by Pete Dexter
He'd alternated all that morning, confused over which way he wanted it to be, then he had lunch with Mayor Horn, and then he returned to his office and found Paris Trout sitting in the leather couch against the wall, staring out at the sidewalk.
Emma Grandy — his secretary — looked up as he came in the door, plainly relieved not to be alone with Trout. Trout took his time turning away from the window. Seagraves saw the lump in his coat pocket. It was square, like a forty-five.
"We got new business," Trout said.
"What's that for?" Seagraves said, nodding at his pocket.
"Protection," he said. He stood up suddenly and walked into the inner office. Seagraves followed him and shut the door. He sat in his chair. Trout paced the length of the room, checking the street from the window each time he arrived at that end.
Seagraves watched him, holding himself still and apart, trying to see if Trout would be revealed in a new way. He was not, and in a moment Seagraves was impatient.
"What in hell are you doing, Paris?" he said. "You come in here armed, peeking out the windows like a crazy man."
"Trout reached into his pocket and Seagraves froze. When his hand came out, though, it was holding an envelope from the United States government. He dropped it on the desk and went back to the window. Seagraves took the letter out and read it. Official notification from the IRS that Trout was the subject of an audit. "An audit?" Seagraves said. "You come in here like this over a notice of an audit?"
"I'm here for legal protection from my enemies."
"The Internal Revenue Service isn't just your enemy, they're everybody's. There isn't a reason in the world to take this personal. All you got to do is see your accountant, and then you both sit down with one of their people and work it out. They aren't all that unreasonable .... "
Trout left the window and stood on the other side of the desk.
"There ain't nothing to work out," he said.
"You paid your taxes?"
"I pay my lawful bills," he said. "I don't take a thing from the government, and I don't give a thing in return."
"Never?"
Trout put his hands on the desk and leaned over until Seagraves leaned back. He smelled like tomato soup. "Sit down, Paris," he said, "so I don't need my reading glasses to see who I'm talking to."
Trout moved away but did not sit down. "How long has it been since you paid?" Seagraves said.
"He shook his head. "I never started," he said.
"You been making a living in this country since World War One, and you never paid taxes?"
"I never took a cent," he said.
"You filed?"
"No."
Seagraves closed his eyes. "I heard of dirt farmers did this," he said. "The Negroes, they don't pay, they don't have Social Security numbers. I never heard of anybody ran a business of any size that ignored the government. I know plenty of them that cheated, but just to pretend like it wasn't there . . ." He scratched his head, thinking of the legalities.
"Technically," he said a minute later, "you don't have to file if you don't owe."
"That's what I told you," Trout said. "I pay what I owe."
"The government doesn't leave that to you to decide."
Seagraves looked at the letter again, then pushed it back across the desk at Trout. "They going to want to look at the books," he said. Trout looked at the letter but did not pick it up. "I keep my books in my head."
Seagraves said, "You've got to show them your books, or they can say you're worth any damn thing they want."
°'I don't have two cents in any bank in the United States," he said. "I don't keep things where just anybody can turn over a rock and find them."
"They're going to want to see what you made — "
"They're welcome to hunt it." He went to the window again, the gun in his pocket knocked against the sill as he bent.
"That's the wrong way to handle the IRS," Seagraves said. "You make it personal, and it gets personal. They know places to look. The government is like the law: It isn't exactly smart, but it's relentless."
It was quiet in the room for a moment, then Trout slapped the wall.
"Everybody in the state of Georgia is after my assets," he said softly.
"All over that girl."
And that fast Seagraves could see her again, lying on the sheet in the photograph. The bones under her skin.
"A person gets mixed up in your business, and then they are your business," Trout said. He spoke as he looked out the window. "We need to get this appeal settled. Get out from underneath this case."
Seagraves was affected by the memory of the pictures. "The easiest way to settle it is to serve the time," he said.
"Easiest for who?"
Seagraves waited a moment, holding himself still and watching, and then he said, "I gone over this, Paris, and I don't think we're going to win."
"You said they made a mistake."
"They did, but sometimes it isn't enough."
"I ain't going into any work camp."
"That isn't voluntary either," Seagraves said. "The government's got its hands on you now, and I can tell you it's a hell of a lot easier to avoid them in the first place than it is to get loose."
"That's what I paid you for."
Seagraves shook his head. "I've done what I can for you," he said. "I tried and I worried, but we aren't doing a thing now but putting it off."
Trout came back to the desk one more time. Seagraves saw he was shaking. "I'm the one that decides," he said.
"You been deciding this from the minute you stepped onto Mary McNutt's porch."
Trout sputtered. "That girl . . . those people brought this on themself. I didn't go out there shooting them for nothing."
A long moment passed. "That is exactly what you did," Seagraves said.
"I can do it again," he said.
"It's worn me out, Paris," Seagraves said. "You've worn me out. It's time to get away from you and your case."
"You can't quit me in the middle," Trout said.
"It isn't the middle. It's the end."
"The hell it is."
Seagraves did not answer. He looked from Trout to the letter still lying on his desk. "You like me to, I could direct you to one of the other lawyers here on this. If it was me, I'd get somebody in Atlanta that specializes in tax law."
"I had all the goddamn lawyers I can stand."
Seagraves shrugged. "You're the one that decides. I offered you my best advice, which is to drop the appeals. You can take it or not."
"It was you gave money to Buster Devonne," he said. The words stopped Seagraves, and Trout began to nod. "That don't settle so well now, does it?" he said.
"Do what you want," Seagraves said.
Trout continued to nod. "You're thinking I can't find another lawyer would bring that into court."
Seagraves held himself still, feeling cleaner now, somehow removed from the threat.
"What you have forgot," Trout said, "is that I know the law myself."
"What I overlooked with you," Seagraves said, "is what you did."
Trout put his hand back in the pocket with the gun, Seagraves did not move. "I want everything that's mine," Trout said. "The case, all the evidence, the court records . . ."
"I don't keep the evidence," he said. "Ward Townes got that."
"Give me what you got."
Seagraves called Emma Grandy and told her to bring the Trout file. She put it on his desk a minute later, keeping her eyes low in the room. The corners of the photographs still protruded beyond the file itself. Seagraves pushed it across the desk.
"I want the copies ...."
"That's it, everything in the world that connects us," he said.
Trout brought what looked like several thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills out of his pocket. The money was folded once and opened with his hand. He turned it over. There were fifties on the bottom, and he took one of them off and dropped it on the desk next to the file.
"There's two visits," he said, "yesterday and today."
He picked up his folder and the letter from the Internal Revenue Service. Then he turned, without another word, opened the door and walked out.
* * *
FROM THE DESK SEAGRAVES saw Carl Bonner standing in the outer office. Orange hair and white, smooth skin. Seagraves noticed the young lawyer bore a physical resemblance to Red Barron, the great football player from Georgia Tech. Trout pushed past him on the way out. Carl Bonner stood still, watching him until he was gone. When he turned back into the room, Seagraves saw that he was furious.
He stood up behind his desk. "Carl Bonner," he said, "come on in here, son."
The look on Bonner's face changed in the instant he heard Seagraves's voice. The men shook hands, and Seagraves sat back down. "I can't stay a minute," Bonner said. "I wanted to thank you in person for sending me Mrs. Trout."
Seagraves nodded toward the outer office. "That right there was your adversary."
Bonner looked back in the direction the older man had pointed his chin. "That's Paris Trout? He got old."
Seagraves nodded. "Old and dangerous."
"He's rude, I'll say that." Bonner shrugged, looking again in the direction Trout had gone. "He aged thirty years since I saw him."
"He's had a lot on his mind."
The young attorney nodded. "He's about to have something more."
It was quiet a moment. Seagraves considered what he was about to say. "If` I might presume to offer you a word of caution . . ."
Bonner nodded, waiting.
"Go easy in your dealings with Mr. Trout. I don"t mean you oughtn't to represent your client, but at the same time keep in mind the man has lost his mind."
Carl Bonner started to smile again and then saw that Seagraves was earnest. "He isn't crazy enough to give up his money," he said.
"There's all kinds of crazy," Seagraves said. "Paris doesn't talk to himself out loud on the street or drag him a dead dog around on a leash. The way he's crazy isn't that far off center, so most of the time he seems like anybody else."
"I expect everybody's got their secrets."
Seagraves looked Carl Bonner sincerely in the eyes. "He's proved how far he'll take it," he said. "Ordinary people might consider things in the abstract, but bad intentions aren't what being crazy is about. Even if we're all on the same road, Paris Trout doesn't have any brakes."
Seagraves could not tell if the young attorney understood him or not.
"I'll keep that in mind, Mr. Seagraves," he said.
No, he hadn't understood him at all.
* * *
NEW YEAR'S EVE LESLIE Bonner put on a new black dress that she'd bought for herself in Macon, drank several glasses of Coca-Cola spiked with liquor that her husband had purchased for the holidays at the Ether Hotel, and accompanied him to a party at the home of the businessman and politician Richard Dickey.
He had been two weeks talking her into it.
The dress was cut low all the way around, passing front to back beneath her armpits, and appeared to be held up by two thin black straps running over her shoulders. There was an excitement in the straps.
A maid answered the door and led them into a room as big as the Bonners' backyard. Oil paintings on the walls, a string quartet in the corner. There was a punch bowl, and next to it a table with bottles of liquor carrying the seal of the State of New York.
The maid took Leslie Bonner's coat, and she went right to the liquor table and ordered a rum and Coke. Carl Bonner followed her through the smoke and noise, shaking hands with people he had not seen since before the Korean War. Some of the women kissed him, and by the time Leslie turned away from the table, holding the glass against her lips, his cheeks were smudged in several shades of lipstick.
She took a slow, single swallow of the drink. "Have you been raped?" she said.
He took her soft arm in his hand and leaned into her ear. He smelled her perfume and felt the heat of her skin. "We don't have to stay long," he said. "Put in an appearance, then we can do anything you want."
She pushed into him, just a moment, and then pulled back. Her lip was wet halfway to her nose, and a light flush had taken over her cheeks. Smoke was everywhere.
"No," she said, "this is nice."
You never knew.
A moment later Carl Bonner felt a hand on his arm and was introduced to a bug-eyed state legislator from Waycross, who had once seen him play football in high school. The man was smoking a cigar, he wore a class ring with a stone the size of another bug eye.
He shook hands with Bonner and then wrapped both his hands around Leslie's, blowing cigar smoke into her hair, and told her anytime she came to Waycross, Waycross would be grateful for the change in scenery. "For some damn reason," he said, "we got the ugliest women in the state. I think it's in the water."
Leslie allowed the legislator to hold on to that hand and drank from her glass with the other one. "We got women," he said, "that could not fit one leg in that dress."
And then just such a woman emerged from one of the small gatherings nearby and pulled the legislator away. He was replaced by others. Lawyers and businessmen from Cotton Point and Atlanta and Macon. Leslie stayed close to the liquor table, even when her husband was pulled away, and took the compliments on her appearance with no sign of embarrassment. As he watched her, it occurred to Carl Bonner that for the first time since they arrived, she was herself.
It occurred to him that she might find some friends.
At ten o'clock in the evening a Negro dressed in a tuxedo walked through the guests, announcing dinner. He went from the north end of the room to the south and opened two doors there which led to another room, as big as this one, where two long tables had been set with plates and wineglasses and candles. A chandelier as heavy as a Pontiac hung from the ceiling. There were silver ice buckets every five feet, a bottle of champagne in each one. The places were marked with name cards, and the Bonners found themselves sitting across the cable from Harry and Lucy Seagraves.
Estes Singletary, editor and owner of the Ether County Plain Talk, and his wife were on one side, and Mayor Bob Horn and his wife were on the other. Leslie settled into her seat and reached for the champagne. Bob Horn leaned forward to smile at her. "I enjoy a woman that knows what she wants," he said.
She said, "Thank you very much," and killed everything she had poured into her glass. She refilled it and then poured one for the mayor. They toasted each other and sipped at their drinks.
"I'm afraid Carl's kept you hidden from us," the mayor said.
She stopped her glass, an inch from her lips, and looked at him. "You do this every night?" she said.
Bob Horn laughed until he began to choke. Hearing him, the rest of the table laughed too. At the other table people were straining to see what they had missed.
There were more toasts over the soup and then over the salad. It seemed to Leslie Bonner that Harry Seagraves's were the most humorous. She saw a kindness in him that was missing in the others.
The bottles at the second table — where Mr. and Mrs. Richard Dickey were seated — remained untouched, and a curious silence seemed to settle over the guests there.
Carl Bonner sat and watched his wife lead the table into a state of drunkenness he had never before seen in mixed company in Ether County, Georgia. He began to feel uncomfortable.
The maids brought in the plates. Roast beef, creamed potatoes, creamed beans. Carl Bonner watched his wife survey the food, then refill her glass. He had an unexplainable premonition that she was about to begin a food fight.
At the other table Richard Dickey stood up to offer a blessing. Carl Bonner closed his eyes and bowed his head and felt her hand on his leg at the moment Richard Dickey said, "Dear Lord . . ."
It was a light touch at first, just the weight of her fingers. He tried to listen to the words. ". . . not only for this wonderful meal but also for the life you have seen fit to give us . . ."
Her hand moved slowly up his
leg, stopping in his lap. Against his will, he began to stiffen. ". . [our friends, our children, our good neighbors . . ."
She found the mouth of his penis through the material. He squirmed slightly in his chair, trying to move himself from under her hand, but she held on. Then he felt her hand change locations. Richard Dickey's voice covered the sound of the zipper.
". . . and keep us ever in thy thoughts, O Lord, and watch us through the coming year . . ." Richard Dickey said, "In Jesus' name, a — men," and she had it out. He looked down and watched the muscles move under her skin, just at the place her forearm disappeared under the tablecloth.
Across the table Lucy Seagraves sipped at her glass and then spoke to Leslie. "What do you do with yourself dear? Do you play cards?"
"I keep busy," Leslie said. "It seems like there aren't enough hours in the day."
She was holding the head in her fingers now, pulling down to separate the lips, then squeezing them together. He felt himself begin to throb, and then one of his legs was shaking. She pinched him at the head, stopping it. He tried to remember the last time he had been with her, and couldn't. His breathing was suddenly harder, and a line of sweat broke across his forehead. Estes Singletary was looking at him in a curious way.
Leslie reached across his plate with her free hand and picked the champagne bottle out of the bucket, filling his glass and then hers. She put the glass in his hand and said, "To the new year."
* * *
LUCY SEAGRAVES SMILED AT the young couple across the table as they toasted the new year. They sipped champagne, and then she kissed him on the cheek, lingering there only a second, perhaps long enough to whisper a few words.
Lucy Seagraves saw how much they loved each other and regretted the gossip she had repeated about Mrs. Bonner. She was attracted to romance, it reminded her of the way she and Harry had been. She did not know if they had ever been in love like Carl and Leslie Bonner — she could not remember ever seeing Harry shaking so badly just at the touch of her lips against his cheek — but it seemed to her things might have been like that once.
TROUT
PART SIX
Three years to the week after Rosie Sayers died in Thomas ` Comell Clinic, the United States Supreme Court, voting six to three, refused to hear Paris Trout's appeal for a new trial. The appeal was researched and prepared by Trout himself; as was his prior appeal to the State Supreme Court. It represented thirty trips to the law library at Mercer College, six months in his office at the back of the store, matching the language in his written brief to the briefs he copied at the library and brought home.
