Cape Fear Read Free Page B

light touch, I guess, when I talk about the law business. All we moderns shy away from any hint of dedication. But I believe in the law. It’s a creaking, shambling, infuriating structure. There are inequities in it. Sometimes I wonder how our system of law manages to survive. But at its base, it’s an ethical structure. It is based on the inviolability of the freedom of every citizen. And it works a hell of a lot more often than it doesn’t. A lot of very little people have been trying to whittle it into a new shape during these mid-years of our century, but the stubborn old monster refuses to be altered. Behind all the crowded calendars and the overworked judges and the unworkable legislation is a solid framework of equity under the law. And I like it. I live it. I like it the way a man might like an old house. It’s drafty and it creaks and it’s hell to heat, but the timbers are as honest as the day they were put up. So maybe it is the essence of my philosophy that this Cady thing has to be handled within the law. If the law can’t protect us, then I’m dedicated to a myth, and I better wake up.”
    “I guess I have to love you the way you are. Or maybe because you’re the way you are, old barrister. We females are more opportunistic. I would be capable of taking that dear rifle of yours and shooting him right off our stone wall if he ever comes back.”
    “You think you could. Shouldn’t these two old parties try the water with the young ’uns?”
    “All right. But don’t start kidding Pike again. You curl him into painful knots.”
    “I’m just being the jolly father of the girl friend.”
    They walked toward the water. Carol looked up at him and said, “Don’t get out of touch again, Sam. Please. Let me know what goes on.”
    “I’ll let you know. And don’t worry. I’m just superstitiously afraid because we have it so good.”
    “We have it very good.”
    As they stepped into the water, Nancy was clambering up over the stern of the
Sweet Sioux
. Water droplets sparkled on her bare shoulders. Her hips, so recently lanky, had begun to swell into woman-lines. She balanced herself and dived off cleanly.
    Carol touched Sam’s arm. “That girl. How old was she?”
    “Fourteen.” He looked into Carol’s eyes. He took her wrist and held it tightly. “Look now. Stop any of that kind of thinking. Stop it now.”
    “But you’ve thought it too.”
    “Just a moment, when you drew your little conclusion. And we’ll both discard that sickening little thought right now.”
    “Yes, sir.” She smiled. But the smile was not attached in the proper and usual way. They held the look a moment longer, and then waded in. He swam out with furious energy, but he could not swim away from the sticky little tentacle of fear that had just fastened itself around his heart.

Two
    SAM BOWDEN WAS IN HIS OFFICE the following Tuesday morning, going over—with a young lawyer named Johnny Karick, who had been with Dorrity, Stetch and Bowden less than a year—a trustee report from the New Essex Bank and Trust Company when Charlie Hopper phoned and said he was in the neighborhood and would it be convenient if he dropped in for a couple of minutes.
    Sam finished up with Johnny quickly and sent him back to his cubicle to write a summary of the report. He called Alice on the switchboard and reception desk to send Mr. Hopper back as soon as he arrived.
    Charlie came in a few minutes later and closed the office door behind him. He was a man in his early thirties, with a good-humored and ugly face, considerable energy and ambition, and a calculatedly indolent manner.
    He sat down, reached for his cigarettes and said, “Darkpaneling, hushed voices, files that go all the way back to the Code of Hammurabi. And the rich smell and soft rustling of money. A working clown like me should come in on tiptoe. In between times I forget how you suave jokers make this business look almost respectable.”
    “You’d die of boredom, Charlie.