“Know what I think?” said Kipper Garth. “I think you should let me feel them.”
Mrs. Nordstrom straightened and gave a stern sniffle.
The lawyer said: “The only way I can begin to understand, the only way I can convey the magnitude of this tragedy to a jury, is if I can experience it myself.”
“Wait a minute—you want to feel my boobs?”
“I’m your lawyer, Mrs. Nordstrom.”
She eyed him doubtfully.
“If it were a burn case, I’d have to see the scar. Dismemberment, paraplegia, same goes.”
“Looking is one thing, Mr. Garth. Touching is something else.”
“With all respect, Mrs. Nordstrom, your husband is going to make a lousy witness in this case. He’s going to come across as a selfish prick. Remember what he said that day in my office? Bocci balls, Mrs. Nordstrom. He said your breasts were as hard as bocci balls. This is not the testimony of a sensitive, caring spouse.”
She said, “You’d be bitter, too, if it was your eye that got poked out.”
“Granted. But let me try to come up with a more gentle description of your condition. Please, Mrs. Nordstrom.”
“All right, but I won’t take my clothes off.”
“Of course not!”
She slid a little closer on the love seat. “Give me your hands,” she said. “There you go.”
“Wow,” said Kipper Garth.
“What’d I tell you?”
“I had no idea.”
“You can let go now,” Mrs. Nordstrom said.
“Just a second.”
But one second turned into ten seconds, and ten seconds turned into thirty, which was plenty of time for John Nordstrom to enter the house and size up the scene. Without a word he loaded up the wicker cesta and hurled a goatskin jai-alai ball at the slimy lawyer who was feeling up his wife. The first shot sailed wide to the left and shattered a jalousie window. The second shot dimpled the arm of the love seat with a flat thunk. It was then that Kipper Garth released his grip on Marie Nordstrom’s astoundingly stalwart breasts and made a vain break for the back door. Whether the lawyer fully comprehended his ethical crisis or fled on sheer animal instinct would never be known. John Nordstrom’s third and final jai-alai shot struck the occipital seam of Kipper Garth’s skull. He was unconscious by the time his silvery head smacked the floor.
“Ha!” Nordstrom exclaimed.
“I take it you got the job,” said his wife.
Willie the cameraman said they had two ways to go: they could crash the place or sneak one in.
Reynaldo Flemm said: “Crash it.”
“Think of the timing,” Willie said. “The timing’s got to be flawless. We’ve never tried anything like this.” Willie was leaning toward trying a hidden camera.
Reynaldo said: “Crash it. There’s no security, it’s a goddamn medical clinic. Who’s gonna stop you, the nurse?”
Willie said he didn’t like the plan; too many holes. “What if the guy makes a run for it? What if he calls the police?”
Reynaldo said: “Where’s he gonna go, Willie? That’s the beauty of this thing. The sonofabitch can’t run away, and he knows it. Not with the tape rolling. They got laws.”
“Jesus,” Willie said, “I don’t like it. We’ve got to have a signal, you and me.”
“Don’t worry,” Reynaldo said, “we’ll have a signal.”
‘.’But what about the interview?” Willie asked. It was another way of bringing up Christina Marks.
“I wrote my own questions,” Reynaldo said sharply. “Ball busters, too. You just wait.”
“Okay,” Willie said. “I’ll be ready.”
“Seven sharp,” Reynaldo said. “I can’t believe you’re so nervous—this isn’t the Crips and Bloods, man, it’s a candyass doctor. He’ll go to pieces, I guarantee it. True confessions, you just wait.”
“Seven sharp,” Willie said. “See you then.”
After the cameraman had gone, Reynaldo Flemm called the Whispering Palms Spa and Surgery Center to confirm the appointment for Johnny LeTigre. To his surprise, the secretary put him through directly to Dr. Graveline.
“We still on for tomorrow morning?”
“Certainly,” the surgeon said. He sounded distracted, subdued. “Remember: Nothing to eat or drink after midnight.”
“Right.”
“I thought we’d start with the rhinoplasty and go on to the liposuction.”
“Fine by me,” said Reynaldo Flemm. That’s exactly how he had planned it, the nose job first.