The Great Divide

by T. Davis Bunn

  “But we still haven’t heard if Rikkers and Carol’s mother will accept your terms.”

  “I’ll handle those two. Go home.” She offered him a glance of shared sorrow. “Get some rest. Heal. Put this day behind you.”

  TWO

  THE AFTERNOON HEAT lacked August’s former fierceness as Marcus joined the frantic coastward rush, everyone desperate to eke out one final September beach weekend. The surrounding cars and SUVs were crammed with kids and luggage, toting surfboards and boats. Ahead of him, two young faces appeared in a minivan’s rear window. A boy and a girl waved at him. When Marcus did not respond, they crossed their eyes and mashed noses and tongues against the glass. Marcus watched them, unable to turn from the way fate and the two children mocked his hollow state.

  He followed the minivan and the two clowning children to Rocky Mount, and they waved furiously when he took the exit. He drove into his sheltered corner of the world thinking of laughter and simple pleasures, and how easy it all had once seemed.

  A pickup stuffed with ladders and tarpaulins and paint cans blocked his drive, so Marcus parked in the street. As he passed the grand magnolia anchoring the center of his lawn, a cardinal flitted by. Five tulip poplars did sentry duty down his property line, while an ancient dogwood and a towering sycamore sheltered the bay window of what would become his office. As Marcus climbed the front steps, he noted with vacant satisfaction that the honeysuckle was finally training itself up the garage trellis. A mockingbird sang to him across his wrap-around veranda, and the day enveloped him with the scent of magnolia blossoms and honeysuckle. On a better man, one who carried less guilt, the magic might even have worked.

  He entered the Victorian manor built by his grandfather to a greeting of soft voices, sawdust, and fresh paint. Marcus crossed the domed foyer to the pair of rooms that ran the right-hand length of his house. As soon as they were completed, the front room was to become a library–conference room, the other his office. Now they were draped in canvas and shone with wet paint.

  A tall black man with a face furrowed as winter fields halted his painting and looked down from his ladder perch. “How are you doing?”

  Marcus surveyed the progress. “Looks like you’re almost done in here.”

  The old man harrumphed and returned to daubing the ancient crown molding. From the room across the hall a woman’s voice said, “I’ll be sure to pass on the message soon as Marcus gets in, sir. Thank you for calling.” Chair rollers squeaked as Marcus’ secretary pushed away from her desk. She walked in to stand beside him and demand, “Well?”

  “He ain’t saying nothing,” the black man offered from his perch.

  “That’s because you didn’t ask him right.” A finger jabbed his ribs. “Marcus Glenwood, I’m not gonna put up with any of your nastiness, you hear me?”

  The old man halted his painting once more. Marcus looked down at the floor and replied, “It was pretty much as I expected. They staked me out on the courtroom floor and skinned me alive.”

  The painter’s name was Deacon Wilbur, and he was the retired pastor of the New Zion Church. Deacon was his name and not his title, assigned by a sharecropping daddy who could hope no higher for his firstborn, and who had died a happy man after watching his son stride to the pulpit. Like the old-timey pastors of many black churches, Deacon Wilbur supported himself and his family through a second profession. Deacon asked the secretary, “Who is they?”

  “Miss Rice’s momma and that vulture she hired.” Netty Turner had appeared on his doorstep the day after Marcus had moved in, asking for any work he could give. Marcus’ secretary attended Deacon’s church when she could. “Miss Rice’s momma has more money than Wall Street. She never did forgive poor Marcus for stealing Miss Rice away. She hired herself a lawyer nasty as she is. A vulture in high heels. Wears this nail polish the color of dried blood.”

  “You’ve never even met Suzie Rikkers,” Marcus protested.

  “I spoke on the phone with her enough. And her own secretary doesn’t like her any more than I do.”

  “Suzie Rikkers called here?” This was news. “When?”

  “Never you mind. I dealt with the vulture. That’s all you need to know.”

  “Netty, if an attorney calls me, you need to pass on the message.”

  She planted fists on bony hips. “Just listen to you mouthing off at me.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Every time you met with that vulture you’d come back in here scalded. Look at you now, you’re close on parboiled.” Netty Turner had been a secretary in a previous life, before her only child was born severely handicapped and her husband vanished. Now she needed to remain close enough to respond to emergencies. There were a lot of emergencies with her son. Netty Turner considered Marcus’ arrival and his easygoing attitude toward her hours an absolute godsend. “The vulture wanted papers. I sent her papers.”

  Deacon Wilbur wiped hands, broad and flat as mortarboards, on a paint-spattered cloth. “Still say it was a mistake, you going in there alone.”

  Marcus tried to shrug off the day’s impossible weight. “I can’t see how having anybody else witness the ordeal would have made it easier to bear.”

  “Ain’t talking about witnessing.” Deacon stuffed the cloth into the back pocket of his coveralls. “I’m talking about being there for a friend in need.”

  Deacon’s kindness threatened to unravel the cords holding his mangled heart in place. Marcus set his briefcase onto a sawhorse and flipped back the latches. He extracted a manila folder and held it up. “The court has ruled on your church’s request.”

  The elderly painter’s eyes widened. “It’s all done?”

  “Signed, sealed, and delivered. Go on, take it. This is your copy.”

  “No sir. Not before I wash the paint off my hands.” He climbed down from the ladder, his eyes never leaving the folder. “Got the hopes of a thousand living souls in that file. Six generations and a whole world of memories, yes, I need clean hands to take hold of that.”

  Marcus opened the file and turned so Deacon Wilbur could read over his shoulder. “I asked the court to make what is called a declarative judgment. It basically tells both New Horizons and the county commission to leave your property alone.”

  “Not mine, no. I’m just a trustee for a lot of people, both here and in the hereafter.” The old man’s voice had taken on a preacher’s gentle cadence. “You’ve made a lot of folks indebted to you.”

  “Just doing my job.”

  “Yes sir, a lot of folks.” Going on as though Marcus had not spoken. “Lot of families gonna sleep better, knowing their loved ones will rest peaceful till the Lord comes with trumpets and chariots of fire. Yes, lots of families.” He lifted his gaze to Marcus. “It’d mean more than I can say for these folks to have a chance to thank you personally.”

  “There’s no need.”

  “Yes there is, now. Strong needs. Strong. Families from all over the county’ll want to shake your hand.” The dark and brilliant gaze held Marcus from beneath a protruding brow. “Gonna ask a favor of you, sir. Want you to come to our Sunday service.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want. Just come long enough for people to meet the man who’s worked to keep their families all resting peaceful. Yes.” He took Marcus’ silence as acceptance. “Sunday at nine. Much obliged, sir. Much obliged.”

  AS MARCUS EMERGED blinking and stunned from the Sunday service, Deacon Wilbur extended one long arm to draw him near. “Mr. Marcus, come on over here, sir. Like you to meet two dear friends of mine. This is Alma and Austin Hall.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Marcus heard the words as from a great distance. The entire world seemed filtered through the clamor that was no more.

  The woman said, “Deacon tells us you took on New Horizons and won.”

  “That’s right.” The old pastor did not actually smile, but he unbent enough to nod approval. “Mr. Marcus went in there and saved our fam
ilies’ resting place.”

  Faces turned in unison toward the cemetery. Today was the first time Marcus had actually laid eyes on the place, and part of him understood perfectly why New Horizons had found it so offensive. The cemetery was not only large, it had a ramshackle air that defied orderly profit-driven thought. Families walked the broad, graveled aisles, pointing out names, watching the children race ahead with bouquets and garlands streaming. Around the outer boundaries, a tumbledown fence fought against the onslaught of weeds. The oldest graves were marked with weathered crosses and bordered by pebbles and seashells and shards of colored glass. Sunlight and children’s laughter and echoes of the closing hymn danced in the air above the graves like the faint beat of unseen wings.

  Alma Hall brought him back around with, “We need ourselves a lawyer willing to do battle with the behemoth atop that hill.”

  The words hung there between them. Perhaps it was the way Alma Hall addressed him, as though she had been practicing the part for weeks. Or perhaps after that service whatever the woman said, however crude or poetic, would have chimed like crystal bells in the clear September air.

  Marcus asked, “You’re also involved in a land dispute with New Horizons?”

  Deacon Wilbur hummed a single note, as apparently Marcus’ query was the response he had been hoping for. But Austin Hall sighed so long and hard it seemed his wife’s words had punctured his heart and drained all breath from his body. Austin Hall said wearily, “Alma, come on now. Don’t let’s get started on that.”

  Alma Hall chose to ignore her husband entirely. “Yes, we have a dispute with New Horizons, and no, it is not over land.”

  Marcus pulled his eyes from Austin Hall, standing there stooped and vacant-eyed. He looked out over the cemetery to what once had been a wooded rise. Along the lower slope pines still fought for space with oaks and sycamores. But the crown had been razed flat, like a giant’s hand had swiped away all greenery before pounding the earth so hard it bled clay red. An older metal and glass building squatted to his right. Directly ahead, steel spindles were being planted in the raw clay, lifeless parodies of the growth that was no more.

  “This is a matter of great urgency,” Alma Hall continued. “Would you please stop by our house this afternoon?”

  Marcus turned back around. Alma Hall held to an attractiveness that was as much a matter of bearing as form. She was big boned and spoke with a carefully deliberate air. The sun shone with such strength it made her honeyed skin translucent, as though Marcus could delve through the multitude of layers and see the desperation that fueled her formal tone. “I’ll see you about three.”

  AFTER A SOLITARY LUNCH Marcus moved about the house, supposedly puttering but in truth accomplishing little. He swept sawdust from the corners of his soon-to-be office and carried Deacon’s empty paint buckets to the dumpster out back. Sometimes such idle moments were enough to draw out memories of fonder times. Today, however, the ghosts of bygone eras did not rise to comfort him, and he was glad when it came time to depart.

  The Halls lived in Rocky Mount, one of the many new subdivisions cropping up between Zebulon and Raleigh. The recently completed Beltline offered eight-lane access from the poorer east to the richer south and west. Computer technicians and lab assistants and secretaries and low-level executives could buy homes on large lots for money that would have scarcely paid for a doghouse adjacent to the Research Triangle Park.

  The Hall residence was airy and light-filled and pleasant, in direct contrast to the welcome Austin Hall showed him. The man cast a resentful shadow as he silently directed Marcus into the spacious living room, then retreated, leaving Marcus alone.

  Marcus stood by the large back window and pretended to take an interest in how the tall sentinel pines filtered the afternoon light. A quarrel between husband and wife carried clearly from somewhere upstairs.

  “All I do is ask you to answer the door, and you’ve got to turn it into the drama of a lifetime.”

  “I did what you said, Alma. I did it even though I don’t want that man in my house, not now, not ever. We don’t need him here.”

  “You heard Deacon. That man has taken on New Horizons and won.”

  “It doesn’t change a thing and you know it.”

  “So what do you want to do, now? Just sit on our hands and let our baby suffer?”

  “You don’t have any call talking to me that way. None at all. You know that as well as I do.”

  “What I know is you are the most stubborn man it’s ever been my misfortune to meet up with.” Heavy footsteps thudded down the hallway overhead. “Now you come on.”

  “Alma, I’m not—”

  “Don’t you start. Don’t you even try.” The carpeted stairs thunked like a muffled bass drum under her angry tread. “Get yourself down here now.”

  Marcus waited to turn around until he heard her say, “Thank you for coming, Mr. Glenwood.”

  “It’s my pleasure.” He showed no sign he had heard anything untoward. He had bitter experience of marital arguments carried into the public eye.

  “Won’t you sit down?”

  “Thank you.” The furniture, carpeting, and wallpaper were various shades of off-white, deepening to latte-colored wall shelves and a painted brick fireplace. The effect was muted, soothing. Marcus did a quick search for family photos, anything that suggested the presence of children, found none.

  “Can I get you something? I’ve got some fresh iced tea, or I could put on a pot of coffee.”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  “All right.” She watched her husband do a sulky walk into the living room, her face blank as uncarved stone. Only when Austin had seated himself in the chair closest to the hallway did Alma turn back to Marcus and say, “Our daughter has been kidnapped.”

  The round-backed chair creaked as Austin Hall shifted his weight. But he said nothing.

  Alma Hall gave her husband a swift warning glance, then repeated for emphasis, “Kidnapped.”

  “When?”

  “I can’t say for certain. But I would guess it was about six weeks ago.”

  “Six weeks,” Marcus repeated. “And you are only now contacting the authorities?”

  “My wife has run herself ragged,” Austin Hall muttered. “Talking to every au-thor-i-ty there is.”

  Alma blasted an angry breath. Marcus took it as permission to inspect Austin Hall. The man was darker than his wife and an inch or two shorter in height. He held to the same dignified authority, only on him it seemed tighter, like he had worked himself into a suit two sizes too small. “What do you do for a living?”

  “Me?” The man stiffened slightly, disliking this momentary spotlight. “I teach statistics at State.”

  “At the Raleigh campus?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re in the mathematics department?”

  “Yes. But they share me with economics. I teach two classes in econometrics. I also teach introductory calculus.”

  Marcus nodded as though the news had great import. “You say your wife has been in contact with the authorities?”

  A hand reached for the knot of the tie Austin Hall no longer wore. He still had on a pair of dark suit-slacks and a carefully ironed shirt. His hair was close-cropped, his cuff links gold. Marcus had the impression that taking off his tie was about as informal as this man would ever get. “She started the day we received Gloria’s letter, and she hasn’t let up. Not for an instant.”

  “I see.” Marcus did not turn back to the wife. Not yet. It would be too easy to dismiss Austin Hall’s attitude as that of a severely impatient man. One tired of going through the motions, angry at the disturbances to his tightly controlled world. “Have you contacted an attorney prior to this?”

  “Two of them.” Austin Hall glanced at his wife, but not for confirmation. Rather to tell Marcus, look over there, that’s who you ought to be asking these questions. “One local fellow, he said it wasn’t his field of expertise.”

  But Marcus re
mained focused upon Austin Hall. “And the other?”

  “The man looked into it.” He tried for defiant, and failed. “He said our claim was so flimsy we’d risk being countersued by the company for filing a frivolous case. Told us he’d be censured by the court. Wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole.” When his wife shifted impatiently, he added, “Those were his exact words, Alma. You heard them the same as me.”

  Marcus remained held not by the man’s words, but rather by his eyes. There was a hollow point at the center of his dark gaze, a shadow so deep it bore a hole straight through the man’s center. “Do you recall the attorney’s name?”

  “Larry Grimes with Morgan and Jones.”

  “They’re a good firm. One of the largest in the state.” Marcus finally turned from the man and his tightly vacant gaze. He said to Alma Hall, “You believe New Horizons is connected to this matter?”

  “I’m not believing anything. They are.”

  “I see.”

  Alma Hall had a smattering of freckles across her high and slanted cheekbones. It was the only trace of softness to her face and tone and gaze.

  “You’re suggesting that one of the largest companies in eastern North Carolina has kidnapped your daughter?”

  “That is exactly right.”

  “Did this take place here in Rocky Mount?”

  “No. In China.”

  When Marcus leaned back, the sofa accepted him like he would never be allowed to get up and leave this behind. “China.”

  “That’s right. Between Hong Kong and a city called Guangzhou.” Alma Hall had clearly gained a lot of practice saying that name. “About thirty-five miles over what used to be the Chinese border.”

  “Mrs. Hall—”

  “Gloria has been investigating New Horizons’ labor violations for almost two years.” Alma Hall had no intention of letting go. “They’ve been involved in dirty practices since the beginning. Gloria collected all kinds of evidence. She’s shown me a whole box of press clippings from just one factory up in Richmond.”