A bell tinkled as Charlie stepped inside Java Joe’s. Crenshaw sat at a table facing the door, working on his laptop. “Congrats on surviving an assassination attempt and jail,” the reporter said, giving him a once-over. “Looks like something chewed on your face. You sure this is safe?”
Charlie glanced around at the half-full room. He’d given the subject some thought, but he didn’t believe there would be another attack. After all, the varmints had their money and the book was already published. Now they could hire someone to read Flight from Forsyth and tell them Pappy’s murderous land grab was not mentioned. (He could see the Cutchinses all tucked in snugly, listening to Flight being read like a bedtime story, complete with a happily-ever-after ending.) They’d be fools to attack again. Unfortunately, they were fools. He only hoped God’s imperfect protection would hold out, at least until he could afford bodyguards. “Hell if I know. I may die tonight.”
“Hey, your wife called. Said she’s been trying to find out how you’re doing, but you didn’t give her your phone number.”
“How do you think I lasted this long? Uh, that was off the record.”
“That’s OK. It’s common knowledge that most married people want to kill their spouses. By the way,” Crenshaw said with a smirk, “we’re publishing that stuff you wouldn’t let me see last year.”
“Heard y’all had to pay top dollah,” Charlie drawled. “I’m getting coffee to celebrate. I’d offer to buy you a cup, but that would be corrupt.”
Crenshaw gave him a sick grin.
Charlie ordered a double espresso and returned to the table, taking a seat across from the reporter. Crenshaw was on his cellphone. “Hey, Jack, I got him! All shot up, dust on his boots and holy shit … is that a bullet hole in your coat?” He reached out and fingered the shoulder of the duster. “I’ll check.”
Crenshaw asked Charlie, “You talk to any other reporters?” Charlie shook his head. “That’s a negative. Yeah, hold it for me. And you’re welcome.” Crenshaw hung up and slapped his laptop. “They just cleared the top of Sunday’s front page for you. So tell me all about it.”
Charlie laughed. “Not so sure about that, but I’ll give you twenty minutes. Which is twenty more than anyone else is getting. I owe you that for old times’ sake.”
Glancing at his watch as he talked, Charlie coyly answered Crenshaw’s rapid-fire questions. He admitted the arrest had been the result of “a family feud” only after Crenshaw told him he knew Isaac Cutchins was his wife’s grandfather. Charlie wouldn’t speculate on the motives and identities of the people behind the shooting, since it was under investigation. He did mention the lack of cooperation he’d received from the locals and suggested that many of Forsyth County’s most prominent citizens would be unhappy when the newspaper published the excerpt showing how blacks’ land had been stolen. He made no mention of John Riggins or Minerva Doe. Of course, Crenshaw wanted to hear all about the shooting, his jail time, his “false imprisonment” by Finch and Drew, and his “charming little encounter” with the Canton police. (For the record, the GBI would deny that any of its agents had held him in a warehouse.) With less than a minute left of his allotted time, Crenshaw asked, “What about Isaac Cutchins’s land sale last week?”
“I’m not sure it’s his to sell,” Charlie said.
“What do you mean? I didn’t see anything in the book about his land.”
Charlie stood. “Buzzzz. Time’s up. Good day.”
“Damn it, Sherman, this isn’t a game!” Crenshaw said, but Charlie was already up and moving toward the door.
* * *
After a good night’s sleep, Charlie tiptoed into La Patisserie Sunday morning, worried that Amy Weller would be pissed at him for nearly getting her customers killed. It would be terrible if she was, since he still had a crush on her. Instead of being angry, she rushed around the counter to hug him, clucking like a mother hen over his injuries.
“Thank God you survived!” she said. “I was worried about you.”
“I nearly got the place destroyed,” Charlie said, savoring the cinnamon and nutmeg aroma of her clench.
“It was scary,” she said, pulling back, her brown eyes popping wide open. “Why’d they do it?”
“Money.”
“But who paid them?”
“Somebody from Forsyth County.”
She nodded knowingly. “Those people should be ashamed, all of them.” She brightened. “Hey, breakfast is on me. You wouldn’t believe what it’s done for business. You getting shot, that is. It sounds ghoulish, I know. But before, hardly anyone knew we existed. Then all the reporters started hanging out here waiting for you, like you were Godot or something. ‘This is Casanthia Clayton, reporting live from La Patisserie on Castlegate,’” Amy mimicked, holding a mixing spoon like a microphone. “Since then, it’s been packed in here.”
While the place was crowded, it didn’t take many people to fill a bakery with four tables inside. Charlie took his cup of Mocha Java and a raspberry croissant outside and sat at a black wrought-iron table in the shade, reading Crenshaw’s article. By this time, he’d lost track of the media coverage he’d received. Had he really been on the front page six days in a row? Inside the paper’s first section was the book excerpt from Flight, which filled Page A-6. The paper also ran a laudatory review. Plenty of blurb material there.
Despite his time constraint on the interview, Charlie had been a relative chatterbox compared to lawmen, all of whom had refused to comment. While Charlie’s willingness to talk put him at an advantage in the main article, the locals fought back in a sidebar story: “Forsyth County’s resident historian Cecil Montgomery said, ‘No one wants him dead, of course, but we would like him to cover some other poor, unsuspecting county if he’s going to do things that way.’”
“You wish,” Charlie muttered. “And somebody does want me dead, asshole.”
He finished reading and folded up the paper. He had something else to think about: Angela’s request to renegotiate the deal on Flight from Forsyth. Charlie was willing to go back to the original contract. Sure, he’d lose half the royalties, but the old deal had called for an editing fee, so she’d have to cough up some cash, which Charlie desperately needed following his purchase of a bike, a car, and all that stuff for Tawny and her kids. It would be a long time before he saw another check from Fortress. It would take six months at least, even if it was a bestseller.
He also had something up his sleeve. He’d decided that, as part of the deal, Angela would be barred from making a claim against any and all other works. That way, he would keep everything from American Monster, the existence of which would remain … understated during negotiations, of course.
He called Angela. This time, she surprised him by answering. Charlie thanked her for getting Sandra to represent him (though he was still pissed she’d taken so long) and gave her a brief account of his adventure. Then he proposed the deal, reading talking points from his napkin. “You want half the royalties, I’ll give you half the royalties, but only if we go back to the original deal. And that pays me twenty bucks an hour.”
“Twenty bucks an hour?” She sounded stressed.
“I’m willing to cut you some major slack. Let’s round it off to twenty grand.”
“I’m supposed to pay you twenty grand up front?” Angela asked, her voice rising even higher.
“Hell, I worked two thousand hours on it.” He was guessing, but that number sounded about right. “That’s worth forty thousand, less the money I got paid already, and deducting half of the advance, which Kathleen would have been entitled to, that was ten thousand, so that’s fairly close to thirty, but I’ll settle for twenty. For you, a bargain. You’ll get a five hundred percent return, easy.”
“Hmm. I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.”
“You’ve got a bestseller on your hands. One you claimed was unpublishable before I started working on it. In your professional opinion.” He couldn’t resist the dig.
�
��You’ll never let me forget that, will you?”
“Never and a day. It’s sold out all over town and already in a second printing. Plus rights sales …”
“Wait a minute. Why are you so eager to offer the deal?”
“Full disclosure: Because it avoids a lawsuit, you being so litigious. Plus I need money right now.”
“Hmm. That sounds pretty straightforward.”
“One other thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You can’t make any other claims on any other works.”
“Why would that matter?”
“It shouldn’t. I was just thinking about magazine articles and such. Never know where the road leads. Anyway, think about it. But don’t delay,” he said, sounding like a late-night infomercial announcer. On that note, he hung up.
Before he’d finished his coffee, Angela called back to say she’d accept his offer and agreed to write him a check. He assured her it would be the best deal she’d ever make.
* * *
Monday, Charlie called Susan at work. “Charlie. My God, is that you? I’ve been so worried.”
“What, you don’t recognize me? Guess it’s been awhile.”
“You never gave me your number,” Susan said, adopting an injured tone.
“You threatened to have me arrested, remember? Now maybe you understand why I was reluctant to let that happen.”
“And now you’re getting even.”
He ignored her comment. “How are the kids? I want to see them.”
And she ignored what he’d just said. “An Atlanta police detective called and asked about the bombing and shooting,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it was your van that got blown up by drug dealers.”
“Drug dealers? Did he say that?”
“Well, no.”
“Where’d you hear that, then? Never mind. I know where. The evildoers.”
“You told him my family is involved. Uncle Stanley is really upset. That detective made it sound like I was a suspect! Charlie, I’d never do anything to harm you. I mean, I … I—”
“Yeah, right. Are you telling me you don’t have any idea what’s going on?”
“I know you’ve been running around with meth dealers, that’s all.”
Charlie was incredulous. “Cut it out. You don’t actually believe that.”
After an awkward silence, she said, “I saw where your book is the number-one bestseller.”
“Pretty good for an abject failure, eh?”
“Now you can pay me the eight thousand dollars child support you owe me.”
“D’oh.” He hung up.
* * *
Under a gray sky that threatened rain, reporters crowded the sidewalk and spilled into the street in front of La Patisserie, waiting for the start of Charlie’s Tuesday afternoon news conference. Some leaned against TV trucks; a few lounged on parked cars, holding digital recorders above their heads. Charlie saw Detective Sanders (who had been staying in touch with him, to no effect) in middle of the crowd. To the far right stood some suspicious-looking straight-laced characters who probably had Finch’s and Drew’s numbers on speed dial. In the rear, Crenshaw lurked, wearing a rumpled trench coat.
Charlie stood in front of the bakery’s newly painted display window to address the assembled media. In exchange for the exposure, Amy Weller donated coffee and muffins for the event and furnished a wooden podium she’d borrowed from a cousin who belonged to Toastmasters. Having doffed her Braves cap and slipped on a blue blazer to go with her jeans, Amy handed out her favorite writer’s news releases and background sheets.
“This is better than facing a gunman,” Charlie joked as he began. “But I’m not sure by how much.”
He spoke for ten minutes, first talking about Thurwood Talton, then mentioning his own role in publishing the book. He gave a chronology of events in Forsyth County and referred journalists to the background sheet he’d worked up. However, reporters weren’t there for a history lesson, so he talked about the shooting. Then, to the delight of TV crews, he reenacted it. He was properly remorseful over the fact that two men had died, but grateful no one else had perished.
Characterizing his arrest and subsequent ordeal as “something out of Kafka,” Charlie confidently declared, “I will be cleared of these ridiculous charges.” He dismissed the warrants with a wave of his hand, like they were gnats. “The people behind my arrest refuse to say what I allegedly stole. You should ask them what I took.”
“What did you take?” several reporters shouted.
“Ask them!” Charlie reiterated loudly.
When he finished his remarks, hands shot up and reporters yelled for his attention. After fending off some easy questions, he called on Channel Six political reporter Arch Bano.
“You think there’s a conspiracy in all this?” Bano asked.
Charlie’s abused face was grim, his tone somber. “There are powerful people in this state who do not want what I write to be published.”
“Isn’t it too late to worry about?”
“They didn’t know the book was out. Or what was in it, for that matter. Again, ask them what they’re worrying about.”
“A follow-up,” Bano said. “Do you support House Resolution Three-Ninety?”
“Sorry,” Charlie said, shaking his head in puzzlement. “I’m not familiar with that legislation.”
“It was introduced by Representative Bannister today. He said it was not in response to your book. Just a coincidence, one he intends to take full advantage of. Have you talked with him?”
“No,” Charlie said. He only knew State Rep. Tyrus Bannister by reputation. An old ally of Redeemer’s, Bannister was a civil rights veteran with a reputation (among whites, at least) as a shakedown artist, with a history of organizing protests against corporate and government misbehavior and proclaiming the miscreants cured after money changed hands. Charlie knew that Bannister was currently leading a boycott of Pancake Hut.
“It’s a resolution calling for the state to pay reparations to African-Americans for slavery.”
A black radio reporter corrected him: “To explore the concept of reparations for slavery and discrimination in the years since emancipation.”
Interesting. Although Charlie doubted it would pass, this might help him sell books. He decided to endorse the idea of exploring the concept. It seemed like the least he could do. “Certainly,” he said. “So much wrong has been done, especially in places like Forsyth County. I believe we need to look into these issues. When I edited Dr. Talton’s book, I found many things that needed repairing.” Not to mention the book itself.
Suddenly, he had a queasy feeling. No, he told himself. It won’t go that far.
“So, would you be willing to testify in favor of the resolution?”
Shit. It was going that far. Charlie blanched, but he recovered quickly. “Uh, yeah. Of course. If I’m not being shot at or arrested at the time.” The crowd’s laughter gave him a good note to end on, so Charlie closed the news conference, amazed that the Christmas Eve bombing hadn’t been mentioned. But if the cops weren’t leaking his identity as the victim, he sure as hell wasn’t going to, either.
Afterward, Crenshaw and a few other reporters hung around with follow-ups. Charlie let his guard down, connecting the Cutchins farm sale to the Outer Perimeter Highway project, Department of Transportation, and governor’s office, then drawing a line back to State Rep. Cutchins, of course. He hinted at a nefarious conspiracy without going into detail or mentioning the murder/lynching of John Riggins. Let them sniff it out on their own and report the facts, thereby paving the way for American Monster to become his next blockbuster.
* * *
Charlie thought he’d made it clear that his after-event musings were off the record. Instead, his attacks on high-ranking officials received prominent play on the evening news. Before he even had time to worry about their reactions, he received a phone call.
“Charles Sherman, Tyrus Bannister here,” boomed
a hearty voice.
“Representative Bannister. How are you tonight?”
“Wonderful! This is great, what you’ve done, resurrecting Professor Talton’s work! I met him back in eighty-seven, you know, during the first march. Fine man. A pity his work was lost in the wilderness for so long. I commend you for seeing it through.”
Charlie knew Bannister hadn’t been at the first march, but he’d been right in the middle of the front row in the second one, posing for the cameras. “Thank you.”
“Anyway,” Bannister continued, “I saw the article about land records. Names, dates—the stuff we needed back in 1987, after Redeemer’s march. But it’s never too late—”
“For reparations.” Ka-ching!
“Heh-heh. Straight to the point. I like that. You’ve heard of HR Three-Ninety, my resolution on this issue. We tried before. No luck. Now, thanks to you, we have records to back up our claims.”
The fake records. Charlie recalled those 4:00 a.m. sessions and the artificially aged papers in his safety deposit box. But if the burglars knew genuine copies existed, how would they know he hadn’t made spares? All part of a grand and cosmic plan, right? Then again, maybe not. He gulped. This was treacherous territory.
“You and I have a synergy, a symbiosis,” Bannister continued. “When this resolution comes up for a hearing, the victims of injustice need you to speak, since you’re the documenter of the misdeeds we seek to rectify.” Not hearing an objection, Bannister forged ahead. “This goes beyond Forsyth County, of course. But Forsyth is the epicenter, the epitome, the … worst-case scenario, if you will, of so many of the evils that have befallen us on our road to equality. So, may I count on your testimony at the hearings? It would give you an excellent opportunity to promote your book, of course.”
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