by Martin Clark
“You shouldn’t be.”
“I damn sure can’t speak to being a minority—I’ve only been poor, and you can fix that—but forgive me if I’m not sold when you tell me you’re moving so you can be around people in dashikis and go to the jazz club. Better ribs and the Maya Angelou Festival. Nope, not your style, and I should know. Especially when your announcement follows on the heels of your week as Captain Queeg. Hell, you’re more content in Stuart than I am. Why do I think you’re not giving me the whole story?”
“‘Hip-hop culture’ is big, too, when George Will opines about us. And the ribs around here are tasty, no complaints.” Custis grinned. He took his weight off the wall, stood on his own. “Listen, Mace, no one harangued you when you decided to stay in Richmond after law school. Made sense for a bright lad to want the city. People switch and relocate, okay? You and Allison did. Skipped Richmond for Stuart. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve got a secret motive.” The last touch of lightheartedness vanished from his expression. “No matter how good of friends we are, you can’t be another person. You don’t know what it’s like to be me or to be black in the sticks. You don’t. Plain truth. You have no idea how narrow and convoluted the path between Uncle Remus and uppity Negro is. I’m always calculatin’. Always ridin’ shotgun. Always wary of the booby traps.”
“You’ve never let on it was a concern. Seems to me maybe you’re reading in sentiments that don’t exist. Or making false excuses. You’ve said yourself how much better it is living here with the random Klansman and impotent, obvious bigot than having to cope with a more sophisticated breed of redneck.”
“I’m not sayin’ there aren’t good people here, and lots of ’em. It’s just time for me to move on down the highway. Take in new scenery elsewhere.”
“Inez?”
“Probably not a long-term proposition once I leave. But we’ll see. We’ll just play it by ear.”
“Wow. Does she know this?”
“Yeah,” Custis said. “She does. She’s okay with it so far.”
“Where’re you going, by the way?”
“Atlanta. I already have three job offers. One’s with the district attorney’s office.”
“Seriously?” Mason asked.
“I used Judge Greenwalt as a reference, if you’re wonderin’ why you haven’t been contacted.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“But I’m gonna stay as long as you need me to. Wouldn’t think of leavin’ you in a jam, though it would suit nicely if I could be relocated by October.”
“Thanks,” Mason said.
“It’s been a pure pleasure practicin’ law with you. You’re like a brother. Custis and Mason. The Yin-Yang Towers, as Judge Greenwalt tagged us all those years ago. That’s what makes this situation so friggin’ tough, not where I’m headed. I hate it ’cause of me and you.” He was suddenly emotional, and he paused to stare at the ceiling again. “Me and you, we’ve had a helluva run.”
“I don’t know what I would do without you,” Mason said pensively, almost as if Custis weren’t there. “I can’t believe it.”
“Me either.”
“I never saw this coming. Never. I wish I could change your mind. I’ll miss you.”
“On this end, too.”
Mason peered up at his friend. “If you tell me there’s no concealed motive hiding in the bushes and give me your word you’re not being pushed or forced, if you can shake on those terms, then you and I are square and I’ll be satisfied. I’ll help you pack and throw you a party. More power to you if this is truly what you want.”
“My word, Mace.” Custis stepped closer and they shook hands across the desk.
“Done,” Mason said hoarsely, but he held the connection a few seconds after Custis relaxed his grip, continuing to focus on his friend, still not altogether convinced, mining for a telltale flinch or twitch.
“So open your gift,” Custis said.
Mason tore off the paper and removed the lid from a rectangular box. “A shoehorn?” He grinned. “I mean, it’s a superb shoehorn. Don’t think I’m not grateful. On cloud nine, even.”
“The handle’s ivory, carved in Africa, the horn’s stainless steel, so smooth sandpaper would slide down it like silk. Top of the line. An inexpensive luxury in your life, and trust me, you’ll become addicted. Keep it in your closet and every morning, instead of fightin’ with your shoes and squeezin’ and stompin’, you can be a gentleman on the cheap. Find a comfortable chair, take a little extra time and slip your feet into your wing tips easy as you please—it’s a sweet feelin’, Mace. Butler and castle kinda shit.” Custis was sincerely enthusiastic. “If you really wanna go uptown, locate yourself one of those old-fashioned electric buffers with the red and black whirling brushes and hit that baby before you leave. A few seconds on each shoe, zzzzzzt, zzzzzzt, and you’ve set a tone for the day, highbrow right outta the gate. On top of everything else, your shoes will be stylin’ and last forever.”
“This, Custis, is why I’ll miss you so much. Thanks. I’ll give it a try tomorrow.”
“You won’t regret it. You’ll be surprised what a major difference it makes.” Custis backed away from Mason’s desk and nodded at his feet. “Check out these puppies, smart and fly as you’ll ever see. Says somethin’ about the man wearin’ ’em, too.”
“Why’ve you been keeping this a secret, Cus? All these years I could’ve used a boost to my day, and only now are you inviting me to the club.”
“My bad, I admit it. But better late than never.”
Mason put the top on the box. “You didn’t have to buy me a gift, but thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You want the other cereal bar?”
“I’m good,” Custis said.
“You can have it,” Mason offered.
“Not worth the calories.”
“Fruit?” Mason was stalling, fretting, deciding. He’d forgotten about his own pear, and its white meat was starting to brown.
“Appreciate it, but no.”
“Okay.”
“I’m gatherin’ from the long faces at the council meeting Chip-Tech’s DOA in Patrick County,” Custis remarked. “You for certain against it?”
“Yep,” Mason said distractedly.
“You see it as a rip-off? Hit and run?”
“It’s not end-of-the-world bad, but we can do better.”
“Stick to your guns,” Custis encouraged him. “People enjoy the hell out of crack over the short term, too. I’m with you. Don’t let a mean-spirited prick like Herman Dylan boss you around, you hear?”
“Uh-huh.” Mason drummed his desk with all ten fingers. “Listen, since we’re clearing the air, I need to ask you a question.” It seemed to Mason his blood was too heavy for his veins, taxing everything inside him. He was on the brink of dizziness.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Were you in Richmond last weekend—not this weekend, but last weekend—with a cop and Ed Hoffman? At the Tobacco Company?”
Custis emphatically shook his head before answering. “No, I wasn’t. Haven’t you already asked me? The Monday it was pourin’ rain? Sittin’ here in this very same office?”
“I didn’t really ask you directly, and it wasn’t much of a conversation.”
Custis finally sat, his knees splayed in opposite directions. “I didn’t lie to you then, and I’m not lying now. Why’re you so curious? Whoa. Wait. Hold on. You think me and Ed got something percolatin’ to your disadvantage? Do you? That’s a pretty rude accusation from the guy who claims we’re so damn tight, such major pals.” Custis stretched his neck forward, leading with his chin, defiant. “Especially shitty seein’ as how I’ve busted my ass to protect you, and I’m still willin’ to do my bit—by any means necessary, as brother Malcolm would put it.”
“I didn’t accuse you of anything. For all I know, you could’ve met with him trying to help me.” The surge of nerves was waning, the threat of dizziness passing.
“No, y
ou’re suggesting I’m lying about bein’ in Richmond with Ed. Don’t try to sugarcoat it.”
“So you weren’t?”
“Fuck no, Mason, I didn’t meet with Ed. Not in Richmond, not in Area 51, not in Timbuktu, not any-freakin’-where. Suddenly, I’m not regretting my decision to leave quite as bad. Who’s spreadin’ this nonsense, huh? Where you hearin’ this rumor?”
“Don Wiggington said he saw you and a man who could’ve been Hoffman and a uniformed cop at the Tobacco Company restaurant. He was positive.”
“And I’m positive he’s a pervert, a liar and a troublemaker. I wouldn’t believe that seedy SOB if he told me the sun rises in the east. You’re in my business because of Don Wiggington? The child molester? I need to slap myself, cause I know this has to be a dream.”
“Why’s Hoffman calling you? He called last Friday—you didn’t mention it.”
“I oughta leap over there and knock the shit outta you.” Custis was furious. Strident. “I should. You think—you have the balls to challenge my…” He was tongue-tied mad, spluttering, so angry he couldn’t continue.
“I had to ask, Custis. Wouldn’t you?”
“You’re not asking,” he snapped. “You’re accusing me of lying and plottin’ against you. That’s what’s at the bottom of your question, and I resent it.”
“If you tell me I’m off base, we won’t mention it again. You say you weren’t in Richmond, you weren’t in Richmond. You tell me you didn’t have dinner with Ed Hoffman, you didn’t have dinner with Ed Hoffman.”
“I shouldn’t have to say it three times, but I’m gonna, just so I won’t undo the dab of goodwill I’ve tried to spread this morning.” His voice was still heated, but he wasn’t as confrontational. “I’ve never talked to Ed in Richmond or anywhere else on this planet about your case unless you were there. I don’t have some secret plan, good or bad, goin’ with Ed or the cops. Despite your lack of faith and appreciation, I’ve stuck with you and will continue to do so come what may, even though reasonable people might say I shouldn’t. Understand?” He glared at Mason. “Ed, who is a policeman with cases other than yours, phoned Friday to tell me the forensics weren’t ready for the trial we have tomorrow, the Arlen Spencer credit card forgeries. He needed a continuance. I saw the message when I brought the flowers and called him Sunday night at his home.” Custis rose from his chair. “Here’s the gospel, Mason Hunt: like the song says, paranoia will destroy you. You better chill and quit actin’ the fool. Remember who’s your friend, who’s your enemy.”
Mason believed him. “Far as I’m concerned, the book’s closed, then.”
“Far as I’m concerned,” Custis huffed, “there never shoulda been a damn book.”
Mason managed a weak smile. “You want your shoehorn returned?”
“I’m not playin’, Mason. I admit I shouldn’t have jumped on you last week, and I came in here today and apologized like a man. But I’ve never questioned your character, never sunk so low as you did just now. Never would. Like I’m gonna pretend to be your friend and…shit, we probably shouldn’t be discussin’ your personal affairs in here, anyhow. Too many potential ears.”
“You’re right.”
“Shame on you,” Custis rebuked him.
“I regret it, Custis. I’m sorry. I don’t blame you for being pissed at me. Seems to be the day for apologies around here, huh?”
“Well, you’re not finished with yours yet. This insult’s got some legs. Your restitution’s just beginning.”
They didn’t have any desire to be Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, eating their meal while a hoard of gawkers scrambled for a peek at the town’s newest curiosity, so Mason and Shoni McClean drove to Mount Airy on an August Saturday to have their first lunch together. School had begun, and even though it was still plenty hot, the air was crisper at night and the grass dew-soaked when the sun rose. Yellow leaves were starting in the poplars, maybe five bright inserts in a tree a hundred feet high, the changes still lost among all the green, insignificant.
Mason hadn’t told his daughter where he was going or what he was doing. She and a group of friends were rehearsing a play at a teacher’s house, and Mason had instructed her to call his cell if she needed him. He was pleasantly excited as he showered and shaved and dressed, and he debated which shirt he should wear and looked at himself in the mirror, gauging his appearance. He decided against cologne and settled on flip-flops with his chinos. It felt good to have a trickle of juice flowing, to finally register something besides dread at the same gray, stifling loop he toured every day, but as he was leaving, he saw Allison’s picture, prominent on his dresser, and the lovely reminder caused him to sit on the bed in his silent house and ponder how out of whack this was, how flukish and screwy.
Before calling Shoni and asking her to lunch, he’d parked himself in the room with the rhino painting and scoured his conscience, trying to get a handle on what Allison would have expected of him. He concluded he’d be the jealous, childish ghost rattling his chains and shouting boo at his wife’s new suitors, rearranging furniture and shorting light fixtures, a selfish spirit who’d rather see Allison in brown, droopy sweaters and drowning in cats than content with another man. Conversely, she probably loved him more than that, would ultimately wish him whole and attached to life, and he imagined her elegant hand raising a wineglass in a toast, subtle and sorrowful, of course, but still offering her blessing. She’d say something like, “So long as she’s not as pretty as I am…” because she had always been confident and complete in herself, more assured and more generous than he could ever be.
Mason and Shoni had lunch at a Main Street restaurant called Pandowdy’s, and despite his looming legal problems and the undeniable weirdness of a first date, the phenomenon of being both buyer and seller, performer and audience, Mason enjoyed the meal and he was impressed by Shoni, who had the grace and good sense not to discuss her estranged husband and was interested in all manner of things from kayaking to Ingmar Bergman. They discussed law and teaching and mutual friends and the new treadmill at the gym. They chattered past dessert and coffee, staying until two o’clock, even finishing the hard peppermints that came with the bill.
Returning to Stuart on Route 103, they commented on the cement dinosaur, polka-dot elephant and giant pink amphora at the entrance to Slick’s Pottery, and they passed an old coot in a metal folding chair, a flyswatter resting across his lap, peddling his wares from a roadside shack, mostly hubcaps and lawn mower motors and dusty glass bottles. They turned around at a white clapboard church and went back to the man’s junky stand, where they bought a pair of hubcaps, one shiny prize for Mason, one for Shoni, matching first-date mementos, the kind of calculated craziness that’s funny and loosey-goosey and vaguely romantic but would have a veteran husband fussing at his wife and braying, “Why the hell would I want to drop twenty bucks on hubcaps we can’t ever use?” Mason kissed Shoni on the cheek at her door, told her he’d see her again soon, he hoped.
At the end of August, now firmly convinced he would be indicted by Leonard Stallings in the September term of Patrick County Circuit Court, Mason traveled to Martinsville and hired a pair of lawyers, Pat Sharpe and Jim Haskins, to represent him. Sharpe was the younger of the two, around six feet, thin, fair-skinned and impossible to rattle in the courtroom, deft at developing his case with thoughtful, compact questions that left witnesses no space to hedge or lie. Haskins was in his sixties, a warrior from the first pleading to the last post-trial motion, savvy and persistent, and he was famous for his impeccable manners, natty suits and cheap black-plastic comb, which he would unabashedly produce, anywhere, anytime, and carefully groom his hair, whether in the middle of a trial or while talking to a friend on a street corner, it didn’t matter to Gentleman Jim, and the idiosyncrasy had become a trademark of sorts for him, to the extent that other attorneys and court personnel often cued on it, figuring the comb’s appearance likely signaled a turn in a case, big doings, a sign the hammer was about to fall.
/> After mulling it over, Mason decided to include Custis in their initial meeting, and the four of them gathered in Haskins’s conference room, late in the afternoon. Mason explained he was soon going to be charged with the 1984 murder of Wayne Thompson. Saying it, sitting there in Haskins’s conference room amid the black leather chairs and fox-hunt prints, saying it caused Mason to come to a dead halt, his own voice repeating in his brain, the awful gravity binding him for several seconds. Finally continuing, he also informed them the commonwealth’s case was based on three items: his brother’s testimony, an incriminating statement he’d allegedly made during a police sting and some mysterious evidence he and Custis hadn’t unearthed but believed to exist, since Ed Hoffman was an honest cop and wouldn’t bluff if he didn’t have the goods. Mason declared his innocence, repeating the false account of where he and Gates had been on the night of the killing. “He’s doing this because he’s angry with me,” Mason said in a steady voice, “and because he wants me to help him get out of jail. Since I won’t do his bidding, I’m sure he’ll try to trade his testimony for some sentence reduction or an advantage in the system.”
True to his temperament, Haskins was enraged. “What a bastard!” he exclaimed, bellicose and combative, immediately spinning out no-holds-barred legal strategies. Sharpe listened intently with his index fingers steepled in front of his face and said, “I’m sorry this is happening to you, Mason.”
They discussed options and speculated and debated strategy for over an hour, and at the conclusion of the meeting they were in agreement on all issues save one: the question of the polygraph. Sharpe and Custis thought there was nothing to lose and everything to gain, but Haskins was against the idea, arguing the tests were unreliable, he wasn’t sure the agreement was enforceable and it was beneath Mason to participate in a “damn witch hunt.” “Those tests are wrong too often for my taste,” Haskins said. “You catch an erroneous reading or an inconclusive, and you better believe this Stallings or the cops will leak it to the court, slip it in, and while the jury might not hear it as evidence, you’ll wind up with a judge who thinks you’re guilty and that’ll color every ruling he makes. Besides, your sympathetic chum Ed Hoffman, who’s helping and feeding you under the table right now, might switch teams if he thinks you’re lying.”