“Sure you do. Like I said, I like how you handled that whole thing with Jennifer—”
“That was a setup, wasn’t it?” interrupted Hollice. “Dutton was running low on negatives, so you had to invent some. The girl was bait and he took it hook, line, and sinker. You used me to reel him in.”
“I thought you wrote only what you think.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I will. In good time. I’m fixin’ to give you the exclusive interview.”
“When?”
“When I’m closer. Me ‘n’ Dutton. Neck and neck.”
Hollice had to laugh. “I don’t know. You’ve made up a lot of ground. But there’s still a helluva a gap.”
“Depends on whose numbers you’re lookin’ at”
“And yours are different than Dutton’s?”
“Numbers don’t mean diddly. It’s about what’s in the air. When I’m close, you’ll be able to smell it”
Hollice pulled on the slack. “Okay. I guess the gap is the unknown factor. Nobody knows the real Shakespeare McCann. They only know what you say. Comes a point when every politician has to open up.”
Shakespeare knew he was right. Marshall had cooked the numbers enough times to make the answer clear. Shakespeare McCann needed to seem more accessible to the voters and less like a populist bomb thrower.
“I’m working on access,” he agreed. “But don’t forget for a minute that I’ll always be the dark-horse candidate. The underdog. And I need all the strategy I can figure on.”
“Theoretically. Sure. I see your point. But I’m just a reporter. Campaign strategies are for guys like Marshall and Fitz Kolatch to figure out.”
“That’s right. Your job’s to call ‘em the way you see ‘em,” Shakespeare confirmed.
McCann hailed the waitress to take the lunch order. As expected, he requested a pastrami sandwich. Hollice ordered a hamburger, barbecue fries, and another large iced tea.
“Tell me about yourself,” asked Shakespeare.
“You first,” countered Hollice.
“In good time.”
“Oh, I forgot. The promise of things to come.”
“Really,” said Shakespeare. “I’m interested. Why’s someone smart as you writin’ for some little Island paper?”
“I like the sea air.”
“Got that in L.A.”
“Been there, done that,” said Hollice.
But Shakespeare knew mat. In fact, he knew everything. The story hadn’t been hard for his investigators to run down. After four years of college, Hollice chased a wouldbe actress by the name of Carol Anne Finch out Southern California way. They rented a Hermosa Beach apartment and married soon after. By day he worked as a copywriter for a large advertising firm, while by night his wife stripped at a club in Gardena. After she spent both their paychecks on cocaine, Carol Anne sidetracked into heavier drugs and porno films.
“Married?” asked Shakespeare.
“Twice. The first one was way back when I was young and dumb.”
“And wifey number two?”
“Remarried. Moved up to Oklahoma City with her kids.”
“Yours?” asked Shakespeare. He knew this answer, too.
“Hers from marriage number one.”
“You know how to pick ‘em.”
“Least I gave it a ride. More than I can say for you.”
Shakespeare leaned closer and whispered, “I was savin’ it up for Jenny O’Detts.”
Hollice burst out laughing.
Shakespeare leaned back into the vinyl and smiled broadly. When Hollice returned to earth, he found a package in front of him. “What’s this?”
“My appreciation.”
“I can’t take a gift from a candidate.”
“Call it an honorarium. Just open it and then say no.” Shakespeare pushed it across to Hollice.
Too curious to argue, he ripped the gift wrapping off a brand-new Sony Hi-8 video camera. Obviously Shakespeare wasn’t aware of Hollice’s visceral dislike for technology. “I don’t get it.” He shrugged.
“What’s to get? I know you don’t like Dutton any more than I do.”
“I never said that.”
“I’m giving you the opportunity to bury him,” said Shakespeare. “In exchange, though, I will give you the interview you deserve. The whole enchilada. A truthful answer to anything and everything. No time limit. And you can tape it if you want.”
Hollice pushed the video camera back across the table. “What does this have to do with me not liking Mitch Dutton?”
“Is it true or not?”
“What do you know?”
“Forget what I know. Look me in the eye and say it’s not true.”
“Fuck you.”
“No. Fuck Mitch Dutton,” said Shakespeare. “His daddy fired your daddy. So your daddy couldn’t get no more jobs. He died of a stroke. Your momma started drinking. Blah blah blah blah.”
“Who told you this?” Hollice leaned forward, angry now. “Look. I don’t know who you’ve been talking to. But I’m over it. That’s kid stuff. Old news. If I don’t like Mitch Dutton, it’s on my terms.”
“Fine. Your terms.”
“And I hate video cameras.”
“So will Mitch.”
“Why?”
“Starting today, Dutton’s going on a three-day vacation with his wife. Destination? you ask. New Orleans.”
“What? A vacation?”
“He’s going to a funeral.”
“Who died?”
“A killer named Shoop de Jarnot.”
FOURTEEN
MITCH decided to wait to tell Connie about the funeral until they were well down the highway along the intercoastal waterway. The most he’d given anybody was his destination. He informed the staff mat he’d check in from the road.
As for that first weekend following Labor Day, voters would be obsessed with other things. Labor Day was Cathedral’s last tourism gasp of the year. It was a businessfriendly choice to leave politics out of the holiday.
Barely two miles down Texas State Route 87, Mitch felt the campaign shackles loosen. They’d forsaken the safety of the Volvo for the devil-may-care attitude of Connie’s Mustang. The top was down and the wind was busting through her hair.
She hid her painful secrets behind a pair of dark Persols. Since the rape, they’d become her disguise; she wore them whenever she could get away with it. Always avoiding eye contact, especially with Mitch. If he’d seen her eyes and looked hard enough—just once—he’d surely know. And Connie wouldn’t have that. She’d suck back the hurt like a lungful of foul air. Hold it with her head upright, only to release it when she was alone and out of earshot. Mitch will never, ever know, she promised. And that would be that.
From his perspective, behind those designer shades, she didn’t look a day past twenty-one. She sat silently, content with her hand waiting for his. He shifted the steering duties to his left and touched her with his right, grazing her cheek with a gentle knuckle, enough to elicit a warm smile. He clutched her hand and kissed it.
“Thanks,” he said.
“For what?”
“For dropping everything.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I may not have packed your underwear.”
“That’s cold.”
“Dem’s duh risk y’all takes, hun,” joked Connie in her best deep South twang. “Now, tell me why you had me pack the funeral suit.”
It hadn’t gotten past her, nor had he expected it to. What else had she sussed out? Did she know about Rene? In the joy of the moment, he was suddenly filled with regret. God, he should tell her. Confess now. Get it out and done with. Ruin the moment. Heal the soul.
But these were selfish thoughts. He couldn’t hurt her like that.
“Remember the call I got a week back?” he said, forcing his brain back in the conversation.
“The death-row guy.”
“Shoop de Jarnot. He died in prison.”
Murde
red. McCann did it. Mitch knew.
“He was from New Orleans? You know, I didn’t know you were close.”
“We weren’t. But I made him a promise. That if he never made it out of Texas alive, I’d go to the funeral and tell his mother he loved her.”
“I knew there was another agenda.”
“I told you I had some personal business.”
“Yes, you did.” Her head tilted backward, eyes closed behind the shades. “So what else haven’t you told me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just making conversation. Long drive to New Orleans.”
Mitch fired her a quizzing look. What the hell was she thinking behind those dark glasses? What did she know?
“You want secrets?” he asked, feigning innocence.
“Something dark.”
“Something I’ve never told you?” He was blind to her ruse. Too wrapped up in his own conscience, he couldn’t see Connie was keeping the conversation onto him and away from her. “Lemme think,” he said.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” she grinned.
By her tone, he saw she was game for play. And not for any hardened, painful truth. So he steered clear of the subject of Rene. “When I was fifteen I used to steal cash from my dad’s wallet.”
“Alert the media!” laughed Connie. “The candidate has a criminal history.”
“He caught me,” admitted Mitch.
“What’d he do?”
“Whacked me around a bit. Then I worked off the debt on one of his boats.”
“Coulda been worse.”
“At ten cents an hour?”
She laughed at the image of the fifteen-year-old working for slave’s wages on one of Q. Dutton’s shrimpers.
“Your turn,” he said.
“Oh, I don’t think so. This is my game.”
“Two can’t play?”
She changed subjects. “Three days. All mine?”
“Not unless you tell me a secret.”
“I will. I promise.” She patted his leg. It was as good as gold. “When’s the funeral?”
“Mañana. It’s just an hour out of three whole days. And you don’t have to come, either. The rest of the trip belongs to you. Scout’s honor.” Mitch made the sign with his right hand, three fingers in the air, thumb crossing his palm and pinning his pinkie. Not that it meant a damn thing. The Boy Scout in him had long run off with the likes of Jennifer O’Detts.
“Oooh, promises,” cooed Connie. “Scoutmaster Fitz must have luuuved the idea.”
“So he wasn’t thrilled. But a promise is a promise.”
“Not to be confused with a campaign promise.”
Two points. “Don’t remind me.”
“Okay. I won’t. No more campaign talk till Sunday night.”
“Monday morning. I promised a long weekend, and a long weekend it shall be.” He kissed her hand again and she smiled mischievously. Mitch didn’t miss it. “What?”
“May as well get off to a rousing start.” And off came the sunglasses and the seat belt. “Eyes on the road, cowboy. It’s your lucky day.”
Surprise was Connie’s rarest art.
She leaned over in the seat and began unbuttoning his trousers. First the top button, then the zipper, then reaching her hand inside to pull him out, exposing him to the elements before devouring him into the softness of her mouth.
“You got me,” said an astonished Mitch, attempting to keep his eyes to the road.
Yes. She most definitely got him.
Sweet anonymity.
As Mitch slipped from their French Quarter hotel and went for a run early that Saturday morning, he couldn’t help notice that…nobody noticed. When out in public, he’d just about gotten used to all the sideways looks, whispers just out of earshot, pointed fingers, autograph seekers, and glad-handers after a piece of the candidate. Recognizable as a can of Pepsi, he was product. Packaged, sold, and distributed in the small universe that was South County. But once outside, the celebrity vanished. And he found it strangely liberating.
At a small, corner cafe he stopped for coffee and a perusal of the local newspaper. Parked at an outdoor table built from the wrought iron that made the French Quarter so distinct, he could sweat and swill his coffee without so much as an offhanded stare. Four blocks away, Connie was still in bed sleeping. Just like it had been on weekends some years back. He’d go run. And she’d sleep late into the morning, waking up to fresh croissants he’d bring home from the bakery. Good idea, thought Mitch. He paid for his coffee and muffin and ordered a couple of croissants to go. Chocolate and almond. Connie would be pleased.
What he didn’t know was that the hotel phone would be waking Connie before he’d even thought to stop for breakfast. “Hello?” she answered.
A man’s voice responded over a crackling connection. Deep and hollow. “May I speak to Mr. Dutton?”
“Not here,” she answered, eyes barely open. “Can I ask who’s calling?”
“This is Shoop’s daddy, Les De Jarnot. I wanted to see if Mr. Dutton had the correct address for the afternoon service.”
“Oh, I’m sure he does,” she said, resigning herself to crawling from bed to fish through his briefcase for his Day Runner. “Just hang on a moment.”
She placed the phone down, and drawing the sheet around her instead of closing the curtains, dove into Mitch’s briefcase. Instantly she realized this was something she never did—look through Mitchell’s personal belongings or papers. She never had to. Now she was glancing at every note and paper, reading but not retaining. Just rummaging for that New Orleans address and praying she wouldn’t discover something that might lead her down some dark path.
The address was neatly paper-clipped to the back of his calendar. Connie crawled back across the bed. “I think this is it. Twenty-two North Rampart? How far is that from the French Quarter?”
“In New Orleans, nothing is very far. We will see you there?”
“Well, I hadn’t planned. Shoop was Mitchell’s case. It says two o’clock—I might come along.”
“Okay, then. Thank you.” The man hung up.
When Mitch returned to the hotel, the shower was steamed and Connie was gone. He’d just missed her, finding a note on the bed that was simple and sweet:
You got a date for the funeral.
Gone to find appropriate attire.
Let’s meet for lunch at noon.
Obviously she couldn’t have known he was bringing back breakfast. Fresh croissants, still warm from the bakery. All he could do was to eat them himself, reclining on the hotel room bed with the bag of buttery pastries and channel-surfing for any kind of sports programming. All that was on was a spate of Saturday morning children’s programming mixed with cooking infomercials and assaultive political affairs reporting.
He was reminded that at that very moment, there were campaigns with candidates galore, running the political gauntlet in every nook and cranny of America. Congressional incumbents and challengers, talking from both sides of their mouths, promising, and cajoling the gullible electorate for precious votes. They even had the same damn trash-talking TV commercials. And the messages all bore the same self-serving uniformity. Only the faces were different.
In the course of two hours, Mitch had gone from anonymous to insignificant. Another cog in the political machine, another rat in the race.
At the northern edge of what locals called the Rampart District, the corners of North Rampart and St. Ann were once four Creole-influenced city blocks. They called it Storyville. Now, the native patois was shared with gang bangers selling Baby T and Big Harry. And the smell of spice had faded along with the government paint on the housing projects. Still, this was hallowed ground for what was left of the city Creole. Trespassers beware.
The church was medium-sized and hollow. High arches. Hardly Notre Dame, but the spirit was intact. Mitch and Connie found seating at the rear right of the cluster, two white beacons in a room of Creole black. He counted
seventy-nine mourners in all, including the priest who conducted the ceremony in French. He thanked God that the service was short.
“Mrs. de Jarnot, this is my wife, Connie,” introduced Mitch.
Shoop’s dear mother was best described as round. Every part of her curved and bulbous, including her short hair, curled into circular ringlets. “You mus’ be so proud,” said Mrs. de Jarnot.
“Excuse me?” asked Connie.
“Shoop tol’ me yo husband was runnin’ tah be a congressman.” The old woman’s eyes were warm and reflective.
“Oh, I am proud,” answered Connie, pulling closer to Mitch. “We’re all proud of him.”
“Shoop say Mistuh Dutton deed his bes’ fo him. Ah hope he does good by you, ma’am.”
Connie couldn’t help but notice the gathering of tall young men surrounding her. Each with his mother’s eyes.
“Are these all your sons?”
“Ah am lucky, say? God geev me many boys. I have five boys left ta luv me good.”
“May I ask where Mr. de Jarnot is?”
The old woman’s face shifted from warm to curiously cold. Had Connie misspoken? She looked up to one of her boys.
“I’m sorry. But was I mistaken?” She turned to Mitch. “He called our hotel room early this morning to see if we had the address all right.”
Another son spoke up in an educated voice, without a trace of patois. “My father died of a heart attack on the day Shoop was sentenced in Texas.”
She brought a hand to her mouth, chilled instantly to the bone. Horribly embarrassed at the faux pas. But who had called her? She couldn’t have been that wrong.
Mitch’s hackles were up. “Did you get the address, or give it?”
“I got it from your briefcase and read it back.”
A disturbance broke out at the back of the church. They were ushering a white man who hadn’t bothered to appear in mourning attire. Then Mitch heard the voice. Hollice.
“Hey. It’s okay, all right. Don’t push. I’m a friend of a friend.” Mitch glimpsed the video camera in Hollice’s hand just as he was shoved through the double doors.
“Do you know him?” asked Connie.
Dark Horse Page 27