Beauty: A Novel (20 page)

Lying

I
t had not been a quarter of an hour since Baxter talked to Carol, and he knew she was sitting with the phone in hand, waiting to hear from him, and she let it go four rings. It was adolescent courtship that drove the business, still.

Fifth ring. A quarter of an hour ago, he had felt she was just about there as a killer, even if only a nice, thoughtful killer. Now, he had a strong sense that he would not want Carol MacLean to pack his parachute.

She picked up on the sixth ring, and Baxter said, “She’ll see you in an hour and a half. For ten minutes. What an asshole. Be glad it’s only ten minutes. But the guys on the other team in the room here at the Four Seasons, they all knew who she was, very impressed. She’s running for something.”

“I’m impressed, too, Baxter. Thank you.”

Murderer. No question. He was proud to take credit.

He said, “Bullshit. Why do you want to see her, Carol?”

“I want to look her in the eye and tell her what she’s doing to a way of life.”

“Also bullshit. You want to turn her around, and you think you can. She’s a big shot, Carol, and she’s made a public decision. She doesn’t turn around. I told you, she’s running for something.”

Baxter heard that hopelessly hopeful speech, a speech best given to the mirror, and he knew as sure as God created gullible people that he was the murderee.

“All right, I do want to turn her around. Of course I do. I also know as well as you that she’s not going to turn around for me or anyone else. All I really want in a practical way is to try, to at least have made the effort. It’s not business. It’s personal, and I ought to know better.”

Baxter expected her to say she was doing it for the fisherman she’d thrown over. He was glad she’d decided to leave all that unsaid. But after a calculated pause, she said, “I want to be able to tell Easy Parsons, the fisherman you met, that I did all I could to keep him here, to keep him fishing here. I wouldn’t expect you to pay much attention to that. I’m afraid Easy won’t either.”

Baxter lifted his shirt so her knife could go in cleanly. He pointed up under his ribs on the left side. He said, “I have your judge, and you’ll get her, but I do need something from you that I can offer to all these guys. I wish they were all guys. Can I tell them we have a deal?”

He didn’t need to hear the answer, though he was interested in what her phrasing would be. You played these things out. And he liked Carol. He’d done nice things in his life, but not many quite like this. It felt good. Not a feeling he was going to indulge again anytime soon.

She said, “Baxter, I won’t formally commit to anything until I’ve seen the judge.” Baxter supposed she really was in love, even if it was over. And if it had her by the throat, so be it. Nothing indictable in that. He didn’t think there’d been enough of it in Carol’s life. She said, “I won’t formally commit until I’ve made my try. It’s a little thing, but I am going to see my judge. Then we talk about the terms of my employment with you.”

“I want your word that I get to buy your company. No contract implied. I just want your personal promise.”

“Then, yes. Of course. You have it. I promise.”

Baxter was not sure how Carol expected to turn the judge. But he knew that her company was a good thing for her and probably for her town. She’d gotten her hands a little dirty. Who was he to cast stones?

“I’m going to patch you in to an intern who has the directions to her house.”

“Thank you, Baxter.”

“You’re welcome. Thank you. Everybody’s happy. We’ll talk next week.”

Between this chat with Carol and the one fifteen minutes ago, Baxter had lost the box of chocolates he’d promised and with it the nice little piece he could have used. Oh well, as the kids would say.

To the Judge

D
ave was sitting in his office when Carol came in with Ben Garcia. Instead of a blue suit, Carol was wearing the jeans and the flannel shirt. She looked like she’d been wearing them all her life. Blue-collar woman, Dave thought. Looked good. Ben, on the other hand, was going with new pressed jeans and a pressed long-sleeve shirt. He was revved up. Carol looked revved up herself.

She said, “Ben’s going to drive me to the judge’s in his car. Finally, I have a reason to ask him for a ride.”

That sounded like fun to Dave, and they looked like they knew it. It was all Dave could do not to ask if he couldn’t come out to play with them.

Carol said, “If she tells me to get lost, I’ll hide under the bed until the fishermen and the papers and TV forget the whole thing.”

Dave considered the jeans. They definitely worked for a visit to the judge. A blue-collar message.

Carol picked up on him sorting the jeans and said, “I think they work.”

“I agree,” Dave said and handed her the cashier’s check and tried not to look like the puppy left home. He said, “Knock ’em dead, Carol.”

She looked at him and said, “Oh, come on.”

He said, “Far out,” and pulled off his tie, kicked off his loafers, laced up his plant sneakers.

He sat in the tiny backseat, ass almost to the floor, and knew the discomfort would only get worse, and didn’t care, yet. Great car. He could feel the snarl of the exhaust vibrate his cheeks. He held the directions to the judge’s house and called out turns once they got on small roads. On those roads, Ben started some serious driving, and Dave had to say, “Let’s don’t get busted.”

Carol said, “The hell with the cops. We have an appointment with the judge.”

Where had Carol been all his business life? Dave wondered. Maybe she was wondering where she had been herself.

Everybody knew where the judge had been. She had a real colonial name, and she’d been schooled just right and married just right and mothered just right and even divorced just right. Dave had seen her on television. She was petite and stern, pretty and smart as hell. Also patrician as hell, which she had to fight to get the Southie vote and the fish vote. Her house was a handsome colonial, if bigger than what the early relatives ever had, and it was blue-blood deep in stone walls and meadows and orchards.

The driveway turnaround was also big, and Dave would have had Ben park off to the side with the two Jaguars, though at a respectful distance from them.

Leave It Running

S
ince Carol had seen the morning paper in the hotel hallway, risk had been increasing around her and inside her like the temperature in a boiler as it came on line.

So instead of enjoying the ride in Ben’s car, she used the time to focus. Baxter could promote off the cuff anywhere about anything, but Carol, once she’d gotten a sense of things on a project, had always broken down the elements and tried to understand how they would play out, in what order and with what resistance and results. She didn’t like to go naked.

She was on her way to the judge. She was wearing the blue jeans Anna Rose had given her. She had a check for two million dollars, and the records and logs of the pathetic fishermen who supposedly helped the researchers catch fish in order to calculate the presence and viability of species. The lawyer had already gotten a motion to the judge’s office and to wherever else it had to go. And all of the New England fishing fleet within reach was heading to Boston Harbor, and the media frenzy Anna Rose had called in.

Carol didn’t know if getting the injunction suspended would bring Easy back to her, but if she didn’t get it suspended, for sure he would take his boat somewhere too far away, which was no part of what she was selling the judge.

They came in the driveway and up to the house, and Carol was tempted to park off to the side of the Jaguars. Instead she said, “Stop right in the middle, Ben.” Which Ben did, and she said, “Leave it running.”

Even while just idling, Ben’s car made a sound that was not polite in the judge’s driveway. Carol loved the sound and loved it in front of the judge’s house.

From the back seat, Dave said, “Are you sure?”

No, she wasn’t sure, but she turned around and smiled.

And Dave, nodding at the exhaust, smiled despite himself.

Carol watched the front door of the judge’s house, and when it opened, it opened too fast, and the judge, as if there was no walking involved, appeared on the front steps like a god. She was wearing an expensive version of the suit Carol usually wore. Today, however, Carol was wearing the jeans Anna Rose had lent her. She was also holding a cashier’s check for two million dollars at her side.

She got out of the car and walked toward the house quickly but not apologetically. She walked just fast enough to say, respectfully, we’re equals. Ben came with her.

The judge stood with her hands on her hips, and up there at the top of her steps, she didn’t look as short as she really was. She also didn’t look impressed that Carol was taller still.

She said, “I promised somebody that I’d give you ten minutes to tell me why I should suspend my injunction to restrict commercial fishing. I’m not going to give you ten minutes. I’ve heard every argument too many times to count, so I’m giving you thirty seconds. What have you got?”

Carol said, “There is a need to put responsible observers on fishing boats driven by capable fishermen. Earlier today, your office got a motion to suspend the injunction.”

“I’m not impressed yet. Research observers have already been taking boats out to fish. That’s how we know the fish are gone. You’ve filed a pointless motion. Your thirty seconds are up.”

Carol said, “The fishermen taking those research observers out to fish were the worst fishermen in New England. Never in a hundred years could they have found fish, and if they’d found them, they couldn’t have caught them if the fish were jumping into the hold.”

The judge was already turning around toward her door, but she stopped when Carol held out the police records and harbor logs. The judge said, “For this, you get another thirty seconds.”

The judge took the sheets and glanced and glanced again and read more closely. She smiled. She said, “I’m sympathetic to your cause, but I’ve made my decision, and I stand by it. This is how the law works. It’s unseemly for a judge to flip back and forth and back again. It makes her look weak and the law look weak, and I would feel that way even if I weren’t running for governor. And if I tried to find money to do observers all over again with better fishermen than these, people would line up to accuse me for every reason under the sun. I’m sorry.”

Carol wished Baxter were here. He’d be amused, maybe even impressed, at how this was actually playing out the way it was supposed to play out. There was no guarantee it would continue to play out, but Carol felt surprisingly calm.

She held the check up so the judge could see it without having to take it.

The judge nodded and said, again, “Two million dollars doesn’t buy cotton candy at the county fair, but it’s a meaningful gesture. And it’s not enough for me to change my mind. I’m sorry.”

The judge handed back the records and logs.

Carol took the sheets and said, “As we speak, all of the New England fishing fleet within reach is heading into Boston Harbor. Every television station and newspaper will be waiting for them at the
Constitution
. Local and regional, and you’d have to think there’ll be images for national exposure.”

Ben said, “The USS
Constitution
.”

The judge nodded to Ben and then turned back to Carol and said, “So what?”

“You’re running for governor.”

Carol thought that would be the last card she needed to play, but the judge said, “What difference does the fishing fleet make at this point? They’ll have a nice photo opportunity, but I’ve already lost those votes.”

Baxter would have known all along that Carol would have to play the last card. She played it. She said, “As well as the boats, the media is also waiting for you. They are expecting you in particular. If you don’t show up for blue-collar heroes in Boston Harbor, you’re too good for them. You’re the rich candidate with blue blood who doesn’t give a damn, and you lose, at a minimum, every working class vote in the state. Which would mean you are no longer a candidate for anything. If you do show up and say that you’re prepared to suspend the injunction, then you’re a woman who has the courage to change her mind given good enough reason. What’s more, you’re a woman with important family background who is also a stand-up woman of the people. And you’ve got the best campaign coverage and imagery maybe in history. You’re governor.”

“You told the fishermen and the media to expect me?”

“I had help getting the word out.”

“So the real reason I’m suspending my injunction is that . . .”

Carol said, “The motion goes persuasively to the heart of the injunction’s reasoning. The proof that the fish are gone is fundamentally flawed. And the matter of the injunction, shutting down the entire northeast fishery, or not, is urgent.”

“What’s your name, again?”

“Carol MacLean.”

“I’ve never heard of you. And now I have to make some calls to check on your motion.”

Carol said, “It’s the Wives of the Sea.”

The judge said, “Of course it is,” and went in the house, shutting the door behind her.

Glory

D
ave watched as Carol and Ben walked back to the car. It was only when Ben got in the driver’s seat that Dave realized the judge, if she was coming, would want to come in Ben’s car. Carol knew. She opened the other back door from where Dave sat and put a foot in and said, “Are we friends, Dave?”

He said, “If we aren’t, it looks like we will be,” and she angled and squeezed herself in beside him and closed that door. Then they sat, not more than a few minutes, but it felt like more. Dave said, “Do we know?”

Carol shook her head and handed the check up to Ben and said, “If she comes, give her this. No need to say anything.” They sat another minute, and Carol said up to Ben, “Touch it once, Ben,” and Ben did, and the car made its muscle noise.

Dave giggled and Carol said, “Get a grip, Dave.”

And the judge came out and closed her front door behind her. She was wearing old khaki pants and high rubber mud-season boots and a faded checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up. It was an outfit probably for working with the special plants she didn’t let the gardeners get near, but she looked real, and besides the rest, she had on a Red Sox hat that looked like it had been to twenty seasons of games. She came straight to Ben’s car and got in the front passenger side door that Carol had left open and said, “Kick it, Ben.”

They got to
the highway, and a state police escort met them, and the judge, to her further credit, pushed a fist at the windshield. Ben, capable in all the important languages, stood on it. The officer went to flashers and dared Ben to keep up. Ben, first and only words on the drive, said, “Who’s he think he’s kidding?” Vibrations got to a level suggestive of breaking the sound barrier, but Dave was no way going to whimper. Carol, back of her head on the roof, was looking over Ben’s shoulder, and Dave could only think she was checking to be sure Ben had it to the metal as she gave the judge additional details on the observers and Elizabeth Harbor and the old plant renewal.

They slowed when they wound into the maze of Charlestown, across the harbor from Boston. When they reached the harbor, the judge had Ben stop short of the Wives and the TV trucks and what looked like a volunteer crowd that was growing by the minute.

The last seconds waiting to get out of an agony squeeze inside a car are always the worst. And while Dave had assumed the judge would want to walk in through the crowd, now he figured out that she had to wait for somebody to find her if there was going to be the shot of her getting out of Ben’s car. Dave should have been worried about Carol, but as soon as he could punch the seat back in front of him and dive out, he punched and dove. He looked back, and Carol was already out. She hadn’t waited for him either.

Now the judge waved Carol and Ben up to do the crowd walk with her. Dave stayed close enough behind to watch Carol. Maybe she’d need a hand, but mostly he was a fan at a good game, and Carol was a late-in-life rookie burning up the league. She was tall, confident, flannel shirt, red hair frizzed, leading the judge into the Wives of the Sea while letting it seem the judge was leading. Dave admired the hell out of Carol.

Now Carol bent down like the right-hand political consultant, and the judge was listening, and now Carol was back up tall and waving and calling something into the Wives, and the Wives parted for some bumping progress through them. It was too low to see what it was, but it was moving through on a course for Carol. Carol’s free hand was on the judge’s shoulder. Dave could hardly believe how good Carol was.

It was Anna Rose Taormina coming through. TV cameras closing in from everywhere. Anna Rose hugging Carol and then hugging the judge, and the judge, a slight woman but a politician and an old-school Yankee to boot, hugging back to beat the band.

Carol started to step out of the picture, not easy in the corral of television equipment, but the judge turned back quick to get a hug from Carol, including a tiptoe kiss on the cheek. Dave froze the moment just long enough to tell himself he’d been smarter than Lazarus to sign on with Carol MacLean.

Anna Rose led the judge on into the crowd of Wives and news groups and the more and more onlookers.

Carol got Ben’s hand and led him off to the side. When Dave caught up, Carol raised Ben’s hand like for a champ, and Dave grabbed Ben’s other hand and raised that one. Ben grinned like a champ. The judge would go home with her regular driver in a limo or whatever, but Ben had already had a day.

They worked toward the side of the crowd and in the general direction of the harbor. Carol pointed ahead at the three high white masts.

“What’s that?”

Ben and Dave said at the same time, “The
Constitution
,” like maybe Carol had been revealed as a Commie spy.

With that, they had to push to keep up with her until they got to where they could see the ship itself, with its black hull and its white stripe windowed for cannons, and the masts soaring.

Carol stopped and said, “That’s it.”

No sobbing, but she was damp in her eyes, and in fact it was a weepingly beautiful ship, how it looked and what it meant.

Then Carol said, “Oh, my god,” and grabbed Dave’s arm, and the three of them registered what was beyond the
Constitution
.

Crowding the harbor were boats—fishing boats: big ones, bigger ones, small and smaller ones. The water out there beyond the eighteenth-century three-masted warship was all but solid with today’s boats that did work as ancient as war, and the guys on those boats must have learned that the judge had arrived, because a cacophony of horns lifted from the boats in a clanging howl that so shook the air that the towers of downtown Boston wavered like a mirage.

Ben, kid from El Salvador, said, “This is America.” He was crying and Dave was not far from it.

Carol said, “It is.”

Ben said, “It is people standing up and trying, everybody, and everybody a chance. That’s why everybody ever came here and still comes.”

There was the static barking of a public-address system, and they could look across a slip from the
Constitution
to where somebody, Anna Rose and her Wives, had set up a little stand and a microphone. The judge was ready to go.

Dave said, “You don’t want to be over there?”

“Let her have it. People will know about us when it’s time.”

The judge, facing the cameras and the Wives and the crowd, said, pretty clear for a loudspeaker outdoors, “My office has just received a motion to suspend the injunction I recently issued, an injunction that all but shuts down the commercial New England fisheries. I didn’t issue that injunction lightly. Fishing is in New England’s bones; historically, it may in fact be New England’s bones. As a New Englander from head to toe, fishing is certainly in my bones.” The judge stopped and took a breath and looked over her audience. They were not, even with all the news people, a glamorous bunch. But everybody was paying serious attention, and when the judge took her breath, the attention got more serious.

“I studied and weighed all the data and all the arguments, and as much as I agonized over the implications for people and harbors and history and even our New England soul, I finally didn’t feel I had any choice but to issue the injunction. We are the stewards of our ocean and the fish that live in it. Having issued the injunction, I am not inclined to suspend it immediately. That’s how the law works, and it’s also how I work. I am, in fact, inclined to be adversarial to any motion to suspend. The motion that came in today, however, calls into serious question the fundamental data on which I made my decision. That’s a problem for me and it’s a problem in the law. A motion to suspend, if it’s to have any chance of success, must present compelling reasons. The motion I received today presents compelling reasons, and it also suggests sound methods for acquiring more trustworthy data on our fish stocks. There is a reasonable possibility that our stocks are not as bad as suspected and that with far less draconian regulations than proposed in the injunction, fishing could continue off our shores. Even with this encouraging news, however, I worry that the expense of opening this matter up to further study would be prohibitive in these financially uncertain times. Happily, all but miraculously, money has come from the fishing community of Elizabeth Harbor to pay for the further study. It’s not enough money—there never is enough money—but it’s a meaningful start, and it has convinced me that I have another decision to announce. I’m here now to make that announcement, but first I want to tell the men and women behind me, the fishermen who have come in today hoping to mark another splendid chapter in the history of our great harbor.”

The stations must have been broadcasting out so the boats could pick it up, because all the horns had gone quiet.

The judge turned around to face the harbor and the boats. In the quiet, you would have thought the boats themselves were listening. The judge stood still, letting the moment be the moment. The boats waited. Dave waited. Carol and Ben waited. A politician, Dave thought, but sometimes you needed them.

The judge raised both arms. Tiny woman, but both arms went up, and from Boston to Tokyo, you knew it was a touchdown, and the boats, the horns, erupted, lifting the harbor.