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

their expertise without risking any of their capital: a consulting business for other land companies, Consolidated Acceptance Corporation. Their first client could be James Cornwall, who was already struggling with the new venture Warren had set up for him, the Great Southwest Land and Cattle Company.
    What was Warren like, people would ask, and Ed would say that he was a “character,” he was “colorful,” but also “brilliant,” “charming,” a kind of genius when it came to making deals. He always had dozens of them in progress—deals on land developments, commercial real estate, insurance—deals involving half a dozen prominent country club members and their attorneys, but also smaller, grittier deals—deals on soft drink distributorships, vending machines, taverns, liquor licenses, which as an ex-convict he was legally unable to hold. Ed would try to explain the layers of a personality like this, but there weren’t many people who understood the nuances. There was the Warren who had everyone to his house parties—the buffet by the pool, the bartender in his white jacket—the Warren of the bright, cajoling smile, a half circle of guests surrounding him in front of the camera. There was the opposite Warren: the chain-smoker in his tattered golf shirt who scrutinized numbers, bank letters, accounting ledgers, who saw everyone, not least himself, as a little contemptible, a little disgusting in their simple motive of gain. There was the Warren of hangovers and there was the Warren of nights on the town at Rocky’s Hideaway, Durant’s, the Roman Gate Cocktail Lounge—girls in friends’ apartments, girls in the Embassy Hotel. There was the Warren who stopped by Ed and Susie’s house like a bland uncle with a box of macadamia nuts from Hawaii, a case of Baileys Irish Cream, standing in the kitchen, asking Susie about the kids, remembering their names, remembering the toys they played with. He and Barbara would come over for dinner with Ed’s parents and they would talk about the new biography of the Roosevelts, Eleanor and Franklin, about college football, about Diamonds Are Forever, the most ordinary family talk, the Warrens like film stars in the small dining room, distinguishing themselves by their total lack of aloofness. After dinner, while the women did the dishes, the men would drink Scotch in the living room, and then the women would join them for dessert. Even recounting the plot of a movie, Warren would keep everyone so engaged that Ed’s parents, Lou and Belle, would stay late, Warren’s energy becoming theirs, drawing them out, causing them to tell stories of their own, jokes of their own—Warren always laughed at their jokes. It was a strange mix of performance and actual kindness, the performance and the kindness rising to greater heights in an effort to efface their differences. It was not the same Warren who, the next morning, might tell Ed that he had no balls. Nor the same Warren who, the day after that, might tell Ed that he was the brightest person he’d ever met. He was sincere in these contradictions. He saw through people, but he also saw through himself, and this did not leave him sour or disdainful but amused, happily jaded. He had a mildness in his eyes that said, I know something you will never know. Once you saw that look, you didn’t stop thinking about it.
    The Peach Bowl took place in Atlanta, at Grant Field, on the campus of Georgia Tech. It was ASU’s first national bowl game, the climax of their 10–0 season under longtime coach Frank Kush. It was one of those back-and-forth games that inflames the emotions, as if the outcome were personal and spoke to your judgment, your taste, your capabilities. On their first possesssion, ASU marched seventy-eight yards downfield in only nine plays, ending in a touchdown run by their star back, Bob Thomas, who shimmered through the North Carolina defense like light on the surface of a pool. By the beginning of the second quarter,