Evening's Empire: The Story of My Father's Murder by Zachary Lazar

Posse, a fund-raising group whose members were entitled to wear silver stars and ten-gallon hats like the lawmen to whom they wrote their checks.
    “We missed you at the party last weekend,” Cornwall said in friendly accusation.
    Ed nodded, shaking his hand. “How was it?”
    “Forty, fifty people. Janet King in a very interesting top.”
    They sat down, both of them unhappy, both of them trying to conceal it. A year ago, Cornwall had been the head of one of the least successful sales offices at Consolidated Mortgage. Now he had a house in Paradise Valley not far from Warren’s, a house with a swimming pool and a tennis court, a view of Camelback Mountain. He had been installed by Warren as president of something called the Great Southwest Land and Cattle Company, a business that since its inception a year ago Ed had been doing his best to stay out of. Great Southwest had been the genesis of Warren’s Consolidated Acceptance Corporation, a way he could bill Great Southwest for all the help it was getting with its operations—its billing, its articles of incorporation, its HUD applications. But the advice and help had never seemed to stop.
    Cornwall had heard about the AHI merger.
    “It sounds like you and Mr. Warren are going your separate ways,” he said, crossing his legs.
    “Not really. It’s just a merger. We’ll still be in charge of our own offices.”
    “But you won’t be working for him anymore.”
    “He won’t have the same control he had, if that’s what you mean.”
    Cornwall cocked his head to one side. “I told Ned that’s the kind of deal that would really help me, and he just smiled.”
    “Yeah. The smile.”
    “I could use the financing more than you could—you know that. If there’s any way you could put in a word for me, I would appreciate it.”
    “We both know how much good that would do.” He looked at Cornwall. “I told Ned that you and Great Southwest should be searching for ways to refinance, but he’s not listening. We both know how that is. I think the real problems are going to come down the road, in six or seven months, so right now the best thing you could do is probably start pulling out.”
    “I was thinking something like that.”
    “I don’t know how much you’re on the hook for personally.”
    “I’ve got a lot of loans out there. A lot of notes with my signature on them.”
    Ed just stared at him. Cornwall smiled ruefully down at his knee. He seemed to be ruminating on his own foolishness but without taking it very seriously. The chain of mistakes was regrettable, but how could he have known, he was just an ordinary person, Mr. Warren had been making the real decisions. That was what he seemed to be telling himself, as if this would somehow mitigate the consequences. Never mind the house in Paradise Valley, the Rolls-Royce, the tennis court and pool. Never mind the huge salary package Warren had offered him right from the start, a man with little business experience and little ability with numbers. It was just dumb luck, the ill fate of someone giving things a go, seizing the main chance.
    Ed turned away, his tongue pressing at the corner of his mouth. “Listen, I was glad to help you out with the HUD reports and the billing and the forms, but I have no say about what Warren wants you to do over there at this point. You know that.”
    “I understand.”
    “You can’t bring me into it.”
    “There’s just this hole opening up, bigger and bigger.”
    “It’s going to get bigger still. Unfortunately, I think that might have been the plan.”
    When Cornwall left, Ed went down the hall to the men’s room. He washed his hands and face and then he brushed and flossed his teeth. He dried off with a sheaf of paper towels, closing his eyes.

    He had gone to the Peach Bowl in Atlanta that winter with Susie, Ted and Elaine Kort, the Minkoffs, the Segals. A few days before they’d left, Warren had come to him with a new business proposition, a way to bill for