Purple Cane Road by James Lee Burke Read Free Book Online Page A

only one year, but he was proud of what he called his “self-betterment program.” He read a library book thirty minutes before breakfast each morning and thirty minutes before going to bed. He learned one new word from a thesaurus each day, and to improve what he called his “intellectual thinking skills,” he did his business math in his head. He performed one good deed a day for somebody else, and, in his words, “as a man on his way up, one good deed for my own self.”
    To save money he slept in his car, ate fifty-cent lunches in poolrooms, and sometimes bathed and shaved with a garden hose behind a church house fifteen minutes before his sermon.
    Then Belmont discovered the carnival world of Louisiana politics, in the way a mental patient might wander into a theme park for the insane and realize that life held more promise than he had ever dreamed.
    Newspeople called Belmont the most mesmerizing southern orator since Huey Long.
    During his run for his second term as governor, the opposition spread rumors that Belmont was not only a drunk but that his mulatto mistress, whom he had stashed over in Vicksburg, had borne him twins. Time magazine said he was finished. Fundamentalist preachers, once his colleagues, denounced him from every pulpit in the state. Belmont appeared on a nationally telecast religious show and tried to rinse his sins in public. His contrition was a flop.
    He held a July Fourth political rally and barbecue in Baton Rouge. The beer, the corn on the cob, the chicken, and the links were free, paid for, some said, by casino interests in Chicago and Las Vegas. Belmont climbed up onto a flatbed truck while his string band belted out “The Orange Blossom Special.” He played harmonica into the microphone, his face reddening, sweat leaking out of his Stetson hat. When the song ended, the applause was no more than a ripple, while the audience waited to hear what Belmont Pugh had to say about his misdeeds.
    He wore shined oxblood cowboy boots, a white suit, a blue shirt, and a flowered necktie. He was too tall to speak comfortably into the microphone, and he removed it from the stand and held it in his huge hand.
    His face was solemn, his voice unctuous.
    “I know y’all heered a lot of stories about your governor,” he said. “I won’t try to fool you. They grieve me deeply. I’m talking heartfelt pain.”
    He paused, taking a breath. Then his knees bent slightly, as though he were gathering a huge volume of air in his lower parts.
    “But I’m here to tell y’all right now…That anytime, anywhere, anybody …” He shook his head from side to side for emphasis, his voice wadding in his throat as though he were about to strangle on his own emotions. “I mean anybody sets a trap for Belmont Pugh with whiskey and women…” His body was squatted now, his face breaking into a grin as wide as an ax blade. “Then by God they’ll catch him every time!” he shouted.
    The audience went wild.
    The price of domestic oil rose the same week and the economy bloomed. Belmont was reelected by a landslide..
     
    LATE THE NEXT AFTERNOON I looked through the screen window of the bait shop and saw Belmont’s black Chrysler park by the boat ramp and Belmont walk down the dock toward the shop. His aides had started to follow him but he waved them off with his Stetson hat, then began slapping the hat against his thigh, as though pounding dust off his clothes. His brow was furrowed, his eyes deep in his face. He blew out his breath and punched and shaped the crown of his hat with his fist and fitted it back on his head just before entering the shop, his easy smile back in place.
    Fifteen minutes later we were a mile down the bayou, the outboard pulled into a cove of cypress and willow trees. Belmont sat on the bow and flipped his lure toward the edge of the lily pads and retrieved it slowly through the dark water. He had a lean face and long teeth and pale eyes and graying hair that hung over his ears. His