How about that?”
“One question, one answer. Fair enough. I’ll go first.” She did it again. Jumping in. Trying to control things. I let her speak.
“What about the more than half a million those guys took from you? What about my money?”
“That’s two questions,” I said, wiping away the molasses from the edges of my mouth. “Short answer. I didn’t get it.”
“You know that’s not what I’m asking. Did you find out where it was? Did Tony agree to get it all back to you? When are you going to get it?”
“The deal was one question, one answer. My turn. What was going on between
G.G. and Herrington?”
“Damn it, Schex,” Taylor said, pushing away the table and causing the plates to tumble to the floor. “TELL ME ABOUT THE GODDAMN MONEY!”
Beebo, from her perch behind the cash register, merely took another puff of her cigarette.
I pulled Taylor out into the parking lot. “Are you planning to cause a scene everywhere? All you need is for cops to show up here and start questioning you about . . . about almost anything. In fact, given the way things are going, give me ten dollars.”
“You are out of your mind!
“No. This is completely rational. We’re going to go somewhere completely private, and I’m going to ask you a bunch of questions. And you’re going to level with me once and for all. But, before we do that, you are going to hire me, for the princely sum of ten dollars, for the exclusive and limited purpose of advising you concerning your rights in and to Camellia Industries.”
“Why the fuck should I do that?”
“Because then whatever you tell me connected with Camellia is protected by the attorney-client privilege. And the last thing you want to have happen is for Rad to call me to the stand with me unable to assert the privilege. So fork over the ten dollars.”
Chapter 66
We sat in Taylor’s BMW on top of the levee, under the I-10 bridge that soared over George & Beebo’s. Taylor had turned the engine on and cranked up the air conditioning. Not even noon and it was already more than a sweltering ninety outside.
The bridge arched above us, its stalactites of support oozing into the syrup of the river. The vast Mississippi swirled in front of us, dark and brown, the color of café au lait. It flowed in thick currents around the concrete bridge pylons, looking as viscous as the molasses around my pain perdu. But, every so often, a speedboat of driftwood caught in the current swept by. Clumps of trees and branches, propelled downriver, crashed into the pylons, smashing to bits. Pieces were sucked under only to surface a hundred or more yards downstream.
“Let’s try again, Taylor. Tell me about you and Herrington and G.G. What was really going on?”
“Permits. It was all about the permits.”
“The permits to keep the Camellia Industries plant open?”
Taylor nodded. “The permits came because G.G. knew Cart. A favor for an old friend. Old friends sometimes feel that they can impose on one another, even after years of not seeing each other.”
She certainly had imposed on me. And she had slept with Cart. I just reiterated
“Old friends?”
“There are all kinds of friendship,” she said finally. “Cart and G.G. had known each other at LSU, before G.G. had to drop out. Cart’s family always had money. G.G. never had any. And yet G.G. always said that Cart would help him in any way he could.
And he did.”
I looked down the batture that ran on the river side of the levee. Today the river was a manacled creature, subdued by the man-made cage that ran hundreds of miles to the north and stretched southward almost to the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi River’s levee withstood Katrina while the canal levees failed. This levee protected New Orleans from being completely washed into the Gulf of Mexico. This levee protected the homes and businesses along hundreds and hundreds of miles. And the river rushed by, oblivious to it all.
Taylor had built a levee around what she knew. And me? A levee around what I felt.
“Helping an old friend I understand, Taylor, but why would Herrington continue to help when all it caused was potential problems for him? I mean, everyone knows that Herrington wants to run for a higher office. Governor, they say. Why risk publicity opposing the environment? Or the black vote? What was in it for him?”
“I thought it was friendship, Schex. Just that. At least at first.”
“At first? What was it at second?”
“I didn’t know. I really didn’t.” She said it so earnestly that I almost believed her.
“I only realized what was going on when G.G. started planning to buy more land,” she said.
Her answer revealed that she was retreating into her usual, evasive ways. “Either you lied to me then or you’re lying to me now, Taylor, so stop it. When you first came to see me, you told me G.G. was taking Camellia Industries’ money to run off with Millie Sue. Now you’re telling me that you knew he was using the money to buy land, but the land was not going to be owned by Camellia Industries. “Does it really matter, Schex?” “How could you know that? “He told me.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“He told me when I confronted him about it.”
“Where was that? When?”
“At the Camellia Industries plant. The night he died.”
Chapter 67
I grilled her. Over and over. Every fact repeated. I watched for the slightest inconsistency in her story or in her demeanor.
She told me how she had watched G.G. change over time, as he became more and more remote.
She went through being called by the bank about the overdrawn checks. No, she didn’t know about the accounts at other financial institutions. She really thought G.G. dealt with only one bank.
Yes, she had told the bank teller that she wished G.G. was dead. She also told her hairdresser, the lady who did her nails, and three of her friends.
I made her tell me five times about how she and G.G. went to the Cotillion Ball last week, that same night G.G. had showed up at my house with the cash-filled suitcase. About how she confronted him at the Cotillion. Of him driving off after the fight and of her having to get a ride home . . . with Carter Herrington.
Only after we had gone through her story again and again, and I was as satisfied as I ever would be that she was being as frank as she was capable of being, did I question her about what happened after Carter Herrington had left her off at her house . . . after the Cotillion . . . on the night G.G. was killed.
“It was real late. I was trying to figure out how to royally screw over G.G., to kick him out of Camellia Industries. I had maybe three-quarters of a bottle of real good wine and I was in the living room, relaxing on the sofa in the dark. Heard his Mercedes drive up. The house lights weren’t on. He must have thought I wasn’t at home, because when I opened the door there he was, key in hand. I confronted him. Where was my money? My half of the bank accounts? My half of the corporation? But he wouldn’t answer. He just jumped in his car and took off. So I grabbed my keys and went after him.”
She told me about following him at high speed down the expressway and out of town, across the bridge, G.G. driving frantically and Taylor equally as reckless. Out into the countryside, onto the narrow roads of St. Bonaventure Parish, and into the Camellia Industries plant gates.
“G.G. had unlocked the gate, and I pulled in after him, before he had a chance to close it on me. I had it out with him, standing in the headlights of the two cars, him standing in front of his Mercedes, me in front of my BMW. Told him I knew all about the money. He swore to me that it would all work out, that he was going to invest it in more land. G.G. was making no sense. Thinking about not paying Tony? That was stupid. Taking up with Millie Sue? That was stupid, too. But taking money that was owed to
Tony, staying around, and buying land? That was beyond stupid.”
“So you threatened to go to Tony?”
“Damn right. And you know what
he tried to do? Tried to convince me that I should wait because he was going to make not just millions, but tens of millions.
Promised me, begged me, threatened me, and promised again. Said he’d give me my half if I wouldn’t go to Tony.”
“Buying land would bring him tens of millions?”
“That’s what he said. The golf course would do it.”
“Come on, Taylor. He took the money to buy land for a golf course? In the middle of St. Bonaventure Parish next to a plant that they’re trying to shut down because it’s supposed to be an environmental hazard?”
“I couldn’t believe it either. A fucking golf course! But he went on and on about how he was going to head off Rad’s group by developing the goddamnedest fanciest golf course and subdivision you’d ever seen. A big levee on one side, big enough to hide the plant, big enough to provide those in the subdivision a view of nothing but man-made hills covered with trees. Big lots and expensive houses that would line the greens. Was going to call that fucking levee a ‘visual berm’! He said ‘Nothing insulates you from an attack of the socialist-fascist-environmental-shit-head groups more than lily-white homeowners protecting their turf.’ Said that he could make money selling the lots around the golf course and requiring golf memberships and maintenance fees from all the homeowners. Told me to hold on, that he couldn’t tell me before what he was going to do because I wouldn’t have let him do it. Well, at least that was right. If he had told me what he was planning, assuming that anything he was telling me at that point was true, I’d have pulled my half of the money out of the bank accounts in an instant.”
Maybe G.G. had lied to her, but maybe he hadn’t. Buying land was what G.G. had come to me for. I did some rough calculations in my head. If the land around the plant was bought, as G.G. had planned, for a low enough amount through the shell corporations, and if the lots were priced and marketed right – country living and a golf course within an easy drive of the city – then there might have been money to be made. G.G. may have really been on to something. No one could claim environmental racism against Camellia Industries if the things nearest the plant were fancy homes for rich white people. Assuming he could pull it off. Assuming people would buy the homes next to the facility. But then there was a golf course and fancy homes within a couple of miles of the nuclear power plant in St. Francisville a half hour north of Baton Rouge. Whatever might become of the crud dumped at Camellia Industries couldn’t be a fraction as bad as what would happen if the nuclear power plant leaked, blew, or was hit by a plane.
“He was crazy, you know Schex, at the end. He didn’t deny a thing about Millie Sue, but he said he and I could still be business partners. G.G. swore that we were good for each other, at least on the business side, and that if I’d just stick with him I’d get my half back and much more. ‘Just don’t tell Tony,’ he begged. G.G. said he had to have a few more days but that he’d take care of Tony in his own way, and that Tony would get paid.”
“And you believed him?”
“Hell no. Told him he could go fuck Millie Sue all he wanted. He could go fuck himself for all I cared. The only thing he couldn’t do was fuck with Tony. Or me. Or my money.”
Chapter 68
Taylor swore she didn’t kill G.G. She admitted that, if she had known about the
$2.8 million difference between the $1.6 mil from the bank and the $4.4 mil in the suitcase, she might have done something to him, but she swore on her mother’s grave that she didn’t know about the additional money. Not then. Not that night.
She swore on her mother and father’s graves that she left G.G. alive at the Camellia Industries plant. That she had told him she’d give him a few days to get the money back, but that if she didn’t have it in her hands by then, she was going to tell Tony everything.
We went over that evening again and again, and each time her story was consistent.
So I went back to the Herrington issue. How was it that Camellia Industries remained open? “What about the permits, Taylor? G.G. couldn’t continue running the plant without permits. He couldn’t build a subdivision without permits. Mere college friendship with Herrington wasn’t going to solve those issues.”
“It’s the money, Schex. When you told me about the extra money, I knew right away what it was for.”
“Then tell me. Was G.G. going to use the money to pay off Herrington, or was he paying off someone else?”
“You don’t understand a thing, do you?”
“That’s why I’m asking.”
“As if when I tell you, then you’d understand? You might then know what I know, but would you understand?”
“No more games. Just tell me. Who was getting the money?”
“G.G.”
“No. You know what I mean. Who was G.G. paying off?”
“You see, I tell you and you hear but you don’t understand. G.G. wasn’t paying off anyone.”
“Dammit, Taylor, don’t you use that tone with me. You told me that G.G. wasn’t paying off anyone, but that the money was a payoff. I listen carefully, and now you’re just going in circles.”
“One more time, Schex. Don’t you get it? G.G. wasn’t giving money to anyone.
He was getting money. He was the one getting paid off.”
Chapter 69
Until that moment, I felt I had gotten a roughly factual story from Taylor. With Taylor, you can never be absolutely sure whether a story is the entire truth or whether it just has enough confirmable facts to seem truthful.
Her statements until this point seemed to make some sense, but her last one threw me. “Someone was paying off G.G.? Taylor, why would you even think that the money was flowing to G.G. rather than G.G. paying off someone else? I mean, how else could he keep Camellia Industries in operation unless G.G. was getting money over, under, or around the table to someone?”
“Why is it you can’t see, Schex, what’s in front of your face? You never could, you know. You see what you want to see, not what’s really there. You hear words but don’t get their meaning.”
Her comments made me think back to what Washington had said last night. What had the old man called it? Hard and soft listening? “I hear exactly what you say, Taylor, but I want you to explain why you’re saying it. What makes you think someone was paying anything to G.G.?
“Because of what I felt after I met Cart.”
“Carter Herrington? What does he have to do with G.G. getting paid off?”
She had done it. She had set me off. I couldn’t help myself. I peppered her with a stream of questions. “Your good buddy ‘Cart’ Herrington? How long had you been sleeping with him? Were you doing it while you were with G.G.? Did he know? Were you sleeping with Herrington while you were married to me and messing around with Catch?”
“You’re missing the point,” she said, and for the first time that morning a slight smile flickered across her face. She had played me, and she knew it.
“Just listen without interrupting me with foolish questions. Look, I’ve known Cart a long time, even before I met you. I first got acquainted with him when I was a freshman in college. We met and . . . well, it really doesn’t matter how we met. Just say that for a while we were very good friends, and we’ve been friends ever since. So, what was I to do? That fucking environmental group was trying to shut down Camellia Industries plant, G.G. was dead, and you had not yet agreed to represent me. You wanted to see the corporate books first, remember? Although I agreed to get them to you, I didn’t know if you’d do anything, or have time to do anything even if you agreed. And look at you. Here it is, three days before the hearing, and you still haven’t done shit. Never got your $50,000 retainer, did you? Lost that to Tony and his buddies, didn’t you. Well, I’ve paid you $10 today. Have you filed any papers with the court? No. Have you done any preparation for the hearing?”
I carefully avoided indicating that I was not planning to do a thing for Camellia Industries in court; all I had told her was that for ten dollars I would advise her
about her rights concerning Camellia. If I mentioned this again, however, I would send her off on a tangent. I simply held up my bandaged hand and said, “Between being a ‘guest’ of Frankie and Ribeye and then going to New Orleans to see Micelli, I’ve been a little busy over the past weekend. But, of course, you’re changing the subject again.”
“No I’m not. You asked how I know about where all the extra $2.8 million, above and beyond what was in the accounts, came from, and I’m telling you.”
“So, tell me.”
“After you said you had to look at the corporate books, and after I said I’d get them to you, I knew I had to hedge my bets. I didn’t know if you’d really agree to help, or if you could help – and it looks like, unless you get your ass in gear and prepare for the upcoming hearing in court, you won’t be of any help – so I tried to get in to see Cart. His Department was a defendant as well. The injunction suit is as much an attack on the DEH permitting process as it is on Camellia Industries operations. I wanted to be sure Cart was going to protect me and Camellia all the way, to put the best of his attorneys on the case. I couldn’t get an appointment to see him. Some bitch receptionist kept giving me shit excuses, but I know he likes to eat at The Gallery Steakhouse. That’s where I went, hoping to find him, and I did.”
“And you did this on the evening I was out at the St. Bonaventure gym? Before I got the boxes from Spider? Before we went to Poirrier’s?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“Why should I? You didn’t ask. Besides, the very next day, in Lolly’s office, I did tell Beau about the meeting. He questioned me for hours, you know.”
“Don’t change the subject again. What about the meeting with Herrington? What happened? And tell me in as much detail as you told Beau.” “If I did that, you still wouldn’t know anything.” “What is that supposed to mean, Taylor?
“Well, let me tell you exactly what I told Beau, and then you tell me if you know anything more than you know now. You won’t, of course, because you don’t really listen.”
Cashed Out Page 20