He was just starting the latest profile when his fancy new cell phone erupted with the song “All My Exes Live in Texas.” He took his feet off the desk, scooped up the phone, clicked the green button.

“Goodson here,” he barked.

“Sir, we’re having a little trouble getting Mrs. Chopra to sign the—”

“If I don’t have those papers on my desk tomorrow morning, signed and notarized, you’re fired. Understand that will be the least of your problems. And your family’s.” He clicked off the phone.

Sometimes his people needed a little encouragement, and he was all too happy to provide it.

He went back to his newspaper. He didn’t have to read the profile to know what it said, though he read it anyway. The writers of the newspaper profiles would always mention Duke Goodson’s hats, but then they moved on to what Duke Goodson actually did to deserve all this attention (and it wasn’t wearing hats). Duke Goodson was a fixer. When rich and powerful people had a problem, they called Duke Goodson to fix it. Has your wayward teenage son taken up burglary out of boredom and ended up in jail and, worse, in the papers? Call Duke. Need a loan for your brand-new casino but the banks don’t want to give you the cash? Call Duke. Want to be mayor or senator or governor or dogcatcher but everyone including your own spouse hates your guts? Call Duke. And, true to his (false) name, Duke was very good at fixing things. So good, in fact, that Duke Goodson was nearly as rich and powerful as his clients. Something the writers never failed to mention, too.

The headline of this article was “The Fixer’s Fixer.”

Not bad for a good ol’ boy from the South. He would have giggled, except he wouldn’t be caught dead giggling.

The phone sang about exes in Texas again. He picked it up and said, “Well?”

“It’s done,” said a voice on the other end of the call.