The Great Divide

by T. Davis Bunn

  Logan settled back in his chair. “All right. I’m listening.”

  Randall said, “New Horizons’ relationship with Factory 101 is a critical part of their overall import business. One we would prefer not to have exposed to the light of an American courtroom. So we need you to hold back and see if Marcus Glenwood has managed to come up with the impossible.”

  Logan mulled that over, then demanded, “So just how much trade do they do with these Chinese guys?”

  ON THE RIDE BACK after the pig picking, Deacon sat up front because Austin insisted. A glance in the rearview mirror was enough to reveal the reason why: Austin spent the journey locked upon the view out the side window, eyes blind and face weary in the way of one whose sleep was stolen. The mood in the car remained thoughtful and quiet until Marcus turned back onto the state road and reentered familiar territory. Then Deacon eased himself about, until he was leaning against the door and able to watch Marcus and Charlie both. “Did you ever know Marcus’ granddaddy, Mr. Charlie?”

  “No, can’t say I ever had the favor.”

  “Old Mr. Horace was a fine man. Real fine. Helped build our church, in a manner of speaking.”

  Marcus quickly glanced over. “What?”

  “Those fields out between the cemetery and the rise, they once belonged to Mr. Horace. They were deeded to him in a settlement. Back when I was just starting out my days at the pulpit, lightning struck the old church. Least, that’s what we figured it was. Big storm passed late one night. Next morning we didn’t have nothing but ashes. That church was built by freed slaves with the first money they earned. Lots of wailing by their grandchildren and great-grandchildren the day after that storm. Didn’t have nothing left but a bell and four cornerstones. Lost it all.”

  “Hard blow,” Charlie offered.

  “Marcus’ granddaddy came by that very same day, deeded the land over to us. Said he had no use for bottom land, he wasn’t no farmer and never would be. Shame to let good tobacco land go to waste.”

  “I never knew any of this,” Marcus said.

  “We farmed that land and sold the crop and built the new church. Yes, Mr. Horace was a fine man. And my, but he could talk.” The memory caused Deacon to smile. “Talk the hind leg off a dead mule. Talk all day and all night.”

  Charlie asked, “Marcus, your granddaddy was a tobacco auctioneer, do I recall that straight?”

  “Until his stroke.” But Marcus was caught by the memory of an old man who, once settled by his wife into the corner rocker, neither moved nor spoke. Marcus’ grandfather had watched his growing-up years and never uttered a sound. For a born talker, it must have been an assignment in hell itself.

  The car was silenced and sobered by passing the red-brick sign announcing the entrance to the New Horizons complex. One corner remained broken and scarred where Marcus had clipped it. A team was busy erecting a burnished copper shield on top of the brick, one bearing the star-and-rainbow logo and embossed with the world-famous command to GET IN GEAR. They took the downward-sloping curve through the forest, reentered the light where the road flattened and revealed the church. Marcus studied the surrounding fields with new interest. “Hard to believe all this started with them wanting to move the cemetery.”

  Deacon shifted impatiently. “Wasn’t the cemetery and it didn’t start there.”

  Marcus started to say how he was speaking of his own involvement. But he sensed something more than just casual conversation in Deacon’s tone. “What do you mean?”

  The old man was long in responding. They were approaching Marcus’ street before he finally said, “Some things are harder to talk about than others. Dark spots you wish never happened, shadows you can’t never wash off.”

  “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

  He might as well not have spoken. “Cropping the tobacco we raised on the land your granddaddy gave us, the collections we gathered, it was enough to put up the walls and get in the windows. But we were short almost two thousand dollars. Winter was coming, and the man wouldn’t roof the building till he got paid. Back then it was Baker Mills on the hill behind our place, not New Horizons.”

  “Old man Baker was a piece of work,” Charlie offered.

  “Evil man,” Deacon muttered, his voice as tight as his gaze. “Carried the dark ’round with him. Grass died where he stepped.”

  “I had him appear in my courtroom a couple of times,” Charlie went on. “Felt like ordering the bailiff to wash the place down with lye after he left.”

  Marcus pulled up in front of his house, cut the motor, turned so he could study Deacon, who went on, “Old man Baker came by my house. Said how he’d give us the two thousand, and five hundred more for two stained-glass windows. But he wanted use of the church all winter, every Friday and Saturday night. I asked him what for. He gave me a grin I will carry with me to the grave and said, ‘Far as you’re concerned, it’s just a few friends looking for a place to have a good time.’ ”

  “They were gambling,” Charlie suggested.

  “That and more,” Deacon replied darkly. “A whole mess more.”

  Charlie struck his knee with the flat of one hand. “I heard tales of their wild ways. Probably got run off someplace by the law, were looking for somewhere that wouldn’t get raided.”

  “They fouled our church for a whole winter. Shot out both the stained-glass windows soon as we got them in. We didn’t ever replace them neither, not till we had money of our own.” Deacon breathed heavy, shook his head. “Come May and planting season I went by old man Baker’s house. Took the elders with me, couldn’t make that journey on my own. Told him we were starting a weekend Bible school, and he was gonna have to find some other place to meet. Old man Baker said maybe we’d find use for two thousand dollars more. No sir, I told him, the time for sinning was done. He gave me that same old death’s-head grin of his, and said how it’d be a shame to have to burn the place down again.”

  The look Deacon gave Marcus was full of hard-earned knowledge. “Only one way to handle men like that. Got to stand up, stand strong, fight the good fight.”

  TWENTY

  WEDNESDAY MORNING Marcus sat in one corner of Federal District Judge Gladys Nicols’ outer office. He was relegated to a straight-backed chair because the defense team, seven in number, had arrived ahead of him. They clustered around the sofa and side chairs in the far corner and raked him with angry glances. The only greeting he received was from Jim Bell, the retired patrolman on receptionist duty, who approached them every half hour to apologize for the judge’s being so late. They had been kept waiting almost two hours, but Marcus was too preoccupied to give either the defense team or the time much notice.

  He sat and turned the pages of his dispositive motions, and pondered the mysteries the morning had revealed. Some of his questions were even about the trial.

  “Morning, Marcus.”

  He slapped the file shut and rose to his feet. “Logan.”

  The man standing before him had a dancer’s body and a butcher’s face. Logan Kendall’s forehead formed a broad shelf with which he liked to bull his way through the opposition. From a distance Logan looked ruggedly handsome, the image heightened by his smooth voice and tailored suits and flashy ties. Up close it was possible to see the scar tissue under his eyes and where his nose had been surgically rebuilt.

  Logan offered a smirk instead of his hand. “Nice to know you’ve recovered enough to join the walking wounded.”

  “I’m busy.”

  “Yeah, I noticed you over here all by yourself, still trying to cobble together a case.” Logan jerked about, the move shockingly swift. This was another of his little traits, revealing his boxer’s speed in lightning motions. Especially when standing in his opponent’s space. He pointed to the sole woman on his dark-suited team. “Of course you remember Suzie.”

  Marcus ignored her irate glare. “What do you want, Logan?”

  “Just thought I’d give you one last chance to drop out wit
h your skin still intact.” He kept his tone light and low, so that the receptionist could hear nothing but a faint lyrical drone. “You know Suzie’s just dying to finish the job she started during your last court appearance.”

  “I’d be happy to drop the case, and I told Randall Walker exactly how and when.”

  Logan blinked. “You talked to Randall?”

  It was Marcus’ turn to softly chant, “Looks to me like there’s a communication problem between client and counsel.”

  Logan recovered as best he could. “I assume he didn’t pass it on because your offer was utterly without merit. Just like your case.”

  “Nice talking with you, Logan.” As his opponent was turning away, Marcus was struck by a sudden thought, and asked, “What does the term lao gai mean to you?”

  Logan’s step did not falter. “I’m not here to play word games, Marcus. I’m here to nail your hide to the wall.”

  Instead of returning to his seat, Marcus walked to the window. The mist had burned off to reveal a sun-splashed day. The federal courthouse was a relatively new encroachment into what was known as Old Raleigh. The region east of the governor’s mansion was a hodgepodge formed by decades of tragic decline. From his perch on the seventh floor, Marcus could see four Victorian-era manors, a muffler shop, a restaurant specializing in grits and grease, and two drunks arguing over a bottle. He stood there thinking of the last time he had himself heard that strange-sounding term: lao gai.

  Ashley Granger, the Washington lawyer, had called that morning. “I expected to get your office machine.”

  “My office is in my home.”

  “Sorry it’s taken so long. And sorry to have called you so early. But I just got woken up by someone who could finally tell me something worth passing on.” A pause, then the further excuse that “It’s late afternoon over there in China.”

  “You don’t need to apologize. Give me a second to pour another cup of coffee and grab a pen.”

  When he returned, Ashley began. “Factory 101.”

  “Yes.”

  “Sometimes what is not said is as important as what you actually hear. You follow?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “I faxed and e-mailed some contacts I have in the Hong Kong and Guangzhou regions. They instantly cut all connections, like they’d vanished from the face of the earth. I called some others. Soon as they heard who was on the line, they hung up. Even before I asked my first question, they were gone.”

  “Something big must be happening there.”

  “You’re partly right but mostly wrong. An occupational hazard when dealing with China. It’s not what’s happening that stops people talking.”

  “But who is behind it,” Marcus guessed.

  “See, you’re learning. Monday I finally hired a local lawyer. I didn’t need a lawyer, you understand. I needed to purchase information. This particular lawyer is middling honest. All their local business derives from one central source, and they learn to bend and shape the meaning of honesty around what this central source tells them is that day’s flavor.”

  “I’m not sure my clients will approve payment to a Chinese counsel at this time,” Marcus warned.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. By this point I wanted to find out what had everybody in a lather. For that I needed a local source.”

  “Is that risky for you?”

  “I’ll find out my next trip over. Right now, I can officially confirm that Factory 101 is definitely a lao gai prison.”

  “Just like Dee Gautam said.”

  “Yeah, that little weasel was right again. ’Course, he wouldn’t give me the time of day when I asked. Hates dealing in rumors, old Dee does. Told me to get involved and dig for myself. Which I did.” Ashley Granger was clearly enjoying himself. “You ever heard of a place called Daolin?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Doesn’t matter. The thing is, lao gai are located all over the country. Local governments use them as a dumping ground for troublemakers.”

  “If they’re so commonplace, why wouldn’t people talk to you?”

  “Exactly. Daolin is the answer, or part of it. It’s a farming community north of Guangzhou. The local population rioted there twice in the past two years. This is big stuff. The farmers were the backbone of Mao’s revolution. For years they’ve been chafing under the double burden of artificially low prices and Communist Party corruption. The local party buys all their crop at prices set by Beijing. These same local officials demand bribes for everything—seeds, tools, use of communal machinery, birth certificates, travel permits. The corruption keeps getting worse, the prices stay the same.”

  “So they rioted,” Marcus said. “So?”

  “So the national party knows it’s sitting on a powder keg. They ordered the local militia to come down hard. And guess where all those poor joes wound up.”

  “Factory 101.” He breathed. “Who runs it?”

  “Now that’s an interesting question. About as interesting as whether or not they’re in cahoots with New Horizons. And the answer to both is: I don’t know. But I’m digging.”

  Marcus found himself thinking of a little brown man with impossibly merry eyes. “Think maybe Dee Gautam might know?”

  “Can’t hurt to give him another shout.”

  Marcus hesitated, then found he had to ask. “Do you know what happened to his arms and thumbs?”

  The response came swiftly. “Never had the courage to ask, don’t know if he’d say. Bet it hurt, though.”

  Marcus swallowed on the thought of Gloria Hall. “A lot.”

  WHEN THE LAWYERS finally were permitted to file in, Judge Nicols greeted them with, “I apologize for making you people wait. But there are certain bureaucratic hoops a new federal judge must jump through.”

  They were seated in Judge Gladys Nicols’ new private chambers. The office was a full thirty feet long, her desk at the far end and flanked by the state and national flags. The judge was dressed in a formal gray suit that solidified her bulk. From his lone chair by the window, Marcus thought Judge Nicols held the bearing of someone with decades on the federal bench, rather than preparing for her first trial. To the right of her chair sat her chief clerk, Jenny Hail. To her left was seated the court reporter, steno machine at the ready.

  Many Raleigh trial lawyers loathed Gladys Nicols. It was common rumor among the courtroom vultures that her appointment had come about because she was the right sex and the right color at the right time. Marcus had been before her on numerous occasions, and knew her to be a harsh tactician who brooked no malingering or grandstanding. She was often sharp-tongued and detested people who sought to instruct her on the law. She was known as mean, snippish, nasty, wickedly bad-tempered. Marcus had long since decided it was the result of having to deal with white Southern lawyers whose every word and gesture dripped with a desire to see this black female judge slapped into place.

  Judge Gladys Nicols was a product of poor farming parents. By dint of driving ambition and scalpel-sharp intelligence she had lifted herself to the heights of UNC undergrad and Harvard law. She had returned to the South specifically because she wanted to make a name for herself as a Southern judge. Marcus knew this because she had told him. She made no bones about her ambition. She wanted to stand as a beacon for other young black women. She taught two classes each semester, one in judicial procedure at Duke Law School and the other in civil rights history to Carolina undergrads. She was tough as nails, and if she had a heart of gold she hid it very well.

  Logan offered as sincere a smile as his battered features could manage. “May I offer my congratulations on your recent appointment.”

  “Thank you.” She waited through the chorus of approval from Logan’s minions, then glanced at her watch and said, “We can adjourn this until after lunch or forge straight ahead.”

  “We’re ready to proceed, Your Honor,” Logan responded.

  When the judge’s gaze turned his way, Marcus handed her a slim f
ile. “This is our list of requested subpoenas for New Horizons corporate officials.”

  The strong features registered surprise. “How many are there?”

  “Thirty-six. I realize this is more than the norm—”

  “By a factor of ten.”

  “Yes, Your Honor. But there are extenuating circumstances. All of the New Horizons board members and senior executives hold joint United States–Swiss residency status.”

  That pulled her up short. “All of them?”

  “Every one.”

  Logan could hold himself back no longer. “That’s perfectly reasonable, Your Honor. New Horizons derives almost 40 percent of total revenue from its international operations. A number of these subsidiaries are incorporated in Switzerland.” He paused for a baleful glare at Marcus. “We continue to object to these proceedings, Your Honor. There has been no connection whatsoever drawn between the plaintiff’s allegations and my clients. We therefore move for a summary dismissal.”

  Judge Nicols wore gold-rimmed reading glasses, which she lowered and stared over as she would a rifle scope. “No connection to the plaintiff’s allegations.”

  “That is correct, Your Honor.”

  “I seem to recall hearing how you told the magistrate there was no connection between your client and the Chinese factory.”

  Logan coughed, shuffled his feet. “That happened to be the best of my knowledge at the time, Your Honor.”

  The dark gaze continued to hold him. “But now you concur that there exists a relationship between New Horizons and this”—she paused to check her notes—“Factory 101.”

  “Yes, Your Honor. A business relationship. They make, we buy. Nothing more.” A swift glance in Marcus’ direction. “Nothing so preposterous as what the plaintiff’s counsel has tried to suggest.”

  Judge Nicols turned her attention to Marcus, who countered. “We intend to prove the relationship extends far beyond mere trade agreements, Your Honor. And that New Horizons and Factory 101 did indeed collude to make Gloria Hall and her dangerous investigation vanish. The documents and depositions we have requested will prove this connection.”