South of Broad (22 page)

“I think your wife’s getting a little antsy on the reservation. At least that’s what she told me when we were making love last night.”

Chad laughs out loud at this. I have always admired his resolute coolness under fire. “Thank you, Leo. I can handle my own affairs, and I can certainly handle my wife. Now, run along, little gossip columnist. Let me finish here, and see you at my sister’s tomorrow. Maybe I’ll even corner Ike and Niles and tell them to mind their own business.”

“Chad, Chad, Chad. Lots of people know about this. You’re getting careless about the rendezvous points. Your baby-blue Porsche has been seen parked outside her condo at Folly Beach.”

“Time for a new car. Look, Leo, I’ve lent my car to a young woman in the firm whose car threw a rod. I generally walk to work and back.”

“You need to treat this seriously,” I warn.

“These kinds of rumors have followed me around since high school. Let’s face it, Leo, I’m not hard to look at. I’ve got a great job, money to burn, and am descended from the first families of Charleston on both sides. I’ve been part of Charleston’s jet set since the day I was born. There’s always going to be gossip about me.”

Chad’s manner and voice can be intimidating, and he is gifted in selecting his weapon of choice when the critical occasion arises. He surprises me by reaching into his desk and bringing out an ornate eighteenth-century Bible that he waves in my direction as both heirloom and movie prop in the drama we are acting out.

“Here is my word of honor, Leo,” he says. “Here is a Bible. In this court of pure bullshit where you have set yourself up as the hanging judge, I, Chadworth Rutledge the tenth, do solemnly swear an oath that I’ve been faithful to my wife and the vows I spoke in the summer of 1974 at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church. I do believe that the pain-in-the-ass Catholic boy Leo King was present and accounted for on that solemn occasion.”

“The bride was beautiful, and the groom was handsome.”

Chad studies me for a second, then says with a flat edge, “You don’t fool me, good buddy. You could wrap yourself in altar clothes and go to Mass every day in a leap year, and I still know you find yourself in bed with some strange pussy sometimes. I hear as much about you as you do about me, friend. But I’m a bit more discreet and tolerant than you are, because I know you’re still married to a certifiable lunatic who spends her life running away from you.”

“I get lonely, Chad. I end up sleeping with women who’re my friends. Single women, divorcées, widows, even a few gals who’re still married. But as you say so eloquently, none of them happens to be my wife.”

“You goddamn hypocritical son of a bitch.” His voice all but performs a victory lap around a crowded stadium.

“Nothing hypocritical about it,” I say. “I just admitted to sleeping with women I’m not married to. You swore on a Bible that you’d been faithful to Molly since the day you got hitched. Me, the hypocrite? Sorry, pal, but I can name eight women I know you slept with. I’m trying to help you, Chad. You’re coming up to an avalanche. Let’s try to change direction while we can.”

“Let’s talk about the avalanche that’s already happened,” says Chad. “Your goddamn wife. Divorce the lunatic. I’ll draw up the papers right now. Won’t charge you a cent. For old times’ sake.”

Of all the friends I have, I think that Chad Rutledge and I understand each other along every latitude and longitude of our melancholy hearts, and along the breathless equator of our poor, lacerated souls. We like each other less than our other friends, yet we share a respect for the talents and flaws of the other; we acknowledge the kinship of our charged, imperfect brotherhood. Neither of us fears a thing about the other, yet knows there is much to fear about both of us.

I have always withheld the respect that Chad thinks he is owed as his birthright. Chad holds all the face cards of opportunity, rank, and family, yet he never underestimates the cumulative powers of those of us who rise out of the lower orders; he always thinks we will hurt him if the chance presents itself. Chad is arrogant, and lacks all the talents of camouflage that can put a pretty face on his sense of entitlement. Nevertheless, if I am ever in serious trouble, I will beg for an immediate audience with Chad Rutledge. He is the kind of man you cannot trust with your women, but one who will rise out of the warrior caste, holding fast to ancient creeds if you find yourself face-to-face with the ruin you bring to your own door.

“I’d like to help you,” I say. “I’ve done my best to quash the rumors as they’ve come to me. But this carelessness is not like you.”

“But sticking your nose where it isn’t wanted … sniffing other people’s assholes, that’s your life’s work, isn’t it, Leo?” Chad asks. “The nasty rumor turns into the column of the week.”

“I’ve never written about you like that. And you know I never will.”

“You didn’t show the same restraint to my friend Banks Prioleau.”

“Banks brought a five-million-dollar lawsuit against his wife’s lover for alienation of affection. Once it hits the public record, it’s open season, which Banks learned the hard way.”

“You got him disbarred,” Chad says, and I know the cross-examination is on full throttle.

“He got himself disbarred, Chad. He hired a private eye who wiretapped his wife, her lover, her lover’s ex-wife, his own parents, and the family dog. He also kept a mistress in the Fort Sumter Hotel and had freely stolen money from the estate of Gertrude Wraggsworth, who’d caught herself a bad case of Alzheimer’s. The IRS came sniffing and discovered an offshore account in Bermuda, and the fact that Banks owed a couple hundred grand in back taxes. Banks turned into a mess, Chad, and he did it all by himself. He didn’t need my help or anyone else’s.”

“How did you feel when Banks killed himself?”

“Like a million bucks, you sorry bastard. I felt horrible. He was a very nice man who found himself trapped in all the worst parts of the human dilemma. At the end, he felt like he dishonored himself and his family. Shooting himself was the only way he could figure out to make it all right again. He was wrong, of course.”

“His children can’t seem to get over it. I don’t think they ever will,” Chad tells me. “I think you helped load the gun that killed him. Disgrace is one thing. Public disgrace is another.”

“That’s what I’m here to warn you about. You’re about to face public disgrace that’d be your worst nightmare, and I don’t think you’re gonna like it much. I wouldn’t have come here if Ike hadn’t asked me. And as you said, Niles is furious about it.”

“The mountain nigger.” Chad shakes his head. “And the real one.”

“Niles isn’t that fond of that nickname,” I say. “It doesn’t get much of a laugh from Betty or Ike or Fraser, either. And Ike would kick your ass if you ever called him that.”

“Even you can see the irony in all this. An orphan boy from the Blue Ridge comes to Charleston and marries my sister because she was horse-faced and pimply, and built like a left guard for Clemson. Niles pulled himself from the outhouse to the manor house in a single generation. It makes me want to stand up and sing ‘God Bless America.’”

“Niles and Fraser are two of the good people in our lives. You and I both know it. We’re lucky to have them.”

“God, you’re so much like your mother it’s a crime. You’ve inherited the starched piety she brought straight out of the convent. But with your mother, it’s real. With you, it’s phony and makes me want to vomit all over my understated but well-appointed office. Can I talk about you and me and this town—at this hour, at this moment, the here and now? Can I tell you the truth, Leo?”

“Be my guest.” I am fearful but also curious about what Chad is capable of saying.

“Right now, I feel like you’re both my jailer and my father confessor. I’m the chimp to your organ grinder, then you let me dance for the applause of the good people. I’ve come to hate the good people, Leo. I can admit that to you because I think you’re a shit, just like me. I’ve come to hate being good, dressing up for church every Sunday, going out to the club for dinner twice a week, putting on black tie for every goddamn charity in this city. But it’s for a good cause, you say. Of course it’s for a good cause. Who would pay money to support a bad cause? So I dress up and I write a big check for the kidney foundation. Or the heart association. Or diabetes. Or multiple sclerosis. Or cancer of the belly button … all wonderful, all life-affirming. Let’s play name the cliché, Leo. I live it. I wake up to it. I breathe it. I gorge myself with it … family, that’s what it’s all about. The be-all and end-all … community. I just want to give something back. If I hear that statement from one more self-satisfied prick in this city, I’ll scream. Just give something back. ‘Charleston’s been good to you, Chad, old chap, and it’s time to give something back.’ Leo, I hate this world, and it’s got me by the throat and I’ll never escape it. I know that stranglehold. I know it all too well. Yet, now … now … I wake up each morning and find I want to give back something to myself. I want to give back to Chad Rutledge, who is slowly dying from being nothing more than Chad Rutledge. I’m dying of being what I was born to be.”

I try to take in everything Chad has just revealed to me. Chad would be an easy man to hate, except that he often surprises me with these scorpion-tailed revelations that speak of a tortured interior life, of a troubled man with an odd but genuine depth. What he says moves me and makes me experience a pang of solace for his wife. I say, “I delivered the message, Chad. I didn’t ask for the job and I didn’t want it. It’s none of my damn business. Do with it what you will. If you continue your affair, I’d advise discretion. You need to tell your girlfriend not to discuss your situation with Tommy Atkinson’s secretary.” I fish a notebook out of my pocket and open it to a marked page. “Her name is Christine Aimar, and she’s the one doing most of the talking. It’s not like you to go after a secretary.”

“She’s not a secretary.” Chad has a metallic glint of dismissal in his eye. “She’s a paralegal. What else do you know, Leo?”

“A lot. I checked her out. She seems like a really nice girl from a very nice family. But she chose the wrong confidante in Miss Aimar. The word is out that you’re leaving your bitch of a wife by the end of the next school year. Then you’ll get married in Las Vegas and honeymoon in Hawaii. Chad, I get a hard-on just thinking about you doing the hula. But Las Vegas?
Las Vegas?
A Charleston Rutledge getting married in one of those sleazy red-velvet chapels?”

“I’m getting awfully tired of you, Leo,” Chad says, and I sense a fresh current of anger in his words.

“Tough titty. This is out in the open now. It’s up to you to figure out how this story ends.”

“I already know how it ends. I’ve always had more imagination than the rest of you put together. I won’t be coming to my sister’s house tomorrow, Leo. I’ll call at the last minute, of course, just to piss off Molly a little bit more. Just to make Fraser and Niles go into a slow burn. The case I’m working on is the biggest one in the history of this law firm, a lawsuit that involves maritime law on three continents and most of the major port cities of the world.”

“I bet I know where to find a blue Porsche when this long grind ends.”

There is a soft knock on the office door, and I can tell the unknown visitor catches Chad by surprise, though he is valiant in his attempts to mask his displeasure. “Please come in.”

A lovely young woman of Latin descent enters, walks briskly to Chad’s desk, and says, “Mr. Rutledge, I made copies of the three depositions you requested. I’ve also reviewed the translations from the lawyer in Naples and the one from Lisbon. So far, I see no discrepancies.”

“Sonia Bianca,” Chad says, “I’d like you to meet my old friend Leo King. Leo and I went to high school together.”

I had risen to my feet when she entered and took in her exotic, astonishing beauty in a glance. We shake hands, and her handshake is firm and unapologetic. I have an intuition that she knows she was the primary subject under discussion before her businesslike entry.

“Mr. King.” She smiles. “What a pleasure. I read you every morning.”

“Where are you from, Miss Bianca?” I ask.

“I was born just outside of Rio de Janeiro,” she answers. “But my father was in the diplomatic corps, so I was raised in a dozen countries.”

“Sonia’s fluent in five languages,” Chad announces.

“Will that be all for the day, Mr. Rutledge?” she asks. “I’ve got a dinner date tonight.”

“Who’s the lucky guy?” Chad asks.

“He’s just a guy. I hope to see you again, Mr. King,” Sonia says. “Please call me Leo.”

“Good night, Mr. Rutledge,” she says. “Good night, Leo.”

She leaves, and we hear her heels clicking against the wooden floor of the eighteenth-century building. Chad and I are left to our own precipitous devices as I sit down again and we resume our unsavory task.

Chad asks, “When was the last time you made love to a woman and she began screaming out of pure pleasure? When’s the last time a woman had more orgasms than you could count?”

I look at my watch and say, “A couple of hours ago. I forget the woman’s name, but that girl really knew how to have a good time.”

“Very funny.”

“So if I tell Molly to scream and yell a whole lot, wake up the kids and all the dogs in the neighborhood, and have more orgasms than you can count, this marriage might be saved?”

“No one has to pretend anything—not anymore. I owe that to myself,” he says. “Has it occurred to you, Leo, that you’re loving every minute of this because you’ve always had a thing for my wife?”

I push away from his desk and our eyes lock onto each other. Our faces are blank, like gin rummy players who have been counting cards and know exactly what the other holds. Chad’s eyes are fixed and dark.

“It must be difficult being a homely man,” he says, taking my measure in his most exaggerated pretty-boy manner. “Not that you haven’t improved greatly in that department over the years. Henry Berlin has taught you how to dress with at least modest distinction. And thank God someone invented contact lenses that could correct your batlike vision. Someone’s seeing to your hair, but it still looks as kinky as a wire-haired terrier. But to be born ugly in a city that prizes beauty—in its men as much as its women—that’s a real tragedy. From the first day I met you, I’ve never heard a woman say she wanted to sleep with you. Of course, it never occurred to me, or anyone else, that you’d become a celebrity in this town. Remember the poll that came out last year in the newspaper? You were the fifth best-known person in Charleston. This is a different city than the one I grew up in.”