Primary Justice

by Dave Conifer

  He worked through the usual protocol to penetrate the layers of his people, and then waited, as he always did, before the familiar voice came on the line. It finally came. “How goes it, Captain? Heard you been putting out some fires.”

  “Working on it,” Colfax said. “I think we’ve got it covered. You know what they say, never a dull moment.”

  “Tell me about it. I’m living like a rock star right now. I never know what town I’m in anymore.”

  I can hardly hear you,” Colfax said. “Where are you? On the jet?”

  “Where else? Right now we’re somewhere between Ohio and Iowa. I’ve only got a couple minutes. I read the rundown you sent me. It looks solid. I feel pretty good about it. How’d it go last night?”

  “I don’t have direct contact with them, but if it didn’t go as planned I’d have heard about it by now. I don’t think we’ve got anything to worry about,” Colfax answered. “We’ve got all the cards. All the good ones, anyway. We sent the signal. I think it got through. I think they’ll back off now. I’m not worried.”

  “You mean about you, or about me?”

  “Is there a difference?” Colfax asked. “We both have a lot of the same skeletons in our closets.”

  “Let’s just say I’ve got a lot more at stake than you do right now,” the voice said. “I’m sure you see that, right? Don’t take it the wrong way, okay?”

  “Yeah, whatever. My ass is always on the line, too. Don’t forget that. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Calm down. I understand. So about our problem, I know you said you think we’re golden, but is plan B all set, just in case we have to deal with any surprises?”

  “It’s in place,” Colfax said. “I need at least a day’s notice if we need to go with it. I hope we don’t. Unintended consequences, you know? I’m afraid we’ll have to start trusting people who might not be on our side.”

  “It won’t get that far.”

  Colfax heard muffled conversation in the background. While he waited, he heard the cell phone in his briefcase go off just before the voice came back on the line. “I’ve got a call on another line,” Colfax said. “Hold on, I better grab it.”

  “Just as well. I’ve got a briefing book staring me in the face and a bunch of suits lined up to get at me before we land. Keep me posted, will you?” The line went dead before Colfax had a chance to reply. That was starting to get old.

  ~~~

  His preparation had paid off, he knew as soon as the front door swung open and Gail stood before him. He didn’t flinch as he surveyed the damage to her face through the screen on the storm door. A green bandana covered most of the familiar bristles and coils of her unruly hair. He couldn’t remember her ever wearing one of those, making him think there was something bad going on underneath it. One side of her face was unscathed while the other looked like what it was, a patchwork of skin grafts, each of a different shade of fleshy pinks and reds. She’d done some slick work with an eyebrow pencil but he could see that the one over her left eye, the same side that had the grafts, was completely burned away.

  “Hi,” she said. When her face crinkled into a smile he wondered if it was painful for her. The rigid, blotchy side looked as though it didn’t want to cooperate. She pushed the door open slowly enough for him to move out of the way.

  “Hi,” he finally said, trying not to study her face now that the screen was out of the way.

  “Aren’t you coming in?” she asked.

  “Yeah, sure,” he said, stepping around the door and into the house. The warmth that enveloped him after he was inside was a reminder that he still didn’t have a coat.

  “You look good, Billy,” she said. “Except I think you’re still wearing the same clothes you had on the day you went away. Come into the kitchen. Want a cup of tea?”

  He hadn’t had tea since living with her nearly fifteen years earlier, but he knew she didn’t do coffee. Too popular, and not earthy-crunchy enough. If he wanted something hot, it would have to be tea. “Yeah,” he said. “By the way, you look good, too.” Better than I expected, anyway.

  “Bull,” she said, turning her back as she reached into a cabinet for a mug. “I’m a freak show. But thanks. Still drinking it black?” she asked as she poured from a green pot that she’d pulled off a burner on the stove. While she waited for an answer she dropped a tea bag into each, and a splash of milk into her own.

  “Yup.” In his younger days he’d have made a nasty crack about black, probably something that had to do with the man she’d dumped him for. Then she’d have sulked, and this meeting would have been over. Instead, he smiled. It was nice to be remembered, even if it was only about how he took his tea.

  “Seriously,” she said after she brought the cup over to the table where her own waited. He thought he noticed a faint grimace as she lowered her frail body onto the chair across from him. “You look really good. I didn’t know what to expect after all those years in prison. You look a lot like when I first met you. Like a tough guy again, instead of a ghost.”

  “A what?”

  “That was a compliment,” she giggled. “I swear. But you have to admit you really let yourself go for a while. Now the beer belly’s gone and you’re built back up,” she said, flexing both arms.

  “Yeah, well there’s no beer in prison,” he said, patting his stomach. “But there’s lots of weights to lift and lots of time to kill.”

  “You look better. I thought we were losing you there for a while.”

  “I hardly remember the last year before I got busted,” he said. “Maybe two. I was fucked up twenty-four seven. But you know that.”

  “Yeah, it was bad,” she agreed. “I couldn’t do it anymore. I needed somebody. I had to leave. But I know I didn’t handle it right and all.”

  “Yeah, you did,” Fargo said. “And you waited too long. You shouldn’t have to put up with that crap from somebody like me, and you didn’t.”

  “No, I guess I didn’t. Hey, those tattoos are new, huh? They don’t look too friendly.”

  Gail had plenty of ink on her own body, or at least she had before the grafts. Nothing like what she was looking at on his exposed forearms, though. She went more for butterflies and plants. “Maybe to you,” he said. “I got ’em just before I went in.” He lifted his shirt and showed her part of his white supremacy collection.

  “That’s pretty nasty,” she commented. “Is that a swastika? Yuck.”

  “I don’t believe in any of this shit, but it kept me healthy in prison with everybody thinkin’ I did.”

  “You’ll have to tell me about it sometime,” Gail said. “I thought about you a lot when you were in there. I worried about you, Billy.”

  “Liar,” he said, smiling.

  “If you say so,” she said with a smile. “No, really, I did.”

  “I’m damn sorry about the girls,” he said. “That must have hurt bad. They were great kids. I hope I treated them good.”

  “You did. Even when you were at your worst. They liked you.” She took a deep breath, and dabbed at her eyes with a paper napkin that she picked out of a wooden holder on the table. “I told myself I wouldn’t cry,” she said. “Actually, only one of my eyes can cry anymore. How about that?”

  “How about that,” he repeated quietly. He watched her win the struggle against her tears.

  “At first it was like it wasn’t even real. I was sure it was like a bad trip. I thought I’d come down from it and they’d be there. Then, after I realized they were really gone, I just didn’t care about anything anymore. Nothing mattered much.”

  “I can’t imagine, Gail. I don’t know how you got through it.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “Just about everybody still thinks I did it,” he said. “It sucks to be me, sometimes.”

  “I know you didn’t do it,” she said. “You can be a shit. You were a shit. But I know you’re a good person. Even back then. I always knew you didn’t do it.”

  “You thou
ght I was a good person?”

  “I still do.” She smiled as she held her cup at her chin with both hands. “For a long time I thought you were the one for me, Billy. You know what I mean? Don’t you even remember? Besides, there was no evidence against you.” She took a sip of tea and clanked the cup back to the table. “It was easiest for them to blame you. It seemed like everybody wanted to believe it.”

  “That’s for damn sure,” he said. “They still do. And people like me don’t matter for shit anyway. As long as somebody gets locked up. That’s all that matters.” He took a swig of tea. It hadn’t been hot when she put it down in front of him, and now it was lukewarm at best. “So you know what I been doing since then. What about you? Still buying and selling trinkets? What’s life like now?”

  She shrugged. “You’re looking at it. I don’t have much left.”

  ~~~

  “He doesn’t look so good, does he?” Joanie asked as she leaned on the door frame of her boss’s office. The construction crew had cleaned up all the glass after boarding up the windows and repairing the back door, but she didn’t think she could get used to the bullet holes that were splattered across the paneled walls. “Billy, I mean. Last night he looked like he doesn’t care anymore. It made me feel so sad.”

  “He had a tough day,” Willmar said. “That’s all. He’ll bounce back. Your uncle takes good care of him.”

  “I’ve been trying to get hold of him all morning. He’s not answering the room phone or his cell. My uncle’s out of the picture, too.”

  “The guy doesn’t have a ton of options,” Willmar said. “He didn’t sound like he was planning on going to one of those halfway houses. Maybe he checked out of that motel. But where would he go?”

  “That’s what I was wondering. If he’s not there, where the hell is he?”

  “By the way, did he leave his things at your place?” Willmar asked. “He didn’t know he wasn’t coming back that day.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “But he didn’t have much. Why?”

  “He said he’s got the paperwork on the rape case,” Willmar explained. “I’d like to see it, that’s all. Do you think he’d mind?”

  “I doubt it. But he didn’t have much with him. If he had a pile of paper, it wasn’t a big pile, I can tell you that.”

  “Maybe it’s in the car,” Willmar suggested.

  “Could be,” she agreed. “Ah, shoot. If it is, it’s probably in the green car, but Russ took it back and gave Billy another one.”

  Willmar thought about that for a moment. “That’s good, isn’t it?” he said. “At least we know where it is, right? That’s more than we can say for Billy and the other car.”

  “True,” Joanie said. “I’ll talk to Uncle Russ and track it down. Whatever I can find, I’ll gather it up and bring it in tomorrow. How about that?”

  “Good,” he said, nodding. “Hey, let me ask you something. You think the drive-by shooting here had anything to do with him?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” she said. “One thing I’m learning about Billy is that trouble follows him everywhere he goes.”

  ~~~

  “What exactly happened that night?” Fargo asked. “I mean, if you don’t mind. I don’t want to push you or nothin’ if you don’t want to talk about it.”

  She shrugged. “With you I can.”

  “I already talked to Kevin.”

  “Really? I lost touch with him. How’s he doing?”

  “He’s good,” Fargo said. “He’s a pharmacist. Can you believe it? Works at a Walgreens near Cherry Hill. He’s like a regular guy now.”

  “A pharmacist? That’s great. I never would have thought it. Good for him.”

  “He said he was out front layin’ on his face when the house blew. You think there was really a bomb?”

  “That’s what the police said,” she answered.

  “That’s not what I’m asking. The police also said that I put it there,” he pointed out. “And that I cruised by and shot your house up. That’s bullshit. Maybe the bomb is, too.”

  “They showed Kevin some bomb parts,” she said. “If he believes it, so do I. It was loud.”

  “How come you survived?” he asked. “I mean, you were inside, right?”

  “I don’t know why. I was just in the right place. I’ve thought about that ever since. If only I could switch it around so the girls could have made it instead of me.”

  “Don’t say that. Life don’t work that way. Don’t torture yourself.”

  “Oh, I do it all the time,” she replied. “They’d only been in bed for an hour. What if, what if. It never stops.”

  “I’m so sorry, Gail. And I’m so glad you know I didn’t have nothin’ to do with it.”

  “The bomb must have been a big one,” she said, dabbing at her eyes again. “There was nothing left of them.” She sniffed, and wiped her nose with her sleeve. “The cops said if I hadn’t told them the girls were back there, they wouldn’t have even known by what they found. I never even got to bury them. Not really.”

  ~~~

  “Hey Deac, you gonna watch the debate tonight, you right-wing bastard?”

  Kevin Morris looked up from the computer screen, where he was logging bottles of Augmentin into the inventory system before bringing the batch inside. It was Lou Egeland, the guy who ran the stock room in back of the store. “Gonna be a lot of blue blood spilling on that stage, don’t you think?”

  Morris had liked Egeland from the first day they met. Although their views couldn’t be more different, both enjoyed a healthy political discussion. Morris wasn’t entirely sure how old Egeland was. You just couldn’t tell with him, he’d told his wife once. Might be seventy, might be forty. There wasn’t anything wishy-washy about his politics, though. Egeland was right there with Arria. He often razzed Morris about being the only black man at the other extreme. They had fun with it and it never got personal enough to test their friendship.

  “I doubt it,” he answered. “Why bother? If I watch it, my wife will be right there telling me what they’re doing wrong.” He chuckled. “Kinda’ like you would do. Isn’t that right, Lou?”

  “At least somebody in your house has some sense.”

  “Lucky me,” Morris answered. “But I’ll just read about it in the papers tomorrow.”

  “Or else you can just tune in and let Limbaugh tell you what to think,” Egeland said before disappearing into the back. Morris smiled. Who needs Rush Limbaugh? Arria will take care of that.

  ~~~

  “I’m glad you came,” Gail told him when everything had been said and he stood to leave. He wondered what she would say if she knew he didn’t have any place to go.

  He never considered mentioning it, but he’d have accepted in a second had she offered to let him stay there. One afternoon of him was enough. If she was still glad he came after that much time, well that was a good thing. Better go before he said something dumb. “I’ll call or something,” he said before walking out into the cold and heading for the car.

  There was one question that he hadn’t asked. Not because he hadn’t remembered it, not because he was afraid to ask it, not because – well, he didn’t even know why he hadn’t asked. It gnawed at him as he left Freehold, and by the time he passed the Six Flags Great Adventure signs at the Jackson exits he was downright pissed at himself. Since he didn’t have a place to go and no reason to hurry, he took the next exit and pulled into a boarded-up fruit stand carved out of the winter woods along the road. The modern-day fascination with cell phones wasn’t so mysterious anymore as he fumbled through the glove compartment until he found his. How did we ever live without these things?

  “Did you forget something?” Gail asked when she realized who was calling.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I had a question I was afraid to ask.”

  “About my burns, right? It’s okay.”

  “No, no, something else,” he said. “I was thinking. The fire and the explosion and all, it doesn’t seem like it was
an accident, right? I mean, somebody had it all planned out. At least that’s how it sounds to me.”

  “Bombs don’t walk into a house and set themselves off.”

  “Well, if I didn’t get nailed for that rape, they woulda’ got me for this,” he continued. “But you said you don’t think I did it. So, I was wondering. Who do you think did it? Ever thought about it?”

  She laughed. “Of course. All the time. And I know exactly who did it. Sam’s father. It has to be. He always hated me. After Sam got killed his father tried to get the girls, but I wouldn’t let him have them. He loved those girls and he hated me.”

  She was talking about Rip Mankato. The same Rip Mankato that Fargo himself thought was behind everything that had gone wrong that night. Mankato was one of the few men that even Russ Bismarck was afraid of. Gail didn’t sound like she was too happy with him either, even though he happened to be her father-in-law. That didn’t surprise Fargo.

  “Why would he think he could take them from their mother?” he asked.

  “He didn’t, if I was alive,” she answered immediately. “All I know is he thought I was a piece of garbage. Even when Sam was around. I can only imagine how he felt when he found out his little angels were living with Kevin. But it didn’t matter who I was with. After Sam was gone, damn if he was going to leave them with me. He tried to do something about it, and it just didn’t work out the way he planned it. That’s what I think.”

  She and Sam Mankato had never married, despite having two daughters and a nice house in Ewing. Fargo once asked her why she took Sam’s name even though they weren’t married, and she told him that Sam insisted, and same for the girls. He’d never met Sam, who was already dead before he met Gail. From what he understood, he made his living working on fishing trawlers off the Jersey Shore. More than one person had mentioned to Fargo that there always seemed to be more money flowing into that household than Sam’s fishing career could account for. None of that mattered when Sam turned up dead in a vacant lot in Ventnor after an early-summer fishing jaunt one June, stabbed twenty or thirty times in the chest.