Denbow’s Code
by Stephen Wasylyk
Zeigler beside him, Randy drove by without even glancing at Denbow, the blue Caddy leaving a little plume of dust as it went down the lane and disappeared into the trees.
No question of where he was taking his father.
It was about time.
When a man like Zeigler sits in his house for three months because his second wife has left him, closing out everything outside its walls including the business it had taken him years to build, it’s obvious that a fulltime caretaker and a once-a-week doctor aren’t enough.
Perhaps even where he was going wouldn’t be enough.
Denbow looked up at the now-empty house at the top of the hill, gleaming white in the morning sun against a Kodachrome sky dotted with immature puffs of clouds, a cool breeze rippling the grass and caressing his skin.
New listing! Beautiful hilltop home in superb, secluded ten-acre suburban setting w/bonus of rental home for income—
Denbow didn’t want to think about that, not because he’d have to move if that was the outcome, but because it would mean Zeigler was through.
He filled a scoop with birdseed and emptied it into the platform feeder on a post thirty feet in front of his study window, wings whirring behind him before he reached the house. Acres of woodland to feed from, but the birds preferred the fast food served up in his front yard.
The pigeons swooped down first. Why they were here, he had no idea. Probably had migrated to the suburbs along with people. The others followed, the ground feeders like the juncos and doves joining the pigeons, the perchers, sparrows mostly, jostling for position on the feeder, a few finches wedging their way in along with a male cardinal, all scattering when the pigeon with a fluorescent blue band around his neck leaped up to the platform. Too big to fit under the roof, he clung to the side, wings beating frantically, neck stretched to the limit, scooping up seeds before he lost his battle with gravity and glided to the ground. Head high and probably cursing, he stalked around the others before repeating the routine. No matter what was ordained, he didn’t intend to eat off the ground.
He reminded Denbow of Zeigler, who had failed several times before he’d put it all together. Like the pigeon, Zeigler didn’t intend to eat off the ground. He wanted to eat off the platform, alone, and he’d made it.
When he entered the house, Amanda was using the hallway mirror to brush on a touch of eye shadow. A cool, slim, long-legged woman with tightly curled dark hair and blue eyes, her pearl drop earrings added exactly the right touch of femininity to the severity of the dark suit. Style and class had never hurt when summing up before a jury.
She dropped the brush into the case, faced him and smiled.
“Pass inspection?”
“You’ll knock ’em dead at the D.A.’s office.”
She turned back to the mirror, eyes critical.
“I think it’s time for this suit to go.”
“Like Zeigler. Randy drove him away, probably to that place he mentioned. I hope they can straighten him out.”
She brushed an invisible piece of lint from a shoulder and agreed with his thoughts. “About time. Why do you think he waited so long?”
“It’s difficult to convince yourself that a rock requires psychiatric help. Everyone, including Randy, thought of Zeigler as solid granite.”
“His wife should have had more consideration. I feel sorry for him.”
He shrugged. “None of us is unconscious during the wedding ceremony.”
“Is that why you weren’t too upset when your wife walked out?”
“Maybe. Or maybe having a sense of humor helps. When your wife runs off with a man with implanted hair and a plaid sport jacket who drives a red Corvette and who thinks Dom Perignon used to be the weatherman on Channel Six, comedy overpowers tragedy.”
She smiled. “It couldn’t have been that easy to take.”
“I didn’t say it was easy. I said it was funny.”
“What are you planning for today?”
“Running the mower before the sun gets too hot and working on a report until dinner. It’s due Monday.”
“I’ll pick up something light and see you then.”
She kissed him and walked out, leaving a faint fragrance behind and a frown on his face.
He didn’t recall being consulted about dinner. Amanda was getting a little too proprietary, leading him where he wasn’t sure he wanted to go.
He fired up the riding mower and steered it back and forth across the hillside on his side of the serpentine gravel lane, Zeigler on his mind.
Had it really been more than three years since Zeigler had called him in because his telemarketing operation was staggering along?
Making a living by straightening out faltering businesses, Denbow had found it wiser to concentrate on cash flow and liquidity if he wished to be paid, rather than character, but he’d liked Zeigler, a short, muscular man with very little hair and the rolling walk of an athlete. When, with tie pulled down and sleeves rolled up, he’d escorted Denbow around his operation and stopped to help an employee move a heavy carton, two things were clear. A man like that paid his debts and didn’t go down without a fight.
Denbow spent a week in the plant going over everything and talking to the employees. He learned that Zeigler knew their families, held their hands in grief, helped them celebrate the good occasions, lent them money, yelled when they made mistakes and then patted their shoulders when they didn’t — and intruded into their lives with suggestions and advice, solicited or not. They all loved him, so much so that when one suggested that they would be better off with a union, three muscular shippers cornered the man in a washroom and suggested he’d be happier elsewhere, even though a union would have guaranteed them all more money.
His employees weren’t part of Zeigler’s problem. It was his timing, his pricing, his presentation of products. What was even worse, in a business that depended on catalogues to generate sales, Zeigler’s reflected nothing of his unique character and personality. Behind the counter of a retail store, those would have made him an instant success, yet his sales material was no different from anyone else’s.
Like most of the problems Denbow was called on to solve, all this one required was the application of some common sense.
He threw the mower into neutral and mopped his brow as the engine idled, enjoying the warmth of the October sun on his back and the sweet smell of new-mown grass.
“Sales are up ten percent,” said Zeigler over lunch. “I should give you a bonus.”
“Forget it. My price is high enough.”
“I hear you’re looking for a place to live.”
Denbow smiled. He’d casually mentioned it to one person.
“My apartment lease is running out.”
Zeigler signaled the waiter. “Let’s take a ride.”
He turned off the highway into a narrow macadam road that ran up the side of a hill, leaving it for an easily overlooked rutted lane that led into a stand of trees. He stopped the car when the trees ended.
The lane continued diagonally upward, slicing through what must have been more than two acres of velvet lawn before ending at the top of the hill before a house, gleaming like a peaked-roof Camelot, that faced the southern sun and was protected from the north wind by a stand of trees.