Brambleman (61 page)

“Ostentatious name for a mouth-breather.
Well, he says he wants to kill you. Off the record.”

“He’ll have to wait in line.”

“Anyway, much crying, wailing, gnashing of
teeth, and blaming you. You’d think they’d just go off and count
their money. Look, I’m going to cut you some slack and give you a
chance to act properly. So, what’s your on-the-record
reaction?”

Charlie needed a minute. He wasn’t a good
mourner to begin with, and especially not in this case. While the
world would be a better place without Pappy in it, Charlie figured
that if it seemed he was in some way responsible, book sales
could
suffer, and he certainly would be sad about that. He
heaved a sigh. “It’s unfortunate. My condolences go out to his
family. This was a man who caused much pain to others. I hope that,
before his life ended, he was able to find repentance.”

“Rising above it all to slip the knife in,”
Crenshaw said. “Nice.”

“And bye.”

Charlie hummed on the way back to Castlegate.
Sunny sky, God’s in heaven, all’s right with the world. It seemed
like a providential plan was playing out. As he approached the
lofts, he saw a spectacle: Two news trucks had collided in front of
La Patisserie. Amy the baker, all in white, with her baseball cap
on backwards, stood on the sidewalk, snapping photos as two TV
cameramen yelled at each other and reporters—one white male, one
black female—wandered around in circles, wearing dazed expressions
and holding disconnected microphones. The feeding frenzy had begun.
Or perhaps the End Times were near. In either case, the oblivious
reporters didn’t notice Charlie, and he escaped undetected.

A few minutes after he’d parked in the
garage, he watched Charlene Guy’s face fill the screen during a
Channel Six Action News Breaking News Alert
. “Go ahead,
Dave,” she said.

“Charlene, Forsyth deputies are asking why a
man nearly one hundred years old would kill himself, but relatives
say they know the answer. This,” Decker said, holding up
American Monster
. “The latest effort by Charles Sherman,
whose previous book on Forsyth County made waves earlier this
year.”

“It’s still making waves, jerkwad,” Charlie
told the TV.

The shot cut to Evangeline, wearing dark
sunglasses. “It’s that pack of lies what did it,” she declared.

Charlie stared in fascinated horror as
Susan’s kinfolk took turns in front of the camera to trash him. He
plopped on the sofa. When his cell rang, he shouted “No comment”
without picking it up.

Tantie Marie yelled off-camera: “He didn’t
want to go to the nursing—”

“Hush up,” said a voice off-camera that
Charlie recognized as Stanley’s.

Evangeline continued: “That, that—I don’t
know what to call him—”

“Estranged son-in-law,” Charlie
suggested.

“—has libeled and slandered a good man. Daddy
couldn’t live with it.”

The cellphone rang again. Charlie waited for
it to quit, then checked his voicemail. “You have thirty unheard
messages.
Mailbox full
.” Someone was giving out his number
like candy on Halloween.

When Channel Six cut to a replay of Charlie’s
disastrous interview, he turned off the TV and listened to
messages, deleting them as he went. One from Susan, simple and
cold: “It would be best if you didn’t attend the funeral.” That was
a severe understatement, considering the history of violence at
varmint burials. He wondered if Shirley/Arlene—if she wasn’t in
jail for murder at the time—would pay her disrespects as her father
lay in his coffin.
There will be spit
.

Charlie checked Amazon.com.
American
Monster
was No. 5. People were buying
Flight
, too. Sales
had risen into the top 100 for the first time since Charlie’s last
book tour. But he really was sad that the old man had met his end
this way. He would have preferred to see Pappy die in jail.

* * *

At least a dozen people knocked in vain on
Charlie’s door that day. When he left the apartment that afternoon,
he had the good sense to peer around the elevator door before
stepping out into the glass-walled vestibule. He could see into the
bakery and through the garage entrance to the street. The coast was
not
clear. While the wrecked news trucks had been towed
away, a pack of reporters now camped out in La Patisserie. No way
was he doing interviews when he was considered an accomplice to
suicide.

He returned to his apartment and exited the
patio door, rattling down the fire escape’s iron steps. He sprinted
away, running beside the razor wire-topped fence at the property’s
back boundary without looking at that telltale DVD of Tawny
gleaming in the sunlight. After three blocks, he slowed down. It
was too hot to be on the lam. At Barista’s, he got a bottle of
water and an iced café Americano. He sat on the patio under an
umbrella and plotted his next move. Avoiding the media was the only
tactic he could think of.

Charlie thought he saw a reporter walking
toward him and ducked behind the low patio wall, knocking his
cellphone out of his pocket. When he reached down to pick it up, it
spoke to him: “Charles Sherman? Are you there? Answer me!”

He peered over the wall like a soldier
engaged in trench warfare. False alarm on the reporter. Just a
normal person. “Hello?”

“Charles! Where have you been? We’ve been
trying to reach you all day!” It was Randall Blaine, Brubaker’s
head publicist. “I’ve got Spence Greene on the line.”

“I hate three-way calls,” Charlie said.

“Too bad. We’ve got the opportunity to go on
national TV, but we have to act quickly.”

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Ike
Cutchins is dead.”

“Yes!” Greene hissed, making his presence
known. “Opportunity of a lifetime!”

“People think I killed him. I’m laying
low.”

“Why? Do people think you put a bullet in his
head?”

“They think I might as well have,” Charlie
said with a hillbilly twang. “Anyway, I was on
Atlanta Dawn
today. The book is getting plenty of publicity without any need of
putting my scarred face on TV again, especially under hostile
circumstances.”

“Not enough publicity,” the publisher
grunted. “You’re not number one yet. You’ve got to get your mind
right on this, brother.”

“What show do you want me to do?”

“Matthew Steele!”

“No. Not
Steele
.” Charlie sneered. “No
way.”

“Yes. Way,” Greene said. “I heard you didn’t
return the man’s phone call when he reached out to you
himself
. What the
ef
is wrong with you?”

“That must be one of my eight hundred and
ninety-five unheard messages.”

“Five are from me,” the publicist pointed
out.

“I’ve seen that show. Not that I’m proud to
admit it. I’m not going on Steele with the varmints. They’d have
home field advantage!”

“We insist,” said Greene. “Your contract
specifically states that you will actively participate with the
media to promote the book.”

“Does the contract say I have to be a media
whore?”

“In no uncertain terms,” Greene said. “Look,
millions of people watch the show.”

“But none of them
read
,” Charlie
protested. “It’s not my audience!”

“Do it,” Greene growled. “Don’t be hard to
work with.”

“I held a news conference
at my own
expense
. Today, I was on TV and also talked to a reporter. One
I’m not particularly fond of anymore.”

“Charles, most authors—hell, ninety-nine
percent of them—would
kill
for this chance.”

“Don’t you see? People think that’s precisely
what
I
did! Let’s just—”

“You’re going to reach an entirely new
audience,” Blaine said. “People who need to know lynching is wrong,
damn it! It’s like, just say ‘no’ to mob violence.”

“So go there,” Greene said. “Lend dignity to
the program.”

“That’s a virgin in a whorehouse argument,”
Charlie said.

“You, sir, are no virgin.”

“Yeah, but I’m an ascetic.” Charlie gripped
his phone tightly while he considered throwing it across the
street, then relented. “Shit. All right.”

“That’s my bestselling author! Talk to you
later.”

Greene hung up; the publicist stayed on.
“You’ll fly to Chicago Sunday for a Monday taping. Steele’s people
will call you with arrangements. Let me know if you need anything
else.”

“I want Oprah!” Charlie wailed. “She
understands this Forsyth County shit!”

After the phone call, Charlie snuck back to
the loft and watched Matthew Steele’s tried-and-true formula of
bright lights, dim crowd. Steele, a short man with wavy blonde
hair, wore a sharply tailored black suit. On this show, a mother
and daughter—both immense, with teased-out hair—were pregnant by
the same man. It was the standard fare: bleeped expletives, hair
pulling, and security guards dragging contestants back to their
chairs, where they’d rest during the commercial breaks and come out
swinging for the next round. At the end of the show, Steele turned
to the audience and gave a what-can-I-do? shrug. “Well, I guess the
lesson for today is, ‘Don’t foul your own nest.’” Brightening, he
said, “If you thought this was something, wait until you hear what
we’ve got lined up for next week, when a controversial bestselling
author takes on folks from Forsyth County, Georgia, lynching
capital of America! Join us Tuesday for ‘Racist Murderers and the
In-laws Who Rat Them Out!’”

Charlie shook his head in disbelief. The show
had been taped the day before, when Charlie had no intention of
appearing on it. So how could Steele make such an assumption? What
a presumptuous, arrogant, sleazy bastard! The fact that he was
prescient made it even worse.

Following the show, Charlie went downstairs
to check his mail. He was standing in the vestibule reading a
letter from Satalin politely reminding him to vacate the premises
by the end of the month when someone grabbed him from behind. On
the verge of delivering a sharp elbow, he realized his attacker
smelled too good to be a varmint assassin. He turned to face Dana,
her dark eyes merry with mischief. Despite his lingering hurt over
her liaison with the photographer, he was happy to see her. Still,
he had to say something. “You’ve been ignoring me.”

“I’m sorry.” She looked down and pouted.
“I’ve been busy. Don’t be mad at me. I
vill
make it up to
you.”

He regarded her suspiciously. “When?”

She pursed her lips. “Soon. Vot’s that?” she
asked, pointing at a lavender envelope.

“Don’t know. Forwarded by Fortress’s
publicity department. From Aimee Duprelier.”

“
The
Aimee Duprelier?”

He wrinkled his face. “How many could there
be?” He opened it up. “I am invited to … a fundraiser for Redeemer
Wilson.”

“A party! Take me!” she cried out, bubbling
like a schoolgirl.

Charlie gave her a bemused laugh. “Do you
know her?”

“Who doesn’t? She’s very rich. This is a
great opportunity … to get out and have some fun … vith you, you
stick-in-the-mudge.”

“Mud. Just when I’m going back into hiding,”
he said, punching the elevator button.

“Vot for, this time?”

He squinted at her, and gave her a John Wayne
drawl: “They say I killed a man, Missy.”

Dana giggled. “You are constantly
entertaining. And the most dangerous writer I know.” She glanced
over her shoulder while stepping into the elevator, then put a hand
on his chest. He pressed a floor button. She didn’t. Was she going
to—

Her cellphone broke out in balalaika music.
Suddenly she was talking in her native tongue. He raised a brow as
the doors opened on his floor. Dana closed her phone and frowned.
“Business crisis.”

“Temperamental artist?”

“Temperamental customer,” she muttered
darkly. “I vas hoping to spend time vith you.”

Charlie sulked. The doors banged shut on him,
then bounced open. “Don’t be disappointed,” she said, patting his
scarred cheek. “The party’s only two days avay. You take me?”

“You bet.” She kissed him lightly on the lips
and pressed her floor button. He backed out of the elevator and the
doors closed. He vowed to himself that if she said “take me” one
more time, he would.

Crenshaw appeared beside him.

“Whoa,” Charlie said, recoiling and falling
against the wall, then righting himself. “What do you want?”

“The GBI released the results of lab tests
from the Christmas Eve bombing. They say they found a
huge
amount
of goat blood at the scene, along with your
fingerprints. They figure some kind of animal sacrifice was
involved.” Crenshaw paused.

“Go on.”

“Do you understand that sources in a major
law enforcement agency claim that you worship the devil?”

Those assholes Finch and Drew, no doubt.
Charlie laughed. “Sorry, I’m not that religious.” He slipped his
key in the lock. When he opened the door and stepped inside,
Crenshaw tried to follow. Charlie pushed him back.

“Nice place,” Crenshaw said as the door
closed in his face. “So!” he shouted through the door. “Do you have
any comment?”

“Yeah!” Charlie shouted back. “The part about
the goats ain’t true!”

Charlie was furious that his tax dollars
helped fund an agency that would say such things about him. Spence
Greene and Blaine would love it, of course, since any publicity was
good publicity, so far as they were concerned. As for the blood, he
was glad it wasn’t human and fortunate it hadn’t been his. As far
as the devil was concerned, well, the deal was done, whatever it
was. He had the better part of a million dollars in the bank and a
hot date lined up for Saturday night. No use worrying whether there
was hell to pay, he told himself, but he was fighting a nagging
fear that those assholes might be right.