LITMIR.BIZ

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moved, EVENT MANAGER signaled for the bus staff to change the RESERVED tablecloth, like I’d left some kind of stink on the table.

      The band stuttered to a halt in the middle of a rhythmically challenged “Smoke on the Water”, launching into “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here”. Heads swung to the door. A party of three men and three women gathered atop the marble steps as two photographers raced to shoot pictures. Behind this nucleus were several other men and women.

      Forefront in the vanguard group was a tall, fortyish man with an older woman on his arm. She was the one person in the group who didn’t look direct from a Vogue eveningwear issue: white-haired, plank-faced, pale, eyes as dark as coal. A large woman, she wasn’t obese, but sturdy, a prize Holstein in a designer toga.

      The tall man escorted her to the unoccupied table as pout-mouth whisked away the RESERVED placard. Only after she had sat and nodded did the others take seats.

      I chuckled at the spectacle. “Looks like Buckingham Palace let out.”

      “It’s the Kincannons, Carson. Surely you’ve heard of them.”

      It struck a chord. “There’s a big plaque at the Police Academy that mentions a Kincannon something or other. Maybe a couple huge plaques. A program?”

      “A grant, I imagine. The family is big on grants and donations and endowments.”

      I studied the tall man: well-constructed, his tuxedo modeled to a wide-shouldered, waist-slender frame. His face was lengthy and rectangular; had he wished to ship the face somewhere for repairs, it would have been neatly contained in a shoe box. Judging by the admiring glances of nearby women, however, it was a face needing neither repair nor revision. He seemed well aware of this fact, not standing so much as striking a series of poses: holding his chin as he talked, crossing his arms and canting his head, arching a dark eyebrow while massaging a colleague’s shoulder. He looked like an actor playing a successful businessman.

      “Who’s the pretty guy working the Stanislavski method?” I asked. “Seems like I’ve seen him before.”

      A pause. “That’s Buck Kincannon, Junior, Carson. Sort of the scion of the family.”

      “How are scions employed these days?” I asked. “At least this scion?”

      “The man collects cars and art and antiques. Sails yachts. Breeds prize cattle.”

      “Good work if you can get it,” I noted.

      “He also runs the family’s investments. The Kincannons have more money than Croesus. Buck keeps the pile growing.”

      The funds would be fine if they grew as fast as the throng gathering to acknowledge the late arrivals, I thought. An overturned beer truck wouldn’t have pulled a crowd faster. Several notables hustled over: an appellate judge, two state representatives, half the city council.

      “What’s the connection to the station?” I asked.

      “The family’s one of the major investors in Clarity, part of the ownership consortium. Buck Kincannon’s my boss, Carson. Way up the ladder, but the guy who makes the big decisions.”

      Clarity Broadcasting owned Channel 14 and a few dozen other TV and radio outlets, primarily in the South, but according to newspaper accounts they were pushing hard toward a national presence.

      “Who’s the older woman?” I asked.

      Dani’s voice subconsciously dropped to a whisper. “Maylene Kincannon. Queen Maylene, some people call her. But only from a distance. Like another continent. Buck’s the oldest of her kids, forty-one. Beside Buck is Racine Kincannon and his wife Lindy; Racine’s thirty-eight or so. The guy closest to Mama is Nelson Kincannon, thirty-four, I think.”

      “Who are the others with them?”

      “Congressman Whitfield to the right, beside him is Bertram Waddley, CEO of the biggest bank in the state, next to Waddley is –”

      I held up my hand. “I get the picture.”

      I turned from the hangers-on and scanned the brothers: Buck, Racine, Nelson. Though the angular faces weren’t feminine, the men seemed almost gorgeous, their eyes liquid and alert, their gestures practiced and fluid.

      My eyes fell on the matriarch, lingered. Though her skin was pale and her hair was snow, nothing about her said frail. She looked like she could have wrestled Harry to a draw.

      “What happened to Papa Kincannon?” I asked.

      “Buck Senior? I haven’t heard much about him. He has some form of mental ailment, early onset Alzheimer’s or something similar, a disease of the brain. He’s alive, but has been out of the picture for years.”

      “He started the fortune?”

      “He had a mind for business. An instinct or whatever.”

      “You know a lot about the family, Dani.”

      She looked away. “I’m a reporter and they’re a major investor in my company.”

      “Where’s Kincannon’s wife?”

      “He’s single. Divorced years ago.”

      “Have you ever met him?”

      Dani studied her wineglass, drained it. “I met him at a charity event eighteen months back.”

      “You talked to him since?”

      She passed me her glass. “Could you get me another, please? While I climb back into these shoes.”

      Rather than cross the center of the room, where I might re-meet someone I’d already forgotten, I moved to the shadowed edges and circled toward the nearest bar. My path took me behind the Clan Kincannon. The Buckster was still working the receiving line, his hand squeezed by men, cheeks pecked by women.

      Mama Maylene was another matter: it seemed forbidden to touch her, and even the most hand-grabbing, hug-enwrapping, cheek-kissing folks stopped short of Mama, offering a few brief words before quickly slipping past.

      When not engaged in long-distance greetings, Maylene Kincannon raked the crowd with emotionless eyes, black as cinders in the whiteness of her face. I watched in fascination as they gathered full measure of the room, every face, every gesture, every contact.

      Perhaps she felt my gaze, for her eyes swung to mine. For a moment we stared at one another, until her eyes moved away, restless, scanning. I had the feeling of having been surveyed by a machine, deemed of zero value, dismissed.

      There was a crowd at the bar and I got in one of the lines. My position faced me down a service hall to a kitchen door. Surprisingly – and delightfully – a woman’s derriere backed from the kitchen, wiggling as it retreated. The owner followed, throwing air kisses and whispering thanks. I suspected she was a late arrival not wishing to enter via the cascading steps and glare of lights.

      I put her age in the early thirties, slender where she needed to be, ample where she didn’t, big lavender eyes augmented with too much shadow, perhaps trying to balance a succulent, lipstick-ad mouth. Her dress was cobalt blue, strapless, anchored by gravity-defying breasts whose origin was dubious.

      “Whatcha need, sir?” the barkeep asked.

      I reluctantly turned from the woman. “Tall bourbon and soda, light on the bourbon, and a white wine.”

      “We have three whites tonight, sir. A Belden Farms Chardonnay, a B & G Vouvray, and a Chenin Blanc by Isenger.”

      I knew wine as well as I knew Mandarin. I said uh several times.

      “Go for the Vouvray, Slim,” a woman’s voice said. “The others are horse piss.”

      I turned. The woman in cobalt leaned against the column at the end of the bar, a few feet distant. She winked. “Grab me a drink while you’re there, wouldya? Double scotch.” Her voice was a purr of command,

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