The thrice-folded sheet appears to be blank. As I start to unfold it, what I felt through the envelope falls out into my palm. It’s a coin. Dull silver, about the size of an American half-dollar, with a leather cord tied through a hole near the edge of it. It is a half-dollar, I realize.
When I turn the disk over, my hands go cold. The eagle I was looking at has been replaced by an image of President John F. Kennedy in profile. Below the line of his neck is the date 1964. And right about where his ear should be, another hole has been punched through the coin. This hole is rimmed with torn silver, as though bored by a speeding bullet. On its inner lip I see small dark flecks, just like the ones I now see in the tiny grooves on the coin’s edge.
“Blood,” I say, surprising myself. “Jesus.”
Unfolding the paper that held the coin, I find a neatly typed note.
Dear Mayor Cage,
I’m happy that things turned out okay for you and your family, especially your little girl. I hope that with my daddy gone you can finally get some peace. I never cared for all that Klan shit my family was into. I just wanted to hunt deer and turkeys, produce my TV show, listen to my Allman Brothers and Jimmy Buffett. Lay back, you know? But we can’t choose our families, can we? That’s why I’m living the “Banana Republics” lifestyle over here in Europe. Maybe I was always meant to be an expatriot. (sp?)
But in spite of that, I believe Daddy’s story was important, especially the stuff about Uncle Frank and the JFK thing in Dallas. Like History Channel important. That ghostwriter I hired was salivating over all the stuff I have, but I fired him. He was only in it for the money and the heat. Had no feel for the South, man. No understanding. I’ve read a couple of your books now, and you know the South all right. You know where the dirt roads go. So guess what? YOU’RE the man to write Daddy’s story. And look, I’ll split the money with you 50/50. All you have to do is write the book.
I start to laugh. If I could count the times I’ve heard that proposition . . .
Now if a movie or something comes out of it, like that Oliver Stone one with Kevin Costner, only better—more real, you know?—we’d have to renegotiate, of course. But I’m open to whatever. I’m a fair guy.
I hope you and your little girl are doing real good now.
Peace+
Billy Knox
P.S. I sent you the coin as a sign of good faith. I got no use for it. Never did.
The closest thing to relief I’ve felt in months courses through me like a rising breeze, and I get to my feet, the coin and the letter still in my hand. The rest of the mail falls to the porch when a Honda SUV pulls up to the curb in front of my house. As the back door opens and Annie gets out and struggles to shoulder her heavy backpack, I wave, then look down at the coin in my hand. Not long ago, this JFK half-dollar was hanging around the neck of Snake Knox.
“What are you looking at?” Annie calls, running up the stairs under the weight of her pack.
“Nothing,” I tell her, closing my palm. “Just a foreign royalty statement.”
“Oh,” she says, instantly bored.
I hug her tight. “Do you want to know a secret, Boo?”
“Yeah!” she cries, her eyes lighting up.
“This is one you can’t tell a soul.”
“You know I never tell secrets.”
Amazingly enough, this is true. “You . . . are my very favorite daughter.”
Annie shakes her head and laughs, the sound like crystal tinkling in a cabinet.
“How about we take a walk along the bluff? We need to run to the post office for a change-of-address form.”
She nods excitedly. “Let me put my backpack inside.”
“Hurry.”
She scurries through the tall doors, drops her book sack with a thud, then rockets back onto the porch. As we make our way down the right-hand staircase and across Broadway to the great bluff that follows the bending river, I feel something I have not felt in longer than I care to remember. Safe. We have no bodyguards tailing us, no enemies hunting us. None that I know of, anyway. The sensation is so foreign that it will likely take some getting used to. The weight of the pistol on my ankle became second nature for a while, but today it feels like a burden once more. Maybe someday soon I will walk out of Edelweiss without it, and only realize after I return what I have done.
But not today.
Acknowledgments
From Writers House: Dan Conaway and Simon Lipskar.
At William Morrow/HarperCollins: my thanks to Liate Stehlik, David Highfill, Tavia Kowalchuk, Danielle Bartlett, and everybody in sales and marketing up and down the chain. Thanks also to Julia Wisdom, Charlie Redmayne, and the rest of the gang at HarperCollins UK.
Copilots: Stanley Nelson, Ed Stackler, David Hudgins, and Laura Cherkas.
My guide to the dark side of Louisiana: Frank Rickard (deceased).
Experts: Mayor Darryl Grennell, Mayor Tony Byrne, Sheriff Travis Patten, Mimi Miller, Ronnie Harper, Tony Fields, Tom Grennell, Marty Kemp, Inez Mason, Keith Benoist.
Legal guides: Scott Slover, Judge George Ward, Kevin Colbert, Rusty Fortenberry.
Docs who rock: Roderick Givens, M.D.; Michael Bourland, M.D.; Kellen Jex, M.D.
For a million things: Caroline Hungerford, Geoff Iles, Madeline Iles, Mark Iles.
Amateur southern philosophers: Courtney Aldridge, James Schuchs, Kevin Dukes, Billy Ray Farmer, Jim Easterling.
Partners in the cause of accurate history: Terrence Robinson, Beverly Adams, Deanna Hayden, Deborah Cosey, David Carter, Derrick Burt, Denzel Fort, Wade Heatherly, Tremaine Ford, Caleb Curtis, Richaye Curtis, Lou Ellen Stout, Spencer Adams, Kirby Swofford, Miranda Allen, Jamar White, Greg Easterling, and also those behind the scenes—you know who you are.
Drone kings: Jonathan Rosso, Colby Passman, Lyn Roberts, Cecile Roberts, Jennifer Rosso, David and Wade (again), Carolyne Heatherly, Mark Iles, and Alex Weadock.
For taking a stand for all Mississippians, or helping to make it happen: John and Renee Grisham, Glen Ballard, Jimmy Buffett, Tate Taylor, John Norris, Kathryn Stockett, Archie Manning, Morgan Freeman, Hugh Freeze, Dan Mullen, Tom Franklin, Beth Ann Fennelly, Jack Reed Sr., John Evans, Richard Howorth, and many others.
All mistakes are mine.