Emerald Aisle (4 page)
CONFRONTED WITH A RIVAL in Larry Morton, Dudley released from a vault in his brain the memory of how an earlier rivalry had ended. He and Ted Bonner had joined Kunert and Skye at the same time, and it soon became clear that they were cast in the role of professional competitors. The contest had been exhilarating, spurring himself and Bonner to better each previous performance as well as one another's. But beneath it all was the sickening possibility of failureâthe logical possibility of failure. Dudley was certain he would triumph, but doubts would come. So he made a friend rather than an enemy of Bonner. They skied in Colorado, took a week at Saint Kitts, sailed. That was how the rivalry came to an end.
Dudley still kept his boat, a twenty-four footer, in a marina at Deephaven even after the tragedy. Of course it had been repainted and refitted since that sad day when it had been discovered on its side a thousand yards offshore in Lake Minnetonka, its sails in the water causing it to turn in slow bewilderment as if in search of magnetic north. The boat had been empty. Dudley himself had sounded the alarm when he managed to make it ashore, swimming through the black, chill waters toward the lights of the boathouse. He had come dripping into the bar like the old man of the sea.
“Good Lord,” someone cried, “what happened to you?”
“My boat capsized.”
It went without saying that the boat could not be righted without assistance.
“Are you all right, Dudley?”
“Has my passenger come ashore?”
So it was that he made known the fact that Bonner had been with him in the boat. No one in the marina bar had seen Bonner. The bar emptied as everyone went down to the dock. The sound of motors began. Dudley, wrapped in a blanket, went out with a man named Armitage in his cruiser. The capsized boat had already been found when they got there, a shout going up and a spotlight playing over the floundering craft.
There was no sign of Bonner. Dudley's boat was righted and tied up behind Armitage's cruiser. But Dudley would not leave the scene. He blamed himself aloud for not remaining with the boat until he had found his passenger. “I told him to swim for shore when it went over.”
“What could you have done in the dark?”
“I couldn't see much. I shouted and shouted. I wondered if he was already safe, but when I started for shore I felt I was abandoning him.”
“Can't he swim?”
“He lost his grip and was pitched from the boat when it went over. I dove beneath it again and again ⦔
Someone wrapped the blanket more tightly around Dudley, who had begun to tremble. Armitage was urged to head for shore. The impact of what had happened, delayed during the activity of the futile rescue attempt, had now set in. Dudley sat in a crouch, swaddled in his blanket, staring sightlessly ahead, his teeth chattering like castanets.
Onshore he was taken to the emergency room but was released within an hour. Armitage stayed with him throughout it all.
“What did you say his name was?”
“Bonner. You've met him.”
Armitage scratched his nose. “I don't remember.”
“He works with me at Kunert and Skye. He was thinking of buying my boat. We took it out so he could get a sense of her.”
“When was that?”
“After six.”
Armitage raised his eyebrows.
“We were just going to take a turn or two and then come in for dinner.”
Bonner had been delighted with the boat, and Dudley had turned the tiller over to him. Let the boat sell itself. He himself wanted either a larger boat or a cruiser like Armitage's. Sailing was all right, but it involved so much work before and after going out that he could not often find time for it. After maneuvering the boat, tacking, turning, letting the sails out and taking them in, even letting out the spinnaker as a strong breeze came up, they fixed the tiller and relaxed. Some talk about the boatâ“I want it”âthen inevitably about work.
“Has Kunert asked to talk with you?” Bonner asked.
“Talk with me?”
“I have an appointment with him tomorrow.”
Dudley had no appointment with Kunert. A coldness came over him at the thought that he had lost to Bonner after all. Later, after the accident, he asked himself if he had subconsciously willed it to happen. Had he done everything he could have to save Bonner? He argued it both ways, prosecutor and counsel for the defense. It seemed a case that could never be decided. But one thing was clear. Bonner's untimely death had removed every obstacle to Dudley's rapid rise in the firm.
Bonner's body washed ashore miles east of the marina the following day. The wound on his head explained why he had not swum ashore like Dudley.
“He must have struck his head on something when the boat went over.”
Dudley had been called to the scene and was led through the little crowd that ringed the body. An ambulance had been driven across the beach to where it lay. But Bonner was in need of a hearse rather than an ambulance. Dudley looked down at the colorless body, the matted hair, the wound on the side of the head. The last time he had seen Bonner, the young man had been alive and vigorous, moving agilely toward the front of the boat as he took in the spinnaker. He had wanted to prove to himself that he could handle the boat without a crew. But the spinnaker had been caught by a gust, the boat lurched, the tiller came loose, and before Dudley could control the boat it was tilting dangerously. And then, with a great, almost silent swoosh, it went over, and Bonner lost his balance, slid along the deck, and into the water. Dudley too was pitched into the water.
These memories came after Dudley met Dolores's former fiancé. A rival in the firm was one thing, but Larry Morton threatened Dudley's relationship with Dolores. His worry thus far had been that she would somehow find out about Bianca Primero, but now her old love had reappeared. There had been a slow maturation of Dudley's decision to pursue Dolores seriously. The half-serious deference she showed him in the office faded away when they were together. He catered to her love of music, they frequented museums, they attended plays. Dudley received a belated liberal education from the young woman who had attracted him from the beginning and seemed even more attractive now. But a full year passed before the day he proposed after Josie's wedding.
“We could have the wedding at Notre Dame,” Dolores said.
“Anywhere you want.”
“If we marry on June 17, that is.”
He had not understood the meaning of the hypothetical until Dolores heard from Larry Morton and told him how she and Larry had reserved the date for their planned wedding and that she had claimed the date for her marriage to Dudley. Dudley didn't quite like the link between his marriage to Dolores and her old engagement to Morton, but it had seemed a small thing until the three of them were together in the bar.
He had expected Larry Morton to look like an undergraduate, but of course he was now finishing law school, where he had done well, and there was an air of confidence about him that would have commended him to Dudley if he were applying for a job in his firm; but in the bar he acted as if he had as much a claim on Dolores as on the reserved date in the campus church at Notre Dame.
Dudley had noticed when Dolores placed her hand on Morton's arm. She was a demonstrative woman, but the gesture seemed to evoke a romantic past that excluded him. He could not resist taunting Morton, trying to reduce him to the undergraduate status he had imagined him having. There was a moment when he was sure Morton would throw a punch at him, and Dudley almost wished he would. He was certain he would come out the better in any such encounter.
The meeting had not ended well. After Morton went off to the Radisson, Dolores was still upset by the encounter with her former fiancé.
“I feel so sorry for him, Dudley.”
“He'll get over it.”
“You don't know him like I do.”
Again he felt excluded from something mysterious, something that had not stopped. Had meeting Morton again after all these years stirred up more than memories in Dolores?
“Let's go to dinner.”
“Dudley?”âher hand was on his armâ“would you mind if we didn't? I'm afraid I wouldn't be good company for you.”
“You're always good company.”
She smiled, she gripped his arm, but she did not want to go to dinner. Outside he put her in a cab, and as it pulled away he had a dark thought. He hailed another cab. By then hers was lost in the traffic.
“Where to?”
“The Radisson.”
He rode up and down the escalator, he sat in a chair in the lobby watching people come and go. Morton appeared and went into the bar off the lobby without noticing him. It was silly sitting there like a spy, but Dudley sat on. Since his worst fears were unrealized, he had half a mind to go into the bar and have a drink with Morton. There was no need to quarrel with him. But before he got up, Dolores suddenly appeared. She crossed the lobby to the desk. A phone call was made for her, and then the clerk shook his head. Another question and then he pointed toward the bar.
Dudley sat motionless in his chair as this silent drama went on. Dolores stood in the entrance of the bar for a moment and then disappeared inside. If she had come to mollify Morton, she must be motivated by something other than shared memories. The sight of him, talking with him, the way she had brushed aside his own objection to Mortonâall these gathered together and gave Dudley the sinking feeling that he was in danger of losing the girl he loved.
He got up and in the entrance of the bar saw them: a couple, a couple in love, a couple engaged in talk that forever excluded him.
When his eyes met Morton's, he left, forcing himself to go, quashing the desire to stalk into the bar, lift Morton from his seat, and give him a thrashing.
When his eyes met Morton's, he left, forcing himself to go, quashing the desire to stalk into the bar, lift Morton from his seat, and give him a thrashing.
Dudley went from the Radisson to Bianca's apartment. She was excited about a scheme to punish her husband. Removing books from her husband's collection (could also seem Dudley's personal response to Primero's calling on him at Kunert and Skye. For Bianca it went much deeper.
“Nothing could hurt him more.”
That Primero should be hurt was an axiom with her. And didn't Primero invite such treatment? Dudley still could not believe that a man who had accomplished as much as Joseph Primero would permit his wife to treat him as she did.
“Maybe I'll explain it to you someday,” Bianca said impatiently. “Right now, you have to steal the things on this list.”
“Steal?”
Bianca dipped her head, then smiled. “Not
steal
. I will give you my key to the house; you will be my guest. The books would be considered common property, wouldn't they? You're the lawyer.”
steal
. I will give you my key to the house; you will be my guest. The books would be considered common property, wouldn't they? You're the lawyer.”
Dudley convinced himself that it was a practical joke they were playing on Primero. “What will you do with the stuff if I get it?”
“When, not if. I don't know what I'll do. It's his reaction I'm curious about.”
She wanted to come with him to the house on Lake of the Isles, but he vetoed that. This had to be a quick in and out, even if it was just a practical joke. Primero himself was up north.
“Anyone else in the house, servants?”
She laughed. “A man with a beard, the curator of the collection;
he lives over the garage. He begins to drink immediately after dinner and is out like a light by ten.”
he lives over the garage. He begins to drink immediately after dinner and is out like a light by ten.”
“How would you know that?”
“He's a legend.”
Approaching a house you intend to enter without an invitation, even if he had Bianca's keys, was a far different sensation than any Dudley had felt before. He had rehearsed a story if anything went wrong. He had come to pick up something for Mrs. Primero. Display of keys. In case of doubt, he would insist that she be called. He had gone through this with Bianca, who kept saying there was no need to worry; Waldo would be out like a light.
“Waldo?”
“The curator.”
“Are there dogs?”
There were no dogs. It sounded almost too simple.
“When?” he asked.
“Why not tonight?” She pressed against him. “I'll wait for you.”
Dudley parked several houses away and walked back to Primero's house. There were lights on, but Bianca had explained that: timers, security. But who would they fool? They could have fooled Dudley. He turned in the driveway, trying to make as little noise as possible. The windows in the apartment over the garage shone dimly, Waldo's apartment. Just before he got to the door, Dudley had a thought that stopped him. What if this were a practical joke Bianca was playing on
him?
He would sneak up to the door, let himself in, and the lights would go on, laughter burst out ⦠No. That was crazy. He went around the house to the sunporch and pulled on the screen door. Was it stuck? He tried again. It was locked! He had no key to
open screen doors; it was the door beyond that was supposed to be locked. His first reaction was that this absolved him from going on. He would beat it back to his car, explain it all to Bianca, and she would nag him until he came back another time.
him?
He would sneak up to the door, let himself in, and the lights would go on, laughter burst out ⦠No. That was crazy. He went around the house to the sunporch and pulled on the screen door. Was it stuck? He tried again. It was locked! He had no key to
open screen doors; it was the door beyond that was supposed to be locked. His first reaction was that this absolved him from going on. He would beat it back to his car, explain it all to Bianca, and she would nag him until he came back another time.
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