Marine Corpse Read online

  Ben’s tone defined that as the end of that particular topic of conversation. He turned to the four people seated on the other sofa. “Brady, you know Frank Higglesworth, Cal McDowell, and Harry and June Parker?” I nodded to each of them. “Harry, here, has been lecturing at the Fletcher School this semester,” Ben continued. “His star has risen since that business in Haiti. The State Department is looking for good men to invent apologies for their Caribbean policies. It looks like Harry is their man.”

  “I’m not an apologist,” said Parker, in what I gathered was his Fletcher School lecturer’s tone. “I have simply pointed out that arguments on the ethics of intervention miss the point. It’s not a question of some abstract concept of justice, after all. As Thucydides said, ‘Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.’ It’s that simple. If the administration’s policy is wrong, it’s wrong because it violates our vital national interests. I don’t happen to think it does. Hence, it’s right.”

  Meriam clapped her hands. “Oh, that is wonderful, Harry. I absolutely adore sophistry. Do some more of it for us.”

  “You really are such a bitch, Mim, darling,” said Harry’s wife sweetly.

  “Noblesse oblige, June, dear,” answered Meriam with a lupine smile.

  “I should think,” persisted Parker, “that after what Castro did to the Woodhouse holdings in Cuba you’d have a more sympathetic attitude to our government’s firmness in Haiti, even disregarding the issue of party loyalty.”

  Meriam shrugged. “So he nationalized our banana plantations. I’d have done the same thing if I’d been Castro.”

  “In retrospect,” said Ben, “I wish we’d taken a firmer stand earlier in Cuba. I don’t miss the bananas particularly. But the tobacco situation is another story. A good cigar, after all, is a smoke.” Ben made a show of checking his watch, and then put his hand on my arm. “You’re welcome to stay here, Brady, and toast yourself in the warmth of the fireplace and the heat of the discourse. As for me, I’ve got to make a couple of phone calls.”

  “I think I’ll freshen my drink,” I said, grateful for the chance to move.

  “Help yourself,” said Ben, waving to the table in the corner.

  I stood up. “Do come back and tell us what you think about Haiti,” said Meriam to me.

  “I don’t have any interesting views,” I said, thinking that Altoona would easily hold his own with all of them. “I go along with Harry, here. Vital national interests. Bananas and cigars. That sort of thing.”

  Meriam winked at me, and I went over to slosh some more Old Grandad into my glass. I wandered into the kitchen, where gleaming chrome and glass contrasted with the otherwise comfortable colonial decor of Ben’s home. “Neo Paul Revere,” Ben called his eclectic collection of braided rugs, overstuffed chairs, oil paintings, and antiques, but that was Ben’s point of view. By his standards, the rented junk in my apartment qualified as Early Conan the Barbarian.

  I nodded at the group that was playing wordgames at the big trestle table and shook hands with the two Woodhouse nephews I recognized. Then I moved over so I could gaze out of the floor-to-ceiling windows. The pink late afternoon sky was studded with black submarine-shaped clouds, and the snow-covered landscape that rolled down toward the frozen river seemed to glow colorlessly as it gathered what was left of the daylight. The stark lines of a rail fence carved the pasture into neat geometrical shapes.

  It was a cold, dead world outside, a more appropriate setting, somehow, for a gathering to mourn the dead than the cheery interior of the Woodhouse mansion.

  I sipped my drink, grateful that nobody seemed to feel obligated to include me in the activities. I practiced no religion, but still I felt that I had been more moved, more motivated to speculate on big questions, than these members of Stu’s family, who seemed content to accept his death with a Calvinist fatalism that struck me as ironic. Calvinism with no God to impose order, however arbitrary, was randomness without redemption—the bleakest of all theologies, a black existential pit.

  I went to look for the football game. I had wagered a dollar on Miami with Charlie McDevitt. I suspected I would accept that loss, should it happen, with considerably less equanimity than Meriam and Ben accepted Stu’s death.

  I found a big color television in Ben’s study, a cozy bookshelf-lined room in the far corner of the house. There were two easy chairs pulled up in front of the tube. I took one of them. A young woman in her mid-twenties, I judged, sat in the other. She wore her black hair short. It looked like it had been chopped off hastily by a man wielding hedge trimmers. I supposed she had spent a lot of money to acquire this look.

  She glanced at me, smiled perfunctorily, and then returned her gaze to the television. In the instant of that smile I saw enormous eyes, almost black, the color of strong coffee, where the smile seemed to linger after the mouth stopped. When she turned, her nose dominated her profile—not the sharp, aristocratic Woodhouse beak, but a lumpy, meandering muzzle that seemed to begin at her forehead, wander down her face, and stop indecisively only because there had to be a place left for her mouth.

  “Any score?” I said to her.

  “Miami by ten and marching,” she said without turning.

  “Best news I’ve heard today,” I said. “I’m Brady Coyne, by the way.”

  She held her hand out to me without taking her eyes off the television. “Heather Kriegel,” she said. “The Jewish girlfriend. The only one around here who seems interested in mourning.”

  “It is a rather gay celebration, under the circumstances,” I agreed.

  She turned and looked sharply at me. Then she smiled, as if I had said something funny, or she had noticed that my fly was open. It was a remarkable smile. I read intelligence, warmth, cynicism, and self-mockery in it. It transformed her.

  Then, abruptly, she frowned. “What’d you say your name was?”

  “Coyne.”

  She arched her eyebrows. “Aha. Now I remember. Stu mentioned you several times. You were his agent. He liked you.”

  “I liked him, too.”

  She touched my hand. “You are the first person I’ve met today who has said even that much about Stu. I don’t understand these people. It’s as if he never existed. They’re all so damn dignified. These WASPs keep their upper lips stiffer than their penises.”

  Her eyes welled up with tears at the same time as she smiled. “I’m sorry,” she said. She snuffled. “That wasn’t very elegant of me. It’s just—he was a nice man, Stu, and I miss him, and nobody around here seems to give a shit. Especially his Mummy.”

  “She probably does, in her way,” I said.

  Heather Kriegel tossed her head. “If she only knew,” she muttered. “Anyway, it was nice they invited me. After this, I guess the Woodhouses will have fulfilled their social obligations to me.”

  “Aw, they’re not such bad people,” I said.

  “Like hell they’re not,” she said.

  She stood up and walked over to the window. She wore a black wool dress that revealed a sturdy body, constructed more of angles than curves, which, coupled with her short, carelessly cut hair, struck me as almost sexually neutral. Except that as she stood looking out the window, the slimness of her waist and the vulnerability of the back of her neck were decidedly feminine.

  I turned my attention to the football game, and in a minute Heather came back and folded herself into the other chair. “You’re an attorney, right?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Well, for Heaven’s sake, you don’t need to apologize.”

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  She stared at me solemnly and nodded. “I could use an attorney right now. Are you by chance available?”

  I smiled. My legal specialty was rich old folks. Most of them turned out to be Yankees with roots deep in the rocky New England soil. They rarely called upon me to perform difficult juridical maneuvers. I didn’t consider this
peculiar emphasis in my practice to be a matter of prejudice, or snobbery. It just happened to be the way things had evolved, and it had become comfortable.

  “I’m not taking any new clients just now,” I said. “I can recommend one, if you want.”

  She shrugged. “That might be good. So. Who do you like?”

  “What, the game? I like Miami. I like them a dollar’s worth.”

  “Really go out on a limb, don’t you? I’ve got the Jets and four. Not enough. Ever since they made a rule against Gastineau making a jerk of himself whenever he sacked the quarterback, the Jets have had trouble covering the spread.”

  “Well, what with my big investment and all,” I said, “my heart has been in my mouth all afternoon.”

  She grinned. “How was Stu’s book coming along?”

  “You knew about the book?”

  “Sure. He told me what he was going to do. The last time I saw him or heard from him was in October, when he left. Did he get any of it done?”

  “He sent me notebooks every week. I haven’t read them.”

  “We talked about collaborating, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t. In what way?”

  “I’m a photographer. He had in mind a kind of documentary. His text, my black-and-white photos. He was going to do his research, make his connections, and then take me into the city with my camera. I guess that’s out the window now.”

  “I don’t see why it should be,” I mused. “I do have the notebooks. Maybe there’s still a project there.”

  “I’d really like to see them.”

  “Why not? They’re not going to do poor Stu any good. Perhaps I could send them to you.”

  “Yes. I’d like that. I’m sick of taking graduation pictures and kiddie shots in K-Mart on Saturday mornings.”

  “My wife was a photographer,” I said.

  “Was?”

  “My ex-wife, I should say.”

  “You’re divorced.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  I looked quickly at her, but she was smiling at the television. I pushed myself up out of the chair. “Well, Miss Kriegel…”

  She glanced up at me. “Heather, please. Funny name, huh? You know how some parents want a boy, so they name their daughters things like Bobby and Sam and Joey? My parents wanted a WASP. They hoped I’d be tall and blonde and become a cheerleader and play the harp and go to Vassar. So they named me Heather. When they saw what I was going to look like they gave it all up. Are you a WASP, Mr. Coyne?”

  “I’m a mutt,” I said. “A little of this, a little of that. The surname’s Irish. All sorts of other things in the genes. And call me Brady, for God’s sake.”

  “Sturdy American stock,” she said. “Stu, of course, was a WASP. His parents didn’t exactly approve of our liaison. I assume there’s a connection there somewhere.”

  I nodded.

  “You sure you don’t want to be my lawyer?” That mocking, wry grin was back.

  I shrugged. “Sorry.”

  She nodded. “Okay. You said you could recommend somebody.”

  “I can.”

  “Well, who?”

  I took one of my business cards from my wallet and wrote a name and phone number on the back of it. I handed it to Heather Kriegel. “This is the name of an excellent young attorney. He’s better than me.”

  She cocked her head and nodded solemnly as she took the card from me. She squinted at what I had written. “What is this guy, a Greek?”

  “Why—does it matter?”

  “Not at all. I’m just interested in things like that.”

  “As a matter of fact, he’s black.”

  “Oh. Well, good.”

  I was still standing, and Heather was still curled in the chair in front of the television. I held my hand to her. “I have to leave. Nice to have met you.”

  She took my hand and held it. Her grip was firm. “Those notebooks. I am serious about that, you know.”

  “My number’s on that card. Call and remind me.”

  She nodded. “You can count on it.”

  FIVE

  BEN WOODHOUSE CALLED ME two days later. “Couple of odds and ends,” he said.

  “Such as what?”

  “Stu’s condo, for one. The Jewish girl is reluctant to move out.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Stu’s girlfriend. Maybe you met her. She was at the house Sunday.”

  “Sure I met her. What about her?”

  I heard Ben sigh. “They lived together in a condominium in Sudbury. Now that Stu is gone, naturally the place ought to revert to his family. But the girl indicates she’s not moving. She evidently is prepared to fight this in court.”

  I decided not to tell Ben right then that I had recommended a damn good lawyer to her. But it did occur to me that I was Ben’s lawyer, and he was now asking me to demonstrate that I was worth that hefty retainer he paid me. “If the place is in Stu’s name,” I said carefully, “I don’t see what the problem is.”

  “That is the problem. Stu put it in her name.”

  “Off the top of my head, then, I’d say it’s legally hers.”

  “I don’t think this is a matter that will lend itself to top-of-the-head opinions, Brady.” He hesitated. “Actually, between the two of us, that’s perfectly all right with me. It’s Meriam. She wants it back.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, Christ, I don’t know. She never liked Stu’s arrangement. She’s found some way to blame the girl for what happened to Stu. She says he bought the place with Woodhouse money, the place should belong to the Woodhouses. You know Meriam.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I do know Meriam. Okay, Ben. I’ll look into it. But unless there’s something there that doesn’t meet the eye, my advice is to forget it.”

  “Meriam is very definite about this.”

  “I don’t doubt it. What are we talking about here, a hundred and fifty thousand dollars?”

  “One-sixty-five.”

  “Really, Ben…”

  “Dammit, Brady. This was a family decision.”

  “Sure. Democratic vote.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, listen to your attorney for a minute, then, will you? If this place is in her name, and unless there’s something funny about the documentation, then it belongs to her, and no lawyer is going to convince a judge otherwise. Even if you got that particular judge appointed, Ben.”

  “That’s not how I play the game, and you know it.”

  “Yes, I do. I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I should tell you something. I spoke with Ms. Kriegel at your little get-together. I recommended a lawyer to her. A friend of mine. A very competent attorney. He will not blow this case.”

  “Meriam is certain that Stu put the condo in the girl’s name for tax reasons.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “You better just forget the whole thing.”

  “I’ll have to talk to Meriam.”

  “Something to think about here, Ben. Are you prepared to face a palimony suit?”

  “You wouldn’t allow that.”

  “I wouldn’t like it. If this gets to court, I might not be able to prevent it.”

  Ben chuckled. “It might be worth it, just to watch Meriam squirm. In any case, you’re our lawyer, and I expect you to give us your best advice on this.”

  I told him I thought I already had, and he said to think about it some more, and I told him he better come up with something for me, and he said he’d talk to Meriam about it, and we hung up.

  Later that morning Julie buzzed me. “Who is it, dear?” I said into the intercom.

  “Don’t call me ‘dear.’ It sounds patronizing.” Her voice hissed.

  “Well, bless me, I’m sorry, my good woman.”

  “That’s not much better.”

  “Julie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Who’s on the phone, huh?”

  “It’s Zerk.”

  “Well, goo
d. Put him on.”

  “Certainly, sir.” Julie was touchy about some things that generally seemed to elude me.

  I hesitated for a moment before I jabbed the button that would connect me with the man on the other end of the line. “Zerk” was Xerxes Garrett, a young attorney with an office on Mass Ave in North Cambridge. During the year that Julie took her maternity leave to have her daughter, Zerk clerked for me and I tutored him for his law boards. When Julie came back to work, I tried to persuade Zerk to stay on as my partner, but he made it clear that he didn’t want to specialize in protecting the legal interests of my wealthy clientele.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” he had said, his handsome black face solemn, as if he were afraid he’d hurt my feelings, “but helping rich white dudes get richer just ain’t my idea of a career.”

  So he set about to establish the kind of practice he could live with—bringing suit against absentee landlords when the heat went off in Mattapan apartment buildings in January, watchdogging personnel moves in the Boston schools and Cambridge Fire Department, facilitating welfare and food stamp distribution, and testifying before the state legislature on bills that might affect the status of minorities in the Commonwealth.

  He helped to coordinate the Jesse Jackson campaign in Massachusetts. He coached a team in the Boston summer basketball league. He negotiated a contract with the Patriots for a big offensive tackle out of Grambling. His career was shaping up.

  Now and then I referred a client to him. “Don’t try to work out your honkie guilt on me,” he’d say. “White man’s burden, all that shit. I’m scrapin’ by.”

  “I’m just looking for a good attorney,” I’d tell him. And I meant it. He was tough and smart, he knew the law, and he had a sharply honed sense of justice.

  I spoke into the telephone. “Hey, Zerk. How you doing?”

  Zerk’s laugh was a loud, high-pitched cackle. In bars and restaurants, Zerk’s laugh created instant, awed silence. Rock-and-roll bands stopped playing in mid-bar if Zerk laughed in the building where they were performing. This time he gifted me with an especially hearty one.

  “What’s so funny?” I said.