Justin Cronin - The Summer Guest

“That’s right, Phil Weld.” I was thinking of my thirteen-year-old Kats, dressed in shorts and a bathing suit top and her mother’s straw hat, working away in the Maine dirt. The memory was so vivid I could practically smell it. “You know, I think I thought it right then-that girl is going to be a scientist.”

“You sure this isn’t one of those calls, Daddy? You don’t have, like, a brain tumor or anything?”

“Positive, Kats. Your mother’s at home. Give her a call so she can tell you herself.”

“Nah. What do they say on that show? Fuggetaboutit. A girl can talk to her dad about peas if she wants to.”

“And vice versa.” While we’d talked, evening had come on, the sky above and all around purpling with the day’s last light. “You get back to your studying, okay? We’ll see you in a month.”

“You too. And Daddy? Please don’t forget this time.”

“Forget?”

Another sigh, and too late I remembered. “Daddy, the tickets. God, you’re hopeless. Don’t make me go over your head and call Mom.”

“Roger wilco,” I said. “Two airline tickets for one hopeless Dad.”

It is not necessarily the best thing in the world to be friends with a man like Harry Wainwright. There’s his money, for starters, which is so much more than the kind of money most people have that there’s simply no comparison-a pile so enormous it’s like a force of nature, and not a little dangerous to be near, like a mountain that could fall on you at any minute. In a business like mine, you deal with wealthy people constantly-odd, in a way, because fishing isn’t what you would call a naturally upscale activity, what with all the blood and bad smells-and one thing you learn is that people with serious money didn’t get that way by always being nice. Someone threatens to sue me just about every year; usually it’s all just bluster, some trivial complaint that boils down to I-didn’t-have-enough-fun, and I tell myself it’s a small price to pay for a life that’s arguably better than anybody else’s. Even so, a man like Harry Wainwright is one to take seriously; right or wrong, he can do you some major damage. I don’t mean they’d find you in the trunk of your car somewhere in the eelgrass (though I have dealt with some guys like that-my friend from Providence being exhibit A, I suppose). What I mean is a man like Harry Wainwright can buy whatever he wishes, and if he wanted to buy me, he had the dough to make this happen.

I flew to New York on the last Wednesday in April, just me and the pilot and, thanks to Hal, an industrial-size box of individually wrapped packages of honey peanuts. Attached was a note: “Enjoy the flight; best taken with Scotch.” I didn’t know how many of them I had to eat to look thankful, so I worked my way through two packets with the help of a glass of thirty-year-old single malt from the plane’s well-stocked bar, then flushed a bunch more down the toilet before we landed-not at one of the big New York airports but a smaller field in New Jersey. Hal had sent a limo-another first for me, though after the Learjet, the limo felt like nothing at all-and I put on my necktie as we crossed the Lincoln Tunnel into Manhattan and headed downtown.

In all the years I had known Harry Wainwright, I had never once set foot into anything you might call his world. I’d been to New York, of course, though not for years-my parents had brought me for some kind of hospitality trade show-and my memory of the city was a child’s: feeling small and scared on the busy streets, the carnival thrill of a taxi ride, the fussy stiffness of wearing my best clothes and the raw wonderment of watching my lunch, a peanut butter sandwich, pop out of a machine at an Automat in Times Square. Harry’s offices were located on Wall Street, fourteen floors of a gleaming tower overlooking Battery Park and, if you craned your neck just so, the New York Stock Exchange. The lobby was a citadel of polished granite and marble; it was close to lunchtime, and men and women with nice haircuts and good suits, many of them with a cell phone pasted to an ear, were hurrying to and fro. I felt a little embarrassed by my rumpled necktie and threadbare blazer, like a kid dressed for his first job interview; the tie, the only one I owned, was twenty years old, an anonymously indestructible navy blue knit I kept around for weddings and funerals.

At the security desk I was given a visitor’s pass and directed to the express elevator, which I rode up to the fortieth floor. The doors slid open, revealing a second lobby of polished stone, and on the far wall, the words H P WAINWRIGHT HOLDINGS, INC. Below this was a wide counter where the receptionist sat, a young black woman with cornrows and a telephone headset. One minute you’re in sunny Florida, poling the flats for bonefish and thinking about a cold beer with your name on it waiting back in the fridge; the next thing you know somebody sends a plane and there you are, landing on Mars.

The receptionist took my name and directed me to take a seat, but before I had a chance to, the wall beside the receptionist’s desk opened-a door I hadn’t noticed, that no one was supposed to notice, I figured-and Hal stepped out, not in a suit as I had expected but in a black T-shirt and jeans and cowboy boots that probably weren’t made of ordinary cowhide but something more exotic-elk, or maybe ostrich. I had to remind myself that this was the same Hal I had known since we were kids; Hal’s just eight years younger than me, and had been coming to the camp with his dad off and on for years.

“Joe, welcome. Glad you could make it.” He offered me his hand to shake. “The flight okay?”

“A little bumpy at the end. Your pilots always drink like that?”

“Only when their paychecks don’t clear.” He glanced over my shoulder and furrowed his brow. “Okay, where’s that lawyer we talked about you having? We did discuss this, didn’t we?”

“We did. I decided against it.”

Hal shook his head disapprovingly. We were going through the motions, of course, but it had to be done. “Joe, Joe. You Mainers can be so goddamned stubborn. Take my advice on this, will you please? Let me get somebody on the phone for you. I can have them over here for you in a jiff.”

“Seriously, Hal,” I said. “I don’t want one.”

“Sally is nobody you want to tangle with without counsel.”

“You’re only saying that because she’s your wife. As far as I can tell she likes me fine.”

Hal sighed. “Well, it’s your funeral. You might as well come on back. We’re all ready for you.”

“Harry too?”

“It’ll be just me and Sally, I’m afraid. It hasn’t been a good week for him. He’s pretty much holed up in Bedford these days, Joe.”

He led me into a maze of offices and cubicles, all clean and white and nondescript, then up a second elevator and down another long hallway to his office, where his assistant was waiting.

“Zoe, this is Mr. Crosby.” He turned briskly to me. “Joe, you need anything, this is the person to ask. She’s the real brains of the outfit.”

Zoe rose to greet me, and I was hit by a bolt of recognition-we had talked dozens of times on the phone, when she had called to make reservations, or else just to say “Please hold for Mr. Wainwright,” meaning Hal. I had made a picture in my mind of an older woman with bifocals, which was, of course, completely incorrect: the woman whose hand I shook was no older than thirty-five, with a mane of black hair and a miniskirt figure. At least I had been right about the glasses, though hers were shaped like eggs and made of a material that was either gold or silver, depending on which way she turned her head under the fluorescent lights.

“He’s being nice,” she said. “I don’t know a thing. Except where the bodies are buried. Can I get you coffee or water, Mr. Crosby?”