On Saturday morning Bill Reichert left the house on Legree Street before Isabel got up. Saturday morning was her day to sleep late—late being nine o’clock—before beginning a day at the beauty parlor, grocery shopping and running errands that would take up the better part of the day. Bill would disappear for the better part of the day and evening and return without explanation. It was standard operational behavior unless there was a social event at which their mutual attendance was required.
As she lay in bed, Isabel wondered in amazement how she could have let the marriage go on so long. Despite her thinking and rationalization over the last few weeks, she found it unconscionable that she had tolerated his behavior. There was no hope, never had been, though she had refused to admit that. Now it was over, and she was determined to exact some measure of retribution for what he had done to her life. What she allowed him to do to her life. At this moment she held as much bitterness toward herself as toward her husband. Regardless of regrets on her part, tonight Bill Reichert was in for a surprise.
She went about her usual tasks during the day, fixed herself dinner, watched a movie on video and waited for him to come in. It was just after midnight when she heard the key in the lock. She had ingested enough single-malt Scotch to throw her glass at him when he came through the door. It smashed against the wooden molding around the arched doorway in which he stood, shocked, watching the amber liquid running down the wall and puddling on the antique heart-pine floor. She had seen him flinch, a break in the composure he prided himself on. There had never been any violence between them; it caught him by surprise. When he recovered, she saw explosive anger in his eyes, another drop in the calm façade. Score two.
“What the fuck was that for?” he screamed. Score three. She smiled, feeling she was embarking on a very pleasant and exciting time in her life. The question of why she had waited so long was no longer an issue.
“It’s just a new ritual I’ve designed for welcoming home my wayward, thoughtless, philandering husband. Worked pretty well, huh? Got your attention. It worked so well, I think I’ll use it on a regular basis.” She laughed.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Are you drunk?”
“Maybe, but I’m honest. I never lie when I’m drunk.” Bill Reichert stood silent. “How’s your girlfriend? That’s where you’ve been all day isn’t it? Out on Sangaree? You must be worn out.”
“What the hell difference does it make where I’ve been? We’ve been over this a hundred times. You want a divorce, I’ll give you one.” It was a shallow threat she had heard so many times before, it rolled right past her. She was his protection against involvement with the carousel of females that circled through his life.
“You’ll give me one? Bill you’re pathetic.” He stared at her, the anger in his eyes subsiding, being replaced by something else. Hatred? Fear? “No, I don’t want a divorce. Not right now anyway. I won’t make it that easy on you. And when I do, it won’t be easy. You were my mistake, Bill, and I have to rectify that.”
“And how do you propose to do that?” He had moved into the room and gone to the liquor cabinet.
“This is a good start, don’t you think? Tell me, Bill, what have you got going? Not your love life. What else? I know there’s something. You’re too happy. Of course I guess screwing your life away can addle the brain. Come on. Something has made you very happy. Relaxed. What is it?” He turned back to face her and she saw it. Fear. It was a first.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do. You won’t tell me, but I promise you I will find out. As I said, you’re too happy, Bill, and it isn’t because of me. I can’t allow that.”
“Why don’t you just kick me out if you think you can.”
“There is no doubt I can, but that wouldn’t be punishment, would it? You’d consider that a victory. No guilt. I did it. It’s the cheating man’s saving grace. Force her to throw him out, and all guilt is absolved.”
“I’ve heard enough unless you have something reasonable to say.” He turned and started from the room. Her voice stopped him.
“I could say more, but I don’t want you to see it coming. It will come though. Remember that every time you walk through that door. What was it Dante said? ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here.’?” There was a question on his face. She was in control for the moment. It wouldn’t be the last, but it was a beginning. It had gone better than she expected. “Fix me another drink, would you? I seem to have dropped mine.” Now his questions would begin, but he would get no answers.
The telephone rang at eight-thirty on Sunday morning. Bill Reichert answered it. Isabel didn’t move. The argument had lasted until early morning when her words became slurred, and her eyes drooped from the scotch she had ingested. He could still smell it.
“Hello?” There was only the sound of someone hanging up the phone on the other end of the line. “Son-of-a-bitch,” Reichert said putting the receiver back in its cradle and falling back on the pillow.
“Who was it?” Isabel moaned. He was surprised she was conscious.
“Your boyfriend,” he said sarcastically.
“Good. Tell him I’m ready,” she said without opening her eyes. Her humor didn’t raise a response in her husband. “Did you hear me?”
“Uh-huh.” He said already drifting off.
“Oh, okay then. Are you ready?” She knew that would irritate him.
“No, I’m not ready, Isabel. I haven’t been ready for a long time. I don’t even know why I’m sleeping in here except to appease you. It was the only way I could get you to go to bed.”
“Who was that?”
“I don’t know who it was. Probably some salesperson who could hear the irritation in my voice and was too weak to say anything.”
“Probably just somebody who got my name off a men’s room wall, checking to see if the coast is clear.”
“Probably,” he said. “Are we going to talk or sleep? I thought we did all the talking last night.” She could hear his breath become more measured as he dozed.
“Not by half, my friend,” she said to herself.
She must have dozed off herself because when the telephone rang for the second time, it startled her. It was ten-thirty and she felt worse. Her head was encrusted with white pain that hit with the searing electrical force of lightning.
“Hello?” she heard. Whoever was on the other end of the line caused Bill Reichert to come to attention. He pulled himself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed.
“Little early, isn’t it, Charley?” Isabel couldn’t imagine why their attorney would be calling at ten-thirty on a Sunday morning and could discern nothing from the one-sided conversation. “Okay. I’ll be there by noon. Good-by, Charley.”
She was having trouble focusing. The room wasn’t spinning; it was undulating. There was no sense of touch or control. Everything ached. Her mouth was dry and her tongue diagnosed her lips as being grotesquely swollen. She tried to watch her husband, but had difficulty putting any order to what she was seeing. She was still in a dream or so it seemed, yet she knew she was awake. She tried to concentrate. There was a question she wanted to ask him, but she lost it. Just there moments before, it had left her completely. She ran her hands up and down her body to see if she could experience any feeling. The nerves beneath her skin seemed dead.
There hadn’t been a hangover like this since she was in her twenties. Isabel wasn’t sure whether she had experienced a celebration or a wake. She knew what would come next; it was already beginning. The contractions in her stomach, her throat closing up, trying to keep the inevitable from happening. Struggling, she got to her feet, held on to the bedpost for a moment, then let leaning momentum take her to the doorway to the bathroom. When she reached the toilet, she fell to her knees and let her stomach purge itself. She was still in the bathroom, helpless, when she heard her husband leave.
Crossing the Marion Bridge, Reichert could see that the Spartina grass in the marsh was already showing green halfway up though it remained a light pecan color at the top. Despite the rising temperature, a sea breeze was forming small white caps on the water all the way across the river. It was a glorious day. The drive out to the Oyster Creek Inn took about thirty minutes the way Reichert drove. He loved the power and the feel of the white 740i BMW. It was only five months old, yet each time he got behind the wheel, it was like the first time.
The restaurant, named for the small creek that ran behind it, was located on the northern side of Matthew’s Island on the Palachacola River, just west of its convergence with the Chester, the Skudahee and Dunn Rivers into Matthew’s Island Sound. It was not open on Sunday, so he was surprised to see two other cars in addition to Charley Clay’s black Mercedes in the parking lot. The attorney had bought the eatery a year before and was spending more and more time there. His wife had been dead for several years, and he had no hobbies or interests. He had said nothing about anyone else meeting with them but left no quarter as to whether Bill Reichert should come to the restaurant. That gave Reichert a little concern, but he dismissed it.
Set in an old oyster processing factory, the place was originally nothing more than a galvanized metal, warehouse-type building where oysters were graded, shucked and packed for shipping to retail stores, restaurants, and wholesalers throughout the state. The building itself had been converted to an eating place years before Charley Clay became its owner. It was anything but ostentatious. The exterior metal siding was covered with weathered barn wood, and a large porch with cane-backed rocking chairs was added to the landward side of the building where patrons entered. The rear of the structure extended on pilings over the water to the dock. Another deck and more rocking chairs were put there to allow the occasional overflow crowds to sit while waiting for a table to come available. After dinner, diners could exit through the rear and walk along the dock looking at the shrimp boats, watching a sunset or a moonrise.
Inside was a large cypress bar, stained dark and aged by elbows, cigarette burns and years of spilled Jack Daniels, beer and other emollients that were drinkable. Dusty, nicotine-yellowed pictures of locals, smiling and holding up a day’s catch for the camera, politicians, few of whom the present patrons could identify, as well as a few visiting movie stars who had filmed in the area, took up all the wall space not covered by old tin beer and liquor signs and the newer neon displays.
The dining area was set apart and hidden from the bar, its walls paneled with salt-sea, wind-cured wood and decorated with antique implements of commercial fishery. The tables were covered with linen table cloths and napkins and set with silver and crystal. Depending on the time of day or night, the clientele varied from hard-nosed lowcountry locals and men who made their living from the sea to the town’s upper-class. The dinner hours—especially on weekends—could be pretty high-toned.
Charley Clay, a man in his mid-fifties with a natural aura of southern dignity and power even though he was dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, was sitting on a high stool behind the bar drinking a cup of heavy chicory coffee when Bill Reichert, dressed in tan slacks, a navy golf shirt and tasseled loafers with no socks, walked in. The overhead lights, which were never turned on when the doors were open for business, exposed the dirt, dust and wear of the place that the public never saw in its subdued lighting effects. It was like a mediocre plastic surgery that had begun to fall after post-op years of smiling.
Turner Lockett was sitting at the bar with a bottle of Budweiser front of him and a sullen look on his face. Reichert also knew the man sitting beside Lockett, but couldn’t put together why he was at this meeting. Jerry Salyer owned a large highway construction company based on Palmetto Island, an upscale resort island fifty miles south of Covington that catered to well-heeled retirees and tourists from the Northeast and Midwest. Salyer was a forty-year-old inherited millionaire who had doubled or tripled his original nut.
“Jerry.” Reichert nodded to the young construction mogul. “So what’s up, Charley?” he asked as he took a stool a space away from the other two.
“First things first. What can I get you? Can’t sell it to you on Sunday, but I can give it to you,” Clay said. “Silliest damn law I ever heard of. Makes me mad once a week.”
“Heineken.”
“I can do that.” The lawyer pulled an icy green bottle from the cooler, opened it and set it in front of Reichert. Pieces of crushed ice that stuck to the bottle began sliding to the bar’s surface, creating a puddle. Reichert reached for a bar napkin and wiped it dry.
“I’m sure you didn’t call me out here to give me a beer and have social interaction with Turner and Jerry, Charley. What are we doing here?” he asked.
“Now don’t get arrogant, Bill. We got bidness to tend to and some decisions to make.”
The banker resented the patronizing attitude Charley exhibited when he assumed his older, more experienced and wiser mode.
“I’m not being arrogant, Charley. Just a little curious, that’s all. What’s so important that we need to meet on a Sunday morning?”
“No need to be anxious. In fact, there could be reason to celebrate. I might as well tell you right off that I’ve enlisted Jerry here to join our company.”
It wasn’t a surprise. As soon as he saw Jerry Salyer sitting at the bar, Reichert assumed things were going to change. In his mind, Charley was playing a dangerous game. “The more the merrier” philosophy was not very smart in his opinion.
“Why?” he asked. He turned to Salyer, “Nothing against you, Jerry. I’m just skeptical of any change when things are running smoothly.”
“No reason for change that I can see,” Clay said. “In fact, I think with Jerry involved, things will run even more smoothly. We can increase our income, and it will be safer.”
“Would you explain that to me?” Bill Reichert’s mind was racing. Despite the amounts of money that were passing through him, the idea of more was exhilarating. The problem would be how to handle it. The operation had grown in the last two years, far beyond original expectations. It began as a lark and had grown into a business. He was surprised that neither Jerry Salyer nor Turner Lockett had said a word. It was obvious they were briefed to be quiet until Charley presented the plan. Charley was pretty transparent at times, which worried the banker.
Reichert got a hard stare. “I’ll try, Bill, but you’ve got to have an open mind. First off, nothin’s going to change. Everyone will take care of the same responsibilities they’ve been handling. I’ll still arrange the buys, the backup money and delivery, Breslin and his crew will carry out the off loads, Turner here will be the water man, and you will continue to wash and dry our ill-gotten gains. You do a good job with the money, Bill, but you’re naïve about the problems out in the field. We need more transporting vehicles, more off-load sites and, more than anything, we need storage space. Now neither you nor I nor any of the others have any logical or legal reasons for purchasing and providing any of those items; Jerry does. That’s why I asked him to join us. Does that make any sense?”
“It would seem to, but…”
“We’re bringin’ in eighteen tons next time,” Clay said.
Surprise or elation were not the first reactions to pass through Bill Reichert’s face. Anxiety was first. The amount was double what they had ever dealt with before. Clearing the money would require some strategies he didn’t know enough about to implement.
“That’s a lot of grass,” he said. “You’re talking eight or ten million dollars. I’m not sure I know how to handle....”
“I’ll help you. Don’t worry.”
“Do we have buyers?”
“Bill,” Charley said with a patronizing smile, “we always have buyers, you know that. They’ll show up as soon as we get the word out. Just like always. I don’t want it hanging around any more than you do.”
“What’s the arrival date?”
“Not definite yet. There are still some things to be put in place, but I thought you’d need some time for your end.”
“I’ll get to work on it. Anything else?”
“Not that I can think of just yet.”
“Then I’ve got people to see and places to go. I’m sorry I can’t stay longer, but you caught me by surprise, Charley. Isabel had already scheduled my day for me,” he said, adding the last to appease the attorney, who worried about his friend’s marital status. Charley’s marriage had been good, and he wanted everyone else’s to be. He’d seen too much of divorce and misery in his practice. Reichert stood up, nodded to Jerry Salyer and Turner Lockett, and left.
Charley Clay knew Bill Reichert was disturbed, but that couldn’t be helped.
“Man didn’t seem too happy,” Salyer said.
“Dudn’t like change,” Charley said. “Bill likes to think he’s the most important cog in the wheel. And I guess maybe in some ways he is, but....”
“Dudn’t know shit about what we do,” Lockett said. “I ain’t seen him at no off loads.”
“No, Turner, but you wouldn’t have the money you’ve got without Bill Reichert. Don’t ever forget that. Don’t worry about it. He’ll get whatever’s stuck in his craw out when he sees the money.”
“You the boss,” Lockett said. He wondered if he looked any different, if anyone could tell what he had done. He hadn’t slept in two days. Though his body was under water, Jared Barnes was still with him.
“Not really,” Charley Clay replied with a stern look.
“Jerry, I want you to start looking around for an additional couple of eighteen wheelers and a larger storage area.”
“How soon do we need them?”
“Probly a month or so; I’m not sure how fast I can put all of this together.”
“It won’t be difficult.”
“Good. Then that’s it as far as I’m concerned. I’ll give you a call in a couple of days for lunch or something. There’s a lot more we need to talk about.”
“I’ll wait to hear from you.” The meeting was over.
When Salyer and Lockett had gone, Clay locked the doors and went outside to sit on the deck.
There was nothing pressing to do except sit and look out over the marsh. He thought of the marsh as a microcosm of the society around him. It changed with the seasons. When the tide was out and the mud creek bottom exposed, it was as bleak as some people and some days. However, when the sea came back in, it was dressed in its Sunday best. It was coming alive again, resurrected from the dead of winter. Resurrection was the one difference in the marsh and the human race, and that, he felt, was unfair. It made his grief for his wife, Margaret, a reality because it removed any hope.
He never realized, until she was taken by a weak blood vessel in her brain, how much of his life was her. The money he had made was inconsequential. There was no desire for material possessions; he had all of those he had ever wanted or needed. His practice, the largest in Covington, no longer held any interest for him. Beyond that, he wasn’t needed. A handful of associates did the work unless there was a sticky question to be answered. He had community standing and respect. Consequently, there was little to strive for and even less reason to live.
He was still a relatively young man, yet he felt old and had lost interest in his life in general until the smuggling opportunity was presented to him. Without a care for risk or security, that break in the monotony was stimulating. Greed was not his motivation for getting involved, as it probably wasn’t for the three friends who brought it to him. Like himself they were professionals, not in need of money. It was the adventure of it all. Risk. Those things gave him a reason to stay alive.
The wind appeared to be picking up; he could feel a chill in the air. It was time to go home. On a whim he decided to go to his beach house on Sangaree instead. He sensed a storm might be coming and wanted to watch it. He hadn’t been out there in months, though it was cleaned every week and was kept stocked with non-perishable and frozen foods. The house was not a pleasant place for him to be alone. He had bought it for his wife and she loved it. They spent every weekend there even though the house in Covington was only thirty-two miles away. It had been a place of happiness.
Sam Larkin spent most of the day working on the bedroom deck and made quite a bit of progress. More than half of the deck planking was done. When that was complete, only the surrounding benches would remain to be built. He looked forward to being able to get out of bed and step outside at any time of day or night.
The wind was picking up and the temperature dropping. There was lightning somewhere out at sea. He couldn’t see the fiery streaks, but the flashes they gave off were visible over the marsh and getting closer. It was a fast mover. By four-thirty the sky looked like it had been brushed in an ink wash. The sun was fully hidden, and only filtered light kept it from being full dark. Marsh grasses lay flat in the wind and vines in the trees swung loosely like restless snakes. Small dead limbs and twigs fell from the trees and dried palm fronds and winter-brown oak leaves played a thin and tremulous music in the wind. Jones Run Creek was capped with white froth.
When Sam felt the first drops of rain, he brought the deck chairs and the table in under the overhang, turned them upside down and went into the house. He stood inside the door looking out. In the glare of some refracted light source, the creek might have been ice. For a short while it was white, then it gradually grayed until it disappeared in the deepening darkness. Violent crashes echoed over the marshes as unbridled electricity strobed from point to point. Rain came in sheets hitting the ground with the sound of ripping canvas. It was a concert. The sound of the telephone removed him from the glory and power of the storm, and for a moment he resented it.
“Hello?”
“You gettin’ wet yet?” Skeeter Crewes asked. He lived a mile and a half up Osprey Landing Road. They had met at Harry Tom Cooper’s boat dock when Sam first came to the island. Skeeter was day-working, sanding the bottom of a twenty-eight foot sail boat and minding the store, when Sam came in for gas. In conversation they realized they were neighbors. Sam subsequently hired the black man to help in the final stages of the house when he was available and there was two-man work to be done. Skeeter Crewes was Sam Larkin’s first and best friend in his new home territory.
“No, I’ve got sense enough to be inside the house,” Larkin said. “What about you?”
“I’m dry, but we ain’t got no lights,” Skeeter answered. “Course what’s new about that?”
“Power’s still on here, so it’s not the transformer.”
“Naw, it’s just us poor colored folks that loses power. Lightnin’ knows where the white folks live.” He laughed a deep bass laugh. It was an ongoing, good-humored repartee they established soon after they began working together. “Who the hell knows what it is. Lights go out on this road ever time a cloud passes over.”
“What’s going on? I know you didn’t call to talk about lightning discrimination.”
“Wondered if I could borrow a couple of your crab traps this week if the weather settles down. Mine’s done rotted through and cain’t be fixed. Course they so old, I cain’t complain. It’s early, but I thought I might pick up some shedders.”
“You don’t have to call about that. You know where they are. Just come over and get anything you want. I’ve told you that. Anything except the boat, and that’s only because I can’t afford another one and don’t want you feeling black man’s guilt if something should happen to it.”
“I feel better askin’,” Skeeter Crewes said.
“They’re there for you, my friend.”
“Thanks, Sam. Everthin’ goin’ all right? Ain’t seen you in a few days.”
“Good as can be expected.”
“I seen you out in that boat with the blond Saturday. You gettin’ ready to put you’sef into some big time trouble?” Larkin heard the man chuckle.
“No, that’s one thing I don’t need.”
“Everbody be needin’ a woman, man. One of ‘em gonna get you sooner or later. We be seein’. I’ll talk to you later.”
“See you, Skeeter.”
When he got off the phone, he went into the kitchen to put something on for dinner. He looked through the freezer and came up with a couple of quail a student had brought him during the winter. That and a salad would do it. After he cleaned up.
He got in the shower without worry about the lightning, figuring that if it took the trouble to come inside to get him, it was his time to go. There was no need to do anything constructive; he had been doing constructive things all day. He wondered what Karen Chaney was doing in this weather.