“This’s an iconic place. Getting a first drink at the Olive is a rite of passage for most of this town.”
Tatum took a sip of his vodka and soda and leaned towards me. “Besides,” he added, “you blasted me for owning those cleaners.”
I shrugged. He had a point. We had reported on his EPA violations. His operations used perchloroethylene, commonly called “perc,” to clean clothes. Perc was a suspected carcinogen that could also cause short-term health effects such as respiratory distress and sore throats. Dry cleaners were required to inspect equipment regularly to look for and repair leaks and keep records of the inspections and the amount of perc purchased each year. Tatum did not.
I said, “And you filed a bullshit defamation lawsuit against the Insider after the election that cost me ten grand in legal fees to defend.”
Tatum had found a Tallahassee firm to demand a retraction of our reporting on the dry cleaners. I refused, and the firm filed a defamation lawsuit. Gravy passed me off to a constitutional law attorney who skewered Tatum’s allegations. The judge granted us summary judgment, but not attorney fees. I was still paying off the legal bills in five hundred dollar monthly increments.
Tatum sat back up and bowed his back. “You cost me that fucking election.”
“Not my problem,” I said. “Your shady business practices hurt you, not our reporting.”
“Screw you, Holmes. Remember I tried to be nice and make peace,” he said as he got up from the table, gathering his cell phone, wallet, and BMW keys. “I’d have someone kick your ass, but somebody already beat me to it.”
He yelled to the bartender, “Whatever this asshole orders is on my tab.” Then he left.
The waitress who wanted the breast augmentation brought me another Bud Light. She said, “Wow, you set the Olympic record for getting under his skin.”
“It’s my superpower.”
She smiled. “You’re Walker Holmes.”
“Guilty,” I said as I squeezed the lime into the bottle and took a big swallow.
“You spoke to my communications class at UWF last year.”
“How did I do?”
She said, “It was the most interesting class we had all year. You didn’t hold back. It got me reading your blog.”
She sat down at the table. No one seemed to notice. The bartender was on his cell phone. Everyone else couldn’t see past their half-full glasses.
“Have you graduated?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Ran out of money, but I will finish.”
Sure she would, I thought, but there was no harm in pretending otherwise. I noticed the cameras in the bar weren’t pointed at Tatum’s table. This girl wasn’t as stupid as she wanted others to believe. Her boss wouldn’t catch her on video talking to me. Maybe she actually would go back to college.
I asked, “What’s going on here? Who hangs out at The Green Olive?”
“Drunks and guys hiding out from their wives and bosses fill this shift,” she said as she surveyed the room. “Attorneys, reporters, aging players, and more hipsters come in later.”
Pointing to a television behind the bar, she added, “Like that guy.”
I turned to see Sheriff Frost being interviewed by a reporter. “The sheriff?”
“No, no,” she said shaking her head. “The tall, good-looking man behind him.”
It was Bo Hines talking to Peck in the background of the shot.
“Bo Hines?” I asked.
“I don’t know his name. For a while he was coming in here two or three times a week, but he hasn’t been around the past two months.”
“Was he alone?”
She said, “No, he usually had a woman with him. She had a hippie vibe, somewhat attractive, always ordered apple martinis.”
It sounded like Pandora Childs.
The waitress continued. “They would sit over there.” She pointed to a dark corner away from the pool and foosball tables. “He couldn’t keep his hands off her.”
“Did they stay long?”
“Four or five drinks, but usually they left in separate cars by 6:30.”
I asked, “Do you ever work the late-night shift?”
“That’s what Tatum calls ‘looking for ass time,’” she said with a smirk. “Girls, boys, drunk, high, it doesn’t matter. Most everybody wants to score. The tips are good, but I just try to get out in one piece.”
“Drugs?”
She said, “Listen, I’m not looking for trouble. What they do is their business.”
So, the answer was yes.
“What about the cops?”
“The precinct is only a few blocks away. They are the biggest partiers, and the boss says they don’t pay for anything.”
The bartender yelled her name. As she got up, I handed her my business card and a twenty.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Sally,” she said with a smile. “Sally Mitten.”
“Call if you ever have a news tip, Sally Mitten,” I said.
She took the tip and card and tucked them in her soon-to-be-expanded bosom.
I walked out into the hot, bright afternoon sun, jotted down a few notes, and made my way to the courthouse.
The press conference was high theater, even the television stations from Mobile had camera crews on the courthouse steps. A dozen or so Save Our Pensacola followers stood in the shadow of the building as well as several city council members.
Jace Wittman began by saying that he had called the press conference to give an update on the petition drive and to speak out in defense of his deceased sister, who couldn’t defend her reputation against the inflammatory writing of “a yellow, tabloid, so-called journalist who wanted to get more hits on his blog.”
I think he meant me. Wittman didn’t look my way, but I felt everyone else’s eyes on me. I didn’t take my eyes off him.
Bo Hines stood behind Wittman dressed in jeans and a Hines Paving Company gray work shirt with his last name under the company’s logo. He wanted to appear as though he had been driving one of his trucks all day, something he hadn’t done in twenty years. Julie Wittman was MIA.
“We have been inundated with people wanting to sign petitions since this morning’s article in the Pensacola Herald,” Wittman said. “Thanks to my brother-in-law’s donation, we have hired people to man the
