“Here’s the situation,” Marvel said, a half hour after her argument with Davis. She rolled off the bed and whacked a rolled-up copy of the printout against her thigh. “This is good stuff. It lays out the kickbacks and the payoffs, how much and where it went, but everything is done by code numbers. We know who the code numbers represent, but we couldn’t prove it immediately.”

“If the IRS gets it, they could check bank deposits.”

“Sure,” said Davis, “but that would take some time. If things drag out, we might not be able to get all of them out of the office simultaneously.”

“Not even if they steal a hundred thousand bucks?” John asked.

“That’d do it, but that’s an extra risk, and we don’t know if that whole crazy con game with the bridge is going to work,” Marvel said. “We were talking back in Memphis about blackmailing them out of office.”

“Not the first three,” I said. “Only the governor’s redneck appointments.”

“Why not try it now?” Marvel asked. “The bridge idea has always seemed kind of

shaky. If we can get around using it, we’d expose John to less risk, you and LuEllen to less risk, and we might get to the same place.”

I thought about it for a moment. If we could blackmail them out of office, there would be less exposure. And LuEllen was worried already

I looked at John. “What do you think?”

“Sounds OK to me,” he said. He turned to Marvel. “How would we do it?”

“Harold will call Dessusdelit, tell her he’s got to see her, that it’s important,” Marvel said. “She knows him, she knows he wouldn’t bullshit. He’ll go over to her house and lay the books on her. Tell her that all he wants is her resignation. Hers and St. Thomas’s and Rebeck’s. They quit, and he loses the books.”

“Can you pull it off?” I asked Harold.

“I don’t know,” he said pensively. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at Marvel, and I realized he would do about anything she wanted him to. “It’s worth a try, I guess. Dessusdelit’s a politician, and she used to sell real estate. She’s been cutting deals all her life. Maybe she’ll figure she can cool out the books and come back later. She won’t know the rest of it - the part about us taking over the town.”

I glanced at John again, then turned to Marvel.

“OK with me,” I said. “But it’s your call.”

“Let’s try it,” she said with satisfaction. “If it doesn’t work, John can still try the bridge scam, you and LuEllen can still hit City Hall, and we can still go to the governor. But if it does work, we avoid all that trouble.”