Spinning Dixie (28 page)

There is a sophisticated computer analysis system based in Las Vegas. It is called NORA, an acronym for Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness. Among its capabilities is determining that a casino cheat sitting at the blackjack table has the dealer as his roommate. This was done by entering the name of the cheat into the NORA system and discovering that he had the same telephone number as the dealer. In other words, they were in the scam together. When I first heard about it, I knew it would have been something that Mickey would have marveled at. NORA wasn't only used by casinos, of course. It had been employed since 9/11 by the federal government to catch terrorists.

According to NORA, William Elkins Hunter had traveled four times to Saudi Arabia during the past three years using an airplane that had recently been chartered by one Ibrahim al-Fawazzi, a Yemeni banker with ties to the bin Laden family. Hunter had also received thousands of telephone calls at his office from Saudis. His office received periodicals that dealt with weaponry. Photographs had been unearthed showing him entering chemical and munitions plants in the United States and abroad.

Of course, virtually all of these things were perfectly benign for a United States senator. But NORA had other plans.

Today, Senator Hunter was scheduled to fly from Washington's Dulles Airport to Nashville at the urgent invitation of his good friend, J. T. Hilliard. It was not to be an easy trip, however, because the highlights of the information NORA gleaned had found their way into the Federal Aviation Administration's security alert—the one that is updated at the nation's airports hourly, putting people suspected of having terrorist ties on the dreaded no-fly list.

Hunter was detained and escorted out of the security maze just before he was to proceed through the metal detector. That William Elkins Hunter was a United States senator was of no matter to Shirley Latrelle, the security official on duty at the Dulles security line, where Hunter was standing with an aide. In fact, his stature made inconveniencing Senator Hunter all the more fulfilling to Shirley Latrelle, of Hyattsville, Maryland, who had spent fifty-two years on the receiving end of the self-important proclamations of the white Washington power elite.

Senator Hunter and his young aide, who appeared to have an aircraft carrier lodged up his kazoo, let forth a litany of threats. The angrier Hunter and his aide became, the more orgasmic Shirley Latrelle grew. Detaining these men wasn't the highlight of her day, it was the highlight of her career. She waved over a few colleagues. Their faces remained stoic, their words, by the book. But their eyes spoke four hundred years of history: “C'mon, boys, seethe a little more. Pay me out some of that psychic income. Threaten to get my ass fired, ruined. C'mon, gents, fire on old Fort Sumter, let's have ourselves a Civil War. Who do you think is going to win once those cameras get rolling and the Reverend Jesse Jackson shows up with a gospel choir?”

Hallelujah!

After the crowd swelled and the supervisor was dutifully called, Senator Hunter and his aide knew that this Civil War was a draw. The senator wins inside the Capitol, but Shirley Latrelle wins out on the street. It all depends on where you're standing when the deal goes down, isn't that right?

The senator remained cool. He smiled the tense smile of the flack who has just been mau-maued. Get me back to my turf, into the privacy of my car, he thought, where I can let loose unfettered by the gentle obligations of my caste.

Which he does, and the tape recorder the Panamanian's rapscallions placed under the seat picks up everything. The searing epithets, the mimicking of Shirley Latrelle's inner-city cadence:
Uh-uh, baby
. The kind of statements even decent people make when they're off-the-grid angry. The kind of thing you wouldn't want “out there.”

Hunter personally called J. T. Hilliard to tell him he wouldn't be making it to Nashville. The senator apologized profusely, but did not disclose the reason for his aborted trip. He fobbed it off onto a breaking national security issue. As he spoke, the Panamanian's crew retrieved the senator's telephone number.

J.T. controlled his rage as the senator assured him that he was sending his “best man” to the White House to investigate Hilliard's claim of presidential skullduggery. Truth be told, senators didn't lightly undertake investigations of sitting U.S. presidents in their own party. J.T. may have been a big contributor and “good friend” of Hunter's, but he was also a blowhard. Still, the senator was obliged to “look into” the matter when he returned to his office.

The Panamanian activated his digital geeks, who quickly determined that the aide's Jeep Cherokee was equipped with the “Galaxy Locator” package, which provided communications and security support for travelers. The Panamanian's assistant telephoned Galaxy's toll-free emergency number and reported the vehicle stolen. Ten minutes later, a satellite spit out coded whispers that mated with a computer chip that the manufacturer had installed behind the Jeep's dashboard in a “revolutionary partnership in security with Galaxy.” These codes neutralized the electrical signal that passed from the control panel to the engine.

The Jeep's engine conked out on the Dulles toll road as the engine was castrated from outer space. The senator attempted to call for assistance as his aide frantically tried to restart the vehicle on the shoulder. Hunter couldn't get a dial tone because its service had been discontinued due to its reported theft. He wouldn't be helping his constituents today.

I sometimes communicated with National Security Advisor Dexter Cane through Tigger's personal instant messenger account. Cane, of course, didn't do the typing, and all correspondence, if it was ever to surface, would be utterly deniable. The I.M. name we had set up to communicate with Cane was “Faulkner”; mine was “Roth,” for New Jersey's bard, Philip.

The following exchange with Dexter/Tigger took place on the evening that I sabotaged Senator Hunter's trip to Nashville:

J.T. signed over Rattle & Snap to Claudine the following day. I got out of their way while the two of them reached an accord in the contemporary kitchen. The only thing I did hear Claudine say after I heard J.T.'s voice utter the words “freaking air force” was “Jonah is passionate; he overreacts.”

At the noon White House briefing the following day, my successor addressed the government's position on the confiscation of Confederate gold at Rattle & Snap. She said, “The government has no issue with the Polks. The Department of the Interior has studied the matter. The government does not believe any gold on the Polk lands was placed there by Confederate forces and it does not, therefore, belong in government coffers. As soon as the Confederate reenactors disperse and public safety is assured, the National Guard will go home.”

 

Claudine went to her attorney's office. Six and I toasted the Polks' victory with lemonade.

“I really appreciate all you did for us.”

“I was happy to help,” I fibbed. Happiness had nothing to do with it. “It's great you care so much about us after all this time.”

This struck me as being odd. How could I not care? Then I considered possible flaws in my logic. Was it possible that he didn't know what I knew? Could Claudine not have told him about where Sallie came from? She hadn't told me directly, so maybe all the Polks ducked straight talk. Episcopalians, I thought. But young Six had been very direct long ago. My usual tactics weren't working.

“Well, it gave me a chance to get back at J.T.,” I said.

“For what?”

“Getting me tossed out of here.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. The whole mess with your grandfather's ring being stolen.”

“You think J.T. was behind that?”

“Well, J.T. or his family.”

Six shook his head. “You gotta sit my sister down for a nice, long talk, brother.”

I became nauseous. It was the kind of nausea that possessed acute elements. Pain, not free-floating imbalance.

“What do I ask her, Six?”

“Have her tell you the story about Indy's ring.”

“You got it back?”

“Well, yeah. Pretty fast, too. Jonah, you're a smart man, but when it comes to my sister, you still stack things up in your mind to make everything match up with your mental monologue.”

Things clicking—actually making clicking noises and echoing in my skull.

“Did you ever talk to Claudine about Sallie?” I asked.

“Sure, here and there.” Straightforward. Oblivious.

“Did you ever talk with her about why she married J.T. so fast?”

“It wasn't one of those things you talk about. She got pregnant, man.”

“Yes, she did. In September of nineteen eighty.”

“Right.”

I test-drove my “tombstone eyes,” a killer look that one of Mickey's men had taught me. Get a reaction. Nothing from Six. Nothing. Because I knew. I heard the voice of my grandmother: “Look at Mr. Ivy League Knows Everything…” Then I heard Six's own words just moments ago about my “mental monologue.” These didn't sound like Six's words; they sounded like one of my own rants about human perception.

I was suddenly overcome with exhaustion. It was a dense exhaustion, the kind that bypassed drowsiness and graduated right to sleep. Even though it was midafternoon, I went up to my/Indy's bedroom, put my music player's earphones on, and fell asleep for twenty minutes. The sleep was unlike any other I had ever experienced, because I remembered every moment. I was on my back, falling.

I dreamed that my mother was holding my hand. I was very young, maybe six. We were emerging from a huge, dark cube. It may have been a movie theater. We blinked into the daylight. My high school English teacher, Mr. Hicks, was outside in the parking lot. “You did well on the test,” he said. “Only one vocabulary question wrong.”

“What did Jonah get wrong?” my mother asked.

“Peripetia,” Mr. Hicks said.

My mother scrunched up her nose, unfamiliar with the word.

Mickey's voice echoed from the theater, but we could not see him. “It's from Greek tragedy. It's the moment when the hero realizes he's the mark.”

I was awakened by a memory of Grace Slick's voice, a huge headache, and a simple realization: There is nothing cowardly about avoiding certain people, especially those whose greatest strength feeds from your greatest weakness. In my head, as the puzzle fell together, Slick was singing “White Rabbit”:
“If you go chasing rabbits and you know you're going to fall…”
I took an analgesic, packed my clothing, and took my bags downstairs. I left my Confederate uniform on the bed.

I sat on the mansion's front steps. This would be my O.K. Corral. I was cool. We'd get into this slowly.

I heard Claudine speaking with Six inside before she came out. She shook her head in amazement at the events of the last week. “Is it really that easy to abuse power?” she asked.

“When there's a smokin' hot woman involved, certainly.”

“Scary.”

“For the other guy. I was just thinking, Claud, do you know what Sallie said to me when we met? She told me I didn't look like a thief.”

“Of course you don't. You are some odd things, but you are not a thief.”

“How would Sallie know that? When I left, I left as a thief.”

“Because I told her about the cloud you left under.” Claudine reached into her pocket and withdrew George Polk's Masonic ring, the one I had been accused of stealing.

My resignation quietly converting to stoicism, I quietly asked, “When did you get it back?”

“It never went very far.”

Indy Four had told Claudine the whole story after Sallie was born and she was safely married. With lots to lose.

“Who stole the ring, Claudine?”

Claudine kissed my cheek. She said, “And God said to Moses, ‘Send men that will spy out the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel; of every tribe of their fathers shall you send a man, every one a prince among them.'”

I shuddered. “My grandfather used to traffic in that passage,” I said.

“Those men you saw in the town that day J.T. attacked you. They were dressed like workmen, painters or something. They were his spies.”

They were his spies. I thought about what Sallie had said to me at the White House that had confused me:
They worry, spaz
. Her Southern accent congealing with the traffic…As she walked away from me she was saying, “They were his spies.”

“It was Deedee's idea,” Claudine said. “The day after you left she had the ring returned with a note to Indy.” Claudine went back into the house and returned carrying a wooden chest. It was the one I had seen in the back of Mickey's car. She opened it up. There was a letter inside on Golden Prospect Hotel & Casino stationery. It contained Deedee's loopy handwriting, that melodramatic slant, the exaggerated capital letters.

“Your grandparents left the trunk here,” Claudine said. “Indy didn't tell me until years later. I figured that somebody would have said something if you missed it.”

Deedee's letter read:

Mickey and Deedee had their own reasons for me to leave Rattle & Snap sooner than later. They had been terrified that Claudine had bewitched me sufficiently for me to abort my college career and whatever future budded beyond Dartmouth. Mickey's deal with Smoky was that J.T. would be kept at bay but that I had to leave.

The catalyst for my departure had to be severe, beyond debate. The lack of proof would be irrelevant. The aim, rather, was to make things so uncomfortable—and possibly unsafe—that a quick exit would be the only option.

As Claudine spoke, I began knocking on all the doors of my conscience in search of outrage. I thought of something Elijah had told me—the women always leave Rattle & Snap in tears. Well, brother, so do the men.

Surrender was my mode, not outrage. Me, tired: “What about Sallie?”

Claudine put her sunglasses on. “What about her?”

“I think we ought to have a blood test done.”

Claudine shook her head. “What good could that possibly do, Jonah? What good could possibly come from it?”

“Perhaps no good at all, but I need to know what's mine in this world.”

“And then what? Then what? Do we battle J.T. again?”

“I'm not sure.”

“Well, think it through, Jonah! You have a wonderful wife, children you adore. And J.T. won't give her anything if he thinks she's yours.”

“Then we won't provoke him; we won't show him the results.”

“I can't have more sleight of hand in my life. I can't take it the way you can.”

My grandparents were liberated within me. I saw Mickey's frown and Deedee's script:
That one will be just fine
. Claudine cannot have more sleight of hand in her life, yet she invites me back here to pull the most audacious stunt of my life, to abandon my family, to deceive on a massive scale, to break unfathomable laws.

I felt lava coursing down my brow. My head was boiling, but my arms were cold. I felt stalagmites in my fingertips and toes. My lower lip felt huge and absurd, like it belonged to a marionette—tugging downward. Then the vertigo, a storm in my heart, and my rush to balance myself—but not on Claudine, so I moved against the mansion's front wall. Silence, but for a bird pecking in futility at a Corinthian column. Utter clarity, a fleeting biblical thought about the Passover plagues. No, one plague: The slaying of the firstborn. My dizziness fell away. Because I was certain.

I had been the mark.

“You led me to believe Sallie was mine as soon as you needed muscle. I thought your indirection was due to a fear of having a child with gangster blood.”

“Oh, for God's sake, Jonah, we all have gangster blood, so don't drag Al Capone into this. I wanted to keep my home and let you get on with your life.”

“How long have you known about the Hicksens?”

“Hicksens?”

“Smoky Hicksen bought the name Hilliard.”

“When did you know this?”

“Mickey told me when he was here. He checked them out because he thought I was in danger.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“You were in no position to have believed me then, any more than you wanted to see close up what went on in that valley. Out of sight. I thought you would have investigated J.T. by now. You're good with all that lineage stuff.”

“Investigated?” Claudine seemed perplexed. “Heavens, no.”

Claudine wasn't so good with lineage she didn't want traced. It was of no use. She had known what she needed to know in order to do what had to be done.

“What does Sallie know?” I asked.

“Everything.”

“How long?”

“Around the time Truitt took office. We were watching television, and you were doing one of your briefings. I told her about us. Sallie said, ‘You should have married him, not Dad.' I just broke down. I thought she was right.”

“We all want to replace our ancestry, don't we?”

“Not me,” she said. “I went to Pea Patch Island in Delaware right before I first met you, where the Union held my ancestors as human shields. Maybe there was another way I could have done it.”

This was the closest thing to an apology that I'd get from her. Still, I was complicit, as is everyone who is spun.

“No, Claud, there wasn't,” I said. I frowned the way Mickey had. “It was the right move because you won more than you lost, but you paid a price.”

“There've been times I thought we could have worked.”

“Never,” I said. “I would have failed you, and you never would have forgiven me for that. With me, you wouldn't have had Rattle & Snap. Someone else would have been living here. Probably J.T. and a mannequin with a fraction of your passion. And you'd be looking at my underwear in the hamper in our little studio apartment with screaming kids thinking,
Some deal I made.
It would all turn to hate. I'd be the gangster's grandson who cost you your home. You won, Claud.”

“Jonah. I'm sorry that my purpose in your life has been to destroy your sense of wonder.”

“You destroy my sense of romance, Claudine, not my sense of wonder. There's probably a reason for that. Anyhow, I'm glad I came. I couldn't let Rattle & Snap fall into the hands of thieves.”

The Panamanian pulled up to the mansion in the government's sexless car. I kissed Claudine good-bye on her cheek. “Well, Claudie,” I said inflecting Deedee, “if something comes up, you'll let me know.”