Coconut Cowboy (8 page)

 

Chapter
ELEVEN

LATER THAT EVENING

A
nother small town.

This one had a modest dusting of snow on the ground.

Nassau Street was a long road, but the buildings only went a few blocks. Barely any traffic except up at the Wawa convenience store because it was the only place to buy smokes after eleven.

A few young ­people strolled the sidewalk in orange down vests with cold hands buried deep in pockets, their breath visible under the moonlight. They turned into a warm doorway beneath a sign: T
HE
T
IGER
T
AP
. Its hardwood colonial facade made it look more like a Boston tavern than something you'd find in New Jersey. A lighted marquee next to the road said they allowed karaoke on Wednesdays.

Inside, memorabilia on the walls. A poster of Russell Crowe because
A Beautiful Mind
was filmed in the town. A framed photo of movie legend Jimmy Stewart, class of '32, and another of Brooke Shields, a more recent graduate. Variations on the tiger theme: stuffed animals, safari paintings, fake striped rug. And a felt pennant. P
RINCETON
.

From the stage, an off-­key sound.
“You've lost that loving feeling!
. . .”

The young man concluded his performance amid a smattering of sarcastic applause. He returned to a table where two pitchers of Sam Adams were under way. More down vests hung over the backs of chairs. Jeans, polos, L.L.Bean.

“You might have just mangled that song worse than
Top Gun,
” said one of the gang.

Matt didn't care. He grabbed a pen. The other five around the table had textbooks next to their beers, because Prince­ton didn't sleep. All working on theses. The more narrow the topic the better.

Clockwise from the end chair: “Insurance Algorithm for Self-Driving Cars,” “Study of Sexual Differences in Stegosaurus Fossils,” “Long-Range Entanglement of Electron Spin Ensembles,” “The Use of Asymmetrical Tail-Hedging Strategies to Accumulate Wealth,” and something titled “Sympathy for the Lehman Brothers.”

There are plenty of reasons not to like college kids. Arrogant and entitled, clinging and wormy, the ones who drive nicer cars than their professors. But these guys were cool. Not the classic cool, like big men on campus. The easy-­on-­your-­nerves cool. It was that Goldilocks just-­right mixture of deference, confidence and long hours in the library. Matt in particular was the average of averages. Healthy weight, five-­nine, short black hair, the ultimate everyman face. Matt was just athletic enough to play intramurals, but not more. Just handsome enough to have gone to his prom, but not more. Just likable enough to be likable. The only distinguishing feature was his smile. Not because it would land a toothpaste ad—­just an infectious, happy-­go-­lucky expression that was devoid of guile. He wasn't old enough yet for life to have steam-­rolled over him. But Matt's most endearing trait of all: He was constantly eager to learn from his elders.

Someone finished jotting notes and looked up from his laptop. “Still stuck on your thesis?”

“Not anymore.” Matt smiled and set a plane ticket on the table.

“What?” A laugh. “You're going to take a vacation in Florida instead of writing a paper?”

“Florida
is
my thesis,” said Matt.

“I thought it was the American Dream. Or rather its decline.”

“That's right,” said Matt. “Remember how you all told me it was too broad a topic?”

“It is fairly encompassing.”

“I got the idea watching CNN last night.” Matt turned his tablet's screen to face the others.

“Is that an elephant in the ocean?”

“And notice how all the ­people on that busy beach are strolling along like nothing's out of place,” said Matt. “Some woman rented the animal for her kid's birthday party. The elephant needed cool-­down breaks in the water.”

“What's that got to do with your thesis?”

“Haven't you guys noticed the avalanche of weird news coming out of that state?” asked Matt.

“Sure.” “All the time.” “They shoot each other over texting in theaters.”

“And someone else pistol-­whipped a Dunkin' Donuts clerk for getting his coffee order wrong.” Matt called up another item on his tablet. “The legislature also had to pass a law against using food stamps in strip clubs.”

“Very amusing,” said the student delving into fossil sex. “But again, the thesis?”

“There's no arguing with all the empirical data that proves the American Dream of our grandparents is a memory,” said Matt. “Changing corporate cultures, merging conglomerates, corrupt campaign finance laws, and tilted tax codes have all opened a chasm between the classes. Fifty years ago, everyone was the product of post–World War Two teamwork, and companies honored the unwritten contract of mutual loyalty. If citizens worked hard and respected their employers, that respect would be returned in kind. But today, shareholders reign supreme, and too many companies are increasingly viewing workers at best as adversaries, and at worst as prey. A wholesale shaving of compensation, benefits and job security to please Wall Street. That kind of trend can't continue, so where are we heading?”

The other five shook their heads.

“Florida,” said Matt. “It's already the nation's pace car of dysfunction. ­People laugh and think it's just chaos, but my thesis will postulate that all this bizarre behavior is the spear tip of coming effects from the national sea change. You wouldn't believe all the news stories I turned up about ­people throwing feces down there.”

“But that's just crazy ­people acting crazy,” said the Lehman Brothers advocate. “They're not holding signs demanding better pay or tax reform.”

“Who's to say that the coming crash will look rational?” said Matt. “I believe Florida has become the classic canary in a coal mine. It just might be showing us the first signs of a new dissociative syndrome.”

“Have to admit you've sufficiently narrowed the topic,” said the self-­driving car expert. “Excrement trajectories of the disintegrating social contract.”

“I'm leaving tomorrow.” Matt grabbed the plane ticket.

“And go where?”

Matt turned his iPad around again. “Found this great website.”

They leaned closer. “Looks like some kind of kooky travel tour.”

“I think it's supposed to look that way,” said Matt. “But once you really unpack the site, it's crammed full of academic data and cultural treatises that most tenured professors would envy. I believe he's deliberately appearing wacky in order to make dry history lessons more entertaining and digestible, like a movie where Robin Williams plays an unconventional teacher at odds with the administration but who connects with his students through madcap antics and clown noses.”

“Do we need to cut you off from the beer?”

“No, really,” said Matt. “This guy must be one of the leading experts on Florida because only a bone-­deep knowledge could have produced this website.”

“Or he could be just another nut job down there. You have no proof he's a real professor.”

“Has to be,” said Matt, pulling up a photo on his tablet. “Here he is with an automatic pistol, planting a flag in Louisiana to reclaim the Republic of West Florida.”

“Nothing weird there.”

“It's his teaching technique to champion heritage studies,” said Matt. “Otherwise it
would
be unhinged behavior. If anyone can help me with my thesis, it's him.”

“So you've gotten in touch and set up an interview?”

Matt shook his head. “No e-­mail or any other contact info on the site.”

“Then you're just going to roam around the third biggest state in the country and hope to randomly bump into him?”

Matt tapped some more on his tablet. “I think I'm getting into the rhythm of the lessons. His current academic project is a road trip through small towns to quantify the American Dream—­which is how I first found him in the search engines. I'll just have to pick up his trail and anticipate the next stop.”

MIDNIGHT

The proverbial sidewalks had been rolled up. Founders' Day banners fluttered lazily in the dark. A light breeze through the trees. Eerily quiet. The only traffic signal blinked yellow.

A lone pair of headlights rounded the corner and rolled slowly up Main Street. It parked against a curb at an expired meter. A “Closed” sign hung in a nearby window.

Knock, knock, knock
.

The door to Lead Belly's opened.

“Peter! Thanks for coming by!” Vernon changed his expression. “You look a little upset.”

“I'm beyond upset! And what's with all the cloak and dagger, meeting here in the middle of the night?”

Another voice: “Peter, why don't you come over and take a seat?”

Peter squinted toward the back of the empty restaurant and a dark silhouette. “Senator?”

Vernon led the way and pulled out a pair of chairs. A bottle of Johnnie Walker Black sat on the table. Pratchett poured a generous glass and slid it across the wood. “Have a drink.”

“I don't want a drink.”

“It's not about want. You
need
a drink,” said Pratchett. “You were practically hysterical when you called.”

“How would you expect me to react?”

“I don't know,” said the senator. “I'm not sure what's going on.”

“Because you cut me off and said we had to meet in person.”

“The conversation seemed to be drifting into terrain that we don't discuss over the phone.”

“This is too shady for me.”

“Nothing's shady,” said Pratchett. “It's just that if you're in politics long enough, you become a cautious person.” He glanced down at the table. “Now, your drink.”

Vernon raised his own glass. “Go ahead, it'll do you good.”

Peter took a tentative sip and made a face.

The other men laughed and knocked back their own liquor in a single pull.

“Finish it,” said Pratchett. “All at once. It'll go down easier that way.”

Peter paused with the glass in front of his mouth.

“Everything's going to be fine.” Vernon patted him on the back. “We're neighbors now. We take care of our own around here.”

“You're among friends,” said Pratchett.

Peter took a deep breath and upended his glass, then began coughing his brains out.

“Much better,” said the senator. “Now, why don't you back up and tell me what this is all about?”

Peter rubbed watering eyes. “I turned in my geology report as usual, and went back out to the construction site today because we left some equipment. And when I arrived, it was so odd. There were all these workers and flatbed trucks full of concrete blocks and roof trusses.”

“Right, we're building homes,” said Pratchett. “It would be odd if they weren't there.”

“But my report recommended
against
building.”

“What?” Pratchett said in surprise.

“The substrata is totally inappropriate.”

“That's not what was in your report.”

“And that's what I was trying to tell you on the phone,” said Peter. “That wasn't my report.”

“But they faxed me a copy,” said the senator. “I have it right here. You signed the bottom.”

“I know that's my signature. I got a copy, too. It's a totally different report.”

“I'm confused,” said Vernon. “Are you trying to tell us that someone altered your findings?”

“Yes!”

The senator leaned back in his chair. “Now I understand why you're so upset. This is extremely disturbing news. I'm going to get to the bottom of this.”

“I'm outraged,” said Vernon. “And you did the right thing by coming to us with it.”

“You haven't told anyone else, have you?” asked Pratchett.

Peter shook his head. “You're the first. I was too rattled to call my company. I could lose my job.”

“Nobody's losing any job,” the senator said calmly. “But you need to do exactly as I say. Don't speak a word of this to anyone until my ­people can discreetly look into it.”

“But what about the subdivision?” asked Peter.

“What about it?”

“They have to stop building.”

“Now hold on,” said Vernon. “We still don't know what we have here, and a stoppage would cost thousands a day. A lot of the investors are neighbors like you and me.”

“He's right,” said the senator. “What if you're wrong?”

“I'm not wrong!” said Peter. “The limestone has a high-­risk coefficient.”

“But the project's already a go.”

“Based on a falsified report,” said Peter. “You saw what happened to the model home.”

“Let me phrase this a different way.” The senator held out his palms. “Can you guarantee there will be problems with the homes we're building?”

“Nobody can guarantee that, but—­”

“Well, there you go,” said Vernon. “Why worry about what might never happen?”

“But—­”

“And if something does happen,” said Pratchett, “we'll simply make good. I hear your company has special repair techniques: pumping stuff in the ground, compression, piers, but you know all that technical stuff much better than us.”

“You don't build and plan on remediation,” said Peter. “You just don't build.”

“Now we're going backwards,” said Vernon. “Believe what we're telling you and relax.”

“But—­”

“But what?”

“They used that report to get the insurers to underwrite,” said Peter. “It could end my career. I've even heard of guys going to prison for fraud . . .”

Pratchett moved his foot and felt something strange. He glanced down and thought:
Shit
.