Alan Cook - Aces and Knaves

After a while I twisted my head so I could see Elma's face. I had to pull my head a few inches away from her to prevent her from being a blur to my farsighted eyes. There were tears running down her cheeks.

She saw me looking at her and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do this. It's just…I miss him, Karl. I miss the feel of him; do you know what I mean? He was such a physical person."

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Elma turned her body toward me and buried her face in my neck. I felt the wetness of her tears and I faintly smelled a delicious perfume that I realized even then I would always associate with her.

I put my left hand on her shoulder and patted her right arm awkwardly with my right hand. It was a scene I wouldn't mind lasting for a long time. We became still and I almost drifted off to sleep.

Then Elma lifted her face to mine. I started kissing away her tears, my lips roaming over her eyes and cheeks and lips. Our kisses grew more passionate and my right hand discovered a gap in the top of her dress. It fit easily inside. Her skin was surprisingly soft and smooth. I found out she was as excited as I was.

"Come to the bedroom," she whispered, starting to get up.

"Are you sure?" I asked. We shouldn't be doing this.

"Very sure," she said. She stood and with a firm grip on my arm, pulled me toward the bedroom.

I ran extra hard on Wednesday morning, perhaps trying to wash the guilt out of my system with the sweat. Images went through my mind as I ran: Elma laughing, Elma crying, Elma clinging to me. It occurred to me that I could easily get a crush on her. She was a very lovable woman.

Of course I couldn't afford to get a crush on her. Or if I did I couldn't do anything about it. This had been a one-night stand. But as my urgency to cleanse myself abated and my brain started to function normally, I began to realize that I need not have any guilt on Elma's behalf.

Elma had needed me in a way that was too complex for me to understand. Her last words to me as I left had been, "You saved my life."

I hadn't stayed the night; Elma couldn't afford the risk of having her daughter find me there. In addition, it would have destroyed the magic and the meaning of the moment to wake up together, with morning breath and morning reality. I had returned home and slept in my own bed, sleep being a relative term.

I ran to the post office and checked my mailbox. There was a small, padded package, big enough to hold baseball cards. Nothing unusual about that; I received cards all the time. I looked at the return address and didn't immediately recognize it. Then I did; this was the seller of the Honus Wagner card, the cause of all my misfortune. I laughed out loud, somewhat hysterically.

I couldn't wait to look at the card until I got home. I borrowed a pair of scissors from a postal clerk and carefully opened the package. Inside, the card was encased in hard plastic. I carefully inspected the front and the back. If anything, it looked better in person than the scans had looked on eBay. This was one helluva card.

I wrapped it up again, placed it carefully in my fanny pack and jogged back to the house. The card was in such good condition that maybe I could resell it for more than I paid. Even if I lost a few thousand dollars it would be worth it. Of course, carrying out another auction, even on eBay, would take more time than I had to square things with Buchanan. And it was too soon to place the card back on eBay.

Back home, my thoughts returned to Elma. Now, even as I understood as much as I ever would about what had happened between us, a tinge of guilt remained. I couldn't make it go away with logic. It continued to haunt me after I ate breakfast and started working on my baseball card business. And after I sent a thank you email to the seller of the card and gave him positive feedback on eBay, which would increase his credibility with other buyers and sellers.

Conflicting ideas went through my head. On the one hand, I wanted to protect Elma and help her. On the other hand, I wanted to convince her to give her proxy to James-the man who had killed her husband.

The incompatibility of those desires suddenly rang in my head with the clarity of the tone produced by a fork striking a piece of crystal. And I knew there was no way I could do what James wanted me to do. And I knew that if I didn't do what James wanted me to do I was a dead man.

For an hour I wallowed in despair. I felt sorry for myself. I, Karl Patterson, would be cut down in the prime of my life. Fortunately, after reaching the depths I began to understand how ridiculous these maudlin thoughts were. I fixed myself an iced tea and told myself sternly that I wasn't dead yet and until I was I had damn well better do something to improve my situation.

Okay, fine. What? The obvious answer was to prove that James had arranged to have Ned murdered. Easier said than proved. Maybe the way to get at James was through Stan. Was Stan possibly a weak link? He had been the front man. Could I get him to admit that?

Arrow knew Stan much better than I did. But in order to get her assistance I would have to confess to her that I had sold my soul for a baseball card. The idea galled me, but what choice did I have?

Could I intercept Arrow when she came for the morning briefing of my father? No, because she wasn't coming today. I had heard her and my father discussing that yesterday. She was working on something else.

I called Arrow and got her voice-mail. I left a message, asking if she was free for lunch, knowing that I wouldn't hear from her. She didn't need me anymore and in the business world that put me at the bottom of her list of calls to return. And low priority calls never got returned.

The phone rang at three o'clock in the afternoon while I was buried in my baseball card business, trying to forget about my impending doom. It was Arrow. Arrow! I had completely given up on her.

"Karl, I'm sorry I couldn't get back to you sooner. I had to finish a project by two. I haven't eaten lunch yet. What about you?"

"No," I lied. I never skipped a meal and probably wouldn't, even if I were on the way to the guillotine. Which I was. "Can we get together?"

"You sounded upset in your message. Is anything wrong?"

"I'll tell you about it at Norms. See you in half an hour?"

"If that's enough time for you."

"I think we've had this conversation before."

We sat in the same booth we had used the first time we had met at Norms. I attempted a joke, saying, "I see they saved our table for us," but it didn't sound very funny to me.

At first it was difficult for me to look Arrow in the eye. Would she suspect what I had done with Elma? Reason told me she didn't even know I'd been with Elma. What does reason know?

Arrow's normalcy brought me back to earth. She acted concerned but not suspicious. Since I'd already eaten I ordered a piece of pie. After we finished ordering, Arrow said, "Okay, Karl, I can see you're not your usual exuberant self today. Tell me what the problem is."

"You aren't leaving me much wiggle-room," I said, "so I guess I'll have to tell you. Remember when I told you I needed several hundred thousand dollars?"

"That was in London when I was beating you at darts."

"Rub it in. Well, the reason I needed the money was to buy a baseball card."

"One baseball card?"

You would have thought I had said one piece of bubble gum. I explained to Arrow why the Wagner was so valuable. I wasn't sure she understood. Then I told her that James had lent me the money. Her eyes got very wide.

"You are a complete idiot," she said.

"I knew you'd understand."

"I don't want to hear this, but how are you going to pay him back?"