The Great Divide (10 page)

Randall Walker scowled at the view outside his car window. He hated the need for subterfuge and the special mobile phone used only for these calls. But loved it just the same. It was a paradox he did not need to question. He had long since grown used to the fact that many of the things in life that he adored the most were also things he was vaguely ashamed of. “And precisely what is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what I said. He’s made the rounds. Met all the right people. Asked all the wrong questions.”

“Now you look here.” Randall masked his nerves with an unaccustomed bark. He had heard too many tales about Hamper Caisse to feel comfortable dealing with the man, no matter what the cause. “I don’t pay you these ridiculous sums for you to feed me opinions. I want facts. Details. Times, dates, evidence you’ve actually done your job.”

“The entire exercise has been a no-brainer.” The voice on the
other end sounded caught midway between a whisper and a moan. Which suited the man perfectly. Randall stared at the sunlit day and saw the man himself. Small and without a single sharp angle. Wispy mustache and round-rimmed glasses. Suit as gray as his hair and eyes. Utterly without defining characteristics. Anyone glancing his way would not bother with a second look, there was so little to notice. Which meant he was superb at his job.

“Glenwood visited the State Department, the International Chamber of Commerce, and the Asia Rights Watch. He stopped by the Chinese embassy, but didn’t have the nerve to step inside. Then he visited Hall’s roommate, that Stanstead woman. It looked like she handed him some file.”

“That’s bad. And the meeting at Asia Rights is even worse.” But Randall wasn’t sure this was the case. Part of him wanted to agree with Hamper Caisse and his nonchalant assessment. The man had an almost perfect record, both in gathering data and in situation analysis. Which was not what made Randall Walker nervous.

He had heard the tales. Stories were bandied about boardrooms of companies that used Hamper Caisse’s services. How he had gained his reputation in the CIA, how he was willing to do anything for a client. Anything at all.

Even from a distance of several hundred miles, Randall felt unnerved by the man’s grotesque mixture of docile ruthlessness. “This could mean serious trouble.”

“I think you’re wrong. Glenwood is strictly a two-bit operator, and he’s out of his league.” If he took any pleasure in correcting Randall, it did not show. “You come across a lot of these in Washington. They show up at the occasional low-level function, scrounge for whatever crumbs they can find. One hard knock and they fold up their tents and scurry back to whatever hole they crawled out of.”

“All right. Any idea what’s next?”

“He was booked on the six-fifteen United flight back to Raleigh. But when he left Stanstead’s place he rented a car. Right now I’m following him through rush-hour traffic on I-95. My guess is he’s headed down to see that Richmond lawyer who kicked up such a fuss in the pollution suit. What a pair they’ll make.”

“Stay on him,” Randall said. Then, almost to himself, “I wish I knew what was in that file.”

“What can the Hall girl have found out? You had me check her, what, three times? She’s just another scrounger. Pity Glenwood couldn’t meet her. They’d probably have fallen for each other, right off a cliff. Saved us all a lot of trouble.”

Randall wanted to believe him. Wanted to accept that his worry was for nothing, that the fire had been put out safely and everything was under control. But something left him uneasy. Something that could not be entirely ignored. “I want you to search the Stanstead place. Find out if there’s anything else lying around.”

“You’re kidding.”

“We can’t take any risks here.”

A pause, then, “It’s your money.”

“That’s right, it is.” Randall cut the connection, sat staring out the window of his Mercedes, wishing he knew what it was that had him so concerned.

W
HEN RUSH-HOUR TRAFFIC
trapped him on I-95, Marcus used his cellular phone to call ahead. The lawyer in Richmond sounded hostile and half-drunk. Marcus bullied the man into granting him five minutes and his home address.

The hundred-mile drive took three traffic-clogged hours. Following the lawyer’s slurred directions, Marcus took a central Richmond exit and entered a wounded city. Darkness hid the worst of the scars, but what the streetlights and shadows revealed was not pleasant. Buildings had the abandoned look of old tombstones. The sidewalks were empty save for those who loitered and clustered and called to passing cars as if they were hailing death.

He turned off the main thoroughfare and entered a gloom so thick he could not see the street sign, much less house numbers. Finally he spotted a front porch with a light, and in the process of reading the number he also observed the bars where the screen door should have been. Marcus drove down another block to the correct address and parked.

Marcus climbed the steps of the attorney’s house and heard the tinny voices of a television game show. The noise marked the dark and his own creeping fear. Marcus fumbled for a bell, found none, so he banged on the door. He heard footsteps scraping the sidewalk behind him. He banged harder still.

“Yeah?”

“Mr. Taub, it’s Marcus Glenwood. We spoke on the phone.” He did not wait for a reply, but banged again. “Open up.”

“Hang on.” The latch rattled, the door cracked open a notch. “I told you, you’re wasting your—”

Marcus pushed inside, almost knocking the man to the floor. “Sorry. There was somebody out there.”

Marshall Taub did not appear the least surprised. “Yeah, this is a creepy place. I never go out at night.” He waved his hand, sloshing his drink on the already-stained carpet. “You might as well sit down.”

The room’s lighting was yellow and feeble, the house dank with old smells. Dishes were piled on a cheap corner shelf. The coffee table between the battered sofa and the television bore two empty bottles and a half dozen glasses. Marcus deliberately walked over and cut off the television. “As I said on the phone, I am representing a client who wants to enter suit against New Horizons.”

Marshall Taub relocked and latched the door. “Don’t do it.”

“I have a file on your case.” Marcus had managed to scan the top pages while trapped on the interstate. “I’d just like to ask—”

“I’m telling you, don’t go after them.” Taub motioned a second time with his glass. “Wanna drink?”

“No thanks.” The Richmond attorney had the doughy appearance of someone carrying the worst kind of extra poundage. “You won your suit against New Horizons, didn’t you?”

“Didn’t win a thing. Lost it. Lost it all.”

“But the records show—”

“Siddown, why don’t you.” He took a hard slug from the glass. “Don’t believe what you read. Never believe what you read.”

Marshall Taub could have been forty, he could have been sixty-five. His graying beard only partly masked the pastiness of his features. He had the shaky hands and blank gaze of a man determined to kill himself slowly. Marcus asked, “What’s wrong with the court records, Mr. Taub?”

“Nothing. Not a thing. Except they’re a lie.” He drained his glass, reached for the bottle on the coffee table, slopped bourbon into his glass and over his hand. “Sure you don’t want a drink?”

“Mr. Taub, who is handling further action against the appeal?”

“Nobody. Not a soul.” Another hard slug from the glass. “Know how many motions they attached? Forty-seven.”

“They’re trying to bury the appeal,” Marcus interpreted.

“Burying the case, burying the lawyer.” He thought that was funny enough for a repeat. “Won the case, lost it all.”

Marshall Taub took a long sip, almost toppled over backward, caught himself, and flopped down into a chair whose exposed springs were partially covered by a ratty throw rug. “Don’t do it.”

Marcus saw the dark stains covering the sofa cushions, decided to remain on his feet. “Tell me what happened.”

“Started with threats. Pretrial motions, pretrial threats.” The whiskers parted in a bleary grin. “That didn’t work, so they went for the jugular. My other clients started heading south. My partners got worried. I got mad, wouldn’t let go, so they dumped me. I had New Horizons cold. A great case.”

“You left your firm?”

“Yep. That’s when it got bad. Real bad.” He drained his glass, let it slide to the floor. “They got pictures of me with a lady I knew. Mailed ’em to my wife.”

“They framed you?”

“Manner of speaking.” He fumbled, managed to grab the bottle, took a long hit. “My wife left me. Took the kids. Walked out the day I won the case.” Another bleary grin. “Great victory, huh.”

M
ARCUS ARRIVED at the Hayes mansion in the soft light of early Saturday morning. Before he cut the motor, his battered Blazer was surrounded by three barrel-chested Labs. The dogs clustered and poked him with cold noses as he climbed down. The extremely well-trained bird dogs neither barked at his familiar smell nor pressed their case. Instead they both followed and led at an amiable distance as he made for the open garage door.

Mansion was the only way to describe the eleven-thousand-square-foot yellow-brick dwelling—despite its doors and shutters and pillars and porticoes and garage all being painted a startling sky blue. The four-car garage had one oversize door that belonged on an airplane hangar, upon which was painted the emblem of the University of North Carolina Tar Heels. Behind it hulked an RV larger than a Greyhound bus and painted the same blue as the house trim. As Marcus walked up the drive, the house’s owner was loading sky blue dog boxes into the back of a blue Cherokee sporting a license plate that read
GO-HEELS
. Marcus knew for a fact that the license plate had cost Boomer Hayes a quarter-million-dollar contribution to the UNC football fund, as the tag had formerly been the personal property of the team coach.

“Marcus!” Boomer Hayes had a voice to match his body, big and raucous and pushy. “Did I invite you?”

“No.”

“Don’t matter. You got a gun?”

“No.”

“That’s okay too. Go on downstairs and pick yourself out a couple.”
Boomer swatted at the dogs, who circled excitedly. “Y’all just hold on to your tails. I’ll get to you in a minute.” To Marcus, “You remember where I keep the gun?”

“Yes.” Boomer’s gun room was a basement running the entire length of the house. At one end was an arsenal capable of equipping a fair-size insurrection. At the other loomed an entertainment center with fourteen speakers and a 118-inch Swiss-made television. The carpets, drapes, gun cabinets, leather sofas, and walls were all Carolina blue. Boomer Hayes was serious about only three things—Carolina football, his toys, and his family. The order depended upon how well the Tar Heels were doing that year. Marcus said, “I’m not going hunting.”

“Sure you are. It don’t mean a thing, me forgetting to invite you.” He opened the first cage door and the dogs started whining. They knew where they were headed. “The ’Heels don’t kick off till seven Sunday. We got plenty of time to go pack us some birds.”

A querulous voice wafted from the house’s side door, the one that led up to the separate apartment wing. “He ain’t interested in your football silliness and he ain’t going hunting!”

Boomer reached for the nearest dog and hefted him into the cage. “Shame how the old man’s gone all doddery. Guess before long we’ll have to start chaining him to the bedpost.”

A man with the fragility of the very old came tottering into view. He carried a cane, but did not use it, as though the stick were there for assurance alone. “Can somebody please tell me where my only son got this fanaticism over something as absurd as Tar Heel football?” Charlie Hayes limped over to where Marcus stood, huffed a single breath, then continued. “I went to Carolina. Twice. Undergrad before the war and law school after. I never felt like the world would end if Carolina lost a game.”

Boomer gave the old man a stricken look. “Don’t talk nasty like that, Daddy.”

“Humph.” Charlie peered at Marcus through bifocals so thick his eyes changed shape and shade with each shift of his chin. “First time Marcus comes by in over a year, you don’t even offer your old friend so much as a how-do.”

“Now that’s not true.” Boomer closed the gate on the third dog pen, and began stacking leather-cased rifles like cordwood. From behind
their wire-meshed doors the dogs watched with lolling tongues. “I asked him to come hunting. Didn’t I ask you, Marcus?”

“You did indeed.”

“See there? You can’t get any nicer than that, now, can you.”

Marcus said to the old man, “You’re looking good, Charlie.”

“I’m not either. I look like I sleep with death as a bedfellow. You’re just trying to suck up to me on account of not stopping by for so long.” Charlie Hayes brandished his cane in Marcus’ face. “Well, it won’t do you a bit of good. I’ve written you off and that’s final.”

Boomer slammed the tailgate shut. “That’s my pop. All sweetness and light.”

“Now that’s a shame,” Marcus said. “I came back from a trip last night to find I’d been invited to go fishing this morning. I just stopped by to see if you wanted to come along.”

“Then I might have to recollect on what I said,” Charlie replied instantly. “I’d pay cold hard cash to get off on some body of water and hold a pole in my hands again.”

Boomer murmured something that sounded vaguely like old folks’ home.

“I heard that. You ship me off to some perfumed death house and I’ll come back to haunt you.”

“He would, you know.” Boomer’s eye was caught by the Blazer’s mangled side panel. He marched down the drive, then shouted back up, “Dang, Marcus! Who did the number on your wheels?”

“Two redneck goons over at New Horizons.”

Boomer continued to circle the Blazer. “Looks like they put you through the grinder.”

Charlie moved down beside his son. “They come at you from both sides?”

“Yes.” He walked back to join them. The right and rear windows were quilts of plastic and duct tape. Marcus had used the tire iron to peel off what remained of the left rear fender. “Both sides.”