Truth Like the Sun

by Jim Lynch

  “He doesn’t forget or forgive anything.”

  “Okay.”

  “He’s known Morgan since before the fair. Claims he’s got a file he’s been compiling since back then just in case he was ever dumb enough—his words—to run for anything.”

  Helen sipped water to hide her excitement. The streets had gone strangely quiet, as if all the cars had picked another route and someone had paid the violinist to shut up.

  “Know what he calls Morgan?” Omar asked.

  She shook her head, unable to block her smile.

  “The False Prince.”

  ROGER CHECKED his voice messages, half of them from reporters requesting interviews. “Wake up, Teddy.”

  “Huh?”

  “We’re almost at your place.” He turned to face him. “What do you know about that young P-I woman who showed up at the party?”

  Teddy smacked his lips. “The new girl?”

  “Yeah. She wants an interview. What do we know about her?”

  “Well, she’s got an amazing head of hair, that’s for sure.”

  “Thanks, pal. That’s a big help. Can you call your favorite columnist over there and find out about her?”

  Teddy groaned himself upright. “She looks like she stepped right out of a shampoo commercial.”

  Chapter Five

  MAY 1962

  ROGER TRIES to keep it to two whiskeys, but a third slides down and it’s all he can do to stop himself from hugging everyone as Club 21 overflows with suited men and perfumed women waiting to pay homage, to get a picture or have a word with him, or more likely to request a favor now that the fair’s such a hit—in the words of Life magazine, “an exposition of soaring beauty and unique impact.” He tries to say yes to everything. Yes to tickets to the Ice Follies, San Francisco Ballet and Count Basie Orchestra. Yes to arranging meetings with the chamber, the mayor and, perhaps, the governor. Yes to more passes into this VIP lounge. Yes, yes, yes! He’ll do what he can, and usually does while simultaneously squeezing as much as he can into his days, running on reminders in a pocket notebook and three hours of sleep. Even his dreams don’t give him a break anymore. He’s always at the fair.

  Mostly local notables in here tonight—the city attorney, the public-works gang, the rumpled mayor, the nearly blind city planner chatting with the nearly bald Malcolm Turner. Roger waits for an opening to speak with the manic little developer while absorbing praise. Good God, you must be tickled to death! Nimbly bouncing from person to person; he recalls his father working crowds like this, rolling up his sleeves and pointing at you, his thumb cocked, as if toasting or shooting you, engaging everyone without committing to anyone. Teddy, as usual, takes the opposite tack, cornering key people in deep conversations while occasionally swapping eyebrow-shrugging status reports with Roger, who finds Count Basie himself in a back booth with friends. He hopes like hell he hasn’t already missed all of Basie’s shows. He doesn’t want to miss anything. The more he sees, the more he needs to see.

  A portly man with a bowling ball head and milky blue eyes blocks his path and offers his hand without extending it, forcing Roger to step closer. “Mr. Morgan,” he says. “Dave Beck.”

  “Of course,” Roger says, recognizing the Teamsters boss once he gets over being startled.

  Beck pulls him closer. “I’m told you run one heck of a fair,” he says in a boyish whisper.

  The compliment feels suspect, seeing how everyone says Beck runs everything and had all the fair workers signed up with one of his unions. “Thank you, sir,” Roger says, matching Beck’s sustained grip and wondering when he’ll get his hand back.

  He glimpses Malcolm Turner talking the ear off another bureaucrat, and also notices Meredith Stein in animated conversation, her large glass of red suggesting she occasionally slips out of character as the fair’s imposing arts director. He’d dropped into her galleries again this afternoon, striding past the classics to the mods, where half an hour blew by in what felt like a few minutes. The man she’s talking to pivots enough for Roger to see it’s Sid Chambliss. Almost three years had passed since he’d told the feisty attorney that the fair needed the Freemasons’ Nile Temple at Third and Thomas. He’d played a similar unpopular role with the state board picking the freeway route, his name burbling through subsequent lawsuits claiming unlawful condemnation, as if he alone decided which buildings lived and died.

  “Let me know if you need anything,” Beck says, finally releasing his hand, narrowing his eyes. “You hear?”

  “Same goes for you, Mr. Beck.” Part of looking comfortably in charge, Roger has learned, requires offering help, not requesting it. “You let me know.”

  He intercepts Chambliss by cutting in front of a business columnist for the Times.

  “Sid!” Roger says festively, grabbing his shoulder. “Glad you made it!”

  Chambliss looks aghast. “I suggest,” he says, leaning in with his bourbon breath, “that you don’t misread things. Business, not pleasure, brings me here.”

  “Never understood that distinction,” Roger mock-whispers back.

  Chambliss hesitates and leans closer, his freckles looking like some tropical disease running into his hairline. “We’re going ahead with the suit. You know that, right?”

  Roger rocks backward and laughs, noticing Teddy watching, feeling the Times man listening. “You’re very welcome,” he half-shouts. “Enjoy yourself!” He turns and starts for Malcolm Turner but is waylaid by women demanding photos with him, their intoxication and the lighting making them all look far chummier than they actually are. When he turns to look past the shapely woman next to him, her bright smile blocks his view, and his left hand, he realizes, is lingering on the small of her back. If he makes eye contact and doesn’t keep moving, he knows he might wake up with her. He excuses himself and feels overheated now, wishing he hadn’t provoked Chambliss. He signs three fair programs and grants more pleas for passes, tickets and appearances. Sure, he’ll try to make it. Yes, of course!

  The governor lumbers inside now and draws an immediate posse. Jovial and inarticulate, Big Ed Lopresti often shows up at the club and, to Roger’s surprise, occasionally closes the place.

  Several more men crowd Malcolm Turner, hinged at their hips, hanging on the little man’s words. Roger’s view gets blocked, and again a large hand is dangled in front of him.

  “Mr. Morgan, just wanted to reintroduce myself. Clive Buchanan.”

  “Of course.” Roger shakes enthusiastically, staring up into the county prosecutor’s nostrils.

  “Congrats,” Buchanan says coolly, then picks his words without releasing his grip. “Seems you know what you’re doing.”

  “Glad it appears that way.”

  “I didn’t realize you and Malcolm were friends.” Buchanan’s chin twitches toward the developer. “That’s terrific.”

  “Why’s that?” he asks, but the prosecutor has nothing to add and finally yields to a sweaty-palmed council candidate angling for Roger’s support, followed by a mass-transit advocate pushing for a September levy, an auto lobbyist soliciting advice on how to kill the same measure, and a sociology professor who, at Roger’s convenience, of course, would like to discuss the fair’s impact on the city. Then a man who doesn’t bother to introduce himself informs him that the French exhibit, particularly its movie, is an absolute travesty! Roger’s face remains wide-eyed and curious long after he quits listening. He finally excuses himself, spots Teddy entertaining the mayor—waving both hands the way he does whenever he’s telling stories—and peels off toward Malcolm, moving too briskly for anything beyond smiles and nods, pretending not to hear his name being called, bottling his mounting irritations—all these doubters and doomsayers sucking at his trough. The self-righteousness of Sid Chambliss flickers inside him like a severed power line. And now, watching Malcolm Turner in action, he senses something reckless and loose-lipped about him that he’d mistaken for enlightenment.

  Perhaps he’d placed too much stock in their si
milar ages and backgrounds. Both dropped out of the U and rose rapidly, Roger in restaurants, Malcolm in real estate. Yet the differences were more telling. Malcolm was married, had four children, drove a new Cadillac and owned a suburban mansion. Roger had a fiancée, no kids, a dented Impala and a Queen Anne bungalow he shared with his mother. Still, they were both good at dreaming aloud. Mal flipped downtown properties the way other developers bought and sold suburban houses—demolishing, rebuilding, reselling and leapfrogging into bigger buildings. And listening to him babble at times, Roger could imagine the entire skyline filling in. It was Mal’s relentless pestering that persuaded him to invest in a project near the incoming freeway. What else was he going to do with the money that was piling up for the first time in his life? Mal had a fancy name for his future apartment complex—The Borgata: A Villa by the Sea—even before he’d figured out where it would be built, which was where Roger kicked in. Unfurling a battered map, Mal had circled four intersections with a red pen and asked which would ultimately become the most convenient location. All Roger did was point a trembling pinky at the circle a block away from the future Roanoke Street on-ramp.

  By the time Roger gets to him now, Malcolm is doubled over, glassy-eyed with mirth, raising his hands in mock surrender. “The man of the hour! You know everybody, right?”

  Roger surveys the unfamiliar smirkers as Malcolm rattles off names and titles: “Jon Reitan, undersheriff, Rudy Costello, Northwest Games, and Michael Vitullo, tavern owner and notorious rascal.”

  Roger shakes hands and matches names to faces as cameras flash—who’s photographing him now?—and the muttering men praise the fair, the lounge, the weather, everything. When he can’t take it anymore, he points at Malcolm. “Talk to you for a minute?”

  “Certainly! Honored to get an audience. ’Scuse me, fellas.”

  The crowd noise forces Roger to speak louder. “Would appreciate it if you’d return my calls.”

  Malcolm looks dumbfounded. “If anybody understands what it’s like to be ridiculously busy, I’d have thought it’d be you.”

  Roger bends closer. “Why are you building already?”

  “The apartments? Prep work,” he says slowly, as if to a child. “These things don’t pop up overnight, Roger. Gotta clear the land and lay the foundation while the weather holds.”

  “You bought, cleared and started faster than you said you would. Nobody else is building.”

  Malcolm starts to laugh, closes his mouth, smacks his lips and leans in. “Everybody’s snapping up properties, okay? Everything’s fine. More investors hopping on board all the time.” He snickers. “Never had someone gripe that I’m building too fast before. C’mon, Roger. You’re running the greatest show on earth here, and you’re worrying about what little old me is doing in my sandbox?”

  Roger senses people just beyond his peripheral vision. “I just like it,” he says softly, “when people do what they say they’re going to.”

  Malcolm nods sympathetically, as if the real issue is Roger’s temperament.

  “Hilton Hotels,” Roger mumbles, “wants an acre between Forty-fifth and Fiftieth just west of the freeway. If you can piece together a proposal they like within ninety days, they’ll pay well over appraisal.” He fishes a card from an interior pocket. “President’s name is Sizemore.” He glances up in time to see Teddy waving him over.

  “Thanks,” Malcolm says, beaming once again. “Trust me, if I even take a leak on that Roanoke site, you’ll be the first to know.”

  Teddy leans into him when he arrives. “Looked like you needed to be rescued from that weasel. Walk me out?”

  Free at last, they stroll beneath muted stars. “These people all want a piece of you, Rog. You know that, right? You’re not stupid enough to think they like you. I mean, where were they even a year ago? Now they’re already asking, what’s next? If Roger can pull this off, what’s next? Did you have to glad-hand Vitullo?”

  Roger squints. “The tavern owner?”

  “Yeah, right. He runs strip clubs. The Firelight’s his cash cow. And he wants to open more.”

  “How’d he get in here?”

  “You tell me.”

  “What’d the mayor have to say?”

  “ ‘What a great fair!’ He’s a cheerleader now like the rest of ’em. And he, of course, desperately wants to meet Elvis if he shows up. Blah, blah, blah. Says this new U.S. attorney’s got his dick in a knot over what that bar owner said about the police. Guess he’s astonished,” Teddy whispers, “that in a state where gambling is illegal—surprise, surprise—there’s still a little wagering going on.”

  “Ed Sullivan told me this place reminds him of Nevada.”

  “Right. And I’m Marlon Brando’s twin brother. He was pulling your leg.”

  “He’s not a joker.”

  Teddy relights a cigarette he’d forgotten about.

  “Weren’t you surprised to see Beck in there?” Roger asks.

  “As good a place as any for people to kiss his ring.”

  “He actually seems pretty harmless.”

  Teddy laughs. “Be sure to mention that when you visit him in the clink.”

  “He’ll get off, won’t he?”

  “Not even Dave Beck gets off this time.”

  “Bob Hope said he might swing by later.”

  Teddy snorts. “Not a fan. Linda waiting up for you?”

  “Yeah, I’ll get there eventually.”

  Teddy grins. “You’ll hit the wall one of these days is what you’re gonna do.” He steps back, spins gracefully and starts off, flicking his Chesterfield ahead of him and squishing it under his heel without breaking stride.

  “Who can sleep,” Roger half-shouts, revived and exuberant all over again, “when there’s only one hundred and fifty-one days left of this damn thing?”

  Teddy raises a thumb up high without looking back.

  Charging back inside, Roger notices six tables cluttered with dirty glasses and overflowing ashtrays. He doesn’t want to complain, so he grabs a tub and busses them himself, his swift efficiency clearing his head.

  Afterward, he finds the governor off by himself, his eyes grazing on three young women at a nearby table, his smoldering cigarette confirming that he’s well into his second scotch. “Like to meet Count Basie?” Roger asks.

  Big Ed’s eyes widen. “He’s here?”

  “Follow me.”

  Basie’s table is packed with new drunks, the lone holdover from his earlier entourage being the woman beside him, her luminous skin reflecting the light.

  Before making introductions, Roger asks the governor what Teddy has been wanting him to ask for months now. “You hear anything to make you think the city or the fair could be a target?”

  The governor squints to get a better look at Basie’s woman. “How do you mean?”

  “Well, we’re putting in all these shelters and silos, right, and this is where the bombers are made,” Roger says reasonably. “And the Soviets didn’t want an exhibit, didn’t want to be here, period. So is there anything LBJ or anybody else told you beyond what the papers say?”

  “Hard to know,” Big Ed says sheepishly. “I don’t read the papers.”

  After the governor finishes flattering Basie and ogling his date, he meanders off. Then Roger grabs another whiskey and plops down across from the bandleader.

  “What makes a city great, Mr. Basie?”

  “To tell the truth,” he says in a deep voice, “yours is a bit white for me.” His ice-sucking woman joins him in a smile.

  “That’s changing,” Roger says. “What do you look for in a city?”

  “The right amount of sin, I guess. Not too much, not too little. Excitement without corruption. Though they’re all corrupt, right?—least the ones worth living in. You can get anything you want here in ten minutes, so I’m told.”

  “So I’m told,” his woman mimics, then laughs an ice cube right out of her delighted mouth that skates across the table and spins in front of Roger, who
pops it in his mouth before she can apologize—her ringed fingers suspended in midair astonishment—and realizes as the laughter rises and he swallows the ice that he’d better not have another drink.

  The lounge fills with yet another wave of boozy VIPs and favor seekers. Surprisingly, the fair’s arts director is still around, smoking while waiting in line for the restroom. He ambles over and asks her how the moderns are faring versus the classics.

  “You mean the pompous trivia?” she says.

  It wasn’t just the deep tone of Meredith Stein’s voice that stood out, but its swagger.

  “That Times critic is an idiot,” he says. “The mods are marvelous.”

  She smiles warily. “I agree, of course, but most don’t.” He watches her slow exhale. Beamy and full-cheeked, she’s straddling the line between chubby and voluptuous with the devil-may-care confidence that alcohol gives some people, one spiked heel toppled to the side so her left foot can rub the wall behind her like a cat clawing a couch. She switches the black cigarette holder to her right hand and swings a diamond into view as if she was reading his mind.

  “I’d love to spend some time with those paintings when nobody else is around,” Roger hears himself saying, noticing the perfect print of her lips along the rim of her half-empty glass.

  Laughter crests behind him, but her eyes don’t let go. A thick eyebrow rises, her puffy lips loosen around the long cigarette. Out comes more smoke. “It’s your fair.”

  “Well no, it sure isn’t, but I’d like to just the same. I think, by the way,” he says, gently but positively, “that one of your Pollocks is upside-down.”

  On the way out, he watches the strip-club guy cornering Governor Lopresti. He feels he ought to protect Big Ed, but he seems to be enjoying himself, so Roger strolls by them and through the closed fairgrounds and waves down a taxi.

  “Just visiting?” the cabbie asks before he can spit out Linda’s address.

  He pictures her waiting for him, her hair in curlers, puffing a cigarette, flipping through fashion magazines. “Yeah,” he says now. “Here for the fair and whatever else I can find.”