The Great Divide

by T. Davis Bunn

  NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY had once been content to anchor the empty stretches east of Hillsboro Street. Now Hillsboro was a six-lane thoroughfare aimed straight at the capitol, and State’s campus sprawled in every conceivable direction. In the fifties it had been nicknamed Cow College, since over half its student body had been Piedmont farm children down to learn the new science of agriculture. Now its atomic-engineering department held seven NASA contracts, the agricultural-genetics division designed pest-resistant seed strains on behalf of the United Nations and eleven African nations, two professors had won Nobel Prizes in biochemistry, and the veterinary-medicine department held over a thousand groundbreaking patents.

  Marcus parked by the original stone bell tower and asked directions to the math department. He found Dr. Austin Hall’s name on the address board and climbed to the third floor. A secretary took note of his age and his suit, checked the roster, and reported that Dr. Hall had a class but should be stopping by his office in about twenty minutes. Marcus used the time to reread the folder from Kirsten Stanstead.

  “Mr. Glenwood?” Despite his stiff demeanor, Austin Hall looked seriously jolted by finding Marcus camped outside his office. “What are you doing here?”

  Marcus closed the file and rose from the bench. “We need to talk.”

  “I’m extremely busy.” Keys jangled nervously in the professor’s grasp. “I have a faculty meeting in ten minutes—”

  “You might just make it,” Marcus replied, holding his ground. “If we don’t waste any more time out here.”

  Austin Hall’s entire face folded with resignation. “Come on, then.”

  The professor wore a three-piece suit of charcoal gray and shoes that squeaked as he walked to his door. “I wish you’d just speak to my wife.”

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with Mrs. Hall.” He watched the man have difficulty fitting the key in the door, and knew he was right to come. “This is between you and me.”

  Austin Hall entered an office as clean and tightly structured as his clothing. He dropped his briefcase on the desk and retreated behind the polished wood surface. “All right. What is it?”

  Marcus shut the door. “Please sit down, Dr. Hall.”

  “I told you, I’m in a hurry to—”

  “Sit down.”

  The man’s jawline knotted, but he did as he was told. Marcus pulled a chair front and center before the desk, seated himself on the edge, took a breath. Another. Forced himself to expel the air and the words, though he had to clench his hands and his gut to get them out. “Eighteen months ago I was driving back from Wrightsville Beach. My two children were in the backseat. My wife was beside me. We stopped at a diner for lunch. We got back in the car and started off, arguing like we had been ever since we left the beach.”

  “Really, Mr. Glenwood, I don’t see any reason why you should barge in here and unload these highly personal details.”

  Marcus raised his face a notch. Nothing more. Just let the other man see his eyes. It was enough to shut off the protest. Austin Hall dropped his gaze, fiddled open his jacket, and began toying with the gold watch chain that arched across his middle. Anything but look back into Marcus’ eyes.

  Marcus held to the quiet tone, one that sounded almost gentle to his own ears. Like the voice of the doctor who had come to him that day in the hospital. A voice too full of emotion to hold much force. “We entered an intersection, I could have sworn we had the green light but I don’t know, the other driver said it was red and my wife and I were still arguing … ” He searched for air that did not fill his lungs and never would again. “All I saw was a flash of light off to my right, didn’t hear the horn or the brakes, though the police report says there was a skid mark seventeen feet long. Just that flash of light off the truck’s grill, then he hit us. Just behind my wife’s door. Drove in the back right door and …”

  He couldn’t remember why he had started on this story. Only that he had to finish. “I don’t recall much about what happened next. In my memory it was as though one instant there came this flash of light, the next and I was on a bench in the hospital, a nurse was bandaging my forehead, and a doctor was leaning over to say something.”

  He remembered then why he had come. Why this was so important. His head popped above the surface of his ocean of pain, and he focused on the man opposite him. “I didn’t want that doctor to speak. If I had owned a gun, I would have killed him stone dead not to hear what I saw there in his eyes.”

  Marcus stopped then, and waited until the silence lifted the other man’s head. Austin Hall threw him one quick glance. A world of terror in one swift look. Marcus continued, “So I’m here to tell you that all you have to do is say the word and I’ll walk away. No, even more than that: Unless you ask me to continue, I’m going to drop this case. And I seriously doubt that anyone else will ever touch it.”

  The dark fingers twirled the chain, a glittering spiral across his middle. “It won’t do any good. Alma—”

  “I won’t say a word to your wife about our conversation. This is between you and me.” Another breath, the hardest of all. “Father to father.”

  The gaze that met his own was hollowed by nights of whispering shadows. “I couldn’t bear it if my Gloria … ”

  “I know,” Marcus murmured, “all too well.”

  Laughter and loud student voices echoed from somewhere down the hall, drawing them back from the brink. Austin Hall asked, “Do you really think making a case of this might do any good?”

  “It might. I hate to say more than that. But it might. New Horizons lives in the spotlight. If we could even threaten them with publicly staining their reputation, maybe they’d respond.” Marcus unclenched his hands and offered them, empty. “But it’s a long shot at best.”

  When Austin Hall’s only response was to turn and stare out the window behind his desk, Marcus rose and left the room.

  NINE

  LOGAN KENDALL’S SECRETARY knocked on his open door. “Mr. Walker is here to see you, sir.”

  “Show him in.” Logan waited to rise until the older man was through the door. “Randall, good to see you. You take coffee?”

  “Black, two sugars.”

  “Have a seat here, why don’t you.” Logan noted the man’s flash of irritation at being directed to the chair in front of the desk, and not the sofa in the corner. Good. Cracking that polished veneer was an excellent first step. Logan walked back around his desk and dropped into his chair. “What can I do for you?”

  Randall Walker had the easy smile of old Southern money, and eyes of congealed mud. “What say we wait for the young lady to bring my coffee?”

  “If you want.” Logan made a scene of checking his watch, his desk clock, his diary. “I need to be leaving fairly soon, though. Got a big case coming up.”

  Randall held to his smile, though his gaze hardened. “Only if you’re lucky.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m here to offer you … ” He stopped as the secretary returned, with a mug this time, as per Logan’s earlier instructions. No china service, no boardroom conference, no stage for Randall to control. This was Logan’s office and strictly his show.

  Randall inspected the mug, then lifted it in a wry accolade. “You learn fast.”

  “You started to say something?”

  “Indeed I did.” A sip, a nod of approval. “I stopped in today to offer you a dream come true.”

  Logan chose to misinterpret the remark. “Sorry. I’m not in the market for a move. I’m very happy where I am.”

  “That’s good. Real good. Because I didn’t make this journey to offer you a position. No. I want to offer you a case.”

  Logan used the padded armrests to push himself erect. “You’re going after Marcus.”

  “On the contrary. Marcus Glenwood has elected to go after us. Or, rather, after a dear and valued client, for whom I happen to serve as outside counsel.”

  “Which one?”

  Randall used his mug
as a stage prop, holding the moment with a veteran’s poise. He sipped, sighed, sipped again, and finally said, “New Horizons.”

  Despite himself, Logan was rocked. “Marcus is suing New Horizons Incorporated?”

  “He has not yet filed, but it is looking increasingly likely that he will indeed be bringing suit in federal court.”

  “Who is he tying in with?”

  “Apparently the gentleman has decided to go it alone.”

  Logan had to laugh. “You can’t be serious. Nobody in their right mind would try to handle a federal case by themselves. Much less take on a billion-dollar corporation. Who does he think he is, the Lone Ranger?”

  “A question I would very much like to ask him myself.”

  “Marcus is going to get himself squashed like a bug.” The prospect brought a great deal of satisfaction.

  Randall nodded once. “I sincerely hope so.”

  Logan hesitated. To gain New Horizons as a client would be a major coup. His status would skyrocket. But still the question had to be asked. “Why me?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Kedrick and Walker has a hundred lawyers who’d kill for the chance to represent New Horizons in court. Why come to me?”

  Randall fiddled with the knot of his tie. The triangular design was woven with what appeared to be genuine silver threads, for they reflected the light like dozens of tiny mirrors. “I have done some checking up on you. The word in our tight-knit little community tends to confirm what your colleague Ms. Rikkers implied. You were a better trial attorney, Marcus the better rainmaker.”

  “So?”

  “Yet it was Marcus who received the partnership, not you. That hardly seems fair, now, does it?” Randall leaned forward. “I do not seek just any attorney for this case. I want a lawyer with a grudge.”

  Logan waited, scarcely breathing.

  “I want someone who despises Marcus Glenwood. Someone willing to tear him limb from limb.”

  The tightness in his throat barely left room for a single word. “Delighted.”

  “I do not mean for you just to win this case,” Randall said. “I want Marcus Glenwood to be so humiliated that his name is forever erased from legal memory.”

  A light flashed, and with it came a slight easing of the constriction. Logan hungered after this chance, but he also wanted to enter with eyes wide open. “It’s not Marcus at all. You want to make sure nobody else takes this case up again later.”

  The words pushed Randall back in his seat. “Marcus Glenwood has no case. It is a nuisance claim. We want it stifled.”

  “But I’m right, aren’t I?”

  Randall’s gaze had the texture of dirt from a very old grave. “Whatever my reasons, if you take this case it is with the express purpose of leaving a heap of ashes for the wind to blow away.”

  Logan permitted his grin to show through. “Then I am definitely your man.”

  TEN

  MARCUS PULLED into the Hayes drive and halted behind a new Jeep Cherokee of midnight blue. His suspicions mounted when he spotted the keys dangling from the rear door. Which was why he forgot and shut his door too hard, causing one end of the rear bumper to break free of its coat hanger and clank to the ground.

  “Marcus Glenwood!” A woman’s voice shrilled. “You get that cockroach of an automobile outta my front yard!”

  “Hello, Libby.”

  The house door slammed like a rifle shot. “I declare to goodness, if my gardener dared show up in a heap like that I’d fire him on the spot!”

  “Nice to see you again, Libby.”

  Boomer’s wife was tanned and fit and strong-willed enough to keep Boomer and three college-aged kids in line. She wore the obligatory Carolina-casual uniform of a pastel Izod shirt, pleated cuffed shorts, an alligator belt with a gold buckle engraved with her initials, and Bass loafers with no socks. She marched down, circled his car, declared, “It’s worse than Boomer said.”

  “Whose Jeep is this, Libby?”

  “Yours, soon as you sign the papers.” She tsk-tsked her way back to where he stood. “Amazing those hoodlums let you walk away.”

  “I can’t afford a new car, Libby.”

  A familiar voice snapped, “Save your breath, Marcus.” Charlie Hayes limped his way down the drive. The old man lived in a second-floor apartment separated from the rest of the house by a poured-concrete wall. The wall was one of two conditions laid down by Charlie Hayes before he had agreed to move in with his son. The other was that Boomer stop threatening to cut off his oldest boy for electing to study at Wake Forest. “The title’s already in your name.”

  Before Marcus could object further, Libby said, “Boomer wants to do this, Marcus. You haven’t ever won an argument with Boomer and you’re not going to start now.”

  Charlie Hayes huffed to a halt and said to the Jeep, “Dang thing would have to be blue, wouldn’t it.”

  “I’m paying for this,” Marcus declared.

  “Of course you are.” Libby smiled up at Marcus. “Charlie told us about the Hall case. Boomer started feeling bad for everybody.”

  “I haven’t taken the case yet.” It was a feeble protest, but all he could muster just then.

  “You will.” This from the judge. “Get on over here and drive me to lunch. I’m hungry for some collards and fatback. Only thing I get fed around here is chicken with lemon and yogurt glop. Woman takes pleasure from squeezing out the last drop of fat.”

  “Fat is bad for you,” Libby said, still smiling up at Marcus, a secret look in her clear gray eyes.

  “Fat is where they hide the taste,” Charlie said, climbing into the Jeep and slamming the door.

  Libby reached over and patted his arm. “Go fight the good fight, Marcus Glenwood. Do it for all us normal folk. Keep us safe in our cozy little world.”

  THOUGH HE HAD BEEN coming for years, the Farmers’ Market remained new and strange to Marcus. He still recalled the days of traveling here with his grandmother, carrying bushels of backyard produce in the trunk of their old Chevy. By the ripe old age of eleven he was hauling the tattered baskets of shelled peas and okra and corn and beets, setting them up according to his grandmother’s artistic eye. He earned seventy-five cents for nine sweaty hours’ work, and counted himself lucky—but not for the money. If he could have, Marcus would have paid his grandmother for the chance to be there at all.

  Back then, the old Farmers’ Market had been little more than a dusty red-clay field, packed hard by decades of pickups and horse-drawn wagons before them. Because of her age, his grandmother had held a coveted spot under the open-sided shed, shielded from the sun by a roof more rust than metal. There had been a spigot off to one side where the young ones gathered, filling buckets both for drinking and for wetting down the produce. In Marcus’ memory, the children around the spigots were always laughing, his grandmother always had a kind word for her boy, and the summer sky was always so clear it appeared black off away from the sun. There had been a redheaded little darling in a flour-sack dress whose family sharecropped down Wilson way, and in his memories she was always there waiting for Marcus to arrive, always hoping for a smile and a word from the tall boy with the strange accent. Marcus remembered that now, as he drove in and parked by the new restaurant, how the redheaded girl could not get over the way Marcus spoke, his Philadelphia accent turning the words into something so foreign just his listing the produce made her laugh. Marcus followed Charlie Hayes across the parking lot and recalled that little girl and the way she would come running up to greet their dusty car with the words, “Tell me something funny, Marcus.” If only he could remember her name.

  The new Farmers’ Market was positively palatial by comparison. The multitude of sheds were broad and painted bright colors, the floor paved with white concrete so it could be easily washed down. Only the farmers seemed unchanged, slow-talking and tight-faced, their skin leathery and their eyes troubled by being forced to focus on prices and change and the strange talk of city-bred folk. Marcus lo
ved to breathe the perfume of fresh goods with the earth still clinging to their roots.

  The market now held two restaurants, and they were almost always full. One had trestle tables and a fast-food counter and sold only fish. The fish came only one way—fried. Whatever they had that day—bass, shad, bream, popcorn shrimp, trout—was served with hush puppies and homemade fries and cole slaw. Beans were extra. Nobody who entered the Farmers’ Market fish restaurant a second time said anything about calories or fat content or cholesterol. There were three portion sizes to choose from, and the large portion would feed a starving nation for a month.

  The other restaurant was his favorite place in the entire world. The first time he came, three days after his return from law school, it had been as the guest of federal justice Charlie Hayes. The gentleman had observed carefully as Marcus took in the concrete floor and the simple tables and the clamor and the aroma. Marcus had finally turned to the judge and said, “If I ever make it to heaven, I expect to find someplace pretty much like what they got here.” Charlie Hayes had nodded once and replied, “I believe there’s hope for you yet.” They had been friends ever since.

  Marcus spent the better part of his chicken-and-dumpling lunch describing his journey to Washington and Richmond. These midday discussions had started the year of Charlie’s retirement, and were a habit so ingrained that both men took it as natural. For a querulous opinionated man who was impatient with just about everything in life, Charlie Hayes was an excellent listener, as were most good judges. He let Marcus ramble his way through, sorting things out and making verbal notes in the process.

  Only over dessert and Marcus’ description of his morning encounter with Austin Hall did Charlie interrupt. “I’m not sure you did right there.”

  “I had no choice.”

  “Well, now. Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t. Some folks delight in leaving the hardest decisions to others. All you’ve seen is a spat between husband and wife. You don’t know if this was just a lifetime’s tango they were dancing there.”