“There is seventy-five thousand dollars there, all fifties and hundreds. You may count them if you wish. This represents your final fee, plus a bonus for excellent work done in the past. Consider the latter a farewell gift.”
Mortvedt saw that Rexroth was determined to end their relationship in this abrupt way. He felt a wave of resentment. All the dirty work I’ve done for rich boy here, and he calls the final shot without asking me? he thought. His expression darkened, but he said nothing.
Mortvedt tucked the cash-filled envelope into his boot. When Mortvedt did so, Rexroth noticed the ankle holster on Mortvedt’s right leg. Then he realized it wasn’t a holster for a gun, but a knife scabbard. Light briefly reflected off part of the knife blade before Mortvedt pulled his jeans leg back down over his boot. Rexroth felt himself hosting another involuntary shudder.
But knowing now that Mortvedt was, indeed, going to go along with this parting of the ways, Rexroth began to relax. This was going to work. Mortvedt was not going to present a daunting obstacle to his plans, or any kind of obstacle at all.
Mortvedt stared at Rexroth for a moment. Then he quickly rose from his chair and left without a backward glance. Rexroth stared at the curtained doorway through which the little man had slipped. The curtains continued to shift for several seconds after Mortvedt had disappeared, though Rexroth was unable to discern the presence of any summer breeze. The night, Rexroth knew, was dark, deep, and as silent as the black-clad figure that must be now moving to his car, hidden as always on one of Willowdale’s farthest borders.
Chapter 27
Jack drove Caroline and her children to Lexington’s Blue Grass Airport, following as closely as he could the ambulance transporting Aldous from the hospital. A midday summer rainstorm had just subsided, but no rainbow followed. As Helen and Ian talked quietly in the backseat, Caroline looked straight ahead from her passenger seat, eyes shielded behind dark glasses. The weight of depressed reaction to what had happened to Aldous bore down on all of them.
Turning onto New Circle Road, Jack said, “Well, at least Aldous seems happy to be going home.”
Caroline thought for a moment before replying. “Relieved, disheartened, terribly disappointed-all those things more likely,” she said. “That big dream he had of making a mark on American racing as a brilliant farm manager, to have that torn away from him, it’s almost as bad as the crippling. He wanted it so badly.”
“Don’t say crippling,” Jack responded. “You can’t say that yet. You don’t know that to be true.”
Caroline reached over and patted Jack’s knee. “You’re right, we don’t,” she said. “I hope I’m wrong and the doctors are right, that he’ll get his speech fully back, that the knee replacements will work out over time. But what was done to him will be with him all the rest of his life. And all our lives as well. There’s a crippling involved in all that, I can tell you.”
She turned to look out her window, attempting to muffle an involuntary sob.
Traffic entering the airport was light. Jack pulled up to the curb behind the ambulance, whose attendants were carefully lowering Aldous’ wheelchair to ground level. He sat in it with his legs in their casts straight in front of him, his big hands gripping the chair handles. Discomfort was evident on his broad face, but he attempted to reassure the watchers by smiling.
The Bolgers were to take a series of flights from Lexington to Auckland, arranged to accommodate Aldous and his wheelchair. Aldous had insisted on this plan. “If I’m to be chopped and chiseled, I want it done on home ground,” he’d told Dr. Sill at Central Baptist. Dr. Sill had okayed Aldous to travel three days earlier. He told Jack admiringly, “This man’s got the pain tolerance of a Thai kick boxer. He’ll be able to make that journey all right.”
Jack waited as the Bolger party checked in at the Delta counter. It was a slow Tuesday morning and the process was quick. Caroline politely waved off an airport attendant who volunteered to wheel Aldous to the gate. “Thanks, we’ll handle it ourselves,” she said politely. “Jack, are you coming?” she asked.
“I’ll say goodbye here,” Doyle replied. He moved forward to kneel and embrace the children. “Be good, you Kiwi rascals,” he grinned. “I’ll be checking up on you.” Standing, he turned to Aldous, who began to speak. Aldous’ voice was soft and halting as he struggled to convert ideas into sound. Jack winced at the painfulness of this slow process, then tried to hide his reaction.
“Keep your eyes open wide,” Aldous finally managed to get out. “Guard those horses-and yourself, Jack.” He fell silent after this taxing effort, then turned his head to look down the corridor to the Delta gate. It was their signal to leave.
Caroline smiled at Jack, who took her in his arms, face pressed into the fragrance of her hair. He felt her tremble as he held her tightly. “We hardly got out of the starting gate,” he whispered to her.
Caroline laughed quietly. She kissed him briefly on the lips, then put her head on his chest for a moment. “Maybe there’ll be another start another time, Jack,” she said. “Thanks again for all you’ve done for us.” Then she turned away and began to wheel her brother down the corridor, her kids on either side of Aldous’ wheelchair. None of them looked back.
Doyle exited the terminal and walked to his car in the airport parking lot. He sat for nearly an hour, restlessly drumming his fingers on the Accord’s steering wheel, turning the radio on and then, quickly, off. Blue Grass Field was so compact he had no trouble spotting the Delta aircraft when it finally taxied away down the runway, then lifted off.
As the plane faded out of view, Doyle turned on the ignition and started the car. He felt as if something had again been lost to him. He realized he hadn’t experienced such a feeling since his brother Owen died. But the spreading emptiness in his chest, the tightening of his mouth, even the reflexive narrowing of the eyes to thwart tears-“tough guys don’t cry,” his father had insisted in his drunken rages-were terribly familiar to him.
He put the car in gear and sped out of the airport.
Chapter 28
The phone call from Byron Stoner’s impeccable office at Willowdale to the thoroughly messy kitchen of Earlene Klinder’s weather-beaten one-story home on the outskirts of Louisville went through at nearly ten o’clock at night.
Stoner sat at his orderly desk, having completed his review of that day’s RexCom business results. All had gone well, he was glad to find, so there was no need for him to go through the process of ordering a change in the blader line-up.
This was the end of a typical working day for Stoner, one that extended from seven in the morning until well after the dinner hour, and he was tired. He just had one more thing to arrange, then he could repair to his second-floor suite of rooms in the Willowdale mansion. Stoner was re-reading Robertson Davies’ Deptford Trilogy, thoroughly enjoying again the depiction of life in his native Canada. But, first, a phone call.
When, two days earlier, Rexroth had told Stoner what he needed done, he did so with “complete confidence that you can find a way. You are truly a marvel at this sort of thing, Byron,” Rexroth had said, and Stoner couldn’t help but feel the flush of elation that always accompanied one of his employer’s infrequent compliments.
Earlene Klinder was tired, too. Resting her forearms on the dish-laden kitchen table, she was tempted to put her head down between them and go to sleep. Her teenage twins, Earl and Earlette, were in the living room squabbling over which television show to watch. The twins had fought once they’d learn to talk, and hadn’t stopped in the dozen years since. Earlene tuned them out as best she could.