Montaro Caine A Novel - By Sidney Poitier Page 0,9
Bloody Mary glass, then looked up at Caine. “Whoever they are, they’re important clients. One of the seniors would’ve got ahold of you, maybe even old man Hargrove himself, except they know that you and I are friends from school days, so here I am.”
For a long time, Caine said nothing, while holding Larry in an expressionless stare. Something about Larry’s story didn’t sit right with Caine—he sensed that there was either considerably more to it or considerably less. Most probably, Larry was unwittingly setting him up to meet with corporate raiders. He looked away. “I’ve got my hands full,” he said.
“Please, buddy,” Buchanan interrupted with a note of sincerity that signaled an uncharacteristic vulnerability from the typically cocksure lawyer. “Being a junior in a sea of seniors has its disadvantages. Half an hour, no more. And I’ll owe you one.”
Caine looked at Buchanan and remembered how irritating his friend had been throughout their time together in college. Unbearable. Plus, Larry was also a shithead in other ways, particularly where women were concerned.
“Do you, at least, know their names?” Montaro asked.
Larry’s face brightened. “Herman Freich and Colette Beekman. Thanks, old buddy.” Buchanan patted Caine’s arm appreciatively.
Later that night, on West 52nd Street in front of the “21” Club, Caine watched Larry dart about in the middle of traffic trying to flag a taxi to Grand Central for his commuter train, then saw him suddenly race two elderly ladies in a sprint for an empty taxi, which he unashamedly commandeered after beating them to it.
“Just you and the clients, O.K.?” Larry shouted before he got into the cab and it sped away.
Hour by hour, over the following three days, Montaro’s mood darkened until it matched the threatening overcast skies that had blanketed the city for as many days with no relief in sight. The steady downpour that beat against Montaro’s office windows at Fitzer distorted his view of the sprawling panorama of Manhattan, which stretched out before him all the way to the East River and beyond into Queens. To the right, in the distance, at the southernmost point of Manhattan Island, the empty space where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood was barely visible through the drenching rain. Montaro had seen those towers fall, had watched them helplessly through these windows and on TV. Watching that disaster, he felt as though he were witnessing a recurring nightmare, one that he used to have for years after his father’s death—Robert Caine’s jet exploding before it reached the runway in Kansas City.
Montaro knew that he was steadily losing ground. By the late morning of the day when he would have to make good on his promise to Larry to meet his firm’s clients, he became aware of signs that suggested his behavior was beginning to resemble that of a man under siege. He was drinking more; he was sleeping less. His troubles were enormous—why hadn’t he seen them coming? There must have been a sign, he thought. What had happened to his gut feelings? Hadn’t he always been able to detect even the subtlest of shifts in an opponent’s position?
“People don’t always mean what they want you to think they mean,” his grandfather, still living in retirement in Carmel, California, and fast approaching the age of 100, had told him when he was just a boy. “So you have to listen for something else.”
“What, Grandpa?” the then six-year-old had asked, looking up at his protector and teacher. Philip L. Caine had brushed away his grandson’s tears as the child cuddled in his arms, wounded by a playmate’s unkept promise to exchange toys.
Montaro would never forget his grandfather’s answer to that simple question. It would have a profound effect on his life from that moment on:
“If you listen hard enough, your ears will begin to see things. And one day you will be able to listen to someone and see their real meaning hidden underneath their words. And sometimes you will even find those meanings sitting right on top of their words, as bold as ever, because a lot of people won’t know that your ears can see the truth.”
Yes, there had been signs, Caine could now admit to himself, too many for a good ear to miss. Had his instincts shut down suddenly? His grandfather had taught him to search for the meanings that could be lurking underneath his own thoughts. Searching, he realized that he himself was the real object of his anger and not Carlos Wallace,