Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [129]
“Who is this guy?”
“Just one of your big supporters . . . who wants to do something nice for you.”
“What’s the matter with you, Rodney? As long as I’m governor, you know I can’t take any gifts from anybody.”
“Well, hell, Hambo, I know that . . . but there’s a lot of ways to skin a cat. Now, suppose he was to lock this boat up in a boathouse somewhere for you to borrow and take out for a ride anytime you wanted . . . that would be all right, wouldn’t it?”
Hamm looked at him suspiciously. “Come on, Rodney, this sounds fishy.”
“Now wait, hear me out on this. . . . Suppose he was to give me the key to this boathouse to keep it for you, until such time when you are no longer governor and can accept a gift from a friend.” Rodney leaned back in the chair and crossed his hands behind his head. “In the meantime, why, you don’t even know the name of the man who owns it. As far as you’re concerned, I just borrowed it from a friend of a friend.”
Hamm kept gazing at the picture of the boat. He had absolutely no intention of accepting it, but it was a beautiful boat, and for someone who had never made more than sixty-five dollars a week and could never hope to afford anything like this, it was tempting. He pushed the picture back across the desk. “Tell him thanks but I better not.”
Rodney shrugged and said, “All right, I was just thinking how much fun it might be for your boys down the line. You do what you want to . . . but if it were me, I wouldn’t be so quick to look a gift horse in the mouth like that. What’s the point of being governor if you can’t have fun?”
He walked out and left the picture lying on Hamm’s desk. For a week Hamm kept taking that picture out of his desk drawer and looking at it. The second week he called Wendell Hewitt, the attorney general, into his office and said, “Listen, as governor would it be illegal for me to borrow a boat from somebody?”
Wendell said, “No, why?”
“I just wondered.” On the fourth week Hamm decided it would not hurt to go down and just take a look at it. The friend of a friend had so hoped he would accept the gift, he had even gone so far as to have a name painted on the side for him. The moment Hamm saw The Betty Raye he was in love.
When Wendell, who had driven down with them that day, saw the name written on the side of the boat, he said, being no fool, “Don’t tell me a thing, boys. I don’t want to know. I’m just here for a boat ride.”
Hamm did not know it but the friend of a friend was a Mr. Anthony Leo from St. Louis, and when the governor commuted his brother’s scheduled execution to a life sentence he was grateful. All Hamm knew was that Rodney had come into the office that day and seemed very nervous until he had finished signing all his pardons. Wendell, who advised Hamm, agreed with Hamm’s decision; after all, the man had not killed an innocent person; he had just shot some other mob hood.
Hamm said, “He probably did the state a favor.”
They both had done Rodney a favor and did not know it; Rodney had a rather large gambling debt that had just been crossed off the books. But Hamm was no fool either. He never intended to accept a gift from anyone, never told anyone about The Betty Raye except a few people he could trust. But he did use it every chance he got.
One afternoon when he and Rodney were out cruising around the Missouri River, having a few drinks and smoking a few cigars, Hamm said, “You know, Rodney, I’ve been thinking, when my term is up, it sure would be nice if Betty Raye and the kids and I were to have a nice house we could move into right away and not have to wait. Sort of like a loan, and then, when I get settled and get a good job down the line, I can pay for it. What do you think?”
Rodney said, “Oh, I think that could be arranged.”
“I don’t think it would look too good for the ex-governor to have to go back to some little rented place, do you?”
“No, I agree with you there. What kind of a house do you think an ex-governor should live in?”
Hamm leaned back and thought about it. “I suppose it should be in a good neighborhood, for the kids,