The Cure

by Athol Dickson

  The seats were almost completely packed with locals. Riley and Dylan slipped along the back row past a couple of people and settled in to listen as Hope spoke to Bill Hightower, her amplified voice reverberating in the lofty space, easily heard above the muffled chanting of the protesting crowd outside.

  Hope said, “It just seems to me we have to face the fact they’re here and make the best of it. Technically you’re right. We could arrest ‘em all for vagrancy, but what’s the point of that, when the jail will only hold a fraction of ‘em?”

  From the far seat on her right, Bill Hightower said, “So your solution is to commandeer the private property of business owners? Force them to give up their businesses to shelter these freeloaders?”

  “They wouldn’t give up their businesses, Bill. Like I just explained, they’d only make the upper floors of their buildings available, which as we all know haven’t been used for much of anything in a long time. And the space wouldn’t be commandeered. They’d be reimbursed at a fair rate.”

  “Reimbursed with what? Where’s the money coming from?”

  “I’m open to suggestions on that.”

  Hightower shook his head. “All right, let’s ignore the fact that the tax base is shrinking and these indigents who have descended on us only make that problem worse, let’s pretend we can print our own money, or one of the council members or one of these good citizens can work a miracle and figure out a way to pay for your plan. Even if we could afford it, do you really think it’s a good idea to have hundreds of vagrants living downtown? I fail to see how that would improve our situation.”

  Riley heard the muted voices of the demonstrators outside as Hope replied, “They’d have a place to sleep. They’d have bathrooms. We could set up some simple cookin’ facilities—”

  “You’re talking about turning downtown into a ghetto.”

  Hope said, “I can’t think of anyplace else with enough space to—”

  “Hundreds of drunks, camped out above our downtown businesses, partying on the township’s tab? Come on, Hope! Do you really want to do that to your neighbors?”

  The hall erupted in applause, drowning out the distant voices, with some in the audience rising from their seats.

  Hope beat a gavel and called for order, but it took several minutes to get the people to calm down. When she finally had control again she said, “If these people choose to live here, the township attorney tells me we have no legal basis to run ‘em out of town. This is not the Wild West. And let’s remember these are human beings we’re talkin’ about. We can’t let them go on livin’ on our streets and in our parks. It’s not right. So since there are way too many to arrest, and we can’t force ‘em to rent or purchase dwellings, I can’t think of anything else to do except provide shelter for them. And I—”

  “What about the state? What about the federal government? Why haven’t you reached out for help from them?”

  Again, there was a spontaneous round of applause from the audience, but this time Hope managed to get control more quickly. She said, “I’ve been callin’ the governor’s office. Apparently he’s too busy to call back.”

  Hightower spread his hands and shrugged. “Maybe you’re not calling the right number, Mayor Keep. I phoned the governor this morning. He’s ready to send us all the help we need.”

  Hope frowned. “You spoke to him? He took your call?”

  “Of course. He’s an old friend.”

  “I . . . uh, what kind of help, exactly?”

  “Tents, Porta-Pottys, National Guard troops, whatever we need to contain the homeless while we work on a way to send them someplace else.”

  “You could have mentioned this before.”

  The pale man turned toward the audience and shrugged again. “I thought we ought to hear your ideas, Mayor. Besides, I assumed it was your job to network with the governor.”

  Several people in the audience laughed. Hope sat staring down at her hands, which were clasped tightly together on the counter before her. To Riley she looked small and defenseless.

  Hightower said, “Mayor, I’d like to touch on another matter.”

  Hope seemed relieved, yet cautious. “All right.”

  “I’m sorry to have to bring this up, I really am, but I understand you now own a new Mercedes Benz, model—” he lifted a paper from the counter and read—”S600, which it says here is priced at one hundred forty thousand dollars. Could you explain how that’s possible on your salary?”

  Hope mumbled something.

  “I’m sorry, Mayor. I didn’t hear that.”

  She leaned closer to the microphone. “I said it’s a gift.”

  “My, that’s quite a present.” He shuffled through the papers and lifted another. “I also understand you paid off your mortgage recently. That must be a relief. Not many of us can say we own our house free and clear.” The audience rumbled its assent. “I believe your final payment was . . .” Hightower pretended to read from the paper, which Riley knew was just a ruse. The man was Hope’s banker, to whom Riley’s New York bank had wired the funds. Hightower said, “One hundred twenty-three thousand dollars. Do you mind if I ask where you got that money, Mayor?”

  “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? Well, was that money a gift as well?”

  Hope’s whisper was only audible because of the microphone. “I don’t know.”

  In his seat high up at the rear of the hall, Riley watched his ex-wife shrink before the questions. How could he have been so foolish? How could he have failed to consider what it would look like, a woman in her position, suddenly driving around in that car, suddenly free of debt? First he had sown salt into the wounds of millions by failing to set a reasonable price for the cure before he sold it for a fortune; now he had sown ruin in Hope’s life by the way he spent the fortune. Everything he touched became corrupted.

  As Hope squirmed under Hightower’s examination like a gorgeous butterfly pinned alive by a sadistic boy, Riley thought about doing the right thing. He could rise up then and there and tell them all that it was he who gave the car and money to Hope, he who sold the cure and forgot to set the price. But the chief of police stood just outside the building at the top of the front steps, ready to arrest the “mystery man of Dublin” for the death of Willa Newdale. And a hundred angry alcoholics stood at the bottom of those same steps, ready to tear that mystery man to pieces for the price he had let them charge for the cure. It would be suicide to confess the car and mortgage were from him. Riley faced a devil’s alternative. He could let Hope suffer, or he could accept death, or prison.

  Besides, how did he know a confession would help Hope? Nothing he’d done so far had turned out like he planned. He told himself whatever he did would only make things worse. Overpasses in Florida came to mind again. He wanted to retreat from everyone and everything that he might harm. He wanted to forget his failures. But could he do that without drinking? He had no model for a life like that, no example of the possibility, no system to avoid the awful truth about himself. How did one gain the necessary indifference to dishonor with a sober mind?

  It was the ugly irony of his so-called cure: his stolen freedom would not let him rest. Sober or not, nothing really changed, and if honor, life, and freedom could not coexist on either side of his addiction, then they must not really exist at all.

  Riley Keep kept silent.

  “Mayor,” said Bill Hightower. “Again, I’m sincerely sorry to have to ask the obvious question, but here in front of the people that we serve, it must be done. Has the person or persons who provided these gifts benefited from the powers of your office in any way?”

  Oh, he was crucifying her! Riley moaned aloud. Dylan turned to him, a question in his battered eye. Riley shook his head. Then he thought of a way out, a fourth way, beyond shame, captivity, or death. He stood and bent to whisper in Dylan Delaney’s ear. “Come with me.”

  Hope’s lover rose and followed him. When the meeting room door had closed behind
them and they were alone out in the vestibule, Riley paced back and forth while Dylan remained motionless.

  Riley said, “I want you to write a note and get it passed to Hope. I want you to tell her she has two million dollars available to fix this. No, three! Tell her to make the announcement, to tell them she’s found an anonymous donor for a shelter to be built at the edge of town somewhere, and . . . I don’t know, maybe incentives for new business? An industrial park or . . . something. A convention center. Whatever she wants.”

  Watching Riley pace, Dylan said, “I’m not gonna do that.”

  “But Hightower’s killing her in there.”

  “I know it.”

  “You have a better idea?”

  “I was prayin’ as hard as I could for her till ya brought me out here. Does that count?”

  Riley stopped his manic pacing. “This is serious! We have to do something!”

  “I’m not gonna help ya buy her affections, Riley.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve respected your wishes. I haven’t said a word to anyone about the deal with Hanks, but we both know where the car and mortgage payments came from. It’s not right to hide the money from her and dole it out this way. I’m a little outta practice, but this is prob’ly some kinda crime, and I can’t be a party to it anymore. You gotta tell her about the money, Riley, or I will.”

  “You said you couldn’t tell anyone about my business. You’re my lawyer!”

  “I also told ya attorney privilege is not a license to break the law.”

  “What law?”

  Dylan sighed. “Come on, Riley. Let’s not play that game. Ya know this isn’t right. I guess ya have some kinda plan to get her back, but so far all it’s done is cause her grief. If ya want her, the right thing to do is be honest about it. Come right out and tell her everything.”

  Riley balled his fists. “I thought you were a better man than this.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re willing to let them strip away her job and ruin her reputation, just to keep me from helping. Just to keep her to yourself.”

  Dylan creased his brow. “Keep her to myself?”

  Riley spoke with urgent sincerity. “Listen, you don’t have to worry about that. I know I don’t have a chance with her. I just want to make things easier for her and Bree . . . and for you. It’s why I chose you for my lawyer. To get some money into your hands, so you can support them.”

  Dylan stared at him, and Riley thought he saw a sense of wonder beneath the bruises on the man’s face. “Ya really have no idea.”

  It was Riley’s turn to frown. “No idea about what?”

  Hope’s lover walked away, crossing the lobby toward the coatroom. There, he stopped and stood with his back turned. Riley saw his shoulders rise and fall as he took a deep breath. “I can’t believe she hasn’t told ya.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Lifting his face toward the ceiling, keeping his back to Riley, Dylan sighed. “You’re right about one thing. I do love her. I’ve loved her for a long time. So last year I asked her to marry me.”

  In a flash of inspiration Riley understood and felt his heart sink just a little lower. “You did it, didn’t you? You and Hope are married, but you’re keeping it a secret for some reason.”

  Dylan laughed. “You’re pretty close.”

  “Don’t laugh at me.”

  “Believe me, it’s not you I’m laughin’ at.” Dylan turned to stare across the lobby at Riley. “I assumed you knew this, or I woulda told ya sooner. A lot of this money belongs to Hope already, Riley. Maybe half of it. Maybe more. In Maine, most property acquired during marriage is subject to division between the spouses, and the thing is, Hope won’t marry me because she’s already married, Riley. To you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  IT WAS DONE AT LAST.

  When the old woman finally stopped talking, the young man pushed back from his desk and stood. Wiping her eyes with a tissue, Willa watched him closely as he walked around to the tripod and pressed a button, shutting off the camera. She had given him bits and pieces earlier, of course; it had been necessary to interest him in her case, but this was the first time he had heard her story through from start to finish, the first time anyone had heard her story, for that matter. She wondered what it meant to him. Having kept it to herself for all these years, knowing it was death to speak aloud, she had dreaded the revelation of her secret even as she longed for it, but she had not expected this cathartic sense of connection, intimacy, and gratitude. She wondered if he understood.

  The young man leaned across his desk to twist the gooseneck light back to its usual position, shining it on the photos of his wife and children instead of on her wrinkled face. Willa searched him for some sign that he also felt a bond between them, forged by their shared secret. But he seemed unchanged by the information. He did not seem to recognize the risk she had just taken.

  “You’ll type the complaint yourself,” she said. “After hours, when your staff is gone?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ll file it yourself? In person?”

  “Yes. Don’t worry.”

  Don’t worry. She looked around his office wearily, saw his golfing trophies, his undergraduate and law school diplomas, a series of framed nature photographs with little motivational words printed underneath. Big ideas whittled down to bromides. Integrity: Never be ashamed of doing what is right. Perseverance: Do not stop, do not give up. Teamwork: Find strength in the gifts of others. She turned back toward him, his perfectly trimmed hair, glowing complexion, ready smile, sincere eyes. He had no idea how terrified she was. How could she explain? How could she draw him from his normal little world and make him see the horror she had lived with all these years? Pitying the young man for what she must now do, Willa waved her right hand toward the photos on his desk. “Is that your family, dear?”

  He smiled very slightly, modest, even in his pride. “Emma and our daughters. Jillian is twelve and Hailey’s ten.”

  “He would slit their throats and bleed them out like pigs in front of you.”

  His smile vanished. “You don’t have to say a thing like that.”

  “But I do. You have to understand. If anyone learns about this before you get it filed, and the word reaches him, he’ll do that and more to stop us.”

  “I know. I just heard you describe what he did.”

  “Hearing it is not the same as believing it—knowing it, in your gut.”

  She thought of the girl, screaming for her mother, and the wooden stares of all the others standing powerless, and that animal at the vortex of the swirling screams, making his demands with the indifference of a butcher carving meat. She stared at the young man. How could she convey the terror? She had come into the open finally, but it shamed her to have taken all these years, and if she was driven by her shame, he must not think her choice courageous.

  “You have to try to internalize this,” she said. “For the sake of your family, you have to be afraid.”

  The young attorney seemed embarrassed by the word. He dropped his eyes. He picked up his Mont Blanc fountain pen and then he put it down. He said, “I’ll be careful.”

  “But are you afraid?”

  “I . . .” He picked up the pen again. “You’ve been very clear, and I will follow your instructions.”

  “We’re the only ones who know it now. Before it was just me, but now you’re in it too.”

  “I know.”

  “I have no evidence except for that.” She pointed at the video camera. “That deposition is everything. If we’re killed before you get it someplace safe, all these years I’ve hidden will have been for nothing.”

  “I know that, Ms. Newdale.”

  She sat still for a moment, watching him. She rose. “Well then, may the Lord protect you and your family. You know how to contact me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Please don’t write it down.”

  “N
o. I have it memorized as we discussed.”

  “Thank you.”

  The young man led her to the office door and out into his little lobby, where he held the hallway door open for her. He cleared his throat. “I, uh, I wanna say how much I appreciate you letting me handle this. It’ll probably put my girls through college and pay off my house, this one case by itself.”

  She paused, halfway in, halfway out, forcing him to remain there holding the door open. It was the weekend. They were alone. She could speak freely. “Forget about the money, sweetheart; that’s a distraction. Focus on what I said about the pigs.”

  His face hardened. “I’m just trying to thank you for this opportunity.”

  He had no idea what kind of opportunity this was. Might she rise up like a phoenix because of it? She was so terribly, terribly afraid. After all this time it did not matter if she was resurrected, allowed to be herself again; it was the standing up that counted, doing the right thing regardless of the consequences . . . finally.

  But this young man, with his lovely wife and darling daughters—they were different. They had no sins to purge, at least not in this way, and so they didn’t deserve the risk. The old woman said, “I used to know a lawyer a long time ago. He said it didn’t matter if he believed his clients or not. He said all that mattered was how well he did his job for them.”

  “It’s one of the first things they teach you in law school.”

  She laid a hand on his forearm. “This time, you need to believe.”

  “I do. I really do.”

  “Good, dear,” she said, patting his arm. “In that case maybe you’ll get out of this alive.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  THE FIRST TWO DAYS after Dylan told him he was still Hope’s husband, Riley Keep continued his routine as if the information made no difference, working at the diner, walking back and forth from here to there in the fine spring weather, giving dollar bills to the beggars who accosted him along the way. Another man might have gone straight to her, but not Riley. It might be true that she had not divorced him, but he could think of many disappointing explanations. Why rush to confirm them? As long as he didn’t know for sure, anything was possible. Therefore, just as he had delayed his first transcendental sip of golden Scotch among the oak tree’s roots, so now he postponed words with Hope, savoring a fantasy of reconciliation and trying to ignore the odds against it.