Chapter 26
The next morning, Kix and I arrived at the Montessori school early. We waited in our car and he asked why certain letter combinations had been labeled as curse words, and who made those decisions, and if he was allowed to say them.
I told them he shouldn’t use them for harm. Never to tear someone down. And to never let mom hear.
He explained that he learned most of them from his mom.
I conceded the point but still.
He pointed through his window at another car and said, See that boy in the car seat? That’s Oliver Something.
Kix’s frienemy. The boy who came to our house. Through the glass, Oliver Something’s father Michael and I tossed each other a head nod. Best buds.
Oliver messed with my toys. He is a jackass. Can I call him a jackass?
“Whoa,” I said. “That sounds more like a Sheriff Stackhouse word. I mean Mayor Stackhouse.”
He’s a jackass.
“Kix. No sir.”
Also he’s my best friend. I would die for him.
A fifteen-year-old Volkswagen hatchback drove in quickly and parked.
Mrs. Buchanan’s car. She was late and the brakes squealed and the engine rattled.
She stood out and smoothed her dress and grabbed her things from the backseat.
Looked like she’d packed her lunch and she shoved the lunch box into an old leather bag and scurried inside on worn-out slippers.
I walked Kix inside, him kinda running and holding my hand. A flustered Mrs. Buchanan welcomed Kix and beamed and checked her hair in the mirror.
Maybe she liked the old car. Maybe she liked packing her lunch and she cherished her old leather bag and her dress from ten years ago.
Or maybe she was forced to be thrifty because they were broke.
The whole thing struck an angry nerve, Kix’s kind teacher having to hustle and bustle because the family was being blackmailed.
Dr. Rod Buchanan had contributed to A Thorough History of American Hedonism, a runaway smash hit in the literary world, now being picked up by universities as modern canon, and instead of being celebrated, Rod was having to keep his head down and pay off a blackmailer to prevent indelicate writings from reaching the public eye, publications from his youth he now regretted.
Rod said the man blackmailing him was named Mr. Baxtor.
I looked up A Thorough History of American Hedonism online and discovered the publisher was Georgetown University Press, located in Washington, DC.
Lo and behold, one of the editors was named Edward Baxtor. I hated him already.
Mrs. Armstrong the ageless school receptionist winked at me on the way out. It felt like a friendly grope.
I left the Montessori school and turned north, toward our nation’s capital.
I still had possession of the Tesla. The drive was quiet, and I had to ‘fill up’ halfway, which took twenty-five minutes, an odd inconvenience I wasn’t accustomed to yet.
At the station, sitting in the row of Teslas slowly sucking up energy, I thought me and all the other Tesla drivers would act the part of a collegial club, and joke about our shared technologies and how evolved we were, but they all just stared at their phones and avoided eye contact. Oh well.
In Washington, I grabbed lunch at Founding Fathers—fried chicken and mac & cheese and sweet tea.
The owners of the restaurant were farmers.
They weren’t Amish, but I bet they got along with the Amish, and that made me wonder how Madeleine Cardot was, if she was still scattering feed for the chickens.
Georgetown University looked like what I thought Buckingham Palace would look like. Gothic stone buildings with soaring spires and ivy and arched walkways. I parked where the Tesla told me the publishing house was located and I walked in wishing I had dressed better or brought a saber.
Self-importance can be measured by how much silence you cocoon yourself in. Georgetown University was soundless.
Edward Baxtor was an associate editor and his office sat on the second floor, halfway down the quiet hall.
This building was old and full of books and wooden paneling, and the windows were tall and narrow and topped with a pointed arch and set deeply in the stone.
His door was open and inside I saw ornate wooden bookshelves and thick tomes.
This could’ve been the office of Professor Snape, except instead of a cauldron there was a decorative typewriter.
A thick red rug helped soak up the echoes.
I knocked on the big door. It was thicker and richer than mine.
Edward Baxtor was sixty-ish. Rimless glasses. White stubble on his chin and scalp. Incredible jawline. Black. Wore a bowtie.
He glanced at me above his glasses without moving his head and spoke like he suffered no dumbasses. “Come in.”
“Mr. Baxtor,” I said.
“Good afternoon. How can I help you?”
“I have a manuscript I want you to look at. It’s about a retired old man who buys expensive portraits off a coffeehouse wall in a small town in Georgia, and he gifts them to the original models of the sketches.”
He didn’t smile. He’d been writing in a book with a pen and he remained in that position. “Allen Levi beat you to it. Tom Hanks is playing Theo, the retired old man.”
“Yes but in mine, Theo eventually gets stuck on Mars and NASA has to go get him.”
“I repeat my question, young man. What can I do for you?” he said in a sandy voice. Not quite gravel.
“How old do I have to be before I can call guys young man?”
“It’s not necessarily a number. Gravitas is involved,” he said. “Again, what can I do for you?”
“I’d like to talk about Dr. Rod Buchanan.”
Mr. Baxtor arched one eyebrow. We waited in that position for several heartbeats until he capped his pen, set it down, and settled against his high-backed chair.
“Is that so,” he said.
“It is.”
“Talk about him?” He didn’t smile but he gave the impression it crossed his mind. “Very well. First, introduce yourself.”
“Mackenzie August. Private cop from Roanoke.”
“As in, a gumshoe?” he said.
“Yes. Though I avoid stepping in gum.”
“You’re a former police officer?”
“Long time ago.”
“Do you represent Dr. Buchanan in some capacity?” he said.
“Unofficially. He doesn’t know I’m here.”
“You’re his muscle.” He picked up the receiver of a landline phone, and pressed a button with the same hand, and raised the receiver to his face to speak into it.
“Hi Linda. Please send two security officers to my office. Tell them not to enter unless they hear sounds of commotion. Thank you. No, I’m fine for the moment. Thank you.”
He hung up.
“That’s not necessary, Mr. Baxtor,” I said. “Nor is it courageous.”
“You are half my age and twice my size, Mr. August. I have no interest in courage in my early sixties.”
“What are you afraid of?” I said.
“You. Obviously.”
“Why?”
“Because I do not trust Dr. Buchanan.”
“Why not?” I said.
“You know why.”
“Pretend like I don’t.”
“Because he attempted to extort me. And all of Georgetown University Press.”
“Did he. Should I sit down?” I said.
“No.”
“No interest in manners in your early sixties?”
“Not when I’m in danger,” he said.
“Are you in danger every time someone knocks on your door?” I said. “We can wait until security arrives, so you don’t die of fright.”
I smiled.
He didn’t.
From outside his office, down the hall, came the sounds of men hurrying.
“Your goons are here. If you won’t be polite to me, be polite to them—tell them not to touch me,” I said.
“Or else?”
“I’ll use their belts to hogtie them together.”
A man stuck his head in. Big guy with a mustache. He sweated and breathed heavy, like his first run in weeks. “Mr. Baxtor? You called for us?”
Without taking his eyes off me, Mr. Baxtor said, “Thank you for your quick response, Mr. Painter. Wait by the door, please. Only intervene if necessary.”
The guy nodded.
“You know, using manners is like investing pennies and getting dollars back,” I said, still standing.
Mr. Baxtor’s brow furrowed impressively. “Don’t you dare quote Thomas Sowell at me.”
“Dr. Buchanan lives in Roanoke and teaches at the college nearby. He contributed to your publishing house’s runaway success, and he’s the husband of my son’s preschool school teacher, Mrs. Buchanan, of whom I’m fond.
Dr. Buchanan explained to me that he’s forced to send you payments to keep the embarrassments of his youth out of the press, and it causes his family financial hardship. ”
“Did he?”
“He did.”
“Cute. So you are here to…?” He raised his hands, inviting me to fill in the sentence.
“Verify his claim and encourage a discontinuation of your racketeering.”
“Racketeering?” He chuckled and rolled his eyes and adjusted his bowtie with one hand, a move to demonstrate how distinguished he was.
“Mr. August, this is Georgetown University. We were founded in 1789. We are the oldest university in Washington, DC, consistently ranked as one of the nation’s premiere higher learning institutions, with an endowment of four billion dollars.
Our alumni includes American presidents and Supreme Court justices and Academy Award winners and, perhaps of more interest to you, Allen Iverson. We do not racketeer.”
“Georgetown was charged by federal prosecutors as recently as five years ago with accepting bribes for rich kids to gain admission. Spare me your posturing, Mr. Baxtor, You may like the smell of your own flatulence, but I don’t,” I said.
“Also, Iverson never won a title and he’s broke now.
Maybe if he’d attended more pompous classes? ”
“You think you’re funny.”
“You think you’re impressive,” I said. “But I see a man hiding something.”
“How would you encourage me to discontinue the alleged racketeering?” he said. “Violence, I assume?”
“I’d say please. You watch a lot of crime movies, Mr. Baxtor? Too much Elmore Leonard?”
He exhaled through his nose, exasperated with how insufferable I was.
“You’ve met Dr. Buchanan,” he said.
“I have.”
“Charming, isn’t he.”
“Sure,” I said.
“But that’s the problem. He’s likable, so it’s easy to miss that he is a charlatan.
A huckster, a conman. He conned you, Mr. August. Just like he did us.
It was he that threatened to blackmail Georgetown, not the other way round.
Realizing his undiscovered publications would be an embarrassment in our cancel culture, he threatened us with them.
I recorded the conversations, if you’d like to listen.
He wanted a bigger cut of the book’s success.
He showed us the homophobic, racist writings from twenty years ago and gave us five days to comply or face the media’s wrath, thereby capsizing the book’s popularity.
” He pursed his lips again and I hated it when he did that. “You didn’t research him, did you.”
“That’s what I’m doing now.”
“You said you were here to force me to stop my racketeering,” said Mr. Baxtor.
“Noooo.” I waggled my finger at him. “First I said I was here to verify his claim. You can’t hear because of how big the university’s endowment is. Too much money in your ears.”
“Mr. August.” He closed his eyes. “That’s true. You did.”
I gave him smug, which he didn’t see.
He said, “There is a small chance, I reluctantly admit, that I’ve been rude to you.”
“I should have told you up front,” I said, “that my wife makes a lot of money. You’d have liked me more.”
“I deserve that. Please have a seat.”
“Sure,” I said.
“I find it odd Dr. Buchanan would mention his youthful publications at all. What were the circumstances?”
“I had him cornered. If what you say is true, he was thinking quick. Turned the tables on me, light on his feet. The best lies are half-truths,” I said.
“I think we’re in the same boat, Mr. August. We were both suckered by Dr. Buchanan.
Neither of us looked into his past. If we had, we’d have seen that he’s on his fourth post in twenty-five years, and the first three ended unceremoniously.
He’s charismatic and carries an air of believability and distinction.
Perfect for the videos that accompany the book.
Perfect for the sound bites and for promotion, and back then he’d been teaching at the University of Pittsburgh, more prestigious than the University of Lynchburg. ”
“You have the audio of him attempting to extort you?” I said.
“I’ll play them for you, if you like.”
I nodded.
Mr. Baxtor rummaged in a drawer and produced a digital recording device. He set it on the desk and pressed a button and it beeped and emitted a muffled conversation.
It took me a moment to get my bearings in the noise, to differentiate the voices and pick out threads of words.
Dr. Buchanan—after a couple minutes I was positive it was him—was explaining how his family had fallen on hard times, and how the publisher had taken advantage of him, and it was only fair to cut him in on the outsized royalties, and he’d gladly do more promotional material as compensation, but if the publisher refused then he’d have no choice but to consider republishing his previous works to reap the royalties from those, despite the black eye it would give Georgetown and nobody wanted that, did they, Mr. Baxtor.
The audio blatantly contradicted the story Dr. Buchanan spun me in my office, that he was the victim of a nasty editor demanding hush money.
Eventually Mr. Baxtor pressed stop.
“He’s good,” said Mr. Baxtor. “Never a true threat, he framed it like natural consequences to his plight. He even managed to be likable doing it.”
“He duped me. And I’m not often duped. What’d you say?”
“Told him to get the hell out of my office. When he didn’t, I called the two gentlemen who are outside the door right now.
But then I took his demands to a higher floor and we considered it.
Paying him would be the easier solution, and his demands weren’t exorbitant.
But in the end, we decided a university of our clout should never kowtow to a swindler, and we bet he was bluffing.
Which he was. After all, the disclosure would ruin him too.
We never heard from him again. Until today. ”
“And I spooked you.”
He nodded once. “I’d been wondering if muscle would arrive one of these days.”
“I didn’t even wear my brass knuckles.”
“I already apologized.”
“Why did Buchanan unceremoniously leave his previous three teaching positions?” I said.
“I didn’t research it. Once I realized we had a criminal on our hands, I simply distanced myself.”
“Criminal,” I said.
“Maybe he hasn’t been convicted of anything, but he’s a criminal in my mind.”
I withdrew a card from my wallet and set it on his table. “My email is on here. May I have a copy of the recording?”
“Yes. But please understand, I thought this potential scandal had blown over. I’d like to keep it that way. Nice and quiet. In this case, no news is good news.”
“I won’t even play it for my wife,” I said and I stood. “And I doubt you’ll ever see me again.”
“I mean no offense,” said Mr. Baxtor, still sitting. “But that would be my preference.”