Three in the morning: What the hell? I didn’t like the feel of it. I could get a ride home from another cab driver but shit, otherwise, it is a bitch to get back downtown at that time of night. I noticed that Richards was parked at the far end of the parking lot when I was released and stepped outside to have a smoke and wait for the cab to show up. That damned S.O.B. followed us until I was dropped off at home and parked down the street in the cul-de-sac after I went into the house. He made no attempt to keep his presence unknown. I tried to sleep but I couldn’t while thinking of Richards out there and wondered what he was up to. It was Adriane who bailed me out. She also had the police lift my restraining order. No one was charged with the crime and all charges were eventually dropped. It was very unusual that spousal abuse charges could be dismissed so easily. I was so stunned by this oversight, this lapse, this covert corruption of the justice system that I seriously wanted to do something about it: but what? It was the powerlessness of it that bugged me the most. I was damned if I was going to do nothing but these things become an obsession. Had I spent a week in jail without an apology or anything from the law?
I was able to visit Adriane at her place when she was sent home. Her bedroom was upstairs and it was hard for her to get to the kitchen to help herself. So I used the couch on my time off and helped her change the dressing on the crater left by the abscess and brought chicken soup up to her. My feelings for her were stronger now than ever but I was able to control them. She told me that Nick had served her while I was in jail and that she delighted in making him go up and down the stairs to get this and that for her: bring me a book… go to the garden shack and bring me my drawing board, a cup of coffee, something from the freezer. His guilt motivated him to become her slave and she took out her spite on him in this manner. I thought it was weird and too soft a punishment for him. I told her so but what was I to do? She is the one who could have had him prosecuted.
“Do your folks know about all of this?” I asked, thinking surely her dad would want to do something about it.
“No, I do not want a scandal, they would go nuts and God knows what Gotson would want to do.”
“Who is Gotson again?”
“Gotson was a Basque guerilla when Franco ran Spain,” she spoke so proudly of him that I was almost jealous of her obvious affection.
“Hmm, he must be old now… Franco has been gone awhile now.”
“He is still very healthy and capable of doing some damage to Nick and his connections in the D.A.’s office. I don’t want him to get in trouble.”
I thought, shit, this could be an answer. I wanted vengeance but not so badly that I would end up in prison for it and I wondered if this Gotson character might have some techniques to employ.
“Yes, but Adriane, you have been terribly abused. How can you live with this?”
“He tells them that I am a junkie and that he is only trying to help me and that he gets frustrated at my relapses.”
“Yes, but can’t you see that he is dangerous and might kill you the next time?’
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