Outlaws

by Tim Green

  "Jenny, the truth is, you are oveiTeacting. You did good, though, you came to me right away. You said nothing to anyone. You did good. Now keep doing good and don't worry. When anyone asks, including Cody, you just say that you've been socking some money away here and there through the years for a rainy day. You finally decided that you should do something with it. That's it."

  "It's so simple and so stupid," she complained.

  "Exactly," he replied. "That's why everyone will believe it. Don't worry. We just need some time. You're not going on trial. You just have to get by for a few more weeks. Nothing may come of it. Things happen. If we need to act, we will. Eight weeks from now, Jenny Grey and Bill Moss will be no more. Relax. A lot can happen in eight weeks. 1 won't let them come and take you away."

  Striker took her face in his hands and kissed her gently and passionately on the lips.

  "Feel better?" he said to her.

  "Yes," she replied. She wasn't completely happy. It was a stupid story to tell and expect people to believe, but he was right. They didn't have to totally believe her. By the time they found out she was lying, if they ever could, she'd be gone. "I do feel better."

  "Good," Striker said, "you go eat ribs, and I'll see you tomorrow night?"

  "Yes," Jenny said with hungry eyes. "Cody will be at the hotel all night, so I won't be going home."

  "Wonderful," Striker said, grinning wolfishly. "I'll rest up for it."

  Chapter Eighteen

  Madison filed Judge Connack's exhumation order with the county clerk at four forty-five. She went back to sign some papers and was still able to leave her office at exactly five-thirty. She always tried to leave by then. Some nights she would work late, but not Fridays. Fridays began her weekends with her son. Because she was so busy, there were times during the week, like this one, when she saw very little of Jo-Jo. This particular week had been extremely busy, and the two of them had had nothing more than perfunctory hellos, how-are-yous, and good-byes over the breakfast table. The weekend, however, was theirs.

  Jo-Jo loved Chinese food, and Chiang Juang's, a little place in a shopping center near home, was where their weekend usually began. Madison picked him up at the house without bothering to change her clothes. They ordered what they usually ordered, and Madison indulged in a glass of plum wine while they were waiting. She needed some help unwinding from the week. Try as she might to focus on her son, the thought of Alice and Walter going out on a limb for her with the Yusef Williams case kept popping into her mind. She didn't want to make problems for either of them. She respected them both and cared about not only their friendship but their careers. She hoped she wouldn't end up damaging either with her insistence on the exhumation.

  Because she was so distracted, it wasn't until the steaming bowls of chicken, vegetables, and rice were set down in front of them that she realized that something was bothering her son. She knew because usually she had to remind him of his manners when the food came to the table. The way he'd tear into Chinese food always reminded Madison of his father. Big Joe had always eaten with the rushed urgency of a man who was afraid the plate was about to be taken away. The prodigious gut Joe sported, now that he was no longer an athlete, didn't surprise Madison in the least. But now Jo-Jo was simply staring at his plate with his head slightly down.

  "Jo-Jo," she said, "the food's here, honey. What's wrong?"

  "Nothing, Mom," the boy said, picking up a serving spoon and slowly loading up his plate.

  "Don't say nothing, sweetheart if something is wrong," she said. 'Tell me, honey. Maybe I can help you."

  Jo-Jo just shook his head and repeated, "Nothing, Mom."

  Madison knew that something was certainly wrong, but she had to be careful not to cross-examine him like he was on the witness stand. It was so natural for her to pump people for information that they didn't want to give. She had to force herself to slow down and gently work the truth from her son. But Madison worried that Jo-Jo might be getting to the age when he'd rather discuss things with his father, or a father figure. She was aware of the gender barrier, and she hoped that she could somehow circumvent it.

  Right now, with everything that had been happening lately, she had the sinking feeling that Jo-Jo's secret had something to do with his father. That made her want to know what bothered him all the more. She forced herself to be calm.

  "Jo-Jo," she said patiently, serving herself some rice as she spoke, "you know you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, and I won't keep asking you because I know that sometimes people have private thoughts that they want to keep to themselves, but I'd be glad to talk with you about anything, son. I love you very much, no matter what."

  Jo-Jo nodded to let her know that he knew all this. Madison began eating and attempted to change the subject.

  "Did you help your friend Jason with his tree fort after school today?" she asked.

  Jo-Jo was silent for a moment, and she knew he was going to talk about what was bothering him.

  "Mom?"

  "Yes, honey," she said, setting down her fork. She wanted him to know that what he said was important to her.

  "If someone tells you to keep a secret," he said, looking up from his plate and searching her face, "and you want to keep it, but you want to tell someone too, what should you do?"

  Madison cleared her throat.

  "Well," she said, "as a lawyer, I have to keep people's secrets all the time, honey, and it's very important to keep other people's secrets."

  Jo-Jo nodded emphatically. That's what he thought too.

  "But," Madison continued, "sometimes, even as a lawyer, I have to tell other peoples secrets. I have to, by law, sometimes."

  "By law?" Jo-Jo was amazed. The law was an impressive concept to him.

  "Yes," Madison said. "If the secret is something against the law or can cause someone to get hurt, then I have to tell the secret, even though otherwise I could never tell. Does that make sense?"

  "Yes."

  Madison waited.

  "Well," he said, obviously very uncomfortable, "you know how when you and Dad got divorced, Dad couldn't see me, and now he can, only not all the time?"

  "Yes," she said, her insides knotting and twisting.

  "Well, is Dad seeing me against the law?" he asked.

  Madison cleared her throat. She wanted to handle this right, but dammit, she was being pushed into a comer by Joe and had the feeling she was going to have to take a stand soon whether she wanted to or not.

  "Yes, Jo-Jo," she said slowly, "your father is only supposed to see you according to the legal parameters--the rules--of our divorce."

  "So, I kind of have to tell you, huh?" he said.

  Madison couldn't tell him that he had to tell her. She couldn't lie. She had explained the whole thing to him in terms of an attorney-client relationship, but she had distorted those rules somewhat because there was a part of her that absolutely had to know what this was all about. Still, she wasn't going to manipulate him outright. If he wanted to talk, she'd let him. Besides, she knew from what he'd said already that Joe had made contact with him secretly. She wasn't going to pry it out. She remained silent.

  "1 haven't been taking the bus home from school," he suddenly confessed, looking solemnly at his plate. "Dad picks me up. He takes me for ice cream. He said he couldn't do it unless I kept it a secret...."

  "Every day?" Madison heard herself blurt out in shock.

  "Mom," Jo-Jo sobbed, looking up at her through tears, "I don't want to keep him away. I don't want to. I don't want secrets...."

  Madison had tears in her eyes, tears of love and sadness, and of the desperate fear that she was going to lose her son to a man she knew was a monster. She believed Joe Thurwood was using her son as if he were nothing more than a stage prop.

  Madison stayed where she was, and so did Jo-Jo. Even as recently as a year ago, when he was seven, she could have crossed to his side of the table and held him tightly, or he would have crossed to her. Now he was eight, and
something was different. In a very primitive way he had begun to assert himself as a man and not a child. It started that young. So, now, she had to simply look at him through her tears and hope that he could feel how much she loved him without her embrace.

  She did reach across the table, though, and he took her hand.

  "It's all right, Jo-Jo," she said. "It's all right. I know you don't understand. It's very hard. But it will be all right. No one is going to take your father away from you, honey. Don't you worry about that. If you can't see him every day and live with him every day, it will still be all right. It will just make the time you spend with him that much better."

  "Mom," he said, still crying, "maybe you guys will be married again? . . . Maybe?"

  "Oh, Jo-Jo," she said, squeezing his hand. "Oh, no, honey, we can't. Your father and I can't live together, honey. It hasn't got anything to do with you. You are the light of our lives. It's just he and I ... we just can't, Jo-Jo. Your father can't, and 1 can't."

  "Mom," Jo-Jo said desperately, "Dad said he could! He said he would come back and live with us if you let him. Mom, why can't he? Why can't we all be together?"

  Madison did want a man in her life. If ever she needed a friend, if ever she needed another man in her life, it was now. She felt alone. She felt weakened. Her life was being slowly and steadily pulled apart. She needed a man right now more than anything. She was thriving as a trial lawyer in a man's world, but for all her strength and competence, she still couldn't help the feeling that somehow only a man could hold her life together.

  Jenny stopped at her friend Ronda's apartment on her way home from Striker's office. She needed a little something to pick herself up. She was feeling confused and low. A little powder went a long way to help temper those kind of feelings. Cody had never used cocaine. He wouldn't know the difference if she was a little high, but she would be feeling much better for it.

  For his own part, Cody stopped for a few cold ones with some teammates to end the week. By the time he arrived home, Jenny was wired up pretty good. She was sitting out by the pool under her umbrella, sunglasses on, with the cordless phone in one hand and a Diet Coke in the other. She had been calling around the country, talking to old friends she hadn't seen or spoken to in a while, letting them in on how spectacular her life was. Cody gimped around the pool with a fresh beer in his hand and sat patiently on the end of her chaise lounge, drinking the beer while she hurried one of her old college friends off the line.

  "Hi," she said, hanging up and leaning forward to kiss him. "Hey," he said.

  "Knee looks sore," she said.

  "It is," he said. "But I'll get it straightened out for Sunday."

  Jenny had had enough on that topic, so she jumped up from her seat and, standing over him, said, "Should I get ready? Are you hungry?"

  Cody stood slowly, finished off his drink, and shifted his weight to stand on his good leg.

  "Yeah," he said. "I want to change my clothes, too. Then we can go."

  "Green Mesquite, right?" she said cheerily. "I know you love it there on Fridays during the season. It worked for you last weekend. We gotta do it again."

  Cody smiled. He liked her thinking tonight. Sometimes she would do and say things that clearly reminded him why he'd married her.

  The Green Mesquite was a simple enough place with green vinyl booths and red-and-white checkered tablecloths. The draft potato beer was served in plastic cups. Special house barbecue sauce sat in plastic ketchup squeeze bottles next to the napkin dispensers at each table. Fancy was one word no one had ever used to describe this place. Jenny seemed oddly content. Normally she would be forced to choke back her disdain just walking into such a place. Cody ordered a pitcher of beer, and Jenny even enjoyed helping him drink it. Cody threw down one glass after another.

  "You're quite the drinker tonight," she said.

  "Hell," Cody replied, "my damn knee is sore. I spent the whole friggin' week on the trainer's table. But now it's Friday night, and I've got the best- damn-looking girl in Texas for my wife. Why the hell not have a few?"

  Jenny couldn't disagree with that. They would go right home after dinner, Cody would want to get a good night's sleep. A short night should ensure that Cody's indulgence didn't end up causing a scene. Instead of badgering him not to drink too much, she just smiled. After the second pitcher was gone, Cody asked the waiter to bring another. He also ordered the meat platter that gave him some of everything from the grill. Jenny waited to order.

  "I was going to wait and see how long it would take you, but I can't wait any more. Why don't you take your sunglasses off?" Cody said, then threw down another glass of the dark beer.

  "Oh, didn't I tell you?" she said happily, "I'm pretending I'm a spy, and I don't want anyone to recognize me. What do you care?"

  Actually, with all the snort up her nose she hadn't even realized she was still wearing them.

  "1 guess I don't care," he said with a smile. She was right. What did he care if she wanted to be a little goofy? As long as she was being so damned pleasant, he wasn't going to rock the boat. They were having a good time. He was relaxed, and he had big plans for her when they got home.

  When Cody's face darkened so suddenly, Jenny thought for certain he'd just figured out that she was wired. She reached up with two fingers and wiped under each nostril as she sniffed, thinking some of the powder had leaked out. Then she realized he was scowling at someone behind her. Her back was to the door, so she turned around to see who it was. There was a man coming toward them that she didn't recognize. He was dressed in a shoddy suit, his tie was too thick, and he looked like he'd just come from a long day at the office. She thought she'd seen him somewhere before. When she heard his voice, she knew who he was and thought she might vomit the Diet Coke she'd had by the pool and all the beer in between.

  Jeff Board actually had the audacity to pull up a chair and sit down at the end of their booth.

  "Well, what are we having for dinner?" he said, introducing himself to Jenny with a smirk.

  Jenny watched as Cody's face turned red. She was certain the first thing that Board was going to do was bring up her bank account. Now, by the look on her husband's face, she didn't know if things were going to get that far at all. She knew Cody, and she knew that look. There was an intensity and a hatred in his eyes that could scare anyone. When he'd been drinking, and he looked that way, she knew things were going to get ugly.

  "Get the fuck out of my face," Cody snarled. "I told you, you piece of shit, to start running if you saw me."

  Board seemed remarkably confident. Jenny thought the man must be crazy. "You can't talk to me like that, you think I'm afraid of you? I'm not afraid of you," Board said daringly. He knew he had Cody Grey by the balls, and he wasn't afraid to squeeze. "Yeah, but then maybe you're practicing up for the way they talk in jail. What do you think your wife will be doing when you're gone?"

  Cody's hand came out from under the table like a snake. Board couldn't have struck a more sensitive nerve. Cody grabbed him by the tie and yanked him up onto their table like a side of beef on a butcher's block, sending their drinks and the empty pitchers flying everywhere. Then he twisted the long hair at the back of the IRS agent's head in his fist and slammed Board's face down a couple of times on the table, bloodying his nose and noisily rattling the remaining silverware. Jenny let out a screech as the man's blood splattered her eggshell-colored blouse. Cody was on his feet now, and he reversed Board's direction, hauling him off the table by his tie and sending him onto a messy, empty table in the middle of the room. The table, two chairs, and Board all crashed down onto the floor.

  "You fucking asshole. Grey," Board shrieked through his cupped hands, trying to stem the flow of blood from his nose. "I'll get you for this! Someone call the police! You'll pay, you son-of-a-bitch.' I found your wife's money, you asshole!"

  Cody was in a full rage. He took a three-quarters-full pitcher of beer off a nearby table and splashed it in Board's face to shut him up. When
he was quiet, Cody spoke with deadly venom.

  "You listen to me," he said, stabbing the air in front of the IRS man as he spoke. "You bother either me or my wife again and I'll kill you. Do you understand me? I'll fucking kill youl"

  Cody made a lunge for the bloodied, beer-soaked man, who slid across the floor to get out of Cody's way. Cody stopped and pulled two twenties from his wallet, flipped them on the table, and grabbed his wife by the hand before he yanked her from her seat toward the door. Hie entire restaurant was absolutely still. They were all watching. Jenny was appalled.

  "Let go of me!" she shrieked, twisting and flailing her arm to get free. Her husband was an animal, a hopeless savage.

  "Come on," Cody growled.

  "I'm not!" Jenny replied. "I'm not, Cody! You do this all the time, and I'm not taking it anymore! I'm not going anywhere with you!"

  "Suit your fucking self," Cody snarled with disgust. "It won't be the first time."

  Board was still babbling and moaning about the police and jail. Cody retraced his steps to give him a quick extra kick in the ribs.

  Board, cringing with the expectation of another blow, balled himself up into a fetal position. Cody turned, brushed past his wife with a furious limp, and walked out of the restaurant, slamming the door behind him.

  Board jumped when he heard the door slam. When he realized it wasn't him that had been smashed again, he opened his eyes. He lay there in a puddle of beer amid a pile of tables and chairs and greasy food. He picked a half-eaten rib off of his pants and slowly got to his feet. Blood was still running freely from his nose. He could feel it and taste it. His shirt front was soaked, and he smelled like beer. Jenny Grey turned and walked out. Every eye went from her to him. He opened his mouth to say something. He was humiliated. He would wait outside for police to get there and issue a full complaint. He'd sue Cody Grey on top of it all. He'd have him arrested. But he wasn't going to endure this gawking for a moment longer. When Board walked out the door, it was as though the final actor had left the stage. The audience began to buzz with excitement.