FrostLine (16 page)
I assumed that “a little cookout” at the King manse meant barbecue for thirty. But little it was. Family night: just Henry King and Mrs. King; Josh Wiggens, half in the bag; Bertram Wills, holding his side and chuckling, “Very funny, Henry,” at diplomatic intervals; and Julia. And me. And the reinstated butler, of course, Jenkins, dressed down in blazer and white flannels to shuttle ingredients to the aproned and chef-toqued master of the house who was presiding over an elaborate gas-fired brick grill.
Bob Dylan notwithstanding, Fox Trot's architect should have had a weatherman tell him which way the wind blew. Or maybe he didn't listen. Most architects don't. Which is why savvy homebuilders keep them under house arrest and engage landscape designers to do the outside. King hadn't, and was paying the price.
Smoke billowed across his hungry audience into the house, instead of away from it. Flames leaped at his face. He had to retreat off the patio and, standing on the grass, lean over the backside of the grill to grope for the food somewhere in the conflagration. Oddly, it didn't seem to diminish his pleasure.
No clue, so far, about my presence. But while I waited, what a treat! A perfect summer evening. Two lovely women: blonde Mrs. King camera-ready, every bit the trophy wife, and Julia, the great man's loyal retainer, demurely sexy in black cotton.
Ex-spy Wiggens sober enough to be wittily acerbic; former-secretary Wills a storehouse of insider stories, which he directed at Mrs. King under the guise of entertaining the group. Excellent Pinot Noir, Calera, lightly chilled in deference to the temperature. Glimpses of a sunset to die for. And ample cold hors d'oeuvres, while things went to hell at the grill.
I leaned close to Mrs. King and inquired, discreetly, whether her husband might want some help. Some guys do, some definitely don't.
“He would like to bond,” she whispered back, apparently in all seriousness. It's one of the ways women account for why men cook outdoors. So I let the butler refill my glassâasked quietly for a spray bottle of the sort used to mist houseplantsâand dutifully rose to bond with my host. He greeted me with a game grin.
“The wind's in the wrong direction.”
“Usually is.”
“If it came from there”âhe pointed eastâ“it would be perfect.”
It would also be raining. Information I kept to myself.
King sacrificed the hair on his arm to paint a massive veal chop with an orange-colored sauce. I knew damned well he didn't want to hear that it was time to turn it.
He turned to me, instead. “What did you want to see me about?”
Talking to him was like facing a split-screen ThinkPad. Document One was a jolly gent enjoying late middle age as only the wealthy can, taking for granted that come evening's end he would wash the barbecue smoke out of his hair in a marble shower while his luscious wife scrubbed his back and bankers compounded his interest. Document Two, the shrewd operator who could gobble rewards all night and still wake up hungry.
I pressed “1” for the jolly-gent option. “Mr. Butler's in the Plainfield jail.”
“I know that. Conspiracy to dynamite my dam and accessory to murder.”
“I was wondering if you'd help spring him.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“There's no conspiracy. Dicky did it himself. And killed himself by accident.”
He didn't argue that. He only said, “How would I âspring' him, even if I wanted to, which I don't?”
“Offer to pay for his defense.”
“
Pay
for his defense? Me? What good would that do?”
“It would certainly catch the court's attention. At least the judge would reconsider bail.”
“Isn't the community safer with him under lock and key?”
“He's a farmer, sitting in jail, worrying about his stock.”
“His neighbor's taking care of the cows.”
“And I've got his dog. And the neighbor's got his own farm to run. But that's not the point. The poor man just shouldn't be locked up. I saw him today. He's deteriorating badly.”
“Perhaps he should be transferred to a prison hospital.”
“The shrink feels he's better off in a local jail where he can have visitors. There's a couple of Vietnam vets have been stopping by. But she also feels he'll crack up in a week if we can't get him out.”
“Do you see down there, what they did to my lake?”
I saw a gathering of large yellow machines that rented for ten dollars a minute, each. “âThey' didn't do that. Dicky did that. And died doing it. The poor guy's lost his only child. He's suffered plenty. Help me get him out.”
“You're crazy.”
“I know it sounds crazy. But look at it this way. You'll look like a hero. Rich man on the hill cares about the common man.”
King looked at me. The jolly gent of late middle age drifted off on the smoke. “I'm not running for public office, Mr. Abbott. I don't give a flying fuck what the common man thinks of me.”
“Do you want to testify at a public trial?” I asked the hungry diplomat.
“I'm not looking forward to it, but I'll do my duty as a citizen.”
“Do you really want to sit in a witness stand while Ira Roth picks through the details of your land feud?”
“Are you threatening me?” He got an angry, ugly look on his face.
I was angry, too. What was going on just wasn't right. “I don't have to threaten you. I'm telling you what's going to happen.”
“And what's going to happen?” he demanded.
Julia Devlin stirred in the corner of my eye, watching intently, while pretending to listen to whatever Mrs. King was saying to her and Bert Wills. Josh Wiggens noticed her interest, lowered his glass, and tracked her gaze toward me, his face hardening.
“Abbott, I asked are you threatening me?”
A newspaper reporter once told me he'd been taught to ask the hardest question first. I asked King, “Do the people you report to want your business scrutinized in a public trial?”
Henry King did a beautiful job of covering his surprise. He'd have been hell across a poker table. And, in fact, I did not know for sure whether my spy barb had gone home. Until he started fencing.
“My clients are even less impressed by the common man than I am.”
“All of them?”
“Don't act naive. You played this game before you ran home with your tail between your legs. Did you notice the man in the street for even one
second
when you plundered the financial markets?”
“His representatives noticed me,” I replied. “It took them awhile, but they caught on. And when they did, they didn't display much of a sense of humor about it. Or much tolerance. Something you might keep in mind.”
“Ah, but you committed the cardinal sin,” King smiled.
“You mean I got caught.”
“Much worse. You lost faith in yourself.”
He was an excellent fencer. He had struck home with that one and I was astonished how thoroughly he had had me investigated. You couldn't get what he knew by reading my trial transcript. Much less the newspapers.
“When
you're
caught I doubt that your âclients' will grant you a trial. They'll destroy you behind your back. They'll expose yourâ¦Gee, I'm a little speechless. The only word that comes to mind is âtreachery' and it sounds so melodramatic.”
For a moment he looked like he'd run me through with his barbecue fork. Instead, he probed my guard. “I'm told you refused to turn state's evidence. You could have saved yourself. Why didn't you testify?”
“I was taught not to rat.”
“In prison?”
“Prep school.”
“The word on the Street is you were too dumb to turn in the woman who set you up.”
“Always been a sucker for a pretty face.”
“She's running one of the hottest shops on the Street and you're stuck in Newbury.”
“And
you
have ordered Julia to go dredging up my past, again, to find something to use against me so I'd stop helping Mr. Butler.”
King ignored that. “I'm also told that the insider case sucked and you didn't really break the law.”
“I violated the spirit of the law. I got what I deserved.”
“Sounds to me like you spread your knees and took it.” Ira Roth had blamed an upbringing overly influenced by Aunt Connie's “Puritan claptrap.” I didn't expect either high-flyer to understand the relief it had been to admit the crime. To myself. And do the time. For myself.
“Paid in full, Henry. No debts. No guilt. Nothing to hide.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you can't find anything to use against me. Clean slate.”
“Your âpurity' gives you rights to hassle me?”
“I'm not threatening to rat you out. I'm only reminding you that you'll stand better with your clients by helping Mr. Butler avoid a trial.”
“That's not a threat?”
“You want a threat? Here's a threat, you arrogant son of a bitch: find some other way to steal Mr. Butler's farm.”
“Henry!” called his wife. “It's burning.”
“Oh, shit! Now look what you made me do.”
Jenkins rushed forward. I relieved him of the spray bottle and doused the flames, gently so as not to scatter ashes on the meat.
I cooled off, myself, in the process. King, too, seemed willing to back down a little and Gentleman Henry expressed delight, examining the spray bottle as if MIT had a patent pending. “That's fantastic.”
Welcome to the country.
Jenkins stepped in to grill the vegetablesâa skill even the most rabid outdoor cook will concede. King and I retreated to the wet bar, where he washed his hands and scrubbed his fingernails with a brush, while I dabbed my face with a wet paper towel.
“So I'm an arrogant son of a bitch?”
“I apologize. That was no way to talk to my host.”
“And you probably think I'm vulgar, too. And crude. And my house is ostentatious.”
“Actually, I kind of like your house.”
“Of course you'd never âinsult your host.' But you think it. I know that. All you people think it. All you people who don't know how great it feels. I remember President Nixon used to keep fires burning in the White House fireplaces all summer long with the air conditioning blasting, the President standing in front of the fire rubbing his hands, saying, âThey laugh at me because I burn the fireplaces. They don't know how great it is to wake up to all this stuff and say to yourself, I did it, Mister. I made it. I earned it. I came out of shit and look what I got.' It was a great lesson, Ben. I used to be embarrassed about coming from trash. Took voice lessons so I'd sound like you or some English lord. Even hired over-the-hill socialites to teach me table manners. Waste of money. Nixon was right. I
like
being vulgar.”
He made it sound like fun.
We ate under the sky while Venus rose, warm and buttery as the veal, which Jenkins, in his wisdom, had marinaded so thoroughly that even strong men bonding couldn't dry it out.
***
“Julia,” King said suddenly. She was listening to Josh and didn't hear. “Julia! Front and center!”
“Yes, Henry?”
“Ben's asking me something really odd.”
Ben again, no longer Abbott, a good sign that our truce was holding. Still, Julia glanced at me warily. As did Josh Wiggens, who had been watching me with an expression I had seen occasionally in my own mirror. Could he be in love with Juliaâobsessed with herâand wondering if I was competition? I looked over at King. If the musical beds were that complicated, one had to sympathize with Fox Trot's chambermaids.
King was saying to Julia, “He wants me to pay for that crazy old farmer's defense. What do you think?”
“It might be a way to put a stop to all this.”
“Are you serious?”
“Well, yes. I meanâ”
King shook his head. “Christ, Julia, there are times I wonder about your judgment.”
She faced him bravely, betrayed by a little catch in her voice. “It's not a bad idea, Henry. Provided Ben can talk sense into him and get him to agree to lay off and stop bothering us.”
Wills added, “Sounds good to me, Henry,” and Mrs. King nodded vigorous agreement.
“Can you do that, Ben? Get him to stop bothering me?”
“I would be delighted to try.”
“We would want that lease cleared up at the same time,” King said.
“What do you mean cleared up?”
“Canceled,” snapped Josh Wiggens.
King looked at Julia, demanding her response. She looked down at her plate, then up, her face hardening. “In exchange for paying his lawyers.”
“That's my girl. What do you think of that, Ben? I'll buy him the best lawyers money can buy.”
I looked at Mrs. King, and guessed by her expression that she thought King's offer was as skeezy as I did. She glanced sidelong at Bert Wills. The diplomat dropped a hand to his side, but failed to produce any lockjaw laughs.
“That won't work,” I told King.
“Why not? It's a clear choice. Rot in jail or give me back my land.”
“He won't see it that way. You'll both be right back where you started.”
“Final offer, Ben.” He was joined in his cold expression by Josh Wiggens.
I found it easy to be cold, too. Nothing they were offering would save Mr. Butler's sanity. “You'll have to do much better.”
“I don't
have
to do anything,” King reminded me. “You're the one asking favors.”
Mrs. King shot an uncharacteristically demanding look at Bert Wills, who screwed up his courage to say, “It's possible, Henry, that Ben is bearing favors as well. It would be excellent to put all this behind us.”
“Do not surrender!” said Josh Wiggens. “Butler's a menace. Bail will only encourage him.”
