Julia

by Marty Sorensen

  *

  The phone rang insistently. Hugh walked at a deliberate pace back to his desk. No phone call made him hurry. He sat at his desk and looked at the picture of himself, Julia and Elizabeth for a moment. His arm is around his wife's waist and she looks up at him in admiration. In between them Elizabeth stands in a rigid pose except that her head is turned up to look at her father as well as he stares directly into the camera.

  Hugh picked up the phone ready for a fight. He lifted an unlit cigar up off the ashtray and put it in his mouth. He let them wait while he lit it and then he spoke. “Yes, what is it?” He said it loud to make sure they understood he had no patience today for wasting time.

  “Mister Stuart, this is Elmer Griesbeck.”

  Hugh rolled his eyes and took the cigar out of his mouth. He put both elbows on his desk. “This better be good news Elmer. I hope you have taken care of everything.”

  There was a short silence on the line. “Well-Sir-I did what I could but things have gotten out of hand.”

  Hugh’s voice rose. “Out of hand? What the hell do you mean? You said you could handle this.” “Shit,” he said to himself, not caring whether Elmer heard him. “Shit,” he said again out loud into the telephone. “Tell me what it is Elmer that you cannot do.”

  “You see, Sir, a little kid died in the apartment on Orchard Street. From his burns.” Elmer's voice began to shake.

  “I see. I'm sorry about that. What started the fire?”

  Hugh could hear Elmer breathing into the phone. “Elmer, tell me how it happened, dammit.”

  “We don't know exactly, Sir, just that there was a fire and the little boy was killed and a couple of other people were burned.”

  “What does this have to do with me?” These damn people were always trying to pass the buck.

  “I'm sorry, Sir,-”

  Hugh slammed his fist down on the desk. The picture jumped up and then fell down flat. “Elmer it's clear, you're not competent at this. I’ll find somebody who is-”

  Elmer didn't let him finish his sentence. “The fire marshal is here, Sir.” There was satisfaction in Elmer's voice as he announced this. He was off the hook and Hugh was on it. “I'll put him on the line.”

  Hugh let out a sigh. Damn, he didn't even know where the building was. He had never been there. It was something he had inherited from his father and he had no cause to ever go down and mix with that kind of people.

  A new voice came on the phone. “Mister Stuart?”

  Hugh let his cigar drop into the ashtray and then let his hand fall on his thigh. “Yes, this is Hugh Stuart. With whom am I speaking?” He shook his head. He stood up as if this were going to give him some kind of leverage over the voice on the other end of the line.

  The voice was much more assured and self-confident than Elmer's pusillanimous squawking. “Mister Stuart my name is Theobald Matthew. I am the fire marshal for lower Manhattan. I understand you are the owner of the building at 108 Orchard Street, is that true?”

  Hugh did not know the address of the building. He had never needed to know. All he had never seen was the aggregated rent receipts. “Yes, I suppose I am,” he said, his voice clearly showing his irritation.

  The marshal responded with a voice that had a hard edge. “You suppose you are. Now either you are the owner or you are not, Mister Stuart. Which is it?”

  Hugh sat down and leaned over his desk. He knew that he was not going to be able to intimidate the fire marshal the way he was able to intimidate his own employees. There were lawyers for that. “What I meant was that I do not manage these properties myself. The gentleman there with you is the man who is responsible for managing the property. He is the one who knows the exact house numbers.”

  The line went silent, and you could hear the fire marshal talking to Elmer in the background. Then the fire marshal came back online. “Well, it seems you are the responsible party Mister Stuart. I'm calling to inform you that one of your tenants has died in a fire. Several others were burned. We are in the middle of an investigation as to the cause of the fire and I am informing you now that you are a principal participant in this investigation. And by principal participant I mean you Mister Stuart, not your manager and not your secretary. Is that clear?”

  Hugh had never heard an accusation like that in his entire life. He let the man wait for several seconds. Then he said, in as pleasant a voice as he could project under the circumstances, “Mister Matthew, I certainly understand my rights and my responsibilities as a property owner in the city of New York. You can have complete confidence that myself and my company will support your investigation to the fullest. We will help you find out how these tenants started this fire,” and here Hugh stopped to feel for the right word for these lazy, uneducated-”and they will be assisted to learn the proper fire safety for the places where they live.”

  “Ah, I see,” said the fire marshal, “you appear to have already made your own investigation and determined that the people who were burned are responsible for the fire. Well, Mister Stuart, we don't act so fast. We have to wait for investigators to go over the evidence and prepare a report. Then we will determine whether those poor burned people did it all by themselves, or -” and he paused for effect, “whether there were any building code violations that contributed to this unfortunate loss of life.”

  Hugh fumed. He gnashed his teeth. He looked at the cigar in the ashtray, at its ashes. Then he took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. He smiled as he said spoke into the telephone. “Mister Matthew, you will have our full and unimpeded assistance. We will help you in whatever way we can. Now if you would be so kind as to put my manager back on the phone, I will say the same thing to him.”

  “Thank you very much Mister Stuart, your cooperation is appreciated by the fire department of the city of New York, always striving to protect.” Hugh heard the smile in the fire marshals voice.

  Elmer Griesbeck came on the phone. He had not gained any more self-assurance. “Yes, Mister Stuart -”

  “Elmer you are to give the fire marshal your complete and undivided attention to resolve this matter, is that understood?”

  “Yes it is Sir.”

  “Then that is all for now, Elmer. Please keep me informed.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Hugh slammed the phone down. He picked up his cigar and lit it, sucked on it, then blew out smoke toward the ceiling. He picked up the phone and dialed his lawyer.

  “Good morning,” came the pleasant voice, “law firm of Krause and Stone. How may I direct your call?”

  “This is Hugh Stuart. Put me through to Leonard Krause.”

  “I'm sorry-”

  “Don't be sorry young lady, just get me Leonard. Now.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said in a shaky voice, “I will try.”

  “You tell him I want to speak to him now, got that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now go tell him. Tell him Hugh Stuart wants to talk to him and it's important. Tell him somebody died and they want to blame me. You understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” Then the line went silent.

  Hugh puffed on his cigar until he was surrounded by a cloud. He swiveled his chair around and looked at the gray buildings across the street.

  “Hugh?”

  “Leonard.”

  “What can I do for you? You will have to excuse me, I am with somebody in my office right now and I can't just throw them out.”

  “Leonard I have a problem and you had better fix it. When can you get over here?”

  “To be honest with you, I just can’t get away this afternoon at the moment. It’s a day of emergencies. I will wrap this up and be over late this afternoon. I could have one of my associates handle this if you like.”

  Oh, there they go, shoving their subordinates off on me. “Hell, no. You're my lawyer.”

  “That's fine, I'll be there. Do me one favor, Hugh, I'm going to put someone else on the phone who can do some preliminary research on this and then I'l
l bring that with me.”

  Hugh sighed, defeated for the moment. “All right put him on.”

  The line went silent for several moments and then a young woman's voice came on. “Yes Mister Stuart, can you please hold on for one minute?”

  Hugh shook his head in frustration. “Who the hell are you? I need a lawyer, not a secretary.”

  “I understand that, but Mister Krause asked me to hold the phone while he goes for one of his associates. That's all I've been asked to do, Sir.”

  Hugh fumed, but waited until a man’s voice came on the phone.

  “Yes, Sir, Mr. Stuart, this is Albert Williams. I’m taking notes on what you say, Sir.”

  “All right, here it is. There was a fire at one of my properties at 108 Orchard Street. The fire marshal is investigating. I want to know what is going on and what my liability is. You got that?”

  “Yes Sir, I do. Thank you, Sir.”

  “Okay.” Hugh put the phone down and then put out his cigar. I hope I don't have to do everything myself, he thought.

  He straightened his vest, then went out into the hallway and listened. He heard Elizabeth at the end of the hallway in her room singing to herself. He went into the library. Nobody. He knocked on his mother's door. No answer. He went to his and Julia's bedroom. Empty. Damn!

  He went back to the library and pushed the button to ring the kitchen. He poured himself a finger of Johnny Walker Black and sat in his red leather wingback chair. He sipped on the Scotch and pumped his toe up and down. When he heard the door open, he jumped up and twisted around to face Willow.

  She stood quiet and mute and rigid just inside the door.

  He swept his arm in a grand arc and said, “Where the hell is everybody? “

  Willow answered in a mousy little voice, “I don't know, Sir.”

  “Is Elizabeth in there all by herself?” He frowned and took another sip of his drink.

  Willow looked down at the floor. “Oh no, Sir, Mary is in with her.”

  “Where's my wife?”

  Willow's looked up, her eyes opened wide. “I'm afraid I don't know, Sir.”

  “Where's my mother?”

  “I don't know that either, Sir. They didn't say anything to me.”

  Hugh put his arm out on the chair and tapped his toe on the floor. “I see. Well then I will tell you, Willow. We're having a guest for dinner tonight. Make sure that a place is set for six thirty. What are we having?”

  “I'm afraid it's just leftovers, Sir. From last night. Mrs. Stuart said that was all right. She said I should -”

  Hugh shook his head in frustration. “Well, I'll tell you what, Willow, you go down to the delicatessen and you get something nice for dinner tonight. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, of course I can, what should I get, Sir?”

  He raised his hands up, spilling a little of his Scotch on the floor. He moved his foot out of the way, looked down, and held the glass up high is if that were going to help. “Shit!” He looked back up at her. “How the hell do I know? How long you been doing this? Just go do it.”

  Willow turned and went out the door, closing it without making a sound so that she could disappear.

  Hugh sat back down in his chair. So, here I am, he thought. He turned his mouth down. Now I have to do the cooking. Gold is going to go through the roof. I have the opportunity of a lifetime. And I have to spend my time putting out fires. He laughed as he caught his pun, unintended or not. He finished his drink and left the library, but before he opened the door he did what he always did. He looked at his father’s portrait over the fireplace. Stern, solemn, strong, demanding, George Randolph Stuart. But Hugh wasn’t aware that he did it every time he entered or left the room. Or that he desperately wanted his dead father’s approval.

  “Why the hell do I have to do everything myself?”