Winner Take All

by T. Davis Bunn

  “He wouldn’t come in here,” Kirsten said from behind him. “Wouldn’t even look. He just gave me the keys and stumbled off to bed.”

  Marcus cut off the light and shut the door. “Why does this make you so sad?”

  She continued to stare at the closed door. “Is it possible to love too much?”

  “No. I don’t think—”

  “What about the pain? What about all the worries and all the things you can’t keep shut up inside anymore?”

  The questions were too important to be discussed in the middle of an ash-soaked stranger’s home. Marcus draped his arm around her shoulders and steered her back down the stairs.

  “What if loving this much only gives the world a way to crush you again?”

  “Again?” He opened the central French doors and led her out into the night. The gravel path was bordered by ankle-high lamps, such that their way was clear yet the starlight remained undiminished. “Who hurt you the first time?”

  There was no mistaking the panic in her voice. “Answer my question, Marcus.”

  He guided her out onto the dock. He tried to pitch his voice so that it mirrored the water’s calm lapping. “We need to learn to trust one another, to have confidence that such a hurt won’t ever come. And if it does, then it will be from some outside source, and we will face it together.”

  At the boat’s side she finally balked. “That’s not good enough.”

  “Kirsten, we’re arguing over a future that hopefully won’t ever come. It’s been an exhausting day. In the morning these things will—”

  “What if I can’t learn to trust you?”

  Muted light glimmered off her overwide eyes. “What are you saying?”

  “What if I shouldn’t be here?”

  “Kirsten, I believe with all my heart that you are heaven’s gift.”

  His words only pushed her farther back down the pier. “Then you’re not seeing who I truly am.”

  “So show me.”

  The path’s light seemed too much for her, as she canted away from the illumination and angled off into the grass. “What if I can’t?”

  “I will work to earn your trust.” When she only fled more swiftly, he called, “Years, if need be.”

  Marcus heard her slam the car door. Gravel scattered like shotgun pellets as she rounded the drive and headed away. He stepped into the boat, burdened by the weariness of just another defeat at the hands of someone he loved.

  CHAPTER

  ———

  11

  THE NIGHT REFUSED TO DEPART of its own accord. Around four Marcus dressed and went out to chase it away. He stretched long and slow, the sea breeze faint as a sleeping woman’s breath, the air so warm he left his sweatshirt on the poolside table as he started his run.

  The plank bridge thunked a series of musical wooden notes beneath his tread. He followed the road along the water’s edge but saw nothing save huge stone gates and more floodlit manors. Streetlights cast the willows and sea oaks in malarial tints. Beyond them, where the road turned inland and the houses became less imposing, broad rises of magnolia and elm formed inkstains upon a starlit sky. For a time Marcus was able to outrun even his thoughts. There was a singular purity to a predawn run. Every promise still held the potential of fulfillment. Even now.

  Back at the yacht, he took the narrow stairs down into an opulent central cabin. He called both Kirsten’s apartment and her cell phone, but received no answer. Then a thought occurred to him. Marcus dialed the number for Deacon’s home, reflecting that perhaps a shred of joy could be found for someone who needed it almost as much as he did.

  Afterward he showered and made coffee in the yacht’s overequipped galley. On the upper deck he was greeted by a soft world quilted together by mist and gray light. From this angle the morning fog appeared as the water’s uppermost layer. Marsh islands hung suspended in both time and space. Overhead a jet painted a long finger-trail aimed straight toward dawn’s rising tide. Across a narrow channel rose Masonboro Island, its high-backed hills the result of dredging the Intracoastal free of silt. The dunes glowed sable and expectant, while overhead gulls sang a sea-born chantey.

  Marcus sat there long after his coffee had grown stone cold, until the sun split the horizon into an eruption above and heat below. Whenever possible, he had refused divorce and custody cases. There in the dawn’s light he recalled one particular instance when the work could not be avoided. A longtime client had discovered his wife with not one outside lover, but six. The man had been utterly devastated. Time after time he had asked Marcus how it was possible to live with someone for seventeen years and not know them at all.

  Gradually the July sun began searing his skin. But there was a clarity to this position, a pressure to see everything with morning’s purity. Kirsten was the most irritatingly secretive woman he had ever met. She held a huge portion of herself clenched impossibly tight. He would like it otherwise. He desperately wanted her to share all with him, even though he was certain her secret would prove to be appalling.

  Here in this gift of quiet Sabbath space, he asked himself the carefully avoided question. What if she refused? Marcus set his cup aside. It was not like he needed a lot of time to think this through. The morning’s importance had lain with confronting the issue. The answer was immediate.

  Whatever she chose to give him would be enough. Half of Kirsten’s heart was a thousand times more than he had ever expected, or deserved.

  He walked across the gangplank and took the gravel path toward the house. Finally he had an answer for that long-ago client. You lived with someone and never knew them fully because the alternative was unthinkable.

  When he crossed the rear patio, Marcus found two men in Dale’s kitchen alcove. Dale Steadman had recovered from the previous day’s binge with well-practiced speed. An older man stood like a wraith beside him, holding himself with the fragility of one guarding eggshells.

  Marcus stepped through the doorway and announced, “We need to talk.”

  “I hope it is to tell this gentleman that you cannot in any way be associated with this case.” The stranger had a patrician’s nose and the highbrow British accent to match. “A more atrocious set of circumstances I could not possibly imagine than to have this be dragged into open court.”

  Dale offered Marcus a half-full pot. “Like a cup?”

  “Black.”

  “Marcus Glenwood, Kedrick Lloyd. Kedrick happens to be the eighth earl of Tisbury, and my oldest friend. He introduced me to Erin.” He handed Marcus a mug. “Then told me I was a fool to marry her.”

  “Which you most certainly were.”

  “No argument there.” He bent down and retrieved a bottle of cognac from beneath the sink. “Anybody else feel like a spike?”

  Marcus said, “Don’t.”

  “You telling me what to do in my own house?”

  “If you want me to take the case, I am.”

  “Gentlemen, really,” Kedrick Lloyd protested. “Neither of you can possibly be serious.”

  Marcus walked around the central station and took the bottle from Steadman. He dropped it into the gleaming waste can. “These are my terms. You are going to be in court every single day this case requires. We have to do everything possible to counteract the impression Erin’s attorney is painting.”

  “You’re going for it?”

  “I’m not finished. You lay off the sauce and you join a local AA.” Marcus made every word a challenge, half hoping the man would refuse. “You must prove to Judge Sears that the claims against you are false and malicious. And by taking the time to appear you demonstrate a greater commitment to your child than Erin Brandt.”

  “This is preposterous!” The hand that rose to wipe Kedrick’s mouth was pale as a linen shroud. “It has obviously escaped your local boy here that international custody cases are notoriously difficult.”

  Marcus asked, “Are you an attorney?”

  “Kedrick is a patron of the arts,” Dale replied. “He is
vice chairman of the board of the New York Metropolitan Opera. Which makes him an expert on everything. If you don’t believe me, just ask him.”

  “I know the ways of the world, unlike your hired gun!” He had still not glanced Marcus’ way. “Dale, listen to what I’m saying. Even if you win here, you will lose. Believe me. I have friends who have been tied up in such cases for years. It will rob you of your life.”

  “No chance,” Dale replied. “That’s already been taken from me.”

  “Hopeless,” Kedrick muttered, starting from the kitchen. “Senseless, preposterous, hopeless. You realize, of course, he will milk you for every cent you have, then vanish.”

  “Just a minute, please,” Marcus said. “I need witnesses who will testify on Mr. Steadman’s behalf. Could I ask you to appear Tuesday in—”

  Kedrick did not even turn around. “I will not grace this obvious act of prostitution with a single further instant of my time. Good day to you both.”

  When they were alone, Dale said, “Kedrick is dying. Leukemia. He’s down here to sell a couple of hotels and start some last-ditch treatment over at Duke.” His voice held the hesitancy of one fearful of hope. “You’re serious about taking me on?”

  “I meant what I said. You’re going to have blood tests on a regular basis. The first time you show anything stronger than aspirin in your system, you get yourself another lawyer.”

  “Yes. All right. Agreed.”

  “Let’s go back to a point I tried to make yesterday. On Friday your wife’s lawyer came up with a fire chief and the former head of the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce.”

  “Let me guess. The fire chief said I was blind drunk and the businessman suggested I be burned at the stake.”

  “Pretty much. Then yesterday I met with a local judge by the name of Garland Perry who basically agreed with them.”

  “No surprise there. There’s all sorts of levels to a society like this one.” He took a hit from his mug, then shook his head over the absence of what he sought. “Once you’ve been cast to a role by the old guard, they grow testy if you head in a different direction.”

  “You’re telling me none of what these people said about you is true?”

  “I never had a chance of acceptance in this town. I was too ambitious, too tough, too full of newfangled ideas about workers’ comp and such. Then I brought home this foreign lady I met in New York. Man, I was history.”

  “Come Tuesday morning, I’ll refute their testimony with evidence to the contrary. Either that, or any chance we have goes right out the window.”

  Dale’s hands were too big and too busy to be contained upon the counter. They sent him traipsing around the kitchen, scattering little touches here and there. “I’ll try to come up with some folks who’ll speak on my behalf.”

  “Your British friend is right, by the way. This case has virtually no chance of succeeding.”

  “Then why are you helping me?”

  To that Marcus had no definable answer. “You mind if I borrow your boat for a while? I’ve got some friends who should be arriving after lunch.”

  Early that afternoon, Fay Wilbur’s car rattled across the plank bridge and pulled up in front of Dale’s waterside palace. Deacon rose from the car, gave the house a single astonished glance, then hustled around to unload the wheelchair from the trunk. A face like a shriveled gourd protruded from the driver’s window and shrilled up at him, “Marcus Glenwood! You ought to hang your head in shame!”

  “Hello, Fay.”

  “Don’t you sass me! My man’s supposed to be preaching at the revival tonight! He’s got hisself people wanting to hear about the Lord, and you’re taking him off sinnin’!”

  “We couldn’t do it without him, Fay. He’s the only one who knows where the fish are.”

  “Don’t you go blowing any smoke my way! This here’s nothing but a wrongness in the making!” An arm straight and angular as a dried tree root took aim at the man settling into the wheelchair. “And shame on you, Charlie Hayes, shame! With the Angel of Death hovering ’round, you oughta be busy getting your house in order!”

  “Seeing you always makes my day complete, Fay,” Charlie Hayes assured her.

  “I ain’t taking none of your smoke neither! Anybody close as you are to meeting your maker oughta be a little busier with the things of heaven, sir!” She waited until Deacon pushed the wheelchair farther down the drive, then lowered her tone somewhat. “Marcus honey, come over here a second.”

  When he approached the car window, a knobby hand caught him in a rough-palmed vise. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am for that other day. I had no call speaking to your lady friend like I did.”

  “Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t.”

  “Well now.” Dark eyes penetrated deep enough to see he did not care to discuss that further. “I heard what you and that sheriff fellow did for my grandson.”

  “Amos is a good man.”

  “I just want to thank you both.” The hand gripped tighter. “You’re family, you hear what I’m saying? Near as any of my other kin.”

  She rammed the car into gear and sprayed seashells into the sun-polished air. Deacon walked over, revealing an ability to appear dignified even in tattered khakis and a sweat-stained cap. “Fay felt a singular need to deliver her message personally.”

  The stick figure in the wheelchair complained, “It’s not polite to keep a dying man waiting.”

  Marcus hefted a load of gear and pointed with his chin. “The boat’s around back.”

  “Worse than ill mannered, it’s downright risky. I might croak and load you down with guilt you can’t do a thing about.”

  Deacon settled the cooler into Charlie’s lap, then gripped the chair handles. “Come on now. Be nice.”

  “Can’t.” Charlie Hayes was a retired federal appellate judge and Marcus’ oldest friend. He was also two weeks away from his second round of chemo. “They’re about to load me up with more of that venom in a bag. All you got to do is look in the doctor’s eyes to know this chemo business is nothing but a painful waste of time.”

  Deacon complained to Marcus, “He’s been like this for weeks now. Every other word out of that mouth is about dying.”

  Charlie demanded, “Is your intention to let me and the fish both perish of old age?”

  Deacon gripped the handles of Charlie’s chair and pushed it over the uneven surface. As they rounded the house, Dale Steadman appeared on his back patio. Marcus offered, “You’re welcome to join us.”

  The man returned to his home without another word.

  Marcus shrugged to his friends and said simply, “Client.”

  Charlie cast a jaundiced eye about the home’s smoke-scarred southern half. “Looks like we got us a good tale in the making.”

  The thirty-seven-foot cruiser drew murmurs of astonishment from both men. Marcus helped Charlie over the transom and into the white-leather starboard seat. The twin diesels rumbled soft as well-spent money as he cast off fore and aft. Marcus reversed down the slip and into the waterway, then turned north, standing tall and shirtless on the open bridge, for all the world just another rich playboy doing his summer thing. He accepted a cap from Deacon, lathered sunscreen on his shoulders, and pretended that his heart was not lurching to the absence of a lilac gaze.

  The boat remained silent for quite a time, as the three men set some space between them and all they had left behind. Deacon’s face was a dark working of stone and deep-running emotions. Charlie watched the waters with the slow-blinking care of one who took everything in aged caution.

  When they departed the crowded Sunday thoroughfare and began threading their way through marsh islands south of Wrightsville, Charlie asked, “Is this new case of yours as interesting as it looks?”

  “Maybe.” Marcus outlined what he knew of Dale Steadman’s situation.

  When he finished, Deacon hummed a deep note and said, “New Horizons. Hard to feel much sorrow for anybody messed up in that place.”

  The
boat was far too large for a day’s outing on the inland waters, but Marcus wanted the air-conditioned cabin in case Charlie needed a place to lie down and rest. This trip was much more about doing Charlie Hayes a service than about catching fish. Other fishermen in standard bass boats glared angrily, taking him for an outsider with more cash than sense.

  Deacon helped Charlie settle into one of the padded rear seats. He set a can of live bait at his feet and a pole in the holder to his right. He pulled a Coke from the cooler and swept the ice off the can. From his place behind the wheel, Marcus could hear Charlie fussing at the pastor, telling him to stop pampering him so and go thread his own hook. Deacon took no notice of the man’s words, just kept on bustling about until Charlie had greased his face and cast his line and assured Deacon for the fifth time that he did not want a sandwich.

  The Pamlico Sound was a wind-fractured mirror. The marsh islands weaved frantic little dances, singing wind-whispers as waves lapped in cymbal clarity about their edges. Marcus kept the motor down as close to idle as it would go, and weaved through the lily pads and the sawgrass. Deacon pointed out a kingfisher diving from fifty feet, a silver-gray bullet that made hardly a splash upon impact. Marcus crossed a patch of deep water and anchored in close to a larger island where a crop of dead trees rose bleached white as old bones. The scrub pine and wild dogwoods around the southern border offered them an overhang of shade. In the sudden silence a hoopoe chanted a waterborne greeting.

  The boat had only two rear chairs, so Marcus made himself comfortable upon a life preserver on the side railing. He threaded a nightcrawler onto his hook and slung the line overboard. Charlie harrumphed a cough that tore at his gut. Marcus and Deacon exchanged a glance over the old man’s head, then went back to watching their lines. In the distance, crows cawed crossly at the day’s tragic imperfections.

  The shaded waters about their boat were darkest green and utterly still. Which made the eruption even more startling. One moment the loudest sound was the buzzing insects, and the next a fish that looked a full ten feet long shot straight out of the water, rising so high Marcus feared the line was going to catch on the branches. He was so startled he fell off the railing and sprawled on the deck. He heard Charlie’s line zing from the reel and two old men shout with fishermen’s glee.