Cashed Out

by Michael Rubin

  “Just tell me, without all the asides.”

  “So I found him at The Gallery, with his usual corner table filled with the usual pols. He was working the room when I came in, shaking hands all around. You got to give it to Cart. He never passes up a chance to campaign, even if he’s not officially running for something. Well, the minute he sees me, he’s very polite. Tells me how sorry he was to have heard about G.G., about how I had his sympathies and all that. So, I thanked him and said ‘I want you to continue to do for me what you were doing for

  G.G.’”

  “Hell, it was like I had set his ass on fire. He hustled me out of the restaurant, furious. His face was all red, even his nose – he gets like that, you know, whenever he’s angry or real excited, and it doesn’t matter what causes the excitement, could be anger, or it could be passion, he just gets red all over – anyway, he was really, really angry.”

  I let pass her comment about Herrington getting red ‘all over’ from passion. He was just another entry on the scorecard of her lovers. Let her finish the story and then I could come back to it if I wanted. If I cared.

  “We were out there, on the wide side porch of The Gallery. ‘Demands’ he says to me, real quiet like, so no one could hear him. ‘I’ve had enough of demands,’ he complained. ‘G.G.’s dead. I’m not going to start getting demands from you.’ I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I try to calm him down. So, I simply ask him, nice as can be, ‘Cart, why get angry?’ I told him, ‘I haven’t made any demands. If you were helping G.G. keep permits, help me. Just keep the permits up. Just make sure you’ve got your top lawyer sitting in that courtroom to fight the injunction. That’s all I wanted to talk to you about. To make sure you put your best people on this, because Camellia Industries is all I have.’”

  “And, when I said that, it was like turning off a boiling pot. He cooled down and looked almost relieved. He said he’d do what he could within the bounds of the law – those were his exact words, ‘within the bounds of the law’ – and then went back inside to his lunch, leaving me out there on the porch.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what, Schex? That was the meeting. That’s what I told Beau. Now I’ve told you. And I can see from your face that you still don’t get it, do you.”

  “Oh, I get it all right. You haven’t told me a damned thing. You said you suspected that G.G. was getting paid off by someone. Now you want me to believe that you suspected it was Herrington paying off G.G. because of what happened in the restaurant? Just because Herrington got angry when you asked him to do for you what he was doing for G.G.? Just because Herrington calmed down when you said all you wanted was for him to make sure the Department had a good lawyer in court? Taylor, spare me! That’s the flimsiest of theories on the limpest of facts.”

  “Schex, it makes perfect sense, but I didn’t understand myself what had happened until I thought about it in light of your telling me about the extra money. I hadn’t known about the extra $2.8 million, but when you told me about it, everything fit together. The $2.8 million couldn’t have come from the business. I’d have known about it. No, it had to have come from somewhere else, from someone else. And that someone had to be Cart.”

  She was doing her usual. Working me up again. Taunting me while at the same time darting away from the truth. Like she did when we were married. You’d have thought I would have learned by now to deal with all that, but I felt myself slipping again back into the same pattern of her saying the incredible and my being incredulous.

  “That doesn’t make any sense at all,” I said. I should have left it there, but I followed her down the path she had taken, trying to point out why it was a dead end. “Why would Carter Herrington pay anything to G.G.? It was G.G. who needed Herrington’s DEH permits. Herrington didn’t need anything from G.G. And you wonder why Herrington was angry with you? You know, Taylor, you make it easy for people to be angry with you. Herrington could have been angry that you – what with your name all over the news because of your arrest – that you were asking him for anything in a public place. Don’t you see? He could be polite as long as he was consoling you on the loss of G.G., but the minute you asked him to do anything, it was like a demand. In fact, your life has been one long series of ‘requests’ that are really demands. And when someone doesn’t immediately acquiesce to your ‘request,’ you blow up.”

  That did it. She started screaming at me. “Fuck it! Fuck it all, Schex! My money! I NEED MY MONEY! GO FUCKING GET IT FOR ME!” She unlocked the doors and pointed for me to exit.

  I didn’t budge from the passenger seat. “Now you claim righteous indignation? Righteous anything doesn’t fit you, Taylor.”

  She took a deep breath and gritted her teeth. She adjusted the rear-view mirror. She started the car and drove back down the levee road.

  By the time she pulled into the parking lot of George & Beebo’s, she had regained her composure. “Schex, I don’t care if you don’t believe what I now know to be true, because it doesn’t matter. It’s the perfect truth, don’t you see? Tony doesn’t want the money. Cart can’t ask for it back if he doesn’t know I have it, and once I have it he still can’t ask for it back without running the risk of some TV or newspaper reporter finding out about it . . . from me, if necessary, and he knows I’ll do it if he tries to screw me on this. Cart wants to run for Governor or Senator so badly he can taste it. He can’t afford to cross me. No publicity, no scandal. So, the money is mine.”

  She was waiting for me to respond, but I simply exited the car, leaving the door open, letting the humid heat overpower the BMW’s air conditioning system.

  “What?” she yelled as I walked away. “You’re not going to get my money for me? After all I’ve done for you?”

  After all she had done for me? It was all that she had done to me.

  I came back to the driver’s side of her BMW. She rolled down her window, and I said to her, “When you’re finished with your fantasies and are ready to talk seriously, call me. I’ll give you the full ten dollars’ worth of advice you’ve paid for. But, I’ll give you five dollars’ worth right now. If you’re so concerned about what’s going to happen in court, you better get Carter Herrington’s people there to make sure the plant can reopen.”

  Chapter 70

  I sat at a back table in George & Beebo’s for a couple of hours, working on some fried catfish and my fourth beer, trying to drive away the pain in my aching arm with calories and alcohol, and trying to figure out if anything that Taylor said could have made sense.

  I had written down a series of numbers on the paper napkin. Round numbers would do for now. Didn’t need to calculate down to the penny.

  “$4.4 mil.” The amount of cash in the suitcase G.G. had left me. Tony had kept all of it as a ‘loan repayment” except for the roughly half a million that Frankie and Ribeye now had.

  “$1.6 mil.” The money G.G. had taken from the Camellia Industries bank account. The money Taylor had originally been looking for.

  “$2.8 mil.” The difference between the $4.4 million and the $1.6 million. The money that Taylor said she hadn’t known anything about. Where did the $2.8 million come from?

  And why did G.G. need the $4.4 million? Was it really for a golf course and a subdivision next to Camellia Industries? Or was it so that Camellia Industries could continue to operate? Or was some of the money going for each purpose? Was G.G. getting ready to leave Taylor for Millie Sue? Was G.G. going to build a high levee to hide the factory from the golf course and subdivision?

  Was the $2.8 million really money that Herrington had given to G.G.? Paid to G.G.? Loaned to G.G.? If so, why? If it was a loan, why was it made without security and without getting an interest in the business, like Micelli obtained?

  Something was missing. Or Taylor was wrong. Or Taylor was misleading me again. And why was Micelli spinning out clues as if unraveling them would save me?

  On the other hand, G.G. had said, when he had first come to my office, that th
e neighbors wouldn’t sell the property if they knew he was going to own it. And the entire reason G.G. had hired me was to form shell corporations to buy up the property. And the abstracts of title that Spider had brought for me to examine certainly were real enough.

  So G.G. had planned all along to buy up property. A golf course might make sense in some distorted manner. Who would care or suspect how the mounds on the golf course were built? Who would question whether berms and sculptured fairways hid something ominous buried beneath? And land surrounding a golf course, with vistas of an apparent arcadia, could be sold at a huge premium. A golf course and club house itself might even be run profitably. But if the money was not for a golf course, then for what?

  None of this shed any light on who would have wanted to kill G.G.

  Taylor was the only one with a motive.

  And none of this explained Spider’s death.

  And it didn’t explain why G.G. had brought the suitcase full of bills to me in the first place.

  I was still hungry, and I still had no answers. I went over to the cash register where Beebo sat on her stool, the thick skin of her upper arms falling loosely around her elbows, and ordered a plate of red beans and rice.

  “With or without sausage, Dahlin’? We got some hot sausage in the back. George’ll grill it up for you if you want. Also got boudin, if you want that instead.”

  “Hot sausage. And another beer.”

  “George!” Beebo yelled over her shoulder while pushing a bottle of Abita across the counter to me.

  I went back to the table I had occupied all afternoon, still trying to puzzle it out. Did Taylor really follow G.G. down to the plant that night? Why not wait to talk with him when he came back to the house, at another time? And yet, if it was not true, why did Taylor tell me this?

  If she went to the plant, why would she leave without getting something more than G.G.’s promise?

  On the other hand, if it did happen the way she said, it had its own weird logic. If G.G. thought Taylor was going to go to Tony, he’d have promised her anything.

  And if Taylor didn’t know that G.G. had all that cash, she might have believed she’d have to wait a few days before he could get his hands on any of the funds.

  Maybe Taylor thought she had G.G. in a position where he couldn’t do anything but pull money out of whatever accounts he had stashed it in to pay her off.

  George came over to my table holding a large plate of red beans and rice topped by two huge links of sausage glistening with grease. In one movement he put the plate down and picked up the four empty beer bottles on the table.

  G.G. and Taylor. G.G. and Spider. G.G. and Millie Sue. G.G. and Herrington.

  Herrington and Taylor. Herrington and Trey. Trey and Taylor.

  It was too confusing.

  I drank the rest of the bottle and held it up for Beebo to see. She signaled me to come over to the bar.

  “Got nowheres to go, Dahlin’?”

  She was right. I didn’t have anywhere to go. I had no intention of returning to Taylor’s, and my own house was not safe with Frankie and Ribeye looking for me, leaving me messages on my machine.

  “A beer, Beebo. All I need is another beer.”

  “You’ve been sittin’ on your haunches all afternoon. George, come out here!” George dutifully came out of the kitchen, the door swinging behind him. “This boy’s been sittin’ here so long he don’t even know what day it is.” George automatically nodded in agreement.

  Beebo looked through the opening that separated the grill from the bar, and, spotting something that displeased her, commanded, “George! Go get that sausage back in the icebox. You want to let it go and spoil?”

  Beebo rolled her eyes at all of George’s perceived deficiencies as he slunk back through the swinging door, but she addressed me in a motherly tone. “Whatcha been doin’ with your life? You come in here all scraped up and lathered like a horse that’s been runnin’ too long, and then you sit back in the corner and drink like you can’t get to the bottom of the bottle fast enough. I’ve never seen you drinkin’ like that. Now you’ve gone and forgot what’s happenin’ today?”

  “Too much has happened already, Beebo.”

  “Whatever you say. But I didn’t think I’d see the day that someone who lived downtown would forget about the march. Gonna have big crowds, I think.”

  She called toward the kitchen again, the motherly tone instantly evaporating. “George! You got those paper goods out? Plates? Napkins? And that canned beer iced down good?”

  Beebo spun her girth slowly back around toward me. “That environmentalist march starts at five. Sun don’t set until after eight tonight, and I know it’s hot out there. By the time those crowds walk by here from LSU, they’ll be hungry as all get out and six-pack thirsty. Me and George are gonna be ready. Make some good money tonight.”

  March? I vaguely recalled Rad mentioning a march when I was being patched up by Joleese.

  Beebo yelled over her shoulder. “George! Don’t let them red beans burn.”

  Chapter 71

  My options were limited. I couldn’t stay at George & Beebo’s all night. I couldn’t even go to a cheap motel. The only money I now possessed was the ten dollars I had extracted from Taylor, and I still had that only because Beebo let me run up a tab. I promised her I’d settle up in the next few weeks.

  There would be safety in a crowd. It would occupy another couple of hours, and then afterward I could decide where I might find a place to spend the rest of the evening.

  By the time I finished two more beers and walked outside, the street was packed, with several hundred people stretching out in front of me on the last half mile of the march before they reached the capitol. From down the road that ran back to LSU were thousands more who would have to pass by George & Beebo’s.

  Some were carrying candles, shielding the flames to prevent them from blowing out. Others had cell phones with candle apps. Still others held flashlights. Only a sliver of orange illuminated the western horizon over the Mississippi River as night fell and the legato parade of lights, wielded by young and old alike, wended its way into downtown.

  Students from Southern University, predominantly black. Students from LSU, mostly white. High school students bunched together, jostling each other and talking excitedly. Professors with beards. White haired couples. Middle-aged women walking arm-in-arm. Parents holding small children by the hand, pushing them in strollers, carrying them on their hips, or hoisting them onto their shoulders.

  Hand-lettered signs. Soft drinks in large paper cups. Baby bottles held for tiny mouths to reach. Beer cans clutched, swigged, and discarded on the side of the road. Newspaper photographers kneeling to get interesting shots of the crowd. Television cameramen, toting their equipment, running ahead, setting up a shot, scanning the crowd, and then running forward once again. Policemen, standing next to their motorcycles at the corners, stopping what little traffic there was at this hour, letting the marchers continue without pause.

  It was a cross between a vigil and Mardi Gras, between a political rally and a religious pilgrimage. But, despite the huge throng of marchers, almost no one stood on the sidewalks to watch. The side streets were eerily calm. It was a march of true believers, activists, and hangers-on with no one to view them but the media.

  I caught snatches of conversation as I walked. Talk about the march. Talk by older marchers about grandchildren and restaurants. Talk about state politics. Talk about racism and the environment. Talk that maybe marching alone wasn’t enough, that other, bolder actions might have to be taken.

  I coasted along with the crowd, keeping pace. It took me a moment to realize that one of the marchers was speaking to me. He had been behind me but had jogged up and matched my stride. He was out of uniform, wearing cut-off blue jeans, a Southern University Jaguars baseball cap pulled down low over his forehead, and a “Say No to Environmental Racism” T-shirt. It was Sheriff Isaiah Brown from St. Bonaventure Parish.

 
“Attorney Schexnaydre. Where’ve you been? I’ve dropped by your house at least three times in the last few days and never found you at home. Mighty strange, I’m thinking. Attorney whose home is his office and he isn’t there. Maybe he’s trying to hide something. Maybe he’s trying to hide himself. And why would that be?”

  I didn’t have to answer any of his questions. “Sheriff, I’m happy to see that you have so much extra time on your hands that you can take an evening off to march up here in Baton Rouge.”

  “Oh, you’re good at trying to change the subject.” Brown pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiped his brow. “Great evening for a walk, isn’t it? That sun goes down but the coolness doesn’t come. These crowds’ll get hotter and more worked up.”

  Brown sidled up closer to me, speaking softly so others could not hear. “I do want to see that plant shut down. Got to protect my constituents. So, no, this is not official sheriff’s business. Not tonight. Not yet. But that time will come soon enough. You and me are going to have a heart-to-heart, on the record, about Camellia Industries and all the folks involved, and exactly where you were and what you were doing when G.G. Guidry and Spider Louiviere were murdered. So, why don’t you be home tomorrow around ten o’clock, ‘cause that’s when I’m going to come pay you a visit to look around and ask lots of questions. Officially, of course.”

  Brown took two steps in front of me and started to walk backwards, staring at me as he maneuvered, letting me know he was looking forward to interrogating me. Then he spun around and jogged on ahead like a broken field runner, disappearing into the crowd.

  That was all I needed. Telling me he was coming on official business meant he would be arriving with a search warrant. Things were getting even more complicated.

  Chapter 72