The Great Divide (25 page)

“Maybe.”

“No maybes about this one.” Time for a decision. And action. He had heard stories about what Hamper Caisse would do if asked. Having such power at his beck and call left him slightly breathless. “All right. Leave that and come down. Tonight. I need you here.”

“You want me to track the girl in Rocky Mount?”

“I very much doubt,” Randall replied, “you’ll have the time.”

M
ARCUS SAT ON HIS PORCH
and watched the day fade. He wore a ragged sweatshirt and cutoffs and a sheen of drying sweat. His ears
still rang from the mower he had bought off a neighbor for twenty-five dollars. The muffler had long since rusted away, and it roared like a weary machine of war. By the time he finished the two back acres, he was convinced he had overpaid.

The autumn twilight tarried longer than Marcus felt was natural. Streetlights glowed in faint mimicry of the sky’s final colors. Trees and neighboring houses gradually faded to dark etchings of their former selves. The air smelled of cut grass and smoke from backyard grills, and rang with the clamor of children playing in the street.

A small, thin shadow separated itself from the nearest tree, and an alien yet familiar voice said, “Your home looks most inviting, Mr. Glenwood. May I join you?”

Marcus rose to his feet, lifted by the sudden, unnerving jolt. He recalled a blank hallway in Washington, and solid steel doors leading into a whitewashed world of silent terrors. “Is that Dee Gautam?”

“Remarkable, Mr. Glenwood. Most remarkable.” The slender shadow approached and took on form, beginning with his smile. “You continue to surprise me. First I think you are nothing more than some American lawyer visiting our offices like another person would travel to the zoo. I look at you and I think, here is someone very comfortable in his living room with wall-to-wall carpet and big-screen television. Too comfortable to worry about strangers suffering someplace very far away.”

The steps did not creak as he climbed to the veranda. Dee Gautam stood smiling up at Marcus. “Then I hear that this strange American lawyer does not turn from a case he cannot win. No. He asks many questions and finds surprising answers. So I decide to come and see if he will listen to my warning, and I discover that this strange American lawyer lives alone in a neighborhood where almost all others are black.”

“Warn me about what?”

“May I sit down, Mr. Glenwood?”

“Sorry, of course, you surprised me, showing up like this.” He pulled over a second hickory rocker and set it so he could face the man square on. “You said something about—”

“Why do you choose to live here, Mr. Glenwood?”

Marcus seated himself, decided to let Dee Gautam chart the conversation’s course. For now. “My grandfather built this place for his wife. Back then the area was different.”

His visitor was so small he sat as a child would in the straight-backed rocker, sliding up to the edge so his feet could push against the floor. The chair drummed lightly over the uneven boards. “Still I am not understanding, Mr. Glenwood. Why are you choosing to live in this place?”

Beyond the reach of the porch light, darkness gathered and conquered. “Would you like something to drink?”

“Thank you, no. I am not able to stay very long.”

“My grandparents raised me. When they died, I kept the place. I’d come out here and work a little, but not enough. After an … accident, I decided to come back here to live. I’ve been restoring it ever since.”

Gautam’s hands reached out to settle upon the chair arms. In the half-light the pitted scars seemed to run the entire way through his wrists. “Please excuse me for the repetition, Mr. Glenwood, but I am trying so hard to understand. Why are you choosing to come back here?”

“You mean why do I live in what has become a black neighborhood?” When the little man simply rocked back and forth, using the chair and his entire body to nod, Marcus went on, “Some people resent my living here. Especially the young men who don’t have work. You see them gathered on some of the porches. They watch cars with white drivers, and give me this look like, well, like I don’t belong and never will.”

The nightly chorus rose so gradually it was only when he paused to sort through jumbled thoughts that he heard it at all. “But there are a few people who have made me feel more than welcome. Deacon Wilbur, my secretary, a few others. They … understand.”

“They accept your pain and your loss.”

Marcus found himself unwilling to meet the man’s gaze. “You’ve been checking up on me.”

“That is what makes a home, I feel. Finding a place and a people who accept you as you are.” The rocker drummed quietly for a moment. “This Deacon Wilbur, I have heard the name before. He is Gloria’s pastor, yes?”

“You told me you didn’t know Gloria Hall.”

“No, Mr. Glenwood, I said I meet many people. Which I do.” Dark eyes glittered yellow and alien in the porch light. “Look at it from my side, please. A stranger comes in and asks many questions.
Many
sensitive
questions. Questions that, if answered to the wrong person, could hurt others who are helpless. You understand me?”

Marcus leaned forward. “Is there a direct tie-in between Factory 101 and New Horizons?”

“Rumors, Mr. Glenwood. Nothing more than rumors.” A pause filled by the cry of an owl. “Almost nothing. Gloria once told me she knew how to obtain proof. But if she indeed found this, I do not know.”

“Was she kidnapped?”

“This also I have tried to discover. Tried and failed. There is no information coming from Factory 101. None.”

“Who is in charge?”

Dee Gautam stopped rocking. “Ah. Yes. The most dangerous question of all.”

“Dangerous how?”

“People are trying very hard to keep this answer a mystery. I smell danger for those who search.” The smile was gone entirely. “I have a very good nose for danger, Mr. Glenwood.”

“Ashley Granger is trying to identify the owner.”

“Indeed I am speaking to Mr. Granger. He is a good man and must also take heed.” Dee Gautam rose to his feet. “You are a good man as well, Mr. Glenwood. I am here to be telling you to take great care.”

Marcus rose and followed the little man back across the veranda. “I’ve already met the New Horizons goons.”

As he descended the stairs, the light caught the top of Dee Gautam’s head, shining through his few remaining tendrils of hair and exposing the scalp beneath. For the first time Marcus noticed two long white scars running in parallel almost from ear to ear.

“Sometimes a person can focus upon the snarling dog and miss the bear farther back.” Dee Gautam fitted comfortably into the night. “Beware the bear, Mr. Glenwood. It will eat you whole.”

T
HE FINAL PRETRIAL HEARING on Thursday proceeded pretty much according to his expectations. Marcus struggled to remain tightly involved. The dark-suited defense lawyers clustered like opposing chess pieces set in intricate balance to his lonely knight. They raised the issue of dismissal, accusing him once more of making a frivolous claim. He neither objected nor spoke, for his mind remained fastened upon the morning’s earlier mysteries.

That morning he had gone running in the dark, fleeing the whispers that awaited the moment he had opened his eyes—the ones that said, You have no case. As he wound his way homeward through a biting chill mist, a blond head stepped into the streetlight’s glare, an apparition of false dawn and promises unfulfilled. Kirsten motioned back to the files piled by his front door. In a flat voice she had simply said, “I’ll bring what I can when it’s ready. You don’t need to call me again.” All Marcus could think to say was, “Don’t leave!” Kirsten had not even turned around, just said over her shoulder, “I’ve driven all night, I’m tired, and all I want to hear from you is good-bye.” But Marcus would not let go. His puffing breath had mingled with the predawn mist as he had rushed over and stopped her car door from closing. “Is it me,” he had demanded, “and if so couldn’t you at least let me apologize?” Kirsten had bitten down hard on whatever she had been about to say, wrenched her door shut, and driven away.

Marcus sat now before the judge’s desk, and could not help but reflect on how, until recently, simply living from day to day had been enough. Waking before dawn, following a steady routine, attending to what small legal matters chance brought his way—these were accomplishments enough. But now there was this case, and people relied
on him once more. He found this only added fuel to his predawn inferno. He loathed the prospect of adding to his burden of unfulfilled obligations.

“Marcus?” Judge Nicols’ voice forced him back to the here and now. “Do you intend on joining us today?”

He turned to Logan. The words rose unbidden from his own internal depths. “Release the woman.”

The quiet demand caught the entire chamber by surprise. Logan scoffed. “Are you talking to me? Because that doesn’t sound—”

“Tell the Chinese factory to release Gloria Hall. That’s all we want. Bring her home and all this will vanish.” He turned to the judge. “That offer is for the record.”

“Your Honor, this is the most ludicrous accusation I have ever heard.”

“There is no intended accusation at all, Your Honor. Free Gloria Hall and all charges will be dropped.”

But Logan was striving too hard for the advantage to listen. “Your Honor, this merely confirms our contention that the plaintiffs are bringing a nuisance suit. Glenwood must be severely punished.”

She turned slowly, as though reluctant to show Marcus her thoughts. “Well?”

Marcus nodded acceptance. The game was so rigidly set that no such maneuvering was possible. No one could see beyond the next move, when battle would officially be joined. “We have received none of the requested corporate documents from New Horizons, Your Honor.”

Logan was ready. “That is because they do not exist.”

“Your Honor, we have shown to the magistrate and yourself photocopied documents on corporate letterhead—”

“Which we claim to be false, Your Honor. Clearly this Miss Hall copied the New Horizons logo and drew up these documents herself. It is a well-known ploy of unions trying to smear a company’s name. No doubt she learned it from the same cronies who are backing this frivolous suit. New Horizons has placed a few scattered orders with Factory 101. Nothing more.”

Obtaining the original documents was critical. What case Marcus had was based upon the disputed documents. The court did not generally admit photocopies as evidence. The law required confirmation
that what Marcus possessed was bona fide. Marcus reached for his briefcase. “Your Honor, I have an affidavit from the customs house at the Wilmington docks.”

Logan exploded. “This was not included in his list of evidence!”

“If you supplied what we had requested it would not have been needed.” There was no need to mention that Kirsten had only brought the documents that very morning. Marcus kept his eyes on the judge. “The affidavit states that New Horizons has cleared hundreds of container-loads of Chinese-produced clothes. And that this has been a practice followed over several years. I therefore request that the court grant us exceptional permission to submit all our photocopied documents as bona fide evidence.”

The judge’s features tightened around the edges. She scanned the affidavit, said, “So ruled.”

Logan could not let that one go. “Objection, Your Honor, you—”

“Mr. Kendall, I do not approve of such shenanigans any more than the magistrate.” Her voice was cold and hard as dark iron. “Try anything like that in my courtroom and I’ll hold you in contempt.” She looked back to Marcus. “Anything else?”

“Yes there is. We have received no response to any of our subpoenas of corporate board members. None of them was available to grant testimony.”

“Well, Mr. Logan? Of the—how many subpoenas did you issue, Mr. Glenwood?”

“Thirty-six, Your Honor.”

“Of the thirty-six requested depositions, how many officers are available to give testimony?”

Logan cleared his throat. “The two senior vice presidents of the local distribution company, Your Honor.”

“I don’t see those titles on this list.”

“Neither hold board-level positions, Your Honor,” Marcus said. “They would therefore know next to nothing about the Chinese partnership.”

“We deny that such a partnership exists!”

Judge Nicols extended the sheet of names to Logan. “Where are all these people?”

“Out of the country, Your Honor. This trial coincides with the annual corporate meeting in Switzerland.”

Marcus said, “I hereby request the court’s intervention in having the State Department order embassy officials in Bern to take depositions of all these corporate officers.”

“So ruled.” Judge Nicols slapped the file shut. “Nothing further? All right. We begin jury selection bright and early Monday morning.”

A
S USUAL
Marcus lingered and allowed time for the defense to depart ahead of him, discussing the weather with the judge’s receptionist-guard. Jim Bell had a countryman’s corded strength and a gentleman’s beard, white and cropped tight to his face. He sat on the narrow chair as he would a saddle, solid and very erect. With the directness of one born in the eastern flatlands, where people spoke sparingly and straight, he dropped the issue of a possible early frost to say, “I lost a daughter two days before her tenth birthday. Like to have killed me and the wife both. Been nineteen years and the wound hasn’t healed yet.”

For an instant Marcus supposed the man was speaking of his own accident, and the pain was like someone having dropped his heart onto a red-hot skillet. Then he breathed and pushed away the pain, knowing he had to be mistaken. No one who had suffered thus would ever willingly blindside another so afflicted.

No, the guard had to be speaking of Gloria. “You’ve been following the Hall case?”

“I listen, and the others around here have been talking.”

“Every day we don’t hear anything more, I find myself hoping a little less.”

The bearded man nodded agreement. “Handled a few kidnappings in my day. Not many. The first few weeks were always make or break.”