The Do-Right (10 page)

“How'd you get such broad shoulders. That a family thing?”

“Swim team.” He was gazing at her breasts. His lips were open. He smelled like sweat and soap and beer and some kind of aftershave but not Old Spice.

Her skin must be whiter than this bed sheet, white as cornstarch.

He reached.

“One second, OK.”

He looked in her eyes then. She looked back. They said something, on her part it was verifying: this kid, this man, this male person, there was a message but she didn't know what he said, guessed he didn't know either. She touched his chest. Few hairs round the nipples. Muscles on his flat belly.
Felt the ribs. No gut at all, inward curve. He was circumcised, first one she'd seen. She touched his wet dick, and it moved in her hand, and he groaned. She let go, and he groaned again. Ran the heels of her hands down the long, long length of his thighs to the muscles above the knee, then back up the taut sides of his legs. He was hard again.

He opened his hand so she could have the foil package with the rubber. She took it. “You got huge feet, Isaac.” She grinned.

“Thirteens. Don't expect me to know anything. I don't—”

“Yeah, you do.”

He was quiet for a while. “May I touch you now?”

Listen to that,
May I
.

He did what she had done. His hands hovered on her breasts, not squeezing or pinching, letting his palms graze her nipples, then he rounded his hands and contained them. He bent and rested his face, then his lips on them as his hands traveled the curves of her waist and the flare of her hips and the insides of her thighs. He put a finger inside her and exhaled choppily, avoiding looking at her. “It goes in so—”

She rolled down the rubber, hoping she'd got it on the right way, scooted back and brought him with her. The second time didn't take long but long enough for Delpha's body—and not solely her brain—to confront a proposition: that the present was recording a piece of time she might want to keep rather than stack up and dismiss. That she was not in Gatesville Women's Prison, favoring Rita who had a pretty face and poor table manners and would always take up for her. Or Rita favoring her. This was a new piece of time.

XII
XII

AT 6:30 ON a Thursday, Phelan parked in a space near the Holiday Inn office where he could monitor arriving guests. Tonight he'd gotten it together enough to equip himself with a thermos of coffee, a Mounds bar, and the evening paper, in addition to the camera with fast film. He sipped the coffee slowly.

At 7:10, the coffee and coconut long gone, a woman in a green Ford Maverick parked in a slot near the office but did not get out. Phelan jotted the plate number and noted the McGovern '72 bumper sticker,
Put A Human in the White House
. Five more minutes and a black Seville, license J5489, coasted to a stop by the motel doors. The man who got out automatically buttoned the second button of his jacket, as though preparing to step up to a witness stand.

That was his guy.

Lloyd Elliott was maybe five ten, with a little paunch and hair combed straight back. Not a lot of it on top and not trying to hide it. Late middle-age. Furrowed brow, worry lines all over the map. The woman in the green Ford waved to him. He raised a hand to her. As he stood there, hand up, twenty years tumbled off him. A younger, taller man entered the lobby to sign in Mr. and Mrs. Jones.

Phelan snapped a photo as Elliott leaned into the Ford, probably giving her the room number. The woman touched
his chin, and he smiled.
Snap
. Phelan gave the Ford and the Seville a long lead, then carefully followed them around to the backside of the motel. The woman who got out was brunette, around five three, regular weight, pretty but not beautiful. Her tip-tilted nose was shiny, lipstick pale if any. She wore a billowy-sleeved flowered blouse and maroon pants, a modest bell to them. And boom, ring on the left hand. They entered Room 162, Elliott unlacing his fingers from hers to hold the door for her.

Snap
.

Phelan needed one of those zoom cameras so he could find a slit of curtain to shoot through, get some flashes of the action. His opinion was that that's what the husbands would be looking for, the nitty gritty, but being as this was the wife, a clench might do it. Hadn't got that yet, and he wanted the smoking gun. Like the reporters these days, sniffing around for Tricky Dick Nixon's smoking gun. Hadn't unearthed it yet.

Figuring the clench was most likely to happen when they left, Phelan settled in to wait some more. Maybe Lloyd was a two-minute kind of guy. Thing was, the coffee had backed up on him. He should have thought of that. Phelan had to take a leak, and he had to stay where he was. He toughed it out for twenty-seven minutes then got out of the car, leaving the door open a crack, and walked behind the trunk. Looked around, unzipped.

They came out of the room.

Phelan slithered back into the car, leaving the door quietly open. But he could have slammed it and popped a wheelie for all the couple out in front of 162 would have noticed. The woman was barefoot and crying, Lloyd Elliott in his shirt sleeves trying to surround her with both arms, all the worry-lines back on his map. Slouched in his seat, ear out the open
window, Phelan listened. If only he had a drive-in speaker clipped to the window. But theirs was a silent movie.

The woman put both hands over her face, her shoulders shaking. The billowy blouse was untucked, little strings that tied at the neck untied. Lloyd reached out to her but let his arms fall back helplessly. She turned to him, gazed up into his face. Then she put her arms around his neck. His hands closed on her forearms. They looked at each other for a long moment, leaning toward each other until their heads touched. Then they went back into the room.

Phelan'd got a shot with the hands to her face, starring the wedding ring. He recorded that tender stare-down.

After searching around under the seats for an old cup or coke bottle, he sacrificed his thermos by taking a piss in that. Thing had the benefit of a cap.

He waited another hour, jacket off, sleeves rolled. Alternately he stifled in the roasting car or rolled down the window for a breath of air, an invitation to the mosquitoes, which exulted in on him singing and stinging. A few minutes before too-dark-to-see, Lloyd Elliott and his girlfriend walked out of the room. Phelan held the camera tightly to his head to keep it steady. In between the black Seville and the green Ford, the couple embraced, they kissed, the lawyer clasped the woman to his chest, his chin on the top of her head, his eyes closed like he was standing in the parking lot of heaven.

Snap. Snap
.

Smoking gun
.

Soon as they'd gone, Phelan chucked a perfectly good thermos in the Holiday Inn's dumpster. One expense Miss Wade would never hear about.

XIII
XIII

FIRST THING FRIDAY morning, he put a rush on the film by slipping the technician a five, but
Ha-ha on you, Tom
, all that really bought him was the first call when the photo packages rolled in Monday. Tuesday, he loomed over Miss Wade's desk and had her set up a meeting to deliver the photos to their client.

“So when and where do I meet her?” he asked as soon as she hung up, but the phone blared again, startling both of them. Phelan heard her assuring Joe Ford that yes, she was at work, and yes, she remembered her appointment this evening. She was about to hang up again when Phelan said, “Lemme have him.”

She handed him the receiver. Phelan asked Joe if anybody they knew had taken up the law.

“Son, I work with the ones that took against it.”

“I know, smartass, but what I'm wondering is—”

“Miles Blankenship.”

“Who?”

“Drum major with the funny hat. Valedictorian.”

“Him? That was Miles Blankenship that gave that speech?”

“Yeah, saw him at the ten-year reunion, the one you didn't go to. Drives a Lincoln Continental. His wife's homely, though.”

“And you got yourself one beautiful Amazon. How're those twins of yours?”

“Future Hall of Famers. I tell you Kathy's 'bout to pop out another one? We're working on the starting lineup.”

“That's some easy work. Thanks, Joe.”

Phelan flipped through ATTORNEYS until he found Miles Blankenship. Same business address as…he licked his fingers and turned the tissue-like pages until he matched Miles to a law office ad. There it was, Griffin and Kretchmer, Miles' top dogs. Here Phelan's trunk held a P.I.'s toolkit—pry-bar, wrenches, hammer, rope, twine, Baggies, flashlights heavy and slim, change of clothes, raincoat, couple hats—and turned out the Yellow Pages were his best friend.

Phelan pondered how to approach his old acquaintance. He could buy him a drink, but it was weird asking a guy out for a drink unless you'd already drunk with him. He shelved that idea and just phoned him, prepared to remind Miles they'd gone to high school together.

But Miles recalled a little matter of a couple tackles lifting his tall drum major hat after a game. They had squeezed him out, played catch with it until Phelan snatched the hat from its flight plan and tossed it back to Miles.

“Hmm.” Not something that had stuck with Phelan. “All I remember is you giving that speech in the city auditorium.”

Miles Blankenship coughed. “Sure thing. You and my mother. She thought I should have used fancier language.”

“No, it was good. ‘We've inherited a crummy world. But we can fix it.' You were right on about the first part. Hope the last is true.”

Silence on the other end. “Thought you were blowing smoke.”

“Nope, you got my attention.” And Miles had too. For Phelan, the lines were a showstopper. He'd been struck by
the foreign notion that anything he might do could repair crumminess. Had not fit himself and fix-the-world into the same toolbox before, but he savored the idea.

Nothing was forthcoming from Miles. Probably surprised to hear his eighteen-year-old self quoted back to him ten years later. Phelan felt like a prize wuss himself. He launched in on what his new business was and what he needed: details on the Daughtry-Enroco case that a lawyer named Lloyd Elliott had handled. If Miles knew anything. If lawyers all talked shop at some lawyer bar.

“Some do. Not me so much. But here's what I heard.” The case was over a formula. Daughtry developed it. Allegedly someone slipped it to Enroco, Daughtry caught wind of that and sued. Enroco claimed simultaneous discovery in its own Ph.D.-packed R&D, but after some negotiating, the lawsuit went away.

“Kind of an unusual outcome,” Miles said. “Enroco hoisting the white flag.”

“Suppose so. Daughtry still in business?”

“That, I couldn't tell you.”

“What's Elliott's rep among you men of the bar?”

“Standard enough, earned his partnership, not a hotdog. Does well for himself when he could be swinging in a hammock.”

“Meaning what?”

“Well, the wife.”

“What about the wife?”

“You have been out in the bay, Tom. Hadn't heard of Neva Elliott.”

“Yeah, well, you lawyers want oil in your cars, I was doing my best to help you with that.”

“And my car is damn grateful. But Neva Elliott…ever heard of Midas?”

“In Mrs. Fortner's English class, I think. Changed everything to gold just by touching it. Married to the woman with snakes for hair.”

“Hey, now there's a stand-off.” Miles laughed. “The Elliotts don't have kids. But whatever Neva and her Wall Street partners touch turns to gold. Lloyd Elliott could twiddle his subpoena all day if he cared to.”

Phelan dotted his ballpoint against a notepad. Neither one of them needed money. But then, nobody minded having too much money, and the wife's pile might be motive for Lloyd to hang on to the marriage. Just, he hadn't looked like a man who cared about cleaving to any woman other than the one with her arms locked around his neck.

So why not just split? Why rub Lloyd's nose in the pictures and humiliate yourself doing it? Peculiar. Unless the Mrs. was after his girlfriend. Stir up shit, kill off the girlfriend's marriage as a token of her appreciation to Lloyd.

Even that didn't—Phelan pulled himself up short. There was a business opportunity in this phone call. He offered to help Miles out if he ever needed some investigation and in return, could he call Miles when he was looking for info about legal cases? Asked if Miles would be a contact.

“Sure, as long as they're not our cases.”

“Great. Appreciate your time.”

“My mother would appreciate you remembering my speech.”

Swathed in pink ribbons, Phelan hung up. “OK, back to Mrs. Elliott,” he said to Delpha. “Where does she want me to bring the photos?”

“J&J Steakhouse. The restaurant has a museum called The Eye of the World. You know about that? Tomorrow night at ten.”

“Now that is one supremely odd choice. What'd she say to you?”

Miss Wade's brow creased. “Mrs. Elliott talked like she needed to convince somebody. Educated woman—she used a word I had to look up in my dictionary.” Delpha slid out her top drawer and showed him a miniature book with a red plastic cover so, Phelan guessed, you could consult it in the rain or the bathtub.

“I just agreed with her. Sounded to me like she wants to make Lloyd think more than twice before he cheats again—she said him getting your pictures would be a
deterrent
. Now, that particular word, I didn't need to look up. It's big around Gatesville.”

“She's also a very wealthy woman, according to my old friend Miles. So rich her husband probably wants to keep being her husband.”

Delpha frowned. “She seem high-strung to you?”

“Among other things. Night I met her down on College, I didn't see her mouth move, but her scotch disappeared. Like drinking with a ventriloquist.”

Phelan already knew the strip-like museum tacked onto the J&J Steakhouse was not a comfy spot for conversation. Parents went on in to order their T-bones, get some peace while kids gawked at The Eye of the World, a boggling display of miniature people, animals, and architecture whittled by one of owners.

He siphoned himself off from the entrance with its smiling hostess and stepped through a door labeled Museum into a corridor two feet wide. One wall was the showcase: dioramas behind plate glass. Two rows of Bible stories enacted by orange-crate-wood figures, topped by other cutout citizens along with non-scale birds, camels, and sheep populating the Statue of Liberty, the Parthenon, and the
Tower of Babel. Spires, cupolas, domes galore. Mrs. Elliott was standing, arms folded, by a grand nativity scene arranged in an Alamo-style manger. She wore the charcoal suit and sunglasses. A girl of maybe eight or nine was down at the end, forehead plastered to the glass.

Phelan handed over the envelope with the photos and studied Mrs. Elliott while she opened it. Same brunette hair with a high sheen, bangs, feathery curls. Straight nose, strong chin. Thick make-up, oranger on her jawline than her white neck. No perfume. In fact, little whiff of anti-perfume, doctor's office, maybe. She tilted the 8×10s left and right, brought them forward, briefly tipped down the sunglasses. He caught a glimpse of the swampy brown eyes, their rims puffed and redder than before and thought about Lloyd and his girlfriend's clutch in the parking lot. He felt sorry for her.

She lifted a briefcase from the brown carpet and put the photos into it. The little girl squeezed by them. Mrs. Elliott waited for her to leave, then held out a white envelope, a notable quiver in her grasp. “Your secretary quoted me the total amount owed. It's all here, rounded to the dollar. Thank you for your services.”

The sunglasses confronted him until he understood he was dismissed.

Wham, bam, you're welcome, ma'am
.

He nodded and walked past
The Last Supper
and
Solomon's Temple
, out the restaurant's entrance and into the steamy night.

The woman he'd met last time had been in a way different mood. Feverish, talky. This one was the curt woman who'd called up their first day. He'd always been fair at reading faces, knew when a guy was likely going to start something or back down—knew without much thinking—and his body readied itself accordingly. Thought everyone did it. Was harder with
the dark glasses but what he was reading with Mrs. Elliott was not distaste or disappointment. It was impatience. She wanted to get this picture show on the road.

He slid into his car and waited. She'd have to pass him to get back out on the street.

Families went by, couples. Car doors slammed. She never came out.

He got out, smiled at the hostess and scanned faces in the restaurant. Exited and strode behind the J&J to a dumpster and some patched blacktop. Flatbed parked back here. Crates and boxes. Weeds. Line of woods directly to the west and damned if there wasn't a cut for a street that ran off through there.

Ditched me. Do I not like that
.

He stood sweating behind the steakhouse. A short guy in an apron banged out the back screen door, cigarette already in his mouth. Slapped his pockets then raised his face to Phelan as if to a deck officer passing out life jackets.

Phelan tossed him a matchbook from Leon's.

Well. Unfair as it is to you and misguided as they are, everyone cannot love Tom Phelan. Your second case is finished. Get the money to the bank
.

In the morning, Miss Wade counted the bills in the envelope Phelan handed her and block-printed a deposit slip for State National Bank. Then she looked up and listened to the story of the payoff.

Phelan strolled around a while and came back. “Know anything about wigs?”

“Little.”

“'Scuse me, but how?”

Her eyes flicked toward him then away. “Woman I knew,
her hair came out in fistfuls. She got her mother to send her a wig cause she didn't want a answer to Cueball or Baldylocks.”

“Tell me how a wig looks different than real hair.”

“Well, less they're wore out, they look shiny. And all the hair's one same color, no streaks or anything.” She ran a hand through her own ash brown hair. Some of the strands were lighter, sunnier than others. Phelan leaned over. Her hair smelled like lemons.

“You don't see any scalp, just this seam of hair, and it's better they have bangs cause if they don't the hairline looks like the end of a kitchen table.”

“Mrs. Elliott has brunette hair like that. Bangs. Very shiny.”

“And?”

“And…and I don't know. You just have the phone number for her, right?”

“Yeah. That one she'll answer on Tuesdays or Fridays at eight in the morning. Before she has to go to work. She says. We got no address for her.”

“Lloyd'll be in the book.” Phelan strolled a few more steps, stopped and glanced back at her. “Thanks for saying ‘we.'”

He got a stare followed by a nod. He hesitated, feeling on delicate ground, tapped his pencil. After a while, shooting her a glance, he asked, “You know any blackmailers, Miss Wade?”

She'd been starting to smile, but her head went down then.

Silence floated like a buoy between them.

“Of the people I meet these days, Mr. Phelan, you and Joe Ford and Miss Doris and Calinda Blanchard know I been in prison. ‘Cept for Mr. Ford, that has to, they hadn't found more than one occasion to refer to it. You need to know something I learned from my past, ask me straight out. I'll tell you. Just don't act like my slip is showing.”

If Phelan'd had the hammer from the P.I. kit in his trunk,
he'd have whacked himself with it. “That's a pact,” he said softly.

She looked off toward the window as she spoke. “We're dealing with a wife don't trust her husband here but, in case she's taking somebody else for a ride, you don't want it to be us.”

Phelan raised his index finger together with the one middle finger he had left and tipped them both toward his secretary.

“OK then,” she said. “Blackmailers. Some just see a chance. But the other kind think you got something that's theirs. May be true. But it don't have to be, that doesn't matter. May be some piddly thing. In prison it gets real piddly. May not even be a thing, just your attention or some favor they think they deserve. What matters is they get what they want. They win. You don't. You do not win. Only thing that matters. Understand?”

“Got it. Thanks. Mrs. Elliott's out to win, I can believe that. It's what she wants to win that I'm not too clear about.” He was walking around. Stalling. Why was he doing that? He slipped his hands in his pockets.

“OK then. Say hello to Debbie at the bank.”