Bulls Island (26 page)

I pulled on a pair of khakis, a knit shirt, and a pair of boat shoes. I thought when the storm had cleared, maybe I would take my brother fishing. While I dressed, Valerie continued carrying on.

“What did you
do,
J.D.?
Where
is my medicine? I have a
terrible
migraine! I
need
my medicine! I could just
kill
you! What have you
done
?
Where the hell is it?
”

I stopped in my tracks and faced her on the second-floor landing.

“Are you threatening me, Valerie? Tell me now. I just want to know if my life is in imminent danger, okay?”

“No, of course not. But what do you expect from me? Breakfast? Eggs and grits? Homemade biscuits? Why don’t you get your girlfriend to make it for you?”

“I want a divorce, Valerie. Get a lawyer. Call your doctors for refills. I don’t care. I’ve had enough of this charade.”

“What? What are you saying? Divorce? No! No! No! Never! I will never give you a divorce! Never!”

When talking to someone who is raging, it is best to maintain a steady tone of voice. Do not be emotional in any way. Don’t fan the flames of their anger. I filled the coffeepot with grounds and water and pressed the start button.

“That’s not how it works in South Carolina, Valerie. I can and will divorce you. And you should consider rehab for the sake of your own life. There’s plenty of money. We’ll work that out. You can have the house. I don’t care, but I’m all done. All done.”

“I can’t believe my ears! What’s this about? That woman Betts? Your mother warned me about her! She was right! She’s nothing but a whore!”

“Valerie? Don’t you ever call her a name like that again. Do you understand me?”

“I’ll call her anything I want to call her! She’s a home-wrecking whore!”

“Really? What kind of a home is she wrecking? One with a drug-addicted, alcoholic wife? You call this a home? Pretty loose definition if you ask me…”

Then she sat down at the table, shaking with anger or early signs of withdrawal—I didn’t know which—and began to cry. Really cry, as only a woman could. Big, gulping sobs.

“What can I do? Please don’t leave me, J.D.! Please don’t leave me. Don’t. What will I do? Please let’s work this out! I’ll get help! I swear!”

“Okay. Get help.”

“And then will you stay and start over?”

“I don’t know, Valerie. We’ll see.”

There was no nice way to break this kind of news, but I was determined to get out of my marriage.

I
didn’t even stop at my apartment. I just went straight to ARC. I decided that with all the anxiety I was feeling, it was better to face what was waiting for me and get it over with.

We landed at Morristown because the air traffic around Teterboro was thick enough to cause at least a thirty-minute delay, although it ended up taking the same thirty minutes on the ground to pass Teterboro on the way to Manhattan. But you never knew what was really happening with Air Traffic Control these days. That thirty-minute delay could easily turn into two hours. The airspace around the metropolitan area was ridiculously crowded, anytime, any day of the week. Maddening.

I had spent the last two hours rehearsing my speech for Bruton and I was anxious to see him face-to-face in order to plead my case. I felt confident that my history with ARC would well make up for any mistakes I’d committed or was assumed to have com
mitted—confident except for that bile trampolining from my esophagus.

I grabbed my overnight bag and hopped into the waiting black car. Traffic was light, and before I knew it, I was arriving at the offices of ARC, with the intention of heading straight for Ben Bruton’s office.

But outside the building, standing right there as though he had an appointment with Bruton, too, was Vinny Braggadocio. He smiled and held up a newspaper with the picture of J.D. and me. What in the world was he doing there? Talk about unnerving!

“Nice picture, sweetheart,” he said. “Nice comments, too.”

I walked right past him, but he came up from behind and grabbed my arm.

“What do you want, Vinny?”

“You don’t walk past me like that, you understand?”

“How did you know I would be here?”

He threw down my arm and his face turned to something menacing and evil.

“I can find out anything I want to know, Betts. And I’m just warning you. You’re in danger. That’s all.”

He started to walk away.

“What does that mean?” I said, calling after him over the horns of rattletrap taxis and other vehicles and the buzz of the crowd—everywhere around me, I saw men in dark suits screaming into their cell phones, shoppers and teenagers shouting to one another, North Africans hawking their wares—mostly copies of Gucci bags, Burberry scarves, and the like—over all of this noise and humanity, Vinny had said I was in danger. What kind of danger?

“Wait!”

He did not wait. He dumped the newspaper that featured the incriminating article into a garbage can, and try as I did to follow him, he disappeared around the corner.

Danger? What was he talking about? Some environmental zealots? I couldn’t think about this at that moment. I had, like we say in the South, other fish to fry. Vinny was probably jealous because of the picture or something stupid like that. What an ego! What arrogance! I made my way into the building and took the endless elevator ride while trying to bring my breathing to a more normal state.

Darlene, Bruton’s secretary, was looking a little too smug for my nervous system, and when she said in the special tone she reserved for the doomed, that he “was waiting,” I aged a full ten years in a matter of seconds.

“Thanks,” I said, and let myself into the sanctum of fear and terror.

As he had been doing during my last “papal audience” with him, Bruton stood looking out his windows, down at Rockefeller Center and over the thousands of people below, who were hurrying in zigzags like so many ants on amphetamines. His hands were behind his back, clasped in some kind of fervor of contemplation. His fingers were white from the pressure. I noted this in the same way someone climbing to the gallows would recall the patina of the hangman’s shoes.

“Hi!” I said, attempting to sound nonchalant.

“Hi,” he said, turning to greet me. “How was your trip?”

“Fine, thanks.”

Niceties over.

I would not say that his expression was one of anger or disgust, but I would say his mood bordered on the bubbling fury of every devil in hell. Kerosene with a match to restore the fires to their most effective level. Human barbecue to follow.

“Sit,” he said.

Like a good dog, I sat. He went around to his side of the desk, sat in his chair, leaned back, and looked at me long and hard across the dry gulch of silence between us for a very uncomfortable and excru
ciatingly long few minutes. Then he leaned forward, shoved the newspaper toward me, and leaned back again.

“You’ve seen this picture and read the article, I assume?”

“Yes, I have. Very stupid.”

“Very stupid of whom? The photographer? The reporter? You? You know, when this came across my desk, it struck me as odd. Really strange. There was something wrong here, something that was out of character for you, at least for as long as I have known you.”

“I never said those things.”

“Okay.” Pause. “I believe you if you say so.” Silence followed by more silence. “It’s none of my business what you do on your
own
time, but it is most definitely my business what you do on the
company’s
time. With our money. And how you watch our investments. And our reputation. Obviously, I have to know what’s
really
going on here. We have
huge
bucks in this. The other partners, even Pinkham and McGrath, are not pleased by what this picture implies, and more importantly by what this scoundrel of a pissant journalist says you think. And before I cancel this entire deal, I’d like to hear an explanation from you.”

Bruton was predictably furious.

“It’s complicated.”

“Apparently. Betts, I’m not saying that you’re not entitled to a personal life, because you most definitely are. Love is fine. But in business it’s better left at the door. You get involved, you start to buy into the other guy’s priorities, suddenly you exist in your own deal outside of your company’s best interests, and the next thing you know you are compromised in a way that’s unprofessional. Even lethal.
You know that
. You’re too smart for some dirty little office affair, so what the hell is going on here? Before I cut our losses and throw this whole deal out of the window, I’d like some facts.”

“How much time do you have?”

“All the time we need. Now, let’s have it.” He leaned forward and
crossed his arms on his desk in the most attentive position I imagined one could assume. But his brow was drawn in deep furrows and I knew it was going to be difficult to explain the situation in a way he would want to hear.

“I’m not sure where to start…”

Forty-five minutes later, Ben Bruton knew all the environmental issues as well as I did and understood why close communication with J.D. was so important to the deal. I couldn’t endorse decisions on ARC’s behalf if I didn’t understand the local politics and the real problems with pollution, erosion, and the disturbance of habitats.

“So there was quite a learning curve on this one, is that what you’re telling me?”

I could sense that he was starting to relax, as there was a moderate change in the clench of his jaw from a Great White to the claw of a blue crab.

“Yes, and there’s more. Obviously.”

Soon he knew the history of my relationship with the Langleys. He asked all the right questions and I answered him honestly, choosing my words with care. But there was still a sense of uncertainty, that famous Bruton hard edge that had no problem putting a sword through a blueprint. He was on the verge of pulling me off the project, and if he did, my career would go up in flames. I could sense his temptation to do this in every nerve ending.

“So, you’re satisfied you can handle the public’s, shall we say, extreme displeasure?”

“Yes. Well, to be completely honest, we have had frequent problems, daily almost, with vandalism, but nothing more serious than slashed tires, green spray paint, and that kind of thing.”

“Maybe it would be a good idea to go down there, you know, pay a visit. Do a PR splash?”

“Can’t hurt. We’re actually hiring a publicist.”

Then, after a considerable pause, came the bomb.

“And what about J. D. Langley? Your boy is his, isn’t he?”

What? What did he say?
I felt the blood and sweat drain from my whole body and I was sure that if I looked in my seat and on the floor, I’d see it all there in a pool. The room began to turn and I thought I would faint right then and there. I didn’t know what to say.

“He doesn’t know, does he?”

“Know what? Who?”

“J. D. Langley. That your boy, Adrian, is his son?”

“How? How did you find out?”

“Two phone calls. And the picture on your desk. Great God, Betts, he’s practically a
clone
.”

We stared at each other. Finally, fighting back an ocean of tears, I found my voice.

“Why are you asking me this?”

“Why am I asking you this?
Perhaps it might make a difference if I share the details of my personal life with you?”

“I don’t know.”

Bruton stood, faced the bookshelves behind his desk, picked up a photograph of his wife and children, and stared at it, taking a deep breath.

Then he turned back, put the photograph down, leaned across the desk, and said to me in a very quiet, extremely angry voice, “Because my mother left me in a laundry basket on the steps of a church when I was just hours old. How clichéd is that? It’s like something out of an old black-and-white movie, isn’t it? In fact, that’s probably where she got the idea. Who knows? But the punishment? I never knew her. Or my father. All my life. No mother. No father. Never knowing, thinking they didn’t even care. And they didn’t. Grew up in orphanages and foster homes. Here I am with all this, and guess what? They don’t know. No one to slap me on the back and say, ‘Good job!’ You want to do that to your son?”

“No, of course not, but—”

“You see, Betts, in this lousy world, here’s what means everything. Integrity. That’s the stuff that makes and breaks lives. You’re a smart woman. So, even though this is technically none of my affair, I want to
know
that you’re not going to do to your boy what my mother did to me because it’s
so, so wrong
. What’s your plan?”

“To continue working on the Bulls Island project—”

“And figure out how to come clean? I am no longer so worried about the project. A good campaign can clear that up. You know, another stab at informing the public that we aren’t the evil developers.”

“Even though we are.”

“Everything is point of view.”

“Hey, I’m on the side of the house.”

“I know that. Betts? Listen to me, the sooner you tell J.D. he has a son—”

“He’s married.”

“Of course he’s married. But he doesn’t have to make a public announcement about an illegitimate son, does he?”

“He’s getting a divorce.”

“That’s what they all say. Let me tell you something, okay? When there’s shocking news to deliver, it’s best to just put it out there. The person hearing it will need time to process it anyway. That’s the truth.”

“I don’t want to use Adrian as a tool to expedite his divorce.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, McGee. He’s a man. He’s going to do what he wants.”

“Don’t go sugarcoating it for me, Bruton. Thanks a lot.” I stared at him, a little angry and insulted. But it was true, wasn’t it? It was all true.

“I don’t like this stuff in the papers, Betts. It’s garbage.”

“Neither do I. I agree.”

“Let’s not have this happen again. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Okay, do you have plans for dinner?”

“I was just going to go back to my apartment and throw up.”

He actually laughed.

“Okay, then. I just thought you might like to join a group of us at Sparks. We’re starting a new fund to invest in the operating turnarounds of mid-market companies.”

“Bor-ing.”

“You’re right. You could’ve handled that in the ninth grade, but I’m just guessing.” He clicked his mouse on his computer screen and brought up his calendar. “Let’s see here. All right. Looks like I could come to Charleston in three weeks. Is three weeks sufficient time to execute a plan to move the public-awareness-campaign rock up the hill?”

“Could you use another word besides
execute
?”

He smiled again.

“Actually, I thought I might surprise my son with dinner or something. He doesn’t know I’m here.”

“Good idea. Listen, I haven’t told anyone else that I was thinking he was Langley’s boy. That’s your secret to tell, not mine.”

“Thanks.” So he
didn’t
actually know! That son of a…“So you weren’t actually sure?”

“I play poker on the weekends.”

“Ah. Well, it does my heart good to know you have a vice.”

“Go call your son.”

I stood, knowing I was dismissed. “Right. Hey, Ben?”