Paul shakes his head in disbelief. “My vouching for her isn’t enough?”
“Regrettably, no,” says Buckman. “Mr. Russo? If you would?”
Tommy signals some security guys at the periphery of the pavilion. “Take her to the skinning room, for the sake of our ears. You guys can watch on TV if you want.”
“Wait!” I shout. “For God’s sake, give me sixty seconds before you start this. You already tortured Nadine, and that was pointless.”
Buckman is busy relighting his cigar. “On the contrary, Mr. McEwan. We learned that we don’t have to honor the deal we made with you.”
“But you do. Remember the audiotape I played you at the bank? Of you talking about the deal you made with the Chinese? I’ve made copies of that and placed them with friends, much as Jet did, I suspect.”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” says Russo. “We’ll take you to the shed, too.”
The two thugs who took Paul’s pistols move toward me.
“You can’t win this thing, guys,” I tell them, trying to hold my voice steady. “Not like this. But the real question is, why are you even trying to?”
“Because,” says Buckman, “Mr. Holland and Mr. Russo have argued quite convincingly that you, as a journalist, cannot be relied upon to honor your end of the bargain. Sooner or later, you’ll be tempted to publish the story. And we can’t risk that.”
“This is where you’re wrong, Claude. We made one deal and you broke it. The result was the newspaper that hit you guys this morning. Then we made a second deal, and now you’re trying to break that. But I fully intend to honor our deal. Nadine wanted that, too. She never wanted to blow up the paper mill and hurt the town. But you had to torture her. Stupid, man.”
“You’re lying,” Holland says. “You’ve got too much ego to sit on this. It would kill you. This is your ticket back to the big leagues. You’d tell yourself you were breaking it to honor your father.”
I shake my head at the Realtor. “Jet’s right, Beau. You’re not too smart. My father died earlier today, at my brother’s grave. Before he did, I told him about the agreement I’d made with the club. I told him I’d betrayed every principle of our profession, and I thought he’d damn me for it. But you know what? He didn’t. He said I’d probably done more good than I could have in twenty years of writing newspaper stories. Once he told me that, I knew I could live with it.”
Blake Donnelly leans toward Buckman. “Duncan was a good ol’ boy, Claude. I think the kid has a point.”
“Think of the body count if you go this route,” I point out. “You’re gonna kill Nadine. Then me. Then torture Paul’s son to be sure Jet’s not lying. Then you torture Jet and kill her? That’s insane. You’ll have to kill Paul to stop him from killing you all in revenge. You think you can just write all that off like a tax loss? After Buck’s death? And Sally’s? You may control the local cops, but you’re going to have the FBI setting up an office in Bienville after all that. That’s without the fail-safes we’ve set up. That’s crazy-level risk.”
“I don’t know,” says Russo. “If we leave all the bodies at Paul’s place, we can say he found you banging his wife and went crazy. White man on a rampage. Killed his whole family, then set the house on fire and shot himself.”
“There you go!” cries Holland. “I read stories like that once a month.”
Wyatt Cash is shaking his head. He steps closer to Buckman. “This is nuts. Paul and Max were as much a part of this club as any of us.”
“There’s a cleaner solution,” I press on. “Hang everything on Max and Holland. Beau killed Buck Ferris, then fled the country because the photo we printed placed him at the scene. Max killed Sally, then jumped bail and disappeared. End of body count. Nobody else dies. Any legal problems resulting from today’s story, you hang on Max and Holland. Wrap them up in a nice bow and kiss them goodbye. The paper mill still gets built; you guys stay free and rich. Richer every day.”
I hear grunts of approval from the semicircle.
Buckman purses his lips, then visually takes the pulse of the men filling the half-moon of chairs. “Paul? You’ve been surprisingly quiet. What do you have to say?”
Even in stillness, Paul radiates considerable tension. “I told you guys that whoever killed Ferris was going to destroy the club. Well, here we are. And that’s thanks to this asshole.” He jerks his thumb at Holland. “Tommy’s only standing with Beau because he’s got so much money invested with him. Marshall’s got the right idea. Hang it all on Max and Beau, then boogie on down the road. That’s the surgical solution.”
Buckman looks at Tommy. “Mr. Russo? What do you say?”
“He’s right. I’ve got a lot of money tied up with Beau.” Tommy looks at Paul. “Can you make me whole if I lean your way?”
Paul glances at Jet, then back at Tommy. “What kind of money we talking about?”
Russo thinks about it. “Ten million would get me most of the way there.”
“Ten million.”
“Right.”
“Can’t do it, Tommy. Not me alone.”
Russo doesn’t believe him. “You’re about to inherit Max’s fortune, right?”
“I didn’t tell you to invest with Beau.”
Feeling the mood shift against him, Beau Holland barks at the men in the semicircle. “What the hell are we talking about? They’ve got nothing! Tie this slut to a tree and go to work on her. Drag that kid out here. She’ll cough up the truth in thirty seconds.”
Paul looks calmly at Holland. “You’re starting to piss me off.”
Holland draws a derringer from his pocket and points it at Paul’s belly. “How about now?”
Paul looks down at the gun with contempt, then surveys the ring of faces. “You guys act like I just got off a bus. Whatever happened to loyalty? Claude, you’re a tough old bird, but you can’t live forever. Tommy? You’re a wop, and you’re from out of state. They’ll never let you run this club. If Max had lived, he’d have been next in line. Everybody knows it. But Max is dead. I killed him. What’s the saying? ‘The king is dead, long live the king’? Well, I’m not just taking Pop’s seat—I’m taking his place.”
Holland snorts at Paul’s presumption, but I see a couple of men nodding. They’re thinking that Max Matheson left big shoes to fill, but this kid might just be able to do it.
“Who else is going to run it?” Paul asks. He gestures at Beau with disdain. “You guys want to hitch your wagons to this soft-dick, spray-tan cocksucker with his pimp gun? Give me a break.”
Claude Buckman shifts in his teak chair. Even the banker is considering Paul’s argument.
“You got some balls on you, Paulie,” Russo says, looking over at Holland. “You want to make your case, Beau?”
“You’re not listening to this asshole, Tommy?”
“He makes sense.”
Holland’s face goes red beneath his tan. “He’s a bullshit artist, like his old man! Look at him. You think he can run this club? He’s got head wounds from two wars. He’s been a drugged-out wreck for twenty years. He can’t hold on to his own wife, because she’s fucking his best friend. You want to chain yourselves to that?”