Back Bay (54 page)

“Ice-cold American beer and fresh oysters. That’s heaven, Jack. Pure heaven. I been stationed in Germany since ’46, and I’m sick of kraut food. They cook everything in vinegar, and they drink their beer lukewarm.”

“It’s always good to come home.”

“Yup, and this time, I think it’s for good. I’m finishing up my hitch out at Fort Devens. After that, I’ll be a civilian for the first time since Pearl Harbor.”

“Not interested in seein’ Korea?”

“No fuckin’ way. I don’t think they’ll be shippin’ my unit out of Germany, but I figure, better to be diggin’ ditches in Boston than pickin’ gooks off the end of a bayonet in God knows where. Eisenhower keeps talkin’ about goin’ over to end it if he’s elected. My bet is that he’ll go at the head of half a million troops.”

“So, what are you planning to do here?”

“I’m going into the import-export business. I made some good connections over in Europe. Did a few favors for some influential people.”

Ferguson guessed black market.

“Now, I have a nice bankroll and two or three small German companies ready to do business.”

“How did you get a bankroll on sergeant’s pay?”

“I was always pretty tight, Jack. I saved my money.” Rulick smiled.

Ferguson knew it was black market.

“You know much about marketing and trading and finding new clients?”

“Nothing. But I have a lot of balls and some good friends who can help to smooth the way for me over here. Balls and connections. That’s a tough combination to top.”

“You’ve always had balls.”

“You gotta have balls. I learned that early, thanks to those Pratt bastards. In ’33, my old man wants to start a union, and the Pratts tell him to go to hell. They know the unions are comin’. They know they’ll have to knuckle under eventually, but they don’t give an inch. All through the thirties, whenever the organizers came around—and in those days, some of those organizers were tough bastards—the Pratts would throw them out of the plant. No benefits, no raises, no afternoon coffee break. Then, the war came, and people were too fuckin’ patriotic to be agitatin’ for unions. Pratt Rubber wasn’t organized until when? 1948 or so?”

Ferguson nodded.

“You gotta admire that. They held out sixteen or seventeen years longer than anybody else. Just because they were tough. It’s the way to be.”

After the oysters, Rulick had a bowl of clam chowder and Ferguson his lobster. When he wasn’t drinking anything stronger than beer, Jack Ferguson always had a little extra to spend, and he liked to buy something special once in a while, just to remind himself how pleasant life could be without whiskey.

“What about you, Jackie? What’ve you been up to?”

“I started out covering the police blotter for the
Herald
right after the war. You know, ‘Two men were stabbed last night during an argument at the Boston Arena.’ That kind of stuff. Then, I went to the
Post
and worked my way up through the city room. Now I do mostly features.”

“Yeah. I read that thing you had in the Color Roto on Sunday. About the ghost who lives out in the harbor.”

“The Lady in Black. She’s supposed to haunt Fort Warren. I’m doing a whole series on old New England legends. It’s better than listen’ to the police radio, but I’d rather be coverin’ the Red Sox.”

“Those bums! Always on Armed Forces Radio pissin’ the pennant away to the Yankees. They’ll never beat New York. Never.”

“Maybe not, but I’d rather watch Ted Williams hit baseballs than watch Blaze Starr snap her G-string.”

“Don’t say that too loud,” joked Rulick. “Somebody might get the wrong idea about you. Besides, if things are as hot as I hear they are for airmen over in Korea, the only lumber Ted Williams ever sees again may be on the inside of a pine box.”

Ferguson finished his beer.

“Another, Jack?”

“No. One’s my limit, especially when I’m working.”

“Aw, c’mon. Old times’ sake and all that shit. Bartender, two more drafts.”

Fresh glasses of beer appeared, and Ferguson gave in. He told himself he wouldn’t have a third.

“Old New England legends.” Rulick threw the words out.

“Yeah. Salem legends. Old Yankee sea stories. Stuff like that.
But it takes time, and I have to research all these things and talk to a lot of old-timers.”

“Too bad Phil Cawley’s not around.”

Ferguson laughed. “Old Phil Cawley and his alky splits.”

“He knew a pretty good legend,” said Rulick seriously.

“You still believe the stories that old bastard used to tell us?”

“I believe the one about the Pratt teapot. I’ll bet you’ve been thinkin’ about it, too.”

“It crossed my mind. It’s a possibility for an article.”

“Do you think it’s true? About treasure in the Back Bay?”

“Well, every legend has some basis in fact. A Revere tea set called the Golden Eagle actually did disappear when the British burned Washington in 1814, but…” Ferguson shrugged and finished his second beer. “Who knows?”

“I sure would love to find it.” Rulick gazed out the window and tried to sound as if he were simply daydreaming. “Figure out where it is and what it’s doin’ there, then go out and dig it up and tell the Pratts I just took their treasure away from them.”

“I’m sure the Pratts couldn’t care less.”

“I care. I’d love to nail those bastards tomorrow.”

“You still hate them, don’t you, Ruley?”

“You’re damn right I do,” said Rulick quietly.

Ferguson remembered that whenever Rulick became angry, his voice grew soft, almost inaudible.

Rulick put his hand on Ferguson’s forearm. The grip was powerful. “When I came home after V-E Day, I had a Purple Heart, a Silver Star, and enough campaign ribbons to open a fabric store. But my papa wasn’t there to pat me on the back. My mama threw her arms around me and she said, ‘Oh, Billy, your papa, he’d be so proud.’ And she began to cry. For the first time since they killed my father, I cried, too. And it was the Pratts who did it.”

“They didn’t have him killed, Billy, you know that.”

Rulick stared at the head on his beer. “They didn’t stick the knife in him, but they might just as well. They wanted him out of the way, and somebody knocked him off. They got their wish, and somebody I’ll get mine.”

Ferguson didn’t disagree. He remembered how painful Peter
Rulick’s death had been to Billy. For a time, they ate in silence, two old friends run out of conversation.

Rulick finished his beer and called for the check. “I’d better head back, Jackie. I’ll be in touch. And I’m tellin’ you, if you want a good story, you ought to talk to the Pratts.”

On a Sunday afternoon a few weeks later, Jack Ferguson steered his 1940 Dodge onto the driveway at Searidge. His tires crunched on the crushed stone. An elegant sound, he thought. Others paved their driveways or left them dirt. Only the rich could afford crushed stone. He parked in front of the stately old house and got out of the car. He smelled the fresh salt air. He heard a tennis ball popping between rackets and skipping off clay. Then he heard laughter, applause, and a young woman’s voice calling the score.

He looked around the side of the house. Three men and a woman were playing doubles. Two other women, both about six months pregnant, sat on the sidelines and sipped orange juice. Beside them was a pitcher of martinis. Indian summer had lingered far into November. The maples around the court, the last trees of autumn, shimmered orange and gold. It was a day to enjoy, a final burst of warmth before winter, and these rich young people in their tennis whites knew how to enjoy it.

Ferguson rang the bell and wondered if Katherine Pratt Carrington would remember him. He didn’t expect that she would. He had been twelve years old when they had last met, and she had made all the impression on him. He remembered an angel of beauty in a satin dress, an angel of mercy in a black limousine.

As a reporter, he had interviewed all sorts of people, from political leaders to bank robbers, and he had rarely felt nervous with any of them. At the moment, his palms were sweating.

The maid ushered him into the study, where Katherine Pratt Carrington was waiting for him. They shook hands, and she offered him a seat. She was not the vision he remembered, but she had reached fifty with grace. Her hair was turning gray and the flesh had begun to crease in the usual places, but in her firm handshake and friendly greeting, Ferguson sensed warmth and confidence that came only with maturity. He realized
the difference between a beautiful woman and a handsome woman.

She offered him sherry or tea. He took tea and glanced through the French doors which led out to the tennis court. The maid was pushing an old man in a wheelchair out to the court, and a little boy was bouncing along behind her.

“A son, a daughter, two nephews, and various pregnant wives. The old man is Artemus Pratt III. The toddler playing with the hair in his great-granduncle’s ears is our newest addition, my grandson Christopher. My husband and cousin Artemus are off playing golf. I don’t expect we’ll be seeing them much before dinner. They promised they’d raise a glass or two in honor of Eisenhower’s victory. If I know them, they’ll raise more than two.”

“They haven’t had a Republican victory to celebrate since 1928.”

“More’s the pity. Now, what can we do for you, Mr. Ferguson?”

He explained his series on New England legends, and she said she had been reading it every week. Then he told her the story that Philip Cawley had told him twenty years before.

She didn’t look surprised, but she was. “You heard all that from an eighty-year-old half-blind mulatto engraver who rode with Custer and drank your mother’s hootch during Prohibition?”

“I know it sounds bizarre, but—”

She laughed. “I think bizarre is too mild a word for it, Mr. Ferguson. It’s downright fanciful.” She filled his teacup again.

“You’re telling me there’s no truth to any of this, not even a little? Every legend has some basis in fact, Mrs. Carrington.”

“But not everything that little boys hear from lonely old men can be construed as legend.”

Ferguson stared at her. It was one of his more effective techniques when he felt that someone wasn’t telling him the truth. But Katherine Carrington stared back and smiled.

“None whatsoever?” he asked.

“Mr. Ferguson, our family has had a very long and exciting history. At the head of the stairs is an excellent Copley portrait of Horace Taylor Pratt, our patriarch and one of this nation’s founding fathers. He fought on Bunker Hill, he was one of the first Americans to trade in China, and one of the earliest investors in the New England textile industry. His descendants have been
leaders in business, industry, medicine, law, and when necessary, war. In my son Jeffrey, the blond young man at service”—she tilted her head toward the court—“we have our first political leader. He intends to run for Congress in two years, and we’re hoping that one day he can do for the Republicans what that Kennedy boy has just done for the Democrats.” She paused. “The point is, Mr. Ferguson, that an accomplished family, one with a history as broad and exciting as our own, just naturally attracts attention. In this particular case, it seems that a stray legend was looking for a home, and it found us.”

“Will you take it in, or must I send it out into the world as an unwanted orphan?”

“Better that you didn’t send it out at all. Think of the disservice you’ll be performing for the people of the Bay.” She laughed at the image. “They’ll all be rushing out to buy picks and shovels, and before you know it, we’ll have holes in every basement from Arlington Street to the Fenway.”

Ferguson laughed. “That would make a helluva story.”

Her smile disappeared. “I prefer that whatever you write, you leave our name out of it. Please.”

“Excuse me, Mother.” The female tennis player appeared with her doubles partner in the doorway. Two handsome young aristocrats in their early twenties.

Ferguson thought the slight resemblance between them was a coincidence, because they had the comfortable familiarity of lovers.

Katherine introduced Ferguson to her daughter Isabelle and her cousin’s son Philip. The two young people shot a perfunctory greeting toward Ferguson, then returned their attention to Katherine.

“Mother, I’m afraid Jeffrey has crapped out. He’d rather sit with his pregnant wife than play tennis with us.”

Philip threw a casual arm around his cousin. “Yes, and Izzy and I are taking all comers. What do you say, Auntie? You and Calvin?”

“Well, at the moment, I’m busy with this gentleman from the
Boston Post
.”

“Oh, he won’t mind,” said Isabelle. “We can’t be wasting the last nice day of the year indoors.”

Philip looked at Ferguson. “What about you, old man? How’s your forehand?”

“No good unless there’s a glass in it.” Ferguson stood. “I think we’ve finished our talk, Mrs. Carrington. I’ll leave you to your tennis.”

Mrs. Carrington saw him to the door and invited him to come back and visit. He guessed that she was being polite, but he believed that she had been telling him the truth about the tea set, and he always trusted his instincts.

He glanced again at the tennis court. Isabelle, Philip, and Calvin were rallying while they waited for Katherine. Ferguson wondered if they realized that out there, beside that beautiful old house, with that fuzzy ball bouncing back and forth between them, they were enjoying the fruits of two hundred years’ labor. He laughed to himself and headed back to Boston.

The following Tuesday, Jack Ferguson received a note from Katherine Pratt Carrington. She said she would be attending an afternoon recital at the Gardner Museum on Thursday, and she wondered if he would meet her there.

At the turn of the century, an extravagant Boston lady name Isabelle Stewart Gardner had built Fenway Court on the banks of the Muddy River, at the far edge of the Back Bay. She modeled it after a Florentine villa and filled it with the priceless works of art she had collected in her European travels. She lived in her mansion until 1924 and bequeathed it to the people of Boston as a museum forever.

On Thursday, Jack Ferguson and Katherine Pratt Carrington sat together along the museum’s south cloister, overlooking the court. Four stories above, sunshine poured through the skylight. Around the fountains and statues in the court, potted flowers bloomed, as they would throughout the winter. With the fountains bubbling softly in the background, Katherine Pratt Carrington told Ferguson everything that she knew about the Golden Eagle Tea Set. She talked for fifteen minutes. Ferguson didn’t say a word or take a note.