FrostLine

by Justin Scott

“Sounds to me like you spread your knees and took it.” Ira Roth had blamed an upbringing overly influenced by Aunt Connie’s “Puritan claptrap.” I didn’t expect either high-flyer to understand the relief it had been to admit the crime. To myself. And do the time. For myself.

  “Paid in full, Henry. No debts. No guilt. Nothing to hide.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you can’t find anything to use against me. Clean slate.”

  “Your ‘purity’ gives you rights to hassle me?”

  “I’m not threatening to rat you out. I’m only reminding you that you’ll stand better with your clients by helping Mr. Butler avoid a trial.”

  “That’s not a threat?”

  “You want a threat? Here’s a threat, you arrogant son of a bitch: find some other way to steal Mr. Butler’s farm.”

  “Henry!” called his wife. “It’s burning.”

  “Oh, shit! Now look what you made me do.”

  Jenkins rushed forward. I relieved him of the spray bottle and doused the flames, gently so as not to scatter ashes on the meat.

  I cooled off, myself, in the process. King, too, seemed willing to back down a little and Gentleman Henry expressed delight, examining the spray bottle as if MIT had a patent pending. “That’s fantastic.”

  Welcome to the country.

  Jenkins stepped in to grill the vegetables—a skill even the most rabid outdoor cook will concede. King and I retreated to the wet bar, where he washed his hands and scrubbed his fingernails with a brush, while I dabbed my face with a wet paper towel.

  “So I’m an arrogant son of a bitch?”

  “I apologize. That was no way to talk to my host.”

  “And you probably think I’m vulgar, too. And crude. And my house is ostentatious.”

  “Actually, I kind of like your house.”

  “Of course you’d never ‘insult your host.’ But you think it. I know that. All you people think it. All you people who don’t know how great it feels. I remember President Nixon used to keep fires burning in the White House fireplaces all summer long with the air conditioning blasting, the President standing in front of the fire rubbing his hands, saying, ‘They laugh at me because I burn the fireplaces. They don’t know how great it is to wake up to all this stuff and say to yourself, I did it, Mister. I made it. I earned it. I came out of shit and look what I got.’ It was a great lesson, Ben. I used to be embarrassed about coming from trash. Took voice lessons so I’d sound like you or some English lord. Even hired over-the-hill socialites to teach me table manners. Waste of money. Nixon was right. I like being vulgar.”

  He made it sound like fun.

  We ate under the sky while Venus rose, warm and buttery as the veal, which Jenkins, in his wisdom, had marinaded so thoroughly that even strong men bonding couldn’t dry it out.

  ***

  “Julia,” King said suddenly. She was listening to Josh and didn’t hear. “Julia! Front and center!”

  “Yes, Henry?”

  “Ben’s asking me something really odd.”

  Ben again, no longer Abbott, a good sign that our truce was holding. Still, Julia glanced at me warily. As did Josh Wiggens, who had been watching me with an expression I had seen occasionally in my own mirror. Could he be in love with Julia—obsessed with her—and wondering if I was competition? I looked over at King. If the musical beds were that complicated, one had to sympathize with Fox Trot’s chambermaids.

  King was saying to Julia, “He wants me to pay for that crazy old farmer’s defense. What do you think?”

  “It might be a way to put a stop to all this.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Well, yes. I mean—”

  King shook his head. “Christ, Julia, there are times I wonder about your judgment.”

  She faced him bravely, betrayed by a little catch in her voice. “It’s not a bad idea, Henry. Provided Ben can talk sense into him and get him to agree to lay off and stop bothering us.”

  Wills added, “Sounds good to me, Henry,” and Mrs. King nodded vigorous agreement.

  “Can you do that, Ben? Get him to stop bothering me?”

  “I would be delighted to try.”

  “We would want that lease cleared up at the same time,” King said.

  “What do you mean cleared up?”

  “Canceled,” snapped Josh Wiggens.

  King looked at Julia, demanding her response. She looked down at her plate, then up, her face hardening. “In exchange for paying his lawyers.”

  “That’s my girl. What do you think of that, Ben? I’ll buy him the best lawyers money can buy.”

  I looked at Mrs. King, and guessed by her expression that she thought King’s offer was as skeezy as I did. She glanced sidelong at Bert Wills. The diplomat dropped a hand to his side, but failed to produce any lockjaw laughs.

  “That won’t work,” I told King.

  “Why not? It’s a clear choice. Rot in jail or give me back my land.”

  “He won’t see it that way. You’ll both be right back where you started.”

  “Final offer, Ben.” He was joined in his cold expression by Josh Wiggens.

  I found it easy to be cold, too. Nothing they were offering would save Mr. Butler’s sanity. “You’ll have to do much better.”

  “I don’t have to do anything,” King reminded me. “You’re the one asking favors.”

  Mrs. King shot an uncharacteristically demanding look at Bert Wills, who screwed up his courage to say, “It’s possible, Henry, that Ben is bearing favors as well. It would be excellent to put all this behind us.”

  “Do not surrender!” said Josh Wiggens. “Butler’s a menace. Bail will only encourage him.”

  “He was born on that land,” I said.

  “That doesn’t give him the right to torment Henry King.”

  That pretty much ended all conversation. We got through salad and cheese. I passed on coffee and thanked Mrs. King for a splendid cookout. Julia Devlin said, “I’ll walk you out.”

  And once alone in the foyer, she said, “Do you mind me asking why you’re so involved with Mr. Butler?”

  “You two got me into this last March. I know he’s difficult, but he’s been abused all along. And right now, I’m trying to keep a foolish promise that I’d keep him out of jail.”

  “How’s he paying you?”

  “I told you, he’s not. Which is all right for a while. But if the charges go to trial, it’s going to be more than Tim Hall can handle for free. So we really need help. And like I said in there, the act of Henry King supporting Butler would probably make the state’s attorney lean on the state police to drop it.”

  “Sounds awfully cozy.”

  “Locally cozy, as opposed to nationally cozy.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that just as your people leaned on the ME to quash the thing, we’re trying to convince the state’s attorney that Connecticut’s state troopers have better things to do with their time and money than hound a poor old war vet who just wants to be let alone on his farm.”

  “Henry wants that farm.”

  “I already warned ‘Henry’ if he wants to steal Mr. Butler’s farm, find some other way to do it.”

  The scariest thing was she didn’t bother denying the implication. All she said was, “He really would relocate Mr. Butler. Find him another farm.”

  “Never happen,” I said. “I’ll pass it on at the right moment, but his grandfather started the place. He’s not going to sell.”

  Julia said, “I feel sorry for Mr. Butler. I’ll do what I can to help.”

  I was surprised. And grateful. Grateful because Henry King really was the key to Butler’s freedom. Surprised, because Julia had offered the first crack I had seen in the monolith that was Henry King Incorporated. (Mrs. King’s opinion didn’t count, while Bert Wills had mustered his tentative resistance only to please her.) />
  “I appreciate your bravery.”

  Julia shrugged off the risk. “Part of my job is to protect Henry from himself. I’ll see what I can do.” She extended her hand and we shook. “Good seeing you, Ben. Sorry it turned to hardball.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “What?”

  “Tell me if I’m way off base, but why do you let him treat you that way?”

  “You are off base,” she said coolly.

  “Consider me stealing second, but you deserve better.”

  She wrapped her arms under her breasts. “Yeah? Why’s that?”

  Now I had really stepped into it. “Okay, no one deserves to be bullied and embarrassed by their boss. How can you defend yourself?”

  “Yeah, well maybe it doesn’t seem like that big a deal to me. Okay?”

  “Okay….Well, thanks for dinner. And for helping.”

  “You’re welcome.” She opened the door and I stepped into the night. “Hey Ben?”

  “What?” I turned. She was struggling to smile. I waited. She stared at the dark behind my shoulder. “What?” I moved toward her. She glanced back into the house and then the words came out in a rush.

  “Hey, maybe I can call you for a beer at the Drover?”

  “Terrific. I mean—I’d like that very much.”

  “Well, okay. So…Okay.”

  “And the guest room is yours anytime.”

  “Yeah, well, thanks, but…You know.”

  “But I have to warn you, DaNang might crawl in with you.”

  “Who is DaNang?”

  “Mr. Butler’s dog.”

  “No problem. I like dogs.”

  I walked to my car, wondering where to rent a dog suit.

  The car was parked in shadow at the edge of the motor court and I saw a shadow leaning on the trunk. Josh Wiggens, swirling the dregs in his glass.

  ***

  “Come on down to the office. Let’s have a drink.”

  I didn’t want a drink. But I did want to hear why he was so vehemently against helping Mr. Butler.

  We walked the lighted path to the old Zarega house, and entered through a side door into a paneled study he had appropriated for his office. It had an eight-line phone, a laptop connected to a high-speed cable modem, and a mini fax-printer. All of which looked like it could be packed up and carried away in about two minutes.

  Even his bar was portable, a neat little affair in a brass-trimmed teak box.

  “You drink bourbon, I believe.”

  Hardly a state secret, but he seemed to want me to know that he knew.

  He was drinking Scotch. He poured generously. “Slange.”

  “Slange-va.” (I had a client once who was trying to buy the Isle of Skye.)

  We took comfortable easy chairs in front of a screened slider, open to the cool bug-song night, and we talked about the weather and Newbury and the prospects of a colorful fall. He said he was happy to be home to New England. Exeter, he explained. And Yale. No surprises there.

  “I understand you were with Naval Intelligence.”

  I gave him my standard answer: “A contradiction of terms.”

  He’d heard it before and didn’t waste a smile. “Did you know the Captain?”

  “Dozens. We had them climbing out of the bilges.”

  “This one became an admiral.”

  “Reagan’s six-hundred-ship navy made a lot of admirals. Most of them are on the beach now.”

  “Not this one.”

  “Did you know Aldrich Ames?” I asked.

  Wiggens nodded. And gave me his standard answers when I asked, “Was he as bad as they say?”

  “Worse.”

  “Was the damage that bad?”

  “Worse than Hanson.”

  “Are you retired?”

  “Spit out,” he answered bitterly, drinking deep and rising to fill his glass. I watched his hand shake and thought how two of the easier covers to affect are bitterness and drunkenness.

  “But you landed on your feet.”

  “‘Chief’ of security for Henry King Incorporated?” he retorted gloomily.

  “I don’t get the impression that King is any less powerful than he was when he was official.”

  “It’s Henry’s power, not mine. I’m just a hired hand.”

  Yes, but after the explosion, he’d had a gun in his belt and federal agents calling him Sir.

  I said, “If Henry is doing what I think he is doing, you’re in the thick of major events.”

  “Like what?”

  “That ceramic engine deal sounds bigtime.”

  Wiggens shrugged, noncommittally. A slant of wind bore chilly night air down the hill. He went to a bedroom and reappeared shrugging into a blue cashmere cardigan someone had matched to his eyes. “You want a sweater?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Blood’s thin. Too many years in the tropics.”

  I said, “Because King’s ‘enterprises,’ shall we say, are bigtime, it would be simple to put an end to all this misery by helping Mr. Butler. The man’s had a hard life—served his country. Do you know, he was wounded three times in Vietnam?”

  If Henry King displayed the arrogance of power, Josh projected a mafioso’s insolence, the haughty arrogance of a man prepared to do violence. Here it came on a smile that gleamed like a knife: “He’s not the only man who went to war, Ben. Not the only man to serve his country.”

  I felt my temper rise. The warrior class—better at starting wars than finishing them. Volunteer game-players who enjoyed privileges, and choices, not shared by the infantry.

  “I don’t mean to question your accomplishments, Josh. Or your bravery and patriotism. But if you suffered, then you know what he’s been through. And if you didn’t suffer, maybe you got close enough to guess.”

  “Been there, done that, Ben. Which is more than I can say for your record.”

  “I’m not going to apologize because my generation missed out on Vietnam.”

  “What’s your excuse for missing the party in Afghanistan?”

  “I don’t recall an invitation to the ‘party’ in Afghanistan. And I can’t say that looking at what’s left of it speaks highly for the crashers.”

  “We destroyed the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.”

  “You bankrolled heroin networks, misplaced ten thousand Stinger missiles, and set up Al Qaeda’s romper room.”

  “Ben, I’m going to give you some advice.” Suddenly I was facing a very sober man.

  “What’s that, Josh?”

  “Stay out of it.”

  I waited.

  That was it. An icy threat—if it was a threat at all.

  Ordinarily, I counterpunched threats. But Josh Wiggens had left me nothing to punch. He smiled. He knew it and I knew it.

  I was particularly impressed by what he didn’t say. He didn’t say what would happen to me or who would do it. He didn’t claim to command Company killers or government agents. He didn’t remind me that my elderly aunt lived alone in a big house. Or that Alison rode her bike blithely home from horseback riding lessons. He left it all to my imagination.

  I was still sitting there wondering how the hell to impress him back when he revealed the chink in his armor that I had noticed earlier.

  “And stay away from Julia.”

  “Or what?”

  “Good night, Ben.”

  He smiled again. Still cool, but not totally invulnerable.

  I said, “You’re really hung up on her, aren’t you?”

  His eyes flashed and for a second I thought he was going to stand up swinging. I said, “I know the feeling. Been there, bought the tee shirt.”

  “Good night,” he repeated, fully recovered and cold as steel.

  Not a bad night’s work, so far, I thought, as I headed down the driveway: I had Julia’s pledge to try to persuade Henry King to help free Mr. Butler; some new insights into the dynamics of t
he Fox Trot household; and a vague feeling I’d overestimated the King’s ceramic engine dealings. But I still didn’t know why Josh Wiggens was so against Mr. Butler. Nor what made him feel so vulnerable that he had to threaten me.

  The gatehouse was dark. Motion detectors turned on the floodlights and the gate opened to let me out. I drove a quarter mile, parked in a cow-bar indent in the stone wall, and let the air out of my left rear tire. Then I sprayed my socks and cuffs with off!, took a cap from the trunk, and work gloves, which I wore to spread the strands of Fox Trot’s electric deer fence.

  ***

  When my eyes were used to the starlight, I skirted the gatehouse, climbed the meadow, and joined the driveway where it entered the woods. When I saw the faint gleam of the road spikes, I swung into the woods again and emerged uphill from them.

  A few lights still shone in the main house. Upstairs windows, mostly. The Zarega house was dark. I took a chance that the floodlights were not set to motion detectors, as the place would look like Times Square every time a raccoon strolled by, and headed toward dimly lit French doors.

  They opened on the library. Henry King was sitting alone at a table, hunched over a book like a peasant eating porridge.

  Over in the east wing, an array of windows suddenly went dark. Master bedroom suite: Mrs. King had just turned out her lights. Overhead a single window went dark. Julia, possibly. Or maybe Bert Wills, though I thought his former eminence deserved a larger guest room.

  I was standing outside the pool of light cast by the remaining windows, secure in the darkness behind me, when a telephone rang. King jumped up from his book and answered it. I glided closer, across a terrace and along the wall. I could hear his phony English accent had gotten stronger and guessed he was talking to a Brit. He didn’t sound pleased. Nor did he sound in control of the situation.

  I heard a noise behind me. Further down the terrace, a dark door opened. I pressed into the shadows. A figure in flowing white floated across the flagstones, onto the lawn and faded, silent and ghostly, toward the sunken garden.

  King hung up abruptly. I heard glass clink and when I stole a look, I saw him pouring brandy into a snifter beside his book. He took a deep slug and sat heavily. I backed into the shadows and off the terrace onto the lawn, where I angled toward the far side of the sunken garden.