T. Bunn - The Great Divide

“I plan to steer clear of them, don’t worry.” Marcus turned to the prosecutor. “My guess is you’re out here without your superior’s authorization. This is a harassment charge that could clearly backfire on you.”

The prosecutor sneered. “Word is, you’ve got no cause to be telling anybody the finer points of law, Glenwood.”

Marcus let that one pass, something that came much easier these days. “All we want is to bring the Halls’ daughter home. You should be helping us, not making threats.”

“Don’t try and tell me my job!” The prosecutor had one of those faces that reddened easily. “There’s nothing to keep me from charging you as well!”

“On what grounds?”

The prosecutor searched his associates’ faces, found no support. He huffed to his feet, snapped, “You’ll be hearing from my office, Glenwood.” When the front door slammed, everyone in the room breathed easier.

The two fibbies rose, and the elder said, “We should have a report from the embassy in Beijing sometime next week.”

Alma’s ire had drained away, leaving her voice flat and tired. “You think it will do any good?”

The agents exchanged glances. “In all honesty, I don’t hold out much hope.” When they arrived at the front door, the agent went on, “We’ve ordered a full-time watch on the account that received your payment. If the Hong Kong authorities do their job, we should be able to track who withdraws the funds.”

Amos Culpepper waited until the agents had departed before saying to Alma and Austin, “I’ve heard talk of this prosecutor fellow. None of it good. I’m sorry you folks had to go through this.” To Marcus, “He’s ambitious and he’s dumb. Makes him open to the wrong kind of offer. You need anything, you let me know.”

In the void left by Culpepper’s departure, Marcus offered the only hope he could. “We have the final hearing in the judge’s chambers tomorrow. There shouldn’t be any surprises, but I’ll call when I get back and let you know.”

Randall Walker was well aware that the greatest power was often the most secretive. Which was one reason he had eventually left the bench. Randall’s finest thrill in earlier days had come from looking down on the defendant and declaring sentence. But that power had been limited by law and the public spotlight, and in time it had grown stale.

He had studied Machiavelli for years, knew his writings well enough to quote entire passages as though they were his own original thoughts. There was a man who understood where real power resided. Let others lay claim to the throne or boardroom or television lights. Sooner or later they would find their roles threatened, and the public eye too constrictive. They would then turn to him. And each time it happened, his reach grew wider. Once this New Horizons case was over, Randall’s power would span continents and national boundaries, reach across the great divide of history and national interests. All Randall had to do was win. And win big.

Which made his reaction to the detective’s report even more surprising. Hamper Caisse called just as he was leaving for dinner with a client, and announced, “Stanstead’s vanished. I had a man on her, trying for an intercept. He lost her.”

Randall felt almost none of the expected gall and ire. Instead, as he waved for his wife to go on out to the car and grant him privacy, what he felt most at that particular moment was anticipation. “And how, pray tell, did he manage that?”

“He says she was on to him. I’ve used him before, the man’s a pro. He says she left home and went to work, carried nothing but her purse. He broke into her car, found nothing. Not a file, not a toothbrush. She came out of the charity office around four, went into a local café, never came out. A half hour went by, then he goes in, she’s not there.”

“She’s on her way down here.” Randall had never before resorted to violence. Never had a genuine reason. But he’d always wondered what it would be like to confront a threat that required a physical response. Now that the moment had arrived, he found himself tasting an almost erotic thrill. “And she’s got more information for Glenwood.”

“Maybe.”

“No maybes about this one.” Time for a decision. And action. He had heard stories about what Hamper Caisse would do if asked. Having such power at his beck and call left him slightly breathless. “All right. Leave that and come down. Tonight. I need you here.”

“You want me to track the girl in Rocky Mount?”

“I very much doubt,” Randall replied, “you’ll have the time.”

Marcus sat on his porch and watched the day fade. He wore a ragged sweatshirt and cutoffs and a sheen of drying sweat. His ears still rang from the mower he had bought off a neighbor for twenty-five dollars. The muffler had long since rusted away, and it roared like a weary machine of war. By the time he finished the two back acres, he was convinced he had overpaid.

The autumn twilight tarried longer than Marcus felt was natural. Streetlights glowed in faint mimicry of the sky’s final colors. Trees and neighboring houses gradually faded to dark etchings of their former selves. The air smelled of cut grass and smoke from backyard grills, and rang with the clamor of children playing in the street.

A small, thin shadow separated itself from the nearest tree, and an alien yet familiar voice said, “Your home looks most inviting, Mr. Glenwood. May I join you?”

Marcus rose to his feet, lifted by the sudden, unnerving jolt. He recalled a blank hallway in Washington, and solid steel doors leading into a whitewashed world of silent terrors. “Is that Dee Gautam?”

“Remarkable, Mr. Glenwood. Most remarkable.” The slender shadow approached and took on form, beginning with his smile. “You continue to surprise me. First I think you are nothing more than some American lawyer visiting our offices like another person would travel to the zoo. I look at you and I think, here is someone very comfortable in his living room with wall-to-wall carpet and big-screen television. Too comfortable to worry about strangers suffering someplace very far away.”

The steps did not creak as he climbed to the veranda. Dee Gautam stood smiling up at Marcus. “Then I hear that this strange American lawyer does not turn from a case he cannot win. No. He asks many questions and finds surprising answers. So I decide to come and see if he will listen to my warning, and I discover that this strange American lawyer lives alone in a neighborhood where almost all others are black.”

“Warn me about what?”

“May I sit down, Mr. Glenwood?”

“Sorry, of course, you surprised me, showing up like this.” He pulled over a second hickory rocker and set it so he could face the man square on. “You said something about-”

“Why do you choose to live here, Mr. Glenwood?”

Marcus seated himself, decided to let Dee Gautam chart the conversation’s course. For now. “My grandfather built this place for his wife. Back then the area was different.”

His visitor was so small he sat as a child would in the straight-backed rocker, sliding up to the edge so his feet could push against the floor. The chair drummed lightly over the uneven boards. “Still I am not understanding, Mr. Glenwood. Why are you choosing to live in this place?”

Beyond the reach of the porch light, darkness gathered and conquered. “Would you like something to drink?”

“Thank you, no. I am not able to stay very long.”

“My grandparents raised me. When they died, I kept the place. I’d come out here and work a little, but not enough. After an … accident, I decided to come back here to live. I’ve been restoring it ever since.”

Gautam’s hands reached out to settle upon the chair arms. In the half-light the pitted scars seemed to run the entire way through his wrists. “Please excuse me for the repetition, Mr. Glenwood, but I am trying so hard to understand. Why are you choosing to come back here?”