ReUNION: What if the Civil War had never happened? (26 page)

Chappelear nodded. “Then y’all aren’t as big as the American White Confederate
Partisans are y’all?”

All three of them laughed. “Not yet,” Louie said. “They’re national, we’re
local.”

“They have hundreds of members, probably thousands,” Chappelear went on.

“Pwob’ly,” Waymond admitted.

“So it wouldn’t be unreasonable for the Partisans to be dealing with large
amounts of money, would it?” said Mr. Chappelear. “Say half a million dollars?”

“No it wouldn’t,” Louie said, catching his drift. “But we’re not dem and dis
check is made out to us.”

“So I see,” Chappelear said dubiously. “Of course, that could be a clerical
error. This check could be meant for the Partisans, not the Patriots.”

“Well, we-all have this here ConFedEx envelope with
our
address,” Louie
said, handing the envelope to Mr. Chappelear. “That’s how da check got to us.”

The branch manager looked at the address. “73414 ½ Peachpit Road. That your
place?”

“World headquarters of da Association of White Confederate Patriots,” Earl
said proudly.

“Just where’s it at?”

“’Bove Goggins Tavwen.” Waymond said.

Chappelear looked at the check, then at the envelope. “I doan know,” he said.

“Dere’s da letter too,” Louie said. “It came with da check.” He took back the
envelope, pulled out the Frank Thomas note and handed it to the branch manager,
who read it carefully.

“Says Patriots,” Earl prompted. “Not Partisans.”

Chappelear nodded. “Who’s this Frank Thomas?”

Louie and Earl looked at each other in sudden perplexity.

“He’s a fwend of my mom’s,” Waymond said, the picture of innocence. “Wery nice
fellow. Wery wich.”

“Mmm-hmmm,” said Chappelear. “So what do y’all plan to do with this here
check?”

“Cash it,” Louie said. “If that’s not too much of a botherment.”

“Deposit it,” said Waymond.

That caught Chappelear by surprise. “Deposit it?” he asked. “Y’all have an
account here?”

“Yes, we suwely do,” Waymond said.

“In the name of your organization?”

“Dat’s wight.”

Chappelear thought a moment. “Paige, would you bring me the signature cards for
the account?”

“Yes, sir,” she said. She was still smiling.

Mz. Pendleton was back in no time with three 5 x 7 signature cards. Chappelear
put them on his desk, face down. He pulled out a blank sheet of paper. “Gentlemen,”
he said, “could all three of y’all write your signatures on this here piece of
paper?”

They did, and Chappelear studied the signatures, comparing them to those on the
signature cards. Then he had Paige Pendleton check them out. “What do you
think, Paige?”

“They look genuine to me, sir.”

“I agree,” he said with a sigh. He regarded the Patriots. “Okay, sign the
check—all three of y’all, with your club titles and I’ll credit it to y’alls
account.”

Louie caught Earl’s eye, confused. “What’d he say?”

“He said sign it and da money’s ourn,” Earl said.

“Yeah?” Louie said. Earl kicked his shoe before he could say any more.

“I’d wait a week for it to clear before y’all make any withdrawals,” Chappelear
said.

“But it’s cewtified,” Waymond objected.

Chappelear looked at the check again. “So it is. But we don’t have anything
like that much cash on hand. I can give y’all---he made some mental
calculations—“$10,000 now and y’all can write checks on the rest, at y’alls
convenience.”

The Patriots looked at each other and nodded. “Dat would be gracious plenty.”
Louie said, gulping.

Chappelear initialed the check and passed it to Paige Pendleton. “Process
this,” he instructed. “Please.”

Mz. Pendleton led the Patriots back to the counter and did what tellers do.
Then she made a brief trip to the safe, returning with a fist-full of paper
money. “Who gets this?” she asked, counting it out and slipping it into an
envelope. Three hands went up.

“Ah’m da treasuwoo,” Waymond said. “Ah need it for bills ‘n ‘spenses.”

“And ah’m the President,” Louie said, holding out a hand.

“We’ll go back to headquarters n’ have an ‘xecutive meeting about it,” Earl
said. He took the package.

“Dat’s okay by me,” Waymond said.

“Likewise,” said Louie.

They hopped back into the red Packard and headed back to headquarters.

“You was really eye-eating dat Paige chick,” Earl said to Louie.

“Ah dint see you looking in the udder direction,” Louie replied.

“So what awe we goin’ t’do wid the money?” Waymond said. “Dat’s half a million
dollahs, y’know.”

“Well, dere’s a lot we-all could do wid it,” said Louie. “We could buy all
kinds of ads on da newspapers and TV.”

“Yeah,” Earl agreed, “we could do dat, aw’right.”

“We could went sound twucks an’ build a big stage in da park, have a weally big
pwotest wally,” Waymond said. “Get on TV. Get famous.”

“Yeah,” Louie said, “we might could do dat, dats fer dam sure.” He chuckled.

Earl turned to look at Waymond, who was sitting in the back seat. “kin ya tink
of anyting else we could do wid the money, Waymond?”

“Whadda mean?”

“Come on, Way,” Louie said. “Doan ya got no ‘magination?”

They were all silent for a moment.

“You tinkin’ we divvy it up among da membehs?” Waymond asked.

Earl and Louie exchanged glances. “Not all of ‘em,” Earl said.

“Ifn we split it three ways,” said Louie, “dats almost two hunnert thousan’
each.”

“A hunnert n’ sixty-six thousan’, six hunnert and sixty-six dollahs and
sixty-six cents.” Waymond calculated

“Each?” Louie asked.

“Ifn we split it twee ways,” Waymond said. “But we got fifteen memboos.”

Louie nodded. “Well, what would we get if we split it fifteen ways?”

“Tooty-twee thousan’, tooty-twee dollahs and tooty-twee cents,” Waymond said.
“Not countin’ whats alweady in da account.”

“Y’know,” Louis said, “wid a hunnert and sixty-six thousan’, I’d never have t’
work again. All my whole life.”

“You doan work now,” Earl said. “You livin’ offn your mum.”

Waymond seemed troubled. “What about da west of da memboos?” he asked.

“Dey doan know,” Earl pointed out.

“And dey doan need to,” Louie added. “Do dey?”

“Half a million dollars, Way,” Earl reminded his friend. “Hunnert n’
sixty-thousan’ apiece. Tink of what you could do with dat.”

“No more eatin’ lean,” Waymond said.

“’Zactly,” Louie said.

Chapter Fourteen

The three black Packards pulled away from Arcadia just after dawn. The first
and third cars were stuffed with security men in three-button suits. Car two
held the precious cargo: President Buddy Bourque, his daughter Delphine, Vice
President Kooter Barnes and the Indispensible Negro, LeRoy Pickett. Bourque was
wearing his favorite Panama hat.

“This ain’t enough people,” Barnes said.

Bourque’s eyebrows rose. “Pardon?”

“We oughta be comin’ with a whole passel of people,” Barnes said. “You know,
military people and experts, and like that.”

Bourque nodded thoughtfully. “What for?” He pulled out a pack of Tums,
extracted one and popped it into his mouth.

Barnes bent his head toward Bourque, squinting. “What was that? Couldn’t quite
make it out.”

“I said, ‘what for?” Bourque repeated more loudly, for the benefit of his
increasingly deaf Vice President “Why do we need more people?”

“Well, you know, to impress ‘em, Match up with their experts and their military
folks. So we’d be equals.”

“Equals, eh?” Bourque said, munching on the Tum. “I wish.”

“The two sides agreed this meeting would just be between the principals,”
Pickett explained, practically yelling. “The decision makers.”

Barnes thought about that. “So Delphine is one of our decision makers?”

“Bet your ass,” Bourque said. “She decides what I can eat and what I can’t.”

Pickett spoke up again, keeping the volume up. “She might benefit from the
exposure, Mr. Vice President. Besides, nothing eases negotiations like…”

“A pretty girl,” Bourque said, grinning. “Now you cain’t argue with that,
Kooter.”

“Hmm. Hadn’t considered that angle,” the Vice President admitted. “Still, it’s
a pretty measly delegation.”

“The way I see it,” Bourque said, bending toward Barnes so he could be heard,
“When the real horse trading starts, it’s mostly gonna be me and Callaway. The
smaller we keep it, the fewer people we gotta send to the men’s room.”

“Yeah, but at least we should bring clerical staff,” Barnes said, persisting.
“Who’s going to keep track of who says what? It’s pretty easy to get
beflustered especially during suspicious times. Someone might cloud up and rain
on someone else.”

“That’s why I’m bringing Pickett here. Fastest note-taker I know of. Besides,
they got expensive help at the White House. Let Callaway foot the bill for the
deliverables and the documents or whatever. I’m thinking he’s not the type to
put his thumb on the scale.” Bourque glanced at Pickett.

“No sir,” he said, grinning. “So far as I can tell, he’s the straightest arrow
in the quiver.”

Barnes cleared his throat as if he had something more to say.

“Kooter?” Bourque prompted.

“Jes’ a question for Delphine, if that’s okay.”

“Ask away,” Delphine said.

“Do you, ah, ‘spect to do any singing up North, love?”

Everyone laughed.

“Not this trip, Kooter,” Delphine said, beaming. “Maybe another time.”

‘You’d wow ‘em.”

“Thank you.”

The trip to the Baton Rouge Airport took less than an hour. Bourque spent the
time trying to read the NAU briefing book Pickett had put together. Kooter
leaned against the back of the seat and nodded off, snoring loudly enough to
inspire smiles and furtive glances between Pickett and Delphine. An airport
guard waved the Packards through a private gate and the caravan drove out onto
the tarmac.

President Bourque’s private plane—the
Dixie One
—sat in an otherwise
empty hanger in a restricted corner of the Baton Rouge Airport, still dripping
from a thorough washing. It was a Junkers 452, a two-engined passenger jet,
leased from the manufacturer, credit guaranteed by the German government.

The plane had some years on it, having hauled thousands of pale German
vacationers from Hamburg and Frankfurt to the
Côte
d'
Azur
and back again, tanned. But it had
been refitted. The customary sardine-can seating arrangement had given way to a
few rows of first-class recliners and half a dozen leather lounge chairs, along
with tables, a wet bar and a handsome new geometric rug.

The Packard convoy pulled up to the plane, and its high-ranking passengers
stepped onto the pavement, while the security detail opened the car trunks and
started loading the luggage.

At that moment, a single yellow cab appeared at the far end of the runway,
racing toward the President’s plane at flank speed. The security men shoved
their flabbergasted charges back into the Packards, assumed a defensive
perimeter, unholstered their automatic pistols and took aim at the taxi
hurtling toward them.

The taxi driver, unaccustomed to this kind of intimidation, slammed on the
brakes and came to a dead stop about 100 feet from the Packards. Then,
panicked, he threw the vehicle into reverse. But before the cab could get up
any speed, a rear door opened and a short, balding man got out, immediately
tripped and nearly did a face-plant on the asphalt.

He stumbled to his feet. “Wait!” he called toward the airplane, sounding
desperate. “Wait for me!”

Buddy Bourque, who was watching all this with morbid fascination, suddenly
realized who the uninvited man was. “Don’t shoot him,” he bellowed. “I know
that man. That’s that Pinckney feller. Gerard Pinckney. Man ain’t worth a milk
bucket under a bull, but he ain’t likely to go hurtin’ anybody.”

The security team lowered its weapons, disappointed.

“Can I get my suitcase?” Pinckney asked. “Please?”

Two of the security men exchanged glances, and one of them gave Pinckney a
reluctant nod. The flustered biographer made his way back to the cab, whose
driver—fortunately—had decided to stay and watch the show. Pinckney wrestled a
grey Samsonite two-suiter out of the taxi’s trunk and half-dragged the thing
back to the plane.

“What in pluperfect hell are you doing here?” Kooter Barnes demanded. “This
ain’t your party.”

“I’m the biographer,” Pinckney protested. “And this is an historic event in
President Bourque’s life. No way I could miss it.”

“So why are you late?” Barnes shot back.

“
He
was supposed to wake me up.” Pinckney pointed an accusing finger at
Pickett. “But I guess he
forgot
.”

“Ah’m so sorry, Mr. Pinckney,” Pickett said. “So much goin’ on, plum slipped my
mind.”

Delphine giggled.

“Well, I’m glad you woke yourself up, Pinckney,” Bourque said. “Wouldn’t have
wanted you to miss the Big Meet-up. Pick yourself up and get on board.”

“One more guy to send to the men’s room,” Barnes said under his breath.

“What’s that?” Pinckney asked, sensing insult.

“I said I have to go to the men’s room.”

Pickett caught Bourque’s eye. The President smiled and shrugged.

The flight to Andrews Air Force base took less than three hours. Kooter resumed
his nap a few moments after the plane was airborne. Delphine sat in one of the
first class rows, working on song lyrics. Pinckney settled down in Delphine’s
row, a few seats away, and indulged himself in grandiose flirting fantasies.

Bourque and Pickett sat in the back of the plane, in the lounge chairs,
Bourque at a window seat, his Panama hat on the side beside him, thumbing
through the briefing book, struggling to overcome a lifelong aversion to
printed matter.

He gave up and turned to Pickett. “I see you’ve started the agenda with
environmental issues. They gonna like that?”

Pickett shrugged. “Well, Wang said, as long as you’re the ones who wanted the
meeting, you’re the ones who should set the agenda. Anyhow, I thought it would
be good to start small.”

“Maybe that makes sense,” Bourque agreed. Then he had another thought. “So what
should I expect at the airport? A red carpet and kisses on both cheeks?

“Nice words, a big smile, a firm handshake, then into the helicopter and over
to the White House lawn.”

“What about Callaway?”

“You won’t see him until you’re inside the White House. But Wang will probably
meet the chopper. Maybe Veronica at Andrews.”

“The State Department lady?”

“Well, lady might be stretching it a little, but yes.”

“Do I look all right?”

“The string tie is a nice touch.”

Bourque went back to his Tums.

“How are you feeling?”

“A little puny, but I’ll perk up soon as I put on the feedbag. I’m so hungry my
stomach thinks my throat’s been slit.”

“Oh, don’t you worry about that,” Pickett said. “They’ll put on a fine spread.
Just don’t expect gumbo and grits.”

The pilot’s voice came over the intercom. “Fasten your seatbelts, folks. We’ll
be landing in about 20 minutes.”

Bourque looked out the window and Pickett peered over his shoulder.
Washington, D.C. lay just to the right of them, a few thousand feet down, the
white government buildings gleaming in the midday sun. “I’m beginning to feel
like a short dog in the tall grass,” Bourque said.

“You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?”

Bourque laughed.

Veronica Tennenbaum and a few State Department older hands were waiting for the
Bourque party when it came down the stairs. The paisley lady hurried up to the
arriving group, grabbed Kooter Barnes’ hand and shook it enthusiastically.
“Welcome to the NAU, Mr. President,” she said.

“Ah, no, no Mrs. Tennenbaum,” Pickett hurried to say. “Let me introduce the
President. This is Virgil Lee Bourque, President of the Confederate States of
America. I assume that you are Veronica Tennenbaum, NAU’s Secretary-of-State
designate?”

“The very same,” Veronica said, unembarrassed. She shook Bourque’s hand.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. President. President Callaway sends his greetings.
He’s at the White House and he’s eager to meet you.”

Bourque doffed his Panama hat, took Veronica’s hand and kissed it gallantly,
much to her surprise. “It’s an honor to meet you, Ms. Tennenbaum,” he purred.

“I’m charmed,” Veronica said, clearly flattered. She turned to one of her State
Department elders. “See, now that’s how a real gentleman greets a lady,” she
said.

Bourque then introduced Pickett, calling him his ‘chief factotum,’ and Pickett
handled the other introductions. Then Veronica led the party, security detail
included, about 100 yards across the tarmac, to a waiting Marine Corps VH 3D
Sea king helicopter, at which stood two Marines in full dress uniforms, one
holding a rifle at port arms.

The air space between Andrews and the White House was normally restricted—had
been since 1979, when some religious nut-job overflew the White House in a
Cessna and fired a shotfgun at the West Wing. But it’s a different story for
official helicopters. Fifteen minutes after take off, following a trip that
included a stunning bird’s eye view of Washington sights that few people ever
get to see, the Sea king landed on the South Lawn of the White House.
Bourque turned to Pickett before they got out. “Curtain going up” he said.

Eric Wang and Jewel Rogard greeted the new arrivals, while Pickett and
Tennenbaum handled the introductions.

“Mr. President,” Veronica said, “I want you to meet Eric Wang, the President’s
Chief of Staff.”

“Ah, Wang. Yes.” Bourque said, nodding. “We’ve howdied but we ain’t shook.” He
held out a paw and Wang took it.

“President Callaway had intended to meet the helicopter,” Wang explained, “but
he had to take a last minute call. He’s waiting for you now in the Oval
Office.”

Bourque reckoned this might be a moment for levity. “Okay. So take me to your
leader,” he said, grinning.

The CSA’s security people joined forces with the NAU Secret Service detail and
they went about their business, heading for a distant doorway, while Wang led
Bourque and his party to the inner sanctum. The southerners tried their best
not to rubberneck.

At the Oval Office, all was warm handshaking, broad smiles and nervous small talk.
Pickett watched, heart pounding.

Bourque and Callaway were walking toward the President’s famous desk and
conversing. They were a conspicuously unmatched set.

“Nice place you got here,” Bourque told Callaway.

“I’m sure Arcadia is a match for it,” Callaway said.

“Tell me about that painting,” Bourque suggested, pointing to something from
Revolutionary times. “We share a lot of history, you know.”

Bourque and Callaway strolled toward the picture, still talking, and Pickett
turned to look at the two Vice Presidents, who seemed an even less likely pair.
They were examining a ship model in a glass case.

“As I recall,” Barnes was saying, “you were a pretty spectacular athlete.”

Vice President Darren Garvey responded with an ‘aw shucks’ expression. “Well,
Mr. Vice President, the operative word in that sentence is
were
. It’s
been quite a few years since I had the cleats on.”

“What’s that?”

Garvey raised his voice. “I said it’s been quite a few years since I threw a
football in anger, Mr. Vice President.”

“It’s Barnes,” said the Southerner, wiggling his walrus mustache. “George
Barnes. But if you don’t call me Kooter, I’m going to get mighty riled up.”

Garvey laughed. “Then Kooter it is,” he said, easily slipping into his good old
boy persona, which happened to be where he’d spent most of his life. “Call me
Darren.”

Wang sidled up to Pickett. “Everyone seems to be getting along pretty well,” he
observed.

“So far,” Pickett agreed. “But that one worries me.” He pointed toward the rose
garden window. Just out of their earshot, Gerard Pinckney was earnestly
haranguing Marty Katz. Katz listened politely for a bit, then pulled out his
cigar case, selected something about the size of a baseball bat and,
disregarding the smoke alarm system, lit up with what appeared to be a
miniature flame thrower. It took only two subtle but artfully-directed
exhalations to send Pinckney, coughing, in search of liquid lubricant.