Yet tonight Penn had unknowingly brought Tom a glimmer of hope. For the death of Glenn Morehouse offered Tom a chance he hadn’t dared hope for: a chance at true deliverance. As Peggy snored beside him, Tom pondered the Greek and Hebrew legends of the scapegoat. Pharmakos to the Greeks, Azazel to the Hebrews. A shameful human practice, he’d always thought, one born from guilt and superstition. But most human behavior had grown out of necessity, and he now understood the empirical value of the rituals for which he had felt only contempt before.
He thought about Morehouse, the hypertensive battery assembler who’d committed unspeakable atrocities as a young man. Like so many guilty souls, Morehouse had desperately sought redemption through confession before the end. Had cancer claimed him? Or had his fellow Eagles finally stepped out of the shadows to stop his mouth forever, before he could unburden his conscience? Tom didn’t care one way or the other. All he knew for sure was that if he walked down the path that had opened to him now, Viola would surely forgive him.
CHAPTER 32
“MR. ROYAL, SNAKE Knox is at the gate.”
Brody Royal looked up from a set of aerial photos he’d commissioned of the flooded Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans. “I’ll see him, Hargrove.”
“Yes, sir.”
Brody set aside the flood photos, picked up his glass of whiskey, and got up from the sofa. More and more frequently over the past year, he’d spent his leisure hours in the basement of his home on Lake Concordia. Most of this vast underground floor was occupied by a state-of-the-art firing range, but Brody had also added a display room for his collection of antique weapons. Over the years, this room had taken on the look of a gentlemen’s club, with comfortable furniture occupying the rectangular space between the glass-fronted cypress display cases. Here Brody entertained senators, governors, CEOs, sports stars, and country singers, allowing them to fire weapons they’d only seen in Hollywood movies. He loved watching citified ego-freaks turn into jelly as the BAR came alive in their hands, chewing up a fifty-five-gallon drum placed against the wall of railroad ties at the end of the shooting lanes.
The staircase leading to the house’s main floor was decorated with photographs that made Shad Johnson’s Wall of Respect look like a bulletin board in a teenage girl’s room. Anyone ascending those stairs saw Brody’s father and Governor Huey P. Long standing behind a balcony rail draped in campaign bunting. After that came Brody Sr. and a grinning young Carlos Marcello sitting in the bed of a tomato truck loaded with slot machines. Signed photos included Brody himself with President Lyndon Johnson, Mercury astronauts Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom, President Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan. Candid shots showed Brody playing poker with John Stennis and Big Jim Eastland, eating catfish at Jughead’s with Senator Earl Long, drinking with Ernest Hemingway in the Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone, and singing with Al Hirt on the roof of the Eola Hotel. Brody’s favorite image, shot in 1952, only showed him in the background, while in the glare of a flashbulb General Douglas MacArthur danced with Natchez belle Pythia Nolan, whom Brody had once pursued with all his will but had failed to bring to the altar.
Hearing an engine upstairs in the driveway, Brody walked over to the fieldstone fireplace, where a large framed display above the mantel held pride of place. The left-hand photograph in the frame showed the levee at Caernarvon, Louisiana, being dynamited in 1927. The photo on the right showed an aerial image of St. Bernard Parish, Brody’s childhood home, flooded from end to end as a result of that levee breach. The two photos bookended a cashier’s check in the amount of twelve dollars and fifty cents. Drawn on a once-renowned New Orleans bank, this sum had been issued in 1928 as “full reparations” for the loss of his family’s land, home, and two mercantile stores. Brody’s father had never cashed this check, which he’d considered absolute proof of the baseness of the human spirit. Brody himself had spent decades working to avenge his father, and now, near the end of his life, God and nature had conspired to grant him his wish.
“Mr. Royal?” said a familiar voice from the foot of the stairs.
Brody turned and motioned Snake Knox to come deeper into the room.
“What can I do for you, Snake?”
The crop duster beamed with pleasure, his eyes taking in the gleaming weapons behind the glass. He’d only been down here a few times, and he clearly felt awed by his surroundings.
“Glenn Morehouse has sung his last song,” he said.
Brody acknowledged the news with a nod. “Any problems?”
“No, sir.”
“Good work.”
Randall Regan came down the stairs, nodded to Snake, then poured himself a Stella Artois from a small Viking refrigerator and watched Knox the way a hawk watches a serpent in a field.
“There’s another problem, though,” Snake said. “Henry Sexton met with Mayor Penn Cage tonight. For a good while, too. Over at the Beacon office.”
Royal glanced at his son-in-law, whose eyes went cold. “I don’t like that.”
“I didn’t figure you would,” Snake said. “When Penn Cage gets a burr up his ass about something, he don’t quit. Remember when he put Judge Marston in prison? And that cunt of his with the newspaper …”
“Yes.” Brody sipped his whiskey. “You know, Leo Marston was a friend of mine. Also a business partner. His incarceration caused me considerable difficulty. I always felt like I owed Penn Cage for that.”
“Yes, sir. Is there anything you want me to do?”
“Do Forrest and Billy know that Sexton spoke to the mayor tonight?”
Snake nodded. “Billy’s pretty worried about it, actually. But Forrest don’t seem too concerned.”
“So you came to me.”
“I figured you’d want to know.”
For the first time, Randall spoke. “You figured right.”
“I’ll take this under advisement and get back to you tomorrow,” Brody said. “Keep me apprised of any developments.”
“Yes, sir.”
Brody smiled. “That’s all.”
Contrary to expectations, Snake didn’t turn to go. The crop duster was staring into the display cases behind Brody, as though looking for something in particular. Brody had a feeling he knew what it was.
“Can I help you, Snake?”