T. Bunn - The Great Divide

“Whatever it takes,” Austin said, his voice burning the words to charred cinders. “You understand me? Whatever you have to do.”

Marcus waited through the police inquiry. He handled the Halls’ refusal to give up the original video, which meant traveling with them to have it duplicated. This was followed by telephone discussions with various State Department people and a visit from a local FBI agent, all of which were utterly futile. By the time the last police officer left the Hall home, Marcus was more than spent. He was afraid.

He took the first exit into eastern Rocky Mount and drove until he found the first bar. It was perfect for his needs. The place was full of shadows and serious drinkers, men who weightlifted with forklifts instead of barbells, women who put up with a tirade-ridden world for six bucks an hour plus overtime. The bartender managed to take his order without meeting his eye. They didn’t care that Marcus wore the only tie in the place. He was just another drifter looking for a drink and a jukebox that would cry for him.

By the third drink the shadows were whispering hated memories and the air had turned hard and mean. Marcus bought a bottle of vodka and carried it out with him. Back home, the drinks went down smoother but the air stayed heavy. Marcus drank until the whispers stopped, or at least until he stopped hearing. He stumbled upstairs, the railing somewhere far out of reach.

He awoke in the hard blackness of another predawn. His breathing sighed like a woman weeping, and he remembered then why he had stopped drinking. It wasn’t anything so noble as a vow, or a hope of righting the past or trying for something better. None of that. The drink chained him down where he could not escape the nightmares. They were free then to eat at him for hours, long enough to stain the bed with his sweat. Marcus left his bedclothes in a soggy mass on the bathroom floor and went looking for his running gear.

Exercise had once come natural and easy. Except for work around the house, however, Marcus had done almost nothing since the accident. It took him a half hour to find his running shoes. By then his headache had diminished from lightning flashes to rolling thunder.

The first half mile was pure agony. He breathed fire and tasted bile. The second half mile he sweated the remnants of booze and bad dreams. Even so, the mental metronome kept steady count, and when he reached a mile he knew he had to either stop or die.

When Marcus finally caught his breath, he looked around and realized he had no idea where he was.

He took almost an hour to wind his way home. Long enough to grow mildly hungry and to map out the day’s work. By the time he had showered and brewed coffee, the rain had returned. He ate his breakfast standing at the counter, watching crystal curtains close down his world.

The phone rang as he was sorting through papers and mail. Netty said, “Jay is having one of his bad spells.”

“Then don’t come to the office.”

“I could make it after lunch, I guess. Right now it’s pretty bad.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He could hear a high-pitched howling in the background, a single note that went on and on, as though being born mentally deficient had granted Jay the ability to scream without drawing breath. “Are you all right?”

“I should be asking you that. Was the video as bad as they’re saying?”

He tried to tune out the shrieking. “How did you hear about the Halls’ video?”

“This is a small town inside a small town. Somebody heard about it at church and called around. Word gets out about everything. Including where you stopped off last night.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Listen up, Marcus. You want to do some more drinking, you do it around friends. There could have been a night rider with a New Horizons paycheck in his pocket last night. Somebody who’d love to brag he was the one who turned you into mush.”

“Sounds like a time warp.”

“No it doesn’t. It sounds like good old common sense. Now, was the video bad?”

Marcus replied softly, “It was awful.”

“Those poor people. We gonna help them out?”

He found himself liking the way she said that. We. “I think we’re going to try.”

“That’s real good. You call me if you need me.”

“I’ll be fine.” And for a time after he hung up the phone, he really believed it was so.

Marcus labored all day in his water-enclosed world. His corner of Netty’s office became ringed by law books opened and stacked one upon the other. Marcus had purchased them years earlier for his home office, when an attorney died and his widow auctioned his effects. At the time Marcus had felt sorry for the man. The books were dusty and smelled of disuse. After a while the odor faded into the background with the rain. Noon came and went, and hunger became just one more faint rumble upon the horizon, noted but not acknowledged.

By three-thirty he was done. Marcus showered, then ate eggs and toast standing by the kitchen’s tall sash windows. Sometime in the previous hour the rain had let up. Now the mist did not fall so much as float in the still air. Beyond his back window, sentinel pines stood patient in the gray afternoon, their branches turned to heavy green crystal. He stood and listened to the patter of drops falling off the roof, the sound keeping time to his quietly thumping head. Marcus set down his plate, reached for his keys and jacket and folders, and departed for the Hall residence.

Alma answered the door and led him into the living room. The tableau had changed little from the previous afternoon, except that Kirsten had reemerged and a few other people had gathered. Deacon Wilbur and his sharp-edged wife both nodded somber greetings. Alma started to introduce him to two other women, one white and the other Hispanic, but decided it was not worth the bother. Another couple he vaguely remembered from church stood close at hand and yet in the background. Deacon took note of Marcus’ expression and quietly suggested they give the family a little quiet. For reasons Marcus did not understand, when Kirsten rose, Alma motioned her to stay.

Marcus declined Alma’s offer of coffee, waited for her to seat herself next to Austin, then dove straight in. “There are a number of grave risks involved in proceeding.”

“You’re going to take on the case?” Alma’s voice remained as hollow as the day before. “You’re going to help find my baby?”

Marcus waited until she was silent once more, then continued. “As far as the case itself is concerned, our greatest problem is that we have no direct causal link between New Horizons and Gloria’s disappearance. Unless I can come up with something concrete, and fast, there is every likelihood the case will be thrown out and I will be sanctioned for filing a frivolous claim.”

“The police have come and gone again, this time with a detective and somebody from the FBI office in Raleigh.” Alma turned the words into a tragic litany. “And we’ve gotten three more calls from the State Department. Nobody is telling us a thing we don’t already know. Nobody is offering us any real help at all. They just say-”

“Hush up, Alma, honey.” There was no sting to Austin’s voice. Nor did his eyes leave Marcus’ face. “Let the man have his say.”

“As I explained on Sunday,” Marcus went on, “basically we have no case. But what is our objective here? Are we after some huge financial settlement? If so, we have lost before we’ve started.”

Marcus tapped the manila folder with one finger. “But if what we’re really after is to get your daughter back, there is a chance that just by filing these charges, we’ll spur them to action. New Horizons might fear the adverse publicity enough to press the Chinese to do what we can’t.”