But I know enough about myself to know that Coach Blasingame had been right, I am a truly lousy liar—always have been.
Before I have time to offer some kind of response, though, Briar quickly adds, “Hear me out.”
“Sure,” I say, as if all he’s just done is offer me another biscuit.
“Maybe it’s this new family of mine,” he says. “Or just getting older. Maybe it’s a combination of the two. But it bothers me more and more, all the way down to my core, how misunderstood mywholefamily is. All this nonsense about how much power I wield, and how this so-called Southern Mafia—”
I watch as he puts air quotes around that last part.
“—is supposed to be more powerful than one of those New York crime families. Well, sir, I’d call that out as urban legend and nothing more if thiswerean urban area, which it clearly is not. But the bottom line, whether you choose to believe me or not, is that it’ssimply not true. As much as people want me to be who they think I am, I’m not.”
“If you say so” is the best I can come up with, without my food coming up on me.
He leans forward slightly.
“I say so because it’s the truth,” he says, not raising his voice even a little. “Now, would I have the audacity to sit here and try to tell you that I didn’t cross some lines on my way to where I’ve gotten to in my life? I sure would not. But I’m not that man anymore. And it’s for the reason I’ve already given you. Two reasons, actually. Those two little girls you just met, who happen to be the two very biggest reasons in this world why I’d never even consider kidnapping somebody else’s girls. And just so you know, and while I’m trying to set the record straight? I’d never distribute the kind of drugs that killed that little girl outside the stadium the other day.”
I busy my hands by picking up my coffee cup and drinking some of his expensive Brazilian coffee and consider how I want to proceed. I didn’t come here to argue with the man or debate him—there’s nothing for me there. I had come to the man’s house hoping that I might find out something useful, on the chance that even someone as careful and calculating as Briar Crockett might drop his guard, if only for a moment.
But all I’ve gotten is bullshit.
As if he really does believe his own.
“I don’t care what people think,” he continues. “Sorry to put it to you this way, but I’m too old and too rich.”
“If that’s so,” I say, “then why am I here, listening to you try to correct the record?”
Then I add this: “And hire me to do what, by the way?”
“To do something more useful with your life than plant soybeans, now that you can’t play football anymore,” he says bluntly. “To be a troubleshooter for me, across all of my companies, and be as muchthe face of them as I am. You can call it PR or influencing or whatever you want. But I’m telling you, just as someone who does know a fair amount about business, that it will be as good for you as it will be for me, and not just because I’m willing to pay you a vulgar amount of money.”
He reaches over and pats his folded napkin with his huge right hand, as if for emphasis.
“You can pretty much name your own price, as a matter of fact,” he says. “Because whatever the number is, it will be as worth it to me as it is to you.”
From somewhere else in the house, upstairs I’m thinking, I hear a girlish squeal of laughter.
“Or maybe,” I say, “and more likely, this is the one about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.”
“The Art of War,” Briar says.
We’re back to playing this game again, like he’s opened upBartlett’s Familiar Quotationsall over again.
“But see, that’s the thing, Silas, this isn’t a war,” he says. “And you shouldn’t try to make it out to be one. Or want to start one with me.”
“I’m smart enough to know it would be like going up against the company in a company town.”
“So sign on with the company!” he says. “Together we can change people’s perceptions about my family—and make this town as safe as you want it to be. The other day you said this is our fucking town. Why can’t that mean both of ours? You know more about being on a team than I ever will. Let’s us be a team.”
“No thank you.”
“That’s your answer?”
“Yes.”
I wait a beat. And then another one.
“Thank you for breakfast,” I say, taking my own napkin off my lap and placing it in front of me.
