Episode 41
News from the Capitol
The others leaned forward as one to learn the full import of this moment.
“I am two down on my usual score with two holes remaining,” the limping man said.
The others looked to one another, perplexed.
“So, if you will continue your sad tale as we walk to my man there,” the limping man said, setting off up the gentle slope of the hillock towards where the Sikh stood solid as a sentry over the place where the ball had fallen.
The quartet followed and explained in full the news from the capitol, their narrative broken only by silent interludes while the limping man took his shots, long strokes and putts, to close out the last two holes. These men were, in no certain order of importance, a United States senator, the governor of Illinois, the owner of a consortium of railroad lines, and the president of a bank with branches in New York, Chicago, St. Louis and New Orleans. And yet, these men, who could move millions of dollars and thousands of citizens with a snap of their fingers, chased the limping man over his lawn while he chased a little white pill across the grass.
They explained to the limping man that the land grants they finagled through payments to the Interior Secretary had been revealed as phony. None had gone through the usual lanes of bureaucracy or been approved through proper channels. The transactions had been facilitated by so-called Indian attorneys who, as it was now known to the public, were charlatans and shills paid eight dollars a day in taxpayer money to represent the various native tribes in legal purchases of tribal land. In truth these “attorneys” had no more contact with any Indians than the Queen of the Netherlands. They were simply hacks hired to rubber stamp land grants of dubious provenance. These “attorneys” were overseen by Orvil Grant, brother to the President of the United States.
The grants had been engineered by the men currently in pursuit of the limping man through a syndicate formed by the limping man. They included millions of acres of land rich in mineral deposits as well as the rights of way for rail tracks needed to deliver those goods from the wastelands of the west to the markets of the east and beyond.
At the conclusion of their story and his game, the limping man stood at the final hole and marked down figures in a leather-clad notebook. He closed the book with a wintery smile and replaced it in the pocket of his vest.
The senator made to speak but the limping man held up a hand to shush him. A servant, a balding man in black livery and tie, was crossing the lawn in their direction. He bore a silver tray. Upon the tray, perfectly balanced, was a tall tumbler of iced water with one half of a fresh lemon squeezed in it. By the sweating glass was a telegram folded in two.
The limping man took the cold glass with chilly gratitude and the telegram with marked disdain.
The telegram informed him of mounting concerns over the behavior of law enforcement agents in a place called Mercury Wells.
The limping man frowned deeply, folded the telegram in four and stuffed it in his pocket by his scorebook. He dashed the lemon water to the lawn and stomped on the glass with his raised shoe. It was crushed underfoot with a sound like a pistol shot. He turned without a word to walk to the palatial house along the lake. The liveried servant and the giant Sikh followed.
The four men stood on the wet lawn and looked to one another, left to wonder what could draw a man’s attention away from his part in the biggest scandal in decades.
