Sweet Paradise Gene Desrochers (classic novels TXT) 📖

“I’m here checkin’ on Junior. Francine asked me to keep tabs on him.”

“Francine Bacon?”

“How many other Francines you know?”

“Keep talking,” I said. “What else do you know about Francine and Junior?”

“Nothing.” I started to depress the trigger. He held his hands over his eyes. “Don’t man, that shit stings like a mother.”

“So what, you’re some guardian angel.”

He smiled at this. “Yeah, buddy, a guardian angel, that’s me. Sent from Georgia to keep the boy safe and sound. I’m the king of hearts.”

“Did you send him that letter?”

“Yeah, buddy, Francine said if she didn’t stay in touch I was supposed to get that letter to Junior and get him the hell down here, then come on down too. Well, hell, you know things kinda went bad.”

“Bad how?”

“My kid, well, not so much a kid as a man now, at least he looks like one, he got hisself arrested same day I was hoppin’ on a plane to follow Junior. I had to go bail out the little bastard. You believe that? Me a former law-man and my kid in the pokey?”

“You work for Francine?”

“Yup. That’s correct. Francine Bacon. She pays me, but not so much I want pepper in my eyes. I’m too old for this shit.” He finally straightened up and half-leaned, half-sat on the edge of the cab.

“You’re the one in the Rav-4?”

“Yeah, I knew you were on to me. Couldn’t sit in that car no more in plain sight. Got out here ‘cause I’m worried. Besides, it’s hot as a mother in a car around here. Hey, buddy, is Junior okay? Haven’t seen him for a while.”

“I think he’s in his room grieving,” I said.

The guy nodded. “Makes sense. Yup. My granny died, I did that. We was close. She taught me craps. Well, my granny on my daddy’s side, not my mama’s granny. She wasn’t nice.”

“Name?”

“Daryl. Daryl Evans. I hail from Decatur.”

“Okay, Daryl. I’m Boise. You know anything else?”

The cabbie piped up again. “Hey da man, your meter up to fifteen. You still goin’?”

I looked at Daryl. “Where’s your car?” He pointed down the road. I paid the cabbie and he drove away after sucking his teeth at me.

When we got to The Daily News building, I sent Daryl to the Snack Shack. He said his blood sugar was low and kept apologizing for scaring me.

“See that door?” I pointed.

“Hard to miss.”

“That’s my office. I’ll meet you there in thirty.”

“You got it, buddy.”

Daryl waddled off toward the Snack Shack.

“Bring me a burger,” I yelled after him.

My office was cleared and the door still looked like a dead guy had smeared blood all over it. After a quick once over to make sure nothing was missing, I trudged up to the top floor. Walter waved me into his office. He patted a laptop with his hand.

“Is that Kendal’s?” I asked.

“His wife got it over to me. Look at his notes on Francine Bacon.”

He tapped a button and the screen glowed. It’s hard to overstate the thrill of entering another’s private world, whether in their computer or in their home. I’d always had a bit of a voyeuristic bent. To be a fly on the wall in the most private moments of someone’s life when they’re at their most vulnerable, their most real. Computers could give you such a glimpse. Searching Francine’s bedroom gave me a similar thrill. Nothing was better. Nothing except finally seeing all the clues click together like magnets.

The notes detailed basic things about Francine. On page four things changed. A charge bolted up my spine. Two words: slavery and reparations. Reparations. Reparations for slavery. Other than once hearing mention of forty acres and a mule, I knew nothing about this, but it jibed with the article I’d found in her bedroom.

“What is this saying?” I asked. My skin felt hot. Without waiting for his answer, I left his office and headed for the cooler in the corner. Three tiny cups of water later the heat in my gut started to subside.

When I returned, Walter said, “Just keep reading.”

Walter went out, I heard a refrigerator open and close, then he returned munching on a sandwich and opening a bag of chips. The notes were copious. They detailed a plan, as well as how Francine had come to have such a plan.

When I was too tired to read anymore, I raised my head. I expected Walter to be looking over my shoulder. He wasn’t even in the office. Out in the bullpen, he was leaning over a reporter and pointing at the man’s monitor. Above him, printed on the wall, was the mantra that The Daily News beat into the minds of young reporters before they left for more prestigious papers: “The News Never Sleeps.”

As he walked back in and shut the door, he said, “It’s big right? Provides clear motive.”

“Are these numbers right?”

Walter settled back into his throne. He waved off an approaching reporter. The man scampered away.

“I know you’re not a Kendal lover, per se...” he said. I started to protest, but he held his long fingers aloft. “It doesn’t matter. The man was thorough. He was also ruthless and his loyalty left something to be desired, but he was thorough. Besides,” he tapped the computer again, “Francine Bacon’s a primary source. If she said it about her fortune, what’s not to believe?”

“Maybe she had dementia,” I said.

“Nope. Kendal insisted on her having two tests done by a psychiatrist and a neurologist. She also had her own done by a doctor in Florida. None of them had ever met her before the test to ensure objectivity. One even witnessed the creation of the Bacon Trust Fund.”

I took off my hat and rubbed my thick, oily curls. My eyes dropped to my sneakers, then shot back up to Walter’s face. “Do any of them know?”

“How the hell would I know?” Walter muttered. “Even not knowing, it had to be one of them, right?”

Greed. For a fortune worth over one-hundred million to parcel out this