Spinning Dixie (18 page)

That evening, I slept in Indy Four's old room. No, I didn't. I was cold all night, as if Indy's spirit had hopped into bed with me and hogged all the sheets. I got up once and flipped the light on, which displeased Leonidas, who told me to get back to bed and stay away from the Polk women. My actual thoughts were anything but lascivious. I was trying to imagine the life I might have led with my now grown daughter.

A Venn diagram was forming in my head, one circle containing Sallie, and the other Edie, Ricky, and Lily. I couldn't conceive of how to bring them together. I had options here, which ranged from keeping my mouth shut to total disclosure. After more than two decades in the black art of damage control, I had discovered that disclosure was overrated. Despite its benevolent halo, honesty could be a very cruel thing, and was usually met with the wrath of the truth's recipient.

I had wanted to sleep in the mansion since the spring of 1980, but now that I was here, I was a wreck. I heard footsteps outside my door. The Panamanian was assigned Six's old room, which was across the second-floor sitting area, so I thought he might be restless, too. Elijah? What if it was Claudine? Undressed, with only a blanket, like a Bond girl. I am such filth. No, Claudine was presumably asleep in an unknown tower being guarded by sentries. I threw on my khakis and polo shirt and went into the sitting area.

A chandelier above the staircase provided enough light for me to see. The door to the bedroom that Claudine occupied when she was young was open. I could see that the bed was empty, so I turned on a light. The bed was all softness. I pressed down on a pillow and saw my handprint briefly appear and then, like the Cheshire cat, disappear. A portrait was on the wall that I did not recognize. There were more contemporary photographs set in frames around a dresser below it—photos of Sallie in assorted stages of gorgeousness.

As for the painting above the dresser…it was Sallie, too. She appeared to be in her late teens. She was dressed in an old-fashioned frilly outfit. Sallie's eyes were following the line of the unmistakable nose she had inherited from Claudine off to the north of the mansion. I looked over there, too.

Footsteps again. My first instinct was to run, but I decided against it. I was tired of running. Petie Polk appeared at the door in her nightgown.

“Oh, it's not in here,” she said.

“Hello, Petie,” I said softly. “What are you doing up so late?”

“You're the new stable boy, aren't you?”

I nodded.

“You won't find it in here,” she said. “I've already looked here.”

“What's not in here, Petie?”

She whispered to me: “The gold.”

“Oh,” I said. “I wasn't looking for that.”

“Everybody's looking for it, but it's not in the house. Not in the columns, either.”

“Have you seen the treasure, Petie?”

She glanced around conspiratorially, and sat on the edge of Sallie's bed. “Not in a long time,” she said. “Not since you found some of it—those coins, remember—beneath the church? They used to melt it down out in the valley.”

“Who melted it down?” I said, sitting beside her.

“The army men,” she said quietly. “They dug up what they buried, and then melted it down little by little. That way they could get it out without anybody seeing.”

“What were they going to do with it?”

“They were going to make it like it was at the beginning.”

I wanted to ask Petie what “they” were going to bring back, but I sensed she was getting confused, and didn't want to make things worse.

Petie pointed to the portrait of Sallie. “That was painted when she went to her debut in Nashville. Claudine was so proud. You weren't here. No, you were away, unfortunately.”

“Do you remember where I was, Petie?”

Petie took my hand and guided me to an ornate sofa beneath the window.

“I'm not sure. Sometimes a baby can chase a man away. The mother puts all she has into the baby and forgets the man. Claudine fell madly in love with Sallie. I saw you on TV. You couldn't be every-place, I suppose.”

“I take it you don't think I was a very good father.”

“You did such a nice job on the church,” she said. “You were always so good to her. Did I tell you that?”

“Yes, you did. I appreciate that.” A tad late, no?

“Are you going to fix the house some more?”

“I'm going to try, Petie.”

There was creaking in the hallway. More ghosts. No, it was Pepper, Petie's nurse, in her nightgown. Freckles dotted her cleavage beneath her gold cross. “Petie,” she said, “were you looking for the treasure again?”

“It's not in the house,” Petie said.

“Well, honey,” Pepper said, in a sleepy drawl, “we'll go looking for it tomorrow.”

Pepper helped Petie stand. “Sometimes the stable boy is on TV,” Petie told Pepper.

“Yes, I've seen him,” Pepper said.

Pepper nodded, and took Petie back to her room. I returned to Indy Four's canopy bed, lay down fully clothed, and tried to navigate my thoughts of Pepper and the certification of my paternity by a sleepwalking Alzheimer's sufferer roaming antebellum shadows in search of Confederate treasure.

The Panamanian slept with his eyes open. I waved my hand across his face. He did not blink. “Marcus,” I said.

“Yes?” he responded with a blink (but no fear).

“I'm going to see J.T. this afternoon. Claudine said he'll be in his office.”

Marcus sat up. “Are you ready?”

I shrugged.

“All we want now is to rattle him, and see what he does,” Marcus said. “J.T.'s very impressed with who he is, his status. He'll go for a power maneuver.”

“All right, I'll try to provoke him. Another thing: Can you find me an environmental guy? A metallurgist…I don't know, somebody who can test for, uh, metals.”

“What are we looking for?”

“Buried treasure,” I said.

“I didn't know they had pirates in these parts.”

“Did they ever.”

“Do you have a map?”

I tapped my forehead.

“By the way, have you seen the online edition of Southern Methodist's college newspaper?”

“Oh, fudge,” I said sarcastically, “I must have forgotten to do my hourly log-on.”

“Well, your buddy Six Polk has gone missing.”

I called Joe Diamond, senior vice president for news at the Empire Broadcasting Service. EBS News was the last remaining broadcasting network known for breaking journalistic ground. While the others had become embroiled in scandal or watered themselves down into sugary oblivion, EBS News still prided itself on getting substantial scoops, especially interviews with world leaders. They had fouled up once, however, reporting inaccurately that President Truitt had bombed a Middle East nursery school instead of a terrorist camp. Rather than humiliating EBS for basing its report on an unreliable informant (as we normally would), I cauterized their error by accepting an on-air correction and allowing EBS's anchor to have an in-depth one-on-one interview with the president.

My message to Joe was simple: I was calling in my marker, so stand by.

 

The offices of Hilliard Valley Energy were housed in a three-story building in Columbia, which was attached to a series of boxy industrial structures. The main entrance was decorated in urban contemporary. Seated behind the receptionist's command post was a matronly woman with purple reading glasses and blond hair piled atop her head like a skyscraper. I made certain that my American flag lapel pin–camera was pointed straight at her so the Panamanian could fully appreciate her high-rise cranium.

“Good morning, I'm here to see Mr. Hilliard.”

“Hmm. Now, aren't you somebody?” the receptionist asked, her eyes unblinking over her reading glasses, which had been trained on
US Weekly
. According to the magazine's cover, Jessica Simpson and her husband Nick Lachey had not been having sex five times a day in recent weeks. Well, kids, I thought, tragedy strikes all of us.

“Not anymore.”

“Aw, c'mon. You're somebody in Washington.”

“Well, I used to be somebody in Washington. Would you tell Mr. Hilliard that Supreme Court Justice Jonah Leonidas Eastman is here to see him?”

“I sure will,” she said, now convinced I was deranged.

I was well aware that my appearance here was in direct conflict with the Panamanian's stealth imperative; however, we had agreed that there was no other way for me to get the intelligence we needed. It was more important that I not be linked to the Polkapalooza that was about to rain down on the nation in the next forty-eight hours. While I wouldn't deny being in Tennessee, I'd need deniability on the impending deeds.

When J.T. walked out, I said in the manner of a long-lost college buddy, “J. T. Hilliard? If that don't beat all. Is that really you?”

J.T.'s jaw was outthrust in a primate attack gesture. He wasn't quite as big as I had remembered. He was still a pretty good-looking guy—he had a full head of darkening sandy hair—but he was definitely thicker across the middle and, to some extent, across the cheeks. He reminded me of a congressman. A congressman on a golf course. If he still possessed a scar from our battle, it had blended in with his ruddy skin.

“You look different than you did a long time ago,” J.T. said. His voice was as friendly as it had to be, but no friendlier. I may have disliked the man, but he was not inherently hateful. His ease with himself carried a certain charm. We were James Bond and Blofeld exchanging pleasantries before the overchoreographed slaughter, but who was who? I had another vain and competitive thought: Was it preferable to have thinning hair and be wearing the same clothes that you wore in college, or was it better to have thick hair and a spreading ass? I didn't know, and it bothered me.

J.T. did not shake my hand, and I did not reach out for his. He waved me back toward his suite of offices. High-rise Head, the receptionist, couldn't quite figure out what was going on.

“You look a lot like you used to,” I said. “You did pretty well in the hair department.”

“And you're in fine shape. Now, may I ask what you're doing here, what you want—my wife, for instance?”

“Why not? You don't want her.”

“You're married, aren't you?”

“Yes, J.T. Happily.” Be a little
more
defensive, Jonah.

We passed J.T.'s assistant and entered a large corner office overlooking a corporate garden and picnic area. I made no secret of my study of the room. One wall was a tribute to golfing leisure. J.T. golfing with a barely alive Bob Hope. J.T. with a few U.S. senators. J.T. with Warren Buffett. J.T. getting trophies. I felt a pang of jealousy, not because I wanted to golf, but because I envied his being in a position where he could sit atop this empire
and
golf. Even his computer screen featured a golf course.

J.T. had a few small photos on his credenza, but I couldn't quite make out their faces from this distance. Several of them appeared to be feminine, and I assumed them to be of Claudine and Sallie. I'd have the Panamanian zoom in and check. Across from his desk, there was a painting of Rattle & Snap. The rest of the office was generic power furniture that didn't betray much wear and tear. J.T.'s desk was covered with various paperweights and penholders, but only one file folder. Again, an ugly pulse of envy in my veins.

J.T. sat behind his desk and rocked back. I stood. Fine, all the better to film his office. “So why are you back? Are you going to whip off your belt and hit me with it?” J.T. chuckled. His arms were now crossed.

“No, J.T., I don't want to fight. I want to go home.”

“Then why don't you?”

“Because Claudine wants to go home, too, and she can't because you won't let her. She wants her family's house.”

“This isn't yours to negotiate, friend. It's between husband and wife.”

“You can win.”

“What the hell are you talking about, I can win?”

“It is completely within your power, not my own, to make your problems go away. Just give her the property, J.T.”

“I'll tell you, friend, for a presidential spokesman—perhaps I should say
former
—you don't talk too clear, because I don't know what you're saying.”

“What's at Rattle & Snap, J.T., that you need so badly? What makes it so enchanted? Is there a fountain of eternal life in a well somewhere? What is it?”

“You're the one who came back. You tell me.”

This was a fair point, and I couldn't deflect it cleverly.

I held my palms out in a mock-timid gesture of surrender. “Just give her the house, J.T., then I'm out of your life forever.”

“Out of my life? You've been in my life for twenty-five years.”

Finally, a straight answer, even if it was from my bête noire. But I couldn't press J.T. too hard now, castrate him.
“Yes, Jonah, you're the father of the child I've been pretending is mine. You win. I lose.” “Oh, and by the way, Claudine can have Rattle & Snap, and you can live together happily ever after.”

“What do you mean?”

“C'mon, living with that nagging suspicion that I'm some kind of rebound from your Summer of Love.”

Take it slow here. It's business. Be cool. Like Mickey.

I sucked on my upper lip. “Fair enough,” I said. “I'd be the same way. Actually, I'd be worse. Don't forget, J.T., she married you.”

“Thanks for the compliment, Eastman.”

Try it this way: “Did you ever think about how all of this impacts Sallie?”

“You don't seem to have given too much thought to Sallie, coming around here making threats.”

“I always think about how things impact children,” I said instead.

“Are you planning to send some of your gangster buddies down here?” J.T. asked, getting hot, “Because I'll tell you something, boy, there will be more troopers around here than your guinea friends can muster.

Damn it! He ducked it. Lightbulb number one: He's in denial. Lightbulb number two: Claudine never told him. She either told him that Sallie was his, or kept him in limbo, too—doubting himself, doubting her, doubting that the earth was round.

I clasped my hands together and took one step toward J.T., speaking softly, conspiratorially to him. “The more cops you can have around here, the better. That would be some maximum booty.”

I thought I saw his eyelid twitch.

“Excuse me?”

“Just an old expression a friend of mine in the Special Forces used to use.”

“Yeah, what branch?”

“Uh, Navy Seal Penguin Special Strike Force Delta Niner Black-hawk Down Foxtrot Green Berets. I served with him over in Bosnia Hertzkowitz.”

“Lord, you're still a smart-ass.”

“No, it was a secret mission we did. Trained up at Viagra Falls. Some bad memories, but it happens to most guys.”

“You don't make a bit of sense, friend.”

“I apologize. I've been anxious, having trouble sleeping. What do you take for something like that?”

“Look, I don't know what kind of stunt you're hatching, but keep in mind that I have options of my own. You're not the only cowpoke with political juice.”

Fair point. One of the biggest mistakes men make is assuming that they're the only ones with friends.

“So, that's your answer. You keep the house; Claudine moves to a garden apartment. Well, I've clearly proven my skills as a negotiator.”

“This isn't yours to negotiate.”

With that, I left, giving his office one last visual sweep. My first instinct was to hate him for his lack of appreciation of Claudine. But, seeing him, something registered with me that hadn't before: He had spent his life with her; I hadn't. Perhaps he didn't find her quirks to be endearing. In fact, maybe he had good reason for his antipathy, and my medieval fascination was the true sign of the lunatic.