The Case of the Luckless Lothario (Reckless Romeo)
 
       Ken Malansky caught up to Charley Adams and walked briskly along, “I’m not letting you get away, at least not till we’ve had dinner.”
          “Oh really, you’re that confident?” she answered with a wink. 
          “Positive,” Ken answered with the silly grin that he knew was spreading across his face.  
          Charley stopped a second as she waited for the elevator and chewed the gum before saying, “Okay, how about this, we go to lunch now and if I like it we’ll go to dinner tonight?”
          “I thought you had a story to get to?” Malansky said. 
          Charley shrugged, “I’ll have to do some research first, might as well do it on a full stomach.”
          Malansky was tickled, “Okay, do you want a quick lunch or a long one?”
          “Better make it fairly quick, I do have the research after all,” she answered.  
          They rode down the elevator in silence but as soon as they got into Malansky’s truck Charley asked, “Don’t you need to tell Mason where you’re going?”
          “Nyeah, besides, it’s Della’s birthday.  They’ll have something special planned,” Ken said.  
          Charley smiled and put her seatbelt on.  She started digging around in her purse, “So, is what I hear true about Mason and Della?”
          “What’s true?”
          “You know that they’re together?” she asked and pulled out her lipstick.   
          “If you mean together professionally, they’ve been a team now for over forty years.  If you mean romantically…” he said and trailed off as he started maneuvering through the garage. 
          “Well?” 
          Malansky thought a second before answering, “Perry Mason may be a gruff, tough defense attorney, but he loves Della Street more than most legally married couples do.  I’ve worked with them now for two years and I don’t think I’ve ever seen them fight, really fight.  Oh they have a word or two, but they never let it get to where they aren’t speaking to each other or throw names out to hurt each other.”  
          “So, you’re saying that they do have a romantic relationship?” Charley rephrased.
          Malansky chuckled, “Would you give a multi-thousand dollar black pearl necklace to someone you weren’t romantically attached to?”
          Adams shook her head, “No.  So that’s what he got her for her birthday?”
          “I’m pretty sure it is.  I’ve been after him for days about it and he kept saying it was a secret.  But I saw Perry stick something in Della’s briefcase after she got to court when she went to make a phone call.  During the recess, I took a peak.   It’s gorgeous.  I half wanted to stay and watch her open it.  I bet she started to cry,” Malansky admitted.  
          “She cry a lot?”
          “No, only when she’s happy or Perry gives her something like that.”
          They drove along until Ken found his favorite pub.  “They’ve got great cheese fries here.”
          “Yeah I know, I love it,” Charley agreed and got out to join Ken as they walked in the door.  It was a dimly lit but not dark watering hole with atmosphere.  Perry and Della came with him sometimes for lunch and they’d enjoy a drink or two before going back to the office.  Perry liked a beer on occasion and Della would take a Bacardi cocktail with their meals.  
          Ken pointed toward a particular booth that he liked.  It was secluded but let him watch the patrons.  They slid in and looked over the menu.  Charley knew what she wanted and ordered first, “Philly cheese steak, fries and margarita.” 
          Malansky chose, “Chicken fajitas and a light beer.”
          “Draft or bottle?”
          “Coors bottle,” he replied and handed the menus back to the waitress. 
          Charley waited till she’d gone off with the order, “I’ll be back in a minute.”
          Malansky nodded, sat back in the booth and mindlessly chewed on a complimentary chip.  A sudden click where Charley had been sitting caught his attention and he looked down.  It was a micro tape recorder.  Curious, he picked it up and noted that the tape was at the end of the spool.  He pushed the rewind button and after a few seconds stopped it.  His own voice said… “…give a multi-thousand dollar black pearl necklace to someone you weren’t romantically attached to?”  
          Appalled he hit the stop button and wondered what to do.  If she was a man he’d go into the men’s room and punch his lights out.  As it was, he was stuck between calling her out on the carpet or dragging her back to Mason to own up to what she’d done.  With a sudden decision he rewound the whole tape and hit the record button as Charley started walking back to the booth.  If he worked it right there’d be nothing left by the time she found out.  If there was something else on it besides their conversation about Perry and Della it was just her tough luck.  She slid in with a winning smile, “So, did I miss anything?”
          “Nope,” he answered barely able to hold his anger.  If he’d learned anything from Perry Mason it was to use the law to his advantage instead of depending on his fists.  He tried to think of something to say but he was dry.  He drank half the bottle in the first go.  When he didn’t say anything else Charley snuggled a little closer, “What, all action and no talk?”
          “Can’t we just enjoy lunch?” he asked succinctly keeping his voice low but moving closer so he could touch her knee.  
          She smiled tightly, “Oh, so that’s how it is.  Okay.”
          They spent the rest of the time waiting for the food and keeping in physical contact.  The food arrived and Ken managed to get his fajitas down while Charley worked on her Philly steak.  “So, what’s your next move?” Ken asked as he finished and pushed the plate away.
          She shrugged, “Just keep coming up with stories, angles, new tales to tell.”
          “Ah,” he answered and just as he expected heard a familiar click.  He could head out now, “Well, I don’t want to keep you from your research.  And, I’ve got work to do.”
          “Okay,” she answered.  Leaning into him so she could look in his eyes she said, “So what about dinner?”
          Ken stalled, “Better not.  I don’t want anything I say to be used against me…”
          With that he placed the micro recorder on the table accusingly and slid out of the booth.  The waitress stopped, “Your check…”
          “She’ll get it,” he answered and walked out without looking back.  
 
          Perry Mason looked up from his reading as Ken Malansky fairly stormed into the office.  He glanced at the clock.  The last he knew—and he really hadn’t been paying attention—Ken had gone after Charley Adams for a date.  Apparently that didn’t work too well.  Ken flustered around for a while then walked into Mason’s office, “Where’s Della?”
          “Getting her hair done so she’ll look ‘just right’ in her new necklace,” Mason said with a smiling glint in his eyes.
          “She cry?” Ken asked knowingly.
          “You know she did.  They look more beautiful on her than I thought they would if that’s possible.  I thought you were going after Charley, what happened?”
          Malansky sighed, ran a hand along the back of his neck which always signaled trouble somewhere.  Should he confess his stupidity or just leave it as a lesson learned?  Finally he said, “I was so wrong about her.  She’s nothing but an opportunistic gossip monger…”
          “How so?” Mason asked. 
          “I discovered she was taping our conversation as we drove.  I erased it,” Malansky confessed.
          Mason snorted, “Must have been some conversation.”
          Ken answered sheepishly, “It was.  I’m sorry Perry but we were talking about you and Della.”
          That made Mason sit back in the chair with an authoritative creak.  “What did you say?”
          “Nothing bad, I mean we talked about how it was Della’s birthday and she asked if you two were together romantically.  I opened my mouth and told her that you bought her a black pearl necklace and if that wasn’t a sign of romance I don’t know what was,” he admitted and felt like he was confessing to first degree murder.  He could feel Perry’s ice blue eyes on him as he stood there.  “I’m sorry, I know you and Della are very private people and I shouldn’t have said anything at all.  I just thought… I liked her.”
          It was his excuse and it was a lame one, but it’s what he offered.  Perry could see Ken was truly sorry for a simple error in judgment and decided to let him off the hook, “Ken, while I can’t speak for Della because she’s not here, I will say that if Charley had done an expose on us it would have been all right.  I’ve never hidden my feelings for Della Street, and she’s never hidden hers.  True we don’t trumpet that we spend our out of office hours together and we don’t announce things and we don’t just come out and introduce ourselves as each other’s property—although if it were up to me I would walk up to every person I met and point to Della and say: “I am the luckiest man on Earth because the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen is in love with me.”  But I figure most people don’t need an engraved notice saying that.  All they have to do is take one look at how we treat each other.  That speaks more than any announcement, legal document, or gold band could ever do.”
          “So you wouldn’t have been upset if Charley’d put that on air?” Ken asked. 
          “No, I didn’t say I wouldn’t be upset.  In fact there would have been a tidy lawsuit in the deal but not for monetary gain.  Contrary to popular belief it is not her right as a member of the press nor as a private citizen to invade anyone’s privacy.  She had no permission from you to record your conversation, no permission from Della or I to conduct an interview or publish any research on the matter, and if she had asked she probably would not have gotten it.  Being exposed as lovers would have been an embarrassment only to people who didn’t know we were.  And I don’t know too many people who don’t know our true relationship.”
          “But it might have hurt the reputation of the firm,” Malansky pointed out.  
          Mason laughed, “Ken, if people don’t want to give me their business because of the nature of the relationship between me and my secretary then I don’t want them as clients. This law firm is based on how we handle cases, not how we conduct our private lives.  Is that clear?”
          Ken glanced down at his feet before looking Perry in the eyes, “Yeah.”
          He turned to go and Mason stopped him, “Hey, what did you get Della for her birthday?”
          Malansky turned back with a smile, “A long weekend reservation for two at the spa at Creek’s Run.”
          Perry brightened up, “Am I one of the two?”
          Ken nodded, “Have a good time.  I’ve heard it can be a very… intimate resort.” 
          The gleam in Perry’s eyes and the look on his face made Ken happy to know he hadn’t screwed up so bad after all.