I decide to take the back way from the paper to my parents’ house—Cemetery Road. I haven’t yet called my mother, and I wish there were some way to avoid it. The news of what happened to the Bienville Watchman over the past half hour could quite literally kill my father. It’s probably already broken on Twitter and Instagram, as the kids from our newsroom attempt to deal with the shock of their unexpected terminations. If the news has hit Facebook, even my mother might see it before I reach their house.
As I leave the old grid of downtown streets, heading east, I think back to the pitiful scene that unfolded before I left the Watchman for the last time. Standing gobsmacked in my office door, I asked Arthur Pine what he was holding.
“A debt-purchase agreement,” he told me. “Marty Denis is an old friend of your father’s, I think?”
“Marty Denis?” I said, recalling only that he took my parents some crawfish tails yesterday. “The president of First Farmers Bank?”
“The very man. Marty’s been carrying the paper on your father’s various loans for a number of years—at considerable risk to himself, I must say. He imperiled his position at the bank. But all that’s been resolved now. As of an hour ago, Mr. Denis sold all those loans to Bienville Southern.”
Claude Buckman’s bank. I wanted to tell Pine I didn’t believe him, but he wouldn’t have been in my office if his mission weren’t a fait accompli.
“We have the right to demand full payment at any time,” he went on, “and we’re calling the notes today, in full. If you can’t pay, we’re foreclosing on the property and all physical plant of the Bienville Watchman as of five p.m.”
“What’s the total amount?” I asked, barely able to summon my voice.
“Just under five-point-five million dollars.”
I probably wavered on my feet. “That’s impossible.”
“Talk to your father. You’ll find that it’s not only possible, but the state of his balance sheet as of yesterday.”
I had some idea of the company’s debt, but when I used what I knew to express skepticism, Pine quickly disabused me of my illusions. He could do that because my father had kept his longtime “business manager” on the payroll to act as a buffer between me and the true nightmare of our situation.
“Beyond what I’ve told you, the company pension plan is underfunded,” Pine informed me. “You’re even in trouble with the state, over payroll taxes. By the way, we’re going to allow your parents to keep their house, which is heavily mortgaged, if and only if after severance from this newspaper, you cease all criticism of the Poker Club or any ancillary business ventures.”
I walked past the lawyer and stood beside my desk like a dog returning to a house where it had once lived. How is it that the worst moments of our lives happen without warning? Only hours earlier the Poker Club had offered me the moon. In response, I nearly sold out everything I’d ever stood for. Now, thanks to a video of me having sex with a married woman, my deal with the devil would not be consummated. And years of financial negligence by my father would allow the Poker Club to destroy the work of seven generations of my family.
While Pine watched with ill-concealed pleasure, I took a sip of coffee from the Styrofoam cup beside my laptop. It had gone cold hours ago. “You’re a parasite, Arthur,” I told him. “You make ambulance-chasing look like an honest living.”
“Save your breath,” he said. “And don’t try to salve your conscience by blaming us. Your father borrowed and borrowed, throwing good money after bad. The interest kept piling up. Duncan had plenty of offers to buy this paper, but he turned up his nose at all of them. Everybody tried to talk sense into him, but he refused to listen. I know you must have tried.”
He was right, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of admitting it.
“There’s nothing left of this company but a hollow shell,” he concluded. “We’ve created an LLC, the Tenisaw Newspaper Group. We’ll hire new management, let this paper start performing its proper function.”
“Which is what? Cheerleading for Poker Club business ventures?”
“And for Senator Sumner. Bienville’s a community, Marshall, not a commune. You can put your red headband back on as soon as you land in Washington.”
Pine looked around my office like an auctioneer estimating fire sale values. “As to practicalities. There’s a sheriff’s deputy outside, to be sure this is done professionally. You may remove personal items, but nothing that’s part and parcel of the paper’s operations. No computers, hard drives, disks, or flash drives. These premises belong to us as of now. Anything you remove will be considered theft.”
I asked him how long I had to gather my things.
“You’re leaving now. By the way, any work product currently under consideration for publication is the property of the Tenisaw Newspaper Group. You may not publish any of it. And all your employees will be so advised.”
“That’s bullshit. I know the law in this area better than you. You can’t buy facts. Not yet, anyway. Also, you should treat all personal emails on my office computer as my personal property.”
“If they’re on your office computer, they’re ours until you prove otherwise in court.”
I pointed at the computer on my desk. “That laptop is my personal machine.”
Pine looked dubiously at the computer. “Your personal laptop is a Mac you generally keep at home. That Toshiba machine belongs to the newspaper.”
What the hell? I thought. Somebody in this building has been talking to the Poker Club.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said. “Do you plan on taking anything with you? Legitimate personal items?”
I looked around the office, finally settling on the framed front page of the first Bienville Watchman ever published. The masthead of the original Watchman bore an eagle with a banner in its beak above the name of the newspaper. The banner read Vincit Omnia Veritas: Truth Conquers All. “That belongs to my father, not the company.”
“Take it, then. You won’t be coming back.”
I walked over and lifted the frame off its nail, fighting the temptation to crack the lawyer’s nose with it. But as I passed my desk, inspiration struck. With the bottom edge of the frame, I tipped the contents of the coffee cup into the laptop’s keyboard. Pine didn’t immediately realize what I’d done, but about six seconds later, the machine shorted out with a flash and a crackle.
“All right,” he snapped. “Deputy!”
A uniformed sheriff’s deputy stepped into my office with a gun on his hip. Accustomed to overseeing evictions, his face showed not an iota of sympathy. Thankfully, my burner phone was already in my pocket. After slipping my iPhone into another pocket, I looked at Pine and said, “I shall return, asshole. But for now, let’s go.”
The lawyer waved me out of my own office.
I walked ahead carrying the big frame, so as not to look like I was being led out by the deputy. But the appearance of law enforcement had done its work. Entering the newsroom, I found the whole staff assembled, their eyes wide, their mouths tight with anxiety.
“Just keep moving,” Pine said. “No tearful farewells.”
I stopped in the middle of the room and looked at the group I’d led for the past five months.
“Don’t let him give a speech,” Pine cautioned.
I felt the deputy coming up behind me.
“You guys are as good as anybody I worked with in Washington,” I told them. “And this war’s far from over. In fact, it just started. You’ll hear from me soon. Stay ready.”
The deputy shoved my back. “Outside, Mr. McEwan.”
“Hey!” Ben Tate yelled. “What the hell, man?”
“Fascist!” shouted Carl Stein. “This is America, motherfucker!”
“Where we have to pay our bills,” Pine retorted. “Gather your things, children. Recess is over. You’re all fired.”