Revenge of the Kudzu Debutantes (14 page)

“Eggs, bacon, and grits?” she said.

“And coffee,” he said. “And toast.”

He sat on the sofa watching the wombat documentary while behind him Nita set the table for one and made the coffee and put the bacon in the skillet. Whatever was wrong with Nita would take professional intervention; that much was clear to him. With the annual hunting trip coming up he only had four weeks to clear his calendar and get the summary judgment filed on the Wray case; there would be no time to fix his wife, too. He would have to do that after he returned. There was no way he would give up his hunting trip, the one thing he looked forward to all year, to stay home with an emotionally unstable wife. Guilt flared briefly in his heart, and was quickly extinguished. Maybe there was something his mother could do. Maybe she would be willing to take Nita in hand, so to speak, since he would obviously not have the time.

The aroma of frying bacon and fresh-brewed coffee put him in a better mood. What was that old saying? The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Never were truer words spoken. No matter what her faults, her little quirks and eccentricities, the one thing you could always count on with Nita was that she was a great cook.

“Breakfast is served,” she said in an odd little voice.

He turned the TV off and sat down at the table and she put his plate in front of him. His eggs, which he liked sunny side up, were scrambled. His bacon strips, which he liked brown and crispy, were rubbery. His grits were gray and lumpy as old socks. Coffee bubbled out of the automatic coffeemaker and ran over the counter and down the sides of the cabinets like a lava flow. Toast burned in the toaster.

“Why don’t you play golf this afternoon?” she said, standing beside the table with a blank expression on her face. She was still holding the spatula. There was something slightly menacing in her posture, something subtle but obvious. “Why don’t you play golf and have dinner at the club? I’ll take the children to the park and then to my folks’ house for supper.” He opened his mouth to complain about the scrambled eggs and lumpy grits and rubbery bacon, but thought better of it. How do you complain to a woman who’s holding a spatula the way an Iroquois warrior holds a war club? A woman who might not be quite right in the head, as it is, who might suddenly snap and see nothing wrong with bashing her husband in the back of the head with a spatula or a pair of barbecue tongs or some other sharp kitchen utensil. He wondered if dementia ran in Nita’s family. He wondered if there was a great-aunt or great-uncle or fourth cousin locked up somewhere in some out-of-the-way asylum. He wondered if he should really be leaving his fragile wife to go off to Montana and cavort with whores. Guilt blazed again but was quickly extinguished by his willingness to absolve himself of all blame.

Charles had learned long ago that guilt was a useless emotion.

CHAPTER

SEVEN

L
AMAR
R
AMSBOTTOM SAT
in his office looking out over a field of buffalo grass. In the distance, a herd of horses grazed, tiny specks against the wide brown fields and gentle rises of the Montana landscape. The sky was blue and streaked with thin wisps of trailing clouds. Ramsbottom pushed himself back in his chair and slowly stretched his booted feet up on top of the desk. Papers littered the dusty surface of the desk. A half-finished cup of cold coffee collected mold. A loud metallic hum told him Bentley Nash, his Sioux ranch hand, was using the Gravely to move trash down to the landfill.

Ramsbottom pulled his collar up around his neck and settled himself down in his chair. The morning was cold and clear. Steam rose around his face with his breathing. A calf bawled in the stockade. From down in the creekside pen, old Humphrey, the moth-eaten circus lion, coughed at the moon. Ramsbottom knew he should be up, readying himself for the next onslaught of guests, but on cold mornings his arthritic limbs refused to move and he found himself thinking about the fire crackling in the grate up at the ranch house. He was getting old. Too old to be dragging his ass around the Montana countryside with a pack of churnhead guests who couldn’t hit the side of a barn with a cannon. It made him sick just thinking about it.

What had made him think a hunting ranch for wealthy Easterners would be the life for him? Desperation, probably. He squinted his eyes, trying to remember himself as a youth, full of optimism and ideals and determined to hang on to the land that had been in his family since 1878. The land that his father had mortgaged and then killed himself over during the Great Depression. The land Ramsbottom almost lost to foreclosure. Yes, of course that was it. Desperation had driven him to open the game ranch.

And now here he was fifty years later, old and arthritic and dreading the next group of Nancy-boys that was at that very moment circling the skies above Push Hard, drunk, no doubt, and ready to descend upon the Ah! Wilderness Game Ranch and prove themselves—ready to prove their manhood by slaughtering droves of tame mule deer and antelope and quail so docile they lay on the ground like trussed hens waiting to be killed. It made him sick just thinking about it. How could a man take pride in something like that? He remembered the old days, before jet service came to Bozeman, when the town was small and sleepy and filled with hardened characters. A little backcountry, washed-out refuge for criminals and prostitutes—that’s what Push Hard, Montana, had been before the Hollywood People discovered it, and ruined it. Now all the shops and restaurants had striped awnings and names like La Petite Couchon, and a man had to drive all the way to Big Ridge to get a pan-fried steak. Where once the dusty boardwalks had swarmed with hardened men and brazen women, now the concrete sidewalks were thronged with businessmen wearing Orvis field gear, and skinny stuck-up women pushed baby strollers and haggled with merchants over silver jewelry.

It made his blood pressure rise just thinking about it. Only last year another Hollywood Star had bought the ranch adjoining the Ah! Wilderness Ranch and brought in a herd of buffalo to trample the grazing lands, and now there was talk of him reintroducing the timber wolf on his property. He’d been in Push Hard only one year and already he and a bunch of his rich Hollywood friends had staged a downtown demonstration against the Ah! Wilderness Game Ranch, which they had decided was inhumane and immoral. Paparazzi from all over the world had come and clicked pictures of the beautiful people and a few of Ramsbottom himself, looking dazed and sluggish, like a white tail caught in the headlights of a semi-truck. These sons of bitches made more money than God, and here they were protesting an honest man making an honest living the best way he knew how.

“Hey, Boss, you want me to take the truck over to the airport to pick up those Nancy-boys?” Bentley Nash stood just inside the door, his hat in his hands. Bentley was what you call movie-star handsome. He had long black hair that he wore in a ponytail, and chiseled features, and he was tall, for a Sioux. He was dumb as a stump, but he was good-looking. “You want me to go into town and pick up those skim-milk cowboys?” Bentley asked, dusting his jeans with the brim of his hat.

Ramsbottom took careful aim and spat into the cup of cold coffee. “Yeah,” he said, in disgust, “they’ll be landing right about now. Look for them in the bar.”

Bentley grinned and nodded his head. He knew the routine.

“And don’t let them drive this time,” Ramsbottom shouted after him, as he closed the door.

Shit
. He stretched his legs gingerly. There was plenty to do before they got here. This bunch was coming in from Dallas, Texas. Texans were the worst, always bragging about how manly they were, always bragging about being from Texas. The only good thing about putting up with Texans for four days was that they were usually pretty good tippers. He’d have to call Pinky to get those girls up here before the Texans arrived. They liked a good fuck to start the weekend off right. “Good whiskey, good huntin’, good food, good fuckin’ ” was their motto.

The only really good thing about this weekend was that he was going to get to tell the Texans he was retiring. This was their last trip to the Ah! Wilderness Game Ranch, their last chance to wreak havoc on a bunch of tame wildlife. From now on, they’d have to find someplace else to do their pitiful hunting. It made Ramsbottom grin, just thinking about it. The rich Movie Star had offered to buy two thousand acres and pay him four times what the land was worth, if he agreed to give up the game ranch. That’s the way these people were. They had no concept of what money was really worth. They had so much they could just throw it away to suit their ideals. That was fine with him. He would keep the ranch house and the other five hundred acres and he would retire. Bentley, too, if he wanted. He’d have only one other goddamn hunting party after the Texans—those rich-lawyer Georgians, who were coming out in four weeks.

He didn’t much like to think about them. On second thought, the Texans weren’t so bad. If he hadn’t already spent the lawyers’ deposit money, he would have canceled. Thinking back to all the years of pain-in-the-ass guests, he figured this bunch was the worst. Charles Broadwell. Biggest asshole he’d ever known. The old Judge must be spinning in his grave to see how his son had turned out. Ramsbottom would not be sorry to tell Broadwell he was retiring after this trip. One more month of business, one more week of putting up with Charles Broadwell, and then he would be free forever from the Charles Broadwells of the world.

He put his feet down squarely on the floor. He leaned forward slightly, testing his knees, letting his weight settle gradually and pushing himself up with one hand leaning on the desk. His bones creaked. He groaned and stretched himself gingerly, like an old dog. He took one step, and then another, gradually adjusting to the pain that always came after long periods of inactivity. He fixed his eyes on the door and forced his legs to move.

He was almost to the door when the phone rang.

E
ADIE DIDN’T WASTE
any time. Once she found Ramsbottom’s name and phone number among the receipts, she called him. He was hesitant, at first, as if he suspected a joke was being played on him. But after awhile, under Eadie’s persistent questioning and after it became clear to him that she was, indeed, legitimate in her desire for revenge against the lawyers, he began to give her the information she wanted. Under Eadie’s skillful prodding, Ramsbottom unburdened himself of the frustration of working fifty years for a bunch of rich pallet heads who were slick as owl snot when it came to making money, but who didn’t have the sense God gave a saddle horn when it came to hunting game.

Eadie let him talk. After awhile she began to throw out a few ideas she had for this year’s hunting trip. Ramsbottom thought the idea she had for the “girls” was hilarious. Female impersonators were something he didn’t get many requests for, but he was pretty sure he could rustle up a few through his contacts in Vegas. And he was pretty sure he could work it so the hunting trip was a little rougher this year than it had been in the past, filled with a little more danger and hardship than the lawyers were usually accustomed to.

“Do you want me to take pictures?” he said.

“What?”

“Pictures of the greenhorns with the male prostitutes. You know. For insurance purposes.”

She couldn’t believe this hadn’t occurred to her. Obviously, parts of her brain were still frozen and not working properly after the shock of finding out her husband was a lying, cheating bastard, or she would have thought of the compromising photographs herself. With photographs, Leonard and Charles would do whatever Lavonne and Nita asked. They would do anything to keep those photographs from becoming public and ruining their reputations. Trevor probably wouldn’t care what the public thought, but he might care what Tonya thought. “Can you take videos, too?” she said, feeling a little throb of excitement in the pit of her stomach. This was turning from a bitch-fest into a definite plan for revenge. She couldn’t wait to tell Nita and Lavonne.

“Sure,” Ramsbottom said. “It’ll cost you extra, but I can do it.” Hell, he’d have done it for free just to see the look on those slack-jawed pissants’ faces, but if she was willing to pay, why not? “Now, you don’t mean for these old boys to be maimed or permanently injured during the trip, do you?” he asked Eadie, trying to determine how far she was willing to go.

Eadie thought about it for a moment. “No,” she said. “We don’t want them maimed or permanently injured. We just want them whittled down some.”

“You’re a girl after my own heart,” he said in admiration of Eadie’s resolve. She was the first female he’d ever met who even came close to having his penchant for getting even. He didn’t have to see her to know she was a fine-looking woman. He knew just from talking to her she was the kind of woman could make a man plow through a stump. “Ole’ Boone must be crazy for letting you go,” he said.

“Oh, he’s crazy all right,” Eadie said. She wished she could be there to see the whole thing go down. She wished she could be there when Trevor found out the hookers were really boys. “I’ll call you next week to firm up our plans. Just make sure you take lots of pictures,” she said to Ramsbottom. “Make sure they know the female impersonators were our idea,” she said, and hung up.

T
WO DAYS LATER,
Eadie went to see Rosebud Smoot. Rosebud had worked with Eadie for years, doing pro bono work for women in domestic violence situations. On the way to Rosebud’s office, Eadie stopped first at the bookstore and bought a book on Frida Kahlo. She figured Frida would be good reading considering her current marital situation.

“What you got, Eadie?” Rosebud asked after her new secretary, Stephen, showed Eadie into her office.

“You have a
male
secretary?”

“Yes. He couldn’t get into graduate school so he took the job with me.”

“Score one for gender equality,” Eadie said.

“Yep. What can I do for you?”

“It’s a divorce matter.”

“One of the women at the shelter?” Rosebud asked, reaching for her legal pad.

“No, me.”

Rosebud smiled. She put the top back on her pen and leaned back in her chair. “Are you telling me, after all these years, you’re contemplating divorce from the great Trevor Boone?”

“I’m doing more than contemplating it,” Eadie said.

“What happened?”

Eadie told her. Everything except for the hunting trip revenge part. She didn’t want to give Rosebud a chance to talk her out of something she’d already put her heart and soul into. “Can you believe it?” Eadie said, when she had finished. “Prostitutes. For fifteen years. Have you ever heard anything so pathetic?”

After forty years of practicing law, Rosebud had heard it all. After forty years of representing women in domestic violence and divorce cases, she’d heard every disastrous tale of love gone wrong you could imagine. She’d been accosted twice on the courthouse steps by irate husbands or their family members. She walked with a limp from a bullet she still carried in her hip, the result of a shooting from a wife beater distraught over his wife’s removal from their happy home. Still, the image of Trevor Boone, Leonard Zibolsky, and Charles Broadwell betraying their wives with prostitutes was disturbing. They were, after all, colleagues. They were, with the exception of Trevor, by all outward appearances, happily married men; pillars of the community. It made Rosebud wonder at the treachery and capacity for self-deception of the male sex. It made her glad she had never married.

“Are you serious about this?” Rosebud said.

“Serious as a heart transplant,” Eadie said.

“Okay. I’ve known you long enough to know that once you’ve made up your mind, there’s no changing it. I guess you’ve thought about your options. I know you and Trevor have patched up your differences in the past, but I do understand the concept of the straw that broke the camel’s back.” She raised her eyebrows and gave Eadie a chance to jump in here, but Eadie wasn’t changing her mind. She stared resolutely at Rosebud. Rosebud sighed. “Okay,” she said briskly. “I need you to sit down and list all the assets you can think of. Everything, from the furniture to the house, beach house, boat, cars, stocks and bonds—you get the picture. Put it all down on a piece of paper. And then I need you to come in and meet with me again as early as possible so we can get the ball rolling.”

“What about Lavonne?”

“What about her?”

“Can you represent her, too?”

“Of course. But she needs to call me.”

“Can we get a group discount?”

Rosebud grinned. “Don’t worry about that. Your husbands will foot the bill, eventually anyway.”

“I like your optimism.”

“Now, Eadie, I don’t want you to think this is going to be easy. Trevor Boone is a damn fine attorney. This could drag on awhile. It could get real messy. You may need to work out some other source of income for awhile.”

Eadie thought about this. “Can I sell the house?” she said.