Every Man a King

35

Morning at Melquarth Frost’s deconsecrated church was most certainly a religious experience. It honestly felt like being a penitent seeking forgiveness. The twelve stained glass windows that adorned the east and west walls of the nave were constructed in opposing pairs. On the eastern wall were the images of the saints: Matthew offering a few copper coins to a beggar woman in rags trying to care for her wretched children; Augustine sitting upon a humble bench in a green grove talking to a group of pious peasants in a way reminiscent of family; Pelagia, dressed as a nun from some bygone day, kneels down next to a prostrate man burning with fever and distress; Mary of Egypt, bathed in light, is standing in front of a cell, opening the barred door for a prisoner who sees his freedom in her; Olga is physically separating two men brandishing cudgels; and Dismas languishes on the cross, gazing to his left, from which a great radiance arises.

The western wall has: tax collector Matthew wielding a whip upon the back of a man with one hand while relieving the poor wretch of a small sack from which a gold coin falls; Augustine lies in a drunken stupor upon a plush divan being serviced in every way imaginable by prostitutes; Pelagia is a detail made large from the Augustine window, lifting his robe in a licentious manner; Mary of Egypt is urging a small boy to take the purse of a man who has his back turned; sword-wielding Princess Olga rides at the head of a troop of men slaughtering the innocent people of a small village; Dismas is holding a dagger at a child’s throat, demanding that his mother hand over her necklace.

The tableaux and their pairings made up Melquarth’s imagistic sermon. Sainthood, in his estimation, must exist not only in repentance but also in the acceptance of the evil within. Each window was designed by Mel himself and they were constructed by a centuries-old firm in Vatican City.

I never asked my friend about his money but I imagined that he wasn’t interested in wealth and so squirreled away whatever he got from the extortions, heists, ransoms, and contract killings he engaged in before deciding to go, more or less, straight.

Taking the Staten Island train to St. George, I then boarded the ferry to Lower Manhattan. I was relaxed in a way that is related to deep exhaustion.

When I was standing at the back of the ferry staring into the water, someone said, “Hey, brother.”

Turning, I saw a young Black man wearing black and very dark blue clothing. His skin was the color of palm wood, a mixture of light brown and gray. He wasn’t dressed up or down, just modestly — that’s what I thought.

“Hey,” I answered.

“What you thinkin’ ’bout?”

It seemed rude that someone I didn’t know would just walk up and try to get in my head. I didn’t utter this sentiment, but my face made clear these thoughts.

“Hold up, man,” he said. “I saw you lookin’ down in the water, way down, and I wondered if you were okay. That’s all.”

If you’re in deep trouble, lifelines are almost always unexpected.

I’d been leaning against the waist-high wall and so straightened up.

“Um,” I muttered. “I, uh, I been havin’ a hard time, it’s true. But I wasn’t gonna jump or nuthin’.”

“Wanna go sit down?” my new friend asked.

The benches were at the back of the sternward deck of the ferry, farthest away from the edge. I went with the young man because it pleased me that someone I didn’t know showed concern about my well-being.

When we sat I asked, “What’s your name?”

“Tremont Lewis. I live out in Staten Island.”

“Joe Oliver. Brooklyn.”

“So, what’s goin’ on with you, Joe?”

“You some kinda street preacher or somethin’?”

“Naw, man. You know. I had a sister killed herself. She was out in Saint Louis and they didn’t even find her for six days.”

“That’s a mess.”

“You know,” he said, clasping his hands. “I always thought that if I was out there that maybe I could have noticed somethin’ and asked her if I could help.”

“That’s the right thought to have. I mean, a lotta things aren’t our fault, but that doesn’t mean we can’t help out anyway.”

“Yeah,” Tremont Lewis said. He was looking out at the water now. “That’s right.”

For a good two minutes we sat there side by side looking out at the aquatic traffic between the two boroughs. Then the boat’s engine shifted and the ferry lurched a little in the water.

“What you goin’ to Manhattan for, Mr. Lewis?”

“Not gettin’ off. I just take it back and forth a few times every week or so. Out here I seem to remember Melissa better.”

The Obsidian Club is on Sixty-First Street a couple of blocks over on the eastern side of Fifth. There are no signs to tell you where it is. You have to know that it is lodged on the upper floors of a pretty modern office building. The business offices take up the first thirty-five floors or so. Past that, using a special elevator, are the four floors that make up the Obsidian Club.

In order to be offered membership, you have to be wealthy, an insider, and palatable to the membership at large. My grandmother once told me that Roger paid five hundred thousand dollars a year for his due. That included all food and drink.

“May I help you?”

The man standing behind the blue-white Carrara marble standing desk wore an immaculately understated suit. He was older than I but not more than a decade, and he was white like the golden sands of an inland desert.

“I’m a guest of Roger Ferris.”

The maître d’hôtel had a slender face and a torso to go with it. His lip wanted a mustache but the Obsidian Club probably forbade it. The man looked at me for maybe six seconds. In times gone by, he might have told me about the servants’ entrance or asked what my business was with Ferris.

The potential rejection was in his shoulders, but instead he said, “Take the hall behind me to the Promethean Room, about halfway to the Venus de Milo.”

It wasn’t the real Venus de Milo but it might have been. The wealth that inhabited those halls was beyond money. Obsidian’s membership owned or controlled a significant portion of the Earth.

Big Billings and good-humored Ray were sitting on a stone bench across the way from the entrance to the Promethean Room. When they saw me turn toward the door they were a little surprised.

“I know,” I said. “It’s not often that the help gets a look inside.”

I opened the door and was suddenly flooded by an effulgence of solar light.

The Promethean Room had a thirty-foot ceiling with an outer wall of glass that went all the way up. The long room was dominated by an ebony wood table that could seat at least thirty participants. But that day there were only two people there: Cassandra, who sat to the center right of the table, and Roger, who stood at the far window looking down on the east.

“Hello,” I said with some volume. “Everybody waiting for me?”

Roger turned and began the thirty-pace stroll toward the center of the left side of the table. I met him at the chairs across from his daughter.

“Why is he here?” Cassandra asked the old man.

“Because I want him here.”

“This is not his business.”

“You wouldn’t think so,” I said jauntily. “But surprisingly enough I have something to say. You know, I’m a private dick and dicks do what they do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cassandra asked. And, before I could reply: “I’m done with you.”

“I know,” I said. “You wanted me to derail your father and clear the way for you and Alexander to take over MDLT. Derail or kill.”

“I never asked you to kill anybody.”

“Not in so many words. But that doesn’t matter anyway because I delivered your message and decided that murder for hire wasn’t my thing.” I took that moment to sit.

Roger followed suit.

Cassandra wanted me obliterated from her sight. But if looks could kill I would have been dead long before the Quiller Case.

“You see,” I said, “I was confused about what were the reasons I was hired to find out if Quiller was worthy of saving. I mean, who would care if a man like that lived or died, was free or caged?”

I glanced at my employer and he looked away.

“At first Quiller didn’t even want me in the cell with him,” I said to Cassandra. “He told me to leave but he finally, begrudgingly decided that I might be able to help him. At first I thought that he was somehow blackmailing your dad to get him out of Dutch. But your father said no and he was right... kinda. Quiller did have information that Roger didn’t want divulged, but he wasn’t protecting himself like you thought.”

“No?” the daughter said on a sneer. “Then why was I told by Minta Kraft that that man Quiller had evidence that my father is a murderer?”

“That’s where I got confused,” I admitted.

“No,” Roger said to me. “Don’t.”

“It’s the only way, Rog,” I told him. “You see,” I then said to his daughter, “your father cares more about you and your brother than you think. My grandmother told me a long time ago that you were the stronger sibling, the one that looked after Alex. He’s a weak man, given to dark moods and depression.”

“There’s a reason for that,” she said, showing more humanity in those few words than I would have thought possible.

“Yes,” I said. “He was broken over the murder of George Laurel.”

“Joseph,” Roger warned.

“Your brother met Valeria Ursini at the Olympics when your father was training the fencing team. Alexander fell in love with her, but she was infatuated with Roger.”

“You always said that you gave us everything,” daughter said to father, “but in reality you took it all.”

“It seems like that,” I said as Roger stood up and headed back for his post at the window.

“It is that,” Cassandra said to the old man’s back.

Roger stopped his escapist pilgrimage and settled onto a chair three seats down.

“Did you know that after Valeria started at Yale your father dropped her and Alex moved in?”

It gave me great pleasure to say something that Cassandra didn’t know and that Roger didn’t know that I had figured out.

“Yeah,” I said. “He hooked up with her. He figured that there would be wedding bells and babies. But Ms. Ursini heard a different drum. She wanted a good time but no more. And when she got together with George Laurel, your brother couldn’t take it. He offered Sola Prendergast enough money to pull his whole family out of poverty. That’s why Sola hacked poor George to death.”

“That’s a lie!” the sister proclaimed.

“No,” I said gently, and then I lied a little. “Quiller told me the story. When I asked him about your dad he told me that there was suspicion about George among the homicide cops of New Haven. They didn’t have enough to go after a Ferris, so they let it drop. And then, years later, Quiller sent a lawyer in to offer Sola his services if he would tell him what really happened.”

“Those are just words,” Cassandra ejaculated, spittle popping from her lips. “Some story you made up to save that bastard’s life.”

“Sola signed a confession,” I avowed solemnly.

Everything I said was true, only I hadn’t heard it from Quiller directly. I read it in the TTT.

“That can’t be,” she said, aging in front of my eyes.

“Minta Kraft told you that Quiller had something on your father. You used her to set up Quiller. And she used you to bring him down.”

“Please, Joseph,” Roger pled.

“Your father’s crime was to cover up your brother’s paid-for butchery.”

Cassandra turned her eyes to Roger. There was no mistaking the pain on both their faces. He wanted to deny everything and so did she.

“You should be happy,” I said to Cassandra. “Your convoluted plan to destroy Quiller and get his blackmail file out in the world would have destroyed the only person you truly love.”

There’s little use for truth when it is the unwanted answer to a lifetime of hatred.

With great concentration Roger’s only daughter was able to push against the tabletop and stand.

“Cassie,” Roger said.

“Shut up!”

“I didn’t know what to do,” he continued. “I felt like you say, that it was all my fault. I wanted to save him. Save him.”

Cassandra Ferris-Brathwaite turned away and stumbled the few steps to the wall. There she put out a hand to remain upright and walked to the door of the Promethean Room.

“You destroyed her,” Roger Ferris said to me.

“She shot my grandmother by proxy. I gave her what she deserved face-to-face.”