Tim Green - Exact Revenge

I nod, then go back into the house. My bedroom suite takes up the entire south end of the house, and from the sitting room, I peer out behind the curtains at the two of them, watching their hands stab the air as they bare their teeth. Finally, ten minutes later, they embrace and then Villay helps his wife down out of the truck.

WHEN PEOPLE THINK of upstate New York, they think of winter. Brutal cold and storms that dump four or five feet of snow. But the most vicious weather comes in the summer when a warm placid day is suddenly transformed by violent thunder, lightning, and wind that makes children whimper and smells like the end of the world.

Bert has the TV in the living room on without the sound. He points to the screen as I walk past.

“See that?” he says.

I stop and look at the radar map. A dark green wall with a belly of red, yellow, and orange oozes slowly from west to east across the backside of Ohio toward western New York.

“Looks bad,” I say, peering outside at the sun-drenched back lawn.

“It will be,” Bert says.

“Turn that off, okay?” I say.

Down on the expansive teak dock, Rangle’s wife and daughter are lounging on deck chairs, oiled up, with their faces tilted toward the sun. Allen and Rangle are already on board the twenty-eight-foot party boat. Bert gets behind the wheel and the motor puffs blue smoke into the clean air. Villay hurries down the path, across the dock, and hops on board the boat with another apology for holding things up. Bert casts off and we ease out toward the middle of the lake.

Allen digs into the cooler and passes out bottles of Heineken. We talk about the color of the water and the smattering of new homes that mar the crest of the far hills. When we get to where the fish are, Bert drops the anchor and begins handing out fully rigged poles. I scoop up a shiner out of the bait bucket and hold up the wriggling minnow for everyone to see.

I look at Villay as I speak.

“What you want to do is run your hook through the mouth, like this,” I say, punching the hook up through the bottom side of the fish’s jaw and out through its tiny snout. “Some people hook them through the back, but it kills them too quickly. If you want to get a big one, something worth having, you have to hook it like this.”

“What’s the difference?” Rangle asks.

“Panic and agony,” I say, then smile. “The minnow thrashes longer and harder when you hook it through the face. The big ones get excited. It’s like an IPO.”

Rangle smiles with me. Villay is the last one to get a minnow and he hesitates. I put my hand on his arm.

“Bert will do it,” I say, looking down at him.

He looks at me and smiles.

We sit quietly around the edge of the boat on padded benches, our poles dangling in the air. Waves lap against the aluminum pontoons. I close my eyes behind their sunglasses and listen, enjoying the bath of sunlight, the taste of a cold bottle of beer, and the pressure I can actually feel building up behind Dean Villay’s face. Rangle and Allen talk football among themselves and Bert keeps glancing to the west while I wait.

Villay stands up and his reel clicks as he brings in his line. I open my eyes to see him inching this way. He sits down beside me and says, “I understand you’re interested in my ideas on some constitutional issues.”

“The president has asked me to give him a name or two,” I say, slowly bringing in my own line. “Your career interests me.”

“I like to think I’m as conservative as Clarence Thomas,” he says.

“I’ve read several of your more important decisions,” I say, popping my minnow out of the water and letting it writhe in the air. “But I’m not completely clear on where you sit with the death penalty.”

I cast my line out again.

The lines on his face ease. He squints at a boat going by before he says, “It’s not a deterrent. We know that. But I think in some cases, it’s morally justified.”

“What about the innocent ones?” I ask. Everyone is listening now. “Doesn’t the state become the criminal when one innocent man, even one in a thousand, is executed, when in fact he is innocent?”

“If a man is found guilty in a jury trial of his peers,” Villay says with a small smile, “by definition, he cannot be innocent. Are we talking jurisprudence, or philosophy? Those are two very different conversations.”

“Well put,” I say, and I can see all his perfect teeth.

We catch ten lake trout between us and Bert promises to have the cook serve them with dinner. Lunch is a pleasant buffet served from silver trays and eaten on a long table on the back porch set with crystal glassware and several arrangements of fresh cut flowers. Afterward, I invite Rangle into my study. We are discussing finances when a red Ferrari roars past the window. A few moments later, Bert shows Andre into the study.

He wears a burgundy Hugo Boss shirt that matches his slacks. On his wrist is a Cartier Panther. His accent is passable and his natural arrogance is enough for Rangle to buy into his identity. We hatch a plan for manipulating the Russian stock market, then join the rest of the party back down on the dock for more drinks and sun. Rangle is twisting his fingers madly and is nearly out of breath as he introduces Andre to his daughter. He pulls a deck chair alongside hers and offers it to him. As an afterthought, he introduces Allen, who takes Andre’s hand and coolly looks him up and down. The wind picks up late in the afternoon and a blanket of high mackerel-scale clouds blots out the sun.

Dinner is in the dining room at eight. We are dressed in a way that makes Ms. Vanderhorn feel at home and are seated around the grand mahogany table. Two girls in waitress uniforms hurry in and out, serving dinner. Billy Fitzpatrick and his wife, Diane, have joined us. Billy is the district attorney for Onondaga County, Villay’s old job, and his wife is a judge. Both are highly regarded by everyone, and I figure I may as well put the five million I gave to the party to some good use.

I have them seated facing the Villays at my end of the table. Allen presides over the other end, holding his mouth at an odd angle while Andre sucks down Jack-and-Gingers and boasts to the Rangles. From time to time he touches Dani Rangle’s bare arm and she giggles.

After the main course is taken away, there is a lull where the conversation fades to a murmur.

I clear my throat and say, “Billy, question for you. What’s the statute of limitations on murder?”

Billy’s eyes are pale green and set in a round red Irish face. He looks me over.

“That depends on how well you know the DA,” he says with just a hint of a long-lost Brooklyn accent. “Just kidding. There is no time limit on prosecuting a murder. It’s the only crime that doesn’t have one. Why?”

“Bert thinks this place has a ghost,” I say. “And he says that the spirit will be restless until someone is punished. Ridiculous, I know, but I’m in a bind. Bert is the best man I’ve ever come across and I’m pretty fond of this place.”

“What? You got a clairvoyant or something? Tarot cards?” Billy asks, dabbing his lips with the napkin.

“Not far off,” I say, looking around the table. The others have stopped talking now and their eyes are on me. Villay tugs at his necktie. His wife is stiff and pale in her black dress.