Greg Iles - The Devils Punchbowl

Labry draws back, his face pale. “Are you serious?”

“It should have been you two years ago. I should never have run.”

“Oh, that’s bullshit.”

“No, it’s not. You’re the man for the job, Paul. I think you

should announce on the same day I resign, and I'’ll throw you my full support.”

Labry turns away, looking thoughtfully toward the tent over Tim’s grave. “I used to think I might try it,” he says. “But I'm forty-four now, and I'm starting to think I don'’t understand the world anymore. My father’s business is going down, Penn. Wal-Mart and the rest have about killed it. I’'ve tried to save it, but the hole just keeps getting deeper.” His cheeks redden in embarrassment. “All the old retail places are going down. Hell, we don'’t have more than a handful of Jewish families left in town, and they were the backbone of the retail economy when we were growing up.”

I hoped I wouldn'’t have to play the next card, but Paul’s not giving me any choice. “I'm sorry to hear that. Because if you don'’t run, you know who’s going to get the job.”

Paul blanches again. “Shad Johnson?”

“Yep.”

“Christ.”

“Who knows? Maybe that wouldn'’t be such a bad thing.”

“Bullshit.” Paul lowers his voice. “I was talking to Father Nightingale, from out at Mandamus Baptist? He speaks for a lot of the black community. He doesn’'t even like Shad being district attorney. Said you can’t trust him as far as you’d throw him. I'm not sure the blacks would even turn out for him.”

“They will if you’re not in the race. But if you’re in it, they’ll vote for you. They know where your heart is.”

Labry looks away for a while, then turns back to me. “Penn, if you can’t accomplish the things we dreamed about, what chance do I have?”

“That'’s the wrong way to look at it. I aimed too high. I wanted to solve the education problem because that’s where salvation lies, but I couldn'’t do it. I used to blame the whites for that, but there’s blame on both sides.”

He nods dejectedly. “You know what I think the real obstacle is?”

“Does it even matter? The existing public facilities couldn'’t absorb the kids from the private schools even if their parents decided to send them.”

“Oh, hell, that’s just a matter of money. If we really brought all those kids into one system, what you’d have is a bunch of white kids

who couldn'’t make the athletic teams and a bunch of black kids who couldn'’t make their grades. You talk about something nobody wants?

That'’s

it.”

There’s truth in what Labry says, but he knows the reasons run deeper. “Paul, if I was going to live up to my principles, I would have moved Annie to the public school on the day I was elected. But I didn't. I was unwilling to risk my child’s education, and maybe her safety, unless there were a dozen other white kids in there with her. It’s time for someone with more conviction and a different list of priorities to give it a shot. And that’s you.”

Labry’s blushing now. “You know, I think when we lost the Toyota plant, we lost the mandate you had after the election. We’ll eventually get there on education. But people’s first concern is high-paying jobs.”

“You’ll never get the latter without the former. But there are lots of other things to be done. Annexation of county land. Pushing through the eco-preserve on the creek. Keeping the selectmen from covering the bluff with RV parks. Schmoozing people like Hans Necker. You’re twice as good as I am at that stuff. Be honest, Paul. Don’t you want the job?”

Labry looks down and twists the toe of his shoe into the grass. “From what I’'ve seen these past years, being mayor’s about dealing with a bunch of people who all think they'’re something special.”

“Well, aren'’t they? If anyone still believes that, I figured it was you.”

“Sure they are. But no more special than anybody else. We get in trouble when we start thinking we’re better than our neighbor. Or that somebody else is better than the rest of us. But that’s what people always do.”

“Is that how you see me? As a guy who thinks he’s better than other people?”

Paul laughs softly. “That'’s the funny thing. You

are

better, in a lot of ways. Oh, I'm sure you'’ve got your secrets; everybody does. But knowing you like I do, knowing all you'’ve accomplished in your past, and then seeing you fail in your own eyes…”

“I'm not a politician, Paul. That'’s why I never ran for DA in Houston. I was a lawyer at heart. Now I'm a novelist, and I think that spoiled me. When you write a book, you have total control of

the universe and everyone in it. When you’re mayor of a town, you’re lucky if you can control yourself, much less anyone else.”

Labry steps onto a low concrete wall and sweeps his hand to take in the whole of the cemetery. “Look out there. Jewish Hill, Catholic Hill, Protestants between. Colored Ground. Babyland, where the unwed mothers’ babies went if they died. We try so hard to stay separate from each other that we even do it in death. It’s tribal, man, and it’s not just the South.” Paul turns and points toward the rear of the cemetery. “But the truth is over there behind Catholic Hill, in those thick woods. Paupers’ Field. There’s three thousand bodies back there, just dropped in holes in the ground. In the dark under those trees, there’s no separation. The roots are growing down through all of them, just alike.”

“I'm not sure I see where you’re going. But it doesn’'t sound like you’re too interested in being mayor.”

“We’re all equal before God,” Labry says. “That'’s what I'm saying. But nobody walking this planet seems to get that. Everybody sins, Penn.

Everybody.

That'’s the great leveler. Not death.

Sin.

”

“I was hoping for a more definitive answer.”

Labry gazes into the forest for a while. Then without warning he springs off the wall and looks up at me with a grin. “Hell, yes, I'’ll do it. I'’ll be the damnedest mayor this town ever had!”

I look back in amazement for a few moments, then we both burst out laughing.

CHAPTER

41

Caitlin hunches low behind the wheel of her car and takes a sip from a can of diet Dr Pepper. She’s parked between two trucks in the lot of the Bargain Barn on Highway 15. She knows Darla was lying. The girl was so flustered that she’s bound to panic and leave the store at her first opportunity. Forty minutes have passed since Caitlin left the store, but her cell phone has not rung. Despite Caitlin’s promises of confidentiality, Darla was too rattled for that. But Caitlin has dealt with enough sources to recognize the signs of panic. This is a lot like fishing, or what she remembers her father trying to teach her of it during the summers she stayed with him. Only out here there’s nowhere to pee.

Using her cell phone, she’s trying to Google some more recent information on local Pentecostals when Darla McRaney hurries through the door of the Bargain Barn, looks right and left, then runs to an ancient Pacer hatchback parked in the corner of the lot. Once she’s inside, Caitlin starts her own car but stays low behind the wheel until the Pacer reaches the highway turn.

Darla crosses the westbound lanes, then turns east toward Vidalia and Natchez. Caitlin follows, but since there aren'’t many traffic lights on this road, she leaves ten or twelve car lengths between them.

Less than a mile down the highway, the Pacer turns into a used-

car dealership. It’s a small operation with older-model cars and pickup trucks parked on a vacant lot with the grass worn down to mud in many places. Garish signs scream EASY TERMS! and NO MONEY DOWN! while the banner over the gate reads NO CREDIT, NO PROBLEM!