A Garden of Vipers

CHAPTER 11

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. Tres 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.

When not engaged in long-distance greetings, Maylene Kincannon raked the crowd with emotionless eyes, black as cinders in the whiteness of her face. I watched in fascination as they gathered full measure of the room, every face, every gesture, every contact.

Perhaps she felt my gaze, and her eyes swung to mine. For a moment we stared at one another, until her eyes moved away, restless, scanning. I had the feeling of having been surveyed by a machine, deemed of zero value, dismissed.

There was a crowd at the bar and I got in one of the lines. My position faced me down a service hall to a kitchen door. Surprisingly-and delightfully-a woman’s derriere backed from the kitchen, wiggling as it retreated. The owner followed, throwing air kisses and whispering thanks. I suspected she was a late arrival not wishing to enter via the cascading steps and glare of lights.

I put her age in the early thirties, slender where she needed to be, ample where she didn’t, big lavender eyes augmented with too much shadow, perhaps trying to balance a succulent, lipsticked mouth. Her dress was cobalt blue, strapless, anchored by ample breasts whose originality was dubious.

“Whatcha need, sir?” the barkeep asked.

I reluctantly turned from the woman. “Tall bourbon and soda, light on the bourbon, and a white wine.”

“We have three whites tonight, sir. A Belden Farms Chardonnay, a B amp; G Vouvray, and a Chenin Blanc by Isenger.”

I knew wine as well as I knew Mandarin. I said uh several times.

“Go for the Vouvray, Slim,” a woman’s voice said. “The others are horse piss.”

I turned. The woman in cobalt leaned against the column at the end of the bar, a few feet distant. She winked. “Grab me a drink while you’re there, wouldya? Double scotch.” Her voice was a purr of command, cigarette husky, a voice with more years on it than the woman.

I turned, three drinks in hand. She snatched hers and spun away. I watched her circle behind the crowd, pause against another column, study the surroundings. She belted the scotch. Then she snapped her wrist twice, like flicking paint from a brush. She thought a moment, then repeated the odd motion, more exaggerated this time, like cracking a whip.

She flipped the empty glass into a trash can, snapped on a bright smile, and headed into the crowded room. My eyes kept following her derriere, but the room went dark.

Lucas arrived a half hour after the Channel 14 soiree had started, parking outside the Shrine Temple, slipping the used Subaru into the anonymous dark between streetlamps. He had been eating granola, spitting stale raisins out the window into the street. It had irritated him that a fucking health food store would sell granola with stale raisins and he’d considered returning to the store, grabbing the slacker clerk by his Bruce Cockburn T-shirt, dragging him down here, and making the bastard lick the raisins from the pavement.

“Those taste fresh to you? You little cocksucking son of a…”

He had caught himself. Taken several deep breaths, cleansing breaths. Listened to Dr. Rudolnick conjure up clouds.

“Settle into the clouds, Lucas. Let your anger drift away…”

Nothing much had happened while he waited, not that he’d expected anything. But he’d read about this soiree in a newspaper column and decided to rub elbows with the swells, even if it was a distant rubbing.

Sometimes things were revealed in small motions. Like the black stretch limo parked in the lot down the block, engine idling, keeping the air conditioning at a precise seventy-eight degrees, Maylene Kincannon’s preferred enviroment. Lucas had wanted to knock on the door of the limo, engage the driver in conversation. Maybe leave a warm ass-print in the leather seat, like a dog spraying its territory.

Common sense had prevailed. It wasn’t time yet.

After he’d been sitting for several more minutes, calm again, a woman slipped from the doors of the temple, a sexy woman in a blue dress, big casaba-melon hooters bobbing as she high-heeled down the sidewalk. She was weaving a bit, a sheet or two to the wind. She laughed, flicked her hand in the air, like a drummer tapping a cymbal. Then she hawked and spit onto the sidewalk, lit a cigarette, and crossed the street to climb into a battered red Corolla. It took two minutes of grinding the ignition before the engine kicked over and the car rattled away trailing a plume of exhaust.

The woman was suddenly more interesting to Lucas than a building he couldn’t safely enter, and his curiosity made him follow her, just for a lark.