Jackpot Blood: A Nick Herald Genealogical Mystery

by Jimmy Fox

And Baton Rouge on the Mississippi was the mother wolf suckling more conspiracy, hypocrisy, and delusions of grandeur than even the great city on the Tiber at the height of its doomed glory. The State Capitol stood tall in a long and dishonorable Louisiana tradition as a world-class temple of boondoggling, logrolling, and grandstanding, where cunning glad-handers, anointed with the oil of inside information, became high priests of nepotism, casuistry, and fraud, daily sacrificing their blindfolded constituents on a tax-fueled pyre belching carcinogenic petrochemical incense.

  He wanted to jump up and shout, drowning out the intense, discreet conversations at every table, “Stuff those pockets, boys. Let the grand juries sort it out later!” But he was here to make a deal, too. Today, he was playing the game. But not strictly for money. He had more at stake. A lot more.

  Wooty’s Mexican backers had a long memory and a vindictive temper, but they had tentatively gone along with his plan to salvage their extremely lucrative operations in the area. Lately, they’d shown increasing respect for his intelligence, local knowledge, and initiative; they’d eased up on the vague threats over his stupid mistake. Her stupid mistake. Usually with something like that, they held it over you like a guillotine blade, or just got rid of you in pieces too small to fill a McDonald’s bag. He was, in fact, enjoying the kind of responsibility he never got from his father, who, in Wooty’s opinion, still treated him like a kid. He was sick to death of subservience.

  A dangerous responsibility, he’d taken on. But he had a chance now to show everyone, enemies and friends alike, what he was made of; to prove that Wooten Tadbull IV wasn’t a pampered playboy from the sticks, a worthless scion of a desiccated genetic tree.

  Senator Augustus Bayles had long since finished his shrimp-stuffed artichoke—which had been almost as big as his head—and his heaping platter of chicken fricassee and rice. The senator had a teenager’s appetite; and he was a stealthy eater. Wooty hadn’t noticed him taking a bite. Bayles even looked like a brainy, fifteen-year-old black kid—in actuality, he was thirty-five. Close-cropped hair. All bones and joints. His off-the-rack black pinstriped suit and starched white shirt engulfed him like an older brother’s hand-me-downs. Wooty concluded from the rising politician’s eating habits that Augustus Bayles was indeed devious, insatiable, and merciless, as people said; and from his clothes, that the immediate perks of malfeasance meant less to him than the delayed attainment of ever greater power.

  Augustus Bayles stared at Wooty. A humorless, unreadable, almost unblinking gaze. As if he expects me to steal something of his, Wooty was thinking. Paranoia must be reasonable defensive behavior around here. This guy doesn’t trust anyone. And why should he? Wooty took in a quick panorama of the room filled with the snakes and alligators who ran the Bayou State behind the scenes.

  How could a guy eat under such scrutiny? Everybody was slyly watching everybody else. He put down his spoon and wiped his mouth on the sky blue linen napkin, then drank some of his iced tea.

  This was the Blue House. Just about everything in the damn place was some shade of blue. Royal blue paisley wallpaper, teal-blue patterned carpeting, navy blue uniforms for the stolid black waiters, who served the lobbyists and legislators without registering the slightest hint of apparent interest in the overheard conversations. Conversations that determined what legislation passed, and who got paid for it.

  “Well, I guess we better get to the matter at hand, Senator Bayles—”

  “No names, if you don’t mind.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Probably thinks I’m wired. “Look, my associates believe you can help us out. Seems they’ve dealt with you before.”

  Wooty waited for a confirming response. But Bayles merely stared at him with those unblinking eyes. Man, this guy is good! He’ll be governor, one day.

  Wooty continued: “We understand there’s talk of the legislature moving to ban gambling—with some exceptions that don’t include us.” State Representative Rufus Girn’s plan, he knew only too well. Fortunately, he didn’t have to worry about Rufus showing up at the Blue House today: he and Mr. Tadbull were in the coastal marsh of south Louisiana getting drunk and fondling loose women at an oil company’s posh duck-hunting camp. “My associates have a substantial investment in video poker. They’re interested in protecting their investment. I’m authorized to offer you the take from ten machines, anywhere in the state, if you work against the anti-gambling forces.”

  The Mexican cartel Wooty worked for had begun to diversify. One of the most successful new enterprises was video poker, very profitable in its own right—a good location could produce a couple of thousand dollars gross per machine a month—and even more valuable as a vehicle for money laundering. Since Louisiana had legalized “gaming,” organized crime had declared open season on the state, as in past outbreaks of corruption, the first Louisiana lottery of the late nineteenth century being the outstanding example. The cartel had formed an uneasy alliance with the New Orleans Mob, which had its long tentacles into other coin-generating enterprises such as pinball arcades, vending machines, and magazine wholesaling. Wooty himself, as titular head of one front company, had been granted the take from five poorly placed machines, that even after the store owner’s percentage gave him a nice supplement of thirty or forty thousand a year.

  “That won’t do,” Bayles said, without hesitation. He leaned forward, his long fingers almost touching Wooty’s hands, an uncomfortable proximity.

  Wooty didn’t want to insult the man by drawing back, so he kept his hands where they were. Maybe it was a test of some sort, or a subtle negotiating tactic to distract him. It worked.

  “Why did you and your associates choose one of the few African American legislators as your potential ally? I’ll tell you,” Bayles continued, not waiting for an answer. “I’m the cheap Negro. Naive, hungry, cap-in-hand grateful for the chance to rise above marginality and sit at the kitchen table in the big house with the white folk. You’ll have to do better. Much better. I don’t work for minimum wage anymore. A hundred machines, and we can begin serious discussion.”

  “A hundred!” Wooty exclaimed. Forty percent of a gross of 2.4 million would be . . . about a million net yearly!

  “Please keep your voice down,” Bayles said calmly, his eyes moving smoothly right to left and then back to center. “There are certain rules here. I am taking a chance by even talking to you. You see, I know your associates, as you call them. They are dangerous men bringing drugs into this state, rending the social fabric with all manner of associated evils, primarily affecting my African American constituents. The risk premium is necessarily very high for such arrangements.”

  Wooty started to deny it, but he saw certainty in Bayles’s eyes.

  “You run Mexican marijuana through the pipeline of your daddy’s property,” Bayles went on, as if he were discussing a third person. “You aren’t a big fish, but you seem smart beyond your station. And you don’t deal in the deadly stuff—crack, crank, heroin. My sources say you’re not a user—at this time. You’re just a medium link in the food chain. The video poker machines are important to your friends because they make a huge profit, and because they allow even larger quantities of dirty, untraceable money to enter the system. Money my people, African Americans, sweat blood to make in order to pay you for your destructive product.”

  A waiter took Wooty’s plate away, and a moment later, Bayles, not even consulting his dining companion, imperceptibly rejected the dessert cart. Soon coffee appeared. Bayles carefully prepared his cup.

  Wooty watched the graceful fingers, fascinated by the ritual. He knew a little of the senator’s background, and tried to imagine the impoverished upbringing that had led to such odd eating habits: wolfing food, denying extravagant indulgence, and savoring to the point of idolatry a small delight like a good cup of coffee. Somewhere along the line Bayles had also acquired his irritating pretentiousness of speech. Wooty could tell he was very proud of his education, and with good reason. The young legislator had attended p
restigious Freret Law School, on a well-deserved scholarship, about the time Wooty himself had been partying his way through business school, a beneficiary of good old-fashioned plutocratic influence.

  “I guess you got my number,” said Wooty, draining his coffee, pushing back in his chair as if to leave. “Your feelings on the matter are pretty clear. Sorry for taking up your time. Thanks for the gumbo.” It was partly a bluff, to see how the guy handled pressure, but Wooty wouldn’t mind forgetting the whole thing. The senator’s words had taken him down a peg.

  “Thank the good people of Louisiana,” Bayles said, signaling their waiter for a refill of Wooty’s cup. “Please stay. We’ve just begun. Even though you and your partners are enemies of my people, poisoners of society in general, we’ve learned new tactics. We’re interested in strategic alliances that serve our long-term interests. Realpolitik, the Germans of Bismarck’s time used to say, when they had to do something unpleasant. We’ve grown out of quotas and equal opportunity, passive remedies. We don’t come to the kitchen door, we don’t need your handouts anymore. We’ve learned a lot from our history, and from yours. Now we take what we want, just like everyone else.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir here,” Wooty said. “Seems to me we can come to an understanding and leave off all the propaganda. I’m a progressive kind of a guy. I got black friends, white friends, Indian friends.” The last two words were out before he could stop them. But now was no time for guilt or weakness, not with this guy. “So what do you say, can we do a deal? The number you mentioned probably isn’t a problem. Hell, they don’t even know how many machines they got now. The bottom line is, how do we save video poker, and my little piece of the action, from a general gambling prohibition?”

  Bayles took a long, ruminative sip of his coffee. “Our piece of the action. It’s quite simple, really: local option. Each parish votes on the gambling it wants to keep. The constitutional machinery has been in place since 1996, the last time there was a groundswell for gambling prohibition; the language is vague and open-ended, to allow us periodically, when necessity dictates, to make subtle changes here and there. Local option, with its illusion of self-determination, appeals to the voters’ sense of fair play; it is a good alternative to legislative fiat. Louisiana voters hate change, and hate being told what to do even more.”

  “And what they don’t know won’t hurt them, right?” Wooty said.

  Bayles inclined his head slightly in apparent agreement. “In Louisiana, a law is only as good as its loophole. My bill calling for new local-option elections will provide that a two-thirds supermajor-ity of parish voters will be required to kill each form of gambling. The anti-gambling faction—in general, amateurs—can never muster those numbers, or educate the public on the complex issues and ballots. A negatively phrased ballot issue is always hard for the ordinary voter to fathom; many befuddled citizens who vote ‘no,’ thinking they’re helping to eliminate gambling, will actually be voting for its continuance. Breaking down the various types of gaming into numerous separate issues will further confuse the electorate. The intimidating nature of a long ballot full of fine print is enough to drastically reduce turnout. Those that do vote are likely to just skip over the boxes that require a lot of thought.

  “Moreover, state workers, teachers, city and parish leaders, chambers of commerce, all know gambling is a free ride that keeps their paychecks, raises, and profits coming. One winner’s splurge can make a local retailer’s month, whereas a problem gambler probably has been a bad credit risk even before he started losing. Gambling is an invisible, voluntary tax. Ideal. They complain loudly on the six o’clock news about gambling’s deleterious effect on morals, but in the sanctity of the voting booth, a sufficient number will vote their pocketbooks. These people will know which box to press.”

  Wooty admired the senator’s grasp of human nature. He may have studied Bismarck in college history, but outside the classroom he must have apprenticed with the ghosts of Saul Alinsky, Malcolm X, and Huey P. Long. “‘Don’t tax me, tax the man behind that tree,’ right?”

  “Yes, that is our anthem here in the Gret Stet,” Bayles said, a flicker of a smile coming into his melancholy eyes. “Where an outcome is in doubt, we buy the votes, as we do with elective office. We’ll procure school buses, pay voters five or ten dollars, and bus them to the polling places. In the unlikely event of a defeat in a parish, we’ll simply bring it back for another and another vote, until we wear our opponents down and they have to return to their everyday business.”

  “You could always add a rider,” Wooty said. “Dedicate tax money to something socially irresistible. Like boll weevil eradication or a school for the blind.” He winked, knowing that some years back this ploy had secured voters’ approval of slot machines at several Louisiana racetracks that claimed video poker competition was affecting their profits.

  “Ah,” said Augustus Bayles, “you are indeed a keen observer of our political process. My compliments. Democracy, as you clearly realize, is grounded in self-interest. As there was in the big 1996 gambling vote, there will again be widespread relief that all-or-nothing, statewide prohibition is not the only choice. Public debate on local option will have a cathartic effect, satisfying to both the pro and anti forces. They will feel empowered, in control of their destiny. If we wished, we could add dog racing and jai alai to the ballot—about the only kinds of gambling we don’t presently have—and these also would pass.”

  “Is all this . . . well, constitutional?” Wooty asked.

  “It is if we legislate it so and persuade the people to agree,” Bayles replied with regal confidence. “Should some group decide to undertake an expensive challenge in court, so be it. Louisiana judges and editorial writers have mortgages, children in school, and desires beyond their means, like most people. With the right encouragement, such allies will make sure we carry the day.”

  “So, let me get this straight: you’re certain you can get a major local-option election tied to any anti-gambling constitutional amendment that may come out of the legislature? I hear it’s an unpredictable process. You know what they say about watching sausage and laws being made: best for the uninitiated not to witness it.”

  “Yes, your parish will retain video poker. I make it a practice to maintain a large stack of IOUs,” said Bayles. “And the gambling industry will open its coffers even wider than normal. In the recent past, one out of five state campaign dollars has come from that source. Tens of millions will be spent on pro-gambling advertising. With that sort of financial muscle, be assured that video poker is here to stay.”

  Wooty knew that Bayles was a partner in a minority-controlled company that owned several radio and television stations in Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi. The company would rake in piles of cash from the advertising campaign to convince voters to keep gambling legal. What a brilliant set-up, Wooty thought. The guy makes money no matter which way the coin falls!

  “Good deal,” said Wooty. “Speaking of casinos, we’d like a little less competition. I’m talking about Indian gambling?”

  “That’s a tougher problem. Federal law, as now interpreted, allows it as long as the state has analogous forms of gambling. The Katogoula, I understand, are planning a casino in your vicinity.” He paused, seemingly waiting for Wooty to respond.

  Is there anything this guy doesn’t know? “As a matter of fact, my father and Representative . . . um, I mean, some business friends of mine are trying to get the casino management contract, and I’m supposed to be convincing the tribe to bite at our offer. My original associates would just as soon not have all that activity in the area. Would kind of mess up our quiet little pond, the way we do things.”

  “Yes, I’m informed that there isn’t a better corridor between I-10 and I-49 anywhere in the state. Your property is indeed uniquely situated for your associates’ purposes.” Another slow sip of coffee. “A former legislative colleague needs an emergency infusion of cash. Legal expenses. He had the bad taste to
get himself videotaped and indicted. He owns a large tract of land not far from your family’s property—but far enough, I submit, to be less of a drag on the video-poker business and certain other enterprises you may or may not have an interest in. Land eminently suitable for an Indian reservation, in my opinion. I’ll acquire it at a fire-sale price and make the tribe a counteroffer that is even more attractive than the one your casino friends have made.”

  “You got your work cut out for you,” Wooty said. “The tribe’s a real indecisive bunch. Internal politics, you know?” Of course he knows. “One day they’re for a casino, the next day they’re not. You’ll need someone who understands them, where they’re coming from, where they want to go. Not some slick lobbyist.” He pointed with his thumb around the room, indicating the men huddled in conversation at every table. “That just turns them off, big time.”

  “Duplicity comes naturally to you,” the senator said. “From me, that is high praise.” Bayles smiled. An engaging smile that helped Wooty understand why so many people believed in and trusted this man. “Tell your Mexican associates this: I will trade my assistance and my compensation in the form of the hundred video poker machines for you.”

  “For me? What—what do you mean?”

  “Consider our discussion a job interview. You’re hired. Baton Rouge is not my final destination; I need people like you beside me on the difficult road to Washington. You also have a unique rapport with the Katogoula. Therefore, make it clear to your associates: you, or no deal.”

  The frigging nerve of this guy! What if I’m not interested? But he was, and the fact that Bayles had somehow read him like a book fascinated him.

  “From a financial standpoint,” Bayles added, “you will be rewarded. Handsomely and soon. In the near term, you will take on significant duties in my media division. When the casino becomes a reality, you will be a ten percent partner.”

  Perfect. This was turning out better than Wooty could have hoped. He was protecting the turf for the Mexican cartel; maybe relations would improve between them, the threats cease. The Katogoula would have another, perhaps better, opportunity to open a casino. And financially, his bases were covered: his video poker machines, provided he could keep them if he left the active employ of the cartel, were out of danger; if the tribal casino happened on Tadbull land after all, he would inherit the deal and the profits eventually; and if he could pull off what Bayles planned, he’d get ten percent of that casino!