A Garden of Vipers (6 page)

To Lucas it looked like any deserted warehouse near the State Docks: brown brick, busted windows with boards behind, shattered glass on the sidewalk. There was a single door in front, rippled steel painted green, the kind of closure that retracted upward. A loading dock was to the side, strewn with crumbling pallets. He could smell the river in the distance.

Lucas took a seat on a short wall a quarter block away, dropped shoplifted sunglasses over his eyes, and watched as twilight settled in. Friday night would be a good night, Lucas figured. If, that is, the name his five hundred dollars bought wasn't bogus. If he'd been lied to by the guy, he'd go back to that bar and cut the obese bastard's lying throat—what was his name? Leroy Dinkins?—slice Leroy's fat throat open like a—

“Clouds, Lucas. Concentrate on the clouds.”

Lucas heard the words in his head and closed his eyes. He replaced the violent thoughts with pictures of clouds. White and puffy and gentle. Clouds from earth to sky.

“
Float on the clouds, Lucas,”
he heard Dr. Rudolnick intone in a hypnotist's voice, deep and soothing.
“Float like a boat on a calm pond. Breathe away the anger as you float. Out goes a breath, out goes anger…. Let it flow out like water.”

Lucas listened to Dr. Rudolnick for two minutes, breathing deeply and floating on the clouds. When his eyes opened, he felt calm and refreshed.

He resumed watching the warehouse. The street was one-way. Semis drove by with containerized cargo racked on trailers. It was almost twilight before the first car arrived, a Corvette as white as snow. The second, a half hour later, was a black Benz. Forty-five minutes passed before the third car rolled into view, a silvery T-bird, a classic. The green door swallowed them whole and quickly.

I bought the right name,
Lucas thought, slapping his knee in delight.
I invested well.
He stood and ambled to the warehouse. Stars were beginning to poke through a darkening sky. He walked past the door to the corner of the building, leaned against it, and waited.

Twenty minutes later he heard a vehicle enter from a block down, headlights shining across the deserted street. The car stopped and Lucas figured the driver was phoning inside the warehouse. Seconds later he heard a whining electric motor and the sound of the door ratcheting open.

He stepped around the corner and saw the taillights of a gold Lexus disappearing inside the warehouse, the door dropping like a portcullis. Lucas sprinted to the door and rolled inside the building. A dozen vehicles sat in the wide space, several little more than automotive skeletons. The burp of pneumatic tools punctured air smelling of petroleum and cigarettes. A short man, bald, his outsized arms blue with tattoos, jumped from the Lexus, eyes widening when he saw Lucas.

“Who the fuck are you?”

Lucas stood and brushed himself off. “I'm looking for Danny or Darryl Hooley. They around?”

The guy yelled, “Intruder!”

In seconds Lucas was surrounded by three men in grease-stained denim, two holding tools, the third pointing a black pistol at Lucas's midsection. The men muttered among themselves as Lucas stood with his hands held innocently out to his sides.

“Who is he?”

“Guy rolled under the door.”

“Somebody get Danny.”

“He's coming.”

A trim, thirtyish man appeared from the rear of the building, pencil tucked behind one ear, cigarette above the other. Red hair flowed from his head. He wore a blue work shirt tucked into denim jeans. A few steps behind him was a younger and skinnier version of the same man, hippie-long hair ponytailed with a blue bandana. His T-shirt touted one of the Dave Matthews Band tours.

“What do we have here?” the older man asked, raising an eyebrow at Lucas.

“It's a bum,” one of the grease monkeys said. “I think.”

The man with the weapon said, “He said he was looking for the Hooley brothers.”

The older man slipped the cigarette from behind his ear, lipped it, lit it with a chrome Zippo. He blew a smoke stream to the side, his eyes never leaving Lucas.

“What do you want to talk to them about?” he said. “The Hooley brothers?”

Lucas smiled, crossed his arms, returned the man's gaze evenly.

“I want to schedule a presentation,” he said.

Saturday arrived, the day of Dani's Channel 14 bash. The Franklin case had overridden the mental circuitry I use for day-to-day transactions, and I'd neglected to rent a tuxedo. I was out gathering materials to build a storage rack for my kayak when I had the memory-jogging fortune to pass a formal-wear shop by the University of South Alabama. I know tuxedos as well as I know theoretical physics, and had let a young, spike-haired clerk prescribe one for me.

“Nothing old and stuffy,” I instructed, remembering this was a big deal to Dani. “Something classy and contemporary.”

At five, I pulled on the leased tux and headed to Dani's, pulling stoplight stares on the way, a guy in evening wear piloting an eight-year-old pickup painted gray with a roller.

Dani lived at the edge of the Oakleigh Garden District, stately homes from the 1800s. It was a lovely old home and Dani had lined the walk and fronting trees with flowers. A white limo sat at the curb of her modest two-story, the driver leaning back in his seat and reading the
Daily Form
. I parked ahead of the limo, walked the tree-shaded and flower-bordered walkway to her door, knocked, let myself in. Her living room was bright and high-ceilinged, with an iron fireplace at one end and a red leather grouping of couch and chairs at the other. A scarlet carpet bridged the distance. It was cool inside and smelled of the potions women use for bathing.

“Dani?”

She entered from the dining room. Her gown was a rush of red from shoulders to ankles, sleek and satiny and melded to her slender form.

“Helluva dress.” I grinned and slid my palms over her derriere.

“Whoa,” she said, grabbing my hands and stepping away. “Gotta keep the wrinkles out, at least for a while.”

“Of course,” I said. “Sorry.”

She had a chance to take in my rakish evening garb. I expected delight, instead received a frown.

“Where did you get that thing?”

“Tuxedo Junction. By the university.
Très
chic, no?”

“It looks like something Wyatt Earp wore.”

I patted the crushed-velvet lapel. “The kid at the store said it's a western cut. Very popular.”

Dani closed her eyes and shook her head.

“Popular at high school proms, Carson. Not
adult
events.”

I felt my face redden. “I didn't know. Maybe there's enough time to—”

“It's all right,” she said, looking away. “It'll be fine.”

“What's with the limo outside?” I asked, happy to change the subject.

She ran to the window. “Do you think it's for me? Could you check?”

The driver had been instructed to wait until a DeeDee Danbury was leaving, intercept her, and bring her via the white whale, not taking no for an answer.

“They's a cold bottle of champagne in the back, suh,” he added. “Glasses in that box at the side. Cheeses and shrimps in the cooler.”

I fetched Dani. The driver opened the door with a flourish and drove off as smoothly as if on a monorail. I poured champagne and assembled plates of shrimp and cheese. Outside, Mobile slipped past and nearby vehicle occupants wrinkled their foreheads trying to peer through the mirror-black windows of the limo.

“Check it out, Carson,” Dani said, gesturing with her champagne glass. “They look like monkeys.”

 

The Channel 14 event was at the Shrine Temple, a high-ceilinged, marble-floored exemplar of baroque excess. Our driver pulled up front, jumped out to open the door. I think he bowed. We stepped into the path of Jenna Doakes, a weekend news anchor my girlfriend dubbed “Prissy Missy High 'n' Mighty.”

Doakes regarded the departing limo with a raised eyebrow.

“Isn't that a little Hollywood, DeeDee?”

Dani said, “You didn't get one?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The station sent it for me,” Dani explained.

Doakes's grin melted into confusion, then fear. She hustled away on the arm of her escort, shooting over-the-shoulder glances at Dani like she was twelve feet tall and glowing.

The soiree was in the ballroom, entered via a dozen marble steps sweeping to the floor, spotlit top and bottom. The only thing lacking was the monocled guy announcing the arrivals.

We descended to the milling crowd. Soft light fell from above, a sprawling chandelier resembling a wedding cake iced with glass. The edges of the cavernous room were columned every dozen feet, walls of dark velvet. Forty board feet of food waited at the rear, carved roasts of beef, glazed hams, shrimp, crab cakes, cheeses, breads, sweets. A fountain dribbled minted punch. Three ice sculptures rose above the food: two swans and a four-foot-tall Channel 14 logo.

Three bars were at the edges of the room, black-vested barkeeps already pouring fast to manage demand. On the stage, a ten-piece band tuned up.

The round tables were filling fast with employees and clients and guests. I saw a vacant table near the stage. I couldn't figure it out until close enough to see a tabletop placard announcing
RESERVED
. We took a table with staffers from the station. I was the only attendee in a gunslinger tuxedo.

The band kicked in and we launched into the mingle portion of the program, Dani moving like a dervish, barking “Hey-yas” and “How-de-dos” and spinning from one clot of revelers to the next. I finally got to meet the news director she adored, a shambling, fiftyish guy named Laurel Hollings. Hollings had missed a button on his shirt, mumbled when he spoke. He kept checking his phone, maybe hoping some major catastrophe might pull him from the event. I liked Hollings from the git-go, even more when he expressed admiration for my tuxedo, saying he wished he “had the balls to wear something like that.”

Dani talked shop with reporters, discussed industry trends with home-office types, schmoozed station clients—car dealers, Realtors, mobile-home manufacturers, supermarket owners—with either modest propriety or bawdy wit, depending on the client. After a half hour, she called for a minute off her feet.

The closest chairs were at the still-empty
RESERVED
table. I set my beer on the white tablecloth and took a seat, gnawing a roll while she slipped off her shoes and squeezed her toes, cursing the inventor of high heels.

“Excuse me, sir,” said a voice at my back and a finger tap on my shoulder. I swiveled to a pout-mouthed man wearing a bow tie, purple vest, and a name card announcing
EVENT MANAGER
.

I set my roll on the table, picked up my drink. “Yes?”

“I'm sorry, but this table's waiting for someone.” He pointed to the
RESERVED
card. I saw his glance take in crumbs of roll on the tabletop and a damp circle from my drink.

“The lady's resting her feet. If the table's owners arrive, we'll move.”

“I'm sorry,” he said, ice on his vocal cords. “No one can sit here.”

“I hate to disagree with you, sport…” I said, about to point out we were already sitting. Dani heard my voice shift to the one I use for supercilious assholes. Her fingers tapped my wrist.

“Don't be that way, Carson. There's a table across the way. Follow me.”

We moved. Event Manager signaled for the bus staff to change the
RESERVED
tablecloth, like I'd left some kind of stink on the table.

The band stuttered to a halt in the middle of a rhythmically challenged “Smoke on the Water,” launching into “Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here.” Heads swung to the door. A party of three men and three women gathered atop the marble steps as two photographers raced to shoot pictures. Behind this nucleus were several other men and women.

Forefront in the vanguard group was a tall, fortyish man with an older woman on his arm. She was the one person in the group who didn't look direct from a
Vogue
evening-wear issue: white-haired, plank-faced, pale, eyes as dark as coal. A large woman, she wasn't obese, but sturdy, a prize Holstein in a designer toga.

The tall man escorted her to the unoccupied tables as pout-mouth whisked away the
RESERVED
placard. Only after she had sat and nodded did the others take seats.

I chuckled at the spectacle. “Looks like Buckingham Palace let out.”

“It's the Kincannons, Carson. Surely you've heard of them.”

It struck a chord. “There's a big plaque at the police academy that mentions a Kincannon something or other. Maybe a couple huge plaques. A program?”

“A grant, I imagine. The family is big on grants and donations and endowments.”

I studied the tall man: well-constructed, his tuxedo modeled to a wide-shouldered, waist-slender frame. His face was lengthy and rectangular; had he wished to ship the face somewhere for repairs, it would have been neatly contained in a shoe box. Judging by the admiring glances of nearby women, however, it was a face needing neither repair nor revision. He seemed well aware of this fact, not standing as much as striking a series of poses: holding his chin as he talked, crossing his arms and canting his head, arching a dark eyebrow while massaging a colleague's shoulder. He looked like an actor playing a successful businessman.

“Who's the pretty guy working the Stanislavsky method?” I asked. “Seems like I've seen him before.”

A pause. “That's Buck Kincannon, Junior, Carson. Sort of the scion of the family.”

“How are scions employed these days?” I asked. “At least this scion.”

“The man collects cars and art and antiques. Sails yachts. Breeds prize cattle.”

“Good work if you can get it,” I noted.

“He also runs the family's investments. The Kincannons have more money than Croesus. Buck keeps the pile growing.”

The funds would be fine if they grew as fast as the throng gathering to acknowledge the late arrivals, I thought. An overturned beer truck wouldn't have pulled a crowd faster. Several notables hustled over: an appellate judge, two state representatives, half the city council.

“What's the connection to the station?” I asked.

“The family's one of the major investors in Clarity, part of the ownership consortium. Buck Kincannon's my boss, Carson. Way up the ladder, but the guy who makes the big decisions.”

Clarity Broadcasting owned Channel 14 and a few dozen other TV and radio outlets, primarily in the South, but according to newspaper accounts they were pushing hard toward a national presence.

“Who's the older woman?” I asked.

Dani's voice subconsciously dropped to a whisper. “Maylene Kincannon. Queen Maylene, some people call her. But only from a distance. Like another continent. Buck's the oldest of her kids, forty-one. Beside Buck is Racine Kincannon and his wife, Lindy. Racine's thirty-eight or so. The guy closest to Mama is Nelson Kincannon, thirty-four I think.”

“Who are the others with them?”

“Congressman Whitfield to the right, beside him is Bertram Waddley, CEO of the biggest bank in the state, next to Waddley is—”

I held up my hand. “I get the picture.”

I turned from the hangers-on and scanned the brothers: Buck, Racine, Nelson. Though the angular faces weren't feminine, the men seemed almost gorgeous, their eyes liquid and alert, their gestures practiced and fluid.

My eyes fell on the matriarch, lingered. Though her skin was pale and her hair was snow, nothing about her said frail. She looked like she could have wrestled Harry to a draw.

“What happened to Papa Kincannon?” I asked.

“Buck Senior? I haven't heard much about him. He has some form of mental ailment, early-onset Alzheimer's or something similar, a disease of the brain. He's alive, but has been out of the picture for years.”

“He started the fortune?”

“He had a mind for business. An instinct or whatever.”

“You know a lot about the family, Dani.”

She looked away. “I'm a reporter and they're a major investor in my company.”

“Where's Kincannon's wife?”

“He's single. Divorced years ago.”

“Have you ever met him?”

Dani studied her wineglass, drained it. “I met him at a charity event eighteen months back.”

“You talked to him since?”

She passed me her glass. “Could you get me another, please? While I climb back into these shoes.”

Rather than cross the center of the room, where I might remeet someone I'd already forgotten, I moved to the shadowed edges and circled toward the nearest bar. My path took me behind the clan Kincannon. The Buckster was still working the receiving line, his hand squeezed by men, cheeks pecked by women.

Mama Maylene was another matter: It seemed forbidden to touch her, and even the most hand-grabbing, hug-enwrapping, cheek-kissing folks stopped short of Mama, offering a few brief words before quickly slipping past.