“Not your charter school.”
“Which only handles a fraction of the city’s students.” She shakes her head, and I sense her mind churning. “I’m telling you, there’s something rotten at the core of this. Not just garden-variety graft, or even mega-graft. Something so big they couldn’t risk Buck causing delays or bringing in state authorities. And I’m going to find out what it is.” She clicks her tongue three times fast, then looks out over the backyard. “Let’s get those new phones. I need to go.”
I catch hold of her arm before she can start walking. “Hang on. Say you do that. Say we go out there tonight and find Indian bones, or even evidence that Buck was murdered for threatening the mill. But to use it, we have to blow up the paper mill deal. Do we do that?”
She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Isn’t that what we’ve been trying to do all along? Get the bastards who rule this town by breaking whatever laws it suits them to break?”
“Of course. But if the town loses the mill, the dominoes will start to fall. The new interstate, the bridge. A lot of people who’ve done nothing wrong will be hurt badly. Some we know, others we don’t.”
“Is this you talking, or Nadine?”
“She did pose the question this morning.”
Jet gives me a penetrating look before answering. “You’re right about the cost. But we won’t be living here, so it’s not our problem. And if they murdered Buck, then I say, ‘Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.’”
This woman was born to be a prosecutor. “You know, we usually talk about the Poker Club like a monolithic entity. I want you to break them down for me. Tell me who’s the most dangerous.”
“How do you mean? Arthur Pine’s dangerous, but only in a courtroom, not a dark alley.”
“I’m talking about violence. Like killing Buck. Which members might go that far, or have the connections to have someone else do it for them?”
Jet looks at her watch again. “Let’s talk while we walk. Prepping for that party might make Paul leave practice early.”
She starts across the grass, and I have to hurry to catch up.
“Only nine of the Poker Club’s twelve members are really active,” she explains. “Of those, I’d say Tommy Russo is the most violent. He’s from a Jersey mob family, and I’ve heard some sick stories about him.”
“Such as?”
“His brother fed two guys into a wood chipper in Voorhees State Park. While they were alive. Tommy was supposedly there.”
“That sounds like an urban legend.”
Jet bends and hooks her panties off the grass with one finger. “Tommy’s brother fled the country before the FBI could arrest him for it. Tommy also told Max that he’d pushed an informant out of a Beechcraft once.”
“Jesus. Max told you that?”
Jet shakes her head. “He told Paul. Paul told me one night when he was drunk.”
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a casino owner has murder in his past. Still, when I think of Tommy walking along the Port Road in his expensive suit, it’s hard to picture him shoving a guy out of an airplane. “Who else?”
Jet stops and picks her pants up off the grass. “Wyatt Cash.”
“Wyatt? Really?”
She steps into her panties and pulls them up, then does the same with her slacks, wriggling them over her hips, then zipping them tight. “Wyatt’s not just a hunter, he’s a military groupie. He uses former Special Forces soldiers as paid endorsers for his hunting gear.”
“Great. Who else?”
She looks into my eyes. “Max, of course.”
“No shit. I would have put Max at the top of the list. He did some bad stuff in Vietnam.”
“I forgot. He used to brag to his players, didn’t he? I don’t even want to think about it. Oh, and there’s Paul, of course.”
“Paul’s not a member of the club.”
“He’s the heir apparent to Max’s seat. And he’s tied inextricably into a lot of Max’s investments, not to mention the lumber company.”
“Paul liked Buck,” I say, even as a disturbing thought rises in my mind.
“He did,” Jet agrees. “Paul always contributed to his causes, the Indian powwows and stuff. On the other hand, business is business. And Paul has the connections to farm out violence if he wants to.”
“ShieldCorp?”
She nods and leads me toward her bra. “He stays in contact with all those guys.”
“Jet, does it strike you as strange that Paul suddenly tells me he’s suspicious about you having an affair within hours of Buck dying?”
This question sends her into that state where her mind is working at a speed beyond my capacity. “Because you’re the most likely to dig deep into his death,” she says. “He throws out a shiny object to distract you.”
“Right.”
“For him to expect that to work, he’d have to know you and I are in fact having an affair.”
“What if he does know?”
She shakes her head, but in her eyes I see a shadow of doubt. Still looking concerned, she bends to pick up her bra, then slips her left arm into the strap. “You want a last look before they’re gone?”
“Don’t need one. They’ve been imprinted on my mind since I was fourteen.”
She gives me an appreciative smile. “They’re a little different now. Gravity sucks.”
I look down at her breasts, at the dark nipples that have captivated me since I was a boy. “Not so different.”
“White lies.” She fastens the bra, then skips ten feet ahead of me to retrieve her blouse. After she buttons it, she reaches into her pants pocket and takes out a nondescript black cell phone.
“This one’s yours. The number to mine is already programmed on speed dial.”
“When did you do that?” I ask, taking the phone from her.
“Sitting at red lights on my way out. I’ve gotten pretty good at it.”
Just like everything else. “About tonight,” I say hesitantly. “The party.”
“What?”
“We need to do the best acting of our lives. No secret touches, no freighted glances, no double entendres—not even if we pass each other in an empty hallway.”
“You think you need to tell me that?”
My warning obviously irritated her. “I wouldn’t usually. But something changed today. I feel like the world has suddenly spun off track. It isn’t just Buck, or even Paul. This whole day, memories have been flooding over me, things I haven’t thought about for years.”
Her expression softens. “Me too, a little bit. But all Paul has on his mind right now is Jerry Lee Lewis. So relax. You know I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
With that, she kisses me lightly on the lips, then walks swiftly across the grass and into the trees.
Chapter 19
The Aurora Hotel may be the most unique building in Mississippi. In a city filled with Colonial, French, Spanish, and Greek Revival architecture, this art deco temple rises above all that like a shrine to the early twentieth century. The millionaire who built it was a victim of the Egyptomania that swept the world in the wake of the discoveries in the Valley of the Kings, and the interior of the Aurora reflected his obsession. Only the name of the hotel broke the pattern, and that was no riddle. Aurora was the owner’s daughter, so Bienville got the Aurora Hotel rather than the Isis or the Nefertiti.