Chapter 3

I'm not proud of myself for throwing a punch. I mean, I am, really — the guy's a professional killer — but I'm sure I could have handled it another way.

Andy Richardson — or Richie Rich as we called him behind his back (just jealousy, really; he had his own convertible) — was one of the assholes that my dolls and I had taken care of in high school. Actually Karen had done most of the taking care. Whatever; they were still my dolls. Andy and Julie had started dating in the ninth grade. And if we hadn't pointed out to her what an asshole he was — slipping her roofies, inviting his pals Bobby and Fred in for little mini-orgies, not taking care of her needs (well, that was a big deal for Karen) — she probably would have just gone right on dating him.

And in answer to your question, no, I didn't hit him while he was on the floor. I just sat there, trying not to throw up as I watched the Wizards training staff attend to him and then take him away on a stretcher to their medical facility. I just sat there and watched. And then the phone in my hand started ringing.

"Hello?"

"Are you going to bring my phone back now?"

I looked up into the luxury suite to see Sue Gunn waving at me.

"Um, sure," I said. "Where's the elevator?"

"Oh, no," she said. "Bad boys have to use the stairs."

So I stood up, followed by the eyes of all 15,687 people in attendance that night.

"You guys enjoy the rest of the game," I said to the stunned woman and her son sitting beside me. I ascended the stairs, and if people had leaped out of Sue Gunn's way as if they would be singed by her ethereal radiance, they were even quicker to leap out of mine as if whatever I had might be contagious.

"Thanks a lot, Sue," I said, tossing her the phone as I entered the suite occupied by the Kings staff and a few other wives of the players.

"Sure," she smiled. "I can't believe you were here with that asshole."

"I didn't know it was him," I protested.

"How could you not know it was him?" Sue demanded. "He has the same shifty little eyes, the same arrogant expression."

"I'm not a detective, you know," I protested.

"Obviously," she said. "Where did you meet him, anyway? The Playboy Millionaires Club?"

"He's a public servant," I was dumbfounded. "He drives a crappy car that even my mom wouldn't get in. This whole thing is just nuts. How did you know it was him?"

"I didn't," she confessed. "I saw you down there, and I called Karen to give her shit about your not calling me for tickets. Jules answered the phone. So what, is she living with you guys now?"

"For a little while," I avoided her glance.

"You didn't!" Sue said gleefully. "Did you? With Julie?"

I looked up to see Sue with a big smile on her face. I knew what she was asking.

"We did, with Julie," I answered, including Karen in the answer.

"Yeah, that would have been even better," Sue smiled softly, lost momentarily in what was, for both of us, a wonderful memory. "Anyway, I asked her who the guy you were with was and she said, 'what guy, ' and I photo-phoned him to her and she went ballistic. I never realized how much she still hated him."

"I never did either," I admitted.

"Looking back, though," she said, "I guess I should have. You and Gordon and her dad are the only guys she's ever really trusted. She used to really love him, you know, when they first started dating in the ninth grade. She and I were both on JV cheerleaders then. And then he started in with the drugs, and his buddies. And until you and Karen came along, she didn't even realize how deep the shit really was. You know, she's even on guard around Joshua a little bit. And I guess I should have known why."

"Well, believe me," I said. "If I had any idea at all that the guy was Andy Richardson, I would have cut the interview off right then. I certainly wouldn't have come to the game with him. It's just he was so, so, so nice. Fucking asshole."

"Shithead," Sue added. Exactly.

I spent the whole night stewing about what a sap I'd been, and Andy was probably very surprised to be summoned from his desk the next morning to meet a visitor at the FCC entrance. He'd probably figured that our little interview was over.

"Jason," he said softly as he approached, dark circles under his eyes.

"You fucking asshole shithead," I muttered as I felt my fist connect with his left jawbone. Then I was cut to pieces by the laser beams from the ceiling. Actually, I was buried by a horde of security guards — well, two — who emerged from the secret compartments that ringed the foyer.

I awoke to find myself handcuffed to a chair in Andy's office. I could taste blood on the inside of my lip, and my arms were sore, but I didn't think anything was broken.

"Jason, I'm sorry," he said.

I just stared at him.

"Alright, here," he said. "This is a police complaint I've filed against you for hitting me, twice in the jaw and once in the stomach."

He threw a piece of paper on the desk in front of me. I furrowed my brow.

"There's no way that I got in more than one —" I began.

"Yeah, I know that," he said, "and you know that."

"Just like we both know that you didn't have to let me get that one in," I said.

He shrugged.

"Jason, I was an asshole in high school," he sighed. "We both know that, too. I spent my last year in military school, and then I joined the military. And when I got out, I did a lot of therapy. To try to understand why I did what I did in high school.

"And I'm sorry," he said. "I can't undo it. If I'd known that was Julie on the phone I would have dropped to my knees to beg her forgiveness.

"You're still friends with Julie, obviously," he said.

I nodded.

"So that's why your wife yelled at me, too," he was nodding.

"No," I finally found my voice again. "My wife yelled at you because she independently thinks you're a fucking asshole shithead. Like I do."

"I'm sorry?"

This one came out as a question.

"Who is your wife?"

"Why?" I asked. "Is Julie the only one you owe an apology?"

He looked down at something in front of him, probably my file.

"Karen... ?" he shrugged.

Then his eyes grew wide.

"That redhead?" he gasped. "Karen... ?"

"McCarthy," I said.

"Oh, God," he sat back. In truth, he looked like he might faint again.

Colonel Monroe chose that moment to look in.

"Drew, you allright?" he asked. "You want me to have this sumbitch taken downstairs for a while?"

"No," Andy gasped out. "I'm fine. I'll be fine."

"You sure?" the colonel repeated, looking at me like I was still a threat in spite of the handcuffs.

"Yeah, Bob," Andy said. "I'll fill you in later."

Bob closed the door behind him, and Andy sipped from a bottle of water on his desk.

"I'm sorry," he said finally, "I shouldn't keep you like that."

He pressed a button on a small device on his desk and the handcuffs fell to the ground. I rubbed my wrists, more for something to do than because they hurt.

"I owe your wife my life," he finally said. "If she hadn't humiliated me in front of my dad at that student council debate, I'd have ended up in prison with Bobby and Fred."

"Bobby Parker and Fred Mars are in prison?" I asked, forgetting for the moment who this asshole was. So that was why they hadn't been at the last reunion. I'd just figured that it was because it wasn't one of the biggies.

"Yeah," Andy said. "For fraud and distributing drugs."

Huh.

"Anyway, I'm not surprised your wife hates me, too," he said. "Those pictures were a horrible thing to do. I hope my dad told her that he destroyed all of them. And the ones of Julie."

"I don't know," I said grudgingly. "Probably he did. She's never brought it up."

"You know, I still never figured that whole thing out," he was shaking his head. "By the time that debate was over, she could have convinced me that I was a Capuchin monkey."

Well, I wasn't about to tell him. As far as I knew, Operation "Bury Richie Rich" was still a highly classified secret in the Thompson household. Conceived, planned, and executed by Karen Thompson nee McCarthy, as revenge for his treatment of Julie Pinsky, it had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. While I was supposed to be entertaining Julie, Karen had sent one of the dolls, posing as her, into Andy's house where it had been drugged and date-raped. Karen had embarrassed Andy by engineering Julie's prom date with Gordon, and Andy had retaliated by passing out pictures of Karen in flagrante delicto, so to speak. So Karen decided to get him booted out of his more or less permanent position as student council president. Because she'd taken care to be seen elsewhere at the same time the doll was at Andy's, Karen managed to use the election debate to convince the entire school, as well as Andy's father, and even Andy, apparently, that the pictures were disgusting fakes. And they were. Sort of. At least, the Karen in them had been a fake. And they'd worked; Andy hadn't come back to school the next fall.

"Well, I just wanted you to know that I'm making arrangements to have that complaint shown to Julie," he said. "And, uh, Karen. You'll still have to go get booked and arraigned this morning, but then you'll come back in December and we'll get the whole thing dismissed and cleaned off your record. "

I picked it up and stared at it.

"They'll probably let you back in the house for Thanksgiving," he chuckled softly.

"Yeah, thank goodness," I said, looking at the complaint. "Thanksgiving dinner is always exciting at my house."

I was back in the Julie and Karen's graces long before Thanksgiving. On the trip home, I read the complaint and found that Andy had described how it had taken ten men and women to hold me at bay while they got the handcuffs on my wildly, but accurately flailing arms, and how he had cowered in his office until I was hauled away to the police station. And when I got home, I found that he had sent federal agents to my wife's office and Julie's office to show them the complaint and ask them whether they had any knowledge of my intent to commit a premeditated assault on one Andrew Richardson at his workplace. Then they took Karen aside to ask whether she thought she was in any danger given my obvious violence and skill.

I didn't learn that latter part until after I walked in the door and found not one but two sets of arms thrown around me, and not one but two sets of soft lips kissing my cheeks.

"Where are the girls?" I asked when they finally turned me loose.

"How many girls do you need?"

That was my wife. Struck by the unusual huskiness of her voice, I turned to look at her. An iridescent green robe was falling back off of her shoulders, sliding down her arms and, I assume, pooling at her feet. Not that I ever looked that far down. She had on what I have since learned is called a shelf bra, but which at the time I remember thinking of as more of a display bra, since it didn't appear to be doing any actual bra-ing. What material was there was the same shimmery green as the robe. I was certain that it was a color that would perfectly complement her gorgeous red hair if I could ever get far enough away to put the whole scene in perspective.

"'Cause the little ones are at your brother's again," said the voice behind me. "And if you want me to leave you here with your wife and go get them you'll have to turn around and tell me so."

She applied just the slightest pressure on my shoulder and I, whore that I am, tore my eyes off of my wife and pivoted just in time to see a matching blue robe fall off of Julie's shoulders. Her shelf bra was the same color, and she threw her arms around me and drew her lips to my ear.

"Or maybe you want your wife to leave me here with you while she goes and gets them," she whispered.

"In your dreams, Pinsky," Karen pressed her breasts against my back and reached around from behind to undo my belt and pants. "Your problem, Thompson, is that entirely too many women think of you as the object of hero-worship."

Well, I thought to myself as I let the two women lead me to the study, it's fine with me if they leave off the hero part.

Karen smacked the back of my head.

That was odd; I was pretty sure I hadn't said that aloud.

Thanksgiving turned out to be not that exciting anyway. Just two tables chock full of Thompsons and Pinskys. The Thompson boys dutifully brought their families on the pilgrimage home to Mom and Dad's Hardwood home every Christmas. But with Steve and me living only a half an hour apart, it made a lot more sense to bring Mom and Dad here for other occasions. For her part, Julie wasn't quite ready to go back home yet, to the house that she and Gordon, her step-brother and then husband, had lived in during their senior years in high school. So we invited her dad and step-mom to Thanksgiving dinner as well.

My D.C. court appearance was scheduled for four days before Christmas, and my lawyer wife and her lawyer best friend were dumbfounded that I didn't tell them about it until breakfast that morning, when I announced I had to go catch a train.

"I could have called somebody!" Karen complained.

"Oh, pooh," I said. "The people you know charge six hundred bucks an hour. Howie'll take care of me."

"Who's Howie?" she asked.

"He's my lawyer," I smiled. "Howie Abrams."

"And how did you find this Howie Abrams?" Julie asked.

"Phone book," I said. "First name there. Actually, the first name is Walter Aaron, but he only does wills. Anyway,

I talked to Howie yesterday on the phone. Smart as a whip, Howie is."

I had talked to Howie yesterday, in fact, although he didn't have a copy of the file yet. Apparently, he usually didn't get them until the day of the first hearing. He perhaps wasn't quite the hot-shot lawyer I was representing him as, although he was probably very busy. With the holidays and all. Still, I wasn't worried. I assumed that Drew was going to keep his word. We had traded e-mails on a couple of occasions, and he had told me exactly how the day would go. I didn't tell Karen and Julie that part. I had told them some more about Drew, though, like what I'd seen in his office and his obvious contrition. Karen admitted that he could have changed a little, although Julie continued to maintain that he was an asshole shithead. Just not a fucking asshole shithead, I noted.

He wasn't outside the courtroom when I got there, but I introduced myself to Howie as we'd planned, and then excused myself to talk to a gentleman lurking outside with us, a gentleman who stuck out like a sore thumb in his very expensive suit.

"Hi," I held out my hand, "you must be Karen Thompson's friend."

"Hi," he smiled to cover his surprise as we shook hands. "Jim Krol. I was at Yale with Karen. I remember you from some of the parties. I thought you weren't supposed to know I was going to be here."

"I'm not," I grinned. "I just know Karen well enough by now. What are you supposed to do, leap up and take over if things started going badly? Do you know Howie, by the way?"

"No," he said.

I waved Howie over. He seemed awed by the guy, who apparently worked for one of the city's white-shoe criminal defense firms.

"So you're pleading not guilty," Howie said nonchalantly, trying to hide the fact that we'd never discussed the case before.

"I guess," I said.

"You guess?" Jim asked.

"Well I did hit him," I admitted.

"Your wife said you were provoked," Jim said.

"I had an appointment," I said. "And I kept it for the sole purpose of taking a swing at him."

Howie and Jim looked at each other.

"So you want to stand up there and admit that everything in this complaint is true?" Howie asked in disbelief, seeing his chance at a big career move going up in smoke. "You do understand that you could be sentenced to jail?"

"Well, not everything in there is true," I patted Howie on the arm. "They made some of the stuff up. Don't worry; I'm sure you'll do fine."

By the time they called my case, I still hadn't seen Drew arrive. Apparently I hadn't been looking hard enough.

"Mr. Murphy?" the judge turned to the prosecutor. "I understand you have a request?"

"Yes, sir," he was scratching his head. "The, uh, the gentleman who made the report has admitted to me that in retrospect Mr. Thompson's assault was an act of self-defense and has asked that the charges be dismissed."

"Counselor," the judge was flabbergasted. "I have in front of me a police complaint, which alleges that Mr. Thompson had an appointment at a federal agency, whose name has been blacked out, to see a man whose name is also illegible, and that the first thing Mr. Thompson did when he entered the building, in front of witnesses, was start swinging at that man."

"Yes, sir," the prosecutor shrugged. "That man and his co-workers are prepared to swear they were mistaken."

He turned toward the back of the courtroom. Drew was there, along with Colonel Monroe, and the two security guards. I waved.

"So do you think what we have here is a false police report?" the judge asked, his interest reviving somewhat.

The prosecutor turned around to look at Drew, and caught the expression on Colonel Monroe's face.

"No, your Honor," he said. "Under the circumstances, no."

"Very well," the judge sighed. "Case dismissed."

"Well done, Howie," I shook his hand. "Send me a bill, right?"

"Umm," he started.

I was already gone, waving good-bye to an equally stunned Jim Krol and catching up to my old friends outside of Superior Court.

"Mr. Thompson," Colonel Monroe said coldly.

"Colonel," I smiled. "Thanks for comin.'"

"I'll take care of the file," the Colonel said to Drew. He turned and walked back into the courthouse. Drew turned to me.

"Jason, we need to talk. Do you have time to come to the office?"

I figured I owed him at least a listen. I was back at the FCC with a cup of coffee and a very tasty cheese danish when he returned to the subject that we'd been discussing last time.

"Jason, do you remember asking me about Britney Spears?" he asked.

"Yeah, sure," I said.

"Can you tell me why you picked Ms. Spears?"

I laughed.

"I'd talked to my daughter's fourth grade class a couple days before and some girl asked me if I knew Britney Spears," I said. "Apparently, she asks everybody that. So hers was just the first name that popped into my head."

He looked concerned. Oh, shit.

"It was just hypothetical, of course," I added hastily.

"Have you seen any pornographic videos involving celebrities?" he asked.

"Er, maybe," I admitted.

"May I ask you who?" he leaned forward.

"Ummm," I paused. I could see this whole think leading inexorably back to Julie Pinsky.

"All right," Drew sat back. "Let me give you some information. As a sign of good faith, so to speak. Have you ever heard of Opus Dei?"

"Sure," I nodded. "Right wing nut jobs. I'm sorry, are you Catholic?"

He waved me off. Apparently he wasn't an overly sensitive Catholic.

"How about Opus Christe?" he asked.

"No, that's a new one," I said. "Who are they?"

"Left wing nut jobs," Drew said. "Implacable enemies of Opus Dei."

"You mean like the Sharks and the Jets?" I asked.

"Excuse me?" he said.

"You mean like the Crips and the Bloods?" I tried again. "Rival gangs, dukin' it out in the 'hoods around Saint Peter's Basilica with zip guns and knives?"

"Close," he chuckled. "A little more sophisticated than that, maybe. What do you know about the Catholic Church?"

"I have some friends who are Catholic," I said, although I didn't really want to go there either. My closest Catholic friends would be the Pinskys. "Just general knowledge. You know, Pope up here."

I put my hand at eye level and started lowering it.

"Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, Priests, monks, nuns, sinners."

I had my hand down near my ankle.

"Do you recall the election of the last pope?" he smiled.

"Sort of," I said. "I don't really follow elections much, even in this country. Other than the Britney one, of course. I remember he's got a cool name, John Paul George."

"Catholic tradition requires that a newly elected pope take the name of a previous pope or his own name," Drew explained. "The first John Paul altered that by taking the names of two previous popes. So when Cardinal George Potter of Omaha was elected, he altered it a little more by including his own name."

"Plus he must have been a huge Beatles fan," I said.

"You know, I honestly don't think it ever occurred to him," Drew said. "It wasn't until the jokes started about people kissing the John Paul George Ring-o that he finally caught on. And that just made him angry. No, this pope wants nothing to do with popular culture, no matter when it was popular. His election was the most hotly contested in recent memory, between the liberal and conservative factions of the church. It took seventy-five ballots, and was finally decided when two of the old liberal stalwarts among the College of Cardinals died while they were sealed in the Vatican."