of the table and sit beside Wyatt Cash.
Except for the conference phone sitting at the center of the table, this room could have been furnished in the 1860s. The prints on the walls appear to have been chosen by someone intent on celebrating the pre–Civil War South: Confederate soldiers, racing steamboats, cotton wagons, cotton trains, belles in hoop skirts, and—in almost every photo—slaves. Slaves driving wagons, crewing steamboats, serving drinks to officers; whole black families bent in a cotton field, with children too small to drag a sack sitting in a turnrow, playing in the dirt.
“Are you carrying any recording devices?” Buckman asks as I take my seat.
“No.”
“I’d appreciate you taking out your cell phone, switching it off, and leaving it on the table.” He waves a hand at his colleagues. All their phones lie before them on the polished wood, all apparently switched off.
Shrugging my shoulders, I partly comply with his request by laying my iPhone on the table.
“Thank you,” says Buckman. “Now, Mr. McEwan. I detest pointless talk. So I’m going to be as straightforward as I can. We are businessmen. We make no pretense of being anything else. We exist to earn profits, expand our businesses, and consolidate our power. We create wealth. If the lot of others happens to improve while we do that, that’s fine, but it’s not our concern.” The banker pauses as if to be sure I’m following his lecture on capitalism. “You, on the other hand, are a journalist. Some have characterized you as a crusader. A do-gooder. An optimist, even.”
“I’d contest that last assertion. I don’t know a veteran reporter who’s not a cynic.”
Buckman’s smile tells me he thinks I’m deluding myself.
“We’ve brought you here to tell you that today is your lucky day.”
I look at the other faces around the table. Blake Donnelly and Wyatt Cash are grinning. Senator Sumner has a guarded look, while Arthur Pine gazes down at the table in front of him. I can’t tell whether Pine has no interest in the proceedings or is certain he already knows the outcome.
“My lucky day,” I echo. “How’s that?”
Buckman lights a cigarette, blows out a raft of blue smoke, then continues. “It’s come to our attention that you’re in possession of information that could interfere with certain financial endeavors. To wit, the Azure Dragon paper mill and its associated ventures. Because of this, we are prepared to offer you certain considerations in exchange for not using that or any other information to harm our businesses.”
“You want to bribe me.”
Buckman gives me a tight smile. “I’ll let you be the judge. Now, I’ve reviewed the editorials you’ve written over the five months since you returned to Bienville. It’s clear that you have certain, ah, pet issues that concern you. Public education is one. Would you agree?”
“Sure. Other than Reliant Charter, Bienville has some of the worst public schools in America.”
“Just so. How would you feel if Bienville were to have a brand-new public high school? With all the bells and whistles? State-of-the-art computers, smart boards, metal detectors, good teacher salaries, the works.”
I look from face to face again. None of these men seems surprised by Buckman’s words. “You realize you’re talking about forty or fifty million dollars? Minimum.”
“Money is my business, Mr. McEwan.”
“And you’re saying . . . what? You’ll build this school? Get it built?”
Buckman settles back in his chair and speaks with utter confidence. “We’ll push the votes through, get the tax millage increased, and anything that doesn’t cover, we’ll cover ourselves. We’ll have it up and running in a year.”
“That’s one hell of a bribe.”
Senator Sumner leans forward and says, “Marshall—may I call you Marshall?”
“Why not?”
“Marshall, we’re not talking about a bribe. We’re talking about solving one of the most crippling systemic problems in the history of this town. The whole state, really. When I was a judge here, I sentenced hundreds of young black men to prison who had no business in a penitentiary. The real crime in their lives was ignorance. They hadn’t been educated. Claude is offering you a chance to rectify that problem.”
“I’m amazed to admit it, but . . . he did seem to offer that.”
Buckman smiles as though he’s enjoying this. “You’ve also written a lot about crumbling infrastructure, particularly drainage and water mains on the north side of town. Bucktown, they call it in polite company.”
“We called it Niggertown when I was a boy,” Donnelly interjects. “Different time, of course.”
“We’re prepared to make sure all that gets repaired in