Brambleman (64 page)

Another story inside bothered him more:
“Sherman’s Sources Disputed.” Crenshaw had interviewed historians
from Emory University and the University of Georgia, who didn’t say
anything conclusive. Their professorial hemming and hawing served
mainly as ballast. The real accusations came from David Clark,
Cecil Montgomery’s self-appointed replacement as local historian.
“Bullshit!” Charlie cried out and stomped around in a circle in
front of the bakery.
There is a special place in hell for
historians who bear false witness … against those that do God’s
will, that is
.

Charlie was so restless from the night’s
tumult and drama that he couldn’t sit still, let alone lie down and
sleep before the trip to Chicago, where he and his character
defects would match wits with varmints on that abominable TV show.
Having no idea where he would end up, he hopped into his BMW and
drove into the night. He headed north on the Downtown Connector,
then northeast on I-85. Before he knew it, the car was idling on
Thornbriar Circle and Charlie was staring at his old house, wishing
he was inside it. He even missed Susan, if only because she held a
broken-off piece of him and wouldn’t give it back. That nasty BMW
now occupied his old spot in the driveway, and another man slept in
his former bed beside Susan, who was breaking vows and commandments
left and right. But mainly she’d been lying. First with Bryan. Now
with Harold.

Had Susan slept with Scudder, too? Charlie’s
face burned hot with anger and jealousy. He couldn’t drive the
horrific possibility out of his mind that Scudder was Ben’s father.
But when Charlie thought about it, Ben did resemble Susan’s CEO.
No
!
Don’t go there
! He couldn’t help himself,
however. He kept matching the bank president’s face to his son’s
until one became the other. He told himself that no matter who the
father was, Ben was his son. This was the same concept Minerva had
tried to preach to him about John Riggins. At the time, Charlie had
been too involved with his own version of the truth to listen to
hers.

He is my son
, Charlie told himself.
And I know better than anyone on earth that he can be taken from
me
.

And what about Beck?

Was this the payoff for his heroic efforts on
the Almighty’s behalf? Had he fulfilled his contract only to be
mocked and have his children stolen from him? This was an outrage
on a cosmic scale: Not only were they being stolen from him, but
now he was being stolen from them, his genes sucked out of them
like he’d never existed. Why was his reward this crushing
loneliness? No, this couldn’t be Satan he was dealing with. Even
the devil would have cut a dude a better deal than this. The devil
was logical and cunning. This was random and cruel, to give him a
test that had all wrong answers.

Charlie knew he should leave before something
else weird happened. He drove off and circled the city on I-285
until he came to the Memorial Drive exit. He took it, turning away
from the giant Confederate monument at Stone Mountain and heading
west toward Atlanta, listening to a late-night DJ pretend the world
was a party. When he reached Redeemer’s church, Charlie pulled into
the parking lot. Aimee had hinted that Redeemer was dying. The
man’s dream—his shelter for the homeless—was withering away, too.
Charlie wondered where the money would go. Probably to pay
Redeemer’s medical bills, but no one would admit that, because it
would sound
corrupt
, and some twenty-four-year-old TV
reporter might get hold of the story.

Charlie wasn’t there looking for God or
answers this time. He was looking for Tawny. It had been months
since he’d seen her, and now maybe it was time …

A car barreled past on Memorial, weaving in
and out of its lane, horn blaring. This part of town was surreal in
the middle of the night. Certainly not a safe place for his BMW. As
he sat with the engine idling, contemplating how to proceed, a
woman’s unearthly screams tore the air.

They seemed to be coming from down the
street.

What was he thinking, coming to this place?
There was nothing he could do but save himself. He drove off,
testing the car’s acceleration. On the way back to Castlegate, he
managed to convince himself that the cries of torment hadn’t come
from the church.

* * *

Fueled by bad news and lack of sleep,
Charlie’s depression was in full force Sunday morning. When the
alarm rang, he rolled over and looked at the clock. If he hurried,
he could eat breakfast and catch his flight to Chicago. On the
other hand, if he went back to sleep, he’d miss it. An easy choice:
He would let the varmints have their undisputed say. They could
steal hotel towels, too, for all he cared. Charlie turned off his
phone and avoided the computer. When he finally got up, he watched
a baseball game on television, then an old movie. After that, he
listened to jazz. He figured that if the food held out, he wouldn’t
have to leave the loft until Friday, when he was due in court to
battle Susan for the kids.

Sunday bled into Monday. Just before dawn,
Charlie woke up. Curious about Dana’s fate, he ambled downstairs to
get a newspaper. Her late-night arrest hadn’t made Sunday’s paper,
but now it was front-page news. Only then did Charlie learn what
had kept Rodika Arcos flying all over the world: international art
fraud, drug smuggling, gunrunning, and—according to Romanian
authorities—espionage and conspiracy to commit murder. There were
also “crimes against humanity” on her rap sheet, stemming from the
time she spent with a Serbian man. Then, her name had been Arca.
And what was
this
? What kind of woman would participate in
an armed attack on an
orphanage
? Wow. Could he pick ’em, or
what?

Although Charlie escaped mention in the
arrest story, he’d been linked to the international fugitive in a
society brief about Saturday night’s soirée. “I’m toast,” he
muttered when he saw his name in bold print next to Dana
Colescu’s.

He stared at the painting he’d purchased from
her. Why did he have to go and buy art from a forger? Hell, he
didn’t even know if it was hanging right side up—or if it was
backwards, for that matter. Did the artist really live in Paris and
have AIDS, or did a twelve-year-old Filipino girl paint it using
photographs and mirrors?

The first knock on the door came at 7:03
a.m., and he was officially under siege. That morning, at least a
dozen people pounded on the door. Each time, Charlie stood still
and waited for the knocking to cease.

He considered packing a suitcase and getting
out of town, but he didn’t. Instead, he laid on the sofa and stared
at the sunlight on the ceiling as it faded through the morning
hours. Then he listened to his bedside clock ticking the seconds
away. When a few thousand had passed, he realized that at that very
moment, varmints were taping the Steele show in Chicago. Spence
Greene and Barbara Asher would rip Charlie a new one for being a
no-show, but only if he talked to them. Another problem easily
solved. Other than avoiding all human contact, he didn’t know what
to do. So he did nothing and quietly waited for the world to go
away.

The knocking came intermittently throughout
the rest of the day.

Morbid curiosity about Dana drove Charlie to
click on the evening news. He stared in disbelief as Susan appeared
on the plasma screen, standing beside her Mercedes beneath the
TransNationBank sign in front of Hanover Mall’s landmark clock
tower. Channel Six reporter Trent Bozier asked, “How do you feel
about your husband’s relationship with an alleged war
criminal?”

Susan took a deep breath. “Obviously, he
continues to engage in disgusting behavior and associate with
dangerous criminals, on top of harassing my family, and I will do
everything I can to protect the people that I love from him.”

“Does that include a restraining order?”

“Definitely. We’re getting the restraining
order reinstated. It never should have been removed.”

Tears of frustration and rage welled in
Charlie’s eyes. “You’ll pay for that!” he screamed. “You’ll pay and
pay and pay! On your knees begging is too good for you!”

* * *

Charlie didn’t eat or sleep much for the rest
of the day, and he continued to ignore phone calls, e-mails, and
knocks on the door the next day. Tuesday afternoon, he worked up
the nerve to watch
The Matthew Steele Show
, hoping the
scheduled episode had been cancelled because he hadn’t shown up for
the Monday taping. No such luck. The host, wearing his trademark
black suit, opened the show with a seething denunciation of
“Charles Sherman, the man in the empty chair.” Steele pointed to
said chair and declared, “He didn’t have the courage to show up
after his Eastern European lover’s arrest on espionage charges.”
The crowd jeered. “Mr. Sherman, this is what people think of you.”
Steele held his microphone overhead and urged the crowd to boo even
louder.

“Why the fuck should I care?” Charlie
muttered at the screen. “You idiots don’t read.”

Steele prowled the stage like a greedy
preacher. “Theft and trespassing, domestic violence, child
pornography, meth dealing, and adultery. With a spy, no less!
Libel, war crimes, art forgery.” Steele, who didn’t care whose
offenses he was talking about or if they’d actually been committed,
sucked in a deep breath. “The list is endless, but the bottom line
is that Charles Sherman is one reprehensible individual!” Steele
stopped pacing and bowed his head, appearing to be deep in thought.
When he looked up into the camera, he said, “Charles Sherman … is a
vermin!”

He repeated the line. On the third try, the
crowd took the cue and started chanting it. They kept this up until
Steele silenced them by proclaiming, “And now, it’s time to meet
Charles Sherman’s victims!”

“Victims?” Charlie jumped up from his seat on
the sofa, yelling, “Them there is perpetrators!”

Uncle Stanley, Momo, and Evangeline walked
out on the stage. To applause! As Steele introduced them, the
clapping and cheers grew louder. All of them were dressed in black,
like they’d flown straight to Chicago from Pappy’s funeral without
changing clothes. What a pack of fakes! The hulking Momo, wearing a
hateful scowl and dwarfing Steele’s security guards, wore a suit
instead of his usual Confederate T-shirt. Stanley was wearing his
legislative ID badge on his lapel, and Evangeline wore a black suit
with her trademark mini-bouffant. Puffy-eyed, she broke into tears
when Steele asked her how she was doing.

“My daddy died,” she said. “That’s how I’m
doing.”

Steele knelt and patted her hand

Next to her sat Momo, forehead wide, brow
low. “Pappy was the best man I ever knew,” he said. “He taught me
how to hunt. Pap was always there to help. Until … until.” He hung
his head.

Stanley spoke up. “Sherman was always trying
to destroy the family, but things turned really bad when he got
caught with child pornography on the computer in the house. He
didn’t have a job, by the way. Except for writing porn.”

“My daughter wasn’t standing for any of
that,” Evangeline said.

“It got violent,” Stanley said. “He beat
Susan up pretty bad. She was able to call 911. He was so out of
control the police had to draw guns— ”

Evangeline interrupted. “It would have been
better if they’d a—” Suddenly she was staring cross-eyed at a
microphone a foot away from her face. “Lord, I can’t say such a
thing.”

“Shot him to death,” Momo said helpfully.

Stanley continued the narrative: “Sherman got
kicked out of the house and soon after that, he began stalking us
and plotting his revenge.”

“How so?” Steele asked.

“Well first, he tried to build up his
credibility by putting his name as the author of that first book
even though somebody else wrote it, and it wasn’t factual to begin
with.”

“You’re talking about
Flight from
Forsyth,
” Steele said. “So that never happened?”

“Not the way he told it, that’s for sure.
Anyway, once he does that, he starts making up this cock-and-bull
story about how this black man lived in Forsyth and how my father
supposedly killed him and stole the land.” Stanley put air quotes
around
killed
and
stole
. “Even worse things, nonsense
and lies I won’t repeat.”

Without missing a beat, Steele asked, “When
did he start worshiping the devil?”

Enough
. Charlie turned off the TV. He
paced around the room until he couldn’t stand the silence anymore.
He turned the TV back on just as Steele was cutting to a
commercial: “When we come back, we’ll hear from someone who has a
different perspective on these matters.”

Different perspective? Who could it be?
Charlie wracked his brain for the answer while advertisers tried to
sell him toilet cleaner and hemorrhoid ointment.

Steele returned. “Ladies and gentlemen, our
special guest, Arlene Cartier!”

Aunt Shirlene
!

The varmints’ mouths dropped open in unison
at the announcement. Apparently, they had no idea this was coming.
Nice touch, Steele.
Charlie pumped his fist in the air and
cheered raucously as Arlene, wearing a red dress, walked onstage.
As she passed Stanley, he rose from his chair. She raised her hand
to slap him. When he recoiled from the anticipated blow, she
laughed in his face. The crowd broke out in guffaws and jeers. She
turned and glared at this newest source of dissatisfaction,
apparently scouting for more targets. Her eyes were lit with fire
as she sat down in a chair set well apart from the others.

“Now, is Cartier your married name?” Steele
asked, holding his microphone in front of her face.

“No. I never married. I changed my name as
soon as I legally could. Wanted nothing to do with ’em.” She gave a
backhanded wave toward her relatives.