Emperor of Ocean Park

CHAPTER 60

So I keep watching, waiting for them to come, while trying to live my life. Like most professors, I generally use my summers to write. But this year I am spending all the time I can with Bentley. Kimmer does not seem to mind, and, now and then, we do things as a threesome. Sara Jacobstein reminds me that Bentley needs to see his parents treat each other with respect. Morris Young tells me that God requires the same thing. We are not getting back together, my soon-to-be-ex-wife has made that clear, but these occasions-a walk in the park, a trip to a Broadway show-are somehow not too onerous, as though Kimmer and I are both growing up a little, even as we grow apart. Once, feeling particularly gay as we stand in the foyer of the house on Hobby Road after returning from a dinner for three, Kimmer even asks me if I would like to stay the night, and I am giddy until I realize that this is no promise of a resumption of our marriage, but only an impulse born of Lionel’s temporary absence from town. When my polite refusal meets with a shrug, I know I am right.

When I am not with Bentley, I spend a lot of time driving through the countryside in my sturdy Camry, watching my rearview mirror with some care, because I have started to catch a whiff, just the faintest distant breath, of new shadows. Somebody, I am confident, is back there. Maybe Nunzio’s people, maybe Jack Ziegler’s, maybe his partners’. But I have a feeling that the breath on my neck belongs to somebody else; somebody who has not been around for a while. Somebody, however, I knew would return.

I am running out of time, but only I know it.

At the law school one midsummer’s day, Shirley Branch cannot control her ebullience, running up and down the halls like a schoolgirl, embracing everyone she meets. “He’s back!” she cries, literally cries, for she is sobbing through her joy. When it is my turn to be hugged, she all but knocks me over, cane and all, and I barely have time to ask who, exactly, is back before she shouts, “Cinque! He’s back!” She came home from Oldie last night and he was there, sitting on the front step, wagging his tail in delight. I am astonished, and relieved, and more certain than ever of a small theory. The odd thing, Shirley adds, is that he was wearing a brand-new collar, with no name on it. But she is smart enough to have an explanation ready: “He must have lost his tag when he ran away, and somebody found him and didn’t know where he lived and put a new collar on him, and then he missed me and he ran away from them and found his way home!”

A good story, even if it is not a true one. I remember, instead, a certain animal-lover on the Vineyard, who grew up with five dogs and ten cats, who could shoot me in the Burial Ground and call it just a job, but could not bring herself to harm Shirley’s black terrier. I wonder where Maxine obtained the blood that she smeared on the tag when she followed me to Aspen. And why she didn’t drop by to say hello when she slipped into Elm Harbor to deliver Cinque to Shirley’s door.

That night, I telephone Thera to check on Sally’s progress, but I reach her answering machine and she does not return the call. A few days later, Kimmer rings at 2 a.m., weeping and whispering my name for no reason I can discern. I ask her if she wants me to come over, and she hesitates and then says no. When I call to check on her later that day, she apologizes for troubling me and will say no more. Perhaps every disintegrated marriage has such moments.

The following day, the elegant Peter Van Dyke invites me to join him and Tish Kirschbaum for lunch, to talk about the many court cases involving the Boy Scouts; Peter says he cannot think of a better referee. The three of us banter and argue as though I am, almost, a respected member of the faculty again. And perhaps a respected member of the community as well, for my trio of bullet holes has brought me a certain local prominence: a couple of Elm Harbor pastors ask me to speak at their churches, and the Rotary and the local branch of the NAACP both inform me that their members would love to hear what I have to say. Most significant of all, Kwame Kennerly takes me out for coffee, trying to secure my support for his swiftly evolving mayoral campaign. He has traded in his kente hat and navy blazer for a beige vested suit, and he assures me that big changes are on the way in our town.

I tell him I have no interest in politics.

In the middle of the first week of August, my landlord, Lemaster Carlyle, is sworn in as a judge of the United States Court of Appeals. His beaming wife Julia holds the Bible. Half of the law school faculty is crowded into the city’s brand-new federal courthouse, the half that is not on vacation. All the leaders of the local bar are in attendance. Judge Carlyle makes some brief remarks, solemnly promising to do his best to live up to the traditions of the bench-the better traditions, one assumes. He is applauded vigorously, for everybody has decided to love him. More friends thump him on the back than Lemaster probably knew he had. Standing at some distance from the hero of the day, I find myself still irritated that he never told us he was in the running. Despite everything that has occurred, I continue to feel, although I recognize its masochistic character, a degree of loyalty to my wayward wife, whose judicial ambitions Lem managed to trump. I remind myself that Lemaster Carlyle, he of the endless Washington connections, went behind both our backs-successfully, to be sure, but behind our backs nevertheless.

Still, I shake his hand and say the right things. Kimmer, too, attends, and is among the many backslappers. Dahlia Hadley was right, and my wife knows it: there will be other chances for her, if she only continues to work hard and please those she must please. And if she can only settle this unpleasantness with her husband, and act sensible about Lionel. I even catch myself wondering whether a part of her calculation, when she decided to leave, was that her chances for the bench are better without me than with me. But that is an unworthy thought, and, with due credit to the Judge, I push it away. We make small talk, Kimmer and I, which is about all the talk we have left. I decide not to burden my wife with what I have figured out: that because she assumed the task of complaining to the alarm company after the break-in on the Vineyard, she must have learned immediately that the vandals possessed the correct code to turn the alarm on and off again. She never shared this vital clue with me, preserving the secret through the agonizing months of my search, because she did not want to jeopardize her chances at the nomination by supplying the evidence that I was right all along. I look at her tense face and forgive her. As it happens, the ceremony takes place on my forty-second birthday. Kimmer does not mention the coincidence, and I am not about to beg her to remember. So my only celebration is a late-night call from Mariah, who effuses on the subject of Mary, now six months old, but also confides that she plans to head back to Shepard Street soon: there are, after all, papers yet uncatalogued.

I wish her well.

Theo Mountain dies two days after Lem’s swearing-in. His daughter, Jo, the New York lawyer, mistakenly believing that Theo was still my mentor, asks me to deliver one of the eulogies at his huge Roman Catholic funeral. I cannot think of a way to refuse that will not add to her grief. I write a few lines, trying to recall the way I once felt about Theo, but I cannot get through my text because I am weeping too hard. As everybody stares at everybody else in embarrassment, it is Lynda Wyatt who emerges from the congregation, puts a gentle arm around my waist, and leads me back to my pew.

I suppose people think I was crying over Theo. Maybe I was, a little. But, mainly, I was crying over all the good things that will never be again, and the way the Lord, when you least expect it, forces you to grow up.

Mr. Henderson shows up at the door of my condo on the second morning after the funeral. He was in the area, he says brightly for the benefit of any neighbors who might be listening, so he thought he would stop in and say hello. He is wearing a sports jacket to hide his gun, and he shows no obvious damage, so I suppose the fifth person in the cemetery the night I was shot must have been his alter ego Harrison. Dana and I were there, Colin Scott was there, and Maxine was there and stole the unburied box. That makes four. But I know there was a fifth, not only because the police think so, but also because I heard a man-not a woman-cry out in pain when the dying Colin Scott’s desperate bullet struck him. The police found no sign of him, so it was someone close enough to the action to get shot, and tough enough to escape anyway.

I let Mr. Henderson in because I have no choice. Waiting for the guillotine’s blade to fall, I lead him to the small kitchen table, an oft-painted wooden relic of my childhood salvaged from the basement of the house on Hobby Road. I offer water or juice. Henderson declines. Like gamblers who distrust each other, we both keep our hands in sight. We are very civil, although Henderson takes the precaution of setting up a small electronic device that will, he assures me, make it difficult for us to be overheard. All I know is that it gives me a sharp, sudden headache, even though it does not seem to be making a sound.

“Your friend understands why you did what you did,” Henderson tells me in his smooth, sparkling voice. “He does not blame you for the fact that the contents of the box were… disappointing. On the contrary. He is pleased.”

This surprises me. “He is?”

“Your friend is of the view that all involved parties are satisfied with this outcome.”

Rubbing an aching ear, I think this one over. What Dana and I feared appears to be true: Jack Ziegler is too old a hand to be fooled so easily. I suppose the other involved parties are old hands too. Yet they are satisfied. And Henderson is here. Which means that…

“Somebody else ended up with the box,” I murmur. The good guys, I am thinking. Not the great guys, the good guys. “My… friend doesn’t have it. Am I right?”

Henderson declines to enlighten me. His strong face is smoothly impassive. “Your friend is of the view that if nothing was found, then perhaps there was nothing to be found. Some threats are bluffs.”

“I see.”

“Perhaps you agree.”

I realize, finally, where I am being led: what I am being forgiven for, and what words I must recite to earn forgiveness. “I agree. Some threats are bluffs.”

“Perhaps there were never any real arrangements.”

“That is certainly possible.”

“Even likely.”

“Even likely,” I echo, closing the deal.

Henderson is on his feet, wide shoulders flexing, catlike, under the loose jacket. I wonder how many seconds it would take him to kill me with his bare hands should the need arise. “Thank you for your hospitality, Professor.”

“Thank you for stopping by.”

Before folding up his electronic baffler, Henderson adds a final point: “Your friend also wants you to know that if you should, in the future, discover contents that are… less disappointing… he will expect to hear from you. In the meanwhile, he assures you that you will not be troubled further over this matter.”

I think this one over, too. Some threats are bluffs. He is implying a little bit more than he is saying. “And my family and I.. .”

“Will be perfectly safe. Naturally.” But no smile. “You have your friend’s promise.”

As long as I keep my end of the bargain, he means. Before, Uncle Jack’s ability to protect me was driven by his assurance to involved parties that I would track down the arrangements. Now that things have changed, his ability to protect me rests on his assurance that I will not. They cannot know whether I have found the real contents someplace else; whether, like my father, I have hidden them away, and made arrangements of my own, to be launched in the event of my unexpected demise. The involved parties and I shall live henceforth in a balance of terror.

“All right,” I say.

We do not shake hands.

Every night I watch the weather channel. Near the end of the third week of the month, while Bentley is with me for a few days, I turn on the television and note with approval a terrible hurricane on its way up the coast. If it keeps on its present course, it will hit the Vineyard four days from now. Perfect.

The next morning, Saturday, I take Bentley back to his mother. My son and I stand together out on the front lawn, and Don Felsenfeld, tending his flowers, raises a trowel in greeting. I decide not to wonder whether Don, who notices everything, knew about Lionel before I did.

“When Bemley see you ’gain?”

“Next weekend, sweetheart.”

“Promise?”

“God willing, Bentley. God willing.”

His keen eyes search my face. “Dare Daddy?” he inquires, lapsing into the secret language we hardly ever hear any more.

“Yes, sweetheart. Dare Daddy. Absolutely.”

I lead my son up the crooked brick path to Number 41 Hobby Road. Crooked because Kimmer and I, shortly after moving in, laid the bricks ourselves. A two-day job that took us, busy, love-struck rookies that we were, about a month.

My hand trembles on the cane.

The house is empty. The thought comes to me unbidden but with all the moral force of absolute truth. It is an empty house… no, an empty home. Kimmer is certainly inside somewhere, waiting for her son. Her BMW is parked in the turnaround, as usual, in defiance of my counsel. And if my wife has been careless and broken her solemn word-nothing new there!-Lionel Eldridge might be lurking around the place, his powder-blue Porsche safely hidden away in the garage. Yet the Victorian sits empty, for a home that once housed a family and now holds only its shards is like a beach whose sand has eroded to rock-retaining only the name, and none of the reason for the name.

At the door, I tell Kimmer I am returning to the Vineyard for a few days. She nods indifferently, then stops and peers at me. The resolution in my voice frightens her.

“What are you going to do, Misha?”

“I’m going to finish it, Kimmer. I have to.”

“No, you don’t. There’s nothing to finish. It’s over, it’s all over.” Hugging our son to her thigh now, wishing the truth away.

“Take care of him, Kimmer. I mean, if anything happens to me.”

“Don’t say that! Don’t ever say that!”

“I have to go.” I peel her hand from my sleeve. Then I spot the real panic in her face and I realize she has it all wrong. She thinks I’m going off to Oak Bluffs to kill myself. Over her! I love her, yes, I am in pain, sure, but suicide! So I smile and take her hand and lead her down the steps onto the lawn. She is savvy enough to shoo Bentley into the house.

“Please don’t talk that way,” Kimmer mumbles, shuddering. She does not object when I put my arm around her.

“Kimmer, listen to me. Listen, please. I’m not going to do anything foolish. There’s a piece of the mystery that hasn’t been solved yet. Everybody’s forgotten about it. But I haven’t. And I have to go and see.”

“Go and see what?”

I think about the shadows I have sensed, ponder how to put it. I think about the still-unexplained attack on me in the middle of the campus. I think about my bullet holes. I think about my chat with Mr. Henderson. From my memory I draw the Judge’s line: “The way it was before, darling. I have to see the way it was before.”

She licks her lips. She is wearing jeans and a polo shirt and is as fetching as ever. Her hair is awry, and I wonder, with distress, if she was too busy in bed last night to braid it. She shoves her glasses up on her forehead and asks only one question: “Is it going to be dangerous, Misha? For you, I mean.”

“Yes.”