Local Rules

by Jay Brandon

  “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Johnson. I’m —” He changed his mind. “I’m just passing through town on my way to the coast.”

  “No you’re not,” she said, not even annoyed. “You’re that San Antonio lawyer’s defending Wayne Orkney.”

  “I’ve got to subscribe to this service,” Jordan said.

  Mrs. Johnson’s smile remained complacent. “Tea?”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  She had an extra glass and a pitcher handy. Jordan joined her in the shade.

  “Going to see Laura Stefone?”

  “I do have a few questions for her. She’s preparing a transcript for me.”

  Say whatever you like, the old lady’s pleasant smile invited him. “Laura’s a nice girl.”

  “She seems to be. Have you been her neighbor long?”

  “As long as she’s lived here,” Mrs. Johnson said, “this time around.”

  Jordan wanted to ask a wealth of questions, but he didn’t want to confirm the old lady’s suspicions. He gave Mrs. Johnson a sidelong glance. She looked like Mrs. Santa Claus, iron gray hair pulled back from a red and white forehead. Her cheeks were rosy, her plump mouth was pursed in cer­tainty, and her blue eyes, which were supposed to look kindly, were instead glistening and pale and treacherous as waistdeep seawater.

  “That’s right,” Jordan advanced in spite of himself. “Someone told me Ms. Stefone moved away from Green Hills for a while.”

  “So many do.”

  “I suppose. But she couldn’t stay away, could she?”

  “Oh, maybe she could have,” Mrs. Johnson said. “Laura wasn’t like some of the kids who tell everyone they can’t wait to get out, then come skulking back to town a few weeks later. Laura was different. She didn’t brag about what she was going to do, but people who knew her knew this town wasn’t going to hold her. Nothing much for her to stay for. Her mama didn’t have anything to give her, she was barely getting by with sewing and Avon-selling herself. And Laura had something, she was a smart girl and she suddenly got ambitious some time in high school. When she went away to Chicago, we thought that was the last we’d see of her.”

  “But she came back,” Jordan said, implying the question. Mrs. Johnson gave Jordan a sly glance and took pity on him. “Well, she owed the judge a big favor for one thing.”

  “Judge Waverly?”

  “Yes, sir. Laura worked for his wife part-time while she was in high school, cleaning house and whatnot. Let me see, the judge wasn’t a judge yet then, but everybody knew he would be, he just had to wait for old Judge Pearsall to die or retire. Anyway, that’s when Laura got interested in the law. From talking to the judge.”

  “Judge Pearsall.”

  “Judge Waverly,” the old lady said impatiently. “I think he had an office in his home back then, so he was around when Laura was helping his wife. They’d get to talking. Mrs. Waverly’d laugh and say they were both over her head. The judge must’ve seen something he liked in Laura, too—”

  So he’s had a long-time interest in teenage girls, Jordan thought cynically.

  “—because finally when she finished high school, he was the one paid for her to go to court reporter school in Chicago.”

  “But she came back.”

  “Well, after a year or two, the judge had become judge, the old judge’s court reporter wanted to retire, too, and there was nobody to take her place. So Laura came back.”

  “Returning the favor,” Jordan said. “So Laura and the judge go back a long way.”

  “That’s how small towns are, Mr. Marshall. There’s only a few of us out here on the frontier, every time you reach out, you bump the same people. Everybody’s got more than one connection.”

  “I guess every place is a small town in that regard,” Jor­dan mused.

  “That so? Mmm. What’s Laura’s connection to your case, by the way?”

  “Oh, well,” Jordan stammered, “just trying to get to know the players, you know.”

  “Mmm huh. So you’re from San Antonio, is that right? You have a family there, Mr. Marshall?”

  Jordan realized his obligation, and he fulfilled it. He’d used up some of Mrs. Johnson’s store of gossip, and he owed her a refill. But he kept Laura’s name out of it. Not that he expected her to be spared the gossip mill’s workings.

  “I’ve found out where adults go on dates around here,” he announced at Laura’s front door a few minutes later. “A place called Barney’s, just across—”

  “—the county line.” To Jordan’s knowing look, Laura said high-mindedly, “Well, one has heard stories.”

  “And just so your reputation won’t suffer besmirchment, I’ve brought us a pair of cunning disguises.” He handed Laura Groucho Marx glasses and stuck a bright red clown nose on the end of his own.

  Laura laughed appreciatively. “But they’ll still know you’re a lawyer,” she said.

  “Come on,” he urged.

  Laura looked down and swallowed. “Listen, Jordan, I’ve been thinking …”

  Such an announcement always precedes bad news. Jordan was instantly somber. “Don’t,” he said.

  Laura pressed on stubbornly. There was a sheen across her eyes. “This isn’t a good time for us,” she said.

  “No, but if not for all this, we wouldn’t have met at all.” Laura shook her head. Jordan found his voice going higher, out of his control, saying things he hadn’t thought. “Look! I don’t care. I know it’s bad timing. I know it might not work out! Let’s find out. Hurt me if you want to. Break my heart. But don’t back away because you’re afraid.”

  He thought the challenge would stir her. But Laura just stared at him, her expression turning from sad to angry to, perhaps, fond. He saw her turning inward again, and he reached for her hand.

  “That would have been touching,” Laura said, “if not for this.”

  She reached and pulled the clown nose off his face.

  “It gives me a touch of mystery, doesn’t it?” Jordan said, striving for a lighter tone.

  Laura smiled. It wasn’t much of a smile. She only did it for him. “I — ” she began but didn’t seem to have any idea where the sentence was supposed to go. Jordan remembered the rigidity of her face the first time he’d seen her in court. If he hadn’t lived through the last few weeks, he wouldn’t have known this was the same person. Laura struggled to compose her face and failed.

  “Come on,” Jordan said quietly. “You have to eat. Keep your strength up.”

  He pulled at her hand very gently, but standing undecided on the cusp as Laura was, that was all it took.

  Barney’s offered chicken-fried steak and long-neck beers. There were other items on the menu, but the waitress didn’t approve of anyone’s ordering them. There was a separate dining room, but Jordan and Laura sat in the main room, a big room, mostly dance floor. Along two walls were booths, dark under an overhang; across the room was a long bar for people who wanted to drink under the lights. At seven o’clock on a Thursday night there were only three or four people at the bar, men in work shirts and plaid shirts and work boots and cowboy boots, but the booths were pretty well filled. There were rustlings all around them, and the waitress spent longer at the other booths than she did at Laura and Jordan’s, joking with regular customers. Laura looked around and took a deep breath. The familiarity of the scene seemed to restore her.

  “So you met Mrs. Johnson? She must know everything then.”

  Jordan shook his head. “I covered very well. You’re doing a transcript for me.”

  “And we needed to discuss it over Lone Stars.”

  “She doesn’t know where we went,” Jordan protested.

  Laura laughed pleasantly.

  “Well, we’ll just have to come out in the open then,” Jordan said easily. When Laura didn’t respond, he switched subjects. “What’s new in town since my last visit?”

  “They fixed the birdbath.”

  “The spring flows. I had more in mind court news.”

&n
bsp; Laura shrugged. “What could be new?”

  There were three couples on the dance floor, standing out like as many ants on a windowpane. “You do partner danc­ing, too?” Jordan asked.

  Laura glanced contemptuously at the floor. “Oh, please.”

  “Come on, earn your chicken-fried steak.” He pulled her out of the dark booth, looking at the men in their hats holding puffy women close against their chests. “As long as it’s not—”

  Just as they stepped onto the floor, the band finished the slow song and started a two-step. “Oh, hell,” Jordan said.

  “What’s the matter?” Laura called over the noise. “Can’t do it?”

  They stepped. Two-stepped. He got to hold her but not close, and he had to pay too much attention to his feet to enjoy it. But Laura’s enthusiasm made up for his lack. Her face shone. At the end, the scattering of applause was for her. They fell back into their booth, Jordan gratefully, to find their food growing cold.

  “The two-step,” Jordan grumbled. “The most unromantic dance ever invented.”

  “This is Texas, pal. Dancing’s for exercise, not romance.” More beer improved Jordan’s disposition. By nine o’clock the food was long behind them, the dance floor was more than half full, people moved from booth to booth. If Laura wasn’t a regular at Barney’s, she was certainly a community favorite. Jordan was introduced to three couples from Green Hills, including the mayor and his wife, and said hey to a few people he’d interviewed. They were much friendlier when he was off-duty, or did Laura legitimize him? He wished she weren’t quite so popular. He wanted to hold her hand across the table and talk quietly. He watched the side of her ani­mated face, saw her glance his way, saw her smile expand a notch, and he brightened with the hope that some of her animation was for him. Between dances and visitors, they did touch hands lightly.

  “Tell me about the judge,” Jordan said. “Is he — ?”

  “Here’s a slow one,” Laura said, pulling him out of the booth. Jordan decided not to talk business. But business was all he knew about her. Asking about anyone else in town could be construed as related to the case. Instead he breathed the scent of her hair and murmured her name. When she looked up at him, he only said, “I’m glad you came back. From Chicago.”

  When they returned to the booth, there was a man behind Jordan’s beer. “Excuse me, I think you’re in my seat,” Jor­dan said politely before he realized Laura had stiffened be­side him.

  “Funny, that’s what I was gonna say to you,” Harry Briggs said. Man, he had a voice like he was speaking from the bottom of an oil drum. Jordan realized liquor had deepened it and wondered how long the cop had been in Barney’s. Jordan hadn’t recognized him at first because he was out of uniform, wearing a short-sleeved blue shirt that let the forest of hair at his neckline breathe freely.

  “Woncha sit down, Laura?” Briggs rumbled, looking at her intently.

  Laura, still holding Jordan’s hand, tugged at it. “Let’s go have a drink at the bar,” she said quietly.

  Jordan didn’t even see Briggs’s hand move before it was clamped on the lawyer’s wrist. “No, me ’n’ your frien’ here have to talk,” Briggs said.

  “Did you think of more details of the investigation you wanted to share with me, Officer?”

  “ ’Not an officer right now,” Briggs said, standing, which he had to move out from under the overhang to do. “I wanta talk to you man to man. ’Course”—looking over Jor­dan’s head, Briggs smiled down at Laura, who looked away—“you might need to get somebody to hold up your end.”

  “That’s amusing,” Jordan said. “We’ll pass that one on to the folks at the bar.” He tugged ineffectually at his cap­tive arm, which seemed to have the effect of pumping blood into Harry Briggs’s face.

  “You don’t understand,” Briggs said, leaning into Jor­dan’s face. “You’re leaving. She’s staying here.”

  “Oh, is that what this is about?” Jordan stepped back, lifting his hands. Briggs let him go. Jordan made an offering gesture in Laura’s direction. “Take her.”

  Briggs looked puzzled and suspicious. Laura’s reaction was more verbal.

  “What?! Just who the hell do you think you are?” she said to Jordan. “You’re not giving me to this jerk or any­body else. If you own anybody around here, I don’t know who it would be. You don’t even—”

  “See?” Jordan said amiably to Harry Briggs. “What’s the point of you and me fighting? Suppose you win, suppose you beat the hell out of me? You can’t win her, she’s not a prize. If she doesn’t want to go with you, she still won’t. Suppose I get in a couple of lucky punches and I beat you up? And say Laura liked me better, but she doesn’t like seeing me fight over her? But she still doesn’t like you ei­ther, so she walks out on both of us. Then where are we? Both sore and got nothing to show for it. You show me where the advantage is in it for either one of us and I’ll fight you. But until then, what’s the point? Scuffling around like kids on a playground. I ask you.”

  As Laura had fallen silent, Briggs had transferred his be­wildered attention to Jordan. Jordan spoke more confidently as he saw that the big cop was still mad but was growing sullenly immobile under the flow of the lawyer’s words. Jor­dan stopped with a reasonable, questioning expression. “Laura?” Briggs said.

  “No, Harry,” she said firmly. Briggs returned his attention to Jordan, looming like a leaning wall.

  “You’re right,” Briggs said. Jordan smiled. “No sense fighting you over her.”

  Jordan didn’t even see his fist draw back, so it was like a sudden attack of appendicitis, the pain blossoming in his stomach, growing like a fuel-fed fire, spreading to his throat, making him feel as if his limbs had dropped off, pain an amazing, all-consuming, never-ending presence in his body. Jordan was down on his knees, trying not to vomit, before he even realized that Briggs had punched him.

  “That’s just for being a fucking smart-mouth lawyer,” Briggs snarled down at the prostrate form. Then in a little-boy voice, “Laura?”

  Laura pushed him out of the way. Jordan grew vaguely aware that she was beside him on the floor, touching him hesitantly, afraid to hurt him. “It’s okay,” Jordan mumbled but ran out of breath, and when he tried to draw more, the pain in his abdomen drew fuel again.

  It had been years since he’d been struck and never by a grown man. It was amazing what adult muscle and fury could do to unprotected flesh.

  “That’s the trouble with being a silver-tongued devil,” Jordan said in the parking lot as Laura helped him toward the car. “When somebody can’t keep up with your wit and logic, he has to respond some other way.”

  “We’d better go to the hospital,” Laura said worriedly. “You might be hurt bad. He might’ve ruptured your stom­ach lining or something.”

  “Yeah. Maybe I can’t straighten up. Maybe I’ll need a cane to walk. You still got your cane?”

  “Shut up.” But then Laura started laughing. “Just shut up about my cane.”

  They leaned together against the trunk of the car. Laura’s face was close to Jordan’s. “I can see why somebody’d want to slug you,” she said fondly.

  “I don’t think hospitalization will be necessary,” Jordan said, putting his hand on her cheek. “Maybe if you just keep me under observation for the next twenty-four hours or so.” Laura laughed while she kissed him, a pleasant rumble of lips. They tumbled into the car together. Jordan protested when Laura insisted on driving, but that turned out okay, it let him lie with his head on her lap. Occasionally she stroked his hair back from his hot head, and when he murmured appreciatively, he could feel her leg vibrating along with his throat.

  “Mrs. Johnson’ll love this,” Laura said.

  “I’m kind of enjoying it myself,” Jordan agreed.

  “This is where I come those times when I’m not in San Antonio,” Jordan explained as he drove down Green Hill’s Main Street with Ashley in the carseat beside him. She looked around sleepily, lower lip outthrust. It
was Saturday, the heavy shopping day, they had so far seen five people on the streets. Jordan couldn’t have ex­plained why he wanted to bring Ashley to Green Hills on his weekend with her. He would have said it was something different, like a living amusement park, if she could only see the possibilities of the town. But the way he felt, as he pointed out the hardware store and the antique store and Main Plaza with its statueless pedestal, was as if he were bringing his daughter to see his old hometown.

  “That’s where I’m going to be working,” he said of the courthouse as he parked close by. The old red courthouse looked avuncular and unthreatening on the weekend. “Re­member when you came to see me at my office in the court­house in San Antonio?”

  “No,” Ashley said a little petulantly, as if he’d put some­thing over on her.

  “Well, you were”— he counted — “eight months old.”

  He walked with his daughter back up Main Street, en­joying the feeling. A couple of older women and a man in overalls said grave hellos; Jordan didn’t think they would have spoken if he’d been alone. The man knelt and shook Ashley’s hand, and afterward Ashley opened it to display a quarter.

  “Magic,” Jordan said.

  “No, that man gave it to me.”

  The old farmer, a stranger, winked at Jordan as he walked on. “Honey,” Jordan said, “when a stranger gives you money for no reason, that’s magic.”

  They strolled to the antique store to find that its lunch­room was only open weekdays, but Ashley stayed to admire a handmade rocking horse and a child-sized table. Stepping

  back, Jordan almost bumped into a man who, as they both excused themselves, revealed himself to be Judge Waverly. “Mr. Marshall.”

  “Hello, Judge. This is my daughter, Ashley.”

  Waverly didn’t stoop as the old farmer had done; he gave Ashley an initial once-over but then fastened his attention on Jordan. “Pretty girl,” he said perfunctorily.

  “Thank you. She doesn’t get it from me. Do you have children, Your Honor?”

  “Mrs. Waverly and I were never blessed.”

  Before asking the question Jordan had glanced at the judge’s hands and noted the simple wedding ring. On his right hand the judge wore a more elaborate ring, something like a class ring. Jordan wondered if it represented member­ship in some quasi-secret society.