The entrance was under a sweeping portico where the members arrived in German cars and were greeted by doormen in black tie. Only a red carpet was missing for the lucky ones. Helen loved saying, “Well good evening, Herbert,” as he opened the door, took her hand, and got her out of the car, just as he had been doing for years. Once shed of old Herbert, she took the elbow of Judge Bannick and swept into the magnificent foyer where waiters circulated with trays of champagne. Helen practically assaulted one to get a drink, and not her first of the day. The judge took a glass of sparkling water. He was in for a long night and an even longer Sunday.
They were soon lost in a throng of well-heeled socialites, the men in the required suits and ties, the ladies in all manner of designer getup. The older ones favored clinging fabrics, dangerously plunging necklines, and no sleeves, as if determined to exhibit as much aging flesh as possible to prove they still could turn it on. The younger ladies, a small minority, seemed content with their figures and felt no need to flaunt things. Everyone talked and laughed at once as the crowd slowly inched along a wide hallway with thick carpets and large portraits on the walls. Inside the main banquet room, they weaved their way through large, round tables and eventually found their seating assignments. There was no speaker for the evening, no dais, no prime tables for sponsors. At the far end a band tuned up behind a dance floor.
The judge and Helen settled in with eight people they knew well, four other couples all properly married, but no one really cared about the arrangements. A doctor, an architect, a gravel entrepreneur, and their wives. And one man, the oldest at the table, who had dinner at the club every night with his wife and was reported to have inherited more money than all the others combined. The wine flowed and the conversations roared.
Judge Bannick flipped his switch, and flipped it again, and made himself laugh and smile and talk loudly about little that mattered. At times, though, he felt the weight of the future, the uncertainty of Monday’s mail, the fear of being stripped naked and exposed, and he lapsed into moments of pensiveness. It was impossible not to look around the room at the friends and leaders and people he had always known and admired without asking: What will they say?
He, decked in Zegna and rubbing elbows with the rich, was a most respected judge, admired by important people, and he was also, at least in his opinion, the most brilliant killer in American history. He had studied the others. Thugs, all. Some downright ignorant.
He told himself to shake it off, and took a question about an oil spill in the Gulf. Some of the crude was inching toward Pensacola and the alarms were up. Yes, he surmised that there would be a great deal of litigation in the near future. You know the plaintiffs bar, he said, they’ll sue the moment the oil slick is in sight, and probably before. The spill was front page and for a while the entire table quizzed His Honor on who might be able to sue whom. It passed; the women lost interest and pursued their own little chats as dinner was served.
The waitstaff was well trained and efficient and no one’s wineglass was ignored, especially Helen’s. As usual, she was pounding Chardonnay and getting louder. She’d be drunk by ten and he’d have to once again shovel her into the house with Melba’s help.
He was happy to be quiet and listen to the others. He looked around the large room, smiled and nodded and acknowledged some friends. The mood was festive, even rowdy, and everyone was wearing beautiful clothes. The women were coiffured to perfection. Those over forty had the same noses and chins, thanks to the handiwork of a Dr. Rangle, the most sought-after face-lifter in the Florida Panhandle. He was sitting two tables away with his second wife, a gorgeous blonde of indeterminate age, though she was rumored to be in her early thirties. When Rangle wasn’t carving on women he was sleeping with them, they found him irresistible, and his sexual escapades were the source of endless salacious gossip in town.
Bannick loathed the man, as did many husbands, but he also secretly envied his libido. And his current wife.
There were two in the room he’d like to kill. Rangle was the second. The first was a banker who had denied him a loan when he was thirty years old and trying to buy his first office building. He said Bannick’s balance sheet was too light and his chances of making good money as a lawyer were too unlikely. The town was already saturated with mediocre legal talent, and most ham-and-eggers around the courthouse were barely paying their bills. Typical banker, he thought he knew everything. Bannick bought another building, filled it with tenants, then bought another. As his law practice flourished, he joined the country club and ignored the banker. When he was elevated to the bench at the age of thirty-nine, the banker suffered a stroke and had to retire.