by Greg Iles
I shrug, then shake my head. “No point being angry now. Was he confused by the experiences? Or relieved? What?”
“All the above. Adam carried a lot on his shoulders. The hopes and dreams of a whole school, a whole town. And of course your father’s, too, heaviest of all.”
“Don’t I know it.”
Tim sits with his head bowed. Dark spots appear on the stones beneath his face. I’d like to comfort him, but I’m not sure how to make him feel better. Sitting mute, I flash back to the night before Adam died, the night we climbed the electrical tower beside the river. All that night, the Matheson cousins ragged us with the usual litany of high school insults. As I watch Tim Hayden crying in this little park, the main Matheson theme comes back to me with painful clarity: faggots, homos, queers. Even the stupid “Casey Jones” parody they jeered at me had homosexual references. I took those insults like water off a duck’s back, but Adam didn’t. For once, the taunts of idiots got under his skin. Was he in the grip of a sexual identity crisis on that night? Was that what drove him to the top of that tower to dance along the light strut like Dooley Matheson, six hundred feet in the air? Was that what pushed him to try to swim the river with me?
No, I tell myself. The tower, maybe. But Adam went into the river to protect me, his little brother. I still remember his words: If you drown out there, I can’t walk in our house and tell Mom and Dad I watched it happen. He couldn’t have imagined that it would be me rather than him who would face that soul-searing ordeal.
“Do you know when I think about Adam the most?” Hayden asks.
“When?”
“When I hear Jeff Buckley sing Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah.’”
“Yeah? Well, that’s a great song.”
“It is, but that’s not the reason. Jeff Buckley drowned in the Mississippi River. Did you know that?”
I feel like someone walked over my grave. “I didn’t. Where did he drown?”
“Memphis. When I hear Buckley singing ‘Hallelujah,’ I always hope that his soul and Adam’s found each other in that river.” Hayden smiles through his tears. “I sound crazy, right?”
“Actually no. I loved him, too. And I used to be a musician.”
“I didn’t know you could stop being a musician.”
This makes me smile. “You’re right. You never do.” I look at my wristwatch. “I hate to say it, but I have a meeting to get to.”
He wipes his face with the flat of his hand. “You’ve been great about this. It’s such a relief after so long. I hope you feel the same, after you’ve had time to process it.”
“I’m glad you told me. This seems to be the week that my whole life history gets explained to me. It’s like time is running backwards. I’m living from flashback to flashback.”
He gives me a sympathetic smile. “Do you think your parents had any idea about Adam?”
“No. And I wouldn’t bring this up to them. In fact, I’ll ask you not to. My father couldn’t take it, and my mother’s got enough to handle without wondering why she didn’t see it herself. She’ll start thinking that if only she’d recognized that, and nurtured it, Adam might still be alive.”
Hayden nods. “I understand completely. I won’t ever speak to them about it. I just wanted someone in the family to know.”
I get to my feet and reach out to shake his hand, but Hayden pulls me in for a hug. Feeling tears rise, I blink and wipe my eyes after I pull away.
“Thanks for this,” he says. “And please find out what happened to Buck. He was a good man.”
“I will.”
He turns and leaves through the little wrought-iron gate.
Nothing would ease my nerves in this moment more than to sit in this little park and go back over my brother’s life, searching for clues I missed while he was alive. But Claude Buckman and the Poker Club are waiting for me. I might as well go listen to their pitch. Shouldering my bag, I walk down Second Street to the Flex. Buckman’s bank is only a few blocks away, but I’d rather have my vehicle with me. There’s no telling where I might need to go after that meeting, or if I’ll need to get there in a hurry.
Chapter 31
The Bienville Southern Bank is a Greek Revival pile built in the 1880s by Claude Buckman’s grandfather. An exceptionally attractive receptionist escorts me to the second-floor conference room, where I find a massive rosewood table capable of seating twenty, but which today holds only five men: Claude Buckman, Blake Donnelly, Avery Sumner, Wyatt Cash, and Arthur Pine. Stripped of their names, I’m facing a predatory banker, an old-time oil tycoon, a newly minted U.S. senator, an entrepreneur with ties to the U.S. military, and a sleazy lawyer. What could possibly go wrong?
“Greetings, Mr. McEwan,” Claude Buckman says. “Come up and have a seat with us. There, beside Mr. Pine. I believe you know him.”
“I do.” I walk up the other side of the table and sit beside Wyatt Cash.
Except for the conference phone sitting at the center of the table, this room could have been furnished in the 1860s. The prints on the walls appear to have been chosen by someone intent on celebrating the pre–Civil War South: Confederate soldiers, racing steamboats, cotton wagons, cotton trains, belles in hoop skirts, and—in almost every photo—slaves. Slaves driving wagons, crewing steamboats, serving drinks to officers; whole black families bent in a cotton field, with children too small to drag a sack sitting in a turnrow, playing in the dirt.
“Are you carrying any recording devices?” Buckman asks as I take my seat.
“No.”
“I’d appreciate you taking out your cell phone, switching it off, and leaving it on the table.” He waves a hand at his colleagues. All their phones lie before them on the polished wood, all apparently switched off.
Shrugging my shoulders, I partly comply with his request by laying my iPhone on the table.
“Thank you,” says Buckman. “Now, Mr. McEwan. I detest pointless talk. So I’m going to be as straightforward as I can. We are businessmen. We make no pretense of being anything else. We exist to earn profits, expand our businesses, and consolidate our power. We create wealth. If the lot of others happens to improve while we do that, that’s fine, but it’s not our concern.” The banker pauses as if to be sure I’m following his lecture on capitalism. “You, on the other hand, are a journalist. Some have characterized you as a crusader. A do-gooder. An optimist, even.”
“I’d contest that last assertion. I don’t know a veteran reporter who’s not a cynic.”
Buckman’s smile tells me he thinks I’m deluding myself.
“We’ve brought you here to tell you that today is your lucky day.”
I look at the other faces around the table. Blake Donnelly and Wyatt Cash are grinning. Senator Sumner has a guarded look, while Arthur Pine gazes down at the table in front of him. I can’t tell whether Pine has no interest in the proceedings or is certain he already knows the outcome.
“My lucky day,” I echo. “How’s that?”
Buckman lights a cigarette, blows out a raft of blue smoke, then continues. “It’s come to our attention that you’re in possession of information that could interfere with certain financial endeavors. To wit, the Azure Dragon paper mill and its associated ventures. Because of this, we are prepared to offer you certain considerations in exchange for not using that or any other information to harm our businesses.”
“You want to bribe me.”
Buckman gives me a tight smile. “I’ll let you be the judge. Now, I’ve reviewed the editorials you’ve written over the five months since you returned to Bienville. It’s clear that you have certain, ah, pet issues that concern you. Public education is one. Would you agree?”
“Sure. Other than Reliant Charter, Bienville has some of the worst public schools in America.”
“Just so. How would you feel if Bienville were to have a brand-new public high school? With all the bells and whistles? State-of-the-art computers, smart boards, metal detectors, good teacher salaries, the works.”
I look from face to face again. None of these men seems surprised by Buckman’s words. “You realize you’re talking about forty or fifty million dollars? Minimum.”
“Money is my business, Mr. McEwan.”
“And you’re saying . . . what? You’ll build this school? Get it built?”
Buckman settles back in his chair and speaks with utter confidence. “We’ll push the votes through, get the tax millage increased, and anything that doesn’t cover, we’ll cover ourselves. We’ll have it up and running in a year.”
“That’s one hell of a bribe.”
Senator Sumner leans forward and says, “Marshall—may I call you Marshall?”
“Why not?”
“Marshall, we’re not talking about a bribe. We’re talking about solving one of the most crippling systemic problems in the history of this town. The whole state, really. When I was a judge here, I sentenced hundreds of young black men to prison who had no business in a penitentiary. The real crime in their lives was ignorance. They hadn’t been educated. Claude is offering you a chance to rectify that problem.”
“I’m amazed to admit it, but . . . he did seem to offer that.”
Buckman smiles as though he’s enjoying this. “You’ve also written a lot about crumbling infrastructure, particularly drainage and water mains on the north side of town. Bucktown, they call it in polite company.”
“We called it Niggertown when I was a boy,” Donnelly interjects. “Different time, of course.”
“We’re prepared to make sure all that gets repaired in a timely manner,” Buckman declares.
“Of course you are,” I say, scarcely able to believe the turn this conversation has taken. “Since you’re fixing the world all of a sudden, how about crime?”
Wyatt Cash catches my eye. “What would you recommend? More police officers? A community development fund?”
“More cops on Bienville’s city force, for sure. Higher salaries to attract quality recruits, and to keep them. And a real chief, not the puppet you have in there now.”
Buckman smiles. “Done, done, and done.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“I never joke, Mr. McEwan. I’m told I’m not funny.”
I wonder who had the balls to tell Claude Buckman he wasn’t funny. Had to be his wife. “Let me ask a question.”
“Certainly.”
“Why are there only five of you here? I thought the Poker Club always had twelve members.”
A couple of the men look uncomfortable, but Buckman doesn’t hesitate to answer. “We five are the voices that matter.”
“How would Beau Holland and Tommy Russo feel about hearing that?”
Buckman shrugs. “Immaterial. Holland’s a junior member, and Mr. Russo is from out of state. He’s a sort of . . . provisional member.”
“Max Matheson’s not from out of state. His ancestor was one of the founding members, right?”
“True.”
“And Max isn’t just a heavyweight in this town. He’s a force statewide.”
“All true.” Buckman steeples his fingers and speaks with precision. “But Max has been . . . profligate in his personal relations. He has put this consortium at risk, and by so doing has sacrificed both his voice and his vote. That’s as clear as I’m prepared to be at this time.”
For an old man who smokes too much, Claude Buckman can still bring it. He talks like a character from a John O’Hara novel. I see why Max is scared, too. With friends like these . . .
“Let me get this straight,” I temporize. “You guys have the power to do all this—you’ve always had it—yet you’ve chosen not to?”
“As I said at the outset,” Buckman replies, “we’re not in the business of saving the world. That’s your department. But at this moment in time, we happen to have a coincidence of interests.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Could I say something?” asks Avery Sumner.
“Of course, Senator,” says Buckman.
“Here’s what this comes down to, Marshall. If you keep pushing ahead with these newspaper stories, you’re going to wreck a deal that took one hell of a lot of hard work. More important, you’ll damage southwest Mississippi beyond repair. This development means salvation to your neighbors. Hundreds of jobs, health insurance, a business renaissance . . . you name it. So why on God’s earth would a good man like you want to hurt all those people?”
The answer comes to me without effort. “Because somebody murdered my friend.”
Sumner coughs and looks at Buckman, but Blake Donnelly is nodding. “I hear you, son. I knew Buck Ferris, as I told you the other night. He was a damn good man. And if he was murdered, that’s an awful thing. But no man in this room had anything to do with that. I give you my word. Now, you’ve heard the kinds of things we’re prepared to do to improve this town. And I think if you put a question like this to Buck, he’d say, ‘Do all the good you can, Marshall. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. The world is for the living.’ Don’t you think so?”
I wish Quinn Ferris were here to respond to Donnelly, but the truth is he might be right. “He might,” I concede.
The oilman smiles to hear his instinct confirmed.
“To summarize,” Buckman concludes. “Do you want to torpedo the future of this whole area so that men like us will make a few million dollars less than we otherwise might? Condemn your hometown to eventual poverty and obscurity? Or do you want to bless Bienville with another fifty years of prosperity? I do not exaggerate, Mr. McEwan. Today the decision lies in your hands.”
Several responses rise into my mind, but before I can voice any of them Buckman says, “We’re not saints, young man. My only virtue is that I’ve never pretended to be one.”
“Look, I appreciate that you—”
“Write yourself a Christmas list!” Buckman says effusively. “All the things I’ve named, plus your pet projects, plus a community development fund to be disbursed at your discretion.”
“A liberal’s wet dream,” Blake Donnelly says with a grin. “Compliments of the greedy conservatives.”
Everyone laughs at this, even Buckman.
“Just to be clear,” I say, trying to keep my voice under control. “To get what I put on my Christmas list, I’d have to drop all investigations into anything related to the Poker Club.”
“Just so,” says Buckman.
“And the murder of Buck Ferris?”
Buckman and Donnelly look down at the table, as though communing with their guiding principles. Then Buckman says, “If Mr. Ferris was indeed murdered on the mill site, then yes, I’m afraid so. Justice is a pillar of social order, Mr. McEwan. But we can’t afford to have the mill project derailed. Too much depends on it, and the Chinese can be skittish about public image. To get this deal, you’re going to have to leave the Ferris matter to the sheriff’s department.”
“Who’ll bury it.”
The old banker gives me a look of perfunctory sympathy. “Not your concern. So, how do you feel about what I’ve said today?”
“I’d like to have a day to think about it, if I could.”
“You have one hour.”
His words hit me like a slap. “One hour?”
At last Arthur Pine stirs from his ennui. From across the table he says, “We don’t want an embarrassing data dump hitting the Watchman’s website tonight. This story has to go away, Marshall. Now. We need that cache.”
I have to work to keep my face impassive. “The cache?”
Pine sighs as though he resents being forced to tell me something I already know. “Before she died, Sally Matheson put together a data file containing damaging information. We believe it contains printed documents, emails, recorded conversations, various other materials. We’ll need that from you, as a sign of good faith.”
“I don’t have it.”
Every eye in the room focuses on my face.
“That would be regrettable,” Buckman says. “And it would invalidate
our offer.”
“We believe you have it,” Pine says. “Or if you don’t, that you can get it. So please do that, and contact us within an hour. Do that, and you can make Bienville a better place from this day forward.”
It’s already occurred to me that the PDF I got via email might be enough to placate them and earn the staggering bribe they’ve offered.
Buckman stubs out his cigarette. “You’re looking through a window of opportunity, McEwan. This market exists now, in this moment, and for the next sixty minutes. But circumstances change. All markets are subject to outside pressures. Fluctuations. Given what you’ve been offered, I suggest you make a swift decision.”
“If I said yes, what proof would I have that you’d live up to your word?”
Buckman looks at me as though puzzled by my question. “I’m no saint, as I said. But I am a man of my word. My word is all I have.”
“And about three hundred million dollars.”
The banker gives me a tight, patronizing smile. “Closer to five, actually. May I make a suggestion? Ask your father about me. Duncan and I were never close, but he always treated me fairly. He did right by the club as well. Put it to him the way I’ve put it to you. See what he advises.”
“I might do that. One thing I would need is compensation for Buck’s widow, Quinn Ferris.”
“Did Ferris have life insurance?” Buckman asks.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care.”
“Seven hundred fifty thousand,” Buckman says flatly. “All cash, payable by five p.m. today.”
“A million,” I counter.
“Done.”
“Damn.” I believe I could have asked for more and gotten it. “You guys must be set up for a world record payoff on this deal.”
“That’s our business, son. We look forward to hearing from you.”
“One hour,” Pine says. “Don’t push it.”
Chapter 32
I’m playing Buck’s handmade guitar on an earthen mound built by Indians around the time Genghis Khan invaded China. That’s recent construction compared to the site Buck discovered down at the industrial park, but Buck spent a lot of time on this hill, so it seemed like a good place to take stock of my situation. He served as superintendent of these 170 acres, officially called the Snake Creek Site but known locally as the “Indian Village.” A lot of Bienville residents come out here to walk, picnic, or run their dogs. When I was in junior high, I had buddies who used to sneak out here at night to get high and lie on their backs staring at the stars. I sneaked out here a few times with Jet during our magic summer, but today that seems a lot further in the past than it once did.