Chapter 21

The funeral for Emily Amelia Hardwick was held in the Cathedral the week following Kathy and Bill's return from their honeymoon. They had heard about Emily very briefly from April when she came out for their wedding. At the wake Mary was the next of kin receiving condolences. While they were there, April introduced them to a young couple, Jim Vance and Kerry Casey.

Jim looked at Bill and recoiled. Then he looked at Kathy and said, "My God! May ... Please may I do your portrait? Never in my life have I seen such—"

"—suffering, darling," Kerry finished. "Jim is an artist. He completed the portrait of Emily over there a week ago. Would you sit for him? Please?"

The Cartwrights went to the casket to pay their respects. Then they saw the portrait and looked at it, stunned. Jim was still at their elbow when Bill turned and asked, "How much do you ... Forget it. You have a commission. Do we give you a deposit? Kath, you're the banker. Give the nice man a check. A big one."

Kathy took out a checkbook and wrote a check for ten thousand dollars and gave it to Kerry. She looked at it and almost fell over. Then she handed it back saying, "You don't understand. Jim wants to do you as a study. Never have we seen two people who have undergone greater torture to achieve their happiness than you two. It's his gift. Please accept it."

Kathy was puzzled and looked it. She insisted that they accept the check which Kerry did, reluctantly. Then Kathy asked, "How do you know? It's not true for me, of course, but it's true of him. But how do you know?"

Jim put his arm around Kerry's waist and she turned her face up to his for a kiss. Then the two young people began to speak alternately yet as if with a single voice. It was almost like two people sharing a single brain. They said, "No, Kathy, you weren't tortured. Much! As a very young girl — about ten years old? — you held Bill while he was being tortured. They made him put his lips against a red-hot knife blade to prevent him from kissing you.

"He doesn't know that they did it to you, also. He doesn't know that you volunteered to be whipped unmercifully to try to spare him some agony. He doesn't know you saved some of your food and tried to smuggle it to him while you were starving. You went through the jungles of Southeast Asia by yourself when he was moved to Hanoi and you couldn't follow. You swam to Hong Kong ... about ten miles, wasn't it? You almost starved to death rather than sell your body." The two young people were looking at Kathy who was aghast. No one knew what they had just said, but it was all true.

Then they looked at Bill and said, "And you, Bill: Chained to a wall for fourteen years. Tortured daily. Red-hot pincers frying your testicles. Constant whippings. For what? First, to find out where your Laotian friends were. That was good for thirty days or so. Then it was to confess that America was using germ warfare and waging genocide. Everyone signed that garbage, but you would not. Then it was just to defeat the American. They could not. They tried everything. And it didn't end until just a few weeks ago, did it?"

Bill was pale under his tan. He said, "But how could you possibly?..." Then he turned to Kathy and said, "Honey, whatever you made the check for, double it. This is a painting I really want to see!" They made arrangements to meet later and then parted.

After the funeral, Emily's will was read. Aside from $250,000 bequests each to James Vance and Kerry Casey, and bequests to her staff, the entire estate was left to Mary Jefferson, who was now the wealthiest woman in Chicago.

When Bill and Kathy met Jim and Kerry in their apartment, Jim looked at them and asked, "Could we do two portraits? Sort of two for the price of one? I would like to do one with the two of you nude. Would you mind?"

Kathy was startled and looked at Bill. He said softly, "Honey, we've spent most of our time together naked. I don't mind. Do you?"

She smiled warmly and started to strip off her clothes. Jim posed them with Kathy seated in a chair with Bill standing behind her. Kathy's body blocked his genitals from the picture. He put his hand on her shoulder and she gripped it while Jim started to sketch.

Because of the work with Jim, the Cartwrights now took an interest in art. One Wednesday they were near city hall and saw a group of ten men, apparently artists, arranging an exhibit, so they walked across the street to take a look. When they got close, Bill's stomach started to turn over. They were urinating on one flag, burning a hole in another, and desecrating a third with a Viet Cong flag. This was more than Bill could take. He went up to them and asked what was going on.

The apparent leader asked, "What's it to you?" Looking at Bill he said with a sneer, "You must have been one of those Americans who were terrorizing the poor Vietnamese. You murderer!" he screamed, swinging at Bill with a piece of heavy lumber.

Bill sidestepped and the man missed. Suddenly, several of the men came at Bill from as many directions. One was about to hit him over the head from the rear when Kathy kicked him as hard as she could in the balls. Bill turned just as the leader hit her behind the ear with the club he had first tried to use against Bill.

As Kathy collapsed to the ground, he went berserk. Dimly he heard police whistles, but he took the man who had hit his wife with a karate knife to his midsection. When the man folded, Bill killed him with a chop to the side of the neck. He waded into the others like a man possessed. When the police finally arrived in force, all of the men were on the ground and three of them were dead. Bill cradled Kathy's head in his lap, while he checked her pulse and found she was still alive.

A policeman had observed the entire event from close range. Because of the numbers involved he had radioed for help that finally arrived. Kathy was taken to the hospital while Bill was taken to headquarters. The assailants were taken to the prison ward in an ambulance, while a few were headed to the morgue. At the station he called Jennifer and found her at home. She said she would get a lawyer down to the station right away.

But because of the policeman's statement, Bill was treated as a hero by the police. While he was giving a statement to the police, a lawyer appeared and introduced himself. Bill went before the magistrate who heard testimony from the police officer that the leader, now dead, had swung at Bill's head with a club. When Kathy saved him from being struck down from behind, the leader had hit her. He described how Bill became a berserker and put all of the attackers on the ground in one way or another.

Bill was released and immediately went to the hospital where he found Kathy in bed with her head bandaged. She smiled warmly when he arrived and said, "That's the last time I try to be a hero for you, Bill Cartwright! All I got out of it was a headache. I'll let you be the hero in the family. Now can you get me some clothes so I can get out of this dump?" The attending physician said there was no danger and signed a release, so they went home together.

Later, a grand jury indicted the seven survivors on counts of aggravated assault, flag desecration and a host of other counts the district attorney was able to come up with. While awaiting the criminal trial, though, Bill received a civil summons. He was being sued in Federal court by the seven survivors and the estates of the three dead men for damages! Joining in the suit was a well-financed left-wing organization always identified with court cases for radical causes. He told Kathy who then called her new mother.

When she reached Ali Clifford on the phone, she told her about the recent events. Ali asked her to wait a moment. A few minutes later, she was back on the phone. She said, "Our litigation partner, Sandy Benson, will be leaving at once. She's probably the best trial lawyer in the state of California. She wants to represent Bill. Please allow her to. I think this is going to be fun!"

When Sandy arrived at their apartment, Kathy and Bill liked her at once. She was a beautiful tall girl with a sparkling personality. Bill reviewed the events and showed her the legal papers that had been served. He looked at Sandy and realized there were tears in her eyes.

She said, "Bill and Kathy, before I go any further, there's something you need to know about me. My husband, Jack, insists I tell you. As usual, he's right. I used to be one of those people yelling, 'Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh! The Viet Cong is going to win, ' and similar bullshit. While I was doing that in the cozy confines of a college campus, those bastards were torturing you daily. I was wrong. I know it. But Bill, it doesn't make up for what I did, or for the torture you suffered. You should tell me to get on the plane or a broomstick or something, but get the hell out of your life." She sat there with her head up straight but with tears running down her cheeks, waiting.