* * *
The bold headline in the Gulf Coast Register the following morning said it all: malco pleads guilty—ordered to prison. A large photo captured Malco in handcuffs as he was led to a patrol car, with Hugh one step behind him.
Jesse bought extra copies and planned to have one framed for the Ego Wall in his office.
* * *
Two days later, a long, brown Ford left the jail at dawn with Chief Deputy Rudd Kilgore behind the wheel, Fats riding shotgun, and the prisoner in the rear seat, without handcuffs. Hugh insisted on making the five-hour trip and sat beside his father. For the first hour, as they drank stale coffee from tall paper cups, little was said. The subject of Jesse Rudy came up soon enough, and there was a general thrashing of the DA.
Fats had ruled Harrison County like a dictator for sixteen years and refused to worry about much, though there was some concern now that Rudy was in bed with the FBI. Lance warned Fats that Rudy was out of control and would only become bolder. If he managed to stop the prostitution and gambling, most of the nightclubs would close and Fats’s cash flow would be seriously curtailed. Bars and strip clubs were still legal and there would be no need for protection from the sheriff. Fats assured him he was aware of that.
They stopped in Hattiesburg for a nice breakfast, then set off for Jackson and beyond. As they approached Yazoo City, the hills flattened and the Delta began; mile after mile of some of the richest soil on earth, all seemingly covered with perfect rows of green cotton stalks, knee-high.
Hugh had never seen the Delta before and quickly found it depressing. The deeper they drove into it, the more he hated Jesse Rudy.
Lance was already homesick for the Coast.
Chapter 36
On a warm weekend in late September, the entire Rudy family, along with the law firm and at least a hundred other friends and family members, descended on the city of Meridian, two and a half hours north of the Coast. The occasion was the wedding of Keith Rudy and Ainsley Hart. The couple met at Ole Miss when he was a third-year law student and she was a junior majoring in music. She had recently graduated and was working in Jackson. They had grown weary of the strain of a long-distance romance and finally set a date. Keith confided in his father that he wasn’t quite ready to get married because he wasn’t sure he could afford a wife. Jesse explained that no one could. If he waited until he deemed himself ready, then he would never marry. Time to man up and take the plunge.
Keith’s college friends had lobbied hard for a wedding in Biloxi so they could hit the nightclubs and enjoy the strippers. At first, he thought it was a well-organized prank, but when he realized some were serious he nixed the idea. So did Ainsley. She preferred a proper church wedding at First Presbyterian, where she had been baptized. The Harts were fiercely Protestant. The Rudys were staunch Roman Catholic. During the courtship, the couple had occasionally brought up the issue of church affiliation, but since it was a touchy subject they made no progress and hoped things worked out down the road. They agreed to go their separate ways on Sundays and had no idea what would happen when children entered the picture.
Jesse and Agnes hosted a splendid rehearsal dinner at the country club on Friday night. Eighty guests, in cocktail attire, dined on raw oysters, grilled shrimp, and stuffed flounder, a gift from a wholesaler on Point Cadet, one of Jesse’s closest friends. His warehouse stood next door to the cannery where Jesse’s father had worked ten-hour days shucking oysters as a kid.
Many of the Presbyterians were teetotalers, though drinking was not as deadly a sin as the Baptists believed it to be, and most of them enjoyed wine with dinner. They were surprised, though, by the amount of alcohol consumed by the folks from the Coast. They’d heard about those people from Biloxi and their laid-back lifestyle. Now they were witnessing it firsthand.
The toasts began and more wine was served. Tim Rudy, with hair to his shoulders and a thick beard, flew in from Montana and arrived just in time. He told humorous stories about his big brother, the perfect kid who never got in trouble. Tim stayed in trouble and often ran to Keith for support when Jesse was ready to kill him. A college roommate told a story that brought down the house, especially in light of Jesse’s growing reputation. Seemed that one weekend, when Jesse and Agnes were out of town, a carload of rowdies arrived from Southern Miss and descended upon their home. They collected Keith and hit the Strip. At a joint called Foxy’s, they drank and drank but nothing happened. Keith explained that the beer was watered down and the drinks were little more than sugary Kool-Aid. They demanded a bottle of whiskey but the bartender refused. They threatened to go somewhere else but Keith said most of the bars served the same crap. When they made too much noise, a bouncer told them to leave. Imagine—Keith Rudy getting kicked out of a Biloxi strip club! The roommate insinuated that a couple of the boys may have made it upstairs, but Keith certainly did not. Joey Grasich reminisced about their childhood days on the Point and their adventures fishing and sailing in the Sound. He was thankful for lifetime friends like Keith and Denny Smith, Hugh, of course, was not mentioned.