* * *
Morning came early to the birds, frogs and other critters out to catch anything moving on the dew-covered leaves. For Ty, who’d tossed and turned all night, sunrise had taken forever. He’d left his cabin some time ago, but had found no answers walking the grounds of the resort, no resolve for the doubts and reservations piling up like trash in the darkest, deepest slums of the city he’d once called home.
He’d never lived in those slums, but he’d walked the streets there, knew—at least in part—how they’d come to be, and that was at the very root of the problems he’d been slowly unearthing all night.
Norma Rose was deep down inside him, too, and he was having a hard time figuring out why or how she’d gotten there. Slums could appear anywhere, and for the first time ever, he was considering his part in creating one. What could happen to this entire community if he took Nightingale’s down with Bodine.
The resort was quiet, ghostly, and there was not a single piece of evidence of the gaiety that had kept the place hopping until just a few hours ago. Ty quietly made his way through the entrance hall and past Norma Rose’s office to knock on Roger Nightingale’s door.
Entering, Ty closed the door behind him just as the phone on the corner of Roger’s desk rang.
“Hello,” Roger answered, motioning for Ty to take a seat. “Brock, is that you?” he asked into the receiver. “Has something happened?”
Ty didn’t take a seat, in case the man gestured him out within the next few moments, but did make note of the relief that appeared on Roger’s face, meaning nothing must have happened to his youngest daughter.
“Not yet,” Roger said. “We’ve got a lot going on here right now. Not to mention Palooka George’s birthday party next weekend.”
Roger lifted a brow as he glanced up. Ty didn’t bother correcting him that Al’s party was next weekend and Palooka George’s the weekend after.
Roger guffawed at something Brock must have said. “She’d ditch them. I know that girl.” After a pause he stated, “They’d all end up in California. The only one I could send would be Norma Rose and I need her here. With you gone, she’s having to dig up a decent musician for the parties.”
Roger scribbled something on a piece of paper before speaking again. “No one I’d trust with one of my girls.” Roger’s tone turned more understanding. “I know she’s put you in the squeeze, Brock, but I’m calling you out on this one, boy. I need you to take care of Ginger. I don’t have the time to deal with her right now.”
Ty gave himself a moment before he released the pressure on his back teeth. Not dealing with his daughters could put the man in more trouble than any of the gangsters he associated with.
“Look,” Roger said, once again gesturing for Ty to take a seat, “I have to go, but I’ll call you in a day or so.”
Ty sat as the man hung up and waited as Nightingale took a deep breath. The two of them had come to an agreement last night, but that had been before several other incidents had taken place.
“Ginger must be giving Brock a hard time,” Roger said with a hint of a smile. “He wants me to send someone to get her.”
“Are you going to?” Ty asked, ready to offer to take Norma Rose if that’s who Nightingale chose to send.
“No,” Roger said. “She made her choice, now she needs to see if it’s what she really wants.”
“Ginger?” Ty asked and then shook his head when Roger nodded. “Isn’t she a little young for that type of lesson?”
“No,” Roger said. “None of my girls are that young anymore. They’re women, and a man who tries to control a woman usually finds himself in a tight spot.” Leaning back in his seat, he said, “That’s why I’ve let Norma Rose deal with most of their shenanigans. She’s a lot like their mother was, doesn’t let things fluster her.” A thoughtful, distant look covered Roger’s face for a moment. “She learned the hard way years ago.”
The knot inside Ty’s chest pulled a little tighter. He wanted to know just what lesson Norma Rose had learned the hard way.
Roger nodded toward the paper he’d written on earlier. “Brock said she should try Slim Johnson for the parties. Norma Rose isn’t going to like that.”
“Why? Isn’t he any good?”
“He’s a good musician and singer,” Roger said, “but he has a contract with the Plantation. She’d have to get Forrest Reynolds’s permission to hire him.”
“And there’s bad blood between the Plantation and the resort,” Ty said, thinking aloud.
“Oh, there’s bad blood all right,” Roger answered. “But it’s between Norma Rose and Forrest. Galen, Forrest’s father, saw to that years ago, which is why I had him run out of town. Galen claims otherwise, that he left for health reasons. Let him think that, and let those that think he ran off with one of his mistresses believe what they would. Galen’s big mouth hurt Norma Rose, and though I’ve never told her, he’s paying for that now. I took my time in getting revenge.” Roger rubbed a chin that was still red from shaving. “He’s in jail in California, on his way to prison. I didn’t want to see his wife, Karen, hurt. She’d been good friends with my wife years ago. Karen had a blind eye where Galen was concerned, in most things. Or maybe she just didn’t want to believe it, until she had to. Either way, she’s divorcing him now.”
Ty was even more interested to know what had happened, but his mind didn’t have time to think too deeply. Roger’s chair creaked as he leaned forward.
Elbows on his desk and fingertips tapping together, Roger leveled a solid stare on Ty that could have burned holes. “I never forget someone who’s done me, or mine, wrong. And I always win in the end.”
If he’d needed any urging, that would have been it, but Ty had made his mind up before he’d entered the man’s office. He wasn’t turning soft, but a soft spot had formed inside him. Norma Rose had put it there. He couldn’t stop what he’d come here to do—Bodine had to go down—but he was willing to find a way for that to happen, if there was one, that maybe wouldn’t ruin her life.
Nightingale had to be in on it, which also meant he had to tell Roger he’d deceived him. Ty stood and crossed the room to glance out the window that, like Norma Rose’s, overlooked the front parking lot. “You play with some heavy hitters,” he said, turning to lean his backside against the windowsill.
“I do,” Roger agreed. “Does that scare you?”
“No,” he answered. “No man scares me.” Only one particular woman had ever uprooted that. Keeping that thought silent, he said, “But I am aware of what they are capable of doing. I’ve seen it firsthand. The extortion. The carnage. The murders.”
Roger shook his head. “There are mobsters and there are thugs. The mobs, the ones I do business with, though some of their players are underhanded, don’t go around killing innocent people. They’re simply out to make money, which isn’t a bad thing.”
“No, it’s not,” Ty agreed. “Not when it’s done legally.”
Roger guffawed. “Legally.” He shook his head. “Not even legal businesses do it legally. Our fine government sees to that. Why do you think Rockefeller, Carnegie and Morgan bought the presidency in 1896? And it’s still happening today.” Roger’s expression turned hard. “I’m not saying every man should become a bootlegger, or a gangster, but let me tell you something, when a man has a mouth to feed besides his own, he’ll do damn near anything to put food on the table. I know. I did it. I worked eighteen hours a day at the brewery and brought home seven hundred and fifty dollars a year. A year. And let me tell you about extortion. The government was already extorting a good portion of my salary, but that wasn’t enough, they took the entire job away from me.”
Ty couldn’t say Roger was bitter, but he was serious and frank in his belief. It reminded him of his own father, how he’d struggled to have enough left over after taxes to buy the supplies to bake the bread he sold.
“When a man sees his children, his wife, the people he loves more than himself, going to bed hungry, he’ll do anything, legal or illegal, to put food in their bellies, clothes on their backs, a roof over their heads. If he doesn’t,” Roger said with a loathing Ty had rarely heard, “he’s not a real man.”
Nightingale was silent for a moment, and out of respect, Ty held his own tongue.
“When there are no jobs,” Roger continued, “men have to get creative and that’s what happened around here. Unlike in the city, there are no soup kitchens in rural areas. Right now a cow is worth less than a jug of whiskey.” With an indulgent gaze, he added, “It doesn’t take a college degree to figure out which costs less to produce.”
Ty wasn’t exactly sure how the conversation had turned around. By the time Roger was done, Bodine would have come and gone and Ty still wouldn’t have told Nightingale he was a federal agent.