At last his bleary eyes find mine. “What are you talking about, son?”
I nod to Mom, and she goes to the glass door, beckons through the opening. A moment later, Arthur Pine walks into the room in a rumpled suit. In his left hand are some papers, which he begins to unfold.
“Arthur?” Dad says, obviously confused. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve got some papers for you to sign, Duncan.”
Dad squints at him, the malevolence in his eyes burning right through the drugs. “You get out of here. I already signed away my life’s work. I’ve got nothing left for a vulture like you.”
Pine steps closer to the bed. “I’m afraid you don’t understand. This agreement formalizes the full return of the Bienville Watchman to you and your family. Also your home. Blythe owns it free and clear now.”
Dad blinks in confusion, as if this is some cruel prank.
“Marshall, this is upsetting him,” Mom says.
“Dad, it’s true,” I say quickly. “You’re getting the paper back. And the house. Mom owns it now.”
“But—” He blinks like someone coming out of anesthesia. “I don’t understand.”
“The Watchman is coming back to our family,” I tell him. “Debt-free. I’m going to go downtown and open up the doors today. Bring the whole staff back on. And as soon as you can walk, I’m taking you down there to sit in your office.”
He’s shaking his head as though worried he’s having another hallucination. “But . . . how?”
“Turns out your son here is a hell of a businessman,” Pine says. He holds out the contract and a Montblanc pen.
“Don’t worry about it now,” I tell Dad. “Just sign your name, and the Watchman’s yours again.”
“Not if you bought us out of the hole,” he says, shaking his head on the pillow. “I won’t stand for that.”
“Marshall hasn’t paid a cent,” Arthur says with ironic bonhomie. “I can assure you of that.”
I grab an Architectural Digest that my mom was reading and slip it beneath the contracts so that Dad has something to press against when he signs. Still bewildered, he looks over at Mom, who nods and says, “Sign it, Duncan. Take your paper back. For old Angus McEwan.”
“Well then . . . all right.” He takes the pen with his trembling hand and, after some struggle, signs a semblance of his name.
Arthur flips some pages and has him go through this struggle twice more. “That’s it,” says the attorney, handing me a copy. “You’re back in business, Duncan, and close to two million dollars better off than you were yesterday afternoon. I’d stay to help you celebrate, but considering the circumstances—”
“You’ll get the hell out,” I finish.
Before he leaves, Arthur gives me what I can only describe as a smile of grudging respect. He’s screwed enough people to appreciate a good fucking when he’s on the receiving end.
After he’s gone, my father says, “What the hell just happened?”
“Poetic justice,” Mom says with satisfaction.
His jaundiced eyes seek me out, then settle on my face. “How the hell did you do this, son?”
“The Charles Colson method. I got them by the balls, and their hearts and minds followed.”
Dad closes his eyes and mumbles something I can’t make out. Then in a stronger voice, he says, “You gave up something. You had to. They wouldn’t have given it back to us. Not free and clear.”
“I gave up nothing.”
“Did you hurt your career?”
“No,” I lie.
“Did you bury something for them?”
Jesus . . . “Do you remember your Greek proverbs, Dad? Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
“We’re not Greek. I always look gift horses in the mouth. That’s what journalists do. If something sounds too good to be true, it is.”
“Dad, you could ruin a—hell, I don’t know.”
“I know it. There’s only one way this is worth it to me.”
Oh, boy. Here it comes. “How’s that?”
“You stay here and run the paper. I’m too old now. Too damn sick. You make it what it should be. If what your mother told me about this morning’s issue is true, then you’ve already made a good start. You don’t answer to me anymore. The Watchman’s yours. I’ll sign it over right now.”
My mother walks to the edge of the bed and lays her right hand on my father’s arm. “Let’s stop talking about the paper. There’ll be plenty of time for that later on.”
Will there? I wonder. Looking at Dad’s waxy yellow skin, I feel like I’m seeing a preview of what he’ll look like in death. We stand in silence for a few minutes, and his eyelids slowly fall closed. His breathing sounds shallow and irregular.
“I’m going to see if they’ll let us bring two chairs in here,” Mom says. “Jack said he’d speak to the nurses.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“You stay with him. I don’t want him to wake up alone.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
After she tiptoes out, I stand at the foot of the bed and speak softly, voicing words I should have said years ago. Decades, even. The problem is, I didn’t realize that until I’d been drowned on a bench in the Bienville jail.
“I’ve hated you most of my life,” I tell him. “You made my last three years of high school hell. You acted as if I didn’t exist. You blamed me for Adam’s death. I blamed myself for it, okay? But I didn’t kill him. I know he got in that river to look out for me, but that wasn’t all of it. He had his own reasons. Anyway . . . I know what it means to lose a son. And you lost two children. I can’t imagine that.”
I pause, feeling short of breath, only half hoping he’s heard me. He lies there with his mouth open, his arms jerking every few seconds as his brain misfires. Stepping closer to the bed, I lay my hand on his cold arm. He doesn’t stir.
“I’ve always said you blamed me all my life,” I go on. “But the truth is, you blamed me for three years. After that, I got the hell out of here and slammed the door behind me. You never reached out to me. But if you had, I wouldn’t have listened. That’s the truth of it. I blamed you for blaming me. And now . . . it all just seems stupid. A waste. I’ve spent years trying to prove I’m better than you were at this job, and you’ve drunk yourself to death. And for what? Nothing I can see.”
The glass door slides open behind me, and Mom leads in a male nurse carrying two folding chairs, which he sets up on the opposite side of the bed.
“Y’all must rate pretty high around here,” he says. “They don’t usually let us do this for folks, but Dr. Kirby called somebody and laid down the law.”
“He’s a good man,” Mom says. “Thank you for setting these up.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
After he goes out, Mom says, “Did I see you talking to your father?”
“Not really. I was just letting him know he’s not alone.”
She gives me a long look, but she asks no questions. “Well, I’m glad,” she says finally. “I hope you had a good talk.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We sit in companionable silence for about ten minutes. Then the nurse returns to tell me I have a visitor in the ICU waiting room.
“Male or female?” I ask.
“Male. Said his name is Mr. Russo.”
Tommy Russo? Shit. Now I regret leaving Nadine’s gun in the Flex.
“Is everything all right?” Mom asks, with her preternatural perception of danger.
“Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll just be a minute.”
I find Russo chatting up a young nurse in the ICU waiting room. He’s smiling at her, but when he sees me, he says something in a low voice and she scuttles down the hall.
“What can I do for you, Tommy?” I ask.
“I hear your father’s not doing good.”
“That why you’re here?”
Russo looks around the waiting room. “What a dump. Can you believe this is the best they can do?”
“Tommy—”
“That deal you made this morning. With Buckman and the others.”
“Yeah?”
“I can live with most of it. But you gotta tell ’em to forget that community development fund. That million-a-year bullshit.”
“Why’s that?”
“Buckman says I gotta fund that whole nut out of my new casino. I can’t do it. My partners won’t stand for it.”