Saving Grace (26 page)

“You would know about corruption, wouldn’t you, Barnaby?” This new voice, clear and young, came from the back of the crowd. Heads turned. As the speaker walked forward, a path formed, and a low buzz spread through the room as those who recognized the Fleishman daughter enlightened those who hadn’t. She wore a simple white dress and sandals. With her bare legs, flawless olive skin, and black hair, she looked like a teenage Pocahontas. Gracie stopped an arm’s length away from Barnaby.

“Wh-what are you doing here?” he stammered. “Max, this kid’s underage.”

“That’s not what you said two weeks ago,” she said in a clear, carrying voice. “I was old enough then.”

The only sound in the tavern was the swish of Max’s broom as he swept around the edges of the crowd. Barnaby reset his dial to paternal solicitude. “Gracie, please, I realize you’re upset about your father’s problems, but you’ve got no business here.”

“But our affair had nothing to do with my father. Isn’t that what you said when you made love to me, when you tricked me into talking about him?”

A collective gasp rose from the audience. Roger Hasselforth slumped onto a bar stool and covered his eyes.
 

“It’s not true,” Barnaby said, looking from face to face. “It’s obvious she’s lying. She’s crying rape to try and discredit me. Come on, people; the same thing could happen to you tomorrow.”

“I’m not crying rape,” Gracie said calmly. “I admit I consented. Of course, it wasn’t exactly informed consent, was it? You did tell me you loved me. You did swear you weren’t investigating my father. I admit I was stupid to believe you, but I thought there were rules.”

Rage puffed out his cheeks and filled his belly with wind. “This is absurd. This is madness. No one’s buying this. You’re making a fool of yourself.”

“I
was
a fool. I thought journalists had some sort of ethical code. I didn’t realize you could lie to people, seduce them into telling you things. My father warned me, but I knew better. ‘Barnaby’s an honorable man,’ I said. And then, after you got what you wanted, you dumped me. Not a call, not a note, not even a card for my eighteenth birthday.”

“You were eighteen when I—” He broke off abruptly.

“When you screwed me? You know that because you checked, didn’t you?”

Ronnie Neidelman hooted. “She got you good!”

Barnaby was turning purple. He sought a sympathetic face in the crowd, but settled for a familiar one. “She’s making this up,” he appealed to Jack Flora. “Who’re you gonna believe, me or her?”

“How’s that cute little tattoo on your ass, Barnaby?” Gracie asked. “The anchor that sways as you walk?”

“Do you have a cute little tattoo on your ass?” Flora asked, filling his pipe.

“You expect me to drop trou to refute her? Fuck that!”

But a chorus of female voices had already arisen from the crowd of spectators: “He does, he does!”

“So it’s common knowledge,” Barnaby said, pivoting on a dime. “Anyone could have told her, and I know who I’d bet on. This is all you, Neidelman. This has spiteful bitch written all over it. What is it you want, Gracie?”

“An apology would be nice,” Gracie said. “But I’ll settle for the truth.”

“The truth? I’ll tell you the truth. Whatever you claim I did to you is nothing compared to what your father did to this city. And I’ll tell you something else: I sleep real good at night, because ridding this city of a cancer like your old man matters a hell of a lot more than hurting the pride of some poor little rich girl.”

“My father is not guilty. But even if he’d done everything you’ve accused him of doing, he’d still be ten times the man you are.” Gracie grabbed a stein of beer from the table beside her and threw it at Barnaby’s face, the stein as well as the beer. It hit his already swollen nose, which immediately began streaming blood. He doubled over, hands to his face, blood and beer dripping from his fingers.
 

Gracie drank in the sight for a moment; then she turned and headed for the exit, moving, for once, as her mother and countless dance instructors had despaired of teaching her: shoulders squared, head erect, eyes forward. Inside, all was tumult, but something deeper than these emotions, a long-dormant sense of self, perhaps, of authority, stirred and woke within her. Like a pin through shattered bone, it held her upright as she walked out of Maxie’s.

The bartender wrapped some ice in a dish towel and tossed it to Barnaby, who pressed it gingerly to his nose. No one moved to help him. He looked around the room and saw judgment on every face. “What the fuck? You know that was total bullshit.”

Nobody answered. Max went back to sweeping the floor, his face sour, ignoring Barnaby even as he swept between his feet.

“Thanks for the vote of fucking confidence!” Barnaby said disgustedly. “Fine bunch of colleagues you are. I tell you, I never screwed the girl. Tell them, Roger.”
 

The editor turned away and signaled for the check.
 

“Fuck you, you jealous bastard. Jack, you believe me, don’t you?”

Jack Flora took his time, tamping down his pipe and relighting it. “I hope it was the fuck of a lifetime, buddy,” he said at last, “because she’s sure as hell screwed you.”

Barnaby smacked his own forehead. “I can’t believe this holier-than-thou bullshit attitude! How many times have you cozied up to sources to develop information? We all do it.”

“We don’t all sleep with sources,” Jack said. “We don’t all fuck little girls.”

18

GRACIE LET HERSELF IN QUIETLY, tiptoeing past the living room, but her father must have heard the car pull up. “Gracie!” he thundered through the closed oak door. She drew a deep breath before entering. Her father sat in a leather club chair beside the fireplace, a closed book and a half-full tumbler of amber liquid beside him. Despite the hour, he was fully dressed. As she approached, he looked her over anxiously, head to toe. “Where the hell have you been?”

“The city,” she said.

“Why did you sneak off like that? Your mother was worried sick.”

“I was afraid you’d stop me.”

“Stop you? Am I a tidal wave, am I an act of God? Stop
you?”

“Is that Gracie?” Lily said, entering the room. She wore a nightgown and robe but looked naked to Gracie, who rarely saw her mother without makeup.

“It’s me.”

“Gracie, where have you been?”

“At Maxie’s.”

“Who’s Maxie?” they said in unison.

“What, not who. It’s a bar in the Village.”

“A bar?” said Lily. “On this night, of all others?”

Her father said, “Come on, Gracie, spit it out. We’re not playing Twenty Questions.”

She sighed. “It’s where Barnaby hangs out. He was there with a bunch of his friends, celebrating.”

Lily sank onto a sofa, dreading in the deepest part of her being what Gracie would say next, not because she knew what it was, but because she had no idea. It could be anything. There were no limits left in the world, which teemed with a multitude of malevolent possibilities, as if the air had suddenly grown both visible and poisonous. “Careful, Gracie,” she murmured helplessly; for when had Gracie ever been careful? Lily always laughed when young mothers moaned “Boys!” in boastful complaint. When her children were babies, Paul was the cautious one, slow to walk, frightened of dogs, cats, even ants, wary of the unknown, always clinging to his mother’s skirts. It was Gracie who ran about with her knees raw and her little body covered with bumps and bruises, Gracie whose overall pockets had to be cautiously turned out, Gracie who got into fistfights and broke her arm playing Superman.

“What have you done?” demanded Jonathan.

“I told the truth. I said he seduced me to get at you.”

Lily pressed her cheeks with the palms of her hands. “In front of a roomful of reporters? How could you, Gracie?”

“I figured it would hurt him more than it did me,” Gracie said. “I was right.”

“What did Barnaby say?” her father asked.

“He said it wasn’t true, but I proved it.”

“How?” He held up a hand before she could answer. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. What else?”

“I threw a drink at him.”

Despite himself, Jonathan smiled.

“A beer stein, actually,” Gracie went on, encouraged. “Got him in the nose. It bled like crazy, but I think it was already broken.”

The smile faded. “Jesus, Gracie, that’s assault! You could be arrested for that.”

“
You
weren’t.”

“What does she mean?” Lily said. “Jonathan, could she really be arrested?”

“Don’t worry,” Gracie said. “The last thing Barnaby wants is for this to go further.”

“How about all the other reporters in the bar? The prosecutors are bound to hear about it. They could charge you as leverage against me.” Her father got up and began pacing the room. Two circuits, then he came to a halt in front of Gracie. “There’s only one thing to do. You’ll have to go away for a while.”

She gasped. “Go where?”

“I don’t know yet. Israel, maybe, to your aunt.”

“No! Put it out of your head. I’m
not leaving.”

“You have to, for both our sakes.”

“I can’t. You don’t understand. It would be like I took a swing at Barnaby and then ran away.”

“I do understand. But I can’t take the risk they’ll come after you.”

“I thought you’d be mad. I thought you’d yell at me. I never thought you’d throw me away.”

“I’m not throwing you away! It’s just for a little while, Gracie, till I know you’re safe.”

“I’m not a rat,” she cried. “I’m not deserting you.”

He looked at her dark, intense face and saw as if in a mirror his own anger, pride, love. He thought: Gracie is my golem child. The best thing I ever made, and she’s going to destroy me. He pictured her bearing down on Barnaby in her avenging Fury mode, and almost found it in his heart to pity the poor bastard. Jonathan knew the look she’d have worn; he’d seen it before, on a summer night nine years ago, before they left Martindale. On his way home from work, Jonathan had come upon a fistfight on his own street corner, two youngsters duking it out in the middle of a knot of cheering kids. He got out of his car and pushed through to the center. The combatants were unevenly matched, but the smaller one was giving as good as he got. It wasn’t until he yanked them apart and the little one’s Yankee cap fell off that Jonathan recognized his daughter.

“What’s this?” he said, tightening his grip on the other kid’s arm.

The boy sniveled and wiped his nose with the back of his hand, leaving a red, mucusy streak across his cheek. “She hit me first.”
 

Gracie gave the kid a look that would have been funny on her little face if it hadn’t been so genuinely menacing. “He called Mrs. Brand a nigger,” she told her father. “When I told him he’s a moron, he called me a nigger-lover.”

“Well, you are,” the boy taunted, braver at arm’s length. “You love your teacher, and she’s a nigger.”

Jonathan let Gracie go but kept hold of the boy. “What’s your name?”

“Kyle.”

“Kyle what?”

“Kyle Hatwater.”

“Your parents know the kind of language you use, Kyle Hatwater?”

“Where d’ya think I learnt it?” the boy snarled. With a sudden twist he wriggled free and escaped down the block.

Jonathan took Gracie home. She had the start of a black eye and a shallow but bloody cut on her forehead. Her knuckles were bruised, too. They must have been at it for a while before he got there. He sat her down at the kitchen table and tended to her wounds, icing the eye and cleaning the cut. Gracie didn’t make a sound, though it must have hurt.

 
“Where’d you learn to fight like a boy?” he asked her.

She frowned. “I wasn’t fighting like a boy; I was fighting like someone who meant to win.”

“Fine; now that you’ve corrected the question, answer it.”

“The hard way.”

It took him a moment to understand. “This has happened before? You’ve been in fights?”

“A few,” she said modestly.
 

“Why, Gracie?”

“Because they’re idiots and bullies, like that jerk Kyle. And I stand up for what I believe in, just like you.”

“It’s good to stand up for your beliefs,” Jonathan said, “but fistfights don’t prove anything except who’s stronger.”

“That’s
something
.”

“You have to reason with people.”

“They can’t all be reasoned with. You said so yourself.”

“At least pick your fights. That kid had six inches and twenty pounds on you.”

“I was winning when you stopped it.”

“That’s not the point, Gracie.”

“What other point is there? Anyway, I knew he was chicken. He’s bigger and stronger than me, but he can’t take a punch.”

“And you can?”

“I don’t like it, but I can. You have to, if you want to win. I’m not a quitter.”