Shakespeare's Champion

"Hoo hoo, it's Miss Bard, tore herself away from her new love long enough to pay you a visit, Claude!"

Claude just smiled, perhaps because Carrie came out of the kitchen at that moment. Carrie was wearing leggings and a University of Arkansas sweatshirt, and she looked - for once - carefree. Her glasses were propped on top of her head, and her eyes were round and brown and warm.

Tom David was taken aback when he realized no one was going to pick up on his cue. Dedford Jinks, the detective, ran a hand over his own thinning hair and gave Tom David a look of sheer irritation.

I smiled at Carrie, bobbed my head to Dedford and a patrolman I didn't know, a tall black man with a bandage on his arm. I looked at him carefully. I'd helped him up in the church. He recognized me, too. We exchanged nods.

I told Claude, "I figured you wouldn't be baking anytime soon, so I brought you some bread."

"Would that by any chance be banana nut? I can smell it from here."

I nodded. "Some lasagna, too," I muttered. I wished everyone would look somewhere else.

"Lily, you are sure sweet," Claude declared. "Without Carrie helping me move and you cooking for me, I'd have to rely on pizza delivery."

"Oh, of course, no one else in town will bring you meals," Carrie said sarcastically. And she was right to take Claude's words with a grain of salt. He'd be inundated with food within days, if not hours.

"Where should I put this?" I asked Carrie, tacitly acknowledging her place in the apartment.

She looked a little surprised, then pleased.

"Come help me unpack the kitchen, if you have a minute," she invited. She could tell I was uncomfortable. I followed her from the room gladly, giving Claude a gentle pat on the shoulder as I passed him.

Carrie and I were a little old for girlish confidences, but I felt obliged to say something. "This what it looks like?" I asked, keeping my voice low.

She shrugged, trying to look noncommittal, but a little smile curved her lips.

"Good," I said. "Now, where you think he wants these spices?"

"I'm trying to put everything where he had it in the apartment upstairs," Carrie said. "I don't want him to feel like a stranger in his own kitchen. I tried to remember. I even drew a diagram. But it got a little hectic up there with the men coming in and out."

"Spices were here, I believe," I said, opening the cabinet right by the stove. I was hoping Carrie wouldn't take this wrong, and she didn't, being above all a sensible woman.

Luckily, Becca Whitley (I assumed) had given the apartment a thorough cleaning after the O'Hagens moved out. All we had to do was put things in what we considered a logical place. After Carrie and I had worked a while, we took a break and had a Coke. Leaning against the counters in companionable weariness, we exchanged smiles.

"They carried everything down without a problem, but I guess the unpacking is woman's work," Carrie said wryly. She lowered her voice. "What's this Tom David was trying to start trouble with?" We could still hear men's voices in the living room, but we didn't know who'd gone and who'd come in.

"I'm ..." To my horror, I could feel myself turning red, and I had to look off into the distance.

"Are you all right?" Carrie asked. She got her doctor look on.

"Yes." I took a breath. "I'm seeing the new man at Winthrop's Sporting Goods." For an awful minute I could not remember Jack's cover name. "Jared Fletcher."

"The one who lives here in the apartments? The one with the lips and the hair?"

I nodded, grinning at this description.

"How'd you meet him?"

"I went in to buy some weight-lifting gloves," I said, sifting through the weeks past to find something believable.

"That's romantic," Carrie said.

I looked at her sharply to see if she was teasing me, but she was dead serious.

"Didn't I see him at the hospital the night of the bombing?" She said doubtfully.

Now, that was before I'd officially met Jack. But Carrie didn't know that, didn't know when I'd bought my new gloves. This was so complicated. I hated telling lies, especially to one of my few friends.

"Yes," I said.

"He came to see about you?"

I nodded, figuring that was a little better than trying to sort partial truth from fiction.

"Oh, wow," Carrie said, all dewy-eyed.

As if on cue, I heard a familiar voice from the living room.

"Hey, I hear you deserted us upstairs. There must be a secret benefit to living down here!" Jack said heartily.

Claude's response was less audible, but I heard the word "beer" clearly.

"I just may do that," Jack answered. "I've been working all day and I could use some liquid refreshment. Speaking of which, I picked up this bottle for your housewarming."

"Thank you, neighbor," Claude said, more audibly. He must have turned his head toward a moving Jack. "You'll have to come share it with me when I open it."

Jack appeared in the kitchen doorway, wearing his red sweatshirt with the Winthrop logo and his leather jacket. He betrayed his surprise at finding me there only by a widening of his eyes.

"Lily," he said, and kissed me on the cheek. His hand groped for mine, squeezed it hard for a moment, released it. "The chief says you have some loose beer in here."

I pointed at the refrigerator. Carrie beamed at Jack and extended a hand.

"I'm so glad to meet you. I'm Carrie Thrush."

"The good doctor Thrush. I've heard great things about you," Jack said. "I'm Jared Fletcher. New man in town." He was smiling genuinely. He set a bottle of bourbon on the counter, Claude's homecoming gift, and opened the refrigerator to extract a beer.

"You'll have to bring Lily down for supper some night. Maybe she and I can collaborate on cooking and you and Claude can evaluate the result," Carrie said cheerfully.

"Tom David told on us, Jared," I said, trying to speak lightly. But I haven't done that in a long time, and it came out sounding very unnatural. Carrie swung a look in my direction, then back to Jack.

"That would be great, Carrie," Jack said smoothly. He looked at me to tell me he'd gotten my message: the little cabal was having conversations about us.

"Lily brought Claude some bread and some lasagna," Carrie said, pushing my praiseworthy aspects.

"Did you, baby?" Jack looked at me, and if there was a flash of heat in his eyes, there was none in his voice.

Baby? I was trying to imagine double-dating with Carrie and Claude. I was trying to imagine everything being straightforward, Jack really working at Winthrop's Sporting Goods, having no other agenda than making a living. I would just be a maid, and he would just sell workout equipment... We'd date, go out on real dates, during which no one would get shot. We'd never hit each other, or even want to.

"Claude took care of me when I got hurt last spring," I said, suddenly feeling very tired. I didn't owe Jack an explanation, but I needed to say something.

"You got hurt..." Jack began, his eyes narrowing.

"Old story. Go out there and have your beer, sugar," I said dismissively, and gave him what I hoped was a loverlike shove to the uninjured shoulder. He righted himself after a tense second and stalked into the living room.

"Did I catch some undercurrent there?" Carrie asked.

"Yeah, well, nothing's easy," I muttered.

"Not with you, anyway," she said, but her voice was gentle.

"Actually, in this case, it's him," I told her grimly.

"Hmmm. You think this is going to work out?"

"Who knows?" I said, exasperated. "Let's get this kitchen done."

"It hardly seems right for you to work so hard, Lily. You spend all week cleaning and arranging other people's things. Why don't you go sit out there and have some down time?"

With Claude and Jack and Tom David? "Not on your life," I told her, and finished placing pots and pans in the cabinet.

We worked on the bedroom next, sliding all the drawers back into their correct position, rearranging the clothes in the closet. I polished all the furniture after I found the cleaning supplies, and I quickly stowed away the bathroom things while Carrie set Claude's desk to rights in the second bedroom.

Then I was through, and I knew it was time for me to leave. Carrie would have to be helping Claude do personal things, I supposed; he would be tired.

He was, in fact, asleep on the couch. All the men had left except Jack, who had opened a box of books and was shelving them in the low bookcase. He'd gathered up all the beer bottles and put them in a plastic garbage bag. He half-turned as he heard my steps, smiled at me, and pushed a dictionary into place. It all seemed so pleasant and normal. I didn't know what attitude to take. He'd severed our connection until this episode was over. But we were alone in the room except for the sleeping policeman.

I knelt by him, and he turned and kissed me, his hand going to the back of my neck. It was a kiss that started out to be short and ended up to be long.

"Damn," he breathed, moving back from me.

"Gotta go," I said very quietly, not wanting to disturb the sleeper.

"Yeah, me, too," he whispered, standing and stretching. "I need to listen to today's tape." He patted his jacket pocket.

"Jack," I said in his ear, "if Howell won't call the law, you have to. You'll get in awful trouble." It was an idea that had consumed any extra minute I'd had during the day. I darted a glance at "the law," sound asleep on the couch. "Promise me," I whispered. I looked straight into his hazel eyes.

"Are you scared?" he breathed.

I nodded. "For you," I told him.

He stared at me. "I'll talk to Howell tomorrow," he said.

I smiled at him, rubbed my knuckles against his cheek in a caress. " 'Bye," I whispered, and tiptoed out Claude's door.

I pulled on my coat in the hall, zipping the front and pulling my hood up. It was really cold, biting cold; the temperature would be well below freezing tonight. I wouldn't be able to walk even if I needed to. But after extracting Jack's promise I felt very relaxed. It might not take me too long to sleep.

Just to make sure, I walked the four streets around the arboretum twice, very briskly, and then took the trails through the trees. When I emerged onto Track Street, it was full dark. My feet were feeling numb and my hands were chilled despite my gloves.

I was halfway across the street, angling to my house, when a Jeep rounded the corner at a high speed and screeched to a halt a foot away from my right leg.

"Where've you been, Lily?" Bobo was hatless and frantic, his brown coat unbuttoned. There was no trace of the ardent young man who had kissed me the night before.

"Helping Claude move downstairs. Walking."

"I've been looking for you everywhere. Get inside your house and don't go out tonight."

His face, almost on a level with mine because of the height of the Jeep, was white and strained. No eighteen-year-old should look like that. Bobo was scared and angry and desperate.

"What's going to happen?"

"You've been too many places, Lily. Some people don't understand." He wanted to say more. His teeth bared from his inner tension. He was on the verge of screaming.

"Tell me," I said, as calmly as I could manage. I snatched off a glove and laid my hand over his. But instead of soothing him, my touch seemed to spark even more inner storms. He yanked away from me as if I'd poked him with a cattle prod. From between clenched teeth, he said, "Stay in!" He roared off as fast as he'd come, as recklessly.

My own anxiety level jumped off the scale. What could have happened so suddenly? I looked up at the facade of the apartment building. Claude's new windows were dark. Deedra's, above him, were also out. But Jack's lights were on, at least some of them. His living room window was faintly illuminated.

I stood in the middle of street in the freezing cold and tried to make my brain work.

Without deciding it consciously, I began to run - not toward my house but toward the apartments. Once I was inside the hall, hurrying past Claude's door, I tried to walk quietly. I went up the stairs like a snake, swift and silent. I tried Jack's door. It was unlocked and open an inch. A ball of fear settled in my stomach.

I slipped inside. No one in the living room, lit only by the dim light reaching it from the kitchen. Jack's leather jacket was tossed on the couch. Further down the hall, the overhead light in the spare bedroom glared through its open door. I listened, closing my eyes to listen more intently. I felt the hair stand up on my neck. Silence.

I'd only been in here once, so I picked my way through Jack's sparse furniture very carefully.

No one in the kitchen, either.

I was biting my lip to keep from making a sound when I stood in the doorway of the guest bedroom. There was a card table holding a tape player, a pad of paper, and a pencil. There was a Dr. Pepper can on the table. The folding chair that had been in front of the table was lying on its side. I touched my fingers to the Dr. Pepper can. It was still cold. A red light indicated the tape player was on, but the tape compartment was open and empty. I ran back to the living room and fumbled through the pockets of the leather jacket. They were empty, too.

"They've got Jack," I said to no one.

I covered my eyes to think more intently. Claude was downstairs unable to get around on his own. At least some portion of his police force was corrupt. Sheriff Schuster was dead and I didn't know any of his people. Maybe the sheriff's department, too, contained one or two men who at least sympathized with the Take Back Your Own group. ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">