Emperor of Ocean Park

by Stephen L Carter

  My hand trembles on the cane.

  The house is empty. The thought comes to me unbidden but with all the moral force of absolute truth. It is an empty house … no, an empty home. Kimmer is certainly inside somewhere, waiting for her son. Her BMW is parked in the turnaround, as usual, in defiance of my counsel. And if my wife has been careless and broken her solemn word—nothing new there!—Lionel Eldridge might be lurking around the place, his powder-blue Porsche safely hidden away in the garage. Yet the Victorian sits empty, for a home that once housed a family and now holds only its shards is like a beach whose sand has eroded to rock—retaining only the name, and none of the reason for the name.

  At the door, I tell Kimmer I am returning to the Vineyard for a few days. She nods indifferently, then stops and peers at me. The resolution in my voice frightens her.

  “What are you going to do, Misha?”

  “I’m going to finish it, Kimmer. I have to.”

  “No, you don’t. There’s nothing to finish. It’s over, it’s all over.” Hugging our son to her thigh now, wishing the truth away.

  “Take care of him, Kimmer. I mean, if anything happens to me.”

  “Don’t say that! Don’t ever say that!”

  “I have to go.” I peel her hand from my sleeve. Then I spot the real panic in her face and I realize she has it all wrong. She thinks I’m going off to Oak Bluffs to kill myself. Over her! I love her, yes, I am in pain, sure, but suicide! So I smile and take her hand and lead her down the steps onto the lawn. She is savvy enough to shoo Bentley into the house.

  “Please don’t talk that way,” Kimmer mumbles, shuddering. She does not object when I put my arm around her.

  “Kimmer, listen to me. Listen, please. I’m not going to do anything foolish. There’s a piece of the mystery that hasn’t been solved yet. Everybody’s forgotten about it. But I haven’t. And I have to go and see.”

  “Go and see what?”

  I think about the shadows I have sensed, ponder how to put it. I think about the still-unexplained attack on me in the middle of the campus. I think about my bullet holes. I think about my chat with Mr. Henderson. From my memory I draw the Judge’s line: “The way it was before, darling. I have to see the way it was before.”

  She licks her lips. She is wearing jeans and a polo shirt and is as fetching as ever. Her hair is awry, and I wonder, with distress, if she was too busy in bed last night to braid it. She shoves her glasses up on her forehead and asks only one question: “Is it going to be dangerous, Misha? For you, I mean.”

  “Yes.”

  CHAPTER 61

  ANGELA’S BOYFRIEND

  (I)

  THE HURRICANE HITS on my second day in Oak Bluffs, and it is a triumph of a storm, one of the greats, a storm to be talked about for years to come, just as I hoped it would be. All morning the police go up and down the roads with megaphones, warning everyone living near the water to take shelter. The radio stations, both on the Island and from the Cape, predict horrific property damage. I stay in the house or on the porch, watching the storm arrive. By early afternoon, the wind has knocked down tree branches and power lines all over the Island, and my electricity is gone. I hear creaking up in the attic, as though the chimney is deciding whether to jump. A couple of decades ago, in a storm less severe than this one, the chimney fell over flat on the roof of the house. I open the front door. Rain forms a wet, shimmery shield just beyond the steps, as though to walk through the curtain would be to enter a magical world where leaves fly and lawn furniture tumbles aimlessly through the streets and trees crack sharply in two.

  Still I wait.

  No more cars on Ocean Avenue or Seaview, nobody playing in the park. As always, a few foolish souls are out walking along the seawall, perhaps waiting to see whether the storm surge will be high enough to wash them away. But they are no more foolish than Talcott Garland, Misha to his friends, sitting in the unboarded front window of his house in defiance of official orders to evacuate. Of course I cannot leave. I have planned for, searched for, hoped for this moment since the day I left the hospital and saw Kimmer standing militantly in the front hall of Number 41 Hobby Road and solved the mystery. I dared not let on, not to anybody, and only Dana even guessed that I might know. I cannot evacuate. I am waiting, waiting for the worst of the storm, waiting for the only instant since encountering Jack Ziegler in the cemetery when I can know, absolutely know, that I am alone. Nobody, I am betting, can maintain surveillance through a hurricane like this one.

  At three-twenty, the storm surge strikes. Water careens over the seawall, carrying sand and seaweed and even fish onto Seaview Avenue. Another tree falls. I see a lone little car struggling along the road, but the wind turns it completely around, and the driver jumps out and flees. I watch to make sure he is not doubling back. I hear a terrible crack as a tree branch goes through a window of the house next door.

  Still I wait.

  Vinerd Howse is shadowy and shuddering. No power anywhere in the area. Nobody moving on the street. Not a car or a truck or an SUV Not a bicycle. I see, literally, zero people, and when I step out into the storm, stabbing the endless gray with the powerful light I bought on the mainland, I can see the boarded fronts of every house on Ocean Park. I play the light over windows and porches, over trees and the bandstand, looking for any sign of a lurking human.

  Nothing.

  I repeat the process on both sides of the house and in the back. My rain slicker does little to protect me as I cross our narrow yard, shining my light into neighbors’ windows.

  I am alone. Everyone else in the world is sensible. The present moment belongs to the insane.

  My moment.

  Back inside, I leave my portable searchlight and pick up an ordinary flashlight. Passing the dining room, I see that silly Newsweek cover again: THE CONSERVATIVE HOUR. But not so silly after all. Perhaps the Judge kept it as a reminder. Of someone to whom he owed an apology of sorts. I remember the very different pictures on the wall in Thera’s foyer. The way it was before. Over and over again, my father used that line, drumming it into me. Hoping I would never forget.

  I hurry to the second floor of the house, then pull down the ladder into the attic.

  (II)

  THE LOW-CEILINGED ATTIC of Vinerd Howse is not a place to spend more than twenty or thirty seconds in the middle of the summer. Through some trick of physics—hot air rising, perhaps, or bad ventilation—the attic is stifling, the air all but unbreatheable, even when the rest of the house has cooled for the evening. In the hurricane, the air is even worse. Outside it is cold, but, in here, every step leaves me soaking with sweat. And I almost lose my nerve besides, because I can actually see the ceiling tremble. But the scholar in me takes over, fascinated by its chaotic movements. I have never seen a roof heaving and rippling, the very rafters shaking, the way I suppose they do in an earthquake.

  I feel remarkably safe.

  I begin to hunt around the cramped space. I know it is up here someplace. Hidden over the years by an accumulation of junk, but it is here. It has to be.

  Uncle Derek, I am thinking. How could I have forgotten Uncle Derek? As Sally said, he gave me my name.

  I stumble over trunks and aged crockery and lanterns, I sort through old clothes and older books, and I cannot seem to find it. Rain and wind crash against the lone window as though demanding entry. I hear a trickle or two and know the roof has sprung a leak. The room is not that cluttered, it is quite unlike the attic Mariah frequents down on Shepard Street: finding what I am looking for should not be this hard. I bark my shin on a wilted sofa, and marvel at the energy, and foolishness, required to get it up here. Under a coat, I find my old baseball mitt, which I had thought lost forever. I find a child’s notebook filled with scrawling pictures of lighthouses. Mine, too? Abby’s? I cannot recall. The chimney creaks. I find a beach umbrella that has not been opened in a decade or two, and a couple of beach towels that have gone about that long since being washed. I am ready to give up. Maybe my theor
y is wrong, maybe I am so far off base …

  But I know I am right.

  The way it was before.

  B4. The first move of the Double Excelsior when the white side loses. Signifying, however, not a square on an imaginary chessboard in a cemetery, but a word. B4. Before.

  The way it was before.

  Meaning, before it all went bad.

  But it didn’t go bad when my father left the bench. It went bad long before that. It went bad—so he kept saying, according to Alma—it went bad when he split with his brother for the sake of ambition. Uncle Derek, his younger brother, who gave me my nickname. Uncle Derek, the lifelong Communist who, late in his life, got big into nationalism. Not for him the peaceful protest—praying while the cops beat your head in, he used to call it—but fighting back. The armed struggle. When the Judge was not around, we all used to sit at Derek’s feet, enthralled, especially Abigail. Uncle Derek would preach activism, activism, activism. But only with the right ideology. He liked the Panthers, even if he thought their ideology was a little bit thin. He liked SNCC. But most of all, Derek admired the black Communists who were active in the struggle.

  And who was the most prominent black Communist?

  Angela Davis. Angela Davis.

  I move a rolled-up carpet, and, suddenly, there it is.

  I straighten up.

  I am looking down at the stuffed animal that Abby won at the fair so many years ago: the deteriorating panda my late sister named after George Jackson, who was shot dead trying to escape from San Quentin Prison. At the time, every black woman in America of a certain age seemed to be in love with him, as well as some who, like Abby, were way too young. George Jackson, the handsome, dynamic revolutionary. George Jackson, Angela Davis’s supposed lover.

  Angela’s boyfriend.

  (III)

  I AM DOWNSTAIRS IN THE KITCHEN, thinking. The storm continues to shake the house. A few minutes ago, I took my portable searchlight outside again, braving wind and rain and lightning, all nature’s summer fury, to be sure I am not being watched. For an eerie instant, shining the beam toward the bandstand, now clouded with rain, I almost caught that whiff of a shadow once more, so I raced across Ocean Avenue and hunted around to be sure.

  Nothing. Nobody. But now I am sopping and my searchlight is showing definite signs of exhaustion. Too late to shop for fresh batteries.

  I have a portable indoor lamp, which I now use to illuminate George.

  The bear is on the butcher-block island, lying inert as though awaiting dissection. I am touching it lightly with my fingers, not missing an inch, carefully parting the fur, looking for evidence of a tear or cut that has been sewn up by hand. I find nothing. I lift the animal and shake it, waiting for a secret message to spill out, but none does. I scrape the plastic eyes with my fingernails, but nothing comes off. I pull the panda’s little blue tee shirt (it once fit Abby) inside out, but I find no hidden missive. So I turn my attention to where, in truth, it has been from the moment that I moved the rug and discovered it: the seam where the right leg meets the torso, and from which some sort of hideous pink stuffing has been dribbling for thirty years. I insert a finger, then two, into the tear, but all I encounter is more stuffing. Slowly, carefully, not wanting to disturb whatever I am going to discover, I pull the filler out and spread it on the counter.

  And, without going very much deeper, my fingers catch hold of something. It feels flat and hard, three or four inches wide.

  Pulling, pulling, gently, don’t break it …

  … it feels almost like … like …

  … like a diskette for a computer.

  Which is exactly what it is.

  (IV)

  I LIFT THE DISK UP, using two fingers, holding it close to the light, checking for damage. I am furious at the Judge. All this searching, all the clues, all the death and mayhem, for this! A disk! In the heat of that attic for almost two years! What could he have been thinking? Maybe it never occurred to him that high temperatures could cause a problem. He was never technically inclined, my father; the digital revolution was, in his oft-repeated judgment, a gigantic mistake. Trying to calm down, I set the disk on the counter. It has warped a little, and I do not dare try to force it into the slot on the right-hand side of my laptop.

  Unbelievable. What a waste.

  But maybe there is something left. Who do I know who might have some expertise at retrieving data from a damaged diskette? Only one name comes to mind: my old college friend John Brown, professor of electrical engineering at Ohio State. The last time I was with John, he spotted Lionel Eldridge in the woods behind my house—not that either of us knew it was Lionel at the time. That same innocent afternoon, Mariah told me the private detective’s report was missing, and my father’s arrangements seemed infinitely distant. Now, at last, I hold the arrangements in my hand, and I need John again to help me unpack them.

  Why wait? I can call him right now, unless the storm has knocked out the phones along with the power.

  I first take the precaution of sliding the disk back into my little sister’s bear. With the storm blasting the windows, that might be the safest place. I have just turned around to look for my address book in the family room when the kitchen door smashes open.

  I spin around, expecting to discover that it is the wind.

  It isn’t.

  Standing just over the threshold as rain sheets into the house, a small gun glittering in his hand, is Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Wallace Warrenton Wainwright.

  CHAPTER 62

  THE BATTLE FOR GEORGE

  (I)

  “HELLO, MR. JUSTICE,” I say as calmly as I can.

  “You don’t seem terribly surprised.”

  “I’m not.” Although I am, really. I watch his gun hand. I am tired of watching gun hands, but there is little else to do.

  He closes the door firmly behind him, purses his thin lips. “Is that it?” He points with the gun. I was holding the bear when he broke in, and I am still clutching it in both hands. When I say nothing, Wainwright sighs. “Don’t play games, Misha. It’s too late for that. Your father obviously hid something inside the teddy bear. What is it?”

  “A computer disk.”

  He rubs his neck with his free hand. His dark blue rain slicker, which would be hard to see in the middle of the storm, is dribbling water all over the floor. “He told me there was something. He didn’t tell me what. He didn’t tell me where.” His voice is vague, distant, dreamy. I realize that the Justice is as exhausted, both physically and emotionally, as I am. “Everybody knew there was … something. But nobody was looking for a bear. And nobody thought there might be a disk. Not from your low-tech father. People were looking for papers. That was very clever. A disk.” A long exhalation as he pulls himself together again. “So, how long have you been on to me?”

  “Ever since I realized the obvious. That my father couldn’t swing all those cases by himself. The federal court of appeals sits in three-judge panels. So, if he was fixing cases, he needed two votes, not one.”

  Wainwright moves farther into the room, winding up near the arched entryway into the hall. It occurs to me that his line of fire now covers both me and the back door, as though he is expecting a surprise. He seems to know what he is doing with the gun, so I am determined to make no sudden moves. My plan has succeeded, but it has also failed. I was sure nobody would be out in this storm, and I therefore have no serious hope of rescue.

  “So what? It could have been any of a dozen judges. It didn’t have to be me.” He sounds worried, and it occurs to me that he is wondering whether he has done enough to cover his tracks. If I was on to him, who else might be?

  “True. But you practically told me yourself. When I came to see you. You said my father was no more likely to fix cases than you were.”

  He offers me his famous twisted smile, which I now see is more sardonic than amused. Were all of us so badly fooled for all those years? Did we really mistake his moral arrogance for compass
ion? He probably enjoyed telling me the literal truth while also lying. Wallace Wainwright, like the Judge, has always known he is smarter than most people. He is not accustomed to having anybody keep up. “I suppose I was being too clever,” he says.

  “I suppose.” No reason not to tell him the rest. After all, as long as we are talking, he is not shooting, and I have come to like not being shot. “I also suppose that Cassie Meadows kept you up to date on what was happening.”

  Perhaps it is my imagination. The gun seems to waver, just slightly. “What makes you think that?”

  “I should have realized it from the start. Mallory Corcoran handed me off to Cassie because he didn’t have time for my problems. He tried to impress me by telling me she was a former Supreme Court law clerk. It was clear to me that everything Cassie learned, somebody else was learning, too. I assumed it was Mallory Corcoran. But then it occurred to me she could just be keeping in touch with her former employer. The Justice whose law clerk she was. So I looked up Cassie in Martindale-Hubbell, and, sure enough, she clerked for Justice Wallace Wainwright. Probably just a coincidence that she was the associate assigned to the matter, but you still reaped the advantage.” He has not told me to put up my hands. I am still holding George Jackson. I want to keep the conversation going. “So was she just a blabbermouth, gossiping with you, or was she part of it, too?”

  “I have no intention of answering your questions.” The wind is still whipping outside, and we hear a sharp snap as a tree loses a branch somewhere near the house. Rain continues its steady assault on the windows. In the hallway, Justice Wainwright frowns, stepping slightly to the side, as though unable to stand still. He considers what I have just said, still worried about whether he has somehow exposed himself. Then he shakes his head. “No. No, that wouldn’t have been enough. You wouldn’t jump to that conclusion just because Cassie clerked for me.” The gun centers on my chest. I back toward the sink. He follows, just out of range of any kick or punch I might throw, even if I knew how. As for the bear, Wainwright has not asked for it and I have not offered it. “Why were you not surprised to see me? How did you even know that there was anybody else? You clearly thought your Uncle Jack was keeping tabs on you. Maybe his partners were, too. But why did there have to be a third party?”