At the Darling Diner, next door to the Dispatch office, Myra May Mosswell put the broom away and surveyed the dining area, checking to see that everything was in order. It had been business as usual for breakfast this morning, no matter that today was Labor Day and a holiday. Most of the folks who came in on workdays for bacon and eggs or ham and grits and fried green tomatoes also came in on weekends and holidays—except for maybe Thanksgiving and Christmas.
The Dr Pepper clock over the coffee urn said that it was just past eleven. The early crowd would be clamoring for lunch any minute now. In the kitchen, Euphoria Hoyt was tending to the items on the lunch menu that Myra May had chalked up on the blackboard behind the counter. Meatloaf, chicken livers, fried catfish, and pulled pork on a bun. Sides of mashed potatoes and gravy, mac and cheese, corn oysters, sweet corn, green beans, coleslaw, and bacon-fried grits (leftover grits from breakfast mixed with crumbled bacon, chopped green onions, and red pepper flakes and fried in hot bacon grease). Raylene, Myra May’s mother, was taking three peach pies out of the oven and putting two blackberry pies and a strawberry pie in. Priceless Perkins, home for the holiday weekend from her second year of nursing school at Tuskegee University, was still at the sink, having just finished washing the breakfast dishes. Priceless had been a regular helper at the diner until she went off to college.
Out front, Myra May had swept the floor, straightened the chairs, wiped off the tables and the long counter, refilled the condiment caddies, and brewed another urn of coffee. The air was filled with the enticing fragrance of the pork shoulder Raylene had slow-baked overnight with barbecue sauce, cider vinegar, and her special spices. And since the diner’s front door was open, Myra May knew that the richly tantalizing odor of pork and barbecue sauce would bring in an even larger lunch crowd than usual.
Meanwhile, back in the Darling Telephone Exchange at the rear of the diner, Violet Sims, Myra May’s partner, was training their new operator, Paulette, in the complexities of the recently upgraded telephone switchboard. Their adopted daughter Cupcake—now four-and-a-half—was there, too, and every now and then, Myra May could hear the little girl singing to her Cupcake doll: formerly a Shirley Temple doll, now dressed in red overalls and a yellow shirt, with her strawberry blond hair braided like Cupcake’s.
Cupcake, who loved to sing and dance to tunes like “On the Good Ship Lollipop” and “Animal Crackers in My Soup,” was an even bigger hit with her moms’ customers than her Grammy Raylene’s pulled pork. In fact, she was such a popular little girl that Earlynne Biddle had telephoned earlier that morning to say that she was in charge of the details of Huey P. Long’s big event on Wednesday. The Academy band was going to play some Sousa marches and the “Star Spangled Banner.” She was calling to ask if Violet and Myra May would allow Cupcake to sing the senator’s campaign song, “Every Man a Millionaire.”
Earlynne read a verse of the song for Violet, so she could get the idea. It promised “castles and clothing and food for all” if everybody shared whatever wealth they had. That would make them all millionaires. “Uncle Hiram Bond has agreed to play it on his accordion,” Earlynne added. “I’m sure the senator will love it even more if sweet little Cupcake sings it for him.”
Violet, of course, agreed immediately to this idea and ran to ask Raylene if she could whip up a red, white, and blue costume for Cupcake. “And we’ll work out a tap dance, too,” she had said excitedly. “It’ll be a great opportunity for our little girl!”
Myra May hadn’t been quite so enthusiastic. A few months before, Violet had been scheming to take their daughter to Hollywood so she could be discovered by David O. Selznick or Darryl Zanuck and turned into a movie star as famous as Shirley Temple or Jackie Cooper or Mickey Rooney. This chilling thought had nearly paralyzed poor Myra May, who was frightened almost to death by the thought of losing both Violet and Cupcake to the pursuit of fortune and fame.
But there had been no trip to Hollywood. Myra May had never understood exactly what changed Violet’s mind—Raylene hinted that it had something to do with a nighttime visit to Big Lil’s shanty deep in the middle of Briar Swamp and a mysterious conjure trick or two, and maybe it did.*
Whatever had transpired, a trip to Hollywood no longer seemed to be in the cards, and Myra May was enormously relieved. Still, she wasn’t sure it was smart to allow Cupcake to sing—and dance—for Senator Long, who people said was already running for president. Everybody who saw the little girl fell in love with her. What if the senator offered to put Cupcake to work in his political campaign?
Myra May gave an involuntary shudder. Maybe she was being paranoid, imagining something so wildly unbelievable. But what if she wasn’t? What if the senator liked Cupcake so much that he offered her a job—or even arranged a movie contract for her? Would Violet agree to that?
And there was something else, too. Myra May thought of the words of the senator’s campaign song, which promised that if everybody shared what they had, they would all be millionaires. That sounded awfully . . . well, communistic, didn’t it? If Huey Long got to be president, would she and Violet be expected to share the product of their hard work—their diner and the telephone exchange—with every lazy Tom, Dick, and Harry in town? That didn’t sound right to her.
The screen door opened and a man in a rumpled seersucker suit and straw boater came in, heading for his usual table. Mr. Dickens, the Dispatch editor and a regular, especially when his wife Fannie was out of town. She’d driven over to Georgia, to Warm Springs, to see her son, so Mr. Dickens would likely be eating all his meals in the diner. Myra May filled a glass with sweet iced tea and added a wedge of lemon—that’s how he liked it—and took it to his table.
“Ready to order?” She took out her order pad.
He took off his hat. “It might be a bit,” he said, reaching for the tea. “There’ll be two of us. But while I’m waiting, you can bring me a plate of Euphoria’s corn oysters and some butter. That’ll get me off to a good start.”
• • •
On the other side of the courthouse square, Alvin Duffy came out of the bank, heading for the diner. The bank was closed for the holiday, but that didn’t mean he had the day off. He was having lunch with Charlie Dickens, who wanted to talk over some plans he had in mind for the Dispatch—and likely hit up the bank for a loan.
But Alvin wasn’t thinking about the newspaper. Earlier that morning, he had gone across the street to the sheriff’s office for a meeting with Sheriff Norris and Deputy Springer; the former fire chief, Archie Mann; and Emmet Piper, Darling’s local insurance agent.
The sheriff had told them that five of the recent fires were now being investigated as arson. So far, there were no suspects and (this was the lucky thing) no losses to speak of—not even any insurance claims, Emmet Piper had reported. Until the incident at the bottling plant, the fires had all been minor grass fires. No structures were threatened and the VFD had arrived on the scene in time to contain every blaze. The weekend had been tense, but the siren hadn’t gone off once since the Coca-Cola fire, giving the Hot Dogs a chance to go to church on Sunday morning and get a good nap after Sunday dinner.
But Agent Piper had nervously pointed out that the Saturday fire was not a minor matter. If the VFD hadn’t arrived when it did, that shed would have burned—a shed where Henry Biddle had stored several thousand dollars’ worth of new equipment. The plant could have burned, too, in which case there would have been a massive insurance claim and a dozen men out of work. It looked like whoever was doing this might be getting serious.
Or—Archie Mann had reluctantly suggested—they could be dealing with a copycat situation. That is, somebody had latched onto the arson idea, but with bigger ambitions.
To which Alvin Duffy had added that if his employees at the bank (the tellers and the ladies who worked in the office) were any indication, the town was getting extremely nervous. People were spooked, and rightly so. Every time that new siren went off, they jumped like somebody had lit a bottle rocket in the office. Nobody knew where or when the next fire was going to blaze up, or how big it was going to be.
“I think we should turn that damfool siren off,” Emmet Piper said. “It’s causing more trouble than it’s worth.”
“But it gets the Hot Dogs to the fire faster,” the deputy replied. “Isn’t that what it’s for?”
“We need to catch this fellow as fast as we can,” the sheriff said. “We have a clue or two, but neither Wayne nor I are trained in arson investigations. I put in a call to the state fire marshal this morning to see if they can send somebody down here. And Wayne is going to recruit a half-dozen or so men and deputize them as lookouts, so we can maybe catch this firebug in the act.” He looked at Alvin. “Here’s what you could do to help, Mr. Duffy.”
Alvin had been quick to agree to the sheriff’s proposal that the bank offer a reward. Twenty-five dollars, the sheriff had suggested. Alvin had upped it to fifty and pledged to go higher if they didn’t catch the arsonist in the next few days. He had the ominous feeling that their lucky streak was going to snap sooner or later, probably sooner. Somebody was going to lose a house or a business—or a life.
And to make matters worse, on Saturday night, the volunteer firemen had been stupid enough to elect a man who had absolutely no experience of fighting fires. Rufus Radley, the new fire chief, had of course been asked to attend the sheriff’s meeting. But he’d called at the last minute with an excuse. A new job had just driven into his auto repair shop and he couldn’t make it. Was this going to be a habit? Would he be calling in absent to the next fire?
Alvin was about to cross the street when he was distracted from his troubling thoughts by the sight of Verna Tidwell coming down the courthouse steps. She was looking unusually pretty in a light blue summer dress with a wide white collar and a skirt that emphasized her slim waist and hips. She saw him and paused.
He quickened his pace. “You’re not working on a holiday, I hope,” he said, going up to her.
But he had the feeling that she was. Verna loved her work, especially when she was digging into something that promised a little intrigue—somebody trying to get by with something, for instance. That attitude appealed to Alvin, who as a banker had some of the same analytical instincts. It was one of the things that had attracted him to her. That, and her deeply logical mind.
The two of them had started going out together not long after Alvin had arrived in Darling to take over the Savings and Trust and try to keep it from closing. There had been too much benign neglect in the bank’s office and too many nonperforming assets on the bank’s books: bad notes, defaulted bonds, uncollateralized loans. The bank had been on the brink of collapse and he’d had to practice some sleight-of-hand to set things right again. Most Darling residents had never realized just how close their little town came to losing its bank—and with it, the ability to function as an economic entity (not that many Darling folk understood what that really meant).
But Verna had understood, completely. What’s more, she had helped Alvin make the special effort that had restored people’s confidence in their local bank as well as their ability to spend money with the local merchants. Real money, not just Darling Dollars—the paper scrip they’d had to use for a while. Verna was responsible for the budget of Cypress County, the biggest employer in town. If she hadn’t agreed to pay the county employees with scrip, the town could have said goodbye to its bank. Their friendship (Alvin liked to think it might be more) had grown from there.**
“Of course I was working,” Verna said with a little toss of her head. “The job needs to be done. Today is a good day to do it.”
That was another of the things Alvin liked about Verna. She didn’t beat around the bush. If she said a thing, you could hang your hat on it. If she didn’t—
And that was the trouble, wasn’t it? The first time he had asked her to marry him, she’d said no. It was no the second time, too—and then she had told him to stop asking. She said she cared for him and wanted to be with him, wanted them to be close, intimate, even. And so they were. Intimate, that is, for Alvin found her body as attractive as her mind, and she was a generous woman.
But no to marriage. Which he found a little . . . well, puzzling. And vexing. They were clearly in synch where that was concerned. So why would she say yes to one thing and no to the other? Was there something lacking in him? Did she think he couldn’t provide for her? Women were supposed to prefer the security of a marriage to the relationship they had, which was—as far as he was concerned, anyway—both eminently satisfying and infinitely frustrating, at the same time.
But Alvin was a man who had been schooled by hard fate to live by the bottom line. He had lost his first wife to cancer, his second (and a good bit of money) to his best friend, and his only child, a son, to a tragic trolley accident in New Orleans. Things were the way they were, he had learned, and all the wishing in the world wouldn’t change them. Whether he liked it or not, the bottom line here was that marriage to Verna was not in the hand he’d been dealt. That wasn’t going to change until she changed her mind, so he might as well get used to it.
Still, he wished he knew why. Another man, maybe? Verna had never seemed interested in anybody else in Darling, but he supposed it was possible that she was involved with somebody on the frequent trips she made to Montgomery—driving herself in that sporty little red LaSalle two-seater of hers. She was a private person who didn’t share her innermost thoughts easily, at least, not with him, so he didn’t know what was going on in her mind. In her heart—if she had one. Maybe she didn’t. Feeling as if he’d been somehow wronged, he thought ironically that it was bankers who were usually accused of being heartless.
“You were working, too,” she pointed out in a teasing tone. “I thought the bank was closed for Labor Day.”
“It is.” Alvin pushed his hat back with his thumb. “But I had a meeting at the sheriff’s office about those fires and there was some paperwork on my desk, so I—”
“You see?” And now she was openly laughing at him. But she sobered quickly. “Actually, I was just thinking of you, Al. I was wondering—”
She broke off, biting the corner of her lower lip. She looked, Alvin thought, unusually serious. She nodded toward the stone bench under the magnolia at the corner of the courthouse lawn. “Could we sit down for a minute or two? That is,” she added hurriedly, “if I’m not keeping you from something important.”
“I’m on my way to lunch with Charlie Dickens,” Alvin said, now curious. “But I’m a little early.” They took their seats. “Something on your mind, Verna?”
She opened her handbag and took out a cigarette. “You’ve met Ryan Nichols, haven’t you?”
“Nichols? Sure. Even talked to him a time or two.” Alvin pulled his lighter out of his jacket pocket and held it to the tip of her cigarette, then took out one of his own. “He’s that government fellow who comes to Darling every few weeks to check up on some sort of guidebook Mrs. Snow is doing.” He lit his cigarette. “Works for the Federal Writers’ Project.”
“That’s him,” Verna said. “I wonder—when you talked, did he happen to mention anything about himself? Personally, I mean.” She sounded uncharacteristically tentative. “Where he lives, for instance?”
It was another blazing hot day. The old magnolia cast a convenient shade, but the air was sultry. Alvin took off his hat and put it on the grass between his feet. He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “I got the impression that he lives in Atlanta.” He paused. “Why?”
Verna answered his question with her own. “Not in Washington?”
“I don’t think so.” Alvin thought for a moment. “As I remember, he mentioned having to go to DC for a meeting with Henry Alsberg, the guy who runs the project. He complained about DC hotels.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure it’s Washington,” Verna said.
He turned to squint at her through the curling cigarette smoke. “Why are you asking, Verna?”
She gave him one of her straight looks. “Don’t laugh at me.”
He was startled. “Why in the world would I laugh at you?”
“Because,” she said slowly, “the last time he was here, I looked to see if he was wearing a wedding ring. What I saw was a band of pale skin that suggested that he had been wearing one—and recently, too.” She took a breath. “But this morning, Liz Lacy told me he’d been divorced for a number of years. So I was curious about . . .” Her voice trailed off and she gave a little shrug.
Alvin frowned. He liked Liz Lacy. She had class. And ambition. He wouldn’t want to see her hurt. “I’ve noticed Liz with Nichols a time or two,” he said. “Is that why you’re asking? You’re wondering whether the guy is trying to pull a fast one on her? You want to keep her from making another mistake?” A mistake like Grady Alexander, he thought sympathetically. Somebody who makes a mistake like that twice has a right to feel snake-bit.
For a moment, he didn’t think Verna was going to answer. Then her lips tightened. “No,” she said reluctantly, as if she were forcing herself to be honest. “Not for Liz.”
Not for Liz. Something cold knotted in his middle. “Then who?”
“That’s not . . . not really important.” She lowered her voice. “I mean, it’s just too easy for a stranger to pretend to be something he’s not, isn’t it? And Mr. Nichols is a very charming man. I can see why Liz and . . . others are attracted to him.”
“Charming.” Alvin pulled on his cigarette. “Not bad looking, either.” The knot grew harder, colder. She wanted him to believe that she was looking into this guy for a friend. But he had the feeling—a gut-wrenching feeling—that she was asking for herself. That was why she hadn’t answered his question.
“Charming.” She laughed a little. “Do men notice things like that about other men?”
“This one does,” he growled. “I’m a banker. In my business, I’m paid to notice.” It was true. Back in New Orleans, just before he came to Darling, he’d noticed some serious discrepancies in the details of a guy’s loan application. He’d dug a little deeper and turned up three aliases, two felonies, and a stint of prison time. In another case—
Her voice was brittle. “Then you’ll understand when I ask if you have a way of spying into Mr. Nichols’ background.” She said the word—spying—with an odd mixture of relish and distaste.
He almost said no. He didn’t have to let her use him like this. He could just let her do the dirty work, for that’s what it was, in his considered opinion. But he couldn’t duck out that easily. And anyway, just suppose that Nichols was up to some sort of funny business. Suppose he’d fed some of them—all of them, maybe—a potful of lies. You didn’t want a man like that hanging around Darling, where most people seemed to assume that most other people were as innocent and good-hearted as they were. A man like that could leave a trail of smoking wreckage behind him.
“I do, yes,” he said slowly. “But I don’t ‘spy.’ I do research. It’s called a credit check. It’s just part of the process. Bank rules require it.”
“I see.” Verna’s eyebrow went up. “Does your research enable you to learn personal details, such as where somebody lives and . . . other personal matters?”
“Yes.” There was a sour taste in Alvin’s mouth. “Credit reports usually have personal details.” He looked at her. “You sure you want me to do this, Verna? If I get you the answers to your questions, what will you do with them?”
She had the grace to look troubled. “I don’t know, Al. It . . . depends.”
He blew out a stream of cigarette smoke. Deliberately, he said, “Well, if you ask me, Liz Lazy can handle whatever life tosses into her lap. Look at the way she managed that business with Grady Alexander. If you’re worried that she’s going to get hurt—”
“It’s not Liz I’m worried about,” Verna said, her voice low.
There it was. He’d thought so. “Then who—”
“I can’t tell you,” Verna said, looking straight at him.
“You can’t? Or you won’t.”
She pressed her lips together. “How long will it take? He’ll be here tomorrow afternoon.”
The knot tightened painfully. Well, he’d guessed as much. But he had agreed. He might as well play it like a gentleman.
He picked up his hat and got to his feet. “Okay, then,” he said flatly. “I can’t make any promises. Today’s a holiday and the places I need to call are closed. But give me a day or so and I’ll see what I can find out.” He made a show of looking at his watch. “Dickens is waiting. I need to go.”
“Fine,” she said. She put out her hand. “And . . . thank you, Al.”
He jammed his hat on his head. Nodding curtly, he walked away.
• • •
At the diner, Charlie leaned back in his chair, turning his iced tea glass in his fingers. He’d finished his corn oysters—crisp and tasty, like hushpuppies. Al must have gotten hung up somewhere. He’d give him another few minutes and then he’d go ahead and order.
The Philco radio behind the counter, tuned to WDOX in Mobile, was playing a recording of “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime,” the anthem of the Depression, sung by Rudy Vallée in that weird minor key. Charlie grimaced. He had once been full of “that Yankee Doodly Dum,” thinking how swell he looked and how many Krauts he was going to kill. That was before the gods who looked after itinerant journalists had yanked him out of that hell and assigned him to the Stars and Stripes, so he could write about the boys in khaki suits and the kids with drums and get out of the Great War with body and soul relatively intact.
But many hadn’t. The song made him profoundly sad, and then profoundly apprehensive, as he thought of the seven hundred veterans down there on the Keys with a hurricane coming. They were working on that highway because they had no other jobs, nothing else to do, nowhere else to go, nobody to turn to for help but Uncle Sam. And Uncle Sam had turned his back when they’d had the nerve to ask for early payment of their service bonus.
The last weather bulletin he’d heard made the Florida hurricane situation sound a little better, though. It now seemed that the thing was more likely to hit Havana. Still, the Weather Service had to rely on ship reports, and hurricane forecasts were notoriously unreliable. Charlie knew from his time on Key West that once a storm got into the Straits—
He looked up as Alvin Duffy came into the diner, hung his hat on one of the pegs by the door, and came over to the table.
“I was about to give up on you,” Charlie said.
“Sorry,” Al said shortly. He pulled out a chair and sat down. “Got waylaid on my way over. You order yet?”
“Waiting for you,” Charlie said.
He gave his friend an assessing glance. How the heck did Al do it? It was hot as blazes outside and not much cooler in here, but Duffy looked like he’d just stepped out of a bandbox. His ivory linen suit was as crisp as a new dollar bill, his collar was immaculate, and his black Clark Gable–style hair and mustache were smartly trimmed. Every inch the banker, Charlie thought. Nothing at all like his rumpled seersucker self.
He signaled to Myra May and she came over, taking her order pad out of the cotton apron she wore over her tan slacks and brown plaid shirt. She wasn’t the only Darling woman who wore trousers, but she was the only one who wore them all the time. Charlie preferred his wife’s feminine way of dressing, but in spite of her mannish clothes, Myra May was definitely an attractive woman. You’d better not try to get between her and Violet, though. She could be fierce when she thought you were paying a little too much attention to her girlfriend.
“Yessir?” she asked pleasantly, setting a glass of iced tea in front of Al. Nothing fierce about her now. “What’s your pleasure today, gentlemen?”
Charlie squinted at the chalkboard. “I’ll have that pulled pork I’ve been smelling over at the newspaper office all morning. Coleslaw, too. Best in town, Raylene’s coleslaw,” he added appreciatively, which got a quick smile out of Myra May.
“The usual for me,” Al said without even glancing at the board. Myra May scribbled on her pad. “And find another radio station, would you? I’m not in the mood to listen to somebody wanting to borrow a dime.”
Myra May chuckled. “Not exactly a banker’s lullaby, is it?”
“You said it,” Al muttered.
When she had gone, Charlie gave his friend a critical glance. Usually, Al wore a cheerfully bland expression. Not today. “You don’t look like you’re on top of the world,” he said. Not good news for what he had in mind—his grand plan for the newspaper and the possibility of a loan, to supplement Fannie’s contribution. Maybe he’d better go slow.
Al gulped his tea. “I was at a meeting this morning. The sheriff and his deputy, Archie Mann, and Emmet Piper, the insurance guy. Those fires—they’re calling them arson. All of them.”
“All but the reverend’s little trash fire,” Charlie said, to show that he was already on top of the story. “Wilber covered the bottling plant fire Saturday morning. He talked to Chief Mann, who—”
“Former Chief Mann,” Al amended dryly.
“Yeah. Former and ain’t that a big can of worms,” Charlie said, rolling his eyes. “How Radley ever got voted into that job is beyond me. He doesn’t know diddly about fighting fires.”
“I heard he bought votes,” Al said. “Five dollars a pop. But he still only won by three.” He added another spoonful of sugar to the already sweet tea and stirred. “Archie said he didn’t believe it. He made them recount twice.”
“Oughta be a law against buying votes,” Charlie said glumly.
“Well, there isn’t, apparently,” Al said. “At least, that’s what the sheriff said. He checked with Moseley. The VFD is a private organization. It can set its own rules. But I’m wondering what the state fire marshal might have to say about the situation. Emmet Piper’s thinking about that, too. Said he’s going to give the fire marshal’s office a call and see whether there are any state regs that might apply in a case like this. And I hear that Archie Mann is refusing to step down. Says the job is too important to be turned over to somebody who doesn’t have any experience.”
“Huh,” Charlie said. “I hadn’t heard that. Suppose Archie can make it stick?”
Al grinned. “He says he’s got the keys to the fire truck in his pocket.” The grin vanished. “Listen, Charlie, there’s something you can do. The bank’s going to offer a reward. Fifty dollars for starters. Can you run an announcement in the next Dispatch? I’ll get you the copy whenever you need it.”
“Wednesday would be good,” Charlie said, as Myra May came up with their plates. “It’s a bright idea,” he added. “Somebody out there is bound to know something. Maybe a cash reward will lure them out of the bushes.”
“I hope so.” Al picked up his fork. “So far, there’s been no serious damage, but there’s no telling where the arsonist will strike next.”
“Bizarre, isn’t it?” Charlie remarked. “Our torch isn’t burning things down for the insurance money. So why is he doing it?”
“For fun?” Al hazarded. “Thrills and excitement? Somebody with something to prove? A bored kid with nothing else to do?” He shook his head. “Could be anybody.”
There was a brief silence while they attacked their food. Then Charlie said, tentatively. “Are you inclined to listen to my idea for the Dispatch, or should I sit on it for a while?” He didn’t want to do that, though. With WDAR eating into his market, the newspaper might be in danger of becoming irrelevant. If he put it off—
“Sure,” Al said, to Charlie’s relief. “Let’s hear it. What are you thinking of?” He didn’t sound enthusiastic, though, and Charlie wondered if there was something else on his mind beside the fires. He put down the bun he’d been working on.
“Okay, here’s my sixty-second pitch,” he said, wiping his mouth with his napkin. “In a nutshell, Darling is doing okay, all things considered. The economy is looking up, and the Dispatch has the potential to grow in both circulation and advertising. I’ve got a terrific editorial and production team and I’m ready to do some building. Currently, we publish the paper on Fridays. I’d like to add a Tuesday edition. If that goes well—and I think it will—a Sunday edition. The content won’t be a problem. The boys and I will just work a little harder and I’ll look around for another reporter. I’m even thinking of giving up the ready-print pages and producing the whole thing right here. Ready-print is canned news. Darling deserves better.” He paused for breath.
“But the Babcock was an antique when my dad bought it. I’d like to look for a replacement—a Campbell Country press, maybe. It would print two pages at a time, about seven hundred pages an hour. It’s more versatile than the Babcock, and a damn sight more reliable. But this project won’t be cheap. Three, four thousand, maybe more, depending on the price of the press and whether I can find another reporter who will work for peanuts, like the rest of us.” He paused. “What I’m asking is, can you see your way clear to a bank loan? Or am I wasting my breath?”
Al chewed reflectively, swallowed, and took a drink of iced tea. “Collateral? When I came here, the bank was on a watch list for unsecured loans and low-end collateral. I’ve cleaned it up quite a bit. I have to keep it clean.”
“Fannie said she can help out a little,” Charlie said, “and there’s the building. The newspaper has been located on the first floor since Ulysses S. Grant’s second term. Moseley has a fifteen-year lease on the upstairs, with another ten years to run. The roof needs a little work but the place is still pretty sound.” He didn’t say that when they ran the Babcock on Thursday nights, the whole place shook as if it was being battered by a hurricane. He added, hopefully, “It might appraise at, oh, three, four thousand. Maybe higher.”
“Okay.” Al went back to his meatloaf.
“Okay what?” Charlie asked. “What are you saying, Al?” He leaned forward, feeling apprehensive. “It’ll be good for Darling, you know. Two editions every week, home print if I can make it happen, which means a lot more local news coverage, more local advertising. With the presidential election coming up next year—”
“Charlie.” Al held up his hand, palm out. “Ordinarily, I’d say yes right off the bat. But right now, I have to say I’ll take it to the loan committee. You’ll hear from us.”
Surprised, Charlie asked, “Who’s on the committee?”
“Me, myself, and I,” Al said with a rueful chuckle. He paused. “Look, Charlie. I think you’ve latched onto a good idea. Tobias Bowser just bought fifty acres of timber from Miss Tallulah and is opening a lumber mill out on the Hanford Road. Kilgore Motors is expanding its repair business, and Pauline DuBerry expects to add a couple more cottages at the Marigold Motor Court.” He pushed his plate away. “But—”
“But what, Al?” Charlie leaned forward, now feeling urgent. “I figured this would be a sure-fire proposal, with the building for collateral.”
“Normally you’d be figuring right.” Al’s voice was quiet. “It would be a sure-fire thing. But we’ve had more foreclosures than I expected this quarter. I’ve already had to turn down a big renewal that I would have approved, under better circumstances.” He gave Charlie a considering look. “The loan committee may have to tell you that the bank can’t do a deal now. But we can revisit the question in six months or so. We’ll get through another winter and maybe the picture will look a little brighter next spring.”
Next spring? Charlie tried to swallow his disappointment. Fannie’s contribution would help, but it wouldn’t be enough by itself. He needed the loan to make things happen. But what could he say? Alvin Duffy was a Darling booster. He’d make the loan when he could. If he could.
But that little if was threatening to sound like a mighty big one. What if six months went by and Duffy turned him down again? Charlie sighed. He should probably take it as a sign from the newspaper gods that it was the wrong thing to do. Or the right thing at the wrong time.
A number of people had come into the diner while Charlie and Alvin Duffy were talking. They had found seats at the counter and at nearby tables, and a buzz of conversation filled the room. On the radio, Tommy Lee Musgrove was clearing his throat to read the news, which he had no doubt pulled from other broadcasts, since the little station had no wire service.
As a newspaper publisher, Charlie had a built-in antagonism toward WDAR, which everybody else in town raved about. It might be a two-bit operation run by a couple of amateurs, but it was plenty capable of siphoning advertising dollars from the Dispatch. And every week, WDAR picked up more advertising and local news, to the point where Charlie gritted his teeth every time he thought about it. Still, he had to admit—grudgingly—that radio was more up-to-the-minute than print. His story about the Labor Day hurricane would have to wait until the Dispatch came out on Friday. WDAR, on the other hand, was covering it right now.
“According to Miami radio WIOD,” Tommy Lee began, “a fierce hurricane with winds over 150 miles an hour is churning through the Florida Straits north of Havana this afternoon. The Coast Guard reports that no word has been heard from the passenger ship Dixie, bound from New Orleans to New York with 260 passengers and a crew of 140. The ship is thought to be traveling through the Straits and there is widespread concern for its safety.”
Around the diner, the conversation had quieted and people lifted their heads, listening intently. “There are also worries for persons living on the Florida Keys,” Tommy Lee went on. “It’s been reported that a special railroad train is being dispatched to pick up a large number of veterans working on the new Overseas Highway. According to the Weather Service, the future path of the storm is quite uncertain and it is not clear what direction it will take tomorrow, when it reaches the Gulf of Mexico. Interests along the Upper Gulf Coast—the Florida Panhandle, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana—should be prepared to take action.”
With a shudder, Charlie shook his head. “God help those poor veterans. I lived on Key West for a while. That whole string of little islands is right at sea level. There’s no escaping a surge. Anybody not in a very strong shelter is a dead man.”
“Very bad news.” Al was frowning. “Could that storm hit here, do you suppose? If so, when?”
“It could,” Charlie said. “I wasn’t here in ’26, but my dad said the town took quite a beating from a hurricane that came in from the Gulf that September.” He hazarded a guess. “Wednesday for landfall, maybe?”
Al’s frown deepened. “I hear that we’re in for another storm on Wednesday. Huey P. Long is coming to town.”
“That’s not a storm, that’s a Barnum and Bailey circus,” Charlie said. Remembering the phone call he’d gotten that morning, he added, “But it’s big news for Darling. The Dispatch will cover it, of course, but the Associated Press will be here, too. Virgil McCone, a friend from our Stars and Stripes days, called this morning to let me know he’ll be here. He’s been covering Huey’s campaign swing through the Midwest. Says the senator’s definitely going to throw his hat into the ring in ’36.”
“Big bad news,” Al said grimly. “And you’re on the mark with the circus idea. Huey is a carnival barker. He enthralls the crowds with all this ‘every man a king’ bull hockey. But they love it. And they love him. They’d follow him anywhere. Right over a cliff, if that’s what he asked them to do.”
“That’s what Roosevelt said.” Charlie nodded. “He doesn’t have a very high opinion of the senator.” He related the story of the poker game at the Little White House. He concluded, “If Roosevelt could come up with a way to sideline Long, he’d do it.”
Al shook his head. “Poker with the president,” he said with more than a hint of envy in his voice. “Just how far do you think FDR would go to stop this fellow? Would he—”
But Al didn’t get to finish his sentence. The air was ripped to shreds by an earsplitting mechanical shriek that rattled the dishes on the tables and made people cover their ears with their hands. It was the fire siren on the courthouse bell tower, across the street. All conversation had to come to a halt for over a minute.
When it finally stopped, there were a few seconds of silence in the diner. Then Al finished the sentence he’d started.
“—try to get rid of Long?” he asked.
Charlie was about to answer, but Violet Sims stepped out of the Exchange in the rear of the diner and raised her voice. “Chief says if there’s any Hot Dogs here, the fire is over on Camellia Street, third block, on the south side. It’s the Dahlias clubhouse—the old Blackstone cottage. The chief will get the fire truck and meet you there.”
A glass crashed to the floor behind the counter. “The clubhouse!” Myra May cried. “Oh, no! I just painted that kitchen!”
There was a sudden loud hubbub of voices. Chairs scraped. Men scrambled to their feet. Somebody yelled “Which chief?” Somebody else laughed roughly.
“How should I know which chief?” Violet retorted. “Just get over there, guys. Don’t let it burn! Hurry! Hurry!”