The Knowland Retribution (4 page)

None of the folks from Porter, Scudd, Porter began to imagine the anger behind their opponent's gentle smile. He spoke ever-so-slowly, quietly and confidently, in a deftly exaggerated drawl.

“My clients have lost everything.” He said the last word again, “everything,” with a sigh. “Mr. Martin's wife, a woman who had been by his side, his soul mate since they attended college together. His only child. And his little grandsons too. And Mr. Carter Lawrence has seen his former wife, a beautiful young woman with whom he was in the midst of reconciliation, ripped from him, together with his two sons—sweet little boys hardly old enough to know what life's all about. Two boys, I might add, who have napped on the couch right behind you there, on which your young Ms. Wittlesy took her ease a few moments ago, before we began.” Ms. Wittlesy stole a furtive glance at the couch. “I know you will all agree that no young man on God's green earth should be made to suffer as Mr. Carter Lawrence has.”

Nicholas Stevenson moved his head slowly from side to side. He breathed deeply, quite nearly sighing again. “Mr. Leonard Martin's entire existence has now been called into question, if not destroyed. As you say, I am his friend and his partner. From that unhappy vantage I have looked into a soul as charred and blackened with grief as the fires of hell could themselves arrange. And now I must remind you that it is
only
your client, your client
alone
, who stands before the world as the author of this unspeakable tragedy.”

He paused again, allowing his turn at cornpone theatrics to have its effect—looking for an eye or two to roll.

“And I must also tell you in total candor that it's gonna take a lot more money than you or the little pricks you work for have even thought about to begin to dissipate Leonard Martin's sadness and put Carter Lawrence on the road to blessed recovery.”

“You know, $1.2 million dollars is a large amount of money, Mr. Stevenson.” The Boston lawyer, to Nick's practiced ear, spoke uneasily. Nick watched his eyes, thinking that his gently flickering pupils signaled discomfort. “We're not talking chump change here,” he said.

Nicholas Stevenson leaned back in his swivel armchair, clasping his hands behind his head. “Actually, $1.2 million dollars is less than the advance on an HBO movie,” he said. “It's far, far less than what could be in the works from someone like Steven Spielberg or that fella Oliver Stone, about whom I do have my doubts in the ordinary context of things. I urge you to remember that Mr. Leonard Martin, and Mr. Carter Lawrence too, have suffered a greater loss than most any other survivor of this. Do you know what? I will tell you what. This does all sound like a movie. In the interest of a speedy and appropriate solution, we have kept the whole horrid business off the television, away from the press. Lord, everybody wants to talk. We've got newspapers from all over the United States, Europe, Japan, and all points east and west on our neck.

“We've got news magazines and TV programs—
60 Minutes
and
20/20
—and all those folks at HBO who would make a movie out of God knows what if they had a way to, because they have no sense of shame in pursuing the almighty dollar—and, of course, the book publishers too. They call here all day long. Shall I get Ms. Betty Lee Washington in here to tell you how many calls she gets in a single day? How many agents and hangers-on would exploit my clients' grief? Shall I call Ms. Betty in here this very minute?”

He paused again, now leaning forward, glaring at each by turn; focusing last on the junior partner's light, uncertain eyes.

“Why, I could take a lunchtime break any day of the week and drive right down the highway here to visit with Mr. Larry King, or Mr. Ted Turner, as far as that goes. Or would you prefer Geraldo Rivera? And should my clients go public, your assumptions about eager, greedy lawyers might be a self-fulfilling nightmare. Would it please the misbegotten corporate criminals who pay for the gas in your Mercedes to see my clients sitting next to Oprah? I beg you now to think carefully; what
is
it you and your clients
really
want.”

“What exactly did you have in mind?” That came with a cough from the senior partner, a barrel-chested older man with a deep bass voice at the far end of the table—who'd been silent after initial words of condolence.

Agreements were signed the next morning. Six million dollars was wired into an account established for Leonard Martin, and the same was done for Carter Lawrence. Stevenson, Daniels, Martin took no fees.

None of it meant anything to Leonard. His parents had passed years ago. His sister was little more than a telephone call on holidays. His unspoken contract with Harvey was broken. They commiserated often, but that took more out of Leonard than he could give. Nicholas had done what he could. He remained a rock and offered himself for whatever service he might perform. But he faded into the background after settling the case—not because he wanted to, but only because it happened.

Leonard avoided his many other friends, and none of them seemed to mind. He and they knew that he carried the plague of grief. Only Carter Lawrence meant anything to him now.

Carter had youth on his side, and a large, supportive family. His life was not over, they told him, not by a long shot. But Carter dreaded the future, and he fled from it to the Martin house. The two of them sat together for scores of hours watching ballgames and movies in foreign languages they didn't understand. Like Leonard, Carter stopped working regularly. He had very little appetite. He watched his father-in-law eat heavily, day and night, and drink. He watched him let himself go, stop shaving and bathing regularly. Carter told his mother he felt like the walking dead, and only Leonard Martin could walk by his side. He did not want to kill himself, and often wondered why. He took it for granted that Leonard also fought the demon, and Carter wondered which of them would prevail.

Boston

Most members will tell
you that the sixth hole on the west course at Holcomb Woods County Club outside Boston is tougher than it looks. The green is only 387 yards from the members' tees, but the hole runs straight uphill into the prevailing wind to a severely elevated plateau made all the more treacherous by a downright sadistic design that slopes the green sharply from back to front. Two bunkers bracket the entrance. You cannot hold back on your tee shot. No matter how well you hit your drive it's a rare second shot that doesn't call for a long iron, sometimes even a fairway wood to get you up that hill, over the traps, and safely home.

If you hit the front of the green your ball may roll whence it came, down and off the putting surface. Overshoot the green and you'll probably wind up out-of-bounds, on the wrong side of a low fence that marks the western edge of the club's property. Your ball will lose itself in the dense, fifteen-foot deep thicket of old oaks that separate the fence from a narrow outside road curving gently away from the course at just that point.

Christopher Hopman, Chairman of the Board of Alliance Inc., inhaled the sharp, early morning fragrance, bent from the waist, and pushed his wooden tee into soft grass still wet with miniature worlds of dew. On its tiny platform he placed a brand new Titlest ProVI high compression ball. He'd been playing golf forty years and still felt the adrenaline whenever he opened a sleeve of new golf balls to put one
in play. The son of a New England Catholic banker, Hopman proudly typified the upper reaches of American management. After a parochial school and undergraduate education he went to Wharton for his MBA and continued on at the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania. He was nearly twenty-eight before taking his first real job. His business career was blessed by swift, untroubled advances.

Four years before, he'd replaced the CEO who brought him into
the company a few years earlier. He promptly turned a medium-sized, cash-rich manufacturing outfit into a voracious, often hostile buyer of companies. He hunted in many fields, from textiles to auto parts, hard-money lending to publishing, processed foods to minor professional sports, even timber and windmills. And he succeeded dramatically most of the time. A childless widower, Christopher Hopman worked long hours day after day, for months on end. When he did relax it was with a new friend in a Ritz Carlton suite, or an old friend on the golf course.

He once stood six-four and played college hoops with his shoulders and elbows. At fifty-seven, he prided himself on being able to see his dick without bending forward. Hopman had his clothes custom made and did not check the prices. Today he wore dark gray slacks with a red pullover. His four-hundred-dollar golf shoes matched the sweater. He looked and felt impressive.

Hovering over his golf ball he dug both feet into the ground, swaying from his hips, moving his lower body side to side for maximum traction. His fingers gripped the Calloway Big Bertha driver. Its oversized titanium head barely touched the close-cut grass behind the ball. He breathed deeply through his nose to clear his mind of all thoughts. He glanced toward the distant green. His teeth touched as he centered his energy on the swing. “Smooooth,” he whispered to himself. His hands and arms took the club back in an easy motion. His shoulders turned to shift weight to his right side. He kept his left arm as straight as possible, locking the club at its zenith, pointing straight ahead nearly perpendicular to the ground.

At that instant his body jerked backward and both feet left the ground. He had, in fact, been cut almost in half at the waist. Bloody pieces splattered his playing partners, who were behind him and off to the side. Two froze. One sprinted. Later, none could recall seeing anything or hearing anything unusual. Perhaps, one told the police, there might have been a popping sound, like the noise of a beer can being squashed far away.

Christopher Hopman didn't hear that sound or feel the bullet that entered the left side of his body to explode his upper chest and most of his back. He died instantly, torso flung backward and sideways, as if a very large, strong person had smacked him with two hands at once, on both shoulders. His lower body seemed to have died a death of its own, the pelvis and legs impossibly twisted, one foot turned into the ground, the other toward the fairway. Hopman's ball still rested on its tee, now impertinently bright in a darkening scarlet sea. Moments later, the silky whisper of a car engine could have been heard from beyond the fence and the oak trees, in the distance, beyond the green.

St. John

A subtle haze had
settled into the air by late afternoon. The visitors hired a car and driver at the Westin. Tom handed the driver Billy's bar napkin. He suspected it wasn't necessary, but had no way of knowing. It is a small island, he'd reminded the others as they waited in the lobby, suited up again after hours of being shoeless and tieless, on phones, in chilly, air-conditioned rooms, unable and unwilling to surrender themselves to the view of the ocean calling them beyond the window across the balcony of their suite. A trio of strange men in three-thousand-dollar suits and three-hundred-dollar sunglasses ordering up a car and driver couldn't be much of a mystery here, not after walking in and out of Billy's Bar, not after chatting up Walter Sherman—not after most of the day had passed since then. The way the driver glanced at the napkin showed Tom that he knew where Walter lived. When Wesley repeated the street and the number, the driver said “Thank you” tonelessly, without a hint of interest.

They drove out of Cruz Bay on the road leading to the beaches, up into the hills, and then made three turns, only the last of which was marked. Tom reckoned that a careful driver would have needed about twenty minutes for the trip. A driver who didn't know where he was going would take at least forever. This tropical automaton delivered his fare in twelve minutes flat, maneuvering impassively, maniacally, all the way. Wesley took the turns and lurches with rigid stoicism.

It never occurred to Tom to complain. He used calculations and observations to distract himself. He noted that the houses on that part of St. John were built below an often steep road tucked into the side of a mountain. Most properties must have had sharply descending driveways because Tom saw bits of roof from the road, but hardly any houses. The road afforded a view of the sea, St. Thomas, and several much smaller islands. As the car slowed for the first time, Tom was surprised to find himself wondering whether, on a perfectly clear day, he might see all the way to St. Croix. It would not have pleased him to know he was looking in the wrong direction.

The taxi rolled up to a massive wrought-iron gate. The driver lowered his window slowly and pushed the single unmarked button on a pole next to the mailbox. The gate swung open. They drove down a narrow driveway winding to a concrete pad barely large enough to let the car turn around.

The house looked very tropical and, Tom thought, more-or-less Asian. The grounds were landscaped with crushed rock and brightly- colored flowers, which he liked. A vaguely Japanese fountain gushed into a gutter that ran under wide wooden steps leading to large double doors made of dark, heavy wood. White shuttered windows faced the driveway. Maloney got out of the car first. The other two followed. “Wait here,” Maloney said to the driver, who certainly did not need to be told.

A sturdily built, sharp-boned black woman answered the door in
a dark blue dress hanging down to her toes. Her age made her look hunched over, although she was not. The phrase “Wicked Witch of the West” danced stupidly through Tom's mind.

“Follow, please,” she said slowly and very softly, in the familiar Caribbean rhythm. “Mr. Sherman's expecting you. He's out on the patio. If you will follow me, please.” They walked behind her from the small, wood-paneled foyer into a room that must have been forty feet long and nearly that wide, with dark hardwood floors and a vaulted ceiling upwards of twenty feet high. There was a small stone fireplace on the left and an open kitchen with a long, massive island counter on the right. Above the kitchen counter, copper-colored pots and pans and gleaming utensils dangled from a bright silver grid.

Set into the wall next to the kitchen, Tom spotted the highest and widest TV screen he had ever seen. “Radio Goddamn City,” he heard himself thinking. Near the fireplace, a long, polished dinner table stood surrounded by eight matching chairs. Four fat, leather easy-chairs congregated haphazardly around a big glass coffee table in the middle of the room. Beside each of these chairs stood a stainless steel lamp plugged into an outlet set in the floor. Twin brass and glass chandeliers hung from the ceiling at the same level as four rattan fans. All the fans rotated slowly, silently, seemingly in synch. The far wall, opening out to the sea, was entirely glass and extended the full length of the vaulted roofline. Above three double sliding doors the glass was fitted with wooden blinds. The view was westerly, the sun high in the afternoon sky. The room—and Maloney was far from sure that such a space could even be called just a room—was awash, aglow, with soon-to-ripen yellow sunlight.

A deck patio made of pale, shiny wood, perhaps fifteen feet deep, ran the whole length of the house. Part of it was covered by a roof. A round black-marble table with six bamboo chairs occupied that protected space. A fan and lamp descended from a chain above it. A covered hot tub and high-tech grill kept each other company at the other end of the porch. Tom's wide eyes lingered there. Stepping outside, he imagined himself at ease, with the first or second of his wives laughing beside him—at his comical apron, or at the cautious way he turned a crimson lobster on the grill. That's what he wanted to worry about; how to turn the lobster on the grill.

The old woman had shown them to where Walter waited. He rose from one of the bamboo chairs with a fixed, businesslike smile. He suggested they take off their jackets, roll up their sleeves, and loosen their ties. “Dress comfortably,” Walter had said, and left to his own devices Tom would have. Now, he lost no time. The other two followed reluctantly, as though the suits were slyly fashioned Italian armor.

The house perched near the top of the mountain looked down and out to a glittering vastness. Scattered clouds drifted across St. Thomas, a speck in the world but a continent next to its tiny brother; on St. John they called their larger neighbor “the rock.” Sunlight filtered downward, like pillars plunging toward the sea, and fragmented beams of dusty sunlight bounced back up off the dark water to throw mysterious shadow patterns onto the small hilly islands to the right, where no one lived. Walter watched them absorb it, jackets in hand, motionless for a moment.

“Tom, will you introduce your friends?”

Tom took his sunglasses off and put them in his shirt pocket. “Walter Sherman, I'd like you to meet Nathan Stein and Wesley Pitts.” The formality startled Walter; these two might be Tom's parents, and Walter his brand new girl. Nathan Stein was a small man, five feet six inches, lean and fit, already sweating profusely under his arms, agitated, eager to commence whatever business had brought him to this place. Walter made him a starving rat of a man, all purpose and fury, a fortune builder. He'd seen this kind before. Walter knew a man like this in the war, an admiral's son who hated his father, a talented liar and full-time taker. He wound up drafted and partied with colonels who knew what he could do for them in the real world. A promoter, Walter called him then, shorter even than this one, a wolverine in shrimp's clothing. Nathan Stein was the boss, and Walter did not like him.

Pitts was a big man: six-three, 260 pounds at least. He once ran the forty in four and a half seconds. Some time ago. Now he must be thirty-eight or -nine. For a moment that astonished Walter. And it hurt him that he'd not spotted Wes in Billy's. He soothed his pain with the rationalization that the man was at least twenty-five pounds over his playing weight, and his red-brown face had gone from long and dangerous to cheerful and round as a plate. He carried a large black attaché case as if it were a cracker-jack box with a handle.

“Mr. Pitts, I'm sure you are recognized more often than not,” Walter said. “It was always a pleasure to watch you. I've long considered tight end an underappreciated position, and especially the way you played it.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Sherman. It's always nice to be remembered, and please call me Wes.” Pitts kept a bright smile alive at the center of his moonlike face. He projected an earnest manner and shook hands firmly, but with care. He had what Walter knew must be widely celebrated as a winning personality, no particle of which did Walter suppose to be authentic. Wes let go of Walter's hand. “That's some gate you've got there. Security?”

“Keeps the goats out,” Walter told him. “The island's full of them. Cows too. The damn goats ate my flowers so I had to put up the gate.”

They sat at the marble table: Walter, Nathan, Maloney, Wes. Comfortable and shaded. Wes set his case under the table. The old woman had brought cold drinks and food on a square silver platter. Walter nodded appreciatively at the artfully arranged meat, cheese, fruit, and crackers. “Mr. Stein,” he said, “what can I do for you?”

“I need to find somebody.”

“Yes, I see. Who?”

“I'm not sure. How the hell am I supposed to know?” Stein turned angrily, awkwardly on Tom, jabbing a finger toward Walter, barking like a Chihuahua, “Goddamnit, Tom. That's supposed to be his end.”

Tom leaned forward to settle a gentle hand on Stein's child-size shoulder. It seemed a practiced gesture. Walter took it to fall within the job description. Wesley plainly regarded it as routine. Tom kept his hand in place as he spoke. “What Nathan means to say is that we need to find someone and we're not absolutely sure of his identity. We need to find out who he is. Then we need to find him, and then come to a resolution of our problem. We've got a problem here, Mr. Sherman, and we're all a bit stressed. Given your experience with difficult matters I'm sure you'll agree that that is normal enough.”

“The stress I can see,” said Walter sternly, “but I know nothing about your situation. I can't agree or disagree until I know what you're talking about. Why don't you describe your problem.”

“He's trying to fucking kill us!” yelled Stein in a voice like troubled gears, his mouth a ragged thing beneath his sharp, vein-crossed nose. “Is that enough of a fucking problem?”

If it was a performance, it was a good one. Walter was inclined to think otherwise, to believe that the little sac of testosterone was genuinely off-stride. Walter let his eyebrows jump and cocked his head to show interest. Then he tried an ironic note, mimicking discovery. “And you're not sure who this person is? Have I got that right, Mr. Stein?” A muttering sneer came back.

“You got it,” said Pitts unexpectedly, from another county, mouth full of ham and cracker. “But he damn sure knows who we are and the murderous cocksucker's already—”

Tom cut him short with a twitch of his head, then said, “Maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves, maybe just a little.”

At least twenty painfully prolonged seconds followed. Nathan Stein turned peevishly toward the water, wrestling no doubt with whatever tiny demons labored to unglue him. Wesley Pitts nodded aimlessly, removed his glasses, wiped his eyes with the backs of his powerful hands, and backpedaled to his appropriate place in the order of things. Walter felt for Tom. As point man he was supposed to keep things together, especially at moments like this. Now, he needed help. Walter reached for a chunk of apple. He chewed it, released a sigh, and applied a mild, mournful tone to his next observation. “Guys,” he said, “This doesn't really sound like my kind of work.”