As if your endorsement is so damn important.

“Sure, sure. But can’t blame me for thinking that … .”

“No, I can’t. Could I get a Coke, please?”

Burton whistled at the bartender.

“It’s that land deal I called you about.”

“And that don’t have anything to do with why Joe Rego’s bothering with me? Only doing it for the history books?”

“I’m finishing up a job.”

The bartender placed a Coke in front of Addis.

“Okay,” Burton said. “I asked around. Found out a little. Mostly what you know. Hanovers bought this parcel in a stretch called Blue Ridge. On the edge of the state forest. Don’t know why it’s called that. There’s no ridge. But it’s a nice spot, near-the Calcasieu River. Pretty remote, but not too far from Route One-sixty-five. Then sometime later they sold it to these boys putting together an industrial park deal, to go with expanding a local airstrip into a real airport. They were going to get companies to set up manufacturing right next to it. Fly parts in, assemble the goods, fly’em out. They were trying to line up Southern Chicken for a processing plant, too.”

“And then what happened?”

“Deal fell through. One of the banks financing it went belly-up. The state pulled out.”

“The state?”

“Yeah. Money for the airport was coming from the state industrial development fund. But only when the private money got squared.”

“The fund set up when Bob was governor?”

“Yeah, but the private money never came together, so Baton Rouge never had to do anything. One way to look at it, though, is that the Hanovers were the only ones who made any money off this land.”

“Who owned it before the Hanovers?”

“Not sure. Some partnership. A local before that.”

“Who owns it now?”

“Think it’s the same guys who bought it from the Hanovers. But it’s been pretty quiet ever since.”

Addis tilted his head toward the old men still sitting in the booth. “Let’s go say hello.”

The men were arguing over whether the local high school football team could win its third state championship in a row this coming fall. “We’re crazy about the Cougars,” Burton explained to Addis. He waited for a pause in the conversation and then introduced him.

“That’s Mr. Andrew Manning, used to be mayor. That’s Mr. Shepherd Vaullet, used to head up the First National. And that’s Billy Irwin, Senior used to be state senator, then handed the seat to Billy, Junior”

“A lot of used-to-be’s at this table,” Manning said.

The others laughed.

“Sorry about the governor,” Manning said to Addis.

His table-mates muttered their condolences.

Burton and Addis sat down. Addis started to explain why he was in town.