At the plane’s metal steps, Eugene looked up and barked, “This isn’t the Gulfstream V. What the hell is it?”
“It’s a Citation X, Mr. Eugene. This is all that was available at short notice.”
He climbed the steps without a word and sank down into a creamy leather seat.
A flight attendant who had also flown with Eugene before knew better than to speak. She waited silently until he signaled by holding up the aisle-side index finger.
“Bourbon on the rocks.”
“Yes, sir. Right away.”
She disappeared for just a few moments, reappearing on his left with the drink and a napkin. He took it silently and she melted away into the air-conditioned seats just outside the cockpit.
The engine whined and they were off, suddenly looking down at a crazy slant onto the city. Eugene sipped his drink and eyed the familiar landscape. The Capitol shone bright gold, the Georgia Dome, the Fulton County Courthouse, the Georgia Supreme Court building, CNN Center, all closely woven together in Atlanta’s downtown.
Eugene’s bourbon was down only an inch or so when the city fell away and they were flying over deep, deep green fields that stretched as far as the eye could see.
This was the “other Georgia,” the dream that Sherman had coveted, the land that had sparked hundreds of tales and a body of folklore…the Deep South. Thousands of square miles of peanuts and soybeans and peach orchards and pine trees, swamp and live oaks and the remnants of vast plantations, with great white lines, Interstates I-75 and I-16, slicing the state generally down the middle.
Here lay the voters: voters who didn’t like six-foot-tall transvestites getting it on in a bathroom stall with a gubernatorial candidate.
Eugene drained his first drink and was soon on his second.
Before thirty-five minutes had passed, out the window he saw water, a million sparkles playing on the dark ocean from the sun. Marshes and sand melted into each other at water’s edge. The white beaches of St. Simons shined like a string of translucent pearls beneath him.
How gorgeous that beach would be with Eugene’s Palmetto Dunes high-rise luxury living, right there on the water’s edge.
For the first time that day, he nearly smiled.
72
Atlanta, Georgia
“YOU SON OF A BITCH.”
C.C. winced at the shrill volume and held the telephone receiver away from his ear. “Baby, what’s wrong?” he asked, and dared to hope Tina was pissed at him for something lame…like not showing up last night at the Fuzzy or forgetting to call earlier.
C.C. was suddenly opting to keep a low profile. Very low. He hadn’t left his apartment since the incident in the men’s room.
With any luck, she’d never find out about that.
“How could you?” she shrieked in his ear, and his heart sank.
She knew.
He’d been fooling himself if he thought he could keep it from her-or anybody, for that matter.
“And with a tranny? You sick son of a bitch!”
“How did you find out?”
“Are you freaking kidding me? CNN? Headline News? How about Fox? They’re talking about you, C.C. It’s freaking breaking news. They even cut into my soap this afternoon, you stupid son of a bitch! You’re the crawl, C.C., the crawl at the bottom of the screen!”
He opened the nearest drawer, found his flask, and threw back a shot of bourbon as Tina screamed all kinds of accusations into his ear.
“Baby, you don’t understand what happened,” he said when she’d stopped to take a breath. “I thought you were the one who set it up. I thought it was your special surprise for me…and I…”
“What the hell? Why would I-”
“You said you had a surprise for me. I thought she-he-was it!”
“Are you out of your mind, C.C.? That’s sick. You’re sick.”
“Tina, just listen. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. You know I love you. I did it for you. You can’t-”
He never did get a chance to tell her what she couldn’t do, because there was a click in his ear, followed by a dial tone.
He reached for the remote, braced himself, and turned it on.
73
St. Simons Island, Georgia
“WHY THE HELL IS IT SO HOT IN HERE?” EUGENE DEMANDED of the flushed female clerk behind the desk at the Hertz rental car office as she hunted for papers that should have been ready.
They weren’t.
“I’m sorry, sir, the air-conditioning blew out yesterday.”
“Yesterday? It happened yesterday? And what’s the explanation for it being out today?”
“Needed parts,” she said apologetically, and slid the clipboard across the counter at him.
He continued to glare at her across the counter.
“From Atlanta.” She felt he wanted more of an explanation.
Signing the papers, he decided on the spot that the stupidest people in the world weren’t in Atlanta after all. They were here on St. Simons Island. Bunch of hayseeds. No wonder he had to fly all the way down to straighten things out at Palmetto Dunes.
After an interminable wait, Eugene strode across the sun-baked parking lot to the white Caddy Escalade he demanded his secretary locate for him.
The sweat rolled down the back of his neck as he climbed up and in, switched the ignition, and cranked the AC on high. A local country station was pre-set and blared out of the radio. He jabbed at the controls to turn the thing off. Quiet. He wanted total quiet and another Jack on the rocks…wondering if he’d find anything but moonshine in these parts. Idiots.
He pulled out of the gravel driveway from the private landing strip and onto a paved surface road, the dashboard-mounted GPS instructing him to “Turn right.”
Floyd Moye turned and headed straight to the only five-star hotel in the region, the Cloister. Perched on the upper waters of St. Simons Island, it was surrounded on the other three sides by a world-class golf course in the Scottish tradition. Every evening, a single, lonely figure in full kilt regalia would wail the bagpipes out near the water for the residents.
Screw that.
All Eugene wanted was a cold drink and the AC on high in his room. He hoped to God they had him in the lodge where a private butler was assigned to each room. The butlers weren’t great, but at least they were something. And what a bar that place stacked. His mouth was dry as he put down the pedal.
After a twenty-minute drive, he was there. The Lodge at the Cloister welcomed Eugene like a long-lost son, ushered him straight up to the Presidential Suite looking past a croquet lawn and on to the trickle-back of the Atlantic. The marshes swelled up across the salty water and shimmered in the last streaks of sun pouring down onto the Georgia Gold Coast.
None of it fazed him. He called over his shoulder to the room’s private butler, “Jack on the rocks.”
“On its way now, Mr. Eugene.” Bent down slightly in a perpetual half-bow, the butler backed out of the room, shutting the door noiselessly behind him.
Eugene turned away from the balcony and came back into the AC, picked up the bedside remote, and clicked on the room’s TV. There was an immediate close-up of C.C., dressed in the long, black robe he wore on the bench. A large font across the bottom of the screen screamed out BREAKING NEWS in red letters, all caps.
Floyd Moye turned up the volume.
“…is just the latest high-profile politician to become embroiled in a sex scandal,” the reporter was saying. “Having recently achieved notoriety after a stunning vote to reverse the conviction of serial killer Clint Burrell Cruise, the judge was formerly considered to be a strict law-and-order advocate. Shortly after that decision, he launched his campaign for governor…a campaign now scuttled by a spectacular fall from grace. CNN has managed to locate the young man allegedly photographed in the men’s room of a local club, the Pink Fuzzy, with Justice Carter. He promises to reveal in detail about his life and his night with the judge in his upcoming book…”