The Eleventh Commandment, part 1

So here it is.
This is a sequel of sorts to Varian Milagro's "Welcome to the Club" and my own remix of that story, "Welcome to the Club Again".
So if you missed them, you should really go and read those first.
You'll thank me later (especially for Varian's wicked masterpiece).
And when you're done, come back here and check out this little new story.

Here goes part one.



The guy did not look like a Milo, to me.
He was over six feet tall, broad shouldered like a quarterback and with a don’t-fuck-with-me expression on his rough face. Five o’clock shade, long dark hair, a tuft of curly black hair sprouting from the neck of his orange, county-provided jumpsuit.
He sat across the table from me as the guard closed the door. He had big hands, the scarred knuckles of a bruiser.
No, not a Milo at all.
Just went to prove that you can’t judge a book by its cover.
Or whatever.
“You gotta smoke?” he asked.
His voice was deep, his eyes intelligent.
I shook my head. “My name’s Jeanine Zelkowitz, Mr Stevens.”
“Call me Snake,” he smiled.
“I am your attorney, and on the court's request I will be taking defense duties on your upcoming trial.”
He nodded, grunting. “You’re the one that will get me out of here.”
I sighed, looking down at his file, open on the table in front of me.
“Dealing in counterfeit tender is a federal crime,” I said.
His face darkened. “I was set up!”
“So you said. And I should point out that speaking your mind out loud before you were assigned a defense attorney was not such a great idea.”
The convict smirked. “Blah blah blah…” he said. “I was set up by those bastards!”
“I can see that, mr Stevens.”
“Snake. The name’s Snake.”
“Fine, mister Snake,” I replied, humoring him. This pro bono job was going to cost my nerves a lot. “What I need right now is try and find a winning strategy, so that we can try and get you a light sentence, considering this is your first time…”
“First time I got caught,” he laughed.
Yes, the file listed a number of suspect activities for which there was no proof: from gun running to killing and disposing of the body of a former associate.
“Being tried by a federal court is no joke,” I said. “There’s a lot of stuff they are trying to pin on you, and you need all the help you can get.”
He shrugged, leaning back against the back of his chair. He stared at me openly. I straightened my shoulders and removed a hair from the lapel of my jacket. He was passing the tip of his thumb over his lips. I adjusted my glasses.
“The case against you is pretty solid,” I said. “The prosecution has two men from the Sheriff’s office vouching for the circumstances of your arrest.”
“They had no right to search my bike.”
“Legitimate suspicion, they can make a big deal out of that.”
“Fucking pigs.”
I sighed. “We will need witnesses, too. We want to leverage the abuse of authority angle.”
His eyes sparkled. “You’ve got a plan,” he said. “I like a smart woman.”
“According to the Sheriff’s office statement, two women were arrested with you, and later released. An April Wood and a Daisy…”
“Blaze and Tempest,” he nodded. “The pigs had nothing on them.”
“I might need to talk to these two ladies,” I said. “As things stand, our best bet is to try and find a way to make this an unlawful arrest, and get you released on a technicality. Should we go to trial, I don't see many possibilities...”
“Whatever you say, babe.”
“It’s still a pretty slim chance,” I said.
He shrugged his powerful shoulders. “I just need to get out of here fast.”
I stared at him. “Are you having problems with other convicts? We can ask…”
He laughed. “No, babe. A few have problems with me, but I already set them straight.” He leaned forward, flexing his muscles. “I need to be out of here fast to go get those doublecrossing bastards and make them bleed.”
I shook my head. “You shouldn’t be telling me this sort of things, you know.”
He laughed again. “You’re an all-right chick, miss Z,” he said. “I can see you are no snitch.” He leaned over and sniffed. "I can smell you're a good girl," he grinned.
I handed him a notebook and asked him for the address of his associates. He scrawled it in a quick, neat hand.
“Give my love to the girls,” he said, standing. “And try and get me some smokes. A cigar would be good.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said.
I rang the guard, and he went back to his cell.

#

I went back to the office.
It was almost lunch hour, so a lot of the guys from the high-class law firms in the building were walking out. Young interns, junior associates, some of them clustering around some old silverback with his name on one of the brass plates by the elevators.
The lift doors opened and I stood face to face with a buxom blonde. She was at the head of a bunch of gophers from Marley & Associates. Her suit was exquisitely tailored, giving more than a hint of cleavage but still being uptight enough for court. She smiled an icy-cold smile with her perfectly painted lips and arched an eyebrow.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” she smiled, blocking my access to the lift. “Jinny Zed… are you here to deliver pizza?”
Let’s say we had never been that friends.
“Very amusing, Lena.” My voice came out as a raspy squeal. “If you don’t mind…”
She shrugged, setting her silicone orbs a-jangle. “What if I did?”
The gophers giggled. I pushed her out of my way, and stepped in the cabin.
“Still working dead-end cases?” Lena smirked. “What’s it this time? Some senile old man dropping his pants in a public place?”
I hit the button and the doors slid closed, shutting her laugh off.
I leaned against the lift wall and cursed under my breath.
How I wished my voice would not die when I was under stress.
On the fourth, I walked along the deserted corridor and opened the door to my office.
Mary Beth squashed her cigarette in an ashtray and smiled a hello. The gray-haired secretary was all that remained of our attempt at a "young and independent" law firm. When she had hooked up with Morley & Associates, Lena had taken away the rest of the kids, and all of the clients. Now I was the sole user of three empty rooms, a small office filled with Swedish furniture and a fifty-something chainsmoking secretary that looked the sort that bakes apple pies for her grandkids.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Mary said, smiling.
I ignored her. “How do you think I could quit,” I said, pointing at the ashtray, “with you in here smoking all day.”
She pouted. “Someone’s out of nicotine gums,” she said.
Laughing despite myself, I pulled a gum from my pocket, made a show of unwrapping it, and popped it in my mouth.
“Order something for lunch,” I told her, “I’ll be out again this afternoon.”
“Interesting case?” she asked as I entered my office.
I stopped. “Actually, yes.”

#

And it was an interesting case.
This guy Snake that did not look at all like a Milo Stevens had been a Milo Stevens once. Suburban house, nice job as a web designer and web administrator, in a stable relation with a teacher from Alder Creek Community College. Lots of volunteer social work, card-carrying member of a dozen liberal clubs and pro-environment associations. His criminal record was cleaner than the Dalai Lama’s.
Then, bang! One day he up and turns into an outlaw, and his girlfriend too! They drop out of work, put together a biker gang and set up their headquarters in the girl’s parents former farm. The parents are gone. Stevens and Wood are soon joined by some of the woman’s former students, and a pair of co-workers, including the Alder Creek college head librarian.
And that was it. They had been going for about six months, raising hell and getting the Sheriff’s office itchy to nail them for something.
I drove up to the whitewashed gate of the former house of the Wood’s. A guy with a pump-action gun was standing by the gatepost, smoking. Ripped jeans, leather vest, bandanna. He turned his dark-glasses towards me and smiled beneath his handlebar mustache.
“Private property, babe,” he said as I lowered the window.
I handed him my card. “My name’s Jeanine Zelkowitz,” I said. “I’m here to see miss Avril Wood.”
He read the card. His arms were covered in tattoos. “Miss who?”
I sighed. “I’m here to see Blaze?” I tried. “I’m her partner’s lawyer…”
He cursed under his breath, and moved quickly to open the gate. “Just follow the lane, sister,” he shouted as I drove by.
The house was a two-story thing out of some postcard, white and respectable-looking. There were two Harleys parked in front of the porch, but apart from that and the blaring hard rock coming from inside, it looked like a nice place to live.
I looked around, straightening my skirt. There was a big white barn, a few hundred yards from the main building. More motorbikes were parked in front of it.
As I climbed the steps to the front door, I heard gunshots in the distance. I jumped and turned sharply.
“It’s just the guys practicing.”
I turned again.
The door was open and a trashy-looking girl was standing there, leaning to the door-post and smoking a cigarette. She had a long face, her head shaven on the sides, and a big wave of purplish curls fell over her cheek.
“I’m Jeanine…”
She nodded, a bored expression on her face. “Mad Dog buzzed us,” she said. “Come on in. Blaze is waiting for you.”
I followed her in the living room.
“Wait here,” she said.
I watched her walk up the staircase. Vine-like tattoos climbed up her legs. The music got louder for a moment, as a door opened and closed. Then a woman was walking down the staircase, hips swaying.
Avril Wood did not look like a teacher. Not even as a former teacher gone to seed.
“Welcome at the Rippers’,” she grinned at me.
She was a tall, aggressive black-haired beauty. She pulled the cigarette from her lips and holding it between forefinger and middle finger gestured for me to sit on a couch. Her fingernails were the same scarlet of her lips. Her leather pants creaked as she sat in front of me.
“How’s Snake?” she asked.
“He’s fine,” I said. “My name’s Jeanine Zelkowitz, I was assigned his case by the court…”
“Jeanine Zelkowitz,” she said. She pronounced my name like it was a an obscene word.
“I am to defend your…” I stopped. Her what?
The black-haired woman grinned at me. “He’s not my husband,” she said.
Her voice was low, husky. I felt mine die in my throat. “Ehm, yes, well…”
“But we fuck a lot,” she added, taking along pull from her cigarette. “I guess it counts for something.”
My face burned.
“You want one?” she asked, sliding her packet of Marlboros towards me. “Have one.”
I shook my head. “I’m trying to quit,” I said.

Her grin got wider. She leaned over, giving me an ample flash of her cleavage, and blew her smoke in my face. “Today?”


The familiar smell tickled my nostrils. “What?”
She ran her tongue over her lips. “Must you really quit today?”
I laughed. “Not really, but… no, thank you.”
She gave me a weird look.
"Are you sure?" she asked, serious.
I tried to clear my voice. “That’s not my brand anyway.”
“And what would that be?”
“I used to smoke Newport Slims,” I said. “But as I’ve said, I’m trying to quit.”
She stared at me for a long minute. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I said.
She nodded. “What can I do to help you?”.
With a sigh, trying not to breath in too much of her second-hand smoke, I laid out my documents in front of her. “I’m trying to find an angle…”
“To get Snake off the hook.”
The Wood woman had placed a fresh cigarette between her lips and was lighting it with a big silver zippo. There was a skull etched on it.
“Yes. I think our best bet is try and look for some formal error in the case…”
She blew a big cloud of white smoke my way. I waved some sheets to disperse it. “I’m not here to play games,” I said, hoping my voice would not come out too broken by tension.
The woman in black arched an eyebrow, a silver piercing sparkling. “I can see that. Tell me what you need.”
I arranged my papers and clicked my pen. “I need to talk to you and to the other person that was present at the moment of the arrest.”
“Tempest,” she said. She gave a deep shrug. “She’s out on some… business, right now.”
I nodded.
“Any hopes I’ll be able to talk to her before the trial?”
She stared at me, her eyes burning blue. “Day after tomorrow,” she said. “In the afternoon.”
I nodded. “Can I then start asking you a few details?”
She nodded, still staring at me strangely. “Go on, Jeanine Zelkowitz.”
I straightened my glasses, and started going through my list of questions as she lit another cigarette.

#

I drove home chewing on my nicotine gum, and trying to work out the mysterious Avril “Blaze” Wood. Former teacher of Women Studies in college, and now a big-breasted vixen in skin-tight jeans, chainsmoking and explaining me how, together with her partner, the hunkiest web designer I ever met, they were delivering fifty thousand dollars in counterfeit banknotes when the Sheriff’s men had pulled them over.
It was hopeless. I would have to review my notes after dinner, but it looked like there was little we could use. The deputies had been thorough and professional, as far as I could tell.
Once home, I dropped my skirt, suit and blouse in the basket. They smelt of Wood’s stale smoke. So did my hair and my skin. I slipped out of thighs, panties and bra, and spent ten minutes under the shower, rubbing my head vigorously and pouring abundant chamomile-perfumed shampoo.
When I got out from under the jet, and wrapped myself in a towel, no trace of the foul smell remained. I dried my hair with another towel. I put back on my glasses, the lenses steamed, and I arranged my wet hair so that it would not fall in my eyes.
Then I went and checked out what was in the refrigerator for me. I tucked the bathrobe in place. I thought about Avril Wood’s ample bosom, and how she would probably have to use a larger towel. I wondered if they called her Blaze for the fact that she was constantly lighting up.

#

The following morning, I sneaked in the elevator, avoiding Lena and one of her toy boys on their way in, and holed myself up in my office. Mary Beth came in a few minutes later, carrying one of those trays with holes, and two big paper cups in it.
“Decaf,” she said placing the cup in front of me.
I nodded a thank you.
“How was it yesterday with the bikers?”
“Weird.”
She sat at her desk and lit up a cigarette.
I just shook my head and went back to the files.
If only could I find an angle to get Stevens… Snake off the hook.
I paused. Wasn't that what his woman had said?