The Last Goodbye (11 page)

The city's past is held captive by the sweet fragrance of magnolia blossoms, which despite the crush of automobiles and skyscrapers, continues somehow to survive. This is a world in which the Confederate flag can be seriously considered a romantic symbol. It is badly fraying along its edges, but its resilience has shut the mouths of a lot of cultural observers, few of them southern. In that world, there are still cotillions for young white girls, as long as they have parents who are sufficiently wealthy and nostalgic. They cling to those conventions because they feel what's coming: Nightmare's new economy. That version of Atlanta is the center of the high-tech South, an essential node in a faceless, soulless world without borders or history. That world will come soon enough. When it does, combining words like “southern” and “gracious” will be as anachronistic as the Sons of the Confederacy. But in between, tenuous and trying desperately not to fall apart, is Atlanta's present, its daylight: urban life in the South of these United States. I have seen its diversity better than most. I grew up in the rural South, so I know the world people come to Atlanta to get away from, which is an important part of their psyche. I went to Emory, so I know what southern children are like who grow up so sheltered and privileged that their idea of a crisis is overspending the limit on their gold cards. I have worked at Carthy, Williams and Douglas, so I know the particular ways the parents of those children screw and reward each other, courtesy of the American legal system. And because my soul failed its most important test, I was now spending my days with the city's refuse, the people whom the combined brilliance of the city's ruling class can't figure out anything to do with except rope off like cattle. For better or worse, I have become an unwanted expert on the damaged southern soul.

In the fifteen miles between my apartment and the Fox Theater, I drove past it all. From south Atlanta you take the loop northwest, into the suburban industrial parks that ring the city, congregating every few miles in glass and steel, twenty stories high; then you hit I-75 and go north, up through the converging railroad lines and truck depots that make Atlanta the largest distribution center in the Southeast; then out over McDaniel Glen, the human cattle pen; and finally, you take the Eighth Street exit, downtown, where the banks and old money do business. From there it's only a few blocks to the Fox.

I was going to the Fox for the same reason I went to the Glen: because it was the only thing I could think of doing. It was the last night of the three-night engagement of
Capulets and Montagues
, and I knew that for a little while longer, Michele Sonnier would be inside those walls. As I drove by the Fox, I glanced at my watch; it was after eleven. The show had ended a half hour earlier. I pulled into the private parking lot without any problem; the security was long since gone. I parked and got out, walking up toward the stage exit. There was a small crowd there of about twenty people, dressed nicely, but different from the crowd at the Four Seasons. These were the diehard opera fans, mostly college students.

I walked up and asked a young woman if they were waiting for Sonnier, and she brightened and nodded. She didn't know how long it would be; Sonnier took her time, apparently. That was fine by me. I would wait as long as it took.

Every few minutes the door opened and someone stepped out, the crowd deflating over them like a popped champagne bubble when people realized it wasn't the star. I actually felt sorry for a couple of the singers, emerging with smiling faces, only to feel the sudden disappointment over who they weren't. But eventually the door opened again, and the man who had escorted Sonnier through the party at the Four Seasons emerged. I moved into a shadow by the side of the building, content to watch for a while. The man looked bored; he lit a cigarette, absently watching the people in the crowd. A few minutes later Sonnier appeared, wearing a cotton muffler around her neck, in spite of the heat. The crowd applauded when she walked out, and she smiled, but I was surprised by her appearance. She looked very tired, much more so than she had at the party. Apparently doing the opera three nights in a row took a toll.

The little crowd pressed in around her. A couple of people spontaneously embraced her, and the man traveling with her put his hand out, creating a little space for her. She looked like she needed it. She was seriously exhausted. A few people asked her questions about singing; I could see the fatigue behind her eyes as she listened. She had probably heard them all a hundred times. But she answered everybody, and signed autographs. When there were three or four people left, I quietly stepped into the periphery of her vision, although still partially in shadow. Sonnier was looking down, signing an autograph. She felt someone new, and I saw her eyes glance upward. She finished signing her name, and looked up. I was in the half-light, and I don't think she recognized me at that point. She signed another autograph, but I could sense her feeling around for me in the dark, wondering. She had the radar that famous people get, an inner detector for people who want something. A car pulled up, a limo to take her to her hotel. The man went to the car to speak to the driver, and I stepped full into the light, to her left. She turned and saw me clearly, her pen stopping in the middle of her name. Our eyes locked for a second; then she turned her head.

Maybe it was the shock of seeing me again. If there had been the illusion in her mind that I had been deceived the first time we met, that was now over. She was rigid and tense. I stayed to her side, about five feet away, not pressuring her. She kept talking to the last couple of people, but she was rushing now, getting through it. When there was one person left, she called over to the man by the limo. “Bob,” she said, “ready to go?”

The man turned to look, and seeing me, walked briskly over to Sonnier. I don't know if he remembered me from the Four Seasons, but he was definitely tuned into Sonnier's tone of voice. Ignoring me, he smiled at the woman Sonnier was with and said, “Walk with us, won't you?” Sonnier was signing her final autograph in mid-walk; the limo door was open, and suddenly she was entering the car. I didn't pursue her. There wasn't a point. There was only one question to ask her, and she wasn't going to answer it in the parking lot of the Fox Theater: “Why did you lie about knowing Doug Townsend?”

When Sonnier's door closed, the car pulled out, turning onto Peachtree. I watched the limo's taillights recede into the Atlanta night for a while, then walked across the lot to my car. At the Four Seasons, Sonnier had done a pretty good job of covering, although not good enough. But whether it was fatigue from the show or the shock of seeing me again, she had shown me a lot more in those few seconds behind the Fox. No matter how far apart their worlds were, Doug Townsend had been much more than just a fan.

When my phone rang, it was about one-thirty in the morning. I wasn't blurry, exactly. I was in the dangerous place, drifting in that highly suggestible state between wakefulness and dreams. But that didn't prevent me from recognizing the voice the second I heard it. I'd felt the shiver it sent up my spine once before. “Mr. Hammond?”

My eyes opened. I played the sound over in my mind, just to be sure. “Well,” I said quietly, “if it isn't the great Michele Sonnier.”

There was silence for a second, then, “Is this Mr. Jack Hammond?”

“Yes.”

“I know it's late. I hope you don't mind me calling you at home.”

“Not at all.” A longer pause, and I asked, “Would it be safe to say you have something you'd like to talk about?”

What happened next in her voice wasn't a crack, exactly, more a kind of low tremor. “Yes,” she said. “There is something.”

“Maybe it would be easier if I told you what it was.”

A small sigh. “Yes, it would. Much easier.”

“You want to talk about Doug Townsend.”

I could hear her exhale quietly, like a little slump. “That's right. Doug.”

“You've called the right person.”

“This is all such a horrible thing.”

“I agree.”

Her next sentence was delivered in kind of a blur, faster than the rest. “Look, Mr. Hammond, this isn't something I really want to talk about on the phone. Can you come up?”

“Up to where?”

“The Four Seasons. The Ansley Suite.”

I sat holding the phone, momentarily confused. “Look, no offense, but why aren't you—”

“At home, with my husband?”

“If you don't mind me asking.”

“I do mind. Can you come up?”

“Thirty minutes, okay?”

“Yes.”

“I'll be there.”

It was raining when I pulled under the parking canopy at the Four Seasons. There was no doorman working at that hour, so I parked in an empty spot on my own. I stepped out of the car and reentered a carefully constructed world of magazine living. The fresh flowers alone could have paid my rent.

The Ansley Suite was on the nineteenth floor. I rode up the cherry wood–lined elevator, watched the door slide open, and stepped out. The Ansley was the third door on the left. I knocked. Nothing. I knocked again. A small stirring, then a shadow darkening the viewing lens in the door. Two locks opened, one high, one in the center. Then the door swung open, and I saw the tear-stained face of Michele Sonnier.

She turned back into the room without a word. I followed her in, closing the door behind me. She led me back through a spectacular suite, with two enormous picture windows looking out over the city lights of Atlanta. She sat heavily down on a long, patterned fabric sofa, gently crying. I sat down on the other end, just biding my time.

It took about five minutes, I suppose. It was hard to tell, time was crawling so slowly. For all I knew, Ralston was going to appear at the door at any moment, wanting to know what the hell I was doing with his wife at two o'clock in the morning. When she finally looked up at me, I think she was a little surprised I had just let her cry it out. But I've spent hundreds of hours with people inches away from confession, and I've learned to recognize the moment guilt surfaces. I've watched clients swim as hard against that current as they can, desperate not to be submerged by their own sense of right and wrong. I've learned who to push, and who to watch drown. Confession was on her face, in the slope of her shoulders, the fatigue in her eyes.

Eventually, she brushed her hair back off her face. She wore dark green pants and a tan pullover. “Forgive me,” she said. “I'm a little better now.”

“It's all right.”

“I'm sorry I'm such a mess.”

Even through the fatigue, she was still beautiful. Her skin was so smooth and brown, it was almost impossible not to reach out and touch it, if only to be sure it was real. “So you want to talk about Doug.”

“Yes. Doug.” She stared past me toward the wall. “You knew I lied about him. I thought I was a better actor than that.”

I shrugged. “You're a wonderful actor, but I'm a hell of a critic.”

Sonnier watched me a moment, then nodded. “People who don't lie are at a premium, and their price is rising.” She walked to the bar, the line of her thigh moving through perfectly tailored fabric. “You can't trust anybody these days, from priests to presidents.”

“So I noticed.”

“It's enough to make a person lose faith, except I never had any to begin with.” She poured herself a glass of mineral water. “You're sure you don't want anything?”

“I want you to tell me about Doug.”

“What do the police say?”

“They say he's dead. Probably self-inflicted by overdose.”

She replaced the bottle and took a sip, delicate and formal. “The police in Atlanta are excellent, Mr. Hammond. I'm sure they know what they're doing.”

“That's a very patriotic attitude.”

She looked up. “Not every black woman hates the police, Mr. Hammond.”

“Not every black woman is a rich opera singer, either.”

“What does that mean?”

I shrugged. “It means that race is the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in this town, and I decided a long time ago I wasn't going to play that game. I have nine black clients for every white one, and I'm glad to have them. So if you want to start laying down race cards, I can go home now.”

For a second, I thought she might throw me out. But after a tense moment, she relented. “Maybe I misunderstood,” she said. “I just get tired of defending myself over being too white.”

“I do the same thing to my clients, all day long.”

She smiled wanly. “Of course you do. We can drop all that, then.”

“Good. And I'm still in your thousand-dollar-a-night hotel suite, waiting for you to tell me what this is about.”

She looked away. “Do you know what's always bothered me about lawyers, Jack?”

I felt like laughing. With most people, there's usually a list. “No.”

“It's the horrible assumption that it's always best for things to come out into the open. They're always turning over rocks, trying to dig up people's sorrows. There are times when it is better for things to stay in the dark, so people can get on with their lives.”