. The DA knew which way the wind was blowing. He gave it to a chick who still had business cards calling her a paralegal; of course she fumbled it!”

“The jury?”

“No, that’d be too loud. But they got to the foreman. Just in case the theatrics didn’t work, he would be the ace in the hole. Give us a hung jury if we needed one.”

“The witnesses?”

“Jesus God, of course the witnesses! The cops gave ‘em a fucking list of everyone they interviewed. Violade visited each of them, and not during business hours, I’ll tell you that much. He paid them off, he shut them up, whatever it took.”

“The college kids?”

“He deals to them! His guys sell roofies, coke, Adderall, whatever they want! He had his pick of the litter. He told them what to say; I just put them on the stand and let them talk.”

“Because you took an oath,” I said. “You zealously defend your client’s interests.”

I went to open my pack. I let the poker drop behind me.

“What are you doing? Hey, what is that?”

I let him see me take the bottle from my little black bag.

“What are you doing?” Walsh demanded.

“It’s what you’re doing,” I told him. “Ever hear of ayahuasca?”

“No, what the—is that what that is?”

“Uh-huh.” I set the bottle down on a side table. “That’s how much you’re supposed to take.” I took out another bottle and set it down by the first. Then a third bottle.

“You said you would let me go!” Walsh shrieked.

I nodded. “I did say that. But I never said that was all I was going to do.”

I walked back to him. The first bottle in my hand.

“Wait! Listen! Just—fuck! It wasn’t my plan, alright? I didn’t come up with any of it! It was all scripted, all of it, she told me every last thing I had to do!”

“Who?” I asked, taking the cap off the bottle.

“Lena Luthor! Lena fucking Luthor! It was all her idea, every last bit of it! I was just doing what I was told!”

I crouched down over him. “You just did what you were told.”

“YES!” Walsh gasped, like a scientist who’d just completed a laborious experiment. “I didn’t want to do any of it, I didn’t, I didn’t, but I had to…”

“You’re pretty good at doing what you’re told?”

“Yes, yes.” Walsh coughed up a laugh. “That’s all I do, honest, I just do what she tells me.”

“Let’s see how good you really are.” I held out the bottle to him. “Drink.”

***

The phone rang. The jingle was soft, but it swam through the bottom of the lake atmosphere of the room like blood in clear water. 

Lena swept to her feet, her mask back in her hand. She strapped it back to her face.

“Don't go,” Kara muttered before she could think any better of it.

“I have to,” Lena said. It didn't sound like ‘have’ was in any way the wrong word.

She took her phone into the other room.

Kara laid on the couch, wondering what had come over her… asking, almost begging for more of being Lena's slave, not an hour after she'd promised herself she remembered this was only a business arrangement.

She could hear Lena's side of the telephone conversation. “Hello? The hospital? What happened? Well, was it a hit? Of course I want to see him… no, I don't know anyone who'd want to hurt him. We're the ones who… I'll be right over. No, he doesn't take drugs. I'm his best friend, I would know… wait until I get there. Just wait. I'm leaving now.”

Kara got up from the couch. When she saw Lena, she had her kimono off and was pulling on her heavy coat.

Lena noticed Kara's eyes on her. “I have to go. Walsh is in the hospital. Have you met him? He's a coworker.”

“Is he okay?”

“I don't know. I don't even know what happened to him. He's always been so… respectable.” Lena glanced at herself in the hall mirror, straightened her clothes, and turned to Kara. “You get tonight off. Finish the movie if you want, or don't. I probably won't be back until late.”

Kara didn't know what to say. This had all been so unreal. It was hard to suddenly go from seeing Lena as a dominatrix to someone with a friend in the hospital.

What else did she do? Taxes? Bocce ball? It seemed almost obscene… this normal, if eccentric woman was also the figure that loomed so huge over everything Kara had thought over the last few days.

“I really do like you,” she said.

Lena fixed her with a stare. “You want me to reciprocate. But do you think I’d be paying you if I didn’t like you?”

“It was nice to hear you say it, though.”

“Of course it was nice. I approved of you. And you love…” As if suddenly remembering something, Lena picked up her briefcase from where she’d set it by the door. “I’m sorry I have to cut this short. But for what I’m paying you, I expect these encounters where I want them and when I want them. We’ll pick this up when it’s convenient for me.”

“Alright,” Kara said, feeling like she’d hit a nerve—been too pushy.

But she thought Lena liked that. Didn’t she want Kara begging for her attention?

Lena seemed almost as uncertain as her, under the prickly exterior. She clutched the briefcase tightly. “I’m glad you’re alright now. Get some sleep. Eat something. Watch a movie you like—”

“I was liking the movie,” Kara piped up.

Lena sighed. “What am I going to do with you, cheerleader?” The mask made it impossible to tell if she was smiling or scowling; her voice didn’t provide any clues.

She swept out of the apartment without another word.