Emperor of Ocean Park eh-1

by Stephen L Carter

  “Amen, Reverend,” says Kwame Kennerly, Shirley beams at him.

  Meanwhile, Dahlia Hadley is taking her turn. “But isn’t the atheist at risk? He might come to God, but, then again, he might not.” I glance up just in time to see her smile prettily at Marc, but the surging anger is there, just below the surface of her girlish face, for those who care to look.

  Dr. Young notices her fury. He notices everything. He nods his heavy head. “That is true, my dear, that is true, that is true.” His rolling voice has developed a musical lilt. “The Lord opens the door to Heaven to the most miserable sinner, but the sinner still has to step through it. And the human mind, that glorious creation, has a way of throwing up obstacles. Oh, yes. The Lord holds the door open and the mind says, ‘That’s not the Lord!’ or ‘That’s not the door!’ or ‘I’d rather store up treasures on earth!’ Those are the counsels of Satan, who is always the same, remember, praise God, clever but not intelligent. Many a man would rather listen to Satan’s counsels, would rather win what the sinful world gives grudgingly than accept what God offers freely. And we all know what the Gospel says about such men: ‘They have their reward.’”

  Marc Hadley wants to interrupt again, but Shirley Branch, sitting next to him at the head of the table, has the temerity to put a hand on his arm to make him shush.

  Ben Montoya speaks up instead: “Some people don’t happen to share your religious beliefs, Reverend,” he declares, rudely but correctly. “Have you thought about their rights?”

  Dr. Morris Young smiles down the table at him. “Oh, Professor Montoya, I have no concern for such matters. Rights are a thing of men. God is a God of love. You do not love your neighbor by giving your neighbor a right. You give the poor man or the black man a right and you feel you have done your duty to him. You may even feel that he now owes you a debt of gratitude. But if you had loved him to begin with, the question of right would never have arisen.”

  Lem Carlyle again intervenes gently, seeking common ground, as a future dean must. “But Christianity teaches that human beings are fallen. That we are sinful by nature. So Christianity justifies the state itself as ordained by God to keep order among these fallen creatures. Isn’t that why we have rights, in Christian thought-because we know that we are too weak to live in love for each other, as God would prefer?”

  Dr. Young nods benignly, but not in agreement. “The trouble with rights,” he says, “is that, as soon as you have them, you think you have something of value. But all that has true value comes from the Lord. When you give a man a right, it is too easy to forget to love him.”

  Lynda Wyatt catches the drift: “So compassion is more important than rights.”

  “Rights are a thing of man,” Dr. Young agrees. “Loving our neighbor, turning to one another in charity and humility, is a gift we give back to the Lord.”

  And then I see it. The chance of escape from the web my clever father, in death, has woven around me and my family. Everyone seeks the treasures of the earth, just as Morris Young suggested. The treasures of the earth. The earth. A memory tugs at me, an uncomfortable afternoon with the Judge many years ago, right on the campus. The white pawn. The Excelsior. The earth. Possibly, just possibly, I can make it all fit together.

  “Amen, Reverend,” I echo, a glimmer of hope finally flashing in my tortured mind.

  (III)

  Ben Montoya and I leave the dinner at the same time, picking our way through the crusty snow toward the parking lot. He has timed his departure so perfectly that I am sure he wants to talk to me about something.

  I am right.

  Ben begins with a feint. “Do you think he really believes all that stuff?”

  “Who? What stuff?”

  “Reverend Young. All that stuff about Satan.”

  I look at him. “I don’t have any doubt that Dr. Young believes every word of it. I believe it, too.”

  Ben shakes his head but says nothing. A silence descends as we crunch through the snow, each of us alone with his thoughts: Ben no doubt confirmed in his opinion that I am out of my mind, and me recognizing the deep truth of what I have just reported. But Ben’s true purpose in following me out has nothing to do with theology or metaphysics.

  “Ah, Talcott,” he murmurs officiously, after a few seconds of silence, and I know we have reached the main event.

  “Hmmm?” I do not look in his direction. The walkway to the visitors’ lot leads between two rows of cookie-cutter units. Around the edges of drawn curtains or blinds, television images flash colorfully. I hear bursts of laughter, argument, music. But my attention is mainly on the sidewalk in front of me, from which this afternoon’s freezing rain has not yet been cleared. The condominium association is begging for a lawsuit, should somebody trip and fall.

  “Talcott, can I talk to you for a minute?”

  “We are talking, Ben. That’s what this is, talking.” I suppose I would like Ben more were he not Dean Lynda’s tool in so many of the various unseemly things a dean must do; or if I, too, were an insider; or if I were simply a better man.

  Ben laughs shortly. He is, I suppose, about sixty, his hair thin on top and quite gray, his pouchy eyes wary yet accusatory behind thick glasses. His walk is the assertive lurch of a man in a great and irritated hurry. He is an anthropologist by training and has done important work on the way that contracts and property are handled in certain Pacific Islander societies that lack a tradition of making promises.

  “Talcott, ah, you know, the Dean, well, she would never say anything, but…”

  “But?”

  “Lynda’s very upset with you, Talcott. You have to realize that.”

  We have emerged at the poorly plowed visitors’ parking lot. My shabby Camry is off in a corner, but we are standing and facing each other, maybe because we are right next to Ben’s classic Jaguar XKE, or maybe because of what he just said to me.

  “Upset about what?”

  He blinks behind those powerful lenses. “Oh, well, you know. The way you’ve been acting lately. And this business with you and Marc.. .”

  “There is no business with me and Marc.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I’m not sure I do.” I look him up and down, my temper flares redly, and Ben steps hastily back as though expecting a blow. “If Lynda wants to talk to me, she knows where to find me.”

  “I’m not sure she does want to talk to you, Talcott.” The officious tone is back. Ben is expert at looking down on others, not only because of his height. “The Dean is too polite to say anything to you, but I understand you were abusive to her the last time you talked.”

  “Abusive? We… we just had a disagreement, I wasn’t…”

  He rolls right over me. “Then there is this business with the police earlier this week. I know you didn’t almost get arrested, but the situation was, ah, a little bit messy. We have to think of the law school’s image, Talcott. We can’t have a professor pouring gasoline on the racial fires in this town-”

  “Ben-”

  “No, no, I’m not saying you’re doing it intentionally. But people are likely to exploit what happened for political gain”-he means Kwame Kennerly-“and, well, we can’t have faculty members abetting this sort of thing, even unintentionally. And that’s not all, Talcott. Lynda also says you’re costing the school three million dollars…”

  “Now, wait a minute! Wait just a minute!” Fresh snow is beginning to fall, and the wind is picking up. Road conditions will soon be treacherous, and we both should be hurrying home, but I want to make sure I have the message straight, because I know it is coming from Lynda, not from Ben. “Are you telling me that Cameron Knowland is really taking his money back? Because his spoiled brat of a son is mad at a professor?”

  Ben has his palms toward me, a gesture of surrender. He has backed all the way to the door of his Jag. “I don’t know what Cameron is doing. I’m not privy to everything the Dean knows. I just want you to know that she’s upset with you, and… and, well, I think
it would be a good idea if you were… um, on your best behavior…”

  “Are you trying to warn me of something, Ben? Am I in some kind of actual trouble, or is this just a matter of ruffled feathers?”

  Ben has the door of his car open. Having delivered his message, he seems to want no more conversation. “I just think you should be careful, that’s all. You should think of the good of the school.”

  “As opposed to thinking of what? I don’t get it. Ben, wait.” He is sitting now, ready to close the door behind him. “What are you trying to tell me? Is this really about me, or is it about Kimmer and Marc?” I remember Stuart Land’s warning that pressures would be brought to bear. “Come on, Ben, tell me.”

  “There isn’t anything to tell, Talcott.” His fierce eyes are looking straight ahead, as though he is angry at me for some offense I have yet to commit.

  “But wait a minute. Wait. I don’t understand what you’re telling me.” I put my hand on the door, not allowing him to close it. “Am I in trouble?” I ask again.

  “I don’t know, Talcott. Are you in trouble?” As I struggle for a clever response, he points with his chin. “Would you mind taking your hand off my car?”

  “Ben…”

  “Good night, Talcott. Love to your family.”

  He is gone.

  Reeling, I nearly storm back into the party to confront Lynda Wyatt, to ask her what the real message is. But there would be no point. Lynda would deny everything. That is the reason to have a hatchet man in the first place: she can disavow whatever he says, and the message can still get across.

  There are days when I hate this place.

  I hurry through the snow to my own car, wishing for a way to put the whole pack of them behind me. Not only Lynda Wyatt and Ben Montoya and the others at the law school, but Uncle Mal and the Washington pack, too. I wish I could grab my family and head for the hills-or, failing that, for Oak Bluffs. A few thousand people live there year-round, after all. We could find a way to do it. We could run a bed and breakfast. Or hang out a shingle and practice law together. We could do it.

  Not that Kimmer would go.

  Still shaking with anger over my confrontation with Ben, I stab my key at the lock-my tough little Camry is too old to have a keyless entry system or an alarm-and then I notice that the door is already unlocked.

  I must have left it that way, because nobody goes to the trouble of picking the lock of a car and then leaves the car. And nobody would steal a twelve-year-old car in the first place.

  Except that, when I open the door and the dome light comes on, I realize that there are people after all who break into cars and take nothing, just as there are people who break into vacation homes and do the same thing.

  Some people pick locks to make deliveries.

  Lying squarely in the middle of the driver’s seat is the chess book that was stolen by the two men who beat me up.

  CHAPTER 30

  THE USUAL SUSPECTS

  (I)

  “I hear you had a fight with Stuart Land,” says Dear Dana Worth, who is the first to hear about most things that happen around Oldie, including some that didn’t. She is perching on the edge of her desk, palms on the top, the soles of her shoes pressed flat against the side, her small body set in a posture that has become so Worthian a trademark that the students have somebody mimic it most years in the satirical show they put on just before graduation. I am sitting on the long, solid sofa she found at a used-furniture store and reupholstered.

  “Not a fight exactly. More… a free and frank exchange of views.”

  “About what?”

  “I accused him of trying to wreck Marc’s candidacy. I told him it was backfiring, that it might hurt Kimmer, too.” I rub my itching cheek, remembering the look on his face, the surprise I would almost swear was genuine. “He said he wasn’t doing any such thing.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t.”

  “He just got back from Washington, Dana.”

  “Don’t be silly, Misha, darling. I’m sure he wasn’t there on behalf of your wife. He was just there cooking up some constitutional mischief with his right-wing buddies. Stuart never goes anywhere on behalf of anybody else but Stuart.”

  “And the law school.”

  “And the law school,” she agrees, less certainly. She hops off the desk and begins to stride around the room. Her spacious office is on the second floor of Oldie, right next to Theo Mountain’s, and it is said that the two of them share gossip incessantly. Everything about her office is just right, from the obsessively neat desk to the collection of plants along the windowsill to the shelves where her books are arranged in alphabetical order by author. I stand up as well, crossing to the window, where I look down on the front steps of the building and the granite wall of the main campus across the street. I can see the alley where I was beaten up a few days ago. It is Monday, nine days before Christmas. Classes are finally over, and the faculty is starting to scatter, but the students are stuck in town for another few days, taking their final exams. As for me, I have been keeping my head down, and dithering over what to do next. I have the terrible sense of time running out.

  “So, Dana, anyway, you called…”

  “I know.” A pause. “I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

  I nod my head without turning around. Our friendship has been maturing over the weeks since Freeman Bishop’s murder. I am not sure I will ever be as close to her as Kimmer and I were, jointly, to Dana and Eddie in the old days, but Dana seems determined to patch up what she can. I am moved by her efforts. Unlike other members of the faculty, who seem to view my recent behavior roughly the way Dean Lynda does, Dana has drifted closer. Outcasts, she told me a few days ago, have to stick together. When I pointed out to Dana that she is no outcast, she reminded me that she runs the local branch of the Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians. Everybody hates us for something or other, she told me, quite pleased.

  “I’m okay,” I assure her.

  “Nice stitches. Very becoming.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ve been thinking about what happened to you.”

  “What happened to me?”

  “Your near arrest-”

  I finally turn back into the room. “I didn’t get nearly arrested.”

  “I don’t know what else to call it.”

  “It was a misunderstanding, that’s all.”

  The great libertarian grins. “Oh, right, the kind of misunderstanding where they come within an inch of beating you to death.”

  “Nobody beat me,” I say sharply, suddenly worried about what rumors my old friend might be spreading, for Dana, as she likes to say, can be trusted absolutely to repeat what you tell her to no more people than you have told.

  “The guys who were chasing you did.”

  “True.”

  “Well, Misha, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” Still in constant motion, her arms swinging as though for balance. I wonder if she is ever tranquil. “The guys who were chasing you.”

  “What about them?”

  “Well, they stole the chess book, right?”

  “Uh, right.” I have not told her it rematerialized. Nevertheless, I have told Dana more of the story than I have told anyone else, maybe because Dana, unlike my other acquaintances, keeps asking me to.

  “And do you see why?” She is standing next to me at the window now, looking out across the campus as students trudge raggedly through the cold rain. She is smiling. Dear Dana Worth loves this job.

  I turn to watch the scene with her. I have guessed the answer; has she? “You tell me.”

  “Because, Misha, darling, they thought it was what they were looking for.”

  “Huh?”

  “My, but we’re slow today, aren’t we? Number one, you said they were following you. Number two, you said they knew your name.” Dana is a great one for making lists, usually on the spur of the moment. “Number three, they asked you what was in the package. And, number four, they beat you up
and made off with the book.”

  “Right.”

  “So, why that particular night? Of all the nights they could have gone after you, why did they pick that one?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Because you did something, or said something, that made them think that this was it, this was the real thing.” She weaves her head like a boxer, pleased with her own deduction. “So all you have to do is figure out what you did to set them off.”

  But I already know what I did. I went to the chess club. The men who followed me must have worked for somebody who, like the late Colin Scott, knew what was in the Judge’s letter. Somebody who figured out what Excelsior meant, which means somebody who knew my father was a chess problemist. Somebody who might have said, If he ever goes near anyplace having to do with chess, keep a particularly close eye on him. If he brings anything out, get it from him, any way you can. Somebody… somebody…

  “What about Jack Ziegler’s promise that nobody would hurt me?”

  “Somebody hasn’t heard the news,” she says.

  I frown. I have not told her about the phone call at two-fifty-one. I have not, yet, told anybody. Sooner or later, I will have to. As soon as I figure out who around the building could be keeping tabs on me. It occurs to me, for a worrisome moment, that it could be Dear Dana herself.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” she murmurs.

  “I’m compiling an enemies list,” I answer.

  “Oh, Misha, don’t say that. It sounds positively Nixonian.”

  “Doesn’t it, though?” I wink at her. “Nixon was my father’s hero.”

  “Nobody’s perfect. Except Lemaster Carlyle.” Dana chuckles. She has used this line before. But I find it less funny than in the past.