Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Jimmy was tired of the cell he was in. They wouldn't allow him to have any music or the snacks that he had all over his apartment when he was home. He had made sure that when he hired his cook, she knew to keep the snack food around where he could get to it at any time. After three tries, him knocking her around after each failure, she finally got it right.

He wasn't sure, however, but he thought that she was putting holes in the bags he was getting. Some of the things, like the white cheddar popcorn that he would munch on, would be stale. He'd not confronted her about that just yet, but he was going to do so as soon as he got home. Being in jail and without his cell phone made it very difficult for him to keep up with his daily life. He was going to talk to someone about having cell phones and chargers in the cells for entertainment. They didn't have to be completely savage about keeping people behind bars.

"You have a visitor. Would you like to talk to them back here or in one of the observation tanks?" He asked the cop who it was. "I don't ask for identification when someone comes in and wants to see you. I just ask if you want to see them or not."

"Then how am I supposed to know if I want to see them or not if I don't know who it is?" The man simply opened the door for him. "What happens if it's someone that I decide that I don't want to see? What happens then?"

"Do you want to see them or not? I don't have time to go around wiping your ass every time something happens. Yes or no?" He didn't understand that logic either but decided it would be nice to look at another four walls rather than the ones he'd been looking at for two days. "Good for you. It's your father."

Christ, Jimmy would have talked to anyone but him. However, he was nearly to the closed door that separated him from freedom, and he really did want to be out of the cell. Usually, he was forever on the move. Making plans and closing deals. Sitting with his father meant that he was going to be lectured again, and he didn't want to have his good mood burst because of something that his dad was for sure going to say to him.

As soon as he was seated, they actually put his cuffs through the large ring on the table. It was something that he'd been thinking about having as well. Put it on his desk so that when the underlings came into his office, they'd have to sit there until he released them. He also thought that it would make an awesome sexual toy too. Just thinking about it had him hard as stone.

"Well, you've screwed the pooch, haven't you, Jimmy? You couldn't just let her have the time off that she needed when she needed it, and now we're losing the best-damned attorney that I've ever met. Including myself." He asked about him. "You and I both know the only way that you were able to pass your boards is because you paid someone to take the test for you. If they ever find out—perhaps I'll tell them after this, but when they find out, I'm going to have a good time telling you that I told you so. Why did you fire Katie Donahue?"

"You know as well as I do why I terminated her. She missed a month of work." His dad asked him if that was all. "No. But if I tell you, you're not going to be any happier with me. I don't like her for one thing. She's forever correcting me on things. Did you know that the state of Texas has a law about homosexuals?"

"Everyone of the states as far as I can remember, has laws. Whether or not they follow them is up to the abuser. What sort of law are you talking about?" He told him. "I wasn't aware that you were planning on getting married to someone. When did this happen?"

"I'm not getting married to anyone. I like my freedom too much. No, what I was saying is that I could if I wanted to. Did they have those same laws when you were growing up?" He told him he wasn't gay, so he didn't realize that there were laws that he'd have to look into before marriage. "But you could now if you wished. That's what I'm talking about with her. She's forever saying shit like that and backing it up even with the law books that she'd read it in. Isn't that the most annoying thing ever?"

"Why would you think that's annoying, son? She's a good attorney. The best. And I'm proud of her for knowing laws like that one. I'm sure she knows plenty more, too, if asked. You fired her because she's smarter than you? Hell, Jimmy, the cleaning crew, more than likely knows more than you do about the law. Why would you…you know what? I don't care. I'm sure that in your emptily packed head from lack of law information could fill all the books in the world." He didn't understand that, so he didn't comment. It was just like his father to talk over his head when he was with him. "Did you know that she's going to work for the Griffin family? I'm sure you remember who they are. We just talked about them a couple of months ago."

"Remind me." After rolling his eyes, his dad told him what they'd been talking about. "So she's jumped ship with us to go and work for them? Is it because of the money? I could try to get her back by offering her more than they are. Will that make you happy? I realize that when you're happy, I can be happy. It's our yin and yak sort of part we play in each other's lives."

"No. And it's yin and yang, not yak. What would make me happy is if you were to get your head out of your ass and think about the lack of impact you're making on the lives of those people that are working for you. Or I should say were working for you." He asked his dad what he meant by that. "I'm too old to go back to work as an attorney because you've made a mess of things. It hurts me that after I close up, there will be no more Barnhart and Barnhart Attorney at Law. I have a meeting tomorrow with not only Katie but also the head of the Griffin family. I'm going to sell them not just my firm name but let any of the others there go to them if they wish. I'm sick of picking up the pieces weekly when you're being paid to work. Then, in a couple of months, after they're well established—not that I see it taking that long for them to be working at having their own clientele, they'll drop my name, and I'll be finished with it all. Thank the good lord for that too. At least my family's legacy will be attached to a good name rather than the one that it currently has that you did to us."

"How much are they going to pay me? As much as they are Katie, I'm thinking. I'm a Barnhart and am immensely more important to the firm than she is." He told him that he wasn't a part of the deal. "Why not? What the hell am I supposed to do without you paying me weekly? I do have monetary needs, Father. Or do you want me to move back home with you and Mom and…You know, that has merit. I think living at home would be the best thing for me. Then, when you both are dead, I can just slip into the role of reigning king and have it all."

"Reigning king? Christ, Jimmy, you're barely a blip on my radar of you taking over my home and money. Your mother and I have plans with our savings, and believe it or not, you are not included." He told his dad that he was simply being too mean to him. "Good. Also, I've decided that you no longer need some of the perks you had as the person running the law firm. The car, credit cards, expense account as well as your suits aren't going to be something that you can rely on any longer. You'll no longer be able to charge large lavish meals to the company. I have a list of things that I'm to take care of before you're released from here." As his dad dug things out of his pocket, Jimmy kept thinking that this was an April Fools joke. Although it was neither the first of the month, it wasn't even April. But that had to be it. "Here it is. I'm to change the locks on the homes that we own. Make sure to run an ad in the newspaper saying that I'm no longer going to be responsible for your debt. She told me that I should send out a letter too just to make sure that everyone is aware of that."

"Who told you to do this?" He snatched the long list out of his dad's hand and looked it over. When his dad took it back from him, Jimmy was shocked. "That is Katie's handwriting. Why are you getting a list from her on how to treat me? I won't tolerate you allowing her to have you treat me this way."

"Well, that's just too damned bad. Your mom and I have talked it over, and we're not going to continue supporting you for the rest of our lives." He told his dad to turn things over to him now. "You'll be broke by the end of the year and wonder what happened to it all. No. We've rewritten our will and have put our house on the market. Katie is making arrangements for us to dissolve the ownership of the houses that we have here and abroad. It's the best decision that I think your mother and I have ever made. That and falling in love."

"What about when I was born?" Dad just stared at him. "Christ, that's harsh of you. Didn't I ever mean anything to you two?"

"Not since you were in high school and hurt that young man because he wouldn't have sex with you." His dad's voice had turned hard when he said that, and there was a little bit of fear rolling over himself. "I didn't care, and still don't, if you're green and purple, Jimmy. Your coming out was fine with us so long as you were happy. But you continued and continued to do things to other people simply because you wanted something and they weren't giving it to you."

"I don't understand what the problem is with that. You've always told me to get what I wanted no matter how." His dad rephrased what he'd said. "Whatever. I don't like that you're going to be giving me stipulations now that you think that I never worked for the things that I wanted. I did work. Do you think it was easy for me to make people do things for me? Not even Katie would do anything unless I knocked her around a bit beforehand. Now, all of a sudden, she's better than I am? No. I don't want that. You change things back to what they were before, or I'll not speak to you for the rest of your life."

Dad started laughing. At first, it was just a spurt or two of laughter. Then he stood up, buttoned his coat, and laughed harder. Every time he sounded like he had some control over his mirth, he would look at him and start anew laughing. Jimmy thought he was deranged by the way he had to keep stopping to lean over and laugh. It was almost like he didn't care if he spoke to him again or not.

But that couldn't be right. He was his son. The one that would carry on—well, he'd not carry on his name for him. The thought of having children running around him was just too much to think about. Shivering, he was taken back to his cell to think.

If his father actually did what he said he was going to do, Jimmy didn't know what he'd do. He couldn't see his father just simply disowning him. Because that was what it sounded like to him, he was going to do. But that couldn't be right. Who would he leave things, especially all his money, to if it were not for him? The longer he sat there, thinking about what his dad had said, the more he realized that his dad had been just been lecturing him and making him nervous. But it wouldn't work. Not at all. He was onto him now.

By the time he had his dinner brought to him, he was thinking about the things that he was going to do when he moved into the house with his parents. First and foremost, there weren't going to be rules on him about having parties at the house. Nor was he going to be left out in the cold because they only had one limo service. As his son, he should have his own limo when he went out and came home. That would also take care of the fact that he'd lost his driver's license three months ago and wasn't to drive anymore. Not that it stopped him, but he was going to use that to make his dad give him his own service.

He wished that he'd asked his dad about food service here, too. Opening his dinner up that had only just then arrived, he was dismayed to find that all he had was a slab of meat, some green beans that looked to be overcooked, as well as a large flop of mashed potatoes that had some kind of greasy looking stuff in the small bowl that had been mashed into them. He looked at the list on his tray and read it over.

"Reg food. No allergies." He asked himself what reg food was and surmised that it had to be reggae food. "Doesn't look like anything I've ever seen in the islands. What the hell is this crap? A bottle of water? Who drinks water nowadays? No one, that's who."

After tasting the mashed potatoes, he decided that they weren't horrendous. But the gravy, what he'd read on the sheet with his meal said it was, wasn't his cup of beer, seeing the line of grease that was on its middle part. No way was he eating that. And meatloaf? What the fuck kind of concoction were they trying to poison him with?

In the end, he ate everything on his plate, including using his bun to get more gravy in his mouth. After he taste-tested the green beans, he decided that if all vegetables tasted like them, he'd gladly just eat them. But the best was the meatloaf.

He knew there was no way he'd ever eaten such a weird and strange food. Then he, purely by accident, he'd mixed some of the gravy with the potatoes. It had to all be eaten together to make the awful potatoes rise up, and it would be wonderful if you ate it with gravy on it.

The meatloaf was meaty and moist. Loving the crispy tomatoey edges that he'd discovered when a bit of them had gotten into his mouth. It nearly had him begging for more of just that. As he finished off his plate of food, he discovered that there was some sort of pie, too.

Even after getting the meatloaf eaten, he was still leery of the pie. Scrapping off the top layer of the fluffiest stuff off it, he nibbled around it on his fork. Finding that it wasn't so bad, he took a bite of the creamy filling. The banana flavor took his breath away and nearly had him picking up the whole pie, creamy stuff on top and all right into his mouth so that he could enjoy it.

It took him less time to figure out what the pie was than it did his meatloaf. He'd been sure that it was the brown liquidity stuff on his potatoes and not the loaf. It was banana cream with meringue. Jimmy wanted it on everything that he ate from now on. When they came to get his tray, against his better judgment, he asked if he could have a second helping. The man, this time, told him that his wife had made it for them tonight, and he'd get right on that for him.

After twenty minutes, time enough for him to think that he wasn't coming back, he was brought not just another tray of food, but the cop had also thrown in some cornbread, another thing that he'd never eaten before that had been left over from lunch today.

"There's honey and butter if you want to smother it all over your bread. The best way to have it is dripping in it." When he was alone, Jimmy ate his dinner almost too quickly and looked at the cornbread. He was just trying to figure out how one went about smothering something onto a thick slice of bread when he was told that it would be an hour when it would be lights out.

Jimmy was full, too much so, but he was going to try the cornbread. It was like he'd been asleep for years, and this was his first meal that he'd been given. He'd never had such wonderful food and hoped that tomorrow's menu was just as good. While he did like the cornbread, he didn't love it like he had the meatloaf. He could really get used to this if he had to stick around much longer.

~*~

"Mistress, he seems to be in a much better mood than he was when he was first arrested. It's because of the food." Katie, still getting used to having the little faerie named Ice Cream around her all the time, asked him what was so special about the food. "He is tasting things that he'd never had before. When the jail tender came back for the second tray, he went on and on about how delicious the meatloaf was. I've no idea what that is, but he seemed to think that it was the best thing with honey and butter all over it. I would dearly love the honey myself, but I've never eaten the other."

"I'll have someone make it for you next time we're at home. I think he'd put the honey and butter on his cornbread and—never mind." He thanked her but told her to not to go to so much trouble for just him. "I love cornbread. My mom used to make it when ends were hard to meet. It would fill you up with some soup beans, and I'd be full all day."

"I would like that, I think." She asked him why they had been asked to come to this building. "Oh, yes, your question. There is a vampire that lives deep into the building. He's very old and in need of a more secure place to rest. By resting, I mean during the hottest part of the day for him. He is a good friend of the elder Griffin and his wife, Queen Luna. They're the magical world's favorite magical couple for all they've done for our kind and so many others."

"All right. He won't bite me, will he? I mean, should I have garlic around me or something?" A voice deep in the darkness told her that garlic no longer affected him. "Oh, you can hear me. I'm sorry. This is my first assignment for the family."

"You are doing well. Come into the building so that I might have a look at you, my dear. You've nothing to fear from me. My name is Alexander Smith. I am but a humbled vampire that is down on my luck." She told him that she doubted that he was very humble and smiled. "Ah, a woman trying to win my favor. It's been so long. But to be visited by the mate of Harman Griffin makes me feel like a new man. Thank you for coming."

For the next hour they sat at a table that Ice Cream made for the two of them to use. She had paperwork for him to look over and some things to sign. As an acting attorney for the Griffins, she was able to show him the things that were a benefit for him. As well as point out some of the things that he should be made aware of so that his estate would be safe.

"I gave this information to Edwin just yesterday. For you to have found all my property is a wonder. Some of the items that are on this list are ones that I'd forgotten about over the years. Thank you for that." She told him that she was glad to be able to help him. After getting his affairs in order, she showed him the things that Harman and herself were doing for him. Mostly, it was to give him the house that he'd been living in and making it clear that he was able to stay with them in their finished basement if he needed a safer place. "I cannot thank you enough for that. I find, however, that I grow weary of people and would like to end my life on my own terms."

"You feel like you have nothing more to live for? That's sad. But I don't blame you." She smiled at him. "Did Harman tell you that he could taste and smell now? He'd never been able to do that before. He takes his time, smelling the roses, so to speak. I can't imagine what it must have been like to have no sense of smell or taste. And now, a whole new world of things had opened up for him. Simply because he met me. Wouldn't that be grand if I could give you the same motivation? I know that I have stopped what I was doing a great deal more to smell the flowers around me." She looked at her paperwork, slightly embarrassed about her going on and on. "You must think that I'm a silly romantic."

"I don't think you silly at all. However, I would classify you as a romantic. Are you, by chance, telling me in your own way that I need to stop and smell the things around me?" She felt her cheeks heat up, and she looked at him. "Oh, my dear. Does Harman yet know what a treasure he has in you? How you are the best thing that has ever happened?"

"He doesn't often enough, I don't think. But I have no trouble reminding him to remember that." The large vampire threw back his head in mirth. It made her giggle when she realized that he was surprised by the humor and that he now had a small glint in his eyes that hadn't been there before.

After they were finished up with everything, she was in no hurry to get up and leave and they had an enjoyable extra hour where they talked about things that were going on around town. Little and large, Alexander was happy that she had some information on the things.

"So the mayor is on his way out, you say?" She told him how they'd figured out he was taking money from other departments to put into his own personal accounts. "To cover his mother-in-law's gambling debt. Oh, the things we do for family at times. She more than likely goes right back out after he pays things off so that she can gamble again. It's a sickness, you know. One that some vampires get too deep in and their entire lives work is taken from them."

"Have you ever gambled? Even if it was just a small bet?" He said that he hadn't, but he knew many others, humans too, that ended their lives when it got to be too overwhelming. "I understand that. I had a client who was into gambling so bad that he lost not only his entire business but his home, family as well as his reputation. It's sad when the only way out of something like gambling is to take your own life. It's been like that for years, I think. The way that the disease affects so much of your life." She began picking up her things so that she could leave the gentleman to his rest.

"Darling child, I have so enjoyed spending the afternoon with you. I'm not even sorry that I took up so much of your time that you could have been spending with others." She told him that she was new to the family, and they had asked her to help out. "Good for them. They're a good lot. I love Edwin to pieces. He's saved my life a couple of times. Just to give me a place to hide and sometimes heal had made me indebted to the entire family."

Standing up when he said that he must rest, she asked if she could give him a hug. Before she allowed him to answer her, she pulled him into her arms and held him tightly. When he finally returned her hug, she looked up at him when they were both satisfied.

"You must hang around for a bit longer, Alexander. I would love for you to meet my cousins. Joey and Carrie are heading back home in a few days, and Carrie will forever love meeting you. They would never tell anyone, never that, but it would be something that they'd treasure for a long time." He told her that he'd enjoy that as well. "Good. Tomorrow night, come to the house after dinner. Or before, I don't care so long as I can show off my new friend."

"Do you think of me as your friend, Lady Katie?" She said she did. It didn't matter if he didn't think of her in the same way, but he was her friend forever, no matter what path he took in the future. "My, but you are a charmer. And the thing is, I believe every word you've said to me is the truth. Thank you."

He kissed her on the cheek, and she smiled at him. After he walked her to the door in which she came in, she made her way home. It was the best time she'd ever had as an attorney, and she really was going to treasure the time she'd spent with him for a long time.

The house was empty when she got there. There were several envelopes with her name on them on the table in the front hall. Picking them up, she made her way to the dining room, her makeshift office for now, and opened them. The first one surprised her. It was her marriage license to Harman. The note said that it had been filed, but that didn't mean that she couldn't have a nice big wedding at a later date. The next was the paperwork that she'd filed on behalf of Edwin this morning. The deed for the house that he'd given Alexander was ready to be filed.

"Are you busy?" She told Rain that she wasn't. "Good. I'm going to pop in. I have some questions that I need, as a legal bagel…that sounded funnier in my head. Anyway, I'm on my way."

Appearing in the room with her, Rain snapped her fingers and sat down. There was a beautiful pot of something in front of her, as well as two of the most beautiful tea cups she'd ever seen. However, she thought that she couldn't enjoy them for the look on Rain's face. She looked stressed.

"I have some news." She said that she'd listen to her. "Thank you. It's very kind of you to…You know, I'm going to just come out with it. Did you know that your boss senior and his wife are moving away? I know that you're going to sell off their homes for them when you're licensed here—you already are, just so you know. You have a license to work anywhere you want to set up shop. I did that for you. Storm will be jealous because she didn't think of it first, and I'm happy about that."

"You're beating around the building. Tell me what it is you're stalling about. And so you know, I thought I heard that you two were straight shooters and that I'd have to get used to the two of you telling me like it is." Rain smiled at her and sipped her tea. "All right. My old boss is moving away with his wife. Why should I be concerned with that? I'm assuming that's what you mean."

"Yes. They're going to die. Soon after leaving the States." She asked if she could stop that from happening to a nice couple. "No. I'm afraid not. If they're set to die, then they will. It'll be some other way and more horrific than it was before. No, it's just best to let that one go and pick up the pieces when asked. They have no heir. Not to say they don't have anyone they can leave things to, but they're going to soon write Jimmy out of the will that they both have. You can't help with that either. It's better, actually, if you don't."

"Why?" Rain took another sip of tea, but this one seemed to be longer than necessary. "What are you… they're going to leave it to me, aren't they? I don't want that?"

"Yes, they are, and yes you do. That's why I'm here. So that when you find out, you're going to use their estate to help others. A lot of others." She said she had enough money of her own to do that now. "No, you don't. Their estate is large and well-established. They're going to also, as you know leave you with the firm too. I'm going to help you a little with some of the charities that would make them happy. But I also think, and I'm not telling you to, you need to help Jimmy."

"With their money? No, I won't do that either. If they didn't want him in the will…again, I think you've not told me everything. Why are you giving it to me in bits and pieces?" She told her. "I guess I can understand that. You don't see the entire picture just yet, but you know that it's going to be necessary for me to help Jimmy. All right. I'll keep an open mind about that. What else do you know? Anything bad?"

"I'm sorry, but it's going to be the manner in which Jimmy needs your help. I can't see it all, but it's worse than I had first thought." She put her hands over Rains when she closed her eyes. "He's not a good man. Not even if you were to take some of his traits away that he's been relying on since he became an adult. He's using people. Regardless of whether they realize it or not, Jimmy continues to use people up until they have no choice but to end their lives. It's as harsh and surreal as that. He then simply steps over them and goes to the next fool that said that they'd help him."

"He never used me." She told her because she was smart enough to not allow it to happen. And that it wasn't for lack of trying on his part. She told her to think about it. Closing her eyes, she thought about the times he'd come to her asking for help. She looked at Rain then. "He wanted me to help him find a date for him for a party that he was attending."

"Yes, that's just one. He thought that he'd be able to convince you to go with him, a show of support he told you, but you turned him down. He would have killed you that night. As it was when he wrecked his car, killing two people in a crosswalk. You would have been murdered by him later that night because you'd not lie that he'd had nothing to drink." She thought of other times that he'd come to her for a date to something. Katie knew that he was a homosexual and often wondered why he'd ask her to go. "He needed to maintain the presence that he was a regular guy—his thoughts to call it that, not his fathers— so that they'd not lose any clients that might be too set in their ways to climb on the LGBTQ community that they served."

She just stared at Rain. "Right now, I have a long list of things that he asked me to do for him. All of them that I can think of had something to do with a crash or trouble that he ended up in afterward. He even blamed some of them on me, telling me that I should have been with him and he'd not have done whatever he'd done to get into trouble." It made her hair dance on her skin when she thought hard about it all. "I'm either very lucky, or someone was watching over me all this time."

"I believe that you've been watched over too. Not only that, but you know what is right or wrong, and you just went with your heart. The only thing that saved you." Katie asked her what she needed to do now. "Nothing. You know as much as I do now, and I'm glad that you do. Whatever befalls you from now on, you'll be smarter in taking care of it simply because you're aware."

"Thank you." She nodded and watched as Rain's mood turned around. "Now you're in a good mood. After telling me that I could have died? That's just not right."

"Remember, you're alive. You must keep telling yourself that you are here and now, with Harman in your life, because you are a smart cookie."