The Emperor of Ocean Park

by Stephen L Carter

  The telephone rings again.

  Bentley looks up. I point to the hot chocolate. “Mint, Daddy. Bemmy drink mint.” In a minute, he means.

  The phone is not ringing any more. I realize that I picked up the receiver but, because of the byplay with my son, have not actually put it to my ear. I do so now, and immediately hear the static of a cell phone with a low battery. And a male voice:

  “Kimmer? Kimmer? Hello? You there, baby?”

  “She isn’t home right now.” My tone is as frosty as I know how to make it. “Would you care to leave a message?”

  A long pause. Then a click.

  I close my eyes, swaying a bit on my feet as my skillful son zaps numbers faster and faster. The years peel away, as does my confidence, and most of my hope. How many times over the course of our marriage have I fielded calls like this one—a mysterious man asking for my wife, then hanging up when I answer? Probably fewer than I think, but more than I would like to recall. Oh, Kimmer, how can you do this again!

  You there, baby?

  I fight down a wave of mind-blanking despair. Concentrate, I tell myself. In the first place, the cadence of the voice tells me that it was a black man—in other words, not Gerald Nathanson. A new affair? Two at the same time? Or my mistake, as Dr. Young suggested? No way to tell, not till my wife and I fight this one out, as, sooner or later, we will. I cross to my study, looking for a distraction. The voice was familiar, that’s the other thing. I cannot quite place it, but I know it will come.

  You there, baby?

  Odd the way the immediate concerns about a dying marriage can knock worries about torture and murder and mysterious chess pieces right out of the box, but priorities are funny that way. I plop down in front of my computer. Who would be so arrogant, I wonder, and so stupid as to say the word baby when calling a married woman he is not even sure is home? I shake my head again, the mixture of fury and fear and sheer nerve-racking pain momentarily crowding out every rational thought. I want to scream, I want to throw a tantrum, maybe even break something, but I am a Garland, so I will probably write something instead. I am zipping through my files, trying to decide which unfinished essay to exhume for a little pointless polishing, when my eyes are drawn to a car sitting across the street.

  The blue Porsche.

  The driver, a shadow behind the windshield, is unmistakably staring right at our house.

  (II)

  I RUN DOWN A MENU OF OPTIONS but choose the one that, in my current mood, I like the best. From beside my desk I take the baseball bat I hid there on the night I was attacked. I poke my head into the family room and tell my son to stay put. He nods, fingers clittering furiously at the mouse, winning huge piles of candy as he solves math problems. He may not talk much, but he certainly can add, subtract, point, and click.

  I pull a light jacket from the closet, then yank open the front door, brandishing the bat, swinging it against my palm, so that the driver, whoever he is, can hardly miss it. I cannot do what I really want, which is to cross the street and smash up his Porsche, because I would not, even for an instant, leave my son alone. But I get my message across. The driver, a member of the darker nation, just as I expected, stares for a moment through the window. I see mirrored glasses on an ebon face, and little else. Then, very smoothly, showing no sign of panic, he puts the car in gear and cruises off down the street.

  I wave the bat exultantly in the air but deny myself the victory shout.

  Instead, I go inside and shut the door and put the bat away and ask myself what in the world I thought I was doing. The red haze of fury sometimes twists me in strange directions, but it has rarely led me quite so close to violence. Thoughts tumble through my disordered mind. The driver of the car is innocent, he lives or works nearby, and now he is going to tell everybody that I am crazy. The driver of the car is the man who called looking for Kimmer, and Kimmer is having an affair with him. The driver of the car is the man who pretended to be Agent Foreman. The driver of the car is the man who returned the chess book stolen by the men who assaulted me. All of the above. None of the above.

  “You’re a sick man, Misha,” I mutter as I stand in my study. Nobody is on the street now except one of our neighbors walking her three-month-old twins in a stroller. “You need help. Lots and lots of help.”

  I imagine my wife would agree. So would the man in the blue Porsche.

  And, for a hateful, envious moment, I entertain a truly horrendous thought: The man in the Porsche is Lemaster Carlyle. Perfect Lemaster Carlyle, spying on me and cheating on his wife, seeing Kimmer behind Julia’s back. Calling Kimmer baby. Maybe leaving the stolen chess book in my car when he was late for Shirley’s party. It would explain why he has lately been so distant. But the voice on the phone sounded nothing like his: no Barbadian accent, for example. Besides, Lem is short, and the man John Brown saw in the woods was tall. There could be two unknown black men around, but Occam’s Razor, on which the Judge loved to rely, warns us not to multiply entities unnecessarily.

  Anyway, the whole thing is a typically stupid Misha Garland idea.

  I remain at the window, railing against myself the way manic depressives do, until I remember that I am supposed to be having hot chocolate with my son. I hurry back into the family room and find him still hard at work, the cocoa forgotten, his father forgotten, hooting gleefully to himself as he zaps the right answers and piles up his loot. My childhood must have produced such shining moments of joy, but what I mostly remember is the shadows.

  The doorbell rings.

  I swing around uncertainly, wondering if I should grab the bat again, or sweep my son out the back way, through the hedge, and into hiding with the Felsenfelds, for perhaps the driver of the Porsche has returned with friends. But the Garland training proves too strong to allow me to panic. I simply open the door, as I would on any other day.

  Two men are standing there, one of whom I have met before. “Professor Garland, I wonder if you could spare us a minute?” asks Special Agent Fred Nunzio of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He looks grim.

  CHAPTER 40

  ANOTHER DISCOVERY

  FRED NUNZIO introduces his companion as Rick Chrebet, a city detective. They make an odd couple. Nunzio is a short, fleshy man, perky and confident, with smooth black hair combed straight back. The scrawny Chrebet is thin of both hair and affect: his manner is sufficiently distant that I catch myself wanting to confess to something just to gain his interest for a minute or two. His teeth are bright and even, his lips pale, his jaw pugnacious. His fair eyes are deep-set and wary. Dizzy with déjà vu, I lead them into the sunny living room, which we never use except for company. Across the hall, Bentley happily zaps away, oblivious to his father’s sudden distress, and uninterested in the visitors. He is never interested in strangers, having perhaps inherited from me a tendency toward introspection.

  “We won’t need much of your time,” says Nunzio, sleepy-eyed and nearly apologetic. “We wouldn’t bother you if it wasn’t important.”

  I mumble something appropriate, waiting for the ax to fall. Has something happened to Kimmer? Then why would the FBI be here? Is there news from Washington? Then why would a city cop be here?

  “My colleague here wanted to talk to you about something,” Nunzio continues, “and I kind of came along for the ride.”

  Detective Chrebet, meanwhile, has opened his slim briefcase on the coffee table and is leafing through the contents. He withdraws a glossy color photograph and slides it across to me: heavyset white man with an unruly shock of brown facial hair, staring at the camera, a plaque with a bunch of numbers held across his chest. A mug shot. I shudder with memory.

  “Do you recognize the person depicted in the photograph?” the detective asks in his reedy, expressionless voice, the question phrased as carefully as an instruction book.

  “Yes.” I look hard at Nunzio but address myself to Chrebet. “You know I do.”

  Without missing a beat, he slips me another shot, a black-and-white, an
d this time I barely need a glance and I do not wait for the question. “Yes, I recognize him, too. These are the two men who assaulted me in the middle of the campus a few weeks ago.”

  Nunzio smiles slightly, but Chrebet’s pale face is stone. “Are you absolutely certain?”

  I dutifully study the pictures again, just in case they have changed over the last few seconds. “Yes, I am absolutely certain. I got a very good look at them both.” I point to the photos. “Does this mean you found them? They’re under arrest?”

  The detective answers my question with a question. “Had you ever seen these men before the night they attacked you?”

  “No. I never saw them before. I told the police that already.”

  Before Chrebet can ask another question, Nunzio speaks up. “Professor Garland, is there anything you want to share with me?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Anything related to . . . well, the research you’ve been involved in?” I notice his careful euphemism and wonder if he is trying to hide something from Chrebet or if he thinks I am. “Anything you would prefer to discuss privately?”

  “No, there isn’t.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I already asked you about the possibility that Freeman Bishop . . .”

  “We’ve looked into that.” He speaks quickly, and again I have the sense he does not want the detective to understand. “Your source was wrong. There’s nothing to worry about.” Reassuring me when I have not asked. I am growing more puzzled by the minute.

  Nunzio subsides. The ball is back in Chrebet’s court. He resumes his interrogation as though the federal agent never opened his mouth. “Have you seen either of these men since the time of the attack?”

  As my worry grows, my legal skills return: “Not that I can recall.”

  “Do you know whether anyone else has seen them?”

  “No.” I have waited long enough, so I throw in my own question again. “Now, tell me, please. Do you know who they are?”

  “Small-timers,” Nunzio puts in. “Hoods. Hired help. They’re nobody.”

  “So are they under arrest? You’ve found them? Is that why you’re here?” Because I am thinking that if I can find out who hired them I will be halfway home. “Do you know who they worked for?”

  Chrebet again, pedantically: “No, Professor, we do not know whom they worked for. They are not under arrest. And, yes, we’ve found them. Or, rather, they were found.”

  “What are you telling me? Are they dead?”

  He is relentless, like a machine. “A troop of Boy Scouts out hiking in Henley State Park found them over the weekend. They were lying in the bushes, bound and gagged. Alive, but just barely.”

  “They’re not talking,” Nunzio slips in, perhaps reading my mind. “As a matter of fact, they’re scared shitless. I would be, too.” An easy, mocking smile. “Somebody seems to have cut off all their fingers.”

  CHAPTER 41

  CONFRONTATION

  (I)

  I DO NOT TELL KIMMER. Not just yet. Instead, on Thursday afternoon, I drop in to see Dr. Young. He listens with patience and concern, hands folded over his ample belly, shaking his heavy head unhappily, then talks to me about Daniel in the lion’s den. He says the Lord will see me through. He does not have to ask me how my attackers came to lose their fingers. Chrebet asked, in his rat-a-tat style, whether I had any idea what might have happened, but he did not expect an answer and did not get one. Chrebet knew, as Nunzio did, as Dr. Young does, as I do, that the strong hand of Jack Ziegler has struck in Elm Harbor. The voice on the telephone at two-fifty-one in the morning—a voice I still have not mentioned to a soul—has delivered on its promise.

  Before I leave the pastor’s office, he warns me against taking pleasure in harm that befalls others. I assure him that I feel no joy at what happened to the men who assaulted me. Dr. Young says he is not talking about them. As I try to work this out, he counsels me to do what I can to repair human connection with those from whom I feel estranged. Uneasily, I agree. That same afternoon, I encounter Dahlia Hadley at the preschool and tell her how sorry I am for the scandal that has engulfed Marc, but she grows chilly and refuses to talk to me. Still, the need to make amends grows into a compulsion, perhaps because I believe I can in this way exorcise my demons. Feeling Jack Ziegler’s smothering breath will make you crazy that way.

  On Friday morning, I seek out Stuart Land and apologize for accusing him of trying to sabotage Marc’s candidacy, but he professes to be untroubled, since he is not guilty. He is good enough to tell me that Marc has not yet taken his name out of the hat. When I ask him why, Stuart looks at me coldly and says: “Probably because he thinks there is a better-than-even chance that you’ll find a way to blow it for your wife.” Stunned, I creep out of his capacious office, more determined than ever to behave. After lunch, I finally attempt to get in touch with the estimable Cameron Knowland, whose son never said another word in class after our little skirmish, but when I call the private investment firm Cameron runs in Los Angeles, he refuses to take my call; or, rather, his senior secretary, once I fight my way that far, tells me that Mr. Knowland has never heard of me.

  Rob Saltpeter, upon hearing this news when we meet for basketball at the gym Monday morning, tells me that Cameron Knowland is playing games with me, but I have more or less figured that out for myself. We play one-on-one today, and Rob beats me badly, twice in a row, but only because he is taller and faster than I am, or maybe because his reflexes and coordination are better than mine.

  It is now Friday, and my moods will not stop swinging. I continue to behave, but my self-control is brittle. Any small jolt will split it in two. I try to pray, but cannot concentrate. I sit at my desk, unable to work, furious at my father, wondering what would have happened if I had refused to talk to Jack Ziegler that day in the cemetery. Probably I would have been stuck with my father’s note anyway, I would still be wondering who Angela’s boyfriend was, and the dead would still be dead, so there is no point in wondering . . . .

  The dead would still be dead. . ..

  My mood brightens. I remember the idea that came to me at Shirley Branch’s dinner party. In the light of day, I pooh-poohed it, but now I am desperate. And it just might offer me and my family a way out of this mess. The dead. The cemetery. Maybe, just maybe. I do not know if it will work, but there is no harm in preparing, in case I decide to give it a try. I start by calling Karl at his bookstore to ask him a question about the Double Excelsior. He is patient if not exactly friendly, and he thanks me for returning his book. As a result of his answer, I decide to keep planning. Only I will need some help. Later in the afternoon, after my administrative law class, I scurry down to the second floor to look for Dana Worth, but the sign on her door says that she is in the Faculty Reading Room. She always leaves a sign, because she always wants people to be able to find her: talking to people seems to be her favorite thing. And so it is that I make a huge mistake. In my eagerness to find Dana, I go into the library I usually avoid, and everything goes to pieces.

  (II)

  MOST PROFESSORS SIT IN THEIR OFFICES, buzzing the faculty librarian to bring them books they want, or even having their secretaries do the buzzing, but I now and then like to go and soak up the feel of the place, or I used to, before the first hints that Kimmer might be having an affair with Jerry Nathanson. At ten minutes to five, I use my faculty key to open the side entrance to the law library, on the third floor, away from the hubbub of the students. The key admits me to the back of the periodical room, two dozen parallel rows of gunmetal shelves stuffed with painfully organized, dog-eared law reviews. Hesitating to go forward, I look for a chance to hang back. If I am going to proceed, I need help urgently, and Dana is the only one I can think of who might be crazy enough to do it. Rob Saltpeter is too much the straight arrow, Lem Carlyle too much the politician. I have considered and rejected enlisting the help of a student. It is Dana or nobody. Striding uncertainly through the periodical room, I hear
some students coming and decide to disguise my purpose, for, although I would never hesitate to enter Dana’s office alone, I am uncomfortable at the thought that I might be observed chasing her down in the library. But my need is sufficiently pressing that I must get the answer immediately, or I will go out of my mind. I pull at random an old bound volume of the Columbia Law Review, leafing through it as though hunting ancient treasure. Walking along the aisles, carrying the heavy book as camouflage, I stop near the noisy old machine that makes blurred photocopies, and steel myself. Then I leave the periodical room and enter the main reading room, deliberately refusing to look up at the wall where the portrait of my father in his robes still hangs. If you examine the painting carefully, you can detect the poorly painted restoration work covering the nasty language with which somebody defaced the canvas during his confirmation hearings: UNCLE TOM was the least of it, with various comments about the Judge’s ancestry appended by some political commentator too modest to sign his name to his work.

  I never examine it carefully.

  As I cross the wide room, a few bold students say hello, but most of them are far too savvy. They can read the faces of the faculty, they know when to interrupt and when to hang back. I pass a clutch of black students, a gaggle of white ones. I wave to Shirley Branch, who is standing next to a bank of computers, hands in frenetic motion as she makes some point, quite vehemently, to Matt Goffe, her fellow untenured professor, and fellow leftie. I spot Avery Knowland at the other end of the room, bending hopelessly over a casebook, but my path, fortunately, is not taking me in that direction. I wonder how angry his father really is. Maybe Cameron Knowland and his trophy wife will take their three million dollars back and we can keep the gloriously seedy library we have now. The Dean wants us to have a building worthy of the twenty-first century, but I think libraries should remain firmly planted in the nineteenth, when the stability of the printed word, not the ephemeron of the fiber-optic cable, was the method through which information was transmitted over long distances. I adore this room. Some of the long tables where students sit studying are more than half a century old. The ceiling is almost three stories high, but the brass chandeliers have been reduced to mere decorations: banks of hideous fluorescents now provide the light, in tandem with the sun that prisms through the clerestory windows high up above the intricately carved wooden shelves of law books. For those with the patience to follow, each window’s stained-glass picture adds a frame to a story that begins just above the main entrance to the library, chases around all four outer walls, and winds up back in the same place: a violent crime, a witness signaling a police officer, the arrest of a suspect, a trial, a jury deliberating, a conviction, a punishment, a new lawyer, an appeal, a release, and, in the end, back to the same life of crime, a pessimistically unbroken cycle that drove me half mad when I was a student.