Legally Wasted (27 page)

“It ain’t ringing, Larkin,” said
Charisma.

Larkin looked up. “What?”

“Check your desk.”

Larkin straightened himself and then took a
step away. The documents appeared to have multiplied. The
newspapers had seemingly reappeared. “The Franklin case,” said
Larry. “I need the Franklin case. I also had a motion to compel
here too . . . somewhere.”

“No you do not. That was a case you needed
years ago. You filed the motion too. Over and done with, dear. Dead
as Tuesday. Don’t you remember?” The phone rang.

“Just get the phone, would you?

“Stop!” Charisma clapped her strong hands
together. She appeared as she always did: an ample blouse of
flowery fabric to cover her curves, a head full of store-bought
curls - - but the expensive kind - - and vivid brown eyes that
could hug you at twenty yards. “You don’t have a phone.”

“Have you lost your mind?”

“Show me where. Where is your phone, Larkin?
Find it for me.”

Again, Larkin looked down at his desk. He
stopped thinking of the case and his motion and tried to identify
his familiar gray office phone among the ruins of his desktop
filing system. He shifted enough papers to be sure. “It’s not
here.”

“That’s because there isn’t a phone,
honey.”

“Then what the hell is ringing?”

“I don’t hear any ringing.” Charisma raised
her eyebrows and cocked her head. The office was silent. She
smirked. It was the same expression she made every time she knew
something that he didn’t. It was a face he had often seen.

“That’s . . . odd,” he finally said. His
fingers ran through his hair.

“That’s all you’ve got to say?”
“What would you have me say?”

Charisma rolled her eyes. “How about, ‘Hi,
Charisma, the greatest secretary I’ve ever had, it is so nice to
see you,’ or, ‘wow Charisma, you look good for being dead these
long years.’ You know I don’t like to break rules, either.”

Larkin nodded. “That’s for sure. Dotted your
I’s and crossed those T’s.”

“Don’t you forget it. How long have I been
dead anyway?”

Larkin thought for a moment. “Two years.”

“Well then you know how good I look.” She
inspected her blouse and scowled. “But this.” She tugged at the
fabric. “I never
ever
wore this.”

“You loved that shirt.”

“It’s hideous. No. Hideous doesn’t have
enough syllables. It’s . . . whatever that word is.”

“That’s your . . . green and yellow flower
shirt,” said Larkin. He smiled and pointed to the golden hibiscus
blossoming above her left breast. “It’s your favorite shirt. Isn’t
it?” He shook his head. “No. I know it. That’s your favorite
shirt.”

“You crazy. Turn that finger toward the
corner.”

“What?”

Charisma pointed to the refrigerator. “You
poisoned your mind. Wine, both old and new, shall rob my people of
their senses.”

Larkin nodded. “A poisoned mind is better
than a poisoned heart.”

Charisma smiled. “Amen. But you don’t even
know what that means. It just sounds good. Wise as all get out if
you knew what it meant. And you don’t. But that was always your
thing.”

“What?” asked Larkin. “Tap dancing?”

“In a way.” She cocked her head again and a
long curled lock of someone else’s hair dangled across her face.
She brushed it away as she shook her head. “No. I take that back.
That’s what you think. A dancer just follows the steps, right? You
don’t follow anything.”

Larkin grinned. “Would you like to
waltz?”

“Hush. But that’s what I mean. What you do is
more than that. It ain’t just dancing. You hit just the right
words.” She smacked her hands together again. “Hammer on the nail.
All the time. Never a miss.”

“Thanks,” said Larkin.

“Oh, don’t you give me that tone.”

“What tone?”

She crossed her arms.

Larkin crossed his. “I don’t need a pep talk,
Charisma.”

“You’re right on that. What you need is pep
boot camp. But you ain’t going to get it. This is it.”

Larkin sat in his chair. Both he and the
leather sighed.

“Oh,” said Charisma. “I see.” Her eyes
narrowed. “I’m listening,” said Larkin and waved his hand.

“No you’re not. You’re hearing me out. I
ain’t one of your clients.”

Larkin said nothing. He rocked a bit in his
chair.

“It’s a blessing, Larkin. A god-given gift.
You could talk a snail out of his shell in a salt mine.”

“Thanks, Charisma. And I mean that.”

Charisma shook her head. “I know. You’ve
heard this before haven’t you?”

Larkin shrugged.

“Exactly, you have heard this before, but you
never listened. If you had, you wouldn’t still be in this place.
You just go on hearing people out.”

“I thought you liked this office,” said
Larkin.

“I liked my job. This office . . .” Her eyes
scanned the floor, the walls, and even the ceiling. She clucked her
tongue.

“It is what it is,” said Larkin.

Charisma smirked again. “So said everyone who
ever waved a little white flag in the air.”

Larkin rolled his eyes. “I’m not giving
up.”

“You’re right about that. You done already
gave up.” She stomped her foot as Larkin’s attention drifted to the
window. “Do you even know where you are?” He opened his mouth but
Charisma raised her finger. “Drunk, drugged and stupid. That’s
where you are. You’re surrounded by fools and you done did what the
Romans do.”

“I need help.”

Charisma shook her head so emphatically,
Larkin thought one or two curls might spring loose and fly freely
across the room. “You just need yourself right now.”

A woman with red hair tinged with strands of
white peeked her head in the inner office. Thick glasses obscured
her eyes. She looked at Charisma questioningly and then to
Larkin.

Charisma clasped her hands. “Who’s that
Larkin?”

“That’s Professor Newton from college. I was
an English minor.”

“Why is she here?”

Professor Newton cocked her head strangely as
she regarded Charisma before returning her gaze to Larkin. With a
quick shake of her head, she indicated whole-hearted
disapproval.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” asked Charisma. Her words
were kind, even her tone was kind, but her voice boomed.

Professor Newton rolled her eyes, turned and
left.

“What was that, Larkin?” asked Charisma.

Larking closed his eyes and rocked on his
feet. “I remember . . . a seminar. Southern literature. The
mystical minority. Something like that.”

“Larkin this is between you and me. And after
that, it’s between you and the rest of the world and God almighty.
I don’t care what your critical subconscious English minor thinks
of me. I earned every bit of who I am. And your conscious mind
better listen up.”

Larkin exhaled. He wanted to sigh,
loudly
, but the sound alone would prompt Charisma to hunt
for a hard object to throw at him. He reclined in his chair.

“Do you remember the Murray case?” Charisma
asked.

Larkin rubbed his eyes with his knuckles.
“Murray . . . Murray.” He shook his head. “Not ringing a bell.”

Another cluck of the tongue. “Not
surprising.” She stared at his desk for a moment before a smile
appeared. “Here,” she said as she reached her hands deep into the
mess of documents, “does this help?” She picked up clumps of paper
off of the desk and tossed them over her shoulders. Papers flapped
through the air as she threw more and more. The desk became the eye
of a legal snow storm. “Charisma!” she shouted in her deepest
voice, ostensibly portraying Larkin. “Put the phone on hold and get
in here.” She flung a stack of documents onto Larry’s lap. “I need
you to help me find this case.”

“The Murray case,” said Larkin. “Got it.”
Charisma paused and studied him, unsure of whether or not he truly
remembered. “Jacob Murray,” he said. “Drug case. Fourth Amendment
search and seizure issue. The seized drugs should have been
suppressed by the judge. That evidence should never have seen the
light of day in a courtroom.” He squinted as he attempted to recall
how the matter had actually panned out.

“Do you remember what you wanted me to help
you find?”

Larkin nodded, slowly, but he nodded. “Yes.
There was a case on point. Old precedent from the Supreme Court of
Virginia. It mirrored the facts of the Murray case exactly. The
reasoning was spot on.”

“Bull.”

“Bull?”

“Big bull. Huffing, scraping his hoof and
with horns the size of bowling pins.”

Larkin smiled.

“You can’t even remember, Larkin.” Once more,
she gave the office refrigerator a brief blast of her heat vision.
“That case never existed.”

“We never found it . . . ” said Larkin
slowly.

“Because it never happened!” Her brown eyes
blazed. “That perfect case with the perfect reasoning was all in
your head.”

“Was it?” He fumbled with the knot in his
tie. The memory of the entire incident was shrouded in a thick
haze.

“Yes.” Her fist pounded upon one of the few
documents remaining on Larkin’s desk. “But you did argue from it,
remember? You made that case up, a figment of a genius imagination.
A stupid genius.” Charisma raised her arms and balled her fists.
“All of those perfect arguments that your missing case stood for,
all of those pitch-perfect points that you needed, came right from
your own intoxicated brain. And you shouted those arguments, even
if you couldn’t pass them off as your own.”

She dropped her arms and shook her head.
Larkin felt as if the two of them were in a strange fight, with
both losing.

“We tore this place apart,” Charisma
continued. “We even combed the online data bases later. We never
found it. Do you remember how the
Murray
case ended?”

Larkin nodded. “Evidence suppressed and case
dismissed.”

“Remember why?” She did not let him answer.
“It was because you knew it, not some dead judges on some old
court. You. You didn’t know what the law was, you knew what the law
had to be. You called it tap dancing, standing there in front of
judge so-and-so without your security blanket precedent. You laid
it out. It was you, just you. You needed no one else. And that drug
dealing heathen went free.”

Larkin studied the tropical flowers bursting
in bright colors on her blouse. He scratched his chin. “God, I miss
you, Charisma.”

She smiled. “I miss you too.”

Warm comforting sunlight suddenly beamed
through his office window. The room glowed golden.

“I’m in such shit right now,” said
Larkin.

“Yes. Yes you are.”

“What should I do?”

“I don’t know,” said Charisma, “but you
do.”

“Are you really a ghost?”

Charisma just smiled.

“I don’t think you are.”

The golden light intensified.

“I take that back,” said Charisma. “I do know
what you need to do. Use your words, Larkin. You have everything
you need in hand to solve this.”

The light was blinding. Larkin shielded his
eyes with his sleeve.

Water rushed down Larkin’s throat and into
his lungs. He coughed, but no air came. He opened his eyes, but saw
nothing but a dark swirl. He swallowed more water. He was
drowning.

A hand gripped the back of his jacket collar
and gave a good yank. Air struck his face as Larkin was flung from
the water. He rolled onto his back and then his side. He vomited on
the ground. Half of a walnut shell fell from his hair.

“There you go,” said Millie. “Get your poison
out, Mr. Monroe. Help him up, Terry.”

Larkin opened his eyes. The sun shone and the
sky spun. Hands curled under his armpits, but he swatted them away.
He coughed and spat. “What the hell is going on?” he finally
managed.

“You had a bit of a reaction,” said
Terry.

Larkin wiped the water from his eyes with his
sleeve. He scooted up a bit and took his bearings. A goat ambled up
to the water trough where he had nearly drowned. The goat looked at
him briefly before lowering his furry face into the trough.

“Reaction to what? What time is it? What the
hell happened?” Terry reached down to help him a second time, but
Larkin again swatted him away.

“It was the poultice,” said Terry.

“Hell no it weren’t,” said Millie. “It was
Terry who done put his stash in my herbal cabinet.” She crouched
down next to Larkin. Her face was a crisscross of wrinkles in the
sunlight. “Terry done put his morning glory seeds in my
things.”

“Morning glories? Like the flower?” asked
Larkin. “In the poultice?”

Mille coughed before taking a drag of her
pungent menthol. “He got them off the Craigheads. Natural buzz and
such.”

Larkin looked to Terry. “You put magic
mushrooms in that thing on my leg?”

“No, Mr. Monroe!” shouted Terry with the same
victimized look on his face that Larkin had seen at least four
times in court. “I never bought that stuff. T.J. gave it to me
after I gave him my old Playstation. He just thought that Millie’s
shelf was where we kept that stuff. He saw her bags up there. You
can ask, Mr. Monroe. Honest.”

Larkin stared at the goat. It turned its long
head toward him and stared back. Strange horizontal pupils scanned
the scene. Water droplets fell from a wispy beard.

“That’s Trinity,” said Terry. “Like from the
Matrix.”

Trinity blinked. Larkin dug his hands into
the dirt. “Dear, God,” he said. “What did I ever do?” He looked to
the sky.

“What’s that?” asked Millie. “To deserve all
this?” She laughed.

“What time is it?”

“It’s about eight thirty in the morning,”
said Terry. “You talked nonsense for a while. Gave the boys a big
treat. And then we let you sleep it off. You weren’t rousing
though. So we brought you here. You can stay as long as you’d like,
Mr. Monroe. I figured you might want to stay a while given that the
law wants you.”