The Legal Limit

by Martin Clark

  “You’ve been in the monastery for eight months,” Custis said. “It’s okay.”

  “To top it off, I didn’t even think about birth control or AIDS or whatever.”

  Custis folded his arms. “I swear, it’s like lookin’ after a child. A handicapped child.”

  Mason didn’t leave the room until almost five o’clock. Custis, Liz and the Contessa checked on him twice during the afternoon, Liz explaining she’d hated to leave him alone on the beach and had tried to wake him several times before she stumbled off, afraid of what might happen to her. Worried, she’d sent a man from the hotel to check on him. He ate some pasta and a bowl of soup for dinner and went to sleep early. He told the maid she could skip their room. He never showered.

  A day’s rest helped. Mason recovered, and they finished out the week with the remainder of the marijuana and more moderate amounts of alcohol. They took the women to watch the cocks fight but stayed for only one raw, to-the-death battle, all of them put off by the loser’s missing eye and limp neck. Relying on Custis’s recommendation—“trust me on this,” he promised them—everyone agreed to stay in for an evening and watch Cannonball Run. Custis had discovered the movie at a video store in town, and he rented a VCR from the hotel. They closed the drapes, started the movie, smoked dope and ate a box of Whitman’s candy, the sampler, high as Georgia pines, selecting a piece of chocolate on the lid diagram and then tracking it down in the maze of brown wrappers and yellow cardboard. “Hell, that’s Sammy and Dean Martin,” Mason exclaimed, walleyed and chewing the solid square with the messenger boy’s image. “I hope they win. This is great, Custis. Excellent choice as always.”

  Mason had sex he could remember with Liz the night before she was due to fly home to North Carolina, and they walked on the beach afterward. His conscience hurt him as they were having an early breakfast the next morning, seated outside on a restaurant’s veranda, and he told her his real name and what he did for a living. Solid black birds with yellow eyes and black legs and feet were flying around, hopping from table to table, diving into abandoned plates, skittering and flapping, extracting scraps and the crumbs of pastry sweets whenever they had the chance. The waiters would shout at the birds in Spanish and wave at them with white cloth napkins. There was only one other couple at the restaurant, older, sharing a newspaper.

  “I hope you aren’t cross with me,” he said. “It was fun meeting you. I didn’t think we’d be seeing each other as often as we did, or I would’ve been honest when we met. Or at least corrected Custis and told you my name.”

  “Not at all—it means a lot to me you wanted to tell me the truth and so forth.” She tossed a toast corner to a bird and seven or eight others swooped in, screeching, fighting for a bite. Two waiters gave her an unhappy look. “So how much better or worse is the rest of the story? You know, are you married or engaged or like, I don’t know, serious with someone?” She’d told him she was twice divorced—but amicable with both her former husbands. She had an eight-year-old son.

  “My wife was killed in a car wreck last May. This is the first…you’re the first woman I’ve given any thought since then. I have a daughter named Grace. She’s the center of my universe. I probably ran up a two-hundred-dollar phone bill calling her.”

  “Oh my, I’m so sorry,” she said. “Bless your heart.” She was absently twisting an empty Sweet’N Low packet around her finger. “How terrible for you.”

  “Yeah.” He watched the birds, kept his eyes off Liz. “Yeah, it is. But being here was nice. Thanks for taking such fine care of me. I’ve been really struggling.”

  He carried her heavy blue pleather suitcase to a cab at the hotel’s entrance, and they exchanged numbers, kissed and hugged and talked about seeing each other down the road, although Mason wasn’t sure he’d be up for it. Custis hit him with an empty beer can when he confessed he’d ratted them out to Liz, laughing and shaking his head and screaming “Judas” while Mason tried to justify breaking ranks.

  “So you feelin’ better?” Custis asked after he’d finished the needling. “You off the skids?”

  “Not really. I’m improved, I guess. The problem is, I mean, well, spending time with these women, who were okay in their own way, pleasant and entertaining for sure, makes me realize how I’ll never replace Allison. But I’m going to quit feeling sorry for myself—that’s the important thing. Getting some perspective, stepping away from Stuart and a place so…so…saturated with Allison and me, yeah, that’s been helpful. I’d like to think I can miss her and not have it ruin me.” He blinked and looked away, gazed at the carpet. “I appreciate your going to all this trouble,” he said. “It’s great to know you can count on someone, a friend. I’m grateful, Cus. Thanks.”

  “My pleasure,” Custis said quietly. He emptied potato chip crumbs from a bag straight into his mouth. “Let’s hope our new girlfriends don’t go broadcastin’ everything they know, huh, Mason? I still can’t believe you gave her the real goods.”

  “You owe me fifty bucks—I still hate the Wu-Tang Clan.” He didn’t look up.

  Chapter Ten

  When he returned to the farm, Mason set about anchoring his life again. He apologized to Sheila, the other lawyers in Stuart, his mom and his friends, telling them he was sorry he’d been so moody and unbearable. They all claimed to understand, assured him that grieving came with the territory, charitably lied and said they really hadn’t noticed anything out of the way. He talked to Grace at the kitchen table and promised her they were over the worst of it and suggested they’d now just take care of each other double and enjoy what they were fortunate enough to still have. She took in his words, listening with her head slanted up at him, her mother blooded into her looks and mannerisms, her gangly legs. “Triple,” she answered him, and seemed relieved, smiling and wiggly, happy to have her father reformed, done with his hangdog stares and late-night pacing.

  A week later, he cashed a sick day and stayed home to pack Allison’s clothes in cardboard boxes and haul them to the Martinsville Goodwill, keeping only her wedding gown, his favorite cocktail dress and several blouses Grace fancied. He gave her perfume and cosmetics to Grace, who wrapped the bottles, tubes and compacts elaborately and tucked them away in her dresser.

  Following a cordial negotiation with the owner of the New York gallery that had dibs on her last piece, he drove the rhino to a Winston-Salem shop and had it framed, holding on to it for himself. He sorted through Allison’s studio, carefully storing her books, sketches, paints, brushes, easel and canvases in the attic. He cried on and off while he did it, but he didn’t flag or let himself become sidetracked. He and Grace invited about thirty neighbors and friends to stop by for a get-together, where they unveiled the framed painting along with the room’s new pool table and a big-screen TV. They decided to leave the ratty sofa as it was and didn’t disturb the hodgepodge of drops and smears on the floor where the easel had stood. Custis christened the table, taking the first shot.

  Mason placed a photograph of Allison on his bureau, secured her jewelry in a box at the bank so it would be safe for their daughter, filed the estate paperwork at the clerk’s office, and finally returned the calls of the lawyer who managed her trust. She’d left the stipend to him, now close to $275,000 a year, the change of beneficiary instruction dated three days before they’d wed. He took steps to transfer it to their daughter at his death, signing the forms and faxing the documents from his office the same morning he received them.

  He dutifully sent Liz several photos from Puerto Rico and phoned her a time or two so he wouldn’t feel like a cad, and they met for a meal in Greensboro, but removed from the perfect hothouse of a weeklong island romp—all pool drinks and pot and blank slates—their romance withered. He was relieved when she allowed in an e-mail as to how she’d begun seeing someone from Durham and it would be difficult for her to keep in contact. “Dumped your timid ass, didn’t she?” Custis razzed him.

  He visited Reverend Hunsicker and mended fences, told him h
e was still miffed and couldn’t make sense of his predicament, but at least had come around to a general notion of deism, was back to Jefferson’s armchair creator, a god who fashioned the universe and occasionally ventured from his lair long enough to add another ring to Saturn or adjust the thermostat a few degrees in the Amazon.

  “That’s a beginning,” the preacher beamed. “Something’s better than nothing.”

  “Yeah—I think I’m pointed in the right direction,” Mason replied.

  In the months ahead, he gradually became a man who learned to crutch his loss, compensating until the dreadful became routine, his normal, shit he just incorporated and dealt with, same as diabetics with their insulin or a car you always have to park on an incline so it can be push-started, making do.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Remember, we’re probably only gonna have one crack at this,” Jay Lane said before he walked through the door to the Patrick County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office. “Our first pitch needs to be a winner, Gerald. It’d be nice to snag this guy.”

  “Yep,” Gerald Hooper said. It was the spring of 2003, the countryside starting to bloom in Stuart, the sun finally sticking around past suppertime.

  The two men introduced themselves to Sheila, mentioned their appointment and were ushered in to see Mason without having to wait. Mason met them and shook hands and welcomed them. Custis was there too, perusing the Enterprise, and he made it a point to cross the room and greet both men, calling them “Mr. Lane” and “Mr. Hooper” even though they were younger than he. Everyone took a seat.

  “Mr. Hunt, I’m here in my capacity as the governor’s assistant chief of staff,” Lane said without any arrogance or pretension. “Gerald works with me in Richmond.”

  “That’s what Sheila told me when you phoned last week. You didn’t need to drive four hours to speak to me. Can’t imagine what’s so important.”

  Lane shifted in his chair. “Glad to do it; we felt our business was serious enough we should visit you personally.”

  “Okay,” Mason said.

  “As you know, this region is really hurting, your county in particular. You have the second-highest unemployment in the state, the textile and furniture industries are absolutely kaput, jobs are scarce, the economy’s dead as a horseshoe nail. You’ve lost Tultex, DuPont, Spencer’s, J.P. Stevens, Fieldcrest Mills—the list goes on forever.”

  “I hear they’re plannin’ layoffs at United Elastic,” Custis added.

  “It’s bad, yeah,” Mason said. “Truth be told, I don’t know how people are going to make it. Ten years ago, I’d never have believed it. The shame is most people here will give you a good day’s effort for their paycheck.”

  “Well, I’d like to cut to the chase,” Lane said. “Are you familiar with the Tobacco Commission?”

  “Generally. What I’ve read in the papers.”

  Hooper spoke up. “The Tobacco Commission, Mr. Hunt, is the entity tasked with disbursing the commonwealth’s share of proceeds from the federal litigation with various cigarette manufacturers.” His recitation was crisply delivered, no doubt polished before scores of newspaper reporters and subcommittee muckety-mucks. He sat erect in his chair. “The stated goal of the commission is to promote growth and development in communities such as yours. Over the next two decades, the commission will distribute four-point-one billion dollars to localities.” He lingered on the “billion” part.

  “I’m all for it,” Mason said. “We can use it.”

  Lane looked at Hooper, then back at Mason. “We’re here on behalf of the governor to ask you to serve as a board member. We feel you would be an excellent representative.”

  “Really?” Mason picked up a yellow pencil from his desk. “I wondered why you gentlemen were driving down here; we assumed it was about an extradition or something sensitive with the attorney general’s office.” He started tapping the pencil’s eraser end against his thigh. “Huh. Why me? It’s no secret I hate politics and politicians.”

  Lane laughed politely. “Your senator, Roscoe Reynolds, recommended you. You’re extremely well thought of in this area, and the people here need a voice, an advocate, someone to honestly take care of them where this money is concerned. You have a fine record as a prosecutor, plus you’ve had a taste of Richmond. And it’s precisely because this isn’t a political job that we think you’d be a great asset.”

  “Listen—if there’s big money, there’ll be politics.” Mason laid the pencil on his desk blotter. “In fact, in my opinion, they’re one and the same.”

  “Sad but true to some extent,” Lane agreed.

  “What would I have to do?” Mason asked.

  “Obviously, this isn’t the local library board or the Lion’s Club parade committee. It’s a serious, heavy-duty commitment. It would involve twelve to fifteen meetings a year, the thorough review of hundreds of grant requests and frequent consultations with other members and staff. It’s no picnic, and we can’t pay you, but it would be a huge service to Patrick County and all of Southside.”

  “Essentially, you would be on the board of a multibillion-dollar corporation,” Hooper explained. “A board that would make critical decisions affecting you and your community.”

  “Pretty cool gig,” Custis remarked.

  “You think?” Mason glanced at him.

  “Maybe you could score us money for the office revitalization project we been discussin’—the Jacuzzi and wet bar for the law library and matching sharkskin suits for key jury trials.” Custis grinned at the two bureaucrats.

  Lane didn’t seem upset by the joke. “If you’d like, Mr. Hunt, the governor would be willing to speak to you directly about this. Your participation is a priority for him.”

  “Why not, Mace?” Custis had turned serious. “You might do some good. Might help pull us out of the ditch.”

  Mason was quiet. He pursed his lips. “I’ll sleep on it, if that’s okay with everyone. I’ll speak to my daughter, too. How about I give you an answer tomorrow?”

  “I’ll leave my card and my cell number,” Lane said. “We appreciate your time and your allowing us to interrupt you.”

  “Jeez—they make it sound like you’re Lee Iacocca or Commodore Vanderbilt or somethin’,” Custis kidded him after the Richmonders were gone. “Evidently, the whole enterprise will collapse unless you sign on.”

  “It’s their job to make people feel important. They’re professional sycophants, a level above your common jester with bells on his shoes. Apparatchiks minus the vodka and tiny dacha.”

  “At least they seemed like good sports.”

  “Yes, they did,” Mason answered.

  The following afternoon, Mason phoned and accepted the governor’s offer, became a board member of the Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission. He agreed to the appointment because his community was broke and suffering and on the brink of ruin, and he figured he could do as well as the next fellow when it came to showing up at a meeting to wrestle for pork-barrel dollars. He also took the job because he needed something to keep him sharp, a challenge. The business of a rural commonwealth’s attorney’s office tended to turn routine after a while, stale, and Mason was determined he would never fade into the ways of a sad-sack country lawyer, like the ham-and-eggers doing basic wills for seventy-five bucks a pop or poor old Wally Walters, Jr., harrumphing and hooking his suspenders, a blowhard with a fat tie and brown shoes who last opened a proper legal text during law school, waving his hands and spouting moldy truisms in court, his arguments so obvious an imbecile could see them coming. Mason didn’t want to stagnate and peter out at the county line, and this would allow him to stay in circulation.

  “Seems like it’ll help me and could help the area,” he informed Custis. “I’m making the right call, don’t you think?”

  “Does the ambitious local weatherman, angling for a network promotion, don his slicker and broadcast live from the eye of the hurricane?”

  Twelve days later, on a Tuesd
ay, Ray Bass was standing beneath the metal awning at the Patrick County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office. “As much as I hate doin’ this, we take it seriously,” he cautioned his companion. “We’ve got one chance. We’re gonna get one read, and that’ll be it. Quick and sudden—that’s the plan.”

  “Absolutely,” replied Rick Minter. Out of habit, he pushed back his blazer and checked his holstered gun. Spring was sailing along by now, the yellow forsythia bushes past their peak, the hardwoods awakening, the bugs hatching from the dirt and beginning to grow active in the evenings. The crickets and cicadas were the most noticeable, shrill and steady, their sounds everywhere and always at a distance, encircling the outdoors like sheets of noise tacked to hilltops and high, sturdy limbs.

  Bass and Minter introduced themselves to Sheila, and because they weren’t expected, didn’t have an appointment, they had to wait in the lobby for nearly an hour before Mason returned from district court. Mason buzzed Sheila at her desk, and she walked with them to his office and showed them in. Mason stood and the men reached across his desk to shake hands. He’d met Minter before, but didn’t know Ray Bass. Mason sat down first, then the two visitors, almost in unison. Bass didn’t waste time addressing what was on his mind. “We appreciate your seein’ us on such short notice. Agent Minter and I realize you have a busy schedule.”

  “Always happy to help when I can,” Mason said. Minter and Bass were state police investigators; Mason had worked with Minter on a 1998 homicide, the stabbing of a man by his live-in girlfriend.

  “We have some good news. A break on a case, an old one.”

  “Great, let’s hear it.” Mason noticed both men seemed uneasy and stiff, their shoulders squared off toward him.

  “Remember a shooting years ago, back in the eighties, a boy by the name Wayne Thompson was murdered?”

  Mason felt his skin tingle, juiced with adrenaline. “Yeah. Uh, yeah, I do.” He crossed his legs.