AHMM, June 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Someone found Jack dead at his desk this morning,” said the officer.

  Court went on as usual that day. Bernie called the Motion Part calendar, and Jack Duberstein's boss, the law pool chief, arrived in the courtroom to divide the motions. He and Bernie worked in silence, death overwhelming any chitchat. Later, Bernie's own boss assigned him the official job of dividing the submitted motions at the end of each day's calendar. The law pool chief was too busy to do it himself and, with the recent whiff of corruption, did not want anyone from his staff involved in Motion Part operations.

  "Someone has to do it,” his boss said. “You've watched Jack for years. You're the logical replacement."

  "But . . .” said Bernie.

  "Don't worry. You have a reputation beyond reproach."

  "So did Jack,” said Bernie.

  As Bernie headed out for his lunchtime walk, Foxx intercepted him at the fountain across Foley Square.

  "Follow me,” said Foxx.

  They walked along the south side of the courthouse, where cars with judicial license plates lined the curb. Toward the back of the building, a white van idled. Foxx opened the back door and ushered Bernie inside. Two men in jeans and sweatshirts sat on low, rolling stools facing a bank of electrical equipment. They pulled off their headphones.

  "We understand you have a new job in Motion Part, taking over for the late Jack Duberstein,” said one of the men. “We want you to troll around. See how far up the food chain Duberstein's scam went."

  "I thought the investigation was over,” said Bernie.

  "Maybe with the D.A., but not with the Inspector General."

  Bernie looked at the other man and then at Foxx. They each nodded.

  "Long story on my end,” Foxx added.

  "We want you to wear a wire,” said the second man. “It's not really a wire anymore. The technology is way advanced. But the idea is the same."

  "What if I don't?” said Bernie.

  "Someone else will,” said the first man. “Besides, it'll help your case."

  "What case?"

  "You worked with Duberstein every day for what? Six, seven years?” said the second man. “What's the IG supposed to think?"

  Bernie mulled over the threat.

  "Find someone else,” he said.

  * * * *

  The week passed, and Bernie fell into the routine of doing not only his own job but Jack Duberstein's as well. He couldn't divine the complexity of a motion as magically as Jack, but he divided each day's submitted motions to the best of his abilities and heard no complaints.

  He was cautious. He avoided people. He watched the other clerks, the court officers, even the lawyers for telltale signs that one might be wearing a wire. But gradually, the threat of the IG investigation receded. Jack's scam was over. Done. Gone. Just like Jack himself. On Friday, after the court officers trucked the submitted motions away on two separate carts, Bernie felt relaxed enough to look ahead. Declan was assigned to the Motion Part calendar on Monday.

  * * * *

  Bernie was waiting at the entrance to the Botanical Garden when Declan and his two sons got off the Metro North train. Declan had expressed surprise when Bernie called to propose a Saturday outing. He knew his older brother did something on Saturdays, though he never, and in Bernie's mind purposely, asked what. Bernie, for his part, considered the trip on the final weekend of the holiday train exhibit more than just a chance to please his disappointed nephews. Besides, he wanted to avoid the facility director until he could square up the arrearage.

  The exhibit was outdoors, in a garden where last night's dusting of snow persisted in the shadows. The holiday trains were O gauge and detailed; the tracks wound through iconic New York City landmarks fabricated from twigs, leaves, and pinecones. Declan hoisted Teddy for a better view. Timmy stuck by Bernie, less interested in the exhibit than in talking.

  "I know what you mean now about black holes,” he said. “I saw pictures on the Internet. They showed a black hole twisting a galaxy into a pretzel."

  "Gravity,” Bernie said darkly. “It comes from the word gravitas. It means heavy."

  Timmy looked horrified. “Are you okay, Uncle Bernie?"

  Bernie snapped back, rearranged his face into a smile. “Sure. Fine. Sorry. Just thinking out loud."

  Later, in the lobby of the main hall, the boys drifted off with their ice cream cones and left Bernie and Declan alone. Bernie wondered how to begin. A joke? An old story? Maybe a parable? In the end, he just began at the beginning.

  "That thing with Jack,” he said.

  "Jesus, Bernie, are you still on about that? It's over,” said Declan. “Don't worry."

  "You're right. It's over. But that's why I'm worried,” said Bernie. “Jack and I were partners."

  "What kind of partners?"

  "Partners. C'mon, Declan, you're not naive.” Bernie grabbed his brother by the elbows. “Partners in the scam."

  "But you said you didn't know."

  "That was partly true. I honestly don't know whether Jack wrote the decisions himself or had someone else do it. I was only the front man. I was the guy the lawyers contacted. After that . . .” He dusted his hands.

  "Oh Bernie Bernie Bernie,” said Declan. “Why are you telling me this?"

  "Because you need to know, Declan. You need to hear it because you need to know why I did it. I did it for Mom. I did it so she could be someplace safe when all you cared about was your career and your co-op and your wife and your boys. Jack cut me in for a piece, but I don't have a dime of it left. It all went for her."

  "Aw Christ, Bernie,” said Declan. He turned away as if to shield himself from what his brother was saying, but Bernie twisted him back.

  "She's in an assisted-living facility in White Plains,” he said. “I'm already a month behind, and with Jack gone I'll never catch up. She'll have to go to a nursing home."

  "So she goes to a nursing home,” said Declan. “That's not a tragedy, not these days."

  "For her it is. She doesn't deserve it."

  "Why? Why not?"

  Bernie said nothing. The answer, he thought, was self-evident. She was their mother. Wasn't that reason enough?

  "So what do you want, Bernie?"

  "I want your help."

  "You want to rerun the scam with me instead of Jack Duberstein?"

  "No. I'm done with scams. That subpoena scared the life out of me."

  "Then you're flat-out asking for money. You're asking me to pay something you can't afford."

  "I suppose I am."

  "For a decision you made.” Declan smirked. It was the same smirk Bernie saw cross his brother's face whenever he knew a lawyer was snowing him. “Look, that decision was your business. How you paid for it, that was your business too. It's over now. Sorry you can't afford your obligation. Neither can I."

  Bernie raged for the rest of the weekend. How smug his brother was, how self-centered. These people with children were all alike, living as though the mere fact they had children trumped every other obligation. They never seemed to remember that they had been children once, that they had mothers and fathers who put their obligations to their children before anything else. Ungrateful bastards.

  Monday morning, he caught an earlier than usual bus downtown. Anger quickened his steps as he crossed Foley Square to the south side of the courthouse. The white van was nowhere in sight. Inside, he poked into the coffee shop, the jury assembly room, the security posts at the two side entrances. Finally, he found Foxx in an alcove off the rotunda. Foxx snapped his cell phone shut.

  "The white van is gone,” said Bernie.

  "The investigation's over,” said Foxx.

  "Did they find anything?"

  "I don't know. I'm just a foot soldier."

  Bernie went through the Motion Part office and then down into the courtroom. The junior clerks busily shuffled the file jackets. The double doors leading in from the rotunda thumped as the lawyers massed outside. Bernie paged through the calendar. Seve
ral motions already had been withdrawn, others adjourned on consent. Still, it would be a long calendar before Declan made his grand entrance.

  At precisely nine fifteen, one of the junior clerks unlocked the doors, and the lawyers stampeded into the courtroom. Many took seats in the gallery while some studied the calendar pages taped to the wall and others buttonholed the junior clerks with questions about procedures. Bernie stood behind the bench, scanning for familiar faces. One lawyer caught Bernie's eye and gestured that he wanted to speak. Bernie came out to the rail and drew the lawyer to the side.

  "I have a tough case on today,” said the lawyer. This was the code, not work your magic.

  "Sorry. No can do,” said Bernie. “You heard."

  "I heard, but . . ."

  "I can't write them myself,” said Bernie.

  They stood silently for a moment. As the junior clerks called for everyone to take seats, a thought struck Bernie.

  "Ask for an adjournment,” he whispered to the lawyer.

  "How does an adjournment help me?"

  "Something could change.” Bernie pinched his eyes, recalling from the schedule that Declan again sat in eight days. “Next Tuesday."

  The lawyer melted into the gallery while Bernie took the microphone to begin the calendar call. An hour ago, he was angry enough to give himself up in order to take his brother down with him. Now he wondered if maybe, possibly, he and Declan could work a deal. Yes, he felt almost giddy with the thought, that's what he would do. He would take Declan to visit their mother, let him see where she lived for the past seven years, let him draw the inescapable inference that damning her to a nursing home would be a tragedy. After all, the gravity that had twisted him for all these years wasn't a miracle; it was a law of nature. And no one, not even a judge, was above the laws of nature.

  Bernie was on the third page of the calendar when the courtroom suddenly hushed. The silence didn't register completely, and he called two more cases before realizing that something unusual had happened. He glanced behind him. Declan stood on the bench, already in his robe. The double doors thumped, and the two guys from the white van slipped inside.

  Bernie swallowed hard and called the next case. No one in the gallery answered. He called it again, but by now Foxx was at his shoulder with his hand cupped over the microphone.

  "Sorry, Bernie, you need to come with me,” he said gently.

  Bernie turned around. Up on the bench, reared against the high ceiling of the stately old courtroom, Declan unzipped the front of his robe. Bernie now saw why Declan had turned away from him on Saturday. It hadn't been to shield himself from the truth but to protect his big brother from his own admissions. The transmitter, about the size of a tuxedo stud, poked out above his shirt pocket. Its red light blinked like a heartbeat.

  Copyright © 2010 K. J. Egan

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  Department: THE MYSTERIOUS CIPHER by Willie Rose

  Each letter consistently represents another. The quotation is from a short mystery story. Arranging the answer letters in alphabetical order gives a clue to the title of the story.

  WK NQKF SQOI ZWBZ ZWKI WBA TSCHWZ TSX WLP BQA ZWBZ QSF, ZWXSCHW YSPK CQTBZWSPBROK ESAK ST ZWKLX SFQ, WBA ZCXQKA SQ WLP BHBLQ.

  —KDBQ WCQZKX

  cipher: A [ ] B [ ] C [ ] D [ ] E [ ] F [ ] G [ ] H [ ] I [ ] J [ ] K [ ] L [ ] M [ ] N [ ] N [ ] O [ ] P [ ] Q [ ] R [ ] S [ ] T [ ] U [ ] V [ ] W [ ] X [ ] Y [ ] Z [ ]

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Fiction: KIDNAPPED by Joan Druett

  When the body was carried on board, Captain Kemble and his first mate, a small, brisk young fellow who was simply known as C. B., were leaning on the rail watching the war canoes gather. The body was of a young Maori, about eighteen years old, and looked about as dead as last week's mutton, so C. B. was quite surprised when he heard a groan as it hit the deck. The two bountymen rubbed their hands and grinned as they received their blood money for delivering their captive, and then C. B. watched them shamble off toward one of the grogshops that straggled along the beach of Kororareka. The shantytown was the most infamous settlement in the Bay of Islands—in the whole of New Zealand, for that matter—so they would find all the rotgut they wanted, he reckoned.

  Then C. B. glanced sideways at Captain Kemble, remarking curiously, “I didn't know we needed an extra hand.” Kemble's ship—a nice little brig, loaded to the gunwales with potatoes for Sydney Town—had been set to sail, yet the old man had waited to take on the lad, who was now trying to lift his head, and was definitely alive.

  "We don't,” the old salt replied. Kemble's tone was vague because most of his attention was on the war canoes. There were at least fifty of them gathered on the shimmering waters of the bay, manned by at least two thousand men who were getting themselves all wound up for the voyage to the Bay of Plenty to make war on another tribe in revenge for some ancient insult. The chief, Te Tera, was standing up in the middle thwarts of the biggest canoe, haranguing the crowd, and two thousand bloodthirsty warriors were waving their muskets in a frenzy of impatience to get to the battle and kill or be killed.

  Instead of admiring the stirring sight, Captain Kemble was congratulating himself that he had recruited his Maori crew at a whaling station in the far south of the country, where the political affairs of the North Island tribes were as foreign to them as America. Maori lads made fine seamen, in his estimation, but they were awful apt to jump ship if there was a battle in the offing, and if they'd been locals he would have lost the lot. As it was, his crew looked openly envious as they eyed one lot of remote cousins preparing to go to war with another distant set. It was damn lucky, Kemble thought, they were unable to think of a reason to join them.

  Reminded that the young fellow who'd been dumped on his deck was native to the Bay of Islands, and related to half of the yelling warriors most probably, he said to C. B., “Better put the new hand down with the spuds until we get clear of this place, or he'll dive overboard to join his friends in them canoes."

  Then he watched with approval as C. B. organized a couple of the hands into dumping the new recruit onto the top layer of potatoes. C. B. might be very young—not yet twenty—but he was a rare prize in this year of 1831. Not only was he a competent seaman, but he had also worked out his sentence in the penal settlement of New South Wales, which meant that he could legitimately sail out of Sydney. C. B. had been with Kemble just a few weeks, but the old salt hoped that he'd stay with the ship.

  Accordingly, when C. B. rejoined him at the rail, still looking mighty curious, Kemble felt cooperative enough to explain why he'd delayed sailing long enough to take on another hand in this unusual fashion.

  "Had him kidnapped as a favor to the family,” he said.

  "They wanted him captured and sold?"

  "Yup. They asked me to get him out of the Bay as quick as possible, and without no fuss nor ruckus, neither. So I hired them two crimps to do the job on the quiet."

  "But why did they want to get rid of him, sir?” C. B. was beginning to look mighty alarmed, visualizing all kinds of strife and commotion once the lad regained consciousness and the brig was out at sea.

  "He ain't a troublemaker,” Kemble hastily assured him, then decided to confide some more. “The lad's only half a Maori, being the son of a Salem skipper and a local girl. The American kept up quite an interest in the lad, kept on coming back to check up on him, and when the boy was about twelve he took it into his head he needed an heir, on account of his legal wife hadn't given him one. So he dropped anchor yet again, asked his girlfriend if he could keep him, and when she said yes, he carried him home."

  "To America?"

  "Aye. Salem in America."

  C. B. shook his head in wonder, then abruptly broke into a snigger. “And what do you reckon the skipper's legal wife had to say when he turned up with the poor little brown bastard?"

  "Son, the imagination ain't up to it,” the captain solemnly assured him.

  "So the lad come back to the Bay of I
slands?"

  "First opportunity, or so it seems,” Kemble agreed. “Shipped on a New Zealand-bound whaler soon as he was old enough, just to get back home. But he might as well have saved his time. His folks here couldn't wait to get rid of him."

  Having unburdened himself of the yarn, the old man looked around. The tide was on the turn, and the canoes were paddling in all different directions while Te Tera and the warriors yelled at each other to get into some kind of order preparatory for departure. It was time to make himself scarce, Kemble thought, and ordered C. B. to trip anchor and get underway.

  C. B. nodded, but then turned. “What do I call ‘im, when I let ‘im loose?"

  "He was named William Coffin, after his father,” said Captain Kemble. According to what he'd heard, however, everyone called him Wiki.

  * * * *

  By the time the brig dropped anchor in Sydney Cove, Wiki's head had given over aching, and he was almost accustomed to life on board. C. B., whose real name and past crimes were a deadly secret, might be very young, but he certainly knew his job. Captain Kemble was hitting seventy and definitely too old for the seagoing life, but still about the best seaman Wiki had ever encountered—which was saying quite something, for he'd spent the past ten months on a Nantucket whaler, and American whalemen were famous for their seamanship. Wiki had never seen sail carried so hard as Kemble's brig carried on that Tasman Sea passage, but they never lost a stitch of canvas because the old man not only knew how to carry it but knew how to take it off in a hurry when necessary, too.

  Wiki had also got used to the fact that Captain Kemble was extremely superstitious. All sailors had their superstitions, in Wiki's experience, but with the old man it was a kind of religion. Every seaman took care not to let the moon fall on his sleeping face, knowing he'd be struck blind if he did, but old Kemble wouldn't turn his back on the moon, either, in case he glimpsed it over his left shoulder, which would guarantee the most dreadful luck possible. No one dared drop a hatch cover upside down because the ship would be sure to go bottom up, and if a bird landed on the foremast they were in for good fortune, while a bird on the main augured bad. By the end of the passage Wiki knew that the old man kept a Bible in his chest for luck, though he never thought of reading it, and that he would have gone berserk if anyone had thrown an animal overboard, even a little mouse. He also knew that the captain had paid more than he could afford for the brig, having to raise money from a lender at extortionate terms, but he'd wanted her as soon as he heard she'd launched as smooth as cream, meaning she was fated to be fortunate.