Naked Justice by William Bernhardt

trains, tracks, blocks, action figures, board books, stuffed animals, and security blankets. Joey was sitting on the floor in a corner, arranging his small plastic animals in a straight line. When he finished, he would take them one by one to another corner and line them up there. Sometimes he did this for hours.
    “Where’s Joni?” Ben asked. Joey, of course, didn’t answer, but Ben’s nose inspired him to investigate the kitchen.
    In the kitchen, Ben found Joni stirring a copper pot on the stove. Her boyfriend, Booker, was sitting at the table.
    “How’s it going, Booker?”
    “All right, my man.” They slapped hands.
    “How’s the shoulder?” Booker’s shoulder was slowly mending from an injury he’d received in Ben’s living room several months ago. He’d managed to save Christina and Joey’s lives, but he’d gotten a nasty knife wound in the process.
    “Only hurts when I laugh.” Booker was a big, muscular man; he worked out regularly at a gym downtown. “And I only laugh when Joni does her striptease routine.”
    “Booker!” Joni whirled around, aiming a wooden spoon at his head.
    “Just a joke, Joni. Just a joke.” He turned his head and gave Ben a pronounced wink.
    Joni was wearing jeans and a T-shirt (R.E.M. RULES!) that covered her tall, lean figure like a drape. The ensemble was completed by ten-hole utility boots and the usual baseball cap turned backward. Her short black hair was tucked behind her ears. Joni had a twin sister, Jami, but since Joni had cut her hair, they had gone from being seemingly identical to being barely discernible as members of the same family.
    Ben leaned over the stove and inhaled. “Boy, that smells good. But you’re not supposed to do the cooking. That’s my job.”
    “Well, you had that conference today, so I knew you’d probably be late. So I started dinner.”
    “That was very considerate of you. I didn’t know you could cook.”
    “Actually, Booker did all the cooking. All I’ve done is stir.”
    “Booker! You?”
    Booker shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a Renaissance man.”
    “Evidently.” Ben took another deep whiff. “What is it, anyway?”
    Joni peered intently into the pot. “Uh … soup.”
    “Soup. Good. What kind?”
    “Uhhh … you know … just soup.”
    “Just soup? C’mon, what is it?”
    “I’m not clear on all the details.”
    Booker interrupted. “Beer cheese soup. The best.”
    “Beer cheese? As in beer?” Ben frowned. “We don’t have any alcoholic beverages in this house.”
    Booker smiled. “Brought my own.”
    “But we can’t give Joey something that has beer in it!”
    Booker smiled. “I prepared young Master Joseph the usual assorted vegetable platter.”
    Along with his other eccentricities, Joey had an astounding (for his age) preference for food that was actually healthy. “Well, still. You know I don’t approve of having alcohol in the house.”
    “Relax, Ben. We just put in a smidgen. And we poured the rest down the drain. And sterilized the drain with Lysol.” She poked him in the stomach. “What an old woman you’ve become. You’re worse than Mrs. Marmelstein.”
    “I don’t mean to be a pain. But it’s a big responsibility, looking after a little kid.”
    “You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “After all, I’m his nanny.”
    And a darn good nanny she had been, too. Ben had had doubts when, out of desperation, he had promoted her from occasional babysitter to full-fledged nanny status, but she had proven herself time and time again. Almost overnight she had gone from goofy, irresponsible teenager to dedicated, mature caregiver. She fed Joey, bathed Joey, changed Joey, and put up with his odd behavior whenever he wasn’t at school and Ben couldn’t be at home.
    Ben felt a furry nuzzling at his feet. “Hi there, Giselle.” Giselle was his cat, a black Burmese who was a past birthday present from Christina. “Are you telling me that you love me, or that you’re