Brambleman (59 page)

He threw out his arms and laughed maniacally
before dragging the box inside. With a knife from the kitchen, he
sliced the tape, feeling like he was exhuming a corpse and on the
verge of bringing it back to life. Inside were twenty-four jacketed
author’s copies of
American Monster
. Though he’d seen a
mock-up and knew it was coming, the cover was a shock: grim and
humorless, with stark black type on the gray background, drawing
the eye to the old, grainy photo of John Riggins hanging from that
limb.

“That ought to get their attention,” Charlie
growled appreciatively.

On the back jacket flap: front and side
profile photos of the author’s scarred face. His staged mug shots
made a powerful statement, although the orange jumpsuit’s effect
was lost in the black-and-white format. And now he worried that
readers might be confused and think he was the monster.

No. That would be terrible. They
couldn’t
. He shook his head to rid himself of the thought.

An instant later, his wedding band hit the
floor with a
ping
. Charlie pocketed it and read the
back-cover blurbs from prominent authors who loved his
Monster
. They really, really loved it. In exchange for their
adoration, their books were listed on the cover of a book that was
sure to be a bestseller, because it had been written by Charles
Sherman. If anyone could appreciate the irony inherent in that
concept, Charlie could, although perhaps not at the moment.

* * *

A grim and awkward task lay ahead. Charlie
knew Minerva wouldn’t like
American Monster
, but he’d
promised her a copy and figured she should have it before the book
hit the stores.

She was outside when Charlie, wearing old
shipping department clothes and driving the Volvo instead of his
new BMW, parked at the curb by her house for the first time in five
months. Wearing a faded old blue dress and a floppy straw hat, she
was pulling weeds from around the red, white, and purple petunias
in her flowerbed.

“I like your flowers.” he said as he
approached. “They’re rowdy.”

She turned and regarded him warily. “I’m
trying to make them a little less so.” She stepped onto the
sidewalk. “Haven’t seen you in a while. They quit tryin’ to kill
you?”

“So far. Though they might step up their
efforts now.”

Takira appeared at the screen door. Hugely
pregnant, her body shape resembled a basketball taped to a broom.
“Hey,” she said, smiling at Charlie.

“Hey.”

Minerva glanced at the girl, then at Charlie.
“Any day now,” she said. She wiped her brow with a gloved hand,
then eyed the spine of the book clasped against his thigh. “So what
brings you to our neck of the woods?”

He held up
American Monster
. She took
a step back. “Oh. My. God. Is that … that my father?”

“I’m sor-sorry,” Charlie stammered, horrified
at what he’d just done to the poor woman. “I thought … thought
you’d seen this.”

“No. You never showed it to me.” Her tone was
hard.

“I’m sorry. I thought—I guess I saw too much
of it myself, and … sorry. Well, I want you to have the book.” He
handed it to her—or tried to. She took a step back and regarded it
like a hiker would a coiled snake beside a path in the woods.

She heaved the longest sigh he’d ever heard.
After a moment, she slowly raised her hand. “I guess I should have
a copy. You autograph this one?”

“I did. To Minerva, whose dignity is
unmatched.”

“Take off the cover. I don’t want to look at
it.”

Charlie complied and tucked the jacket in his
back pocket.

“Well, thank you. Mr. Childress—that’s my
lawyer—wants a copy. He’s been waiting for it. Did he get in touch
with you? I think he had to go through your publisher. The number
you gave me didn’t work. Again.”

“Yeah, I talked to him. I thought I’d give
his book to you. I’ve got a couple more in the car. I wanted
Demetrious to have one. I’ll give you his copy, too.”

“He won’t read it. Doesn’t read anything.
He’s still angry about what happened.”

“I want one,” Takira said.

“Have you seen him lately?” Charlie asked the
girl.

“He come and go,” Takira volunteered.

Minerva frowned at the girl. “He do,” Takira
insisted.

“He’s fallen on a rough patch,” Minerva said.
“He and his mother, both. She hooked up with some bad people. Owes
them money. But that’s not your problem.” She sniffed and pointed
her trowel at the flowers. “Sometimes I just plant whites. They
look like a choir in robes, singing.”

Charlie allowed himself a smile. “Not to
change the subject, but the book hits stores tomorrow. I’m holding
a news conference. I was thinking maybe you could come and—”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk to
people about this. That’s your thing.” She waved and called out a
greeting to a neighbor walking by, then fixed her gaze on Charlie.
“I bet you made a ton of money off this book. It’s a nasty story,
and people love nasty stories.”

Charlie shrugged. He figured she was too
proud to ask for money and wouldn’t want it, since the book said
exactly what she feared it would, and accepting the money would
mean accepting the fact. Then again, maybe God’s plan was to give
Minerva something. “If you need help, I’d be glad to … share what
I’ve got.”
Before my wife gets it
.

“Mr. Childress said I shouldn’t take your
money. I don’t want it, anyway. What’s mine by rights is mine by
rights, that’s the way I see it.”

Charlie realized that this was essentially
what John Riggins had said the day he died.

“You were going to give me another book, I
believe,” she said.

“Sure.” Charlie went to the Volvo. He took
off the jackets from two copies and returned. Takira had retreated
into the house. He handed Minerva the books.

“I don’t even know if I want to read it,” she
said. “I’m afraid what it will say. Let me have a cover so I can
give it to my lawyer.”

“It’s the truth. I swear.” Charlie pulled a
book jacket from his pocket and folded it inside out to conceal the
photo before handing it to her.

“Sometimes there’s more than one truth, and
they contradict. If you don’t believe it, try reading the Bible
sometime.” She looked at him, waited for a response, then shrugged.
“Whew. Must be ninety degrees.” She wiped her brow with her
forearm. “Did you put the part in about the quitclaim?”

“Yes I did, along with the GBI’s denial that
they sent anyone over here. They tried to deny that two agents held
me in a warehouse, but the Forsyth Sheriff’s Department wouldn’t
back them up. So then they had to deny that they denied
anything.”

Minerva gave him a rueful chuckle. “Well, I
better call Mr. Childress. He needs to know the book’s out.”

“Good luck. I told him I’d testify for
you.”

She was already on the steps. “Goodbye.” She
waved, giving him the back of her hand.

That went well
, Charlie thought as he
went back to the car.
Better than the last couple of times,
anyway
.

He drove off. At the stop sign a block away,
Demetrious flagged him down, coming out into the street and putting
his fist on the car hood. Charlie looked around for P-Dog, D’s
little gunman.

“Yo, yo, yo.” Demetrious came around and
banged on the driver’s side door.

“Hey.” Charlie rolled down the window and
tried to sound breezy. “You stalkin’ me?”

“Got my eyes out. Heard you was in the
neighborhood. Just wanted to stay in touch.”

Charlie looked ahead and saw the silhouette
of a head just barely above the driver’s seat of an old Buick. He
was glad he didn’t bring his BMW.

“Look,” Demetrious said. “I need hep to get
someone outta a jam.”

“A little late for an abortion, isn’t
it?”

Demetrious waved his hands like he was
signaling an incomplete pass. “I’m not worryin’ ’bout that no more.
I need to help out my momma. She owes some money. And you rich now,
what I hear. Bestseller, on TV and all.”

“Can’t help you.”

“You mean you
won’t
hep me. Get this
straight. This where Ima comin’ from. Man rips us off for twenty
million and then you come in and clean up and make yo own. Where’s
ours? That’s what I’m talkin’ about.” Looking anguished, Demetrious
crisscrossed his chest with his hands. “You owe us half what you
make, man. It’s our story! It’s my blood!” Demetrious pounded his
chest with his fists. “A dealer threatenin’ to kill my mama,” he
said. “I need twenty large, man.”

“I don’t have that kind of money to hand
out.”

“At least enough fo me to get a gun,”
Demetrious pleaded.

“A gun will get you into more trouble than it
will get you out of.”

“She die, it gonna be on yo head.”

“No, it won’t. And don’t even talk that
way.”

“You say you tryin’ to hep my family. That’s
a laugh.”

“I said I was seeking justice. That might not
help you personally. You made your bed, now–”

Demetrious reached in to grab his collar.
Charlie hit the gas, causing his head to hit the door. The kid let
go, yelling, “Fuck you, motherfucker!”

Charlie glanced in the side mirror just
before he turned right. “Don’t worry,” he mumbled, rubbing his
stinging left temple. “You’ll get what’s coming to you.”

A minute later, when Charlie turned onto
Memorial Drive, his phone buzzed. “Hello.”

“We’re going to rip you a new asshole,
asshole,” Uncle Stanley said. “We’ve hired a lawyer and we’re going
to tear apart every assertion in that book. Did you think you could
get away with this?”

Charlie’s tone was cool and proper. “You had
every chance to respond.”

“I can’t wait to see you get what’s coming to
you. We’re going to beat on your head until your ears bleed.”

Charlie gave Redeemer’s church a sidelong
glance as he passed by. Before hanging up, he said, “I reckon
that’s a beating I’ll have to take.”

* * *

Charlie’s news conference was scheduled for
2:00 p.m. on June 23, the nationwide release date for
American
Monster
. This was his day, his time to shine, his party. At his
own expense, Charlie had hired the local public relations firm of
Jacoby and Ruthers to stage the event.

That morning, Charlie visited bookstores and
found, to his great relief and joy, that
American Monster
was ubiquitous. He gave an impromptu signing in Buckhead, smiling
and posing for a photo with a rich white woman who bought three
copies for her “African-American friends.” When Charlie suggested
that it might be instructive for her to read the book, too, she
laughed. What a funny thing to say!

He stopped by Bay Street Coffeehouse, walking
in the door in his new blue-and-white seersucker suit from Jos. A.
Bank Clothiers—a perfectly respectable summer outfit for a Southern
writer. He also wore a white button-down oxford shirt, a
yellow-and-blue striped tie, and cordovan Cole-Haan tasseled
loafers, accented by a sharp, clean-smelling fragrance he’d bought
on a whim at Nordstrom’s.
GQ
was on the newsstands, and
while Charlie’s Industrial Chic was in, now that he had money, he
wanted to set new trends. Anyway, he was tired of the working-class
look. He was going uptown from here on out.

“This is my Tom Wolfe look,” he proudly told
Jean, who gave him a disapproving frown.

“I liked it better when you were a truck
driver. Now you look like a man who’s full of it.”

“That’s cold.”

Jean mumbled something about “putting on
airs” and turned her back on him as soon as she took his order for
a double espresso on ice.

As he sat at his old table by the window and
watched a car drive up Bayard Terrace, he thought of all the time
he’d spent in the dungeon, helping Kathleen complete her life. That
world was gone. Angela had sold her mother’s house recently for a
huge amount of money. She’d get another large chunk of change when
royalties and movie rights money from
Flight
came in, but he
reminded himself of the happy fact that she’d cut herself out of
any share of
American Monster
. He’d buy a pricey gift for
her August commitment ceremony with Sandra. It was the least he
could do. Chuckling, he raised his glass toward the dungeon, and
said, “Here’s to happily ever after.”

* * *

The news conference went reasonably well,
although there was a rough part when Charlie had to explain why he
hadn’t gone to the police after the bombing, which had suddenly
become common knowledge (and pushed him to the top of the front
page again after news of his trial died down). He told reporters
that, as far as he knew, there were no new leads in the case. He
referred questions to Detective Sanders, who had talked to him
three times since their original meeting. Reporters were reluctant
to forgive his recalcitrance (along with his disappearing act after
his Forsyth County trial), so Charlie tried to thaw the mood with
some candor about what it’s like to be shell-shocked and homeless
on Christmas Eve, although he no longer looked the part.

Reporters might not like him, but so far the
news coverage had been generally positive. TV stations repeated his
accusations, along with a confusing mixture of no-comments and
denials from the Cutchinses. He’d heard from a reporter that they’d
called him a pervert, but that accusation didn’t make the evening
news. Charlie was more interested in what Crenshaw would write,
since the newspaper reporter had been on the story since the
beginning and knew more about it than all the other journalists
combined.

The next morning, he was awakened by a
freight train’s rumble halfway between four o’clock and dawn.
Charlie watched shadows dance on the ceiling. Abandoning sleep and
fortifying himself with coffee, he checked e-mails. The haters,
who’d been slow to respond to
Flight
, reacted more quickly
to
Monster
. He’d gotten twenty messages, half of them
hostile, and half of
those
threatening, like the one from
[email protected]: “Nigger Lover, you betray your family for
silver. Go to hell with my knife up your ass.” Charlie winced and
shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Maybe it was time he hired real
bodyguards.