25

The case of LaGort v. Save King Enterprises, Allied-Eagle Casualty, et al.was settled in a courthouse hallway after a pretrial conference lasting less than two hours. The attorneys for the supermarket's insurance carrier, having detected in Judge Arthur Battenkill Jr. a frosty and inexplicable bias, chose to pay Emil LaGort the annoying but not unpalatable sum of $500,000. The purpose was to avoid a trial in which the defense clearly would get no help from the judge, who'd already vowed to prohibit any testimony attacking the past honesty of the plaintiff, including but not limited to his very long list of other negligence suits. Emil LaGort attended the conference in a noisy motorized wheelchair with maroon mica-fleck armrests, and wore around his neck a two-tone foam cervical brace. The brace was one of nine models available in Emil LaGort's walk-in closet, where he saved all medical aids acquired during the phony recoveries from his many staged accidents.

After the settlement papers were signed and the sourpuss insurance lawyers filed into the elevator and Emil LaGort rolled himself across James Street to a topless luncheonette, his lawyer discreetly obtained from Judge Arthur Battenkill Jr. the number of a newly opened Nassau bank account, into which $250,000 would be wired secretly within four weeks.

Not exactly a king's ransom, Arthur Battenkill knew, but enough for a fast start on a new life.

The judge's wife, however, wasn't packing for the tropics. While Arthur Battenkill was tidying up the details of the Save King payoff, Katie was on her knees in church. She was praying for divine guidance, or at least improved clarity of thought. That morning she'd read in The Registerthat Tom Krome's estranged wife had come to town to receive a journalism award on her "late" husband's behalf. Regardless of Tommy's ill feelings toward the elusive Mary Andrea Finley, it seemed possible to Katie Battenkill that the woman might be mourning an imagined loss; that she still might love Tom Krome in some significant way.

Shouldn't somebody tell her he's not really dead? If it were me, Katie thought, I'd sure want to know.

But Katie had assured Tommy she wouldn't say a word. Breaking her promise would be a lie, and lying was a sin, and Katie was trying to give up sinning. On the other hand, she couldn't bear the thought of Mrs. Krome (whatever her faults) needlessly suffering even a sliver of widow's pain.

Knowing Tom was alive became a leaden weight upon Katie's overtaxed conscience. There was a second secret, too; equally troubling. She was reminded of it by another item in The Register,which reported that the human remains believed to be those of Tom Krome were being shipped to an FBI laboratory "for more sophisticated analysis." This meant DNA tests, which meant it wouldn't be long before the dead man was correctly identified as Champ Powell, law clerk to Circuit Judge Arthur Battenkill Jr.

The devious shitheel with whom Katie was about to flee the country forever.

"What do I do?" she whispered urgently. Head bowed, she knelt alone in the first pew. She prayed and waited, then prayed some more.

God's answer, when it eventually came, was typically strong on instruction but weak on details. Katie Battenkill didn't push it; she was grateful for anything.

As she walked out of church, she removed her diamond solitaire and deposited it in the slot of the oak collection box, where it landed with no more fanfare than a nickel. Lightning didn't flash, thunder didn't clap. No angels sang from the rafters.

Maybe that'll come later, Katie thought.

After the last of the pilgrims were gone, Shiner's mother approached the besheeted Sinclair, who was sloshing playfully with the cooters in the moat. She said, "Help me, turtle boy. I need a spiritual rudder." Sinclair's unshaven chin tilted toward the heavens: "kiiiikkkeeeeaayy kaa-koooo kaattttkin."

His visitor failed to decipher the outcry (kicking back with ultra-cool kathleen – from a feature profile of the actress Kathleen Turner).

"How 'bout giving that a shot in English?" Shiner's mother grumped.

Sinclair beckoned her into the moat. She kicked off her scuffed bridal heels and stepped in. Sinclair motioned her to sit. With cupped hands he gathered several baby turtles and placed them on the billowing white folds of her gown.

Shiner's mother picked one up to examine it. "You paint these suckers yourself?"

Sinclair laughed patiently. "They're not painted. That's the Lord's imprint."

"No joke? Is this little guy 'posed to be Luke or Matthew or who?"

"Lay back with me."

"They paved my Jesus this morning, did you hear? The road department did."

"Lay back," Sinclair told her.

He sloshed closer, taking her shoulders and lowering her baptismally. Shiner's mother closed her eyes and felt the coolness of the funky water on her neck, the tickle of tiny cooter claws across her skin.

"They won't bite?"

"Nope," said Sinclair, supporting her.

Soon Shiner's mother was enfolded by a preternatural sense of inner peace and trust, and possibly something more. The last man who'd touched her so sensitively was her periodontist, for whom she'd fallen head over heels.

"Oh, turtle boy, I lost my son and my shrine. I don't know what to do."

'''Kiiikkkeeeaay ka-kooo,"Sinclair murmured.

"OK," said Shiner's mother. "Kiki-kakeee-kooo.Is that the Bible in, like, Japanese?"

Unseen by the meditators in the moat was Demencio, who stood with knuckles on hips at a window. To Trish he said: "You believe this shit – she's in with the turtles!"

"Honey, she's had a rough day. The D.O.T. paved her road stain."

"I want her off my property."

"Oh, what's the harm? It's almost dark."

Trish was in the kitchen, roasting a chicken for supper. Demencio had been mixing a batch of perfumed water, refilling the tear well in the weeping Madonna.

"If that crazy broad's not gone after dinner," he said, "you go chase her off. And he sure and count them cooters, make sure she don't swipe any."

Trish said, "Have a heart."

"I don't trust that woman."

"You don't trust anybody."

"I can't help it. It's the nature of the business," said Demencio. "We got any red food coloring?"

"For what?"

"I was thinking ... what if she started crying blood? The Virgin Mary."

"Perfumed blood?" said his wife.

"Don't gimme that face. It's just an idea is all," Demencio said, "just an idea I'm playing with. For when we don't have the turtles no more."

"Let me check." Trish, bustling toward the spice cabinet.

Under less stressful circumstances Bernard Squires might have enjoyed the farmhouse quaintness of Mrs. Hendricks' bed-and-breakfast, but even the caress of a handmade quilt could not dissolve his anxiety. So he took an evening walk – alone, in his sleek pin-striped suit – through the little town of Grange.

Bernard Squires had spent a tense chunk of the afternoon on the telephone with associates of Richard "The Icepick" Tarbone and, briefly, with Mr. Tarbone himself. Squires considered himself a clear-spoken person, but he'd had great difficulty making The Icepick understand why Simmons Wood couldn't be purchased until the competing offer was submitted and rejected.

"And it willbe rejected," Bernard Squires had said, "because we're going to outbid the bastards."

But Mr. Tarbone had become angrier than Squires had ever heard him, and made it plain that closing the deal was requisite not only for Squires' future employment but for his continued good health. Squires had assured the old man that the delay was temporary and that by week's end Simmons Wood would be secured for the Central Midwest Brotherhood of Grouters, Spacklers and Drywallers International. Squires was instructed not to return to Chicago without a signed contract.