The large man nodded his head toward a door across the floor of the club, where several women were doing their best to coax tips from the desultory crowd. I’d always avoided places like this, finding them sad and depressing, like a permanent bachelor party refusing to end for fear of the wedding. But I had to admit, these women were impressive. It wasn’t the ones with the large, fake breasts that I liked. It was the taut, athletic women who looked like more sexual versions of pro volleyball players or gymnasts. Like the two dancing together in front of a pair of Asian businessmen in their fifties. It was an aerobics show with sex. This I liked. If only it weren’t out here on Airline Highway in this dark cavern with lonely Japanese businessmen. What in the world were Japanese businessmen doing in New Orleans, anyway?
The door led to a drab hallway lit with bright fluorescents, the sort of hallway you’d see in any cheap New Orleans office building: brown carpet, Mardi Gras posters hanging on the wall, a row of plain doors. Somewhere very loud, grating music was blasting. Out of one of these doors stepped two women dressed in shorts. One wore a Loyola T-shirt, the other a New Orleans Saints jersey with cutoff sleeves tied at the waist. They looked like two young women headed for the Galleria Mall, which had been not too far away before it closed after the Crash. I realized that I had been watching them pantomime sex together a few minutes earlier.
“Do you know where Tyler’s office is?” I asked.
“You hear that shit music?” the blonde in the Loyola T-shirt asked. “That’s Tyler’s shit.”
“He always had the worst taste,” I said, hoping they’d stop and talk. It suddenly occurred to me that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a conversation with an attractive woman who wasn’t involved in politics in some way. A stripper seemed like as good a way as any to break a bad habit. And they were both very attractive.
“Yeah?” She smiled, her mouth lifting up to one side, sort of an ironic smile. An ironic stripper. This was getting better. “You been knowing Tyler long?”
“All his life,” I said.
“No shit? You don’t look like one of his friends. You got some tattoos under that suit? Some kind of ring-a-ding metal hanging? Huh?”
I blushed. So help me, I did. The women I talked to in politics, they didn’t talk like this, at least not in the first two minutes of conversation. Not even Ginny. Or Sandra. And they were two tough women.
“He’s shy,” the other said. She had red hair and the developed arms of a gym buff. “Cute.” She reached out and touched my cheek. “Blush, blush,” she said, peering at me with striking green eyes.
“He’s here?” I asked, pointing toward the door, which seemed to vibrate with some of the worst music I’d ever heard.
“You’re not a cop, are you?” the redhead with the strong arms asked me.
“Do you like cops?” I asked. “If you want me to be a cop, I’d be happy to be a cop. You want me to be a fireman, I’ll be a fireman.”
“He likes you,” the other woman said.
“Sure he does. This one likes girls, you bet.”
I shrugged. In my pocket I could feel my iPhone vibrating madly. God knows what was happening while I was in here. Delegates could be changing sides right and left, more bombs going off, Armstrong George announcing he liked to wear a dress around the house to relax. But at the moment I didn’t really care.
“FBI,” the red-haired woman said. “You could be FBI.”
The other girl pulled at her T-shirt. “Let’s go.”
“Why FBI?” I asked. The way she said it and the reaction from the other girl struck me as curiously genuine. She didn’t seem to be kidding.
The redhead raised her eyebrows. They were carefully groomed. “You never know,” she said.
“Does the FBI hang out with Tyler?” I joked, but they knew I wasn’t joking and they had turned away, heading down the hall. The redhead waved behind her back without turning around. I waited until they were gone and then opened the door to Tyler’s office.
—
It was a large, bland office, with only two notable features: a metal gun case the size of a large refrigerator and a tattered Confederate flag hanging behind the metal desk. The one photo was a framed picture of Tyler with army buddies. They were all wearing camo pants and sweaty T-shirts. This was before Tyler had been “blown to hell,” as he put it, in a training accident, and he looked impossibly young and, well, perfect. He waved when I came in but kept yelling into the telephone.
I’d seen him maybe three times since what he called his “accident.” He claimed it didn’t really bother him, that it gave him “character.” But it still made me ache to see him. He was tall and thin and didn’t look like a kid anymore. He’d always had an impossibly pretty, boyish face with an elfish sort of glint in his eyes. Now it was hard to look at him, at least if you had known him the way he had been before. The right side of his face was scarred a bright red that twisted his mouth into a permanent half smile. His right arm hung limply down from his shoulder. I knew when he stood up he would cant to the right, the muscles in his right leg not strong enough to support him equally with his left.
He hung up the phone and sat back, looking at me. Yes, you could still see a little of that sparkle in his eye. He wore a tight, sleeveless white T-shirt and black suspenders, just like the last three or four times I’d seen him. I knew that under the desk there’d be the same heavy black boots with the stacked wooden heels he’d worn since he was sixteen or so. He looked at me for a second, head cocked to the side so that more of his unscarred side showed—I wondered if he realized he did this—and then said to me, yelled at me, really, since the music was so loud, “You know the hottest businesses in this town? Security guards and dancers. You can’t lose money in either no matter how stupid you are. And believe me, some stupid people have tried. Economy’s gone to shit, got unemployment like forty percent, don’t believe those happy-talk numbers, total bullshit, and people can’t hire enough guards or girls.”
I reached over to turn off the CD player. The sudden silence was extraordinary. My ears were ringing. “That’s the worst music I’ve ever heard.”
“You used to like my stuff,” he said, smiling a little more. “That’s my old group, you know.”
“Trust me, I know. And that’s a lie. I always hated it. Maybe I pretended to like it to be nice, but I always hated it. And, hey, it’s great to see you, too.”
The tall, scarred man who was my half brother stood up from behind the desk, holding out his hand. When he had mine in his grip, he pulled me toward him and pounded me on the back. He was very strong.
“We’re Irish, not Italian, what’s with this Godfather crap?” I teased him, pulling back to look at him. I always tried to make myself look directly at him so I wouldn’t be one of those people he had talked about once, the ones who look the other way. He had laughed about that, of course, about how all his life he had been trying to shock people, and now it looked like he might be succeeding.
“What about a stripper who’s also a security guard?” I asked him.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“A stripper who doubles as a security guard, wouldn’t that be a good business?”
“Dancer. Dancer, dancer. Got to get with the lingo. It’s a world of professionals, J.D. You know there is a goddamn dancers’ union? Like the Teamsters or something.” He shook his head. “Unbelievable. So I haven’t seen you in how long? I don’t know. You’ve been in town for days, you don’t get in touch, and then you turn up here in the middle of the goddamn afternoon when you’re supposed to be electing that silly woman president. So you want something. Right? Don’t lie to me, J.D.”
“Tyler.” I laughed. “It is good to see you.”
“You sound surprised. Why shouldn’t it be good to see me? I’m a wonderful, caring, loving individual who values friendship and the love of my brothers above all else!” He held me out at arm’s length. “So tell me what you want. Enough kissy face.”
He collapsed on a sagging couch in the corner. “That’s very goddamn helpful. You know what I like about being in the security and girl business? Everybody knows what they want. It’s real clear. I want to make sure some out-of-work asshole doesn’t break into my business, so I need some security. I’m having a party and don’t want some maniacs crashing it just because I got a band they like playing. That’s easy. That I can do. Or I need some dancers who know how to do what they do, that I can handle. But this existential shit, you want me to tell you what you want, that I don’t do.”
“You’re a good talker,” I told him, and I meant it. “I forgot what a good talker you are.”
“Yeah? Like maybe I got it from our father, huh?” We laughed again, but there was a little edge to it, a little ouch for both of us. “You having any fun?” Tyler suddenly asked me. “This is your big wet dream, right? Elect yourself a president, even if it is some weak sister socialist like Hilda Smith. Christ, J.D., what are you doing? I got strippers who I’d vote for before that woman.”
“Dancers.”
“Damn straight. ‘I think Armstrong George represents the dark side of America,’ ” he mimicked in Smith’s voice. “Give me a break. My girls are armed to the teeth and damn proud of it. Not a one of ’em doesn’t have a gun and would just as soon blow your ass off as not, you mess with ’em.”
“I’ll try to remember that. And you can rest assured that Hilda Smith is a firm believer in Second Amendment rights.”
“ ‘Rest assured.’ ” He mimicked me now. He was good at voices, always was. “Don’t give me that crap! She wants to give a goddamn IQ test before you can buy a gun. Get a note from your mother. And your priest. Christ, a goddamn communist.”
“There aren’t any more communists. And they love guns in Russia, everybody has one.”
“See! She’s worse than the Russians! Christ!” We chuckled. “You’re a famous son of a bitch,” Tyler said. “See you on television all the time.” He paused, then started laughing. “Why in God’s name did you make such a fool of yourself over that television woman? Sandra? She looks meaner than a snake and is old enough to be your mother.”
“Maybe it’s in my genes.”
“That Callahan screw-up-with-women gene thing going, huh?”
I didn’t answer, didn’t want to think about it, really. “What about you? You married or anything?”
He shook his head. “We going to stand around here all day or are you finally going to tell me what brought you out here in the middle of the day? I know. You want me to make a speech at the convention, right?”
I must have flinched for an instant, even though I didn’t realize it. But Tyler was smart and he knew me. Had known me, like I told the dancer outside his office, all his life.
“I get it,” he said. “Jesus, of course. You’re worried that somebody might find out I’m your brother—half brother, okay—and make some stink about it, right? Embarrass you, right?”
“It’s not about embarrassment,” I blurted, but I knew he knew I was lying, at least partially. “This thing is just a death struggle. People are going crazy.”
“Don’t give me that crap,” he sneered. “You guys in politics, you always try to make everything you do so goddamn dramatic. Death struggle, my ass. It’s an election, that’s all. Nobody’s going to die. Oh, Jesus, what a look.”
“You don’t really want that fascist thug Armstrong George to win. I know you don’t.”
“The hell I don’t.” He started to laugh. He had a quick, manic laugh. “I hope Armstrong George does win this thing, I really do.”
“You don’t mean that.”
He barked out a laugh. “Hell I don’t. I can’t stand that woman you work for and that Democrat is such a phony he makes me want to puke. The only reason I would even entertain the idea that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if Hilda won”—he played with the name, raising his voice in a mocking soprano—“is that you work for her and I suppose if she wins you would be a big goddamn deal in the White House, and you could help me get good concert tickets and shit. That’s it.”
“I could do that.” I sat down in the metal chair in front of him.
“Be careful,” he said, nodding at the chair, “I just had sex with one of the girls in that chair and it might be kind of a mess.”
He cracked up when I shot up out of the chair.
“Forget about it. I wish. Worst thing you can do in this business. Screw the help. Not that I care about business that much.” He chuckled.
“You in trouble with the FBI?” I asked.
“Well, that came out of nowhere. Why you asking that?”
I didn’t say anything and then he smiled. “I know. One of the girls said something, right?” He held up his hand. “You don’t have to answer. But yeah, they did come out to talk to me.”
I kept waiting for him to laugh and say he was joking. But he didn’t. He looked at me, enjoying the moment. Finally I had to ask. “Why?”
“Because I’m on some list they keep of Bad Boys and they wanted to make sure I knew they knew.”
“What list?”
“Hell if I know. But it probably comes with my ‘known association with undesirables.’ ”
“Like?”
“Come on, J.D. All the whack-job skinhead white power crazies I’ve hung out with over the years.” He smiled proudly. “Us gun-loving nuts. You know. The kind that Hilda Smith thinks are…radical extremist.”
I didn’t know what to say. But I knew he was right. It made perfect sense that a guy like Tyler would have lit up some warning lights in his day.
“I know what you’re wondering. Did they know I was your brother. Half brother. Isn’t that what you were wondering?”
“Oh, Christ, Tyler.” I hated that I was so obvious.
“The answer is that if they did, they didn’t mention it. Look, J.D., as far as I’m concerned you’re the son of the famous Powell Callahan, who was a crusading goddamn civil rights journalist, devoted family man, a giant among men. You had a good Christian mama, God rest her soul, envy of all the Garden Club. You got a football-hero brother who had a little problem but is coming back. Great goddamn American story.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Great American story.”
“But let me tell you something, brother dear. You got it all wrong. You think I’m the embarrassment. You ever think it might be the other way around? You know what kind of crap I’d get if my pals thought I was related to the guy who was trying to help elect Hilda Smith?” He laughed.
“So I guess we’re good.”
Tyler shrugged. “Your father”—he paused, smiling, seeming to enjoy it, and I wondered if he did—“my father was the perfect idea of a liberal savior. Don’t try and tell me that’s not one of the reasons you became a Republican. You wanted to show the Old Man. And me, I did my own thing too. So really we aren’t that different, J.D.” He smiled again. “I just get laid more and have a lot more fun.”
“Tyler,” I said, “I am absolutely sure that’s true.”
He looked at me like he was going to say something else, then stopped. “You got to get back, I know. You got that ‘I’ve got to get back and do important work’ look. Happens all the time in here. Mostly after some guy sneaks away from the office and has himself a little lap dance and then starts thinking, Shit, what the hell am I doing out here on Airline Highway in the middle of the damn day? They get that same look you got right now.”
“Tyler, look…” I felt like I should apologize.
“Hey,” he grinned, “there’s your girl.” He pointed behind me to a silent television sitting on a Dixie Beer box.
“Jesus,” I mumbled, reaching for the sound. Right away I could tell nothing good was happening. It was at the hospital. Hilda was stepping from a town car in front of a seething scrum of reporters and television cameras. Sandra was there, but how did all these other reporters k
now? Worse, off to the side with a bemused look on his face was Armstrong George, who was just wrapping up a press conference. Right behind him was his son Somerfield, looking impossibly smug.
“I am here to see a friend and supporter who has had a very traumatic experience,” Hilda said, looking startled. She hadn’t been expecting this, that was clear. She was looking around, blinking in the sun, trying to take it in. Her eye landed on Armstrong George, and you could see her mouth tighten, her eyes narrow. This was an ambush. She could blow up, I thought. Oh God, this could be it. I instinctively reached for my iPhone and started dialing Lisa.
“This is not a political visit,” Hilda Smith said carefully. Behind her, Secret Service agents looked miserable. Quentin Smith stood to the side with Lisa Henderson. The press herd, realizing that they had stumbled upon that rarest of events, an unscheduled appearance by a serious presidential candidate, attacked in full fury.
“But Ms. Vice President, you are running for president. Governor George just told the press that this bombing is further proof for the need for his New Bill of Rights and the measures of the Protect the Homeland bill.”
“I am not here to make a political point. Or hold a press conference.”
From behind his desk, Tyler cackled. “ ‘I am not here to make a political point,’ ” he mimicked. “Christ, J.D., how do you work for this woman?”
The camera panned over Armstrong George, who was still looking calm and superior. “Because of that asshole,” I said. “I hate that asshole.”
“Bullshit,” Tyler barked.
“What?” I whirled around.
Tyler was grinning. “You’d work for Armstrong George in a heartbeat if you thought he could win and he asked you to. And if he paid you a bundle.”
“You are so full of shit,” I answered, and turned back to the TV. But I wondered if he was right. But so what? Lawyers work for anybody and manage to turn it into some kind of admirable duty. Why couldn’t I do the same?
“So is it fair to say that this latest incident has not changed your view on the need for new laws to protect Americans?” Paul Hendricks had that Boston above-it-all tone in his voice. I could have strangled him. This was a disaster. Why didn’t Lisa stop it? Jesus God, she was standing right there. Pull the plug, get out, and get her inside the hospital, away from the pack. I’d tipped Sandra so she could get a nice exclusive, put it out there that the VP had gone by the hospital. Now this? What had she done?
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