The words cancer and dying had launched me into a bout of regret. Finally, I found my voice and asked, “I’m sorry to hear that. What type of cancer? How long does he have?”
Katharine swallowed as if she had just taken a gulp of water. I sensed that she was fighting back tears. Tough as she is, she really loves her father. She replied, “It started as prostrate cancer a couple of years ago. They thought they had it, but obviously not, because now it’s back everywhere.” She paused as pain radiated from her eyes. “He’s got a month, maybe two.”
Now the guilt, for not maintaining my relationship with him, hit me full-bore. I was even struggling to remember why I had such contempt for Katharine. I’m certain the sorrow in her eyes was now reflected in mine as well. I reached out and patted the back of her hands resting on the table. “I’m so sorry, Katharine. I’ve always liked Benjamin; he was always good to me.”
Now her eyes met mine. Hers were watery as she said, “I’m sorry, Jack. I can’t tell you how sorry I am for what I did to you.”
I withdrew my hand and said, “Let’s not go there, Katharine. Let’s talk about your dad. Why does he want to see me? Why didn’t he just call?”
She regained her slipping composure and shot back, “Because he’s dying and he want’s to see you in person one more time. That should be obvious. When you fled down here, he lost a large part of his life as well.”
“Fled. You call what I did fleeing? How the hell can you say that?” One word had instantaneously swept away my sadness and replaced it with anger, bordering on rage.
Now Katharine reached across the table to take my hand, but I withdrew it out of her reach. She nodded slightly and pursed her lips. “You’re right, Jack, flee is not the correct word.” She drew a deep breath and continued, “The correct term would be to say you were driven down here.” Another hard swallow. “Driven down here by me.”
“I told you, Katharine, I don’t have any desire to talk about you and me.” Of course that was a lie. Well, partially a lie. What I really wanted to do was not talk, but scream at her for about thirty minutes. This was just not the time or the place for me to indulge that reawakened craving. “Why did your dad insist you convey his request in person?”
She hesitated and then replied, “Well, what he told me is that he didn’t think you would take his call. I guess he tried to get ahold of you when you first came down here, but you didn’t return his calls.” She took a deep breath and continued, her voice almost meek, “I think part of his reason was he wanted me to do some penance by having to face you in person. He seems to be attempting to tick off a list of things he thinks I should have done in the past but never did. He is playing the last request card, over and over.”
“One thing you have to say about your dad. He has always been an in-charge kind of guy. I remember how he took over the planning of our wedding from your mother. He had his fingers on every last detail.” Katharine and her mother were more than a little upset with Benjamin at the time and for some reason that memory brought a smile to my face.
My smile elicited a frown from Katharine. Regaining her business voice, she asked, “So, will you come up to Michigan to see my dad?”
I leaned back and crossed my arms in a classic closed-minded posture. “I can’t leave just now. You may have heard, we’re preparing for a hurricane.”
Katharine mimicked my body language and said, “I certainly know a hurricane is coming. The pilot didn’t want to bring me down here this morning. He only gave me a window of two hours on the ground before we have to leave to head back to Detroit.”
“You chartered a private plane to come down here?”
“It’s the charter service my dad’s firm uses. He’s a very good customer, so they accommodated me, but they were afraid the airport might close soon, so they told me it would need to be a short stay.”
“Did you come into Fort Lauderdale?” I didn’t know why I was asking these mundane questions. Probably just stalling before I answered her about her dad’s request.
“I did. It’s close and I have a car waiting in your parking lot for me.”
We fell silent as I pondered Benjamin’s request. Katharine shifted uneasily in her seat and said quietly, “I know you can’t leave right now, Jack, but if you need to evacuate soon anyway, maybe Michigan would be a good place to spend a few days.”
I still hadn’t really wrapped my head around the entire concept of evacuation. I was probably pursuing the oft-cited myth of the ostrich sticking his head in the sand. I did know that even if I was forced to evacuate, I didn’t want to go as far away as Michigan. I’d want to get back here as soon as possible and that would be more difficult from 1200 miles away. I replied, “I’m not certain that I’m going to evacuate, but if I do, it won’t be that far away. Let me get this storm behind me and I’ll give you my answer then.”
It was obvious from Katharine’s expression that my response didn’t please her. She could hold a poker face with the best, but she wanted me to know exactly how she felt. Her face evolved from anger to disappointment to end at sadness. If my heart hadn’t been hardened by the image of her in the hotel room that night, she would have had me. Always the negotiator, she asked, “Can I at least tell my dad that you will come up to see him, even if you can’t this week? In a week or so the storm will be past and you should be able to get away. I’m sure he would send the plane down to get you, so you don’t need to worry about commercial flights being backlogged.”
“I guess that all depends on how bad the storm turns out to be. If we experience significant damage here,” I gestured around the bar, “I’ll need to be here to deal with things. There are people around here that depend on me. This place may not seem like much to a high-powered attorney like yourself, but to the people who work here, it’s damn important.” Obviously, my fond memories of her dad hadn’t totally extinguished my ire toward Katharine.
She leaned forward and said, “I wasn’t implying that you didn’t have responsibilities around here, Jack. I guess I’m just hoping that you can find a way to get up north soon, since I can’t know how long Dad will be alive.” The sad expression she wore at this last statement was sincere.
Now it was my turn to lean forward. I took her hand in mine and said, “I’ll make every effort to get up there to see your dad in time. That I promise you.” Our eyes locked momentarily. With the uneasy gesture of two people who simultaneously realized they have been touching for too long, we withdrew our hands.
Katharine pulled a business card from her small purse and slid it across the table, saying, “Please call me as soon as you know when you can come to Michigan.” She stood and said, “I’ll let you get back to your hurricane preparations. And, Jack, please be careful. This sounds like it may be a really bad storm.”
I watched her walk slowly back toward the door she had entered. As she reached for the door handle, she turned and looked directly back toward me. A sad smile enveloped her beautiful face as she mouthed the words, “I’m so sorry, Jack, please find it in your heart to forgive me.” With that she was gone.
CHAPTER SIX
After Katharine left I sat alone in the booth for a couple of minutes replaying our conversation. Assuring myself that with the approaching storm I couldn’t make any kind of decision about responding to Benjamin’s request at this point in time, I chose to defer the decision until the future. Hell, Congress uses that approach everyday, why shouldn’t I.
I walked up to the bar and asked Dana if she knew where Moe was. I wanted to get started installing the hurricane shutters. She said he’d gone out to the storage shed to sort the shutters. He’d told her to ask me to come out and help when I finished my discussion. I turned and started for the back door when Dana cleared her throat loudly and asked, “So, Jack who was the Cindy Crawford look-alike you were so engrossed with?”
Her question startled me, I don’t know why, given Dana’s direct approach to everything, but it did. I stammered, “It was . . . wait, what con
cern is it to you, anyway?”
“Look, Jack, I need to know if you’re doing something stupid that’s going to mess things up with PJ.”
I was temporarily at a loss for words, but finally recovered and said, “And why would you need to know? By the way, I’m not doing anything stupid.”
“Glad to hear it, that way I won’t need to intervene. So who is she?”
I surrendered. “She’s my ex-wife, Katharine.”
“Oh, in the neighborhood, so she just stopped in?”
“This conversation is over, Dana. I’ll be outside with Moe.” What is it with everyone around here? They’re always watching over me as if I can’t take care of myself.
I crossed the parking lot to the back corner where our storage shed stands. We keep the hurricane shutters and a few other odds and ends in the shed. Nothing of real value since it’s only secured by a simple hasp and padlock. Mickey once told me he didn’t even lock the shed until he found a homeless guy sleeping in it one day. He decided he better secure it before squatters took over.
I found Moe dragging the reinforced plywood sheets that constitute our hurricane shutters out and leaning them against the sides of the shed. It looked like he was about half finished. I said, “Let me help you, Moe. Is there a system?”
Moe stopped and wiped his broad brow with the back of his hand as he said, “Yeah, sorta. I put the ones for the upstairs on this side,” gesturing toward the left side of the building, “and the ones for the ground floor on the other side. They’re all marked, but sorting first makes it easier to find the specific one we’re looking for as we install them.” He reached down and picked up the gallon water jug sitting on the parking lot near him and took a long drink. Then he asked, “Was that your ex you were talking to inside?”
I didn’t know how Moe knew it was Katharine, but I chose to ignore asking. Accepting the fact that my life around here is an open book, I replied, “Yeah, it was. Her dad is dying and he sent her to ask me to come up and see him before he dies. She said he has some request he wants to make to me personally.”
“Really? That sounds kind of ominous, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know, Moe. Haven’t really had the opportunity to think about it. I told her I couldn’t commit to come up there until I knew how we fared in this storm.”
Moe nodded and said, “Speaking of the storm, we’d better get these shutters sorted so we can start putting them up. Marge is monitoring the weather reports and she says we’ll start feeling winds late this afternoon. Don’t want to be struggling with these things in the wind.”
We had just finished sorting all of the shutters and were sharing a drink from Moe’s water jug when a voice from behind us said, “Hey, could you guys use a hand?” I didn’t even need to turn around to know who it was. I recognized the voice. It was Justin.
Justin stood about ten feet away. He was dressed as usual in cargo shorts, tee shirt, and deck shoes. Everything was faded and well worn. His muscular body strained the tee shirt, but he looked as if he’d lost some weight. He looked even more sinewy than when I last saw him. Somehow, I couldn’t put my finger on it, he looked older, much older than the early thirties I believed him to be. No one spoke as he held us in his steel-gray eyes. Finally, I broke the silence. “Damn, Justin, we thought you were dead.”
He looked away, as if gazing into the past, and then said, “Yeah, sorry about that. It was a huge misunderstanding.” He took a step toward us as he continued, “I was planning to take my boat down to Miami, but I got unexpectedly summoned to assist some friends on a project out of the country.” I took that to be “Justin speak” for some type of black ops mission. “I called the marina in Miami and they sent a guy up to drive the boat down there. Something happened and the boat blew up just outside the marina here. Witnesses told the Coast Guard that I was piloting the boat. The guy’s body was never found, so no one knew the difference. The project I was involved in lasted longer then expected and I didn’t even know about the accident until two months later. When I got back to the States, I contacted the Coast Guard and straightened everything out.” He spread his arms and grinned. “As you can see, I’m very much alive.”
I glanced at Moe. He was leaning against one of the upright pipes filled with cement that we have protecting the shed from the traffic in the parking lot. His arms were crossed over his massive chest and his face said, “Bullshit.”
I said to Justin, “For your information, I was the witness you referred to.” Gesturing toward the balcony off the back of my upstairs apartment, I said, “Less than an hour after you told me you were taking the boat to Miami, I sat right up there and watched your boat back out of the slip and burst into a ball of flames as it cleared the breakwall. Now you’re telling me that it wasn’t you piloting, but someone else.” I locked him in my stare as I said, “Justin, I don’t believe that story for one minute. I believe you staged the whole thing as a means to eliminate your past and disappear. That’s fine. That’s your business. Just don’t think we’re so gullible that we believe your story.”
Even through his stoic expression, I could see that he was assessing my words. He took a couple of steps closer and lowered his voice. “Look, guys, I’m not trying to insult you. I’m telling you the official story and asking . . . hoping . . . that you will support it around here. I want to come back here, but I can’t if people are asking a bunch of questions about what happened . . . and about me.”
I shot back, “So, you want us to lie for you to everyone around here?”
Justin shook his head as he said, “No. I’m not asking you to lie, I’m just asking that you don’t lend your support to any theories that the story isn’t true. Just remain neutral. Accept the story on its face.”
Moe stood from his perch on the post and said in his low baritone, “Justin, people around here aren’t dumb. I don’t think many of them will buy your story. You got called away, made arrangements for someone else to move the boat, and that guy got here, all within an hour. The story is plausible, the timeline isn’t.”
Justin nodded in agreement before replying, “You’re right, Moe. That’s why Jack’s key to people accepting the story. He’s the one who establishes the timeline. No one else was really paying attention to what time things happened that night. They won’t recall how much time passed from the time I left the bar until the explosion. If the timeline is looser, the story works.” He turned and looked me directly in the eyes. “That’s all I need from you, Jack. I just need for you to remain silent on the timeline. We had dinner that evening and later that night the accident happened. That’s all I need from you, just don’t make a point of recalling the timeline.”
I replied, “Only problem is that I gave statements to the Hollywood Marine Patrol and the Coast Guard. It’s all part of the record.”
The stoic expression was in full bloom as Justin said, “There are no contradictions in the official records. The records have been addressed.”
“Of course they have. How naive of me to think you would overlook that little detail.” I was angry, but Moe chuckled.
We were all silent for a minute. I finally said, “Okay, Justin, I won’t raise the issue of the timeline, but I won’t lie to my friends. I’ll just do my best to dodge the subject, if it comes up. And I’m not going inside and telling your story. That’s on you. You go inside and try to convince Marge, Dana, Renee, Juan, and the regulars who know you that’s what happened. You try to convince them, I’m not going to.”
“Fair enough, Jack.” He stepped forward and extended his hand. I took it and we shook as if sealing a business deal. He turned to Moe and repeated the process.
Moe said, “We could use some help putting these shutters up this afternoon, if you’re going to be around?”
Justin actually smiled. He said, “That’s why I’m here. I thought you could use a hand.”
I said, “Moe and I are going to run to the hardware store to get some more screws. We’ll be back in a little bi
t. Why don’t you go inside and break the news that you’re back from the dead. That way when people see you helping this afternoon, they won’t freak out thinking they’re seeing a ghost.” My words may have been humorous, but my tone was not.
Justin nodded. “I’ll do that. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.”
As Justin walked back toward the bar, Moe turned to me and said, “Got to give the guy credit, he’s got balls.”
Moe had mentioned earlier that he wasn’t certain that we had enough screws to mount all of the shutters, so he was going to go to Home Depot to get more. I hadn’t intended to go with him, but I wanted to get Moe’s read on the reappearance of Justin. We talked about the situation the entire trip and came to the conclusion that there was really nothing we could, or really wanted, to do. We acknowledged that neither of us totally trust Justin, we couldn’t articulate why, we just didn’t. We also both admitted that we liked the guy, even if we were a little afraid of him.
I recounted to Moe an analogy about society that I was told by a police officer, during my days as a prosecutor. It states that most people are like sheep. The sheep are sometimes preyed upon by wolves. Fortunately, there are also sheep dogs in society to protect the sheep from the wolves. The sheepdogs have the same capacity for violence as the wolves, the difference is that they employ their violence in protection of the sheep. Unfortunately, the sheepdogs look and sometimes act much like the wolves. They meet aggression with aggression. That’s how the sheepdogs prevail over the wolves. They are more aggressive, at times more violent. Force is the only reasoning the wolves understand. The similarity between the appearance of the wolves and the sheepdogs is why the sheep often shun the sheepdogs, at least until the wolves are at the door. With the wolves at the door, the sheep are more than willing to rely on the sheepdogs.
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