THE FOURTH WATCH (28 page)

"Did you get me a good rate?"

"I bargained like a Bedouin and was able to
secure the room at $129 a night."

"Hey," I told him, ''that's not
bad."

''Not bad! Not bad!" He howled with false rage.
"The earth is raped each time the rich build a phallic spire like
that to mask their moral impotence!"

"A good rate nonetheless," I told
him.

"By your shameful standards, I'll admit that I
have done well for you."

We laughed together.

"Good," I said, ''then you'll pick me up at the
airport?"

"My coach will be waiting."

"I can hardly wait. Listen, Louis," I said,
''you get anything yet on the Loading Dock operation out
there?"

He paused. "Whispers," he said.

"Come again?"

"Nothing, really. Whispers. I have a friend who
has a friend that works as a fork lift operator in customs. These
guys move product around for the inspectors when they inspect the
containers that come off the ships, before they go to the rail
cars. He says that it is widely rumored that something is up with
the Loading Dock cargo that comes in."

"What did he mean by that?" I asked, my pulse
quickening.

"Well, I don't know. I'm getting this through a
third party who didn't probe the source very effectively, but it
sounds like Loading Dock is getting a pass through customs. Very
often cargo goes from ship to train unopened but with all the seals
and paperwork it needs to make it legal. It didn't sound like a
secret. Apparently there is a fairly senior Customs Official, I
don't have his name yet, that will on occasion, personally shepherd
a shipment through. He is often accompanied by someone believed to
be a Loading Dock employee or agent of some kind."

"What does he think is going on?"

Louis sighed. "Are you not listening to me for
a specific reason? I told you this is unsubstantiated, possibly
lame, third party gossip. No one was under oath and there was no
cross-examination of the witness. I don't know. As far as I could
tell there is no suspicion of anything 'going on'. Could be that
this Loading Dock fellow takes this Customs fellow to lovely
dinners on the wharf and as a result has the customs process
expedited on his behalf. Quicker through customs, quicker to the
market. You know how these capitalist dogs are."

"But you don't buy it do you,
Louis?"

"No. I'm suspicious of all capitalists and all
government employees. It is in my blood. I just don't know anything
yet."

"Well," I said, "I'll tell you this, my fake
proletariat friend, there is something going on. Something illegal
is going through customs over there. Something someone will kill to
keep secret. I can feel it, so be careful. Don't go crashing around
on this. Keep you eyes open and your mouth shut. See if you can
find out who this customs official is. See if you can find out who
this friendly Loading Dock guy is. Do it quietly and stay out of
harms way. Let me get all the pieces of this thing together. I
don't want to spook anyone. I don't want people going to ground on
me before I get my answers. I'm guessing that before we are done,
you're going to have a hell of a story on your hands."

*****

I STOPPED ON MY WAY HOME
and picked up a grinder to go at a pizza joint on
Lake Ave. I ate it at my kitchen table and looked through the mail
and paid the bills. After I'd lost Annie, I got myself in some deep
financial trouble. Working, accumulating wealth, paying bills, in
general participating in the economic comedy of modern human
commerce, seemed like such a waste of time. I couldn't do it. The
other thing I couldn't do was return to the
societal
comedy of life. Couldn't
just
resume
.
Couldn't just hit re-set or something. Couldn't just tuck Annie
away as a memory. She had been the center of me! I found myself
losing interest in ... well ... everything. I had some money saved
up. So I got in the Jeep and I took off. It was a very selfish
thing to do. I left my friends and clients and just went. I took a
chunk of the money and rented a cottage on the water, in Truro, out
on Cape Cod. The rest of the money I drank. When Jack eventually
found me, I was near the edge of my mind. The money was pretty much
gone, as was most of my health. But I remember him coming for me
that day. There was none of what you might expect. No lecture, no
pity. He didn't seem pissed off. He knocked on the door of my hovel
at two o'clock on an early March afternoon and I opened
it.

"Got another one of those?" he asked me,
looking at the Budweiser in my hand, and pushed his way
in.

I didn't say anything...I just stood there. He
went to the old refrigerator and got himself a beer. Then he sat on
my bed and opened it and looked out the window at the gray winter
sea rolling in along the beach. ''Nice,'' he said.

We sat with our beers and listened to gulls
screaming in the wind.

"You remember that story about Jesus walking on
the water?" he asked me after a while, looking out at the
ocean.

"I guess," I said, nodding, not looking at
him.

"Sure. Jesus had fed the five thousand that
afternoon, and He sent the troops on ahead of him, across the Sea
of Galilee, to where He was gonna be preaching the next day. So the
twelve of them are in the boat, humping it across, the wind is
blowing against them and a storm is brewing. And here comes Jesus,
walking across the water." Jack shook his head and took a long pull
off his beer.

"Jack ... "

''No listen," he said, "I'm just telling you a
story. So what happens is, the Apostles see Him coming, but they
don't know its Him and they start freaking out. They think it's a
ghost and they're scared and they start yelling and carrying on.
But Jesus calls out to them and tells them not to be afraid because
it's Him.

"Well, Peter yells out and says: 'Lord, if it
is you, command me to come to you on the water' and Jesus does. So
Peter gets out of the boat, and sure enough, he starts walking
across the water to Him. But on the way he suddenly realizes what
is going on – that he is like for real walking on top of the water!
So Peter panics, and then the next thing he knows, he starts
sinking, but he calls to Jesus 'Lord, save me', and of course Jesus
does."

"Now the thing that always got me about that
story, was the time that it took place. See Matthew starts it off
by saying: 'During the fourth watch of the night he came toward
them, walking on the sea.' In those days, see, the Romans divided
the night up into 'watches'. A 'watch' was three hours long. So the
first watch was six to nine, the second, nine to twelve, the third,
twelve to three and the fourth was three to sunrise, around
six."

"Okay," I said.

"Well, here's the thing, Kato. In
my business, I run into a lot of fear. People want to
believe...want to have faith, but its hard, it really is. I always
say, if you want to go visit someone in the hospital, go at four or
five in the morning. The bedtime drugs are wearing off and the
person wakes up, and is alone with all his or her scary
thoughts.
Am I gonna make it? Do I have
cancer? What's gonna happen to my family? Will I ever see them
again?
See. It's the same with all of us,
right? If we're worried, scared, that's when it really gets to us.
We wake up in darkness, before its time to get up, and we lay there
in the dark, staring at the ceiling, afraid, consumed by our
troubles, not knowing how we'll get through the next day. I think
that's why Jesus came across the water during the fourth watch. You
know that old saying. 'Its always darkest before the dawn.' He's
telling us, that even in our darkest hour, even when we think there
is no way out, even when the pain is so deep that we don't want to
go on, He's there. All we have to do is call out. Help me Lord, get
me through."

Jack drank his beer and looked out at the sea.
We sat quietly listening to the clock ticking on the stove, and the
wind blowing sand out of the dunes in the ocean's roar.

"I'm kind of screwed up here, Jack," I told him
then.

"I know," he said, "but you're gonna be
alright, Kato. Come on and get your stuff together, lets go
home."

It's the people that love you that save you.
You can't get through everything alone. I was gone ten weeks before
Jack came and got me. Alex had paid all my bills, and used his
political connections to make sure the state and the courts forgave
me my legal sins. He and Jack propped me back up.

Anyway, so I'm more careful about my
bills.

*****

WHEN I WAS DONE I
wrapped up the remnants of my meal, and of my
mail, in the wax paper wrapper the grinder had come in and tossed
it all in the trash. Then I went into the dining room and put my
folders together on the days take of clients.

I finished about 8:30. The Red Sox were playing
in Chicago on cable and I planned to watch that until I fell
asleep. But 1 knew that I had to call Carolyn first. I had put it
off long enough. I had made my decision. I wanted to see her. I
wanted to try to make something of whatever was drawing us
together. It was dumb. I knew it could all blow up in my face, and
that I could find myself disbarred because the emotional tangle was
sure to effect my judgment. Lawyers and clients are just not
supposed to enter into the kind of relationship that I know we both
had in mind. But I didn't care. It had been almost two years now
without Annie. I could never replace her and I knew that. My grief
at her loss was as vast as the universe and expanding. My guilt
would deepen with the relationship, I was sure, but I needed warmth
and closeness and love and I was going to take a gamble on
it.

Carolyn herself answered on the third
ring.

"How come you're not up in your room reading
poetry or something?" I said.

"Mike," she laughed and I could tell from her
voice that she was delighted that I finally

called, "you sure like to keep a girl waiting,
don't you?"

"I know," I said, "I've been in the middle of
fifty things and I just didn't get a chance to call you. I'm
sorry."

"Mmm. I think one of those fifty things was the
time thing we were talking about the

other night," she said without a trace of
resentment.

I was quiet for a moment and then admitted,
"You might be right."

"Well I'm glad you called. Was it business or
pleasure?" I could almost feel her smile on the other end of the
line.

"I was hoping for a little of both," I
said.

"Very well, make me an offer."

"Dinner, Thursday night, 7:00."

"What's the business part?"

"We're gonna go Chinese, to get me ready for my
trip."

Her laughter rolled across the line, and I
laughed with her. "I thought we'd go to The Copper Wok," I
suggested.

"Oh, Attorney Knight, how elegant!"

"As a suitor I am unrivaled. Then it's a
date?"

Carolyn's voice dropped a few decibels. ''I
have something for you," she said.

The glass, I knew. "Oh?"

"Yes, I'll bring it along."

"Good."

Her voice was suddenly back to its
normal volume and animated. "I'm really,
really
glad you didn't make me call
you again, Mike."

"Me too," I said, meaning it.

"See you Thursday night then? Should I pick you
up?"

''No,'' I said grinning to myself at her simple
and direct way. "I'll come by around seven."

''I'll be ready."

"Yeah," I said, "right."

I could hear her laughter soaring again as she
hung up and I smiled into my empty room.

19

ROBERT BAXTER IS A VERY
strange and troubled time traveler from another
universe, and he's at his worst first thing in the morning, when
the moon still has him in it's pull. He stared at me in a near
catatonic state from the other side of my desk as I tried to focus
him on the issue at hand – his impending trial.

"Bob," I stated again, ever so
patiently, "here's the thing that you're struggling with:
you are the defendant,
and this is a
criminal case.
The prosecution is going to try to put you in
jail and we are going to try and keep you out! Why can't you
understand this?"

He smirked and shrugged and shook his head, as
if my stupidity was astonishing. "You want to talk about criminal?
What about what the oil companies are doing to the ground water?
Those bastards are poisoning people! You don't think they're doing
it on purpose?" He threw himself back in his chair and crossed and
uncrossed his legs. He held his hands up on either side of his
head. "Hello!" He leaned in and whispered urgently. "They know
about me you know. They're watching me. They don't think I see
them, don't think I know the game." His eyes were shinny with
madness.