The Long Fall

by Daniel Quentin Steele

  There was a lanky, blonde guy dressed way too casual for a night at the captain’s table, but he didn’t seem to mind and he did seem to enjoy the way Ms. Stein was flashing those breasts at him. His name was Gil something and he was another Jacksonville resident I’d never heard of. In the introductions I learned he was “just a guy that used to work in research for Bell Labs. I got a few patents on a few little things in the electronics communications field and I decided to spend the rest of my life taking it easy.”

  There was a young couple who turned out to have won a lottery in New Jersey putting them on this cruise, a billionaire who had made his money in cell phones and his wife who weighed 300 pounds if an ounce and looked at the food set before us with a lust that most men would have envied. There was a priest, a short, ruddy cheeked, thin redhead, Father Dunleavy, who I vaguely remembered reading about at the time. He had won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in trying to stop the Hutu/ Tutsi genocide in 1994 during the Clinton years.

  I shook his hand, telling him, “I’m honored to meet you, Father. I’ve read about your work. You’re a brave man and there aren’t many people who can say they personally saved hundreds and possibly thousands of innocent lives.”

  “I was merely doing what the Lord led me to do, Mr. Maitland. As I understand you have done as well.”

  “The Lord has little to do with it, Father. I’m not really sure a lot of times if there is a Lord out there in the clouds somewhere.”

  “The Lord guides our actions, whether we know it or not,” he said. “I have to admit that from a professional standpoint, I have to say it’s interesting for a man in my line of work to finally meet the Angel of Death.”

  There were a couple of blank stares so everyone on the entire planet hadn’t seen Cameron’s story and its offshoots. I shrugged and said, “My reputation has been greatly exaggerated, Father. I know that in your line of work you’ve had a much more intimate acquaintance with the Angel of Death. Mine is just a title. You’ve seen the real thing.”

  Dunleavy looked at the young couple who were looking at me as if I’d grown horns and smiled at them, saying, “I was just teasing our friend here. He is a prosecutor in the District Attorney’s Office in Jacksonville. That appellation came from a mercy killing case he prosecuted this past week.”

  Naturally they wanted to know all about it so I sketched the background of the case, what I’d learned, what I’d done and the outcome.

  The young wife looked at me in horror and said, “That poor man.”

  The billionaire looked at his wife as if he wished she were the late Ms. Bingham and said, “Poor man, bullshit. He killed her to be with his girlfriend.”

  Which started a wide ranging debate until the Captain, a barrel-chested man named Charles Morel with a white beard despite the fact that he didn’t look any older than his late 50s, tapped his knife on his water glass and said, “Ladies, gentlemen, this is a fascinating debate. And I think this will be an interesting evening, but for now, let’s enjoy the work of our chefs and we can resume the discussion later.”

  We ate and indulged in cross table discussions for the next hour. I looked at Aline during one lull and said, “You look very fresh today.”

  Stein looked at us both and said, “It’s youth, sweetie. Aline hasn’t hit her 40s and can party all night like she did until the wee hours and still look fresh. Of course, a woman...in love...always has that blush about her. Any secrets we’d like to discuss, Aline.”

  She blushed and then directed a look like a dagger at Stein and said, “Ms. Stein, I’m afraid most of the people at this table haven’t spent much time around you and aren’t familiar with your...humor. They won’t appreciate the joke. And ... it is somewhat indelicate. You know that I am a married woman.”

  Stein just grinned at her and said, “Married women can’t fall in love? News to me. I used to do it all the time when I was married to my third, actually my third and fourth, husbands. It’s the best tonic in the world. Better than vitamins. Actually, there are a lot of vitamins and minerals in it...if you do it right.”

  She glanced over at the housewife lottery winner and said, “I bet you’ve fallen in love while you were married, right, sweetie?”

  The housewife just blushed, glanced over at her husband’s piercing stare, blushed again, and then occupied herself staring at the food on her plate.

  The billionaire’s wife looked up from her plate and said, “There should be a no-sluts allowed policy on family cruises, which I thought this was.”

  Stein just stared at her and said, “Make that a no-pigs allowed policy and I’ll agree with you.”

  The cruise director, a tall youngish man with neatly trimmed bangs, headed off trouble by saying, “I’ve read some web stories based on this case and I believe it must have been a difficult case for you to prosecute, Mr. Maitland. Did you have any second thoughts about your course of action?”

  “Of course I did. A lot of cases, no. They’re open and shut. But then there are the hard ones, and this was one of the hardest. I still think I did the right thing, but...to be honest I’ve had doubts since then.”

  “I wouldn’t have your job,” Gil said, the first words he’d spoken during the meal.

  “A lot of people wouldn’t. But, as I’ve told other people, somebody has to do it.”

  “The law is bullshit,” the billionaire said around a mouthful of choice French braised beef. “People that can afford it can do anything and little people get shit on. It’s the way of life, and the law doesn’t change anything. It just lets the morons think that there is some fairness in life.”

  “I think you would probably differ with that opinion,” Dunleavy said mildly to me.

  I looked at the billionaire and said, “The son of a man with almost as much money as you is sitting in a cell in Raiford today because he thought money would let him do anything he wanted. His daddy thought so too, but he found out the hard way that there are some things money can’t buy. As for the little people...”

  I grabbed an escargot and popped it in my mouth and washed it down with hot bitter coffee before telling them the story of Lilly Mae Longstreet, the victim in the first case I ever argued as an Assistant SA.

  “Her killer walked free. Stayed free for about two years until he tried to shortchange someone in a crack deal. They found parts of him around the Westside for months after that. The ME—Medical Examiner - said there were strong indications he was still alive when they started dissecting him. Somehow, I think Lilly Mae is smiling somewhere about that.

  “She left two sons, ages 9 and 11. That was ten years ago. The older boy was shot dead in an abortive 7-11 robbery a year ago. The younger boy is in a wheelchair and in a minimum security prison in the Panhandle because he made the mistake of insulting a gang boss in the middle of a drug deal. He won’t ever walk again, but someday he’ll be a free man. I know that he’s in a high school diploma program in the facility so he might make something of himself.”

  “Why does something tell me that you had a part in getting him into that program, Mr. Maitland?” Dunleavy said with a slight smile.

  “A friend of his said that he never forgets about victims in his cases,” Aline said. “How many prosecutors would have followed a victim’s family for ten years? I don’t think many.”

  “Her husband remarried the next year. His wife left him in a couple of years and he remarried again. He started drinking heavily after Lilly Mae’s murder and never stopped. They found him in bed a couple of years ago. The medical examiner said a heart attack. He was 45. Lilly Mae herself never completed high school. I don’t think anyone in her family ever got a diploma. She was just a hard working lower class woman who loved her husband and kids.”

  I stared at the billionaire.

  “Just Southern white trash as some people would say. No great loss to society. But she was a human being. She lived and had a right to a better end than taking a couple of .38 slugs to the head delivered by a stoned-out-of-his-min
d crack addict. That’s what the law is all about; making everybody’s life count. Even little people.”

  There was a long silence around the table and finally Dunleavy said, “I understand now why you are the prosecutor that you are, Mr. Maitland.”

  I ate the last escargot on my plate and washed it down with the last of my coffee. God, the French and food and drink are made for each other.

  “I’m nothing special, Father. I put on a suit and go to work every day. I’ve never faced down a mob of machete-wielding bloodthirsty savages armed only with a Bible and faith. There are a lot of people like me, not many like you.”

  “There are not many like you, Mr. Maitland,” Aline said softly. Under the table she grabbed my hand and squeezed it.

  “Actually, I envy both of you,” said Captain Morel. The attention of the table turned to him.

  “I love what I do, and I pride myself that I am proficient at what I do. I hold the lives of thousands in my care and I feel that responsibility. And yet...”

  He studied a goblet of red wine on front of him.

  “My parents wished me to study medicine. My father dreamed of my becoming a physician, as his uncle was. But, from an early age the only thing I wanted to do was go to sea. Which I did. I have never regretted the life I’ve led, despite the sacrifices it has required.”

  He sipped the red wine as he had throughout the meal. Then he sighed and looked first at Dunleavy and then at myself.

  “It is only when I meet men such as yourself that I have any reservations about the path I have followed. You, Father Dunleavy, have ministered to souls and saved the lives of innocents.

  “You, Mr. Maitland, have fought to achieve justice for any who have come before you. Both of you have touched and changed lives, made the world a better place. I have simply conveyed shiploads of tourists from one vacation spot to another. I love what I do, but, it seems so trivial sometimes.”

  The table was silent again for a moment.

  “Captain, my father died when I was eight years old. I don’t remember a lot about him. I was too young. But I remember walking in the woods with him. I remember him putting a rifle in my hands for the first time and starting to teach me how to shoot. Only a few memories, but I would take nothing in the world for those memories.

  “Since I’ve been on this cruise I’ve seen children running around, swimming in the pools with parents. I can tell you that for some of those children, the days they’ve spent here on your ship will be the highlight of their lives. They’ll lose parents to divorce or death, and when they look back years from now, it’ll be this cruise they remember.

  “I’ve seen honeymooners on the ship, enjoying the ship and each other.

  “I know...you know the reason why I’m on this cruise, Captain. This morning I suddenly flashed back on the last cruise I took, a trip to Hawaii that my wife and I took ten years ago. We were off Maui one evening getting ready to sail back when my wife called me to the rail. The whales were swimming off the ship, not more than a few hundred yards away. They were beautiful. I held my wife while we watched them. We were young. We were in love. We had two children at home and nothing bad was ever going to happen to us.”

  I had to stop and take a deep breath.

  “So don’t ever say that you don’t do anything important, Captain. You feed people’s souls. You give them memories they’ll take down into the grave.”

  I had to get up. As I walked away I said to the people staring at me, “Sorry. Need to step away for just a moment. Be right back.”

  When I came back there were a few curious stares and the sympathetic looks I’d dreaded from the female contingent. Aline looked up at me briefly with a look I couldn’t read. As if that were anything unusual. The sphinx was a chatter box compared to her.

  The Captain just nodded and said, “Thank you, Mr. Maitland. I forget sometimes, that we all have tasks in this life. I appreciate your reminding me of the role myself and my staff play in the lives of people we see for a few days and then will never see again. Now, the chef has prepared some of the most caloric deserts known in the Western World. Please take a look at the desert menus.”

  The conversation continued for about a half hour before people began to make their good-byes. Ms. Stein gave the laconic Gil a questioning look and he just nodded, then got up and guiding her by the elbow took her away with a grin. I wondered if anybody would see them for the rest of the cruise.

  Most of the staff left, including the Captain with one last handshake for Dunleavy and myself. The lottery winning couple hadn’t said a dozen words to each other since Stein’s question to the wife and I could see storm clouds over their heads. He couldn’t stop staring at her and she wouldn’t meet his eyes. Finally she got up and all but fled without saying anything to her husband and with a curt nod he followed her out.

  The billionaire and his wife left with just nods to us and then it was just Dunleavy, myself and Aline.

  He looked into my eyes and said, “The captain told us, very briefly, about your situation, Mr. Maitland. I can tell from just our time together that you are a passionate man; passionate about what you do, passionate about the people you fight for. And I’m sure, passionate about the woman and marriage you are losing. I will pray that God works things out for the best for both you and your wife, whatever that is.”

  He stood up and after shaking my hand, looked over at Aline who had been quiet and said, “I will also pray for you, Ms. des-Jardins. You said you were Catholic, so you must know that God is slow to judge human beings and he is forgiving of our human frailties.”

  Then we were alone.

  I didn’t have to ask.

  “I knew he was a passenger and would be at our table. I met with him to discuss...some questions I have. He is a wise man.”

  We had been left alone in the closed room. The cleaning crew hadn’t even come in to start taking the glasses and dishes away. I could hear the chatter of conversation among the last seating and the clatter of the serving staff taking away the last dishes and bringing coffee and desert to the late comers.

  We just stared at each for awhile. Finally, she said, “I feel....awkward....Bill. I think...perhaps...you must have a very bad opinion of me.”

  “Why?”

  “I think you....are.....expecting....something...”

  At this rate the conversation would take a month to complete.

  “You don’t need to spell it out, Aline. I’ll accept that last night was mostly you, and not the Assistant Cruise Director. It was late, you’d been drinking and were ready to party, I hit you with a real tearjerker of a sad story and you felt sorry for me. You let yourself go further than you now feel comfortable going. You’re a married woman. I get it.”

  “Bill—I”

  “I said I get it, Aline. I never really thought deep down anything would happen. I can’t say I’m sorry. I can’t say I didn’t want it to happen, but I would have had mixed emotions anyway, doing something with Philippe Archambault’s wife.”

  She dropped her eyes and avoided my gaze.

  I reached into the inside pocket of my jacket and pulled out a small three-inch by three-inch purple case.

  “What?”

  I grabbed her hand and placed it palm up on the table, then placed the case in her hand.

  “Don’t talk. Let me finish this.”

  I tried to find the right words.

  “When I walked onto this ship four days ago, deep down I thought that my life to all intents and purposes was over. I was going to keep going, because there was nothing else I could do. But I wasn’t expecting to enjoy myself. I hadn’t had an erection in four months. I hadn’t kissed or been kissed by a woman that I cared about in nearly four months.

  “The only thing that mattered to me was my job, and maybe, making a connection again with my kids. But the part of me that was a man, that part I shut down. I wanted to forget that it even existed. Because there was nothing there but pain and contempt for myself. I just wasn�
�t man enough to keep my wife.”

  I reached out and ran one finger down the side of her face.

  “And then I met you. You started changing me before I even knew who you were, or why you were staring at me. And then we met and we talked on the deck Saturday night. And then, there was last night. Even if it was all an act, and I don’t think it was, it changed me. For the first time since...that night...I started thinking like a man again. It didn’t matter whether I had any real chance with you...at least I started wanting to be with a woman again.”

  Her eyes glistened.

  “That’s why...it doesn’t matter whether what you said and the way you acted was from you personally, or just you doing your job. Why you did it, doesn’t matter. What matters is the way I feel. You changed my life, Aline. When I walk off this ship I won’t be the same man I was when I walked on.”

  I reached over and gently lifted the top of the case off. The lights in the ceiling played on the gold fleur-de-lis pin inside. I reached inside and pulled it out. Her eyes grew larger. I took the case out of her hand laid the solid gold and diamond pin in her palm. The heart-shaped diamond in the center at the base of the pin twinkled under the lights.

  She shook her head.

  “No, Bill. No. This is impossible. I cannot-“

  “You can. And you will. The Fleur-de-lis is something you can wear with your uniform or personal dress. The diamond in the center is a symbol of our friendship. It’s as close to being eternal as any substance on earth.”

  “It is completely inappropriate. I could not accept something so expensive. And...how could I ever...”

  “Show it to Philippe. Tell him it was a symbol of friendship from Bill Maitland. I hope he’ll remember me. Tell him you met me when I was at a low point in my life, and my life changed in a week. Tell him he’s a lucky bastard to have you in his life permanently. And that I envy him.”

  She looked down at it and ran her fingers over the heavy gold.

  “How much....”

  “Seven thousand American. The diamond is not great quality and they gave me a deal on it.”