Bill Fitzhugh - Fender Benders (25 page)

“Try to get this through your little head,” Big Bill
snarled.
 
“I do not give out my client’s
unpublished phone number.”
 
His voice was
rising.
 
“If and when we decide the time
is right for a biography on our client, we will get in touch with our
publishing industry contacts and we will hire a professional biographer and we
will do the book professionally.”
 
He was
yelling now.
 
“We don’t need some clown
from his home town trying to cash in with some pissant memoir!”
 
He calmed down a few decibels.
 
“Now, I am very busy and I don’t have time to
discuss this any further.
 
If you pursue
this, I will turn the matter over to our attorneys.”
 
Click.

Jimmy was dumbstruck.
 
What the hell just happened?
 
This
had to be a mistake.
 
He stared at the phone
until he heard his tires drifting onto the gravel shoulder.
 
He looked up just in time to see a large
wooden sign on the roadside in front of him, but not soon enough to avoid
it.
 
He yanked the steering wheel but he
clipped the sign and sent it flying.
 
It
landed in pieces on the side of the road behind him.
 
The part that landed face-up said: ‘
Welcome to
Meridian
— Home of The Singing Brakeman.
’

Adrenaline fueled Jimmy’s agitated system.
 
His mind and body bristled.
 
Goddammit!
 
What the hell’s going on?
 
A month
ago, Jimmy’d been in tall cotton.
 
He had
a girl he loved and a project he was passionate about.
 
Now all he had was a new dent in his front
quarter-panel.
 
As he drove though Meridian,
Jimmy tried to assess the situation.
 
Had
Eddie betrayed him on the book deal or was this a case of gatekeeper
interference?
 
Either way, Jimmy was
pissed.
 
He’d put in too much time and
invested too much of himself and his future on this book.
 
He wasn’t going to curl up and die just
because Eddie’s manager was playing hard ass.
 
Hell, he was probably putting words in Eddie’s mouth but there was
nothing Jimmy could do about that for now.

But what if Eddie really had turned on him?
 
What if Herron and Peavy had blown so much
smoke up Eddie’s ass that he was taking their advice on the book deal?
 
The fact that he had an unpublished number
all the sudden, just like Megan, didn’t help.
 
And, come to think of it
,
 
it
wasn’t like Jimmy hadn’t noticed
the way Eddie and Megan had looked at each another in the past.
 
Maybe Eddie had betrayed him.
 
Well, screw him, Jimmy thought.
 
If Eddie was too much of a coward to say it
to his face, fine.
 
If Eddie didn’t want
Jimmy to write his official biography, fine.
 
He’d write the unofficial biography.
 
They couldn’t stop him from doing that.
 
And even if they could, Jimmy could always fall back on writing his
fictional version of the story as well as the book on the serial killer.
 
So, ha!
 
Jimmy’s plate was still full and the rest of them could just kiss his
ass.

Jimmy was blown up like a toad by the time he pulled off the
freeway.
 
A few minutes later he pulled
into the parking lot at Okatibbee Pharmaceuticals.
 
The building, like the business itself, was
in need of a face lift it would never receive.
 
The sign was sun-faded and the whitewash on the bricks was flaking off
like bad dandruff.
 
The company spokesman
met Jimmy in the lobby.
 
He was a
handsome man, a few years older than Jimmy.
 
He was tanned and had an oily smile.
 
He seemed nervous the way people do when the smell of downsizing is
thick in the air.
 
After introductions,
the man led Jimmy down a hallway.
 
“Okatibbee Pharmaceuticals has long held an important position in the
economy of Lauderdale County.”
 
He stopped and gestured at a large portrait
hanging on the wall.
 
“The company was
founded by—”

“Whoa,” Jimmy said, “I’m not here for the tour.”

The man turned and looked at Jimmy.
 
“No?”

“No.
 
I’m here to ask
questions.”

“Questions?”

“Yes, the opposite of answers,” Jimmy said.

“Questions about what?”
 
The man seemed uneasy with Jimmy’s prickly
attitude.

“Questions about Tammy Long and Fred
Babineaux and a couple other folks.”

The man looked at the portrait, then back at Jimmy.
 
“Uhhh, do they work here?”
 
His tone was as feeble as his feigned
ignorance.

“No, they were customers.”

“They’re customers?”

“Were,” Jimmy said.
 
“As in now they’re dead.”

“Dead customers?”

“Yes, quite dead,” Jimmy said, “and all with Dr. Porter’s
Headache Powder in their systems.”

The spokesman paused, thinking.
 
He gestured toward a door.
 
“Perhaps we’d be more comfortable talking in
my office.”
 
He showed Jimmy into the
room.
 
“Can I get you something to
drink?
 
Coffee?
 
Co-Cola?”

Jimmy shook his head.
 
“I just need some information.”
 
He pulled a file from his satchel.

“I don’t have any information about dead customers, I can
assure you.”
 
The man sat down behind his
desk and began fidgeting.
 
“Perhaps I
could answer some other questions, like how many boxes of Dr. Porter’s Headache
Powder we make in an hour, something like that?”

Jimmy looked at the man and shook his head.
 
“No, that wouldn’t do me any good.”
 
He pulled a sheet of paper from the
file.
 
“This is a lot number,” he said,
handing the paper over.
 
“I want to know
exactly when and where this lot was shipped.”

The man looked at the list, then at Jimmy.
 
“Are you sure I can’t get you a Co-Cola or
something?
 
Tastes real
nice on a day like this.”

Jimmy cleared his throat and set his elbows on the
desk.
 
“No.
 
Thanks.”
 
He steepled his fingers and stared at the man.
 
“Look, this is very simple,” he said.
 
“I’m writing a book about a guy, okay?
 
The guy’s wife dies suddenly, so I have to
look into the death, right?
 
Turns out
she died from poisoning after taking your product.
 
So I have to look into that, right?
 
Much to my surprise, I find out about similar
deaths in Louisiana, Alabama,
and the Mississippi Gulf
Coast.
 
Now, I know you’ve been contacted by all
these police agencies, and you’ve given them this information.
 
Now you just have to give it to me.”

The man looked genuinely confused.
 
“I do?”

Jimmy pulled out his wallet which got the man’s
attention.
 
“Let me ask you a question,”
Jimmy said.
 
“Does the press know about
this?”

The man looked around nervously.
 
“I don’t think so.”
 
He was starting to imagine a hefty
bribe.
 
Maybe he’d be able to get that
jet ski
he’d had his eye on.

Jimmy pulled out his laminated press credentials and tossed
them onto the man’s desk.
 
“Do you want
to keep it that way?”

The man looked at the credentials and nodded.
 
“Maybe you’d like a Mountain Dew instead
of a Co-Cola
?”

“I’m not thirsty,” Jimmy said.
 
“But thanks.
 
Now, here’s the deal.
 
This book
I’m writing?
 
It might not get
published.
 
And if it does, it won’t be
for a while.
 
Meanwhile, you guys will be
very quietly recalling everything on the shelves and implementing new safety
packaging, right?”

The man continued to nod, keeping a hopeful eye on Jimmy’s
wallet.

“By then the police might have already caught the
perpetrator, in which case the news won’t hurt your sales too much.”

The man shifted in his seat thinking Jimmy would reach into
the wallet again at any moment.
 
A jet ski would sure be real nice
, he
thought.

“Alternatively,” Jimmy said, “in the interest of public
safety, I could make a few phone calls to my friends in the news business and
break the story.
 
This would probably
push your crumbling little enterprise here over the brink into financial
ruin.”
 
Jimmy smiled as he slipped his
press credentials back into his wallet, all the while thinking that Big Bill
Herron wasn’t the only guy who could play hard ass.
 
“Like I said, it’s very simple.”

Disappointed he wasn’t being
bribed,
the man looked at the lot number, then at Jimmy.
 
“That’s blackmail.”

Jimmy held up a finger, then reached into his pocket and
tossed a coin on the man’s desk.
 
“Here’s
a quarter, call somebody who cares.”

35.

Megan opened with the traditional, “Oh my God, Eddie, you’re
sooo big,” which never failed.
 
Combined
with an unnecessary readjustment of her hips and a practiced look of amazement,
it was a solid confidence booster for her new sexual partner.
 
About halfway through she started in with the
“give it to me’s” and the short gasping breaths as if it was the best thing
she’d ever had and she wasn’t sure how much more she could take it was so
unbelievable but please don’t stop.
 
Then, toward the end, Megan called his name with each turgid
thrust.
 
“Eddie.
 
Eddie.
 
Eddie.”
 
Each call matched the
flimsy percussion of the cheap headboard tapping the wall.
 
And then, as he achieved, “Oh, Eddie!
 
Yes!”
 
She just hoped it sounded like she meant it.

Megan could have been reciting a cornbread recipe as far as
Eddie was concerned.
 
He just didn’t want
things to end too quickly, which was a distinct possibility given how long it
had been since he’d engaged in this sort of activity.
 
He tried thinking about NASCAR standings and
fishing lures to delay the countdown, but even visions of Kyle Petty in his
Nomex jumpsuit couldn’t keep Megan’s expert coaxing from triggering the launch,
and the mattress dance was over less than ten minutes after it started.

“Oh my God, Eddie.
 
That was un-be-lieve-able!”
 
Megan sprawled across the bed, huffing like
she’d just finished a four minute mile.

Eddie couldn’t remember ever feeling this good.
 
He was still thrilled by the recording
session and was excited about returning the next night.
 
To top that off with a steamy horizontal
mambo, well, hell, he was doing fine as frog’s hair.
 
Thinking maybe he should do some cuddling,
Eddie leaned over to kiss Megan, but she was already snoring.
 
Eddie smiled.
 
Could things get any better
,
he wondered.

36.

Big Bill was in a pensive mood.
 
He was thinking about how great ideas often
come from the strangest places.
 
Specifically he was thinking about the phone call he’d received from the
guy calling himself Jimmie Rodgers.
 
Because of the name Big Bill assumed the guy was a crackpot but still,
it set Big Bill to thinking that a biography of Eddie Long was a terrific idea,
assuming Eddie ever had a hit.
 
Of course
if you were going to do a book, Big Bill thought, now was the time to get
started.
 
You wanted it ready so you
could rush into publication and cash in on what might turn out to be a flash in
the pan.
 
To that end Big Bill was
thinking he would write the book himself.
 
After all, how hard could that be?

He’d been sitting at his kitchen table for an hour trying to
think of a good title when Eddie arrived.
 
Big Bill looked up and saw the satisfied face of a man who not only got
laid the night before but figured he had it coming again tonight.
 
“Hey now!”
Big Bill
said, pointing at Eddie.
 
“Betcha dolla I
know who got some gravel for his goose!”
 
He slapped his hand down on the table and laughed.
 
“You ready to make some music?”

Eddie tipped his Stetson back and smiled his best Eddie Long
smile.
 
“If nothin’ breaks or comes
untwisted,” he said.
 
“How
you doin’?”

“Well, I feel more like I do now than I did when I got
here,” Big Bill said.
 
“And I felt pretty
good to start with.”