The Knowland Retribution l-1

by Richard Greener

  “Really?” he sipped his tea, looking into Isobel’s face, sadly, as if he’d tried and failed to make a fundamentally obvious point. She could not see him, but she thought of her father scolding her twenty years ago, despairing as she withheld any sign of understanding his point of view.

  Leonard said, “Eight hundred and sixty-four people were killed. Was anyone arrested? Was anyone indicted? Did anyone go to trial? Is anyone in prison? You can’t just kill people? Of course you can.” His voice drifted off. “You can’t just kill people?” he said.

  “I’m sorry for your loss. What about Nina and Ellie and her boys? Let me tell your story. That will build public awareness. The people you’re talking about, who want to shape the story their way? They’ll have to deal with public opinion informed by the truth as you want it presented. Your personal story can be your greatest asset.”

  “My aim is my greatest asset,” he said, “just me and Bobby McGee.” I want it on the record. I don’t need public support, or yours either. I only want you to be my voice.” He waited a moment. Isobel said nothing. “You won’t refuse.”

  “Why do you think so? Because I broke the story?”

  “You broke it and you got it right. But also…” he paused. His demeanor changed and Isobel sensed it. Suddenly he was off the soapbox, down from the lectern. “You write about the dead. That’s very important to me.” He had pushed the button. Robert McG. undid her.

  “Who are the others?” she asked.

  “Pour yourself some more tea. We have a ways to go.”

  New York

  Leonard studied Isobel as he spoke. Before deciding to meet, he’d learned what he could about her. He’d read nearly every obit she wrote, and a few of her local stories. The more he read, the more he liked her style and the sensibility he thought he sensed behind it. She struck him as involved in the lives she summarized-however few words she was given to describe them. He thought he saw a weakness for the undiscovered truth. There were no great revelations in the obits and local stories. But there were small ones. And she seemed to want to highlight the unexpected. It took a while for that distinction to settle itself in his mind, and as it did, he also came to believe that Isobel might harbor another agenda-one she might not be aware of. In some of the obits and some of the local stories, Leonard heard notes of indignant sympathy on behalf of the victims of municipal neglect, the has-been inventor denied full recognition in his day, a bus driver beaten and left blind the same day his wife gave birth to twins. It became easy for Leonard to imagine that Isobel was chained to a sense of justice. He tried to dismiss the notion as too pat, too seductively sweet.

  And he thought he glimpsed one more thing: a puritanical interest, possibly an obsession, with simple accuracy. He saw it in her face, her expression when they talked. He wished he could have watched her eyes. And Leonard was keenly aware that behind her impulse to accuracy, with nothing at all to lose by it, stood the New York Times.

  He wanted to harness Isobel and her fast-emerging celebrity.

  After a lengthy inner debate, he decided on the meeting. Nothing that she’d said, and nothing in her manner this evening, led him to alter or regret his assumptions. She seemed moved as she listened, and he felt her making unwritten notes, but he would not know the outcome for one, or two, or three days. When they were done, she seemed exhausted.

  It might have been Kermit who drove her back, or someone else. There was no talk between them. She made no effort to track the time. Her mind was a tornado. The car pulled to a stop. The engine died. The driver’s door opened and shut. She sat for a while, blindfold still in place. When she took it off she was alone in a parked car on 63rd Street, off Central Park West-the exact spot where she had been picked up.

  It wasn’t any warmer or drier, but Isobel walked home. Her wind-sore hand clutched the computer disc Leonard gave her. Isobel knew why Hopman, MacNeal, Ochs, and Grath were dead. She knew the names of the ones to follow, and why, in Leonard Martin’s mind, they must. And she knew something else-something special-about Leonard Martin. She nodded to the doorman, who asked if she felt well.

  She sat on her bed, reconstructing her mental notes with her coat on. In a notebook she wrote with a pencil, clarifying the squiggles whose meaning she’d lose by tomorrow. She cleaned the notes for almost an hour, then summarized and bulleted, and committed it all to her hard drive, her back-up, and another that was safely tucked away in Fiji. She did the same with Leonard’s CD, knowing she would not open it until tomorrow.

  Words and sentences brought back how Leonard sounded, and she struggled to put pictures with them. Her imagination created fragments that filled in what he did not describe: the unbelieving look that must have been on Korman’s face when Ochs instructed him to leave it alone, when he said, “Wayne, you just leave it to me”; the faces and voices and gestures along the chain of panicky phone calls that followed; the Stein, Gelb office argument bemusing poor Dr. Roy. She imagined the flip charts in Dr. Roy’s presentation; the devil’s loose in Ganga Roy’s head, her quick, black eyes struck wide as she made her bargain; the face of Tom Maloney in front of hers.

  Isobel knew she was stuck with it all, for good.

  She’d worked in her coat for hours. Now she needed a very hot shower. Not long after, flat on her back, wearing the fluffy white robe she stole from the Palace Hotel in Madrid, she called Walter Sherman, expecting to wake him up.

  “You go to bed too early,” she said when he grumbled. She told him, “I need to talk.”

  “Where are you?”

  She heard the cobwebs shredding like whispers in his mind.

  “I’m home.”

  “Come here,” he said, as though speaking from down the hall, sounding so close she almost glanced that way.

  “I met him, tonight, just a few hours ago.”

  “Number 8?”

  “He sent me another note. I met him here in the city. I don’t know where. I had to wear a blindfold.” She thought of saying more, but didn’t. “The thing is, Walter, he confirmed to me that he is who we think. He told me who else is on the list.”

  “Do you want to inform the police?” Walter said. “Go to the cops?”

  “I don’t have to do that,” Isobel said. “New York’s press shield is absolute. I’m not an accessory or anything like that. I really should file the st-st-story before I go off island hopping, don’t you think?”

  “If he gave you a list I doubt he’ll act until you publish it. Otherwise the list wouldn’t have any meaning and he’d have no reason to give it to you-unless he’s entirely crazy. Do you think he is?”

  “I don’t believe he’s crazy at all. He gave me the list for a reason.”

  “Write your story on your way down. File from here. You can’t get it into print any sooner. There’s an early morning flight to St. Thomas from Newark. Book it right now. Take the St. John Ferry. You should be here by lunchtime. Come straight to Billy’s.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Directly across from the ferry. Look for an old guy. He’s got a baseball cap and a beard. He sits out front during lunch.”

  Walter was fully awake and elated.

  “See you tomorrow?” Isobel said.

  “Set your alarm. It’s an early plane. And for God’s sake, wear something comfortable.”

  He hung up thinking her voice sounded different, unsettled and unsettling, revved up, but grave, and also eager, and maybe… what? There was certainly something different there. Or maybe not. Maybe a part of his mind remained in his vanished dream, or maybe he was listening too closely, hoping to hear something… else.

  St. John

  “Some things don’t need no argument,” said Ike. “One thing is an argument, the next don’t have no argument attached.”

  Back in the shadows, at the other end of the bar, Billy repeated a point he’d made several times to no one in particular: “Too many fucking choices. How am I supposed to know?”

  He was, in fact, studying a cat
alog that pictured and described ice-making machines. He already owned two, one in the back just off the kitchen, and a smaller one in front of him under the bar. The second was on the fritz. Once it was Frogman’s, now it was past repair.

  “It is a goddamn argument,” he insisted. “The argument is between which fucking machine I should buy.” He spoke with frank irritation now.

  “How so?” asked Walter, drinking his Diet Coke. He’d not ordered lunch. He expected to have some with Isobel, though he’d not yet mentioned her to Billy or Ike.

  “Steak,” Ike said to Walter, preempting Billy. “That’s one. You grill it. No argument about that.”

  “Unless you’re a vegetarian,” Walter said.

  “That’s no argument,” said Ike. “Vegetarians don’t like steak grilled, fried, or any way, so that’s no argument.”

  Walter said, “People who eat vegetables and people who eat steak. They argue all the time.”

  “Could be,” said Ike, smoke emerging from just about everywhere. “But that’s an argument about one or the other, not about one. You see? You got nothing in common, you got no argument.”

  Walter said, “Ike, every question has at least two answers.”

  “Well,” said Ike, “then just answer me this. What you like better, fuckin’ pigs or goats?”

  Billy looked up from his catalog. “Ike, you’re crazier every day.”

  “Follow me here. Walter? I tell you I like to fuck a goat better. That’s my personal preference. What about you?”

  Walter turned to face Ike head on. He made his face as straight as a ruler. “I have never fucked a pig or a goat and don’t plan to. Therefore, I have nothing to say on that.”

  “Then we ain’t got no argument. That’s my point exactly.” Ike blew a grand cloud of smoke and waved it toward the outside air.

  Billy returned to business, “Walter, one’s fourteen hundred dollars. The other’s two grand.”

  “Same size?” asked Walter.

  “Yeah.”

  “Any other difference between them?”

  “Not that I can see.”

  “You want to save six hundred bucks?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well?”

  “Done,” said Billy.

  Ike stood and bowed in all directions, basking in his self-appointed victory, then reached inside his shirt pocket to fish out a bent and gnarly butt and hang it from his lower lip, “No argument at all. Why you even got to ask?” He winked at them both and lit the cigarette.

  Billy scurried to the register, mumbling something, grabbed the blue chalk, and wrote:

  $1400/$2000/No Argument

  And he made the chalk squeak extra loud.

  St. John

  Isobel jumped off the ferry in blue shorts and a white cotton top with thin straps. Her open sandals showed ten bright red toenails. She pulled a small black travel case on wheels, and carried a brown coat with a fake fur hem and collar. She spotted Ike across the square. The sign above his head said Billy’s.

  She noticed a man lying in the grass in the middle of the square as she crossed. She wondered if he was homeless, or merely tired, or dead as a doornail.

  “Hi,” she said to Ike. “I’m Isobel Gitlin.”

  It had been a while since a lovely young woman grinned at him that way. He broadened his smile to present his lemon teeth like a row of golden amethysts.

  “I’m Ike.” He held out his long, skinny fingers, nicotine-stained, wrinkled by seventy-odd years in the tropical sun. “My very deep and eternal pleasure.” He quickly stood, waving his pink cap above his head like a semaphore.

  Ike felt, for an instant, a good deal younger than he was.

  “I’m a friend of Walter’s.” Isobel took his hand. “He told me to look for you. He told me I could not miss you.”

  “I bet he did too,” said Ike. “You can sit out here with me all day, and I’ll do the best I can. Buy you a drink too. But if you want to see Walter, he is over there.” He waved his hat toward the far end of the bar.

  She slung her coat over her wheelie. “I’m sure we’ll have a chance for a drink. I hope so.” Then Isobel made her way through the people packing Billy’s. From what she could see the lunch looked awfully good.

  When Walter glimpsed her his face must have changed, because Billy, who was removing his empty Diet Coke bottle, dropped his long, heavy jaw, and said, “Walter?”

  “You look great.”

  She twirled around for Walter to see. “I changed in St. Thomas.”

  “I’m glad to see you, whatever you’re wearing.”

  “St. Thomas is not very pretty. Not like I expected.” She hopped onto the barstool beside him, the one where Tom Maloney had been a couple of months before.

  “I thought it was supposed to be some kind of paradise. I guess there may be resorts somewhere.”

  “On the other side of the island,” said Walter.

  “The cab driver told me I was on the wrong side of the island. To me it looks like Brooklyn. No charm at all. Anyway, I’m starving. They don’t feed you on airplanes anymore, do they?”

  “Except in first class,” Walter said.

  “It was full. I couldn’t get in even at full fare.”

  Last night’s sensation returned; she was definitely… different. Unsettled and unsettling. At first, when she turned around for him, she seemed flirtatious. Now, to his disappointment, she was not. She was just nervous.

  Isobel ordered a club sandwich and fries. He did too. He watched her gobble it as he picked at his own.

  “Anyway, the weather is nice here.” She spoke as she ate.

  “How is New York?”

  “Miserable. Windy. Cold. Really. Just… fucking… miserable.”

  “You ever miss Fiji?”

  “A lot. Sometimes. I miss London too. And Paris a little. I’m half French, but I was never French, exactly.”

  “How so?”

  She went at the sandwich again.

  “My mother had this thing about France. I think she really hated it. I bet something terrible happened there but she’s never said what. I like to think it may have involved her mother. Not a very nice woman. I’ll bet that’s why mom went to Fiji. That’s why she was so glad about my father. She was a nurse. She worked in Fiji although she didn’t have to. She’s retired now. We had a house in Paris. I spent some time there when I was little. Americans think the French don’t like them. That is certainly true. But it’s the English they really despise.”

  “You always liked London better than Paris?”

  “Indeed, sir. I did and still do.” No village sing-song there. She spoke her father’s English.

  “And Fiji most of all?”

  “Fiji is heaven. The politics are rotten, of course. Where aren’t they? But Walter, the Pacific-it’s blue and clean and endless, not like this dirty shithole Atlantic, filthy and polluted to the bottom. Not here, I mean,” she said, seeing the hurt in his face. “It’s beautiful here. But the North Atlantic doesn’t compare. There’s no better place in the world than Fiji. No fucking better place.”

  Her expression changed in mid-sentence. She put her food down.

  “I met him.”

  “I know. You told me last night.”

  She nodded.

  “Tell me everything,” he said.

  “I will. It’s very complicated. He sent me another letter telling me-”

  “Not here. Finish up and let’s go.”

  Billy leaned over the bar. He watched Walter and Isobel leave. Then he waved to get Ike’s attention, but Ike only shrugged his shoulders and turned to see the two walk out of sight.

  Billy shook his head and picked up a bar rag for which he had no particular use.

  St. John

  When cold weather comes to Connecticut, Grosse Pointe, or Georgetown, some pack up and head for St. John. Having tried it once, they may do so again. If they rent the same house two or three winters in a row, they are very likely to buy, and thus beco
me one kind of local-the kind who maintain a northern home as well. The other locals live on St. John all year. Walter’s Chicago apartment did not disqualify him admission to the second group.

  Naturally, Ike belonged to the latter class: not rich like some of the full-time retirees, former snowbirds from here and there. But not by any means poor. He’d always been a worker, an entrepreneur and a saver like everyone in his extended clan. He didn’t care at all what he looked like, but Ike watched his balances closely, with eyes like magnifying glasses.

  Despite the moderate temperatures, Ike disliked this time of year because of the crowds. They turned Billy’s into a madhouse. Billy’s first-rate kitchen did not help. Nor did his well-stocked bar. The tourists wanted Billy’s signature drink. It was called the “Bushwacker,” a word locals also used in place of “tourist” to indicate the absence of respect and affection.

  Except for lunchtime, when he preferred to sit outside and sneer at the Bushwhackers’ colorful get-ups, the staff knew to keep Ike’s table free even while he was out stretching his legs-a few yards this way, a few yards that-or in the back relieving himself, which could be a prolonged affair. His table was his until he announced that he was gone for the day. He didn’t drive anymore, not at his age, and he couldn’t walk very far. But one of his many grandsons was always somewhere around, ready to take him wherever he wanted. Grandson Roosevelt drove him most often, but today he was on another island attending to family business. Walter and Billy were never sure they knew all of Ike’s family businesses. Ike himself was long since retired. Grandson Kennedy picked him up at Billy’s soon after Walter and Isobel left. When Billy first arrived on St. John, he asked Walter if Ike’s whole family had been named after dead Presidents. “Not the girls,” Walter said.

  Now Ike was back. He liked to walk in on his own, so Kennedy dropped him off to the side of the square. Ike shuffled into Billy’s with the slow, elegant step that seemed to most a matter of choice. Jenna, a nineteen-year-old waitress from Indianapolis who’d been at Billy’s almost a year now, said, “Hey,” and looked toward his table, agreeably free of colonists.