The Emperor of Ocean Park (32 page)

“One minute!” I shout back, still puzzling over the letter. How am I to locate
Angela’s boyfriend,
who is in
deteriorating condition?
Does that mean that the man I should be talking to is sick? Perhaps dying? Is that why I have
little time?
I know who the
others
are, who
would also like to know,
having met a pair of them, but I do not understand why the Judge is at such pains to assure me that my family is in no danger, the fourth such reassurance I have received in the past month: first Jack Ziegler, then McDermott, next Agent Nunzio, now my late father.

I shake my head.

I try to think of famous Angelas: Lansbury? Bassett? I do not know enough about them to know if they even have husbands, still less boyfriends—and, anyway, my father did not exactly run with the Hollywood crowd. I have already had my secretary search the student directory at the law school: three Angelas, one black, two white, none of whom I have ever had in class or have any reason to think my father knew. Maybe there is a way to put together a list of all the Angelas my father might have met, but not without involving somebody official—Uncle Mal, for instance—or somebody who knows lots of the Judge’s friends—Mariah, for instance—and I cannot quite imagine sharing the note with either of them.

Not yet.

Little time.

I almost smile. The phrase explains nothing about Angela’s boyfriend, but a good deal about the Judge. He used those words often in his speeches, in trying to explain to his friends in the Rightpacs why they needed . . . well, racial diversity. The median American, he loved to tell his eager audiences, is socially conservative. The median black American, the Judge would add, is even more conservative.
Look at the data on any question,
he would rumble.
School prayer? Black Americans favor it more than whites do. Abortion? Black Americans are more pro-life than whites. Vouchers? Black Americans support them more strongly than whites. Gay rights? Black Americans are more skeptical than whites.
The applause would roll across his (overwhelmingly white) audience. Then he would hit them with the big windup:
Conservatives are the last people who can afford to be racist. Because the future of conservatism is black America!
They would go wild for him. I never saw it in person, but I saw it,
often, on C-SPAN. And whichever Rightpac he was speaking to would march out to try to recruit black members, because, he would insist, there is
little time . . .
and, almost always, the recruitment effort would fail . . . quite abysmally. Because there were a few little details the Judge always left out. Like the fact that it was conservatives who fought against just about every civil rights law ever proposed. Like the fact that many of the wealthy men who paid for his expensive speeches would not have him in their clubs. Like the fact that it was the great conservative hero Ronald Reagan who kicked off his campaign by talking about states’ rights in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a location with a certain wicked resonance for the darker nation, and who, as President, backed tax exemptions for the South’s many segregation academies. The Judge was surely right to insist that the time has come for black Americans to stop trusting white liberals, who are far more comfortable telling us what we need than asking us what we want, but he never did come up with a particularly persuasive reason for us to start trusting white conservatives instead.

My father trusted them, however, and they trusted him right back. I wander into the dining room, where the long wooden table could easily seat fourteen or more and, during my childhood, often did. On the long wall of the room is a crumbling brick fireplace which has been unusable for as long as I can remember. Above the hearth hangs an enlarged version of my father’s treasured
Newsweek
cover the week after his nomination was announced. THE CONSERVATIVE HOUR, reads the caption, and, in smaller type,
A New Direction on the Court?
Well, yes, the answer might be—yes, there was a new direction on the Court, but my father was not destined to be one of its leaders. I examine the picture. The Judge looks bold, handsome, smart, ready for anything. He looks
alive.
In those days, for some reason, the press decided to like him; but you should never fall in love with your own press clippings, because it is very much the nature of the beast that the same journalists who build you up between Monday and Friday tear you down for weekend fun. And suddenly, instead of fame, you have infamy; instead of a life of public service, you have a life of private bitterness; and you turn your house into a museum of what might have been. Again I recall my father’s nostalgic phrase:
the way it was before.
My family’s habit of living in the past seems to me pathological, even dangerous. If all greatness lies in the past, what is the point of the future? There is no going back, and the Judge, of all people, should have known better than to
change his vacation home, his hideaway, his place of respite, into a shrine to his shattered dreams. Kimmer, I know, is waiting for a suitable moment to let me know that it is time to remove this and the other selfcongratulatory emblems scattered around Vinerd Howse, to bury them in the attic with my old baseball-card collection and Abby’s stuffed animals—

“Paygrown
now!”
Bentley announces from the doorway to the kitchen, stomping his foot. I look up at him, ready to be angry, and smile instead. He is wearing his midnight-blue parka and has even pulled his sneakers onto the wrong feet. He is dragging my wind-breaker behind him. Oh, how I love this child!

“Okay, sweetheart.” I fold my father’s letter, return it to the envelope, and slip it into my pocket. “Paygrown now.”

Bentley jumps up and down. “Paygrown! Dare
you! Wuv you!”

“Wuv you, too.” I hug him and kneel down to fix his shoes, and, of course, the phone immediately starts to ring.

Don’t answer it,
Bentley tells me with his earnest, judgmental brown eyes, for he does not yet know how to say the words.
Please, Daddy, don’t answer it.
And at first, I consider ignoring the phone. After all, it is most likely Cassie Meadows calling from Washington, or Mariah calling from Darien, or Not-McDermott calling from Canada. On the other hand, it might be Kimmer with good news, or Kimmer with bad, Kimmer to say she loves me, or Kimmer to say she doesn’t.

It might be Kimmer.

“Just one quick minute,” I say to my son, who eyes me with the sort of hopeless disappointment that some psychiatrist in his future will doubtless unearth. “It’s probably Mommy.”

Only it isn’t.

(III)

“
TALCOTT? HI
, it’s Lynda Wyatt.”

The Dean. Great.

“Hi, Lynda, how are you?” I am deflating fast, and I know my voice betrays my disappointment.

“I’m
fine, Talcott. But how are
you?”

“I’m just fine, Lynda, thanks.”

“I hope that you’re having lots of fun on the Vineyard. I love it up
there in the fall, but Heaven knows when Norm and I will have a chance to get to our place.” Serving to remind me that she and her husband own a huge, modern house on the pond in West Tisbury, the up-Island town where many artists and writers spend their summers. Actually, I know about the house only by the tales my law school colleagues tell, because, in all the years that Lynda Wyatt and I have both been vacationing on the Island, she has invited my family to her house exactly never. (I have reciprocated just as often, so perhaps the fault is mine.)

“We’re having some fun,” I concede, smiling desperately at my son. Bentley, glaring, toddles to a corner of the kitchen and sits on the floor.

“Well, that’s great, just great. I hope you’re getting some rest, too.”

“Some,” I say. “So, what’s up?” I am rushing her, I am probably being rude, but I figure I have lots of excuses.

“Well, Talcott, I’m actually calling for two reasons. First of all—and I wouldn’t make anything important of this”—meaning, of course, that she thinks it very important indeed—“first of all, I received the strangest call from one of our graduates who is a trustee of the university. Cameron Knowland. You must know Cameron?”

“No.”

“Well, he has been a great friend of this school, Tal, a great friend. In fact, Cameron and his wife just pledged three million toward our new law library. Anyway, he says that his son got kind of a rough going-over in your class. Said you made fun of him or something.”

I am already steaming.

“I assume you told Cameron to butt out.”

Lynda Wyatt’s voice is amiable. “What I told him, Tal, was that it was probably blown out of proportion, that all first-year students complain. I told him that you weren’t the type to abuse a student in class.”

“I see.” I grip the telephone but sway on my feet. I am appalled by the weakness of this defense of a professor from the dean of the law school. I am growing hotter and the kitchen is growing redder. Bentley is watching me closely, a hand to his ear as he holds an imaginary receiver of his own. He is mouthing occasional words, too.

“I think it would be helpful,” Dean Lynda continues soberly, “if you were to give Cameron a call. Just to reassure him.”

“Reassure him of what?”

“Oh, Tal, you know how these alumni are.” Offering me her charming side. “They need to be stroked all the time. I’m not trying to interfere with how you run your classroom”—meaning she is trying to do
exactly that—“but I’m just saying that Cameron Knowland is concerned. As a father. Think of how you would feel if you heard that one of Bentley’s teachers was beating up on him.”

Red, red, red.

“I didn’t
beat up on
Avery Knowland—”

“Then tell his father that, Tal. That’s all I’m asking. Calm him down. As one father to another. For the good of the school.”

For the three million dollars, she means. She seems to assume I care. In my current state, however, I would not object if the library sank into the earth. Gerald Nathanson is often there: it is quieter than his office, he says, and he can get more work done. Another reason I stay out of the place is to avoid running into him.

“I’ll think about it,” I mutter, not sure what I will do the next time I see young Avery Knowland’s insolent face.

“Thank you, Tal,” says my dean, knowing at once that this is as much as she will be able to get. “The school appreciates all that you do for us.” For
us
—as though I am an outsider. Which I pretty much am. “And Cameron’s a nice guy, Tal. You never know when you’ll need a friend.”

“I told you I’ll think about it.” Letting some ice slip into my voice. I am recalling what Stuart Land said to me about pressures being brought to bear, and I wonder if this call is a part of it. Which leads me to be ruder still: “You said there were two things.”

“Yes.” A pause. “Well.” Another. I imagine that she is leading up to a comment of some kind about the competition between Marc and Kimmer, along the lines of what Stuart attempted. Except that Lynda is unlikely to back down.

I am right . . . but Lynda is more subtle than I am.

“Tal, I also had a call from another one of our graduates. Morton Pearlman. Do you know Mort?”

“I’ve heard the name.”

“Well, he was four or five years ahead of you. Anyway, he works for the Attorney General these days. He called to see . . . he wanted to know . . . if you’re doing okay.”

“If I’m doing okay? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Again Dean Lynda hesitates, and it occurs to me that she is trying to be kind, in the manner of a physician looking for the words to explain what the tests uncovered. “He said that you’ve been . . . well . . . that the FBI and various other agencies have received a lot of calls on your
behalf recently. Most of them, I gather, at your behest. Calls about . . . oh, things related to your father. Questions about the autopsy, about that priest who got killed by the drug dealer, all sorts of things.”

In the ensuing pause, I almost burst out that it was my sister, not me, who wanted those calls made, and sometimes who actually made them. But I am lawyer enough to wait for the rest. So I say only, “I see.”

“Do you? I can’t make any sense of it at all.” Her voice is growing harder. “Now, we’ve known each other a long time, Tal, and I’m sure you have a good reason for just about everything you do.” I register, with dismay,
just about.
“But I have a feeling that what Mort was trying to ask, in a nice way, was whether you might need a little rest.”

“Wait a minute. Wait. The Deputy Attorney General of the United States thinks I’m crazy? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Calm down, Tal, okay? I’m only the messenger here. I don’t know what you’re up to, and I don’t want to know. I’m just repeating what Mort asked me. And I probably shouldn’t even be telling you, because he said it was confidential.”

I unclench my fist, make myself speak slowly and clearly. I am not worried, now, about Kimmer and her judgeship. That can wait. I am worried about whether the FBI plans to stop taking my concerns seriously. “Lynda. This is important. What did you tell him?”

“I’m sorry?”

“What did you tell Morton Pearlman? When he implied that I needed a rest?”

“I told him I was sure you were fine, that I knew you were a little upset, and that you were away from the school for a few weeks.”

“You didn’t say that.”

“I did. What did you expect me to say? I didn’t want to mess anything up for you, but . . . well . . . Tal, I’m worried about you.”

“Worried about me? Why are you worried about me?”

“I think maybe . . . Tal, look. If you want to rest for a couple of more weeks before you come back, I’m sure it would be no problem.”

For a moment I can think of nothing to say. The implications of her machinations briefly overwhelm me. Put simply, if Morton Pearlman can be persuaded that Kimberly Madison’s husband is a nutcase, then there is no way that she gets the seat on the court of appeals. Tagging me with that label, and thus helping Marc achieve his lifelong goal, is evidently Dean Lynda’s purpose. And although I am impressed by the elegance with which she is trying to do it, I am infuriated that she would use the complications of my father’s death this way—and that
she would hold me in such low regard as to think she could get away with it. Well, Stuart tried to warn me.