his legend too. You hear that, Walter?”
“Willie Mays, too,” Billy added. “Quit and came back. Had nothing left. Punks who couldn’t get guys out in the Texas League were striking him out. Should have stayed retired.”
“Willie Mays only retired one time,” said Helen, not looking up at all. None of them had noticed when she came back into the bar from the kitchen. “He never came back either,” she said.
“You sure?”
“Am I sure, Billy? I am sure. He never tried to come back.”
“Well, he should have quit sooner then, because he had nothing in the tank at the end. A real shame.” Billy went back to wiping down the counter next to the old cash register. He was careful to move the rimless chalkboard and put it back in its designated spot when he was done.
“Sinatra didn’t have much left either,” said Ike. “Just a ghost of himself. But that didn’t stop him. People kept paying to see him. That’s why they call it show business, you know that. But it’ll keep for another time. I’ll go with the Brown Bomber. Quit. Came back. Shoulda stayed quit. Shoulda kept his money too, like Sinatra.”
“And I’m sticking with Willie Mays,” proclaimed Billy. “I don’t give a shit if he retired or not.” He glanced at the kitchen door looking for Helen who wasn’t there. “The Say Hey Kid was no kid anymore and all that ‘Say Hey’ was say-gone. You know what I mean?” Billy was satisfied with that. They both waited on Walter. But he said nothing. He just sipped his Diet Coke and continued reading The New York Times. At least he looked like he was reading it. They knew he heard every word. Finally, without looking up from his paper at either of his friends, he said, “Winston Churchill. Retired. Came back. Retired. Came back again. Saved the world from the fucking Nazis. Not bad for an old man.”
“How old was he, Churchill?” asked Billy.
“Just a kid,” laughed Ike. “No more than-how old are you, Walter?” Walter laughed too. Ike knew Walter wasn’t as old as Churchill. “‘Saved the world from the fucking Nazis,” said Ike. “That’s good. That’s very good. I like that. Had some help, though. I oughta know.”
“You want me to write it up?”
“Yes sir, Billy,” said Ike. “You write it. Walter? You see any Nazis around here? You want to check the men’s room? Maybe they all at Caneel Bay.” Again the old man laughed and this time he began coughing again.
Billy looked to Walter for the go-ahead. Walter nodded, and the pale-skinned, stubble-jawed bartender grabbed the chunk of blue chalk and wrote-Louis/Mays/Churchill-on the blackboard.
Just then, Helen opened the kitchen door, directly across from Walter’s seat at the bar. She emerged carrying a large plastic bottle filled with a pink liquid. She needed two hands to hold it. She put it down under the bar, near the small ice maker and cooler, looked up at Walter, like she knew something he’d overlooked, and said, “She’s got a great ass, but she’s no German.”
When the phone rang-even The Phone -he picked it up and answered with a simple, “Yes.”
“Hey Louis,” said the President of the United States. “I got to see you. Get over here right away.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Louis Devereaux replied, careful not to say anything more. At 54, he was a thirty-year veteran at the CIA. His current job title, Assistant Director for Regional Operations, was a bogus title. He’d had a dozen or more similar ones over the years. The Act that created the Central Intelligence Agency in 1949 exempted the agency from having to disclose its table of organization, job descriptions or even the number of people who worked there. Devereaux had begun with a real job, as an Analyst, but as he gained reputation and authority his job titles became less reflective of his real duties. It was doubtful more than one or two Senators would recognize the name and even they might scratch their heads and say something like “Devereaux. Devereaux… I know that name… just can’t seem to place it exactly…” Not a one of his titles required their consent. Within a small group at the CIA-those who really know the speed and direction the wheel spins, those whose hands actually guide its progress and call its turns-Louis Devereaux eventually became a leader. By the time the President called him that day, he was the unquestioned top at CIA. Of course, he was not the Agency man who dutifully appeared to testify before committees of the Congress, or on the Sunday TV news shows, and surely not the bureaucrat who served as chief administrator. Louis Devereaux made policy, for the Agency, for the country, for the world.
The thirty-nine rich, white men who met privately in Philadelphia in 1787 to write the Constitution favored “Your Excellency” when referring to their new creation-the President of the United States. Perhaps George Washington’s greatest contribution to the budding republic was his resolve to be called Mr. President. He saw that title as an indicator of common citizenship. Washington was well aware that in a representative government, a government of laws not of men, separating the man from the title was essential. He meant Mister to be the most simple of callings. Many of those men, gathered in Philadelphia, thought the office every bit the equal of an elected sovereign, a king minus only primogeniture. Few of the Founding Fathers would be surprised or disappointed by the pomp and circumstance that grew to surround the modern Imperial Presidency. Quite a few surely saw themselves occupying the position and the sound of Your Excellency must have been almost musical. General, then President, George Washington-like Hubert H. Humphrey two hundred years later, a man who would chide would-be President Richard Nixon by saying-“Being President just means free rent for four years!”-understood it was just a job.
Louis Devereaux was also a man who knew the power of titles and the force of names. The youngest child, the only brother to five sisters, he grew up being called Louis, never Lou, never Louie. He never had a nickname. His father, Zane Devereaux, was a small thin man with narrow lips and sharp features, the last surviving male in the family which originated modern banking and finance in the South after the Civil War or, as it was always called in the Devereaux house, the War Between The States. At the height of the Great Depression, Louis’ father relocated the family enterprises from Biloxi, Mississippi, to New Orleans. From their base in investment banking, the family ventured into residential real estate development after World War II. In successive later decades, they branched out to include highway construction, electronic communications, office buildings and shopping malls, and eventually low-cost, no-frills regional air transport. Zane Devereaux expanded his family’s fortune from millions to tens of millions and then oversaw its explosion into the hundreds of millions. While Zane guided it, the Devereaux Communications Group owned and operated fourteen radio and television stations in eight major cities in the Deep South, three recently acquired television stations in California, and an ever-increasing network of cellular telephone and data transmission frequencies. The company’s asset value had surpassed the billion-dollar mark years ago. As a testament to Zane Devereaux’s financial genius, all his companies were debt free. “You can be a lender,” he was heard to say more than once. “That’s good business. But, if you want to sleep nights, don’t borrow a goddamn dime!”
As a youngster Louis frequently witnessed grown men-important men, men he often recognized-shake uncontrollably in his father’s presence. They respectfully addressed him as “Sir,” and “Mr. Devereaux,” all the while being called by their first names by him. Louis learned that addressing someone by their first name, especially when they were uncomfortable replying in kind, could nearly always establish a dominant position in personal communications. The added prestige he later acquired with his PhD as “Dr. Devereaux,” taught him the value of titles well applied. As with every lesson ever learned, Louis Devereaux steadfastly used his knowledge to further his self-interest.
He put The Phone down, the blue one sitting alone on top of the small, light-colored marble table under the window-the phone the President had just called him on. He picked up another phone, the one next to the toaster on the red-tiled kitchen island. He pushed a single button, listened for the ring and waited for an answer. “I’m going to miss the game,” he said. “Sorry, Mandy.”
“Well, I’ll just have to tell you all about it later, won’t I?” his sister said. She hung up without any goodbye. She knew who her little brother was. She didn’t expect an explanation and she never asked questions. None of Louis’s sisters did. And neither did his mother. Each of them took great pride in Louis. Zane Devereaux was a different story.
When Henrietta Devereaux, known throughout proper Mississippi society as Hattie, told her husband she was pregnant again in 1950, he was thrilled. Zane Devereaux had no brothers and quite reasonably saw himself as the last of the line. He was already the father of five girls. His own two sisters had six children between them including four boys, not one of which, of course, carried the Devereaux name. Like his sisters had, each of Zane’s daughters would one day marry and surrender that cherished name too. Their sons, if they had any, would be family, but none would be a Devereaux. Not a day passed when Zane was not haunted and humiliated by his greatest fear-that when he died the Devereaux fortune would fall into the hands of strangers. When Louis was born in Louisiana in 1951, Zane’s world was saved. He named his son after his adopted state and never worried again.
