The Emperor of Ocean Park

by Stephen L Carter

  Still reeling from his diatribe, I muster a final bit of pluck: “And then what?” When he says nothing, I say what I am thinking: “You didn’t just come here for the disk. You came here to kill me.”

  “True. I did. I won’t lie about that. I wish there were another way. But, Misha, you still have a choice to make. I don’t want you to suffer unnecessarily. Your death can be swift and painless, a bullet in the back of the head, or it can take time—if I shoot, say, your knees first, then your elbows, then maybe your groin. Hurts like hell but won’t kill you for a while.” He gestures with the gun. “Now, give me the disk.”

  “No.”

  “I killed people in Vietnam. I know how to use a gun, and I am not afraid to do it.” I remember the photo in his office, a much younger Wainwright in Marine dress uniform. I have no doubts.

  “You might be willing to shoot me,” I try, “but you won’t do it in the house, because there’s too much chance of leaving some forensic evidence.”

  Outside, crunches and crashes as everything is dumped against everything else. The hurricane is, incredibly, getting worse. But maybe the eye has passed over us and we are getting the back part of the wind.

  “I am perfectly willing to shoot you in the house,” Wainwright says calmly.

  “Then why haven’t you?”

  “Because that little bear might be another bluff. I am not about to underestimate you. You bluffed an expert in the cemetery. But we have talked enough. In thirty seconds, I am going to shoot off your kneecap, unless you give me the—”

  A tremendous crash rattles the house, stunning us both. Pictures fall from the walls, crockery shatters in the cupboards. Justice Wainwright, no New Englander, is startled. He does not know what I know: that the bone-jarring impact was the sound of the chimney, blown loose by the hurricane, falling over flat against the sloping roof. Wainwright automatically looks up, alarm on his face, perhaps wondering whether the whole house is coming down.

  The moment he is distracted, I dive, still clutching George Jackson, through the kitchen door and out into the storm.

  CHAPTER 63

  THE WATER BABY

  THE KITCHEN DOOR opens onto a wooden stoop leading down into the tiny, pitted strip of browning grass that passes for a back yard. I leap down the steps and land with both feet in the marsh that the yard has become. I splash around the corner into the narrow alley that runs along the side of the house toward Ocean Avenue. I know Wainwright will follow me, because he has no choice, and I also know that my plan to use the hurricane has backfired in the worst way: I can run and shout as much as I want, but, even if I could be heard above the storm, there is nobody, not even a police officer, around to help.

  For a moment, I am startled, almost overwhelmed, by the sheer majestic size of the angry clouds swirling low in the sky. Then I hear a gunshot smash into the side of the house next door, and I get my feet moving. Wallace Wainwright may be firing wildly, but that is bound to change, and I know too little about guns to figure out how many bullets he has.

  Move!

  My Camry, with its sparkling new rear bumper, sits parked on the verge, useless to me, because my keys are inside the house, in the pocket of my jacket. As I dart across the street, I hear Wainwright shouting and cursing somewhere behind me, but I dare not look back. He has nearly all the advantages. He has a rain slicker and a hat, while I am wearing sweats that are already sticking to my skin. He is wearing boots, and I am wearing sneakers that are already sloshing with water. He has a gun. I have a bear.

  Emphasizing the point, a bullet thwangs off the pavement behind me. He is finding the range.

  I have two advantages of my own, I remind myself as I slosh my way across the park, where the ground is saturated and water is simply collecting, nearly an inch deep, on the grass. One is that, ever since I was small, I have loved being outdoors in the weather when a storm strikes, at least on the Vineyard; my mother used to call me her water baby. My second advantage is that I am three decades Wainwright’s junior. On the other hand, I have been shot a good deal more recently than he has, and I do not have my cane.

  In the middle of Ocean Park, a gust of wind knocks me flat against the white bandshell, and, pressing away from the wall, I turn to look. Wainwright is a shadow in the storm, still negotiating the wooden rail fence lining the road, but he will soon gain on me, because I have few places to which to flee. I feel sutures separating, muscles freshly pulled. I am exhausted, my legs aching from the effort of this short run. Even as out of shape as I am, I should be able to keep well ahead of the aging Justice. Unfortunately, my leg has not yet recovered from Colin Scott’s bullet, and I am hobbling, slowing inexorably as the trembling ache spreads outward from my wounded thigh.

  Another gunshot, faintly heard beneath the roaring thunder. The storm is still my friend: the wind is ruining his aim.

  I ran the wrong way, I realize. I should not have headed across Ocean Park, where I will be a sitting duck if he ever finds the range. I should have headed down the block, toward the stores—one might be open!—or the police station—a lone officer might be on duty! But Wainwright, the Vietnam combat veteran, has anticipated the tactic, circling in that direction, cutting off any hope I might have of running anywhere except toward the beach.

  I will have to make my legs move if I want to see my son again.

  And so I begin a sort of loping half-run, half-walk, beginning to hobble now because of a fresh searing pain in my abdomen, rushing toward the ocean, praying that the wind that keeps knocking me off stride and the drenching, buffeting rain that has already saturated my clothes will continue to keep him from aiming properly.

  I cross Seaview Avenue, and a gunshot hits the metal railing separating the sidewalk from the beach. Wallace Wainwright is seventy-one years old and gaining on me.

  For a moment I stand atop the rickety wooden stair running down to the Inkwell. Below me, savage waves lash the sand, stealing some of it forever. The jetty that usually marks the division between the life-guarded and unlifeguarded parts of the beach is invisible. Most of the waves are spilling nearly all the way to the seawall before falling back.

  I do not want to go down there.

  Wainwright is behind me, and I have no choice.

  I struggle awkwardly down the steps, longing for my cane to help with balance, and with the pain.

  I hear Wainwright shouting.

  Hurrying, but wary of the raging sea, I reach the bottom step.

  Which, old to begin with and now weakened by the storm, immediately splits in two under my weight. I go sprawling into the waves covering the sand, and George Jackson goes flying, landing in the water a dozen feet away, where he bobs tantalizingly.

  My entire body is singing with pain. I want to stay down here in the cold water, let it carry me away.

  Wainwright is descending the steps, but carefully.

  I climb awkwardly to my feet and splash toward Abby’s bear, but the next wave knocks my legs out from under me again.

  I struggle up again, lean into the water, stretch out my hand as something else tears, and then I have George Jackson in my arms again. But the chilly, whirling water is almost up to my waist, the waves are knocking me this way and that, and my energy reserves are nearly gone. The horizon is lost in angry gray-black clouds.

  “All right, Misha, you did well.” Wainwright, a couple of yards away, in shallower water. His voice sounds ragged. “Now, let’s have it.”

  I look at him, in his blue rain slicker and boots, so practical, so well prepared, never fooled by me for a minute, never tripped up by the box in the cemetery. He knew I returned to the Vineyard, knew why I waited for a hurricane. He knew everything. I am dizzy now, from the cold and the pain, and my will is simply too weak. His brilliance, his patience, his planning have beaten me. Still clutching Abby’s bear, I look at the small glittery gun, I look at Wainwright’s coolly confident white face, and suddenly I simply cannot do this any more. I have given what I can. I am worn out. Emot
ionally as well as physically. Maybe he will shoot me. I am too tired, too cold, too miserable to care. Sorry, Judge.

  The saga of the arrangements is finally over. I know I am going to give him the bear.

  I take a stumbling step toward the beach, holding George Jackson out in front of me, and I see Wainwright’s eyes go wide, and he backs away as though somebody is creeping up behind me, rising from the ocean to intervene at the last minute, Maxine or Henderson or Nunzio or some other armed avenger, but when I turn, what I see instead is a six-foot-high wall of black water, curling swiftly toward us.

  Wainwright is already running for the ladder. I try to go after him, and then the wave crashes into my back and knocks me down. For a couple of seconds, my face is buried in the sand and there is water above me. I have lost track of the bear, of Wainwright, of everything, and if I do not move, pain or no pain, I am going to drown.

  With what little energy I have left, I burst to the surface, only to tumble backward into the riptide, the giant wave drawing me helplessly along with it, and I have nothing left to fight with, so I ride the water, waiting to go under, until another wave replaces it and carries me to the beach once more.

  I hear Wallace Wainwright, shouting something.

  I sit up, shaking the water and sand out of my hair and eyes.

  Wainwright is in the waves. He is trying to reach Abby’s bear, which is riding out and out and out on the undertow. I watch. There is nothing I can do to help or hinder, for I have just about enough strength to sit here on the sand, soaked through, waiting for the next wave to arrive and drown me. Wainwright is nimble for his years, and strong, a jogger, but I can see even from this distance that he has no chance. Every time he reaches for the panda, another wave carries both of them further out. He does not seem to be holding the gun any longer; he is stretching for George Jackson with both hands. I find a momentary amusement in the vision of the great white liberal hero desperately trying to recover the great dead black martyr of the militant age. Then I frown, because it seems I was wrong. Wainwright has captured the bear. Cradling George against his chest, he is turning to struggle back to shore. And he is holding the gun. It must have been in his pocket. He is working toward me with grim determination, his face set in hard lines as he fights the undertow and, inch by inch, gets closer to the beach.

  I even believe, briefly, that he is going to make it.

  Then another six-foot swell washes over him and he is sucked under. His hand flails, his head comes up for air, once, twice, and then he is gone, carried out into the angry heart of the storm.

  My head falls back onto the sand and, for a while, I die too.

  CHAPTER 64

  DOUBLE EXCELSIOR

  (I)

  Among the victims of the hurricane, says the pointedly solemn announcer, was Justice Wallace Warrenton Wainwright of the United States Supreme Court, who drowned off the Island of Martha’s Vineyard after apparently falling into the ocean while walking along the water to get a better look at the storm. Although the hurricane broke up three days ago, his body washed up on the beach just this morning. Wainwright, who was seventy-one, was on the Island to visit friends. Considered the last of the great judicial liberals, Wainwright was probably best known for his stirring defense of. . .

  Kimmer picks up the remote control and shuts off the fifty-three-inch television set that has become, absurdly, an issue between us. She turns to me and smiles. “Do you have any idea how lucky you are, Misha? That could have been you.”

  “I suppose.”

  “What were you doing out on that beach, anyway?” Maybe she is still thinking I might have tried to kill myself.

  “Running away from Justice Wainwright. He was shooting at me.”

  “Oh, Misha, don’t be morbid. That’s not the least bit funny.” She hops up to clear away the paper plates off which we have just finished eating carry-out pizza. Kimmer, although shoeless, is still dressed for work, in a cream-colored power suit and pale blue ruffled blouse. She has lost a little weight, maybe intentionally, maybe from stress. She looks more splendid than ever, and more splendidly unattainable. Over in the corner of the family room, Bentley is playing with his computer. When I arrived to pick him up for the weekend an hour ago, he and Kimmer were just sitting down to a double-cheese pizza, and my estranged wife invited me to stay for a while.

  “Bemmy zap, Bemmy zap!” our son cries happily. “Tree and six make nine! Nine! Bemmy zap!”

  “Bemmy zap,” I agree, still not opening my eyes. On the screen of my imagination, the final scene is played out so many different ways. Maybe I could have put together the energy to plunge into the waves and rescue Wallace Wainwright. Maybe my reserves were too thin or he was too far out. Sometimes I see myself pulling him out of the ocean. Sometimes I see myself dying in the attempt. Sometimes I remember to pray for his soul. Sometimes I am glad he is dead.

  “Isn’t our boy gorgeous?” murmurs Kimmer in a stage whisper.

  “That he is.”

  “Your eyes are closed, silly.”

  “You know what? He’s just as gorgeous with my eyes closed.”

  But I open them anyway and, for a golden moment, Kimmer and I are together, joined in love and admiration for the one thing in the world about which we both care. Then I recall the expensive leather jacket with the words DUKE UNIVERSITY stitched in blue that I found when I hung my windbreaker in the hall closet, and the gold turns to dross.

  “Oh, Misha, by the way. Guess who called here looking for you?”

  “Who?”

  “John Brown. He said he was returning your call. I guess you forgot to give him your new number, huh?” Standing in the doorway, arms folded across her breasts. She has taken off her jacket. Still smiling. She has plenty to smile about. “Or are you trying to make some kind of statement?”

  “I called him from the Vineyard.” I am leaning back on the leather sofa, eyes closed, legs up on the ottoman, the way I used to when I lived here. “I guess I must have given him that number.”

  “You should get your new number listed.”

  “I like my privacy.”

  “I don’t understand why you’re so insistent,” says Kimmer, who could not live five minutes without a telephone. A sudden thought strikes her, and she covers her mouth and giggles. “I mean, unless . . . unless you need so much privacy because . . . Hey, you’re not hiding some woman in your condo, are you? Shirley Branch? Somebody like that?”

  “No woman, Kimmer.” Except you.

  “Or maybe Pony Eldridge? You know, the two wronged spouses getting together?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you. I’m still a married man.”

  Kimmer wisely ignores this dig. “It isn’t Dana, is it? I hear she’s having trouble with Alison. Or vice versa. Anyway, are the two of you gonna do anything after all these years?”

  I recycle the old joke: “She’s not into men, and I’m not into white women.”

  Kimmer waves this away. She leans in close, her proximity dazzling, then reaches around me, picks up her wineglass, takes a small sip. “Oh, everybody’s into everybody these days,” she assures me with an expert’s authority before padding back into the kitchen. “Ice cream coming,” she calls. “Butter pecan. Want some?”

  “Sounds great.”

  “Chocolate syrup?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  Yes, I could have rescued him. No, I had no energy. Yes, I should have tried. No, I would have failed.

  Another shout from the kitchen: “By the way, did you find what you were looking for? On the Vineyard, I mean?”

  Good question.

  “Misha? Honey?” I remind myself to attach no importance to honey: force of habit, nothing more. Kimmer is probably unaware that she said it.

  “Not really,” I call back. “No.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.” A pause. It feels awkward, but I might as well do the polite thing and ask. “Mind if I use the phone?”

  “Help yourself.” H
er grinning face appears around the doorjamb. “Your name’s still on the bill.” Disappearing again.

  I walk into my old study. Kimmer has not converted it to any purpose. A couple of shelves are still in place; the others, along with the desk and the credenza and the chairs, are cluttering the basement of my condo. A few magazines lie here and there, a book or two, but, basically, the cozy room where I spent so many agonizing hours watching Hobby Road for surveillance is empty. The portable phone sits on the floor.

  The room feels dead this way. I wonder how Kimmer can stand it. Maybe she just keeps the door closed.

  I pick up the phone, push the buttons from memory, and wait patiently for John Brown to answer.

  (II)

  THE OAK BLUFFS POLICE found me unconscious on the beach. They were sweeping the waterfront periodically, even in the storm. All I had to do was wait. I could even have fled to the police station in the first place. Only panic caused me to imagine they would close it.

  By the time the ambulance arrived, I was already wide awake and sitting up, which is a very good thing, because, while the paramedics were lifting me onto the wheeled stretcher and preparing to insert a tube into my arm, one of the officers wandered over and said to his partner, Some kid lost a bear. I turned my head and saw a water-logged George Jackson nestled under his arm. The storm, passing on toward the Cape, had left George behind like an unwanted complication. I assured the startled cop that the bear was mine. They asked, more out of curiosity than duty, what I was doing out on the beach with a stuffed panda in the middle of a hurricane. Good question, I said, which did not exactly reassure them.

  But they let it slide.

  So here I am, finally, back in my condo, preparing for the opening of classes in two weeks, when I will once again teach torts to fifty-odd fresh young faces, trying my best not to bully any of them. Bentley races around my relatively cramped space, playing hide-and-seek with Miguel Hadley, whose father dropped him off two hours ago for a play date. Marc lingered for a few minutes, exuding great clouds of his raspberry tobacco, and we agreed it was a shame about Justice Wainwright, and played the old academic game of pretending we had the foggiest idea who the President will pick to replace him. I am grateful to Marc for trying, as the sad summer hurries to its close, to patch things up between us, but sundered friendships, like broken marriages, are often irreparable.