Brambleman (57 page)

“You read to them?”

“Yeah, but I don’t need you acting like
you’re from Family Services,” she said, her voice rising. “I mean,
if you’re going to take care of us, then take care of us.
Do
not
just string us along and show up whenever you want.” She
folded her hands across her chest and glared at him.

Tawny reminded him of Susan back when she was
young and feisty, before his wife turned malevolent. He wanted
Tawny right then. But that didn’t matter, not with the kids around,
even though he suspected they hadn’t been spared the sight of their
mother at work.

“If I get my act together,” she said, “I
could have any man.”

More like every man
, he thought.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said,
wagging a finger at him and nearly poking him in the chest. “But
you’re no better than me, Buster. Not when you’ve got that asshat
problem.”

Charlie puzzled over that for a moment. “Oh.
Ascetic.”

“That’s what I’m sayin’.”

“I didn’t come here to fight,” Charlie said.
“I should go. Take this.” He handed her a wad of hundred dollar
bills—ten minutes’ worth of talk to a bunch of college kids.

Tawny clutched the bills and waved them at
him, looking for a moment like she was going to throw them in his
face. Instead, she bit her lip. “Fine. Go. Don’t expect me to beg.
Anyway, you’re worse off than I am. At least I got my kids.” Then
she laughed at him.

Nothing he could say to that. Charlie left,
his face burning with both shame and anger. He wanted to scream in
frustration, knowing that he couldn’t stay with this disreputable,
irresponsible woman nearly twenty years his junior, and he couldn’t
desert her, either, because she and those kids needed him when no
one else did.

* * *

If the varmints had any doubt that another
book was in the works, the call from Brubaker attorney Ray Washburn
to Uncle Stanley dispelled them. Charlie got one of those calls,
too, and after conferring with Washburn, he started revising
American Monster
.

He was in the process of removing some of the
more colorful adjectives describing Pappy when he heard from his
divorce lawyer.

“Your wife and her attorney are playing
hardball,” Richard Muncie said. “They obtained an extension on the
restraining order until mid-June. The fact that you face criminal
charges helpeth you not. You working on that?”

“Yeah. I hired Cornelius Searles.”

“Are you facing a death penalty I don’t know
about?”

“I figure I’d get the best.”

Cornelius Searles was a well-known
African-American defense attorney, a protégé of Johnnie Cochran,
who often appeared on CNN as a legal analyst. He loved high-profile
cases, and while this was just a misdemeanor, Charlie’s notoriety
and ability to pay his fee proved irresistible to Searles, who
looked forward to the prospect of doing battle in Forsyth County in
front of a dozen TV cameras.

“
Whew
. That’ll cost you. Not to be
racist, but you couldn’t go with a white attorney for Forsyth?”

“Where’s the sport in that?”

“You’re gonna need to hang onto some of that
money you’re making. Your wife wants ten grand a month child
support.”

“What? I’m not rich yet!”

“She wants the kids in Northside Christian
Academy next year.”

Charlie grunted in distaste. “Does she know
about the book contract?”

“She will. By the way, assume you’re under
surveillance. There’s a chance your cellphone calls may be
intercepted, too. Her lawyer’s got game.” Muncie’s voice was filled
with admiration.

Charlie thought of his latest visit to Tawny.
He’d wanted to go back and patch things up with her, but now he
realized he couldn’t afford to be seen with her. The varmints and
their allies would use her against him. “Damn.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” said Muncie. “Rough
business, breaking up. I will say this: Your wife’s a real piece of
work. From a purely professional standpoint, I gotta just step back
and admire her. You don’t get clients like her every day.”

“She’s not your client,” Charlie said. “I
am.”

“Don’t remind me,” said Muncie, sounding
glum.

* * *

After a whirlwind speaking tour across the
South, Charlie returned to Atlanta late on the night of April 1.
The next morning, he was in La Patisserie, sitting by the window
enjoying a muffin, fruit cup, and coffee. Two men in business suits
entered and approached him. Fearing for his life, Charlie stood and
looked around wildly for a weapon. “Are you Charles Sherman?”

“Yes,” Charlie said warily, casting his gaze
upon a plastic spork. His would not be a heroic death.

The first man handed him some papers. “You’ve
been served,” said the other.

They left. Charlie opened the envelope. It
contained a petition for divorce—on grounds of desertion and mental
cruelty. His hands shook as he held the paper. Lies, all lies! He
hadn’t deserted Susan. She’d kicked him out. What about all the
money he’d given her? As for mental cruelty—what about Bryan? And
now
Harold
. God, the woman had gall.

The petition removed any iota of doubt left
in his mind that Susan was involved in the varmints’ plot. What
else could the divorce petition be but part of a conspiracy to ruin
his reputation and destroy his credibility?

After he sent an e-mail to Muncie vowing to
“fight this thing to the bitter end and beyond,” Charlie glanced
through the morning paper. A brief on the legislative news page
caught his eye:
Reparations Bill Dies in House
. Ah. So
that’s why Bannister quit calling him. But really, what could he
have done? In this case, given his own weakness as an ally, wasn’t
it better to let the dead past bury the dead, and let the living
move along? He certainly thought so.

* * *

Charlie spent much of April holed up in his
apartment. Besides polishing
American Monster
, he worked on
a book-length, profanity-laced defense of himself as a husband and
father for a yet-to-be-defined audience. Muncie’s warning about the
possibility of surveillance had become an obsession. Obviously,
life was unfair. Just when people stopped trying to kill him, they
started spying on him.

Consequently, when he should have been
enjoying his newfound freedom and wealth, he was more alone than
ever. Tawny was untouchable—grungy, ungrateful, and off-limits due
to his fear of Susan’s spies; Jean, his oldest friend in his new
life, now seemed distant—and knew too much about his time in the
gutter to see him the way he wanted to be seen. Plus, she’d
probably shared this information with Dana, who remained illusive.
He hadn’t seen Danger Girl since she’d dropped by his loft briefly
one afternoon in March with a box full of copies of
Flight from
Forsyth
for him to sign, saying, “Just in case, vell, you
know.” In case he got killed and drove up the value of signed
copies, she meant. But that was understandable; she was an art
dealer. Didn’t they wish for bad luck as a matter of course? And
then there was Amy—or rather, there wasn’t. A trace of cinnamon was
all he’d had of her.

Perhaps he should just start over and find a
new life in a new loft. He’d read about an absolutely fantastic
development on Industrial Avenue. It, too, had train tracks and
razor wire, requisites for urban living. He could soon afford
nearly anything the city had to offer, but he couldn’t motivate
himself to go out and look. Instead, he sat at his computer, worked
on his rant, and waited for whatever it was that was hurtling
toward him.

* * *

Charlie decided he had to get out more, but
he didn’t want to go out alone. So he hired a pretend bodyguard to
escort him on his outings—Armand Parsons, a beefy, underemployed
African-American actor. He’d met Parsons at the bakery one day
after a drugged-out panhandler followed a young couple into the
shop, demanding money. When Amy Weller told him to leave, the man
said, “Suck my dick, bitch.” Parsons, standing at the counter,
grabbed the guy by the collar. Charlie, sitting outside, had gotten
up for a coffee refill and opened the door just in time for the
panhandler to sail through it. Impressed with Parsons’s physical
presence, Charlie bought him a cup of coffee and struck up a
conversation.

The former high school football player lived
across the street from Charlie and hoped to get a part in the next
Tyler Perry movie. In the meantime, he needed money.

“If you’re looking for work, I could use a
bodyguard on an ad hoc basis,” Charlie told him.

“
Ad hoc
? I need a job so I can get my
stuff
out
of hock,” Parsons said. “Just one problem. I’m not
a bodyguard. I don’t even have a weapon. Matter of fact, it’s at
the pawn shop.”

“Oh, I don’t want you to carry a gun. I just
need you to act like a bodyguard.”

“Acting.” Parsons rubbed his chin and took a
sip of coffee. “How much?”

“Twenty an hour.”

“Twenty-five.”

“All right.”

“When do I work?” Armand asked.

“Whenever. Give me your cell number.”

They reached an agreement: If there was any
shooting—whether on location for a movie or during an assassination
attempt—it would be every man for himself. That afternoon, on the
way to Lenox Square, Parsons said, “I’m like that merchant in
The Godfather
. You know, the neighborhood guy who came to
see Don Corleone in the hospital and Michael posted him as a guard
when the hit men drove by.”

“Exactly so,” Charlie said. “I wouldn’t have
it any other way.”

“And when they make a movie from that book
you wrote, you can get me a part.”

“Victim or criminal?”

“Either one,” said Parsons. “Just needs to be
a speaking role.”

They rode for a while before Parsons spoke
again. “Man, I hope you sell movie rights soon. Get you a Navigator
or an Escalade. This old Volvo ain’t doin’ nuthin’ for your style
points. Mine either.”

“Next check comes in, I’m gonna buy a
BMW.”

“That’s cool, but an Escalade be better.”

* * *

In mid-April,
GQ
interviewed Charlie
for an article: “Big Shot Writer.” Charlie found the idea silly,
but it was the kind of foolishness that sold books, so there he
was, posing for the photographer in front of La Patisserie, wearing
a new black duster coat, black custom-tailored, form-fitting
Dickies, tight lace-up black boots, and new industrial-grade
sunglasses that the shabby-chic young reporter and grungy German
photographer found cool. Charlie thought the outfit made him look
like a worker in a chic morgue—or somebody waiting for Neo to show
up so they could access the Matrix.

Dana, having just returned from Munich,
happened to be in the bakery. She came out to watch and soon took
over, strutting around like a runway model in high-heeled,
knee-high boots over jeans and a bright red sleeveless T-shirt
emblazoned with the words
Mangez Moi!
Soon she’d talked the
photographer and Charlie into visiting her art gallery to finish
the shoot. There, in her native element, Dana continued to work her
magic, breezily greeting customers, terrorizing her assistant, and
setting up a backdrop for the photographer. She found time to
convince Charlie to spend $12,000 for an abstract painting. “A
bargain at any price,” she said. “You vill be thanking me for this.
Many times. In many vays.”

When Charlie left for another appointment,
the photographer stayed to negotiate a fee for taking photos for a
gallery catalogue. That evening, before Charlie could get a return
on his investment, Dana called and asked him for a ride to
Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. This time, she was going to China. She
kissed him lightly on the lips as she got out of his car at the
Delta terminal. He pined for her on the drive back to Castlegate
and all that evening. He went to bed alone for what seemed the
665th night in a row.

Hoping to learn more about Dana, and feeling
nostalgic (as well as horny), Charlie strayed over to Bay Street
Coffeehouse to see Jean the next day. He learned from her that
Dana’s negotiating tactics with the photographer had included sex.
It was a dagger through his heart. How could she do such a thing,
when he’d been waiting for months?

Seeing the stricken look on his face, Jean
said, “I’m telling you this for your own good.” Without delving
into specifics, she said that Dana, originally from Bucharest, had
a shady past. “And present, I found out recently,” she added with a
frown. “You’re better off without her.”

Charlie despaired. He’d suffered so much to
be rich and famous, and here was Dana, screwing the help. Jean was
right, of course. Dana was no good for him. Unfortunately, that
only made him want her more. He returned to Castlegate and stumbled
into La Patisserie to cry on Amy Weller’s shoulder, hoping his
favorite baker would take pity on him and relieve his torment. As
soon as he walked in, the cinnamon girl shouted out, “Guess what?
I’m engaged!”

Charlie went to bed alone again that night,
convinced that a curse hung over his head.

* * *

While Charlie bided his time and kept quiet
about
American Monster
, the varmints were being attacked on
another front. Clearly,
someone
smelled blood in the water,
and during the last week of April, Forsyth County Commissioner
Randolph Dempsey—son of Tom Dempsey, a member of the 1937
mob—qualified to run against Stanley Cutchins in the Republican
primary. On April 30, a third GOP candidate plunked down his fee in
the House race. (Democrats didn’t bother to qualify a candidate;
the district was too white and conservative for them to stand a
chance.)