Recessional: A Novel (40 page)

Turning from one man to the next, Andy asked what each could testify to, under oath. The mix of evidence from the four was surprising, for at some time or another, each of the men had discussed with Mallory a subject of considerable complexity, and before the dinner ended the tertulia was prepared to defend their neighbor.

The testimony next morning started with the director of the Palms giving what he considered an impassioned defense of the old couple, but when the children’s lawyer had his chance to knock down Zorn’s testimony he was ruthless, for they had anticipated that he might intrude into their case.

“Is this your memorandum?” It was. And in it do you refer to—and I quote your very words—‘the Mallory Yo-yos’?”

“Yes. It was a phrase—”

“I didn’t ask for any long-winded explanation. Did you or did you not describe them as a pair of Yo-yos?”

“I did, but it was only—”

“Dr. Zorn, you had some unpleasantness concerning your practice in Chicago. You’re not qualified to practice in Florida, are you?”

“No, but only because I never—”

“Dr. Zorn, as director of the Palms you would stand to lose a lot of money if the Mallorys moved out, wouldn’t you?”

“They’ve moved out before and we survived.”

“But you would lose money, wouldn’t you?”

“No.”

“What?”

Andy was finally able to squeeze in a point: “To the contrary. When they moved in they paid in advance for two full years, and that fee is not refundable.”

“But it is in your financial interest to come into this court and testify that the Mallorys, especially the husband, are competent to make their own decisions.”

“That consideration played no part in my testimony.” When Andy tried to explain, the lawyer said, with enormous contempt: “That’s all, Dr. Zorn,” with heavy sardonic emphasis on the
Doctor
. “We need no more of your testimony.”

During this interrogation Zorn noticed that Betsy Cawthorn had found a seat. Although he was still wary of contact with her because of the embarrassing scene in the rehab room, he told himself: Come on, Andy, she’s a patient and a Palms resident, just go say hello. He left the stand and made his way toward Betsy.

Her heart skipped a beat when she saw him coming to her, still smarting from his rebuff in rehab. She greeted him with a hesitant smile. “I really hope the Mallorys win this case.”

“I’m afraid I’m not helping much,” Zorn replied.

“Not at all. I watched the jurors. Some of them took you seriously. I could see it.”

“I wish I’d done better, but thank you for your support. Now I must see if I can undo the damage I did,” and, burning with indignation, he went to where the members of the tertulia waited: “I’m afraid I damaged his case. I’m sorry. But you guys, you must save this decent old man. Please.”

When Senator Raborn took the stand to stanch the hemorrhage, the lawyer for the old people asked: “Am I correct in understanding that you served four full terms as United States senator? And your committee assignments during those twenty-four years?”

“Twenty-two,” and he spread before the court the names of the illustrious committees on which he had served and the two very important ones of which he had been chairman.

“In those latter assignments. Senator, you must have dealt with problems of some national significance?”

“Farm policy and labor policy are almost diametrically opposed, but they are of importance to the republic, yes.”

“Did Chris Mallory, sitting over there, ever discuss such matters with you?”

“Yes. He’d been a Republican committeeman from his county and he continued his interest after he retired.”

“Any discussions recently?”

“Yes indeed. He came to me about a week ago to protest President Clinton’s farm policies, and he had four proposals that would ease the burden on the big spreads west of the Mississippi River.”

“Were they sensible?”

“In my judgment they were better than what the Democrats were coming up with.”

“From such conversations…and there were others, I suppose?”

“Many.”

“Did you find Chris Mallory to be competent? Mentally?”

“Extremely sharp. But of course, farming had been one of his interests. I’d expect him to know a lot.”

Under cross-examination the senator frustrated the lawyer for the younger Mallorys by citing a few other complex fields in which the grandfather had exhibited mental acuity: “But those discussions were in the past?”

“If you call two weeks ago the past.”

Andy saw, with relief, that some of the jury members had been impressed by the senator’s deportment and testimony, but the surprising highlight of the morning came when President Armitage took the stand. After stating his credentials, which were impressive, with the long list of books published and services rendered to the federal government, he told of conversations with Mallory that were not much different from what the senator had testified to. He must have been aware of the repetition, for out of the blue he volunteered: “And Mr. Mallory was of considerable help to me personally, so I had a good opportunity to evaluate his mental sharpness.”

“In what specifics?”

“My wife and I had built up some savings, from my books and
speaking fees, and we felt it would represent a conflict of interest if I asked the finance manager of my former college to advise me on how to invest these funds. So I went to Mr. Mallory, remembering that he’d been president of a bank, and he was glad to counsel me.”

“And the results?”

“Our college finance team earned us seven percent on the college funds they invested. Chris earned my wife and me ten and a half percent, year after year.”

“But did he charge you a fee for his services?”

“Of course. He’s a canny businessman. And we were glad to pay it.”

Editor Jiménez from Colombia, ramrod straight, with a slight accent, weighed each word carefully: “Mr. Mallory frequently stopped me in the hall to ask about developments in my home country. He was very knowledgeable.”

“In what way?”

“About drugs. The Cali gang. The Medellín connection. He always wanted to know what they were up to.”

“Why would he have such an interest?”

“Because he had served as chairman for his state’s antidrug committee. He had even gone down to the hill country of Colombia, at some risk to himself, I must say, because those drug gangs are killers.”

“On such a trip what did he learn?”

“Only that Colombian drugs keep seeping into this country, corrupting our legal system and killing our children.”

Now, when the jury looked at Old Man Mallory they saw an entirely different kind of man, but the decisive testimony came from Ambassador St. Près, whose credentials were so impeccable and manner so dignified that whatever he said was bound to carry weight. He spoke of his frequent contacts with Mallory, and of the man’s interest in matters besides dancing and dining out: “When the President appointed him to the national committee looking into the drug problem, Mr. Mallory had occasion to visit the centers in the Orient from which drugs were being sent out to carriers who slipped them into the United States. Burma, Thailand, a very rough gang in Malaysia, he knew of them all. When I met him at the Palms, where we are both in retirement, he liked to use me to keep au courant with what was happening in the lands he had visited.”

“Did you find him acute? I mean, did he know what he was talking about?”

“I was surprised by his mastery. For instance, he never said ‘northern Thailand.’ With him it was always ‘Chiang Mai’ or ‘Lam-pang.’ ”

Sitting very erect, as if he were being interrogated by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States Senate, he was allowed by the court to offer a final peroration: “It is trustworthy citizens like Chris Mallory and his wife, Esther, who form the backbone of our nation. They not only attend to their own affairs, brilliantly sometimes, so that they earn considerable sums of money, but they also serve on investigating committees, special bodies and the boards governing universities and hospitals. To attack them in their later years…” He paused dramatically and concluded: “No, to attack men like the four of us as we grow older—we’ll throw our lot in with the Mallorys—” Suddenly overcome by emotion, he ended lamely: “is insane.” The audience, which included members from various retirement centers in the Miami–St. Petersburg area, applauded. The judge rapped his gavel, not ferociously, and it was obvious that the jury was deeply moved.

The ambassador’s performance was perfect, an effective capstone to the solid contributions of the other tertulia members. The lawyer for the younger Mallorys tried, of course, to impugn the testimony of the four, but the distinguished witnesses were so skilled in defending their positions that attempts to denigrate them were easily rebuffed, and when the jury filed out it was clear that before long they were going to file right back in. When they did, after less than an hour of deliberation, their verdict was in favor of the old people, and it was fortified by harsh words from the bench, showing that the judge had been disgusted with the performance of the children of this amiable pair of old people, of whom Florida had so many.

“Dancing is neither sinful nor wasteful. Jesus himself attended dinners in town. And parents who have educated their children and been unusually generous to their grandchildren, as the Mallory financial records proved, have performed their obligations to society. I judge from what we’ve heard about the Mallory finances that dinners and dancing are not going to deplete all their funds before they die. There’ll be a great deal left even for you grandchildren, and my counsel is to leave this courtroom and not bother to visit the Palms. Looking
at you close up might goad these folks to drop you from their wills.”

Chance dictated that Andy would leave the courtroom just as the group of younger Mallorys did and he could not restrain himself from stopping them and saying: “When you reach home I hope you’ll read that admirable story by the Grimm Brothers. A selfish married couple find it unpleasant to have to take care of the aging grandfather. He slobbers at his meals and spills bits of meat and potato on the table, so his son carves him a wooden swill bowl like the ones pigs eat from, and that’s the way the grandfather is fed.

“A few days later the father sees his own son, a lad of ten or so, carving a swill bowl and when the father asks: ‘What’s that for?’ the boy replies: ‘So I’ll have it handy when you’re old.’ ”

Speaking directly to the two Mallory offspring and their spouses who had brought the suit against their father, Andy said: “I hope your children carve their bowls for you when you get home.” Then he turned away from them and left the courthouse.

That evening everyone in the dining room looked toward the door where Chris Mallory and his wife, Esther, were entering, all smiles and laughter as if returning from a party. When they waved to friends the room broke into applause, for they were recognized as surrogates who had defended the group.

Late in July Andy received an imperative fax from John Taggart asking him to be in the Chicago headquarters at ten the following day and to bring with him complete survey and architectural drawings of the entire establishment, including the road system in the vicinity out to the eastern edge of the savanna. These plans were voluminous, but with the aid of Krenek and Nora, Andy bundled them up and was on the very early flight to Chicago.

He went to Taggart’s office, where a secretary spread the land surveys on a large clean desk. Prior to Taggart’s arrival, two men whom Zorn had never met, businessmen apparently, in their late forties or early fifties, began to pore over the surveys, eager to verify the dimensions of the unoccupied land south of the Palms. On the government survey this land was not specified as the savanna, for that was the name it had been given locally. The survey did show the Emerald Pool and the Heronry, names that must have existed for many years.

When Taggart arrived, he apologized for being late, and introduced the two strangers as a distinguished architect and an equally well-known builder: “Satisfied with what you see, gentlemen?”

When they nodded emphatically, he turned to Zorn and said: “Exciting news, Doctor. These men, with the enthusiastic support of two of our leading banks who will lend us the money, are prepared to move immediately into this big spread of open land, which we already own, clean it, dig a series of four interlocking lakes, lay down a complete road system, and build for the Palms a collection of—how many at last count?—forty-eight spacious duplex apartments—that is, two side by side on the same concrete slab—for the occupancy of those older people who are ready for a kind of retirement, but who do not want to surrender their right to an individual home.

“In this way we get nearly a hundred well-to-do people, members of the Palms family, who will later move into Gateways, then into Assisted Living and ultimately into Extended Care. It’s the wave of the future. We see it wherever we look, and we’re planning six other such extensions in our better operations. You, Zorn, are to be the groundbreaker, and if this partnership can plan and build what amounts to a new community, from the ground up, they can assure themselves of many similar commissions.”

Zorn was astounded. If the land contiguous to the present buildings was to be cleared to make way for the duplexes, it would mean the loss of that part of the savanna used by the residents of Gateways and probably the loss of the Emerald Pool, too. He felt that he must protest in defense of his clients who had bought into the Palms with every right to believe that the ground to the south would remain open. How many residents were there like Ambassador St. Près and Reverend Quade, Laura Oliphant and Judge Noble, who loved the African mix of trees, shrubs, pampas grass and hidden pools?

“Mr. Taggart, do you think that the present residents of Gateways will feel that they joined us with the expectation that the savanna at their doorstep would remain open land? Was there any promise in the contract, or one that was implied?”

“None. They bought into the Palms with our assurance that the river would remain on the north, the channel on the west, and there they are. What happens to the east has already been decided by the community, a big mall, and we decide what happens on our land to the south. Private duplexes for the new wave of patrons.”