Our Lady Chaos, page 32
part #5 of Bloodletter Series
“Eddie, no!”
He slammed into Gil, his head snapping up into his uncle’s chin, driving the man’s head back with an audible snap. Eddie screamed, and the monster he’d hidden within himself all his life shattered the last of his restraints and lunged free. His fists rocketed out, pummeling Gil’s face, neck, head, and cymbals crashed with each and every blow. His furious onslaught drove Gil to his knees, as surely as the butcher’s hammer dropped cattle.
With each blow, a shriek of pure rage erupted from Eddie, and in each scream, rang years of hatred, years of anger, of pain. Visions of life with Gil flashed before him. Margo with a black eye, his doll collection melting and sizzling and popping, the petty meanness, the beatings, all of it, came roaring back, and Eddie was as powerless to stop those scenes from replaying in his mind’s eye as he was to stop his fists.
His hands felt petrified as if they would never uncurl again. The muscles in his neck, shoulders, and upper arms felt like river rocks, hard and cold. His knuckles ached with each impact.
Thick arms wrapped around Eddie from behind as Morton lifted him bodily away from his uncle. John took five steps, holding his writhing adopted son against his chest. When he set Eddie down and took a step back, he wrapped his big hands around Eddie’s bicep’s and held him there.
“Let me go! Let me go!” Eddie hadn’t been aware until that moment that he’d been yelling the words at John Morton ever since the chief had picked him up. He blushed with shame and snapped his mouth shut. He listened for it, but the music no longer played with the wind.
“No, Eddie.” John’s voice rang with calm, quiet authority. “You need to stop this, now. Let me handle him.”
Eddie’s gaze zeroed in on John’s face, and the sight of his adopted father’s expression was enough to push part of the rage away. Behind John, Gil staggered to his feet, his face a mask of vindictive anger, dripping blood and snot.
“You’ll go to prison for this, brat!”
“I doubt that,” said John without taking his eyes off Eddie’s face.
“You’ll see!”
John sighed as though he were the weariest man in the world. “Just go away, Ratherson. Haven’t you done enough?”
Gil sputtered with anger and stood his ground.
“Go away.”
“And die,” rasped Eddie in a harsh, hateful voice that even he didn’t recognize.
Gil squawked and sprinted toward Eddie, his hand going for his belt buckle.
Eddie’s gaze drifted from his uncle to his adopted father’s face, and then with a move any martial arts master would be proud of, he shifted his weight and twisted his arms until he was free of John’s grasp. He faced his uncle and raised his hands again.
“I’m warning you, Ratherson!”
Gil came on, ignoring John as much as Eddie had moments before. He closed the distance to Eddie, stripping his belt from his belt loops. When he was three steps away, he ratcheted his arm back as he had so many times in the years that Eddie suffered under his wrath, slinging the wide leather strap behind him like a drover readying his whip.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” said Morton, once again pulling his gun.
Two steps away from his nephew, Gil began to bring the belt forward, the strap whistling through the air.
Eddie didn’t move out of the way, he didn’t protect himself. He just stood there.
Waiting for it.
The belt slapped over his shoulder and snapped against his back. As if that had been what he waited for, Eddie lurched forward and grabbed his uncle by the neck, fingers digging, digging, digging into the older man’s throat.
Gil abandoned the belt and started swinging his fists. He stepped forward and hooked his leg around Eddie’s, shoving him hard and breaking his grip. Eddie fell to the gravel, banging his head. Like a cat leaping on a mouse, Gil dropped on him, straddling his torso with his knees, and began raining down blows.
Morton took a single step, and Gil froze as the .45’s hammer clacked back into firing position. “Give me an excuse,” the chief hissed into Gil’s ear. “Please, I’m begging you…”
Eddie’s ears rang from the assault, but he heard what the chief said as plain as day—and his uncle’s whimper.
“Now, Ratherson, what we’re going to call this is mutual combat. No jail for you, no jail for Eddie. But don’t mistake this for weakness, because I’ll tell you right now if you ever come back here, if you ever bother Eddie again, I’ll see you back in prison. And this time, you cowardly son of a bitch, I’ll make sure you stay for a good long time. Even if I have to manufacture the evidence to make it happen.” Morton took a single step, his face contorted with rage. “Now, get up off of that boy, or heaven help us both, I will pull this trigger!” His icy voice seethed with hatred.
Gil got up, his hands up, his movements slow and deliberate. “I got witnesses to what you just said, Chief.”
“So what? Who do you think people will credit more? The chief of police or an asshole skell who’s already been to prison once? And for beating the boy, you just assaulted?”
Eddie sat up without the berserker fury that had ruled him moments earlier. He rubbed his jaw. A calm, a cold detachment separated him from the fight. He looked up at John.
“It’s okay, Eddie,” said Morton. “Why not go on into the house now?”
With a nod, Eddie stood and dusted himself off. He glared at Gil, but the man wouldn’t meet his gaze.
“So, Ratherson, you ready to leave?” Morton’s big .45 remained pressed behind Gil’s ear, and Gil’s hands were still up in the air. He nodded. “Then go.”
Eddie stared at Gil’s pickup truck. Through it all, Margo hadn’t moved. Her angry gaze tracked Eddie as he walked to the house but froze on the steps.
On the roof above him, stood the scary lady, her face writhing with pleasure.
6
1989
The phone rang, jarring Eddie from a deep sleep. He rolled over, fumbling for the cordless phone that he kept on the nightstand. It was Thursday, the one day a week where his obligations allowed him to sleep in. He only had a lab, and it started at three-thirty in the afternoon.
He found the phone without having to open his eyes—which was a plus toward going back to sleep after he ended the call. Eddie thumbed the on button and pressed the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”
“Hope I woke you up, brat. Hope I woke up that pretty new wife of yours, too.”
Eddie’s eyes flew open, and he pushed himself up on one elbow. “Gil?”
“Your Auntie Margo always said you was a smart one.”
Eddie pinched the phone between his shoulder and ear, freeing his hand to scrub the sleep from his eyes. There was no way he was getting back to sleep after talking to Gil. “What do you want?”
“I want you to tell me who the hell you think you are sending this letter to Margo. I want you to tell me where you get off making demands of us after all you’ve done.”
Ire sang its sickly sweet melody in the back of his mind, sounding similar to something he’d expect to hear in a Middle Eastern coffee house. “After what I did to you?”
Gil chuckled, and it was a nasty sound. “Hell, yes, you little bastard. What you did to us. Me in prison, your auntie Margo left alone to struggle, no help from you. No, you are off in your perfect little life without a second’s consideration about us.”
Eddie growled in the back of his throat. I should just hang up. He threw back the covers and swung his legs out of bed, wincing as his feet struck the cold hardwood floor. “I did all that? Little old me? And to think all those years you said I wouldn’t amount to anything.”
“Are you sure you want to get smart with me?”
“You’d prefer me dumb, wouldn’t you Gil? Too bad for you I’m not dumb, and I was always smarter than you—as much as you railed against it.” Eddie suppressed a sigh and shook his head. I shouldn’t let him bait me.
“You sure about that, brat? I mean you always thought you were so smart, but I seem to recall me always getting the better of you and not the other way around.”
“What do you want, Gil?”
“I’ve said, haven’t I? I want you to answer those two questions.”
Eddie sighed and closed his eyes, counting to ten in his head. “First, I didn’t send Margo any letters. It was—”
“There you go again. There goes that smart mouth.”
“Do you want answers or not?”
Gil sighed, and it sounded like an explosion in Eddie’s ear. “Go on then.”
“I didn’t send you any letters. As to the second question, anyone with a pulse can figure it out—even you, Gil, with your limited intellect—I am within my rights to demand the money Margo made by selling my house out from under me.”
“Well, ain’t you just all that.” Gil’s voice had taken on the nasty edge, that edge that Eddie always associated with danger. “Don’t we deserve repayment for all the money we spent on you? All the money taking you to waste time with that headshrinker? For the extra food? For the clothes?”
“I don’t seem to remember you doing much of anything for me, Gil. And, my attorney happens to be very good at his job, and he says you owe me the money.”
“I guess I had you figured right. I guess you are the type of man to let everybody else fight your battles.” Gil cackled, and it sounded mean. “Even way back when, I knew you’d never be the sort of man that would come talk to me face-to-face. Lawyers!”
“Don’t call here again, Gil. It’s not as if you’re going to say anything that will surprise me. And, unfortunately for you, I’m no longer a twelve-year-old with no place to go. I no longer have to listen.”
“Is that so? Let me say something that won’t surprise you, then. That money is gone. You won’t get one red cent from either Margo or me. Waste your time all you want, talking to lawyers, writing letters—it won’t get you one penny from me. We got nothing for you.”
Eddie stood, his hands shaking with anger. “Ha. Congratulations. You said something correct at long last.”
“You got a smart mouth—”
Eddie thumbed the disconnect button and threw the handset on the bed.
“Your uncle?” asked Amanda.
Eddie spun on his heel. Amanda stood in the doorway, one hand on the door frame on each side. She had on a paint-stained T-shirt and a pair of cut-off jeans. Paint speckled her cheeks and her blonde hair. “Didn’t you have class today?”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Your class?”
She grinned and stepped into the bedroom. “Do you want me to smear wet paint all over you?”
“Interesting idea…”
“You shouldn’t let him bother you, Eddie.”
Eddie flashed her a thin smile. “I know all too well what Gil’s motivations are. You should’ve heard what went on in my head—that I should just hang up, that I shouldn’t let him get to me.”
She cocked her head to the side. “You’re a smart guy, Eddie. You should listen to yourself more often.”
He waggled his eyebrows. “Should I? Even now?”
“Is that all you ever think about? You just woke up. Your breath no doubt smells like a truck stop pisser.”
He felt a grin to match hers stretch across his lips. “It wouldn’t take me but a second to brush my teeth.”
“I’d love to test that theory, but as you can see, I’m covered in paint, and I have class in a half-hour.”
“It seems to me, the solution to all of our problems is in the bathroom.” He ticked his points off on his fingers. “Toothbrush. Shower.” He winked. “We could kill two birds with one stone.”
“You are a smart man.” She pulled her T-shirt off over her head. “Race you.”
Fifteen minutes later, Eddie sat down at the kitchen table wearing a pair of running shorts, a loose T-shirt, and a smile. As he shoveled a spoonful of Cap’n Crunch into his mouth, Amanda swept into the room, dressed for class, her hair up in a ponytail.
“You should tell Roger about the phone call.”
Eddie nodded and grinned around his mouthful of cereal.
“I’m serious, Eddie. Roger can probably do something, and if he can’t, Daddy can.” Having a father-in-law who was a partner in a large law firm had its benefits.
Eddie swallowed. “I will. I promise I’ll call him as soon as I’m done eating.”
She kissed him on the top of his head. “I’ve got to go, or I’ll be late.”
“No flirting with the guy sitting next to you.”
She batted her eyelashes at him. “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. Either way, you’ll never know.”
“Oh, no? What makes you believe I don’t have my spies in your classes?”
“What makes you so sure I’m not flirting with your spies?”
He chuckled. “Touché. Though it would be nice to win one of these exchanges before I die.”
“Plenty of time for that, but if that’s in your bucket list, you better increase your game.” She strolled out the door before he could think of a comeback.
Eddie finished eating and put his bowl in the kitchen sink. With a sigh, Eddie turned, and his gaze drifted to the cordless phone handset standing on the counter. As he recalled his conversation with Gil, his expression soured. Won’t I ever be free of him? Another sigh slipped between his lips.
He picked up the phone and dialed Roger Stein’s number. Roger worked for Al Hawthorne—Amanda’s father.
The receptionist put Eddie straight through to Roger’s office, and he picked up on the second ring. “Hello, Eddie. How are tricks?”
“How do you do that?”
Roger laughed. “How do I answer the phone with such grace and aplomb?”
“No. How do you always know it’s me?”
“Geesh, Eddie. Would you ask a magician to reveal his tricks? The receptionist tells me.”
“Oh.” Eddie’s cheeks grew warm, and he could imagine the rosy color they must have.
“What can I do for you today, Eddie? Besides educating you on the wonders of modern telephony.”
“My uncle called this morning.”
Roger’s voice lost its jocular tone and became all business. “Gil Ratherson called you this morning?”
“Yes. He called to yell at me.”
“Yes, I understand. Al told me that in the past, your relationship was less than…”
“Yes. He beat me on a regular basis.”
“And he did time for it, correct?”
“Not very much, but yes.”
“I understand. I will draft a restraining order and get it filed this afternoon. He called you at home?”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. It might just make him angrier.”
“Are you worried his behavior may escalate?”
“I’m not twelve anymore, and the last time we had any interaction, it didn’t go as he planned at all. Then again, he’s vindictive. He might do something sneaky—something to the house, or the cars. I don’t want him to—”
“You don’t want him to mess with Amanda? Of course not. I can include a distance limitation for both you and Amanda in the court order.”
“Okay. But you should talk to Al. He knows the history. Plus, Amanda is his daughter. Whatever Al wants to do is fine.”
“Done. Tell me about the call.”
Eddie sighed and then blushed again at the sound of it through the phone. “Well, it was just more of the same old same old. Although he said I’d never get a penny from him. Does that mean we can go ahead right away?”
“No, we still need to wait out the waiting period we put in the letter. But I don’t want you to worry about all of this. It might surprise you how many times defendants say something similar but then the day before the waiting period expires they pay in full. Or, at least file an answer.”
“I doubt Gil will pay—no matter how much time we give him.”
Fabric rustled as Roger shrugged. “He may answer the complaint.”
“Okay,” Eddie said.
“I’ll speak to Al in a moment about the restraining order, but while I’ve got you on the phone, let’s assume that your aunt and uncle answer the complaint. Given this phone call, I want to reiterate, and perhaps underscore, that it would be best if you didn’t attend the trial.”
“You’ll get no argument from me. If I never see them again, it will be too soon.”
“Good. Though, as I said in our first meeting, there’s an excellent chance we may get a summary judgment, and there won’t even be a trial. Of course, we’ll have to wait for their answer to the complaint before we know, but it’s black letter law. Your aunt will breach her fiduciary responsibility to the trust if she refuses to distribute the proceeds from the sale of your house and the goods inside by the end of this waiting period.”
“If there’s anything Gil can do to make this process more difficult, he will do it.”
“I understand. There’s not much he can do. If they could claim legitimate expenses in your upbringing, they might have a legitimate defense, though. Do they have anything such as that?”
“He mentioned something like that today, but I can’t imagine what they could claim as legitimate expenses.”
“It sounds as though he’s been to see an attorney, then. Still, it’s nothing for you to worry about. Let me do the worrying.”
“Okay, sounds good. After you speak to Al, can you call and let us know what you two decided? I may not be here, but you can leave a message on the answering machine.”
“Will do,” said Roger. “Oh, there’s Al. Let me run and catch him before he leaves.”
“Okay, go. Thanks, Roger.”
“It’s why I’m here. Talk to you later.”
Eddie disconnected and put the phone down on the corner of the kitchen table. He didn’t want another phone call from Gil, so he packed his backpack and headed to the library to get a little studying done before his lab.
7
1989
They didn’t hear from Gil again—the restraining order that Roger filed was enough to scare him off. The next few months rushed by in newlywed bliss, and, to be honest, Eddie didn’t even think about the lawsuit. So when Al Hawthorne called and invited Eddie and Amanda to dinner, he thought nothing of it.
