“Were they friends of yours? Buckman and the others?”
“Not really. I liked Blake Donnelly all right. Wyatt Cash’s father was a decent fellow. But I never had many friends in this town. My buddies were in the army or overseas. Foreign correspondents. The Poker Club actually asked me to join once, but I never considered it.”
“Why not?”
Dad hawks and spits with laborious effort, hopefully into a Kleenex. Then my mother says, “Different breed.”
“It sounds like you were aware of their corruption, though.”
This time the silence stretches for a while. “So that’s what this is about,” Mom repeats finally. “I read your story about Buck Ferris being killed. And I believe he was. But here’s the hard truth, son. Corruption is a part of capitalism. It’s a by-product of the system. A necessary lubricant to make the machine work. Given human nature, I mean. Because that’s the motive force of capitalism: greed. It’s the most pragmatic system there is.”
Even after decades of hard drinking, Dad still has a way of reducing complex questions to a few empirical statements. That’s why his editorials were always so pithy. “You’re saying we have to accept a certain amount of corruption as the price of business getting done?”
“I used to believe that. Take this paper mill deal—leaving out the question of whether the Poker Club killed Buck or not. If that mill is built, it will surely rest upon a tangled web of felonies and misdemeanors. You dig around enough, you can probably cut some of the strands of that web, maybe even pull the whole thing apart. But should you? The town needs that mill, Marshall, and everything coming with it. Is it right to deny folks employment just so you can stop Claude Buckman banking another few million dollars?”
Would Dad be surprised to learn that he’s restated Buckman’s thesis for him, in almost his exact words? For a moment I wonder if the crafty old banker just got off the phone with my father. “Probably not,” I tell him. “But damn, I’d like to take those bastards down.”
“Of course you would!” Mom says for him. “That’s the newsman’s dream. It’s Jesus driving the money changers from the temple. John Wayne wading through the black hats with a shillelagh, taking no prisoners. But that’s not real life.”
“Maybe not. But right now, I have the power to do it. I’m close to it, anyway.”
“Are you? I’m impressed. But you know the old saw.”
I think for a minute. “With power comes responsibility?”
“Hah! Maybe I did teach you something all those years ago.”
“Maybe you did,” I concede. Maybe more than I realized, I add silently.
“Are we done?” I hear Dad say. “Your mother just changed the channel to Pravda, and I have some shoes to throw.”
Pravda is one of Dad's nicknames for Fox News. He often refers to CNN as Entertainment Tonight. “That’s it, Dad. I appreciate it.”
“Uh-huh. Over and out.”
After Mom says goodbye, I pick up my burner phone and text Jet, typing: I know you said not to call. This is important. Get back to me ASAP. Then I set down the phone and pick up Buck’s guitar again. Travis-picking in C, I marvel over the clarity and amiability of my father’s response. I figured getting him to speak civilly would be like pulling teeth, as it has been on most occasions when I’ve tried to draw him out during the past months. What explains the change? If anything, I’d expect worsening health to make him less amenable to giving me a coherent answer. And less able. Thinking back on what he said makes Dr. Kirby’s dire prognosis difficult to accept. Can a man who speaks with such enthusiasm be that close to death?
Of course he can, answers a cold voice in my head. An airplane engine can run perfectly until the moment it fails—
My burner phone is ringing. I snatch it up and hold it to my mouth. “Are you alone?” I ask.
“I’ve got three minutes,” Jet says in a taut voice. “What’s happened now?”
“I just met with half the Poker Club at the Bienville Southern Bank. Max wasn’t there. They made me an offer. I want your advice.”
“What’s the offer?”
“Pretty much anything I want.”
“Money?”
“Not just money. They said if I want a new public school, they’ll make it happen. Infrastructure, done. Community betterment fund, done.”
There’s a brief pause. “In exchange for?”
“Dropping my investigations into Buck and the Poker Club.”
“Of course. What do you want from me?”
“Tell me what you’d do in my place.”
Jet is silent for a few seconds. “Have you found Sally’s cache?”
“No. That’s another thing. They want it. I told them I don’t have it, but they assume I’m lying.”
“Well, all this is hypothetical then. Without the cache, they won’t give you anything.”
“Not strictly true. Turns out I have a couple of secret admirers. First, whoever’s sending me the game camera photos.”
“Photos, plural? You got another one?”
“Yeah. This one shows Beau Holland with Buck. Same night.”
“Wow. Who’s this other source?”
“I don’t know. But I think they’ve sent me part of Sally’s cache.”
This time the silence lasts longer. “What’s in it?”
“Emails, deeds, bills of sale. It details some scams involving members of the Poker Club.”
“Enough to ruin the Azure Dragon deal?”
“It’s definitely a start. It might be enough to persuade Buckman it’s the cache. But assume I had the whole cache. What do you say? What would you do?”
“Burn them down. Stall them, play along, then rip them to pieces in the paper tomorrow. Crucify them. They deserve it, every one. ”
“You didn’t take long with that. What about the consequences for the town? Losing the mill?”
“Screw this town. I know that’s not how you feel, but I’ve lived here for the last thirty years. You haven’t. You romanticize this place, Marshall. But it’s rotten. Think about Buck’s murder. Think of all he did for Bienville. But after they killed him, who really gave a shit? They all wished he’d died a year earlier, so their precious new mill wouldn’t be threatened.”
The bitterness in her voice makes me want to argue, but she’s right.
“You said half the Poker Club was at this meeting,” she reminds me. “Exactly who was there?”
“Buckman, Donnelly, Sumner, Cash, and Arthur Pine.”
“That’s the old blood, the old Bienville families. Excluding Max shows they’re already worried about him putting them at risk.”
“Buckman stated that explicitly. And leaving out Holland and Russo?”
“Beau’s never gone out of his way to kiss Claude’s ring,” she explains. “Claude hates him. And Claude might know that Beau was involved in Buck’s murder, if he was. Also, Russo’s an outsider. Mob-tainted.”
“Why would Buckman care about that?”
“He probably doesn’t. The Italian heritage is probably more of an issue for Claude. Tell me how they put this to you. They said they’d give you anything you want?”
“Buckman told me to write a Christmas list.”
“Wow. Wait a second.”
My earbuds go empty all of a sudden, and I wonder if I’ve lost my connection. Then Jet says, “Don’t you see? This is our chance.”
“For what?”
“To get away clean! This is how we get custody of Kevin.”
She’s giving me whiplash. “Seriously?”
“Claude Buckman can do it, Marshall, like issuing a royal edict. With Donnelly’s support, nobody would dare cross him. Not even Max. No chancery judge, that’s for sure.”
“Wait. Two minutes ago you said screw the town, crucify them. Now you’re saying cut a deal, but make sure custody of Kevin is at the top of my list?”
“I’m saying take all the good things that Buckman offered the town. But make sure custody of Kevin and a pain-free divorce are included. Everybody wins. The town, Kevin, you and me.”
“And the Poker Club.”
“They always win,” she says irritably. “That’s practically a law of nature. Their ancestors outsmarted the Union army of occupation.”