The Knowland Retribution

Nashville

They arrived at the Nashville airport in late afternoon. The flight from Atlanta was short and uneventful. They looked like any two businessmen in town to make a sale, attend a seminar, or talk about a merger-each with a bulging attache case in hand and a lightweight garment bag over his shoulder. Nicholas Stevenson, the older, bigger man, silver mane expertly layered and routinely trimmed, took long, easy strides. Harvey Daniels, the shorter man, dark-haired, rumpled, nervous, momentarily fell behind, quickened his step, fell behind again.

Through airport windows they saw Nashville blazing with Christmas lights refracted by pouring rain. They didn’t join the line for cabs to the Renaissance or The Hermitage Hotel. Instead, they made their way to the rental cars and took the white Camero reserved for them. “They don’t make Cameros the way they used to,” Harvey griped.

The tallest of Tennessee’s skyscrapers showed off bright decorations. “Sure as hell rather spend the night here,” said Nick. He was thinking of dozens of times he’d been on Music Row, in the bars and clubs that line Nashville’s streets, open night after night, proving, to his way of thinking, that Nashville will always be the musical heart of the South. And he said as much as they drove.

“You go to New Orleans to eat and fool around,” agreed Harvey unconvincingly, not out of any great experience. “You’re right Nick. Nashville is the only place for music.”

The older man spoke slowly, more to himself or to the rain than to the one beside him. He said that young singers and songwriters flood this city. Some have honest-to-goodness talent. Others have little or none. “Kids come along and wash dishes in kitchens in all those bars all the time, dreaming of the stars, and once in a while, one of them makes it. That’s the genuine optimism. That’s the spirit that brings them here. That’s the spirit that gives the city its deep-down sound and its moving force.”

Harvey looked through the drizzle, “Everyone’s getting ready for Christmas.” Then he grasped another, more interesting thought: “You ever been to Branson?”

Nick Stevenson made a slow right turn and said, enjoying himself as he did, “If Nashville’s the cradle of country music, Harvey, Branson’s the nursing home. We went there once. Didn’t like it a bit. It’s like the elephant’s graveyard-except they won’t stop singing.”

He drove the Camero on the darkened, rain-slick interstate to Clarksville, a Tennessee border town close to Illinois and Kentucky-home to the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne division: Air Assault! The signs shouted the mission at the headlights. The Camero pulled off I-24 and they registered at the Holiday Inn, just before you get to the mall and cinema complex. They took separate one-night rooms and paid cash. They signed in as Smith and Jones. An hour later they sat at a corner table in the motel’s modest restaurant.

Debra Melissa Wallis showed them their seats. She figured them to order dinners off the menu; these were not buffet guys. They had things to talk about. They didn’t want to be rushed. The manager, K. J. Singh, often asked her, “How in the world do you know such things?” She told him, “You just know.” She figured these two for a good 20 percent; they were not local yokels. They were from someplace, here for a reason, money in their pockets.

The two were joined within minutes by a younger man, also wearing a business suit, but so bony-fingered and pencil-necked and seemingly fragile inside his clothes that his jacket flapped around him with every move-a scarecrow is pretty much what he looked like.

He smiled at the two at the table, and sat across from them. No names were exchanged that Debra Melissa could hear, no handshakes, although they clearly knew each other. She took their drink order. Scotch for the older gentleman. Margarita for his nervous companion. Amstel Light for the skinny one. Beyond that, not a peep, no small talk at all, just a long, unbroken silence; eyes in the distance, drinks, for the most part, ignored.

The fourth man showed up at seven thirty. He wore jeans, a blue down jacket, and a well-worn, brown, felt cowboy hat. The three stood; the cowboy held out both hands as if to say “no touching,” and they sat.

He threw his coat and hat to a nearby chair, and sat next to the third one, the younger, skinny guy who arrived before he did. The older gentleman and his nervous friend made statements, like quick little speeches. Debra could not hear much, but they seemed to be using a lot of words she’d never heard before. By the time she’d worked her way close enough, all she got was the older one saying “turn yourself in” and the cowboy replying, “Thank you. I’ll think about it.”

They ordered steak and chicken, except for the cowboy, who wanted a caesar salad with hard-boiled eggs. When the entrees were placed before them, they started talking. They spoke until almost ten, the hour when the kitchen closed and the last remaining diners were chased away, when the minimum-wage employees made their way home, a chance to rest, to prepare to do it all over again tomorrow. Debra Melissa stayed to the bitter end, watching discreetly, betting her time on her intuition. These guys are big tippers-she was certain of that.

At the start, the young man sitting next to the cowboy opened an attache case. He removed a stack of papers and publications: charts, spreadsheets, official-looking documents printed in tiny letters on flimsy tissue-thin paper; copies of memos, letters, and e-mails. From time to time the nervous one picked up a sheet of paper from the table, looked at it closely, and seemed to ask a question. Each time, the skinny one or the cowboy supplied an answer, and everyone seemed pleased with that. She heard some numbers tossed around, and for just a moment she was sure she heard “billions.” “I must be hearing things,” she told herself.

Eventually that work was done. There seemed to be no more questions. Now the cowboy ordered a sweetened ice tea. After that he talked for nearly an hour. From a distance he looked strong and sexy to Debra Melissa, determination all over his salt-and-pepper bearded face. After the tea he drank water, which she refilled several times. The two businessmen sometimes interrupted. The cowboy answered each question very slowly, taking his time, selecting his words carefully. When the cowboy was done they all looked at each other-not like businessmen do, but into each other’s eyes for an awful long time. Debra Melissa didn’t quite know what to make of that. Then they stood and started hugging, patting each other’s backs. Each man went from one to the other until everyone hugged everyone else. The nervous guy held on to the cowboy the longest. He didn’t want to let go. This was really something special, something she had only seen in the movies; movies about the mafia.

The cowboy put on his jacket and hat. The skinny one who came alone, the one who had all the papers on the table, left first. The gray-haired, distinguished-looking one, the oldest of the group, put his hand on the cowboy’s cheek, touching it gently like they were kin, caressing the face like the waitress had seen wives do when the 101st deployed and they worried they’d never see their men again. The skinny-necked younger man paid the bill with his credit card and, sure enough, put down a 25 percent tip. Then the older guy, who knew the bill was already paid, put cash on the table, two twenties. He never looked back, but if he had, Debra Melissa Wallis would have offered her very special smile. She’d had it in mind all along that he was a gentleman you could be proud to know.

In the morning the two Atlanta lawyers checked out, drove back to Nashville, and flew home. The skinny one who stayed at a different motel one exit farther east on I-24 hit the road before six and planned to drive straight through the whole way home. The cowboy awoke from his hard, wooden sleep at seven. He showered and then enjoyed the complementary continental breakfast offered at his motel. He thought about why they called it that: a continental breakfast. He was sure Europe was the continent, and he’d never heard it called that there. He read USA Today with his coffee. The New York Times isn’t sold at the Motel-6 near Clarksville. With coffee, cantaloupe, a small, round waffle, and three hard-boiled eggs inside him, he tossed his tall hat onto the seat of his SUV, turned west onto I-24, and headed for New Mexico.