Treasure of the Blue Whale

by Mayfield, Steven;

Upon reaching the village, Yurievsky discovered dark windows and a closed sign on the door of C. Herbert Judson’s office. He went to the lawyer’s residence next. Mrs. C. Herbert Judson answered the door and tried to accept the envelope.

  “Only Mister Judson,” Yurievsky insisted.

  Mrs. Judson could ordinarily charm a man into pulling out his own teeth if she liked, but quickly sized up Dinkle’s man as a nut no woman could crack. She left him on the front porch and went inside to retrieve her husband. A minute later Mr. Judson emerged from inside the house, his pipe in one hand. He took the envelope and sat on the porch swing, the pipe between his teeth. He began to open the envelope, then hesitated, eyeing Yurievsky.

  “Thanks, Mister Yurievsky, but you don’t need to wait,” he said.

  “I have been instructed to wait for your response,” Yurievsky replied.

  A flash of uncertainty shadowed Mr. Judson’s face. Then, he shrugged and broke the seal on the envelope. Inside, as Yurievsky already knew, was no letter. Instead, the lawyer pulled out a playbill for Ah, Wilderness by Eugene O’Neill. A cast member’s picture had been circled. Printed below the photo was a name: Leslie Carrington. The face in the picture was Everson Dexter’s. There was a handwritten note on the program:

  My home at 7 p.m. Bring the rest—the boy, too.

  Mr. Judson’s pipe remained clenched in his teeth as he examined the playbill. Once finished he stuck his pipe into a pocket.

  “Unlit,” Yurievsky later reported to his employer.

  “Prepare for after-dinner guests tonight,” Dinkle instructed his man when apprised of the town lawyer’s response. “I’ll see them in my study. Set up chairs facing the desk.”

  Yurievsky knew the composition of the guest list without being told: the lawyer, the banker, the midwife, the barkeeper, the old man from the lighthouse, Miss Littleleaf, the boy. The village conspirators had been unmasked, just as Grand Duke Pavlovich and the rest had been found out after murdering the Mad Monk. It’s the way of world, Yurievsky mused. Men in power nearly always prevailed over resistance fighters, because they relied on tactics rather than passions, on preparation rather than instinct. Yurievsky was an instinctive soldier but knew success in battle required more. One must study until you know your enemy’s weaknesses, he thought. He had studied, analyzed, planned. He was ready. Are they?

  Yurievsky doubted it. The townspeople were not warriors, their armor stripped away as soon as the seaward doors to the boathouse were opened to reveal nothing more than a dinosaur egg and a greasy slick on the surface of the water. They were Christians to Dinkle’s lion, lambs to his wolf.

  And I am Dinkle’s lion, Yurievsky thought. I am his wolf.

  Chapter Thirty:

  Our comeuppance

  Dinkle’s letter was received by C. Herbert Judson the Lawyer on the first day of the new term at Tesoro Elementary School. The first bell had already rung and I was in class when the rest of the Ambergrisians re-convened less than an hour after Yurievsky left the Judsons. Rather than the Last Resort, they met at the Mr. Judson’s office.

  “Why didn’t he just call the sheriff?” Mr. Johns fretted after reviewing the ominous invitation to Dinkle’s estate.

  “Because he figgers to kill us, that’s why,” Angus growled. “He’s gonna send tha’ vampire of his o’er here to slash our throats and I say let’s go after them first!”

  “Mister Yurievsky won’t do that,” Fiona asserted. “He’s not a murderer.”

  “Damned if he ain’t,” Angus retorted.

  “Calm down, Angus,” Miss Lizzie interjected. “Fiona’s right. Dinkle isn’t about to have anyone killed. He wants his money, that’s all.”

  She glanced at Mr. Judson as if unconvinced by her own words, her face uncharacteristically drawn and narrow.

  “As far as that goes, I don’t think he expects to get it all. He probably just wants to put a scare into us.”

  “I ain’t goin’ to no damned meetin’ up there,” Angus announced. “He can coome for me if he like…or send his damned Russki. I’ll give ‘em bot’ a taste of boockshot from me McNaughton, I will.”

  That afternoon Miss Lizzie and Mr. Judson waited on the broad walk outside the school, watching for me after last period as students poured into the sort of crisp, sunny day that makes September my favorite month. I was surprised to see them. Miss Lizzie waved and I went to her, trailed by Webb Garwood and the girl who would years later become my wife, Marjory.

  “We need to talk with you, Connor,” Miss Lizzie said, glancing at my friends. “…Privately.”

  “It’s really important,” Mr. Judson said. He glanced at Marjory. “It’s about the newspaper. It’s a paper route issue.” I knew he was trying to puff me up in her eyes, but my future wife was no fool.

  “You should take care of your paper route issue, Connor,” she teased, rolling her eyes. “Webb can walk me home.”

  “Happy to,” Webb added.

  I frowned. Webb’s interest in Marjory’s affections matched my own, and even though he was my best friend, I didn’t trust him.

  “Sounds important, Con,” he said with calculated earnestness. “You should take care of it.”

  I wanted to hit him. It would not be the last time Webb Garwood and I competed for the girl we both loved, but he’d just taken a battle in a war I had yet to win, and we both knew it. I sighed.

  “I have to go with them,” I said to Marjory without looking at her.

  On the way to the cottage I shared with Ma and Alex, Miss Lizzie and Mr. Judson told me about the playbill and its ominous note.

  “What’s going to happen?” I asked, hoping they could provide an answer that would reassure me.

  “I don’t know, Connor,” Miss Lizzie answered. “We’ll find out tonight.”

  “Does Ma know?”

  “Not unless James told her.”

  We reached my home, but Miss Lizzie and Mr. Judson didn’t come in, remaining on the road as I approached the door. I turned to them before entering. Miss Lizzie had pasted on a steadfastly encouraging look, but the angular darkness of Mr. Judson’s face betrayed them. Both were accustomed to putting a veil on their worry, lest the already fretful folks who depended on them become even more rattled. I knew them well, particularly Miss Lizzie, and even a hint of anxiety on their part unnerved me, putting me back under Dinkle’s desk with the old man about to find me—this time with no place to run, no snake-handled letter opener in my hand.

  Inside, I claimed a spot at the kitchen table and immediately set about doing my homework. Across the room, Ma chopped tomatoes by the sink while Alex sat opposite me, working his way through a peanut butter sandwich. Like most boys I viewed my teacher’s after-school assignments in the same way a tycoon views taxes, causing Alex to eye me with unveiled curiosity.

  “What’s the matter with you?” he asked.

  When I didn’t answer, Ma looked over. Alex had merely been curious, but launching into my homework without putting up a fight was apparently like smoke to a fireman for her. She set aside her knife and moved across the room.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, after taking the seat next to me.

  I didn’t dare look at her face, as Ma had been working on her mom’s look. She had yet to actually break me, but I wasn’t sure how much pressure I could take without wilting.

  “Connor, what’s wrong?” she repeated.

  “Nothing,” I lied. “Just fifth grade, Ma. It’s tougher. I don’t want to get behind.” I pressed my pencil harder into a paper fragrant with purple mimeograph ink, the sheet filled with arithmetic problems that I was ill-motivated to complete, since Cyrus Dinkle was about to send me to reform school or kill me outright

  Ma put a hand on mine to stop the movement of my pencil.

  “Connor, did they tell you about Dinkle’s letter?” she asked. When I looked at her with
wide eyes, she went on. “I know about everything,” she said. “James told me.”

  I would love to report that I took this news like one of those stalwart boys who live in the pages of a book, as undaunted as the Artful Dodger, as brave as Mowgli. I wish I could have mustered up a decent backbone, but I had simply run out of sand to bury my head in. All summer I had managed to ignore the consequences of what we had done to Dinkle, efficiently boxing up the unpleasant possibilities and then moving the box from one dark closet in my mind to another. Dinkle’s letter and the foreboding expressions evinced by Miss Lizzie and Mr. Judson had cut the string on the box and thrown open the lid, releasing the prospect that I might soon exchange the mother I’d just regained and the father I was about to acquire for a term in reform school. It was more than I could bear. A knot formed in my throat along with a few tears, followed by a good many more. Before long I was sobbing.

  Ma tried to comfort me and made a decent go of it, her hand gently patting my back as she pulled my head into her bosom and issued soft whispers, her lips touching the top of my head.

  “There, there,” she murmured, “…there, there.”

  I’m not sure how long I went on and don’t enjoy thinking about it. Even then, I knew that the last thing Ma needed was a kid who couldn’t face a little trouble without going to pieces. It was embarrassing, and at first, I thought Alex was embarrassed for me. His face dispassionate, he watched me fall apart for about thirty seconds before quietly slipping away. However, a few minutes later he returned, appearing in the kitchen doorway with a small duffel bag in each hand, his face that of the gritty Naval fighter pilot he would eventually become. He knew nothing about the letter or my part in scamming Dinkle. He simply knew that I was in trouble and was ready to stand with me. He was a good brother.

  “Get your things together,” he said. “We’ll make a run for it.” His face was as serious as an eviction notice, and whenever I now recall it, I’m amused. Ma must have been, too, but she didn’t laugh.

  “Alex,” she began, reaching out to him. He shook his head, his lips forming a thin line.

  “It’s okay, Ma,” he said, his dark eyes dry and somber. “We’ll find someplace safe and then send for you and James.”

  Ma stood and crossed to the doorway. She took the duffels from Alex and set them on the floor, then wrapped him in her arms. I watched, vaguely aware that his words were familiar—undoubtedly taken from a book we’d both read—declarations of loyalty and self-sacrifice that suddenly filled me with false bravado as well. I wiped the tears from my cheeks.

  “No, Alex,” I said. “You’re not leaving. I’ll go alone.”

  This was bluster, although I utterly believed it at the time. That’s the difference between boys and men. A boy can threaten to run away from home because he doesn’t know what lies beyond the hills and there’s someone to grab him by the seat of the pants before he finds out. “A man doesn’t run,” Mr. Judson had once told me as we raced before the wind on his C. Breeze. “The trouble just follows him.” He was partly right. What I’ve since learned is that women are no different. A grown woman doesn’t run either. Certainly, Ma wasn’t about to run from anyone, especially Dinkle.

  “That’s enough,” she said. Ma led Alex to the table, afterward taking a seat facing us. She leaned forward and rested a hand on each of our knees. “No one is running away,” she said, her voice steady. “We’re staying here in Tesoro…All of us. Together.”

  She cupped my chin in one hand.

  “I’m going with you and James tonight,” she said.

  “I’m going too,” Alex blurted, adding, “…Where are we going?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Alex,” I said. “I’ll go alone. No one else needs to get in trouble.”

  Ma shook her head.

  “No, Connor, you’re not going alone. We’re all going…All four of us…James, you, Alex, me. We’re a family now.”

  I continued to protest, but Ma was resolved.

  “That Cyrus Dinkle,” she sniffed. “I’ve been watching that old scoundrel come to church for years, acting like he can do God’s work on Sunday and the Devil’s bidding the rest of the week.”

  She straightened slightly and pointed her chin, as if speaking directly to the former Indian Territories trader.

  “Well, if he tries to harm anyone in my family,” she promised, “I’m here to tell you that he won’t be answering to God. He’ll be answering to me!”

  I stopped arguing. I loved my mother and admired her newly unearthed gumption, but I had been behind a drape in Cyrus Dinkle’s dining room and knew she’d be no match for him.

  “Okay, Ma,” I said. “We’ll all go.”

  “Where are we going?” Alex repeated.

  We explained it to him. Afterward, there was no more talk of Cyrus Dinkle. James came over for dinner, as usual, and around six-thirty, Miss Lizzie knocked on our door. She had a story ready to reasonably free me up for Dinkle’s meeting.

  “The boys haven’t spent a night at my place in weeks, Mary Rose,” she began after Ma invited her in.

  Ma interrupted her. “I know everything, Miss Lizzie,” she said. “I’m going too.”

  Miss Lizzie frowned. “For crying out loud, Connor,” she muttered, shooting a peeved look at me.

  “I didn’t tell her,” I protested. “It was James.”

  Miss Lizzie then put James in her crosshairs and seemed about to give him the what-for when she hesitated, a flash of uncertainty clouding her features for the second time that day. She was the least uncertain person one could imagine and her unease filled me with dread, weighing me down as if the dinner I’d just eaten was comprised of raw bread dough and lard. Once again I relived those few endless minutes beneath Cyrus Dinkle’s desk. Ma interrupted the nightmarish memory.

  “I want to go, too, Miss Lizzie,” she repeated. “I have to go.”

  Miss Lizzie studied my mother for a moment and then lowered eyes, searching the floor. “You want to go,” she echoed. She lifted her gaze, almost imperceptibly sighing. “Mary Rose, are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s a bad idea,” Ma responded, “but I’m still going. Alex too.”

  I expected Miss Lizzie to fire off a list of reasons for Ma and Alex to stay home. She didn’t.

  “All right,” she said, afterward leading us out to her Model T where Fiona waited in the front seat. James, Ma, Alex, and I crowded into the back and we headed off, bouncing down the uneven road to the Dinkle estate.

  As we passed Fremont Park, James took Ma’s hand, then winked at me as if we were heading to the beach for a swim or a picnic.

  “Everything will be fine,” he said. He seemed to believe it, as did Ma. Even outside the safety of our kitchen her backbone remained stiff, her cheeks rosy. She was blissfully unafraid. Alex, too. Not me. I was scared, and for the first part of our trip, I thought Miss Lizzie and Fiona were scared as well. Usually talkative, they were silent, their faces as gloomy as undertakers. Now, these many years later, I am quite sure Dinkle did not frighten them. I think their silence and their sober aspects were provoked by the lie they’d been outrunning all summer, a lie that had finally caught them.

  I don’t recommend generalizing people into categories, especially men versus women. Folks can’t be pigeon-holed that easily. However, after ninety-one years it seems to me that a lie at first blush might not weigh less on us men, but I think we move past it more quickly than women. We find an out-of-the-way place where we’re not likely to accidentally stumble onto the thing, some crawlspace or root cellar in our minds where it remains hidden away, dark and dank and rotten. I think women never put a lie away. They circle it like a moon orbiting a planet, the lie always visible and bigger than themselves. I suspect Miss Lizzie and Fiona were orbiting the lie we’d told Dinkle because they knew, that however well-intentioned on our part or deserved on
his, it was still a lie. It hung a shroud over them, an ash-gray thing like soot from a factory smokestack, a cloud that eventually drifted into the back seat of the Model T and hung over us, too.

  By the time we reached the open iron gate of Dinkle’s estate there was no more talking or winking. Miss Lizzie steered her Model T up the circular driveway to the main house. Outside the entry C. Herbert Judson’s Chrysler Imperial was already parked and Miss Lizzie pulled in next to it. We climbed out and went to the door, but before anyone could knock, it opened to reveal Dinkle’s man. I now realize that he was no taller than James, but as he stood in the doorway that night, I thought him between eight and nine feet in height with fangs instead of teeth and talons for fingernails.

  “Please come in,” he said.

  Chapter Thirty-one:

  We face the music

  We followed Dinkle’s man through the expansive foyer and crossed beneath the ponderous, overhanging chandelier to reach a door uncomfortably familiar to me. It opened into the old man’s study and I suddenly wished I’d brought along the stolen letter opener to slip between his ribs. Dinkle’s man held the door open and then followed us inside. Mr. Judson and Mr. Johns were already there. Mrs. Judson, too. Angus MacCallum was not, although we later learned that he heard everything from outside, tucked into the recess beneath the study’s large bay window, his McNaughton shotgun at the ready.

  Seven straight-back chairs had been moved into the study from the dining room, but no one sat. Dinkle stood by the bay window, looking out. On his desk was the small statue of the naked man with impressive genitals, the bacchanalian fellow’s companionship apparently reassuring to the old man; perhaps, it was his Maltese Falcon, a solid gold statuette painted to look like clay, a masked treasure he could admire and touch when moved by a need to feel rich.

  For nearly a minute Dinkle remained as silent and motionless as the statue on his desk. Then Mr. Judson nervously cleared his throat and the old bandit glanced at us before returning his gaze to the waves rolling onto the sand.