First Family

by David Baldacci

  As he headed to the barn, Gabriel was thinking hard. Thinking about what he’d heard Mr. Sam talk about when he was drunk in the library last night. He’d heard the name Willow or something like that, maybe like the weeping willow, he figured. And he’d heard Mr. Sam say the word “coal,” or at least it sounded like it, which had made Gabriel think of the mine too.

  He wouldn’t ask Mr. Sam directly because he didn’t want him to know that Gabriel had been eavesdropping, even though he’d just come down for another book to read. Mr. Sam sure had been sad about something, Gabriel told himself while he was cleaning out the toolbench in the barn. And the other day he’d watched as Mr. Sam had rolled up his sleeve to help with washing the dishes. There were burn marks on his forearm. Gabriel wondered about that too.

  And he’d heard Daryl and Carlos talk about things in the gunroom at night while they’d been cleaning their rifles. But none of it made much sense. Once they’d been talking about Kurt. When Gabriel had come in the room, they’d shut up real fast and then showed him how to break down and reassemble a pistol in under fifty seconds. And why go up to the mine every day? And why had Carlos and sometimes Daryl stayed up there overnight? Was there something going on up there? Gabriel didn’t think it was about diamonds.

  And more than once he’d gotten out of bed in time to see Mr. Sam head down to the basement with a fat ring of keys. Gabriel had followed him all the way one time, his heart beating so hard he thought for sure Mr. Sam would hear it. He’d watched as the man had opened up a door down a long passageway that smelled foul. His ma had told him once that that was where the Quarrys used to keep their bad slaves. He hadn’t believed her at first and had asked Mr. Sam about it. But Mr. Sam had confirmed his mother’s statement.

  “Your family had slaves, Mr. Sam?” he’d asked him once when they were walking the fields.

  “Most folks’round here did back in the old days. Atlee was a cotton plantation then. Had to have people to work it. A lot of people.”

  “But so why didn’t they just pay’em? Not keep’em as slaves just’cause they could.”

  “I guess it comes down to greed. You don’t pay folks, you make more money. That and thinking one race wasn’t as good as another.”

  Gabriel had stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and said, “Now that’s a damn shame.”

  “Too many people think they can do anything, hurt anybody, and get away with it.”

  But that didn’t explain why Mr. Sam went down into the stink of the basement where they used to keep the bad slaves. Strange things going on at Atlee for sure. But it was Gabriel’s home; he and his ma had no other, so it really wasn’t any of his business. He was just going to keep going on his way. But he was still curious. Real curious. It was just his way.

  CHAPTER 45

  QUARRY STOPPED the pickup truck in front of Fred’s Airstream and tapped the horn. Fred came out, a store-bought cigarette dangling from one hand and a paper bag in the other. He had on an old sweat-stained straw hat, corduroy jacket, faded jeans, and boots withered by sun and rain. His white hair hung to his shoulders and looked shiny and clean.

  Quarry leaned out the window. “You remember to bring some ID with you?”

  Fred climbed in the truck, took out his wallet, really two flaps of leather hooked together with rubber bands, and slipped out an ID card. “White man’s way of keeping tabs on us real Americans.”

  Quarry grinned. “I got news for you, buckaroo. Old Uncle Sam ain’t just watching folks like you. He’s watching all of us. Real Americans like you and the ones just renting space here like me.”

  From the paper bag Fred drew out a bottle of beer.

  “Damn, can’t you wait until we’re done before you suck that down?” said Quarry. “I don’t want to ever see what your sorry liver looks like,” he added.

  “My mother lived to ninety-eight,” Fred replied as he took a long drink and put the bottle back in the bag.

  “Yeah? Well I can pretty much guarantee you won’t. And you’ve got no health insurance. Neither do I. They say the hospital has to treat everybody, but they don’t say when they do. Been over the county hospital mor’n once lying on the waiting room floor with the fever and the chills and the heaves so bad I think I’m gonna die. Two days go by and then some kid in a white coat finally comes out and asks you to stick out your tongue and wants to know where it hurts while you’re lying on the floor with your stomach coming out your ass. By then you’ve pretty much lived through it, but some damn drugs would’ve been nice too.”

  “I never go to hospital.” Fred said this in Indian. And then he started talking fast in his native tongue.

  Quarry interrupted him. “Fred, I don’t have Gabriel here, so when you start going full Muskogean on me, I’m lost, man.”

  Fred repeated it all in English.

  “There you go. When in America, speak the English. Just don’t try to go to the damn hospital without an insurance card. I don’t care what language you’re talking, you’re screwed.”

  The truck bumped along. Fred pointed to a building in the distance. It was the little house that Quarry had built.

  “You do good job on that. I watch you sometimes while you do it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But who did you build it for?”

  “Someone special.”

  “Who?”

  “Me. My vacation home.”

  They drove on.

  Quarry pulled out a bulky envelope from his jacket and passed it across to Fred. When Fred opened it, his hands shook slightly. Stunned, he looked up at Quarry, who was eying him from under bushy eyebrows.

  “One thousand dollars in there.”

  “What is it for?” Fred asked, as he hacked up some phlegm and spit it out the window.

  “For coming back home,” he said, grinning. “And for something else too.”

  “What?”

  “That’s why you needed your ID.”

  “And why do I need my ID? You never said.”

  “You’re gonna be a witness to something. Something important.”

  “This is too much money to be a witness,” Fred said.

  “You don’t want the cash?”

  “I did not say that,” the man replied, the heavy wrinkles on his face deepening as he spoke.

  Quarry playfully jabbed him in the arm with his elbow. “Good.’Cause I ain’t no Indian giver.”

  Thirty minutes later they reached the small town. Fred was still looking down at the envelope packed with twenties. “You didn’t steal this, did you?”

  “Never stole nothing in my life.” He looked at Fred. “Not counting people. Now I stole me some people, you know.” A long moment passed and then Quarry laughed and so did Fred.

  “Cashed in some old bonds my daddy had,” explained Quarry.

  He pulled in front of the local bank, a one-story brick building with a glass front door.

  “Let’s go.”

  Quarry headed to the door and Fred followed.

  “I’ve never been in a bank,” said Fred.

  “How come?”

  “I’ve never had any money.”

  “Me neither. But I still go to the bank.”

  “Why?”

  “Hell, Fred,’cause that’s where all the money is.”

  Quarry snagged a banker he knew and explained what he wanted. He pulled out the document. “Brought my real American friend here to help witness it.”

  The stout, bespectacled banker looked at the scruffy Fred and attempted a smile. “I’m sure that’s fine, Sam.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine too,” said Fred. He patted his jacket where the envelope full of money was, and he and Quarry exchanged a quick grin.

  The banker took them into his office. Another witness was called in along with the bank’s notary public. Quarry signed his will in front of Fred, this other witness, and the notary. Then Fred and the other witness signed. After that, the notary did her official thing. When it was all completed, the banke
r made a copy of the will. Afterward, Quarry folded up the original and put it in his jacket.

  “Make sure you keep it in a safe place,” warned the banker. “Because a copy won’t be good enough for probate. How about a safe-deposit box here?”

  “Don’t you worry about that,” said Quarry. “Anybody tries to break into my house gets their head blown off.”

  “I’m sure,” said the banker a little nervously.

  “I’m sure too,” said Quarry.

  Fred and Quarry stopped at a bar for a drink before heading back.

  “So now it is okay to drink, Sam?” asked Fred, tipping the mug of beer to his mouth.

  Quarry pitched back a few fingers of bourbon. “It’s after noon, right? All I’m telling you, Fred, is to have some reasonable standards.”

  They drove back to Atlee. Quarry dropped Fred off at the Airstream.

  As the old man slowly made his way up the cinderblock steps, he turned back to Quarry who sat in the old truck. “Thank you for the money.”

  “Thank you for witnessing my will.”

  “Do you expect to die soon?”

  Quarry grinned. “If I knew that I’d probably be off in Hawaii or something going for a swim in the ocean and eating me that calamari. Not riding around in a rusted-out truck in nowhere Alabama talking to the likes of you, Fred.”

  “By the way, my name isn’t Fred.”

  “I know that.’Cause that’s the name I gave you. What is it, then? Your real name? I didn’t see your ID that good or how you signed the will.”

  “Eugene.”

  “Is that an Indian name?”

  “No, but it is what my mother named me.”

  “How come?”

  “Because she was white.”

  “And she really lived to ninety-eight?”

  “No. She was dead at fifty. Too much booze. She drank even more than me.”

  “Can I still call you Fred?”

  “Yes. I like it better than Eugene.”

  “Tell me the truth, Fred. How much longer you got to live?”

  “About a year, if I’m lucky.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I. How did you know?”

  “Seen a lot of death in my day. The chest hack you got. And your hands are too cold and your skin under the brown is too pale.”

  “You’re a smart man.”

  “You know we all got to go one day. But now you can enjoy what time you got left a thousand times better than you would’ve a few hours ago.” He pointed a finger at his friend. “And don’t leave nothing for me, Fred. I won’t be needing it.”

  Quarry drove off in a swirl of dust.

  When he got back to Atlee the first plump drops of rain from an approaching front were starting to fall. He walked in and went straight to the kitchen because that’s where he heard her. Ruth Ann was scrubbing some big cook pots clean when Quarry’s boots hit the kitchen floor. She turned and smiled.

  “Gabriel was looking for you.”

  “Told him I was going into town with Fred.”

  “Whatcha go into town for?” Ruth Ann asked as she worked.

  Quarry sat down and took the document out of his jacket and unfolded it. “What I wanted to talk to you about.” He held up the paper. “This here is my last will and testament. I got it signed today. Now it’s all official.”

  Ruth Ann put down the pot she was scrubbing and wiped her hands on a dish towel.

  Her brow creased. “Your will? You ain’t sick, are you?”

  “No, at least not that I know. But only a fool waits until they’re sick to make a will. Come on over here and take a look at it.”

  Ruth Ann took a hesitant step forward and then quickly crossed the room and sat down. She took the paper from him, slipped a pair of drugstore glasses from her shirt pocket, and put them on.

  “I don’t read all that good,” she said, a little embarrassed. “Get Gabriel to do it for me mostly.”

  He stabbed a finger at one part of the paper. “It’s mostly lawyer talk, but right there is all you got to pay attention to, Ruth Ann.”

  She read where he indicated, her lips moving slowly as she read the few words. Then she looked up at him, the paper trembling in her hands.

  “Mr. Sam. This ain’t right.”

  “What’s not right about it?”

  “You leaving all this to me and Gabriel?”

  “That’s right. My property. I can give it to whoever I damn well want to,’scuse my French.”

  “But you got family. You got Mr. Daryl, and Miss Tippi. And your other daughter too.”

  “I trust you to take care of Daryl, if he’s still around. And Tippi. And Suzie, well, I doubt she’d want anything from me seeing as how she hasn’t even called me in over four years. And you and Gabriel are my family too. So I want to provide for you. This is my way of doing that.”

  “You sure’bout this?”

  “Sure I’m sure.”

  She reached across the table and took his hand. “You a good man, Mr. Sam. You probably outlive all of us. But I thank you for all you done for me and Gabriel. And I take care of everybody, Mr. Sam. Everybody real good. Just like you would.”

  “Ruth Ann, you can do anything with the property you want. Including selling it if you need the money.”

  She looked appalled by the suggestion. “I ain’t never gonna sell this place, Mr. Sam. This here’s our home.”

  There was a noise at the doorway and they looked over to see Gabriel standing there.

  “Hey, Gabriel,” said Quarry. “Me and your ma just talking about some things.”

  “What things, Mr. Sam?” Gabriel looked at his mother and noted the tears sliding down her thin, flat cheeks. “Is everything okay?” he said slowly.

  “Come on over here, you,” his mother said, beckoning to him. He ran to her and she hugged him. Quarry patted Gabriel on the head, folded up his will, put it back in his pocket, and left the room.

  He had another letter to write.

  And he had to go see Tippi.

  And then he was going to the mine.

  It was getting close to the end now.

  CHAPTER 46

  FOR THE SECOND TIME in as many days, Sean and Michelle listened to a preacher talk about the dearly departed. It was a rainy, blustery afternoon and black umbrellas were braced against the elements as Pam Dutton was laid to rest in a cemetery five miles from where she’d died. The children were in the front row under the canopy with their father. Tuck’s head was bandaged and the man looked like he had downed a few cocktails and a handful of pills. His sister, the First Lady, sat next to him, her arm protectively around his shoulders. Colleen Dutton was perched in Jane’s lap. John was snuggled against his father. Next to Jane was her husband, who was dressed in black and looking solemnly presidential.

  A wall of “A-team” Secret Service surrounded the burial site. The surrounding streets had been cleared and shut down, with every manhole cover in the roads the motorcade had taken welded shut. The cemetery was closed to everyone other than the bereaved family and invited friends. A regiment of journalists and TV crews waited just outside the gates hoping to catch a glimpse of the president and grieving First Lady when they left the graveyard.

  Michelle nudged Sean and inclined her head to the left. Agent Waters