“I’m here to speak to your father.”
President of his father’s bank, Andy Royal is a big man of thirty-five with more gut than muscle. He takes a couple of steps toward me, his face turning scarlet. “You’ve got some damn nerve, Cage.”
“You don’t understand the situation. Where’s your dad?”
Andy Royal grinds his jaws with fury. “My sister’s lying in there in a coma, thanks to your goddamn girlfriend. And you—”
“I’m sorry about your sister, Andy. More than you know. But your dad is going to want to talk to me. If he doesn’t, he’s not going to like what he reads in tomorrow’s paper.”
His eyes bulge. “What? Man, we’ve already talked to our lawyers about what happened this afternoon, and they think we’ve got a hell of a case against your girlfriend and her father’s media group.”
“Then you didn’t tell your lawyers the whole story. But of course you don’t know it. So how about you take me to the man who does?”
Andy points at Kirk, who decided to wear a sock cap in the hope of concealing his identity. “Who’s this guy?”
“A Good Samaritan. Come on, Andy.”
“Dad’s in 119,” he says, still eyeing Kirk, whose powerful physique is a little too obvious to ignore.
Three doors down from the ICU, the patriarch of the Royal clan is holding court from a padded chair beside a buffet of sandwiches, doughnuts, fruit, and cheese. A half-empty fifth of Maker’s Mark stands on a table beside him. Compared to his son, who looks like a high school tackle who never matured into a man, Brody Royal looks like a weather-beaten falcon. His slim face and aquiline nose contribute to this impression, but it’s the deep-set, predatory eyes beneath sleek gray brows that first mark me in the doorway. They flit to Kirk for a second, then lock back on me as though gauging the distance for a killing dive. My peripheral vision registers five other people in the room, three of them women. I glance away from Brody long enough to recognize two red-faced Royal nephews in their fifties—both employees of Royal Oil.
“Everybody out,” Brody says with the casual authority of a monarch.
Nobody questions his order. They don’t even hesitate. Brody glares at Andy, who has lingered in the doorway, and says, “Shut the door.”
Andy steps inside to obey, but his father says, “From the other side.”
After an awkward silence, his son yields. “Holler if you need me,” Andy says, backing out of the room.
After the door closes, Brody beckons me nearer. As I move toward him, I realize that age has not robbed him of his virility. He projects a restrained power, more like the aged Burt Lancaster than Charlton Heston, to whom Henry Sexton compared him. Royal has an acrobat’s proportions, which are accented by his tailored shirt.
“To what do I owe this honor, Mr. Mayor?” he asks without a trace of irony.
This opening takes me aback. I’d expected to confront a querulous old caricature of Theodore G. Bilbo, the red-faced, overweight archetype of Big Daddy, Boss Hogg, and all the other southern shouters. Finding myself facing a trim and courteous businessman is more than a little disconcerting.
“I need to tell you some rather unpleasant things, Mr. Royal. And then I need to ask you a favor—a couple of them, actually.”
The cool gray eyes don’t blink. “I’m a captive audience. Fire away.”
“Somebody shot Henry Sexton tonight. He survived, in case you didn’t know.”
Royal shrugs as if nothing could interest him less. “Can’t say I’m surprised. That boy’s been pushing certain people for a long time. Stands to reason they’d push back eventually.”
“And you know nothing about it?”
The eyes remain steady. “What would I know?”
I can’t help but smile in appreciation of Royal’s poker face—and at my knowledge of what is about to happen. This consummate power broker hasn’t had his will challenged for years.
“I’ve got good news and bad news for you, sir. The bad news is, I’ve got enough evidence to buy you a guaranteed seat on death row at Angola. That’s in the long run. In the short run, I’ve got enough information to destroy your reputation and the value of most of your companies by noon tomorrow.”
Royal’s face alters less than the surface of a rock when the wind passes over it. “What’s the good news?”
“I’m not that interested in forty-year-old murders today. I’m interested in one that happened this past Monday at five thirty in the morning. A woman named Viola Turner.”
Royal studies me like a gambler watching his opponent deal cards. “You haven’t said what you want, Mayor. You want to know who killed that old colored woman? Your daddy’s old squeeze? Is that what you came for?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“I want you to listen for a minute. I want you to think about what I’ve told you. Then decide whether or not you’re going to do what I need you to do.”
“Well, get started. You’re boring the hell out of me so far.”
It suddenly strikes me that Brody Royal hasn’t said one word about his comatose daughter. Squatting before him, I look into the opaque gray eyes and begin my pitch.
“In July of 1964, you ordered the deaths of Pooky Wilson and Albert Norris. You threatened Norris in his shop the afternoon of the night he died, and you went back later that night to help kill him with a flamethrower. I know that because there was a witness. A witness who’s still alive, healthy, and willing to testify against you.”
Royal shows no reaction to this.
“The day after Norris’s store was burned, the Brookhaven klavern of the Ku Klux Klan kidnapped Pooky Wilson from a train station and delivered him to the Double Eagles for punishment. One of those men is ready to testify as to how and where Pooky died, and about your involvement in it.”