Pardon the Ravens

by Alan Hruska

  She appraises him quickly. “In that case,” she says, “turn off here.”

  The wheels screech, which doesn’t daunt Ariel. They’ve turned onto a small country road, the homes mostly hidden by hedges. “There’s a place at the Point,” she says. “The very end of this peninsula. A tad out of your price range, but, well… you’ll see.”

  They do. A few more turns and several hundred yards away. Rising over a jumble of weed trees and shrubbery, on a hill covered with sea grass that sweeps down to the bay, is a narrow, three-story cottage. It’s built like a rectangular lighthouse, high for the view, ringed in fieldstone up to the first-floor windows, otherwise shrouded in weathered gray shingles and roofed in slate. Walking through the front hallway, being stunned by the view of the marsh and the bay from a wall of French windows at the end of the living room, Alec says, “We’ll take it.”

  Carrie says, “Don’t you want to see if there are any bedrooms upstairs?”

  Alec says, “With this view, that’s irrelevant.”

  Upstairs, in fact, bedrooms abound: three on the second floor, with a small deck outside the master bedroom, and a warren of servants’ rooms on the third. The marsh to the south teems with birds, even swans. A football-field-size lawn, rolling west, borders on a meandering seawall, beyond which curls a small half-moon beach on the bay. Northwest there’s a twenty-acre estate, belonging, they are told, to a family named Allingham.

  “And who owns this place?” Alec asks.

  “Boston family,” says Ariel, beak tilted slightly, eyes still appraising. “Name of Scanlon.”

  “Would they consider a rental with an option to buy?”

  “I should think so. They’re building a larger place, I understand, in Marblehead.” With a shrewd look at Alec, “And may be a bit overextended.”

  Alec turns to Carrie, though still directing his questions to Ariel. “So what are they asking for rent?”

  “It’s quite reasonable at five hundred a month, off-season.”

  “And how much more reasonable does your authority allow you to be?”

  “I’ve just reached the end of my authority.”

  “And Mr. Scanlon?”

  “He,” says Ariel, “might be fifty dollars a month more reasonable.”

  “Fully furnished, of course?”

  “Of course.”

  “Done, then,” Alec says. “When can we move in?”

  “Of course, have to check you guys out.”

  “Sure,” Alec says and grabs a note pad from a desk in the bedroom. He hastily scribbles two names and numbers and hands it to Ariel.

  One look, and she exclaims, “You know Jocko Rush?”

  “He’s my client. The other name is the senior partner in my law firm.”

  “Would tomorrow be soon enough?” she asks with a grin. “Have to confirm with Mr. Scanlon, get a standard lease form drawn up.”

  “Tomorrow would do splendidly. And, if you could, sale and option prices too?”

  That night at the inn, Alec concedes, “I must have been out of my mind.”

  “We can’t afford it?” Carrie asks.

  He likes the “we,” but it doesn’t lessen the panic. “The problem is paying two rents every month. It’ll wipe us out.”

  “Maybe we should just buy it,” Carrie says, not really serious.

  “Y’know,” he says. “That’s not such a crazy idea. Get a mortgage. The monthly payments on that might be less than the rent.”

  “It’s a great house.”

  “It’s a great house,” he agrees.

  “We can scrimp on everything else,” she suggests. “No new clothes. No meals in restaurants.”

  “You’re right,” he says. “It’s worth it.”

  Which panics her. “In hock to our eyeballs.”

  “Look at the bright side.”

  “The drive from the city being only eight hours?”

  “We’ll fly up,” he says. “Keep the car here.”

  “What car? Who can afford a car now, let alone airline tickets?”

  “If it gets too tight, we can sell in a few years.”

  “You’d never sell,” she says. “You’d rob banks before selling.”

  “So whatta you think? We back out?”

  “You kidding? I’d drive the damn getaway car.”

  Then they realize what they’re doing. Making plans, like a couple.

  “Let’s just rent,” Alec says. “Dealing with a bank right now may not be the smartest idea.”

  The next morning Alec signs a lease in Ariel’s office, then they drive into Augusta for new pillows and linens. Food shopping they do at the market in Reefer’s Harbor, which displays a wall of S.S. Pierce canned goods, including one special item, lobster Newburg, on which they feast for dinner. Their new kitchen comes fully equipped. Stove and refrigerator that function, despite being antiques. Table, chairs, flatwear, and dishes, each piece of disparate and ancient origin. The sink’s porcelain is mainly intact, and the water runs clean. Ariel had seen to the electricity and telephone, putting both in Carrie’s name, which they give as Reilly. Not a problem. People here are generally trusted at their word.

  Cleaning up after dinner, making the big double bed, allows them to feel they belong there. With the lights out, they climb under the covers, hold on to each other, see the stars through the windows.

  “What’s that sound?” Carrie asks.

  “I think it’s the ocean.”

  “You can hear the ocean from here?”

  “Yeah, I think so. The surf. Sound travels well here, especially at night.”

  “Good,” she says. And they both think the same thing.

  Monday morning, Carrie drives Alec to the airport in Portland. Nothing more is said about guns, though they both know that Alec has left her with enough money to buy one.

  They are a bit of a spectacle at the gate, but when the plane arrives, Alec gets on it.

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  Among the many messages Alec finds on his desk are four from his father. Alec calls Sam at the Syosset office.

  “Where the hell you been?” his dad wants to know.

  “Away. Something I can’t talk about.”

  “Well, I’ve got something I need to talk to you about. But not on the phone. I’ll drive into the city.”

  “I’m up to my eyeballs, Dad.”

  “I’ll be outside your building when you get home.”

  “It won’t be early.”

  “Ten?”

  “Probably later.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  At about eleven-thirty p.m., Alec pulls up in a cab. Sam, as promised, is waiting. He’s gotten friendly with the doorman and is sitting on a chair in the lobby.

  Alec says, “Come on upstairs, and I’ll give you a beer.”

  “Let’s take a walk around the block,” Sam says. “Your apartment is probably bugged.”

  When they turn the corner at 5th Avenue, Sam signals to a bench on the park side, and they cross the street to take it.

  “You know,” Sam says, after they both sit, “I’m now in the home security business.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  “One of our customers is Phil Anwar.”

  “What?” says Alec.

  “It gets worse. I’ve got a tap on his phone.”

  “What?”

  “So I know about you and his wife.”

  Alec jumps up. “What the hell’re you talking about? You’ve tapped Anwar’s phone? You outta your mind? That’s suicidal!”

  “And sleeping with his wife isn’t? He doesn’t know about the tap. He sure as hell knows you’ve run off with his wife.”

  Alec slumps back to the bench. “You don’t understand anything about this, Dad.”

  “I understand he’s going to try to kill you. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “He won’t do anything before the trial. Keeping the threat on me stops his wife from testifying
.”

  “The trial in your case?”

  “Yes.”

  “So that diesel thing, that was Anwar?”

  “Right.”

  “And she was your witness. You got another one?”

  “I think so. If I can pry him away from the U.S. Attorney. Which is the subject of our meeting tomorrow. Although he knows nothing about it.”

  “And how will you protect yourself after the trial?”

  “Anwar will go to prison.”

  “Will he? And that makes you safe?”

  Alec shrugs.

  “You’re not that naïve, Alec. He’s the boss whether he’s in prison or at home.”

  “Not if it’s a capital crime.”

  “You’re talking about those killings in Morristown.”

  “Among others,” says Alec.

  “You got evidence it was Phil?”

  “Morristown, no.”

  “Anything?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  “It’s pretty obvious Morristown was Phil.”

  “There’s been no charge,” Sam says. “And I doubt there will be. Those were mob executions. Who cares? Also, murder—these kinds of murders—that’ll be in the state system. Very slow. Frying Anwar—if ever—it’ll take years.”

  “He killed Carrie’s father. Made her watch it.”

  Sam says slowly, “Did he really!”

  “But he might slip out of that one too, at least as a murder-one case.”

  “Why?”

  “Look,” Alec says, tired and losing his patience, “how are you even involved in this? I’m doing what I’m doing out of necessity. You? Putting a tap on the man’s phone? What the hell is that all about?”

  “My own necessity.”

  “Really? Of what nature?”

  Sam sits back. “I suspect very much like yours.”

  They watch the traffic for a few minutes.

  Sam says, “We’re going to have to kill the son-of-a-bitch.”

  Alec’s laugh has a bitter taste. “You’re worse than Carrie,” he says.

  SIXTY-NINE

  In a long, bent gallery of an office on Foley Square, Ray Sancerre, the United States Attorney, gives phone like a Hollywood agent. The chief of the Criminal Division, Sid Kline, broods at the window. Alec, being shown in by Sancerre’s secretary, crosses over to Kline.

  “He’s on with a Times reporter,” Sid says under his breath. “The guy works sixteen hours a day, fourteen of them on the phone with the press.”

  Hardly surprising. Alec had met Ray two years before on a Bar Association committee to which Macalister had had Alec appointed. One night, after a late meeting and a couple of drinks, Ray confessed to Alec his secret ambition. He expected to become president of the United States. As Alec now waits with Kline, Sancerre’s once-bizarre fantasy seems not quite so preposterous. After becoming a partner of Marius Shilling’s, Ray leveraged a Washington job into the chief prosecutorial position in New York and, within six months, was a media darling. Few prior holders of the office had been this colorful—or accessible.

  Close to concluding his conversation, Sancerre smiles and waves at Alec. Then, after a final burst of conviviality, he hangs up, gets up, and greets Alec with a capacious smile. Despite his relentless attempts to enlist others in his ebullience, gloom hangs on this man like a cheap suit.

  “Alec, good to see you!”

  “You too, Ray.”

  “Diesel oil, right? That’s what gives me the pleasure of your company?”

  “Diesel it is.”

  “Big case! You’re about to try it, I gather, with my former partner, Marius, consulting.”

  “That’s right. In a couple of weeks.”

  “Want some coffee, a Coke?” Ray re-establishes himself behind the desk and buzzes his secretary. “Hold all calls—” wink at Alec—“you can.”

  “No, I’m fine, Ray, thanks. Actually, what brings me here is that we have a common witness.”

  “Oh? Who’s that?”

  “Carl Raffon.”

  Still smiling, Sancerre says, “Can’t allow that, Alec.”

  “Really? Why’s that?”

  “Bad timing. Sorry.”

  Alec catches Ray’s wandering eye. “You’re not quite ready to indict Phil Anwar?”

  Sancerre says, with no further pretense of affability, “You know I can’t discuss that.”

  “Trouble is, Ray…” Alec pauses. “I can’t change the timing. And Raffon, for me, is a material witness. So I think the judge will allow the subpoena.”

  “I don’t think Raffon will be around to be served.”

  “Oh? How’s that?”

  Ray leans back. “Man does seem to travel. And, Alec. Without my dispensation, Carl does some serious time. No freedom. No license. His life turns to total shit. Think your offer measures up?”

  “Suppose—just speaking hypothetically—Raffon did testify first in my case?”

  Ray laughs—for the first time, genuinely. It’s all the response Alec will get.

  Alec says, “What are you worried about? Might look to the press as if we were out ahead of you guys?”

  “Come on, Alec.”

  “I’m wrong? This whole thing’s not about PR?”

  Black looks. “Careful!”

  “If Rosenkranz wins, my clients are bankrupt, fifty thousand people lose their jobs, and thousands of individual stockholders, many of them elderly people, lose their shirts. Rosenkranz doesn’t give a shit about that—he personally stands to walk away with millions of bucks—but you ought to care.”

  Sancerre gazes at Alec for another moment without saying anything. “Is there a question pending?” he finally asks.

  Alec, frowning, takes a portable tape player out of his briefcase and places it on the edge of Ray’s desk.

  “I really hope,” says Ray, his words dropping like ice cubes, “that you haven’t been taping this meeting.”

  Alec leans forward and pushes a button on the machine. Silence, except for the playback of Carl Raffon being questioned by Alec and Harvey. When Carl finishes incriminating Phil, Alec stops the tape. “You guys want to hear it again?”

  Resumed silence, as if a weighted object had just fallen to the floor.

  Ray’s question is toneless. “What’s the deal?”

  “No prior release of this,” Alec says. “No prior publicity whatever. I give you fair warning before Raffon has to testify. You get to issue your release that morning, the day before, whenever you want. Take full credit.”

  “And if that’s not acceptable?”

  “Then we’ve got a problem.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Sancerre says, looming out of his chair. “You’re threatening me?”

  “Certainly not,” Alec says. “I’m simply giving you notice. I have a subpoena from Rosenkranz, which I’m required by the rules of court to comply with. It calls for everything I plan to use at trial. Up until this moment, I had no plan to use this tape, because I assumed Raffon would testify live to what he said on the tape. So I had no thought of delivering the tape to Rosenkranz. But now you’ve given me reason to believe that I have to petition the court immediately, on the strength of this tape, for special discovery to track Raffon down, which means, unless you and I arrive at a deal, I have no choice but to turn it over to Rosenkranz.”

  Ray sits on the top of his desk. “And what possible incentive would Si have for releasing it to the press?”

  “Who knows? But if he’s got it, twenty-six other strike-suiters have it. Each has, what? Ten people working on the case? So now you’ve got more than a couple of hundred people who have listened to the thing and know what Raffon has to say. And at that stage, why wouldn’t U.S. Safety itself want to publicize the tape? It shows that the company was swindled by the mob. So you see, Ray, it’s not even a question of whether the tape surfaces at trial several weeks from today. You control whether this tape goes public tomorrow.”

  As soon as he
returns to his office, Alec phones Carrie in Maine.

  “We’ve got Raffon,” he says. “I simply agreed to let Sancerre put out the press release and take credit for breaking the case. You, my dear, get to stay in Reefer’s Harbor.”

  “I bought a gun,” she says.

  He says nothing.

  “Alec?”

  “I heard.”

  “I said I would. So I went into Portland and did it. A rifle with a box of ammo. Like buying fruit off a pushcart. That easy.”

  More silence.

  “Alec?”

  “You know how I feel about guns.”

  “I’m the one who’s up here alone.”

  “I’ve told you, the people who get hurt by guns are the people who don’t know how to use them. The people who need the protection.”

  “I’ve got nothing but time, Alec. I’ll learn.”

  “This is not a great idea.”

  “I don’t agree! Look! Phil’s going to show up here. I don’t know when, but he’s coming. That’s not guesswork. I know him. It’s certainty. He’s got to show us he can find us. Show us—” she mimics Phil’s voice—“we belong to him. It’s that primitive with him. And I can’t live like that. Not anymore. He comes for me, I’m going to shoot the bastard. Okay?”

  “What do you want? My blessing?”

  “No. I want you. When are you coming up here?”

  Braddock appears in Alec’s doorway like a second sighting of Lazarus. “You’ll be in the office this weekend, kid?”

  Alec puts the receiver to his chest. “No, I’m out of town this weekend.”

  “Oh, really! Trial coming up in a couple of weeks, you’re going out of town. That’s nice.”

  Alec starts to explain, but Braddock cuts him off. “You’re being given a chance. You fuck this up, how many more you think you get?”

  “Zero.”

  “You got that right! Mac wants to see you. God knows why.”

  Macalister’s room in Greenwich Hospital is the size of a luxury suite, with a fourth-floor view of foliage and white clapboard. The patient props himself upwards with a rattle of pulleys and wires. He’s shaved, has some color in his cheeks, but his hair is thinner, his face gaunt. “Damn sorry sight. I know. But that’s the way it is.” Half his body is encased in plaster.