Allan Retzky - Vanished in the Dunes

For two years he has waited for a call from the Justice Department. In his address book he keeps the name and number of a lawyer, a specialist in challenging government accusations of misconduct in such matters. He waits in limbo for a call that may never come while the statute of limitations runs toward expiration.

He knows the Justice Department is still involved and has not yet decided to dismiss the case. The authorities have in recent years showed a particular interest in transactions that involve excessive payments to foreign agents to secure overseas business in a country where honest auctions are unknown. If he had worked for a public company, the Securities and Exchange Commission might also have tracked the matter, but his past employer was a private, family-owned business, so there is no question of securities fraud, but this is small consolation. He has lived with this issue without comfort. The smallest thing can set him off into an orbit of worry that might take days to ease. His mind tells him that he is innocent, at most a dupe of more senior people’s ambitions, but he sees no easy resolution.

He folds the business section and stuffs it in the mesh pocket of the seat in front, as if this gesture will make the story disappear. He takes deep breaths and turns toward the window. The face in the return image has been called nice looking. When they were first married, Sara even teasingly described his looks as a small step below really handsome, but he was never comfortable with that assessment. He is a bit less than six feet with all his dark hair still in place. His eyes are brown, yet there is weariness in his reflection he can’t hide from himself or others.

They leave the tunnel and are on the expressway. An attendant offers muffins and juice, but he waves her off. His stomach has a hollow void that food will not fill. He stares out the window until his eyes flutter closed.

His nap is short lived as the attendant provides the ritual announcement regarding fares. Posner slips his discount coupon from his wallet and wedges it into the back of the broken tray table. He has already printed his name and destination, so the attendant will not bother him with personal details for the computer database, but the interruption has voided any further possibility of sleep. He pulls his wrist up and checks the time. Traffic must be light. They are already past the Great Neck exit. Less than two hours to go.

A cluster of dark clouds moving east parallels the bus. He cannot shake this new angst. Two years have passed since his last attack of fear, but nothing has been resolved: not today’s paper’s veiled dark portent about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, nor how he might be personally involved. He has been forced to resign, but the owners attempted to make it appear as amicable as possible. His severance was generous, yet there was an agreement provision that the same severance would be forfeited to the extent of full recapture if he provided any evidence of past irregularities to authorities. The agreement is probably unenforceable, according to Sara, a lawyer, as well as the special attorney he consulted, but he still signed it. He is now basically unemployable at fifty-five. At least he has the house near the beach he tells himself, the mortgage all paid off, and the isolation from commercial matters, a small consolation.

Sara continues to work in mergers for a medium-sized law firm where she recently became a partner. That’s why they keep the one-bedroom apartment on East 90th Street. She left a note on the kitchen table this morning saying she may arrive at the beach late in the evening since she is driving to a meeting on the East End of Long Island. She asked if he could pick her up at the entrance to the East Hampton Airport terminal around nine after she drops off the rental car. Her plan to come out to the beach is a welcome idea, but he’s not sure if she’ll actually show up since they’ve barely spoken over the past several weeks.

Their marriage has been in a downward spiral for some time now. Sara was originally sympathetic to his potential legal problem, and she freely enjoys the revenue derived from his earlier success. More recently, she seems disinterested in his legal concerns and focuses more on his diminishing interest in sex. She hasn’t bought into the explanation that the stress of his legal problems coupled with his job loss has upset his libido despite such confirmation by a urologist. At first, he hoped that she would come to understand, but as he retreated further into his world at the beach she had another theory.

It came to a head six weeks ago on a Sunday at the beach house as she was getting ready to return to New York. There would soon be a ride back with a neighbor. She stood across from him in the living room her legs straddling the small weekend bag stuffed with the laptop and the usual selection of work files she always brought with her.

“I need to know if you’re seeing someone else. Someone local. Is that why you always want to be here? Do you want someone younger? Someone available on a moment’s notice?”

“There’s no one else. I swear.”

She started to walk down the steps, then stopped halfway down, turned, and faced him.

“I just don’t know if I can believe you.”

And she hasn’t spent a night at the beach since that Sunday. Oh, he’d spent time in the city since then, but it wasn’t the same as it had once been. When he was in town, she was so distant as to make him feel isolated in his own apartment even though he thought spending more time in the city would defuse her accusations.

Then there was this morning’s surprise note that she might make it out to the beach for the night and take a bus back later the next day. After reading today’s newspaper story, a part of him would prefer if she didn’t come today. Still, if it means she wants to be with him, then it’ll be well worth it. Maybe today will be different. If she does come out we’ll do something special. Something to pull him out of his funk over the foreign bribery mess and maybe begin to repair things between them. A quiet dinner tomorrow in the garden room at the American Hotel would work. He makes a mental note to book a table and sips from the small complimentary water bottle the attendant distributed during the first minutes of the trip.

He looks up as the bus turns off the expressway at the Manorville exit. He notices that the dark cloud has turned even blacker and continues to follow their route, as if waiting to be united with the bus at some distant point. Posner shivers slightly, then aggressively turns pages as he searches for the crossword puzzle. Indiscriminate words hold no fear for him. He works on the puzzle intermittently as the bus makes its ritual stops in Southampton and other small villages.

“Excuse me, but is the East Hampton beach near the bus stop?”

The voice comes from just behind him. He turns. The pink-and-white dress has moved from some seat in the back and now stands in the aisle. One arm stretches above to hold the railing under the storage bins. The pose is almost erotic in its effect. The pitch of the voice is low and throaty. He detects some accent, something European. Somehow he thinks of rushing water. He gathers himself into speech.

“It’s not too close. You can get a taxi to take you there, but the weather doesn’t look too promising for the beach.”

He might have said that he wasn’t sure, or something equally evasive, but the simple act of engaging this woman in conversation, has an immediate effect on his anguish, which he feels slipping away. He has an almost unnatural motivation to keep the conversation alive.

“How come you’re out here on such a cool day if you want to see the beach?” he asks.

The bus nears the turn to East Hampton; there are but a few minutes left before it stops.