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  None of the neighbors would be happy with what they saw. Size was hardly the issue. It was the promise of comfort food, the pledge of clean showers and spotless bathrooms, and the prurient offer of Sodom and Gomorrah to every trucker on the East Coast.

  Three members of the team stood on a metal gangway, behind the billboard’s face and high over the ground. They clasped sturdy ropes and began to pull, hand over hand.

  Smithfield Outdoor Media no longer employed sign painters. They were a vanishing breed. These days, the company hung preprinted tarps on their billboards. Two men at the bottom fed the sign to their colleagues up top. They took great care to prevent the vinyl tarp from flapping in the breeze.

  The giant advertisement began to climb, the message strangely fetching. It read: HIP—TWENTY THOUSAND SQUARE FEET OF FANTASIES OPENING NEXT WEEK.

  As the men unfurled the vinyl sheet, the middle section hinted at the coming horror. To the left, the tarp listed what customers would find inside those twenty thousand square feet: costumes, novelties, restaurant and bar, shower facilities, CDs, and toys, toys, toys. There was an ad burst proclaiming, TRUCKERS WELCOME.

  To the right was a woman’s face, not quite in profile but close. Her unnaturally blue eyes were sultry and stylized, one closed in a salacious come-hither wink. Her red lips were pouty and lush. They evoked images of Park Avenue clinics and other epicenters for plastic surgery where collagen sightings are a dime a dozen. She was sucking on the biggest chocolate-covered strawberry ever seen in those parts. And her radiant face suggested steamy sex at its best.

  The bottom three feet eliminated all doubt. The ad copy was big, black, and beckoning. It read, HIGHLY INTIMATE PLEASURES. THE SOURCE FOR ALL YOUR ADULT NEEDS.

  Next week an adult superstore, twenty thousand square feet of lechery and fetishes, was opening off exit 55. The billboard ended speculation, all the guessing over the last six months about who was putting up what just a few clicks from the Temple Baptist Church.

  The uproar, however, had just begun.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  FAYETTEVILLE 28312

  SUNDAY AFTERNOON

  “Hey, Biscuit.” Mrs. Jason Locklear wedged her way to the front of the room. She was a plump woman, her ample bosom jutting forward like the nose cone of a 747. “What do we tell our children?”

  The crowd hushed and waited. They were homeowners. They were military families, stretching for their piece of the American dream. Above all, they were kindred souls united by a common problem.

  Mrs. Jason Locklear was the reliable neighborhood activist. She had proven herself time and again, whether organizing block parties or staving off tax hikes on their homes. Now she was assembling resources for the fight of the young subdivision’s life.

  Parents had packed into her 3,100-square-foot colonial with wraparound porch. It was by far the largest home in the neighborhood, the only residence that came with a bonus room from the builder. Liberty Point Plantations was a community on edge.

  Most days the development resembled other suburbs near exit 55. The houses were uniform, two stories, two-car garages, and too much red brick. Their timber trim—whites, blues, and greens bordering on black—kept things interesting.

  Bikes were sprawled across front yards. The lawns were a tangle of crabgrass and regret, a dappling of bare spots underneath towering pines that dropped needles everywhere.

  The communal swimming pool was a notch too small. Kids were always landing cannonballs on each other, every summer marked by three or four 911 trips to the emergency room for broken bones. Liberty Point Plantations was the kind of place where young families would grow old—were it not for the cycle of active military that moved in and out every few years.

  Today the neighbors had forgotten the routine complaints of suburbia in the South. Whose kid was a bully. Whose dog was a menace—lock it up or put it down. Who made too much noise, either partying all night or sitting on a horn in the driveway, trying to hurry the kids off to school, church, or whatever. To a man, to a woman, they had declared war on their common enemy:

  Highly Intimate Pleasures.

  Biscuit Hughes scanned the crowd of fiery eyes, furrowed brows, and tense fists. He was a towering man, though his size was not especially intimidating. He fell more into the category of lovable bear, his pudding body shaped by Denny’s every morning.

  Bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, syrup, whipped butter, and a stack of pancakes—Biscuit believed a Grand Slam breakfast was the only way to start the day. The calorie intake was monstrous, 1,100 of those bad boys, but he insisted his side order of yogurt kept things healthy.

  The next few minutes, Biscuit knew, would be critical. It was time to be careful, time to choose his words with the ambassadorial talent of a United Nations diplomat. Because he was about to drop a second bomb on Liberty Point Plantations, and this one packed more explosive punch than the nightmare billboard hovering over I-95.

  Biscuit wondered how many in the room had slept. Whether they had stayed up all night, staring across their backyards at the monstrous red lips, illuminated and salacious. Whether residents had vented at their ministers all morning, fuming, praying, pondering what had become of their neighborhood, the place where everybody once felt safe.

  Next week exit 55 would become a destination, the place where truckers from New Jersey could buy steamy movies and take cold showers. There was no doubt about it: the neighbors might be in control of their emotions now, but his revelation would whip them into a frenzy never before seen in Cumberland County.

  * * *

  After Desert Storm and four years in the army, Allan “Biscuit” Hughes scraped through the Norman Adrian School of Law, when it was located in Buies Creek. In many ways, grad school was a bust. The town was dry, and the courses made his teeth hurt. He objected to the precise, ponderous language from professors who blurred the distinctions between right and wrong.

  Biscuit was not the smartest attorney in Fayetteville. Nor the meanest. Nor the most ruthless. Biscuit was, however, the most persistent. He practiced law through conviction and war of attrition rather than logic or examination of fact. He was the attorney every underdog admired, once a fixture on the front page of The Fayetteville Observer, the hope of ordinary Joes who had been wronged by the powerful reach of big business.

  Four years earlier Biscuit sued Cavener Land Development, a NASDAQ-listed company based in Calabasas, California. He brought a class-action suit on behalf of fourteen homeowners in Riverwood South near Fort Bragg. Families from the subdivision complained that the builder’s work was shoddy, that their homes leaked like sieves every time it rained. Mold and fungus grew everywhere.

  The partners at his former law firm told him to forget the case. “We’ll never get paid.”

  “It’s not about the money,” argued Biscuit. “My old man was enlisted. And I won’t sit here and watch a bunch of assholes from California rip off our sergeants major. I’m suing with or without you.”

  Without.

  The senior partner fired Biscuit on the spot. “We hired you to close property transactions. Not to pick fights that you, of all people, can’t win.”

  Biscuit swallowed the overwhelming urge to say, “Fuck you, sunshine.”

  He proceeded against the odds and ran the suit from Phil’s Polynesian, the tiki bar outside Bragg he co-owned with his brother-in-law. Cavener boasted more money and more investigators. It had more hired guns, all of whom hailed from Harvard and Yale. Just more, more, more. They were competent adversaries, attorneys who kicked ass in court.

  Few people had any confidence in Biscuit, other than the aggrieved families. They were living in moldy homes with moist foundations and no roof paper under their shingles. They needed to believe in somebody, anybody, and he was the one attorney willing to take their case on a contingency basis.

  The other believer was Faith Ann Hughes. She was always telling her husband, “You can win this.”

  Biscuit compensated for his so-so legal skills w
ith research. He interviewed everybody, all the families in the subdivision, building inspectors, and clerks in the town office. He Googled the senior executives at Cavener and scrutinized their backgrounds ad nauseam. He was looking for a nugget, a morsel, any tidbit that would give his clients the advantage.

  He tripped over a mountain. Fayetteville’s building inspector agreed to meet at Phil’s Polynesian. And their conversation, fueled by three mai tais each, turned an otherwise mediocre legal practice into the stuff of legends.

  Inspector: “What do you reckon your clients paid for their houses?”

  Biscuit: “Two hundred thousand on average.”

  Inspector: “I doubt those homes are worth a couple of three thousand.”

  Biscuit: “What are you saying?”

  Inspector: “It’s cheaper to knock them down and build from scratch than fix what’s there.”

  Biscuit: “But your department issued the certificates of occupancy.”

  Inspector: “All crap. My predecessor was on the pad, and I can prove it.”

  The story dominated Fayetteville’s news—partly because of Biscuit’s instinctive knack for working with the press. He promised drinks, Navy Grog on the house at Phil’s Polynesian, for every story written or television clip aired about Cavener. The developer settled out of court shortly after The Wall Street Journal printed a scathing article.

  The dollar amount of the settlement was never disclosed. But Biscuit pocketed $2.1 million. And his reputation grew in size and stature.

  He explained his acclaim like he was giving the recipe for a drink: “One part sleuthing, one part hyperbole, and three parts media.”

  There was a new fight now. The residents of Liberty Point Plantations agreed Biscuit Hughes was the right man to protect their patch of the American dream. But they had no idea what Biscuit had already unearthed.

  * * *

  Inside the Locklear family room, its temperature growing warm from all the bodies, Biscuit could almost taste the expectation. He could feel the hope that his words would make everything better. That Highly Intimate Pleasures would go away, and life would return to normal.

  “You know what my daughter said?” asked Mrs. Jason Locklear. She had contacted Biscuit first, chased him down yesterday morning. All eyes in the room shifted from him to her. Locklear was large, and for the moment, she was in charge.

  Biscuit waited, patient and respectful. He remembered the rancor at Riverwood South. He recalled what it was like as a kid, when the Hughes family of eight crowded round the table. Best to let people vent. Get it out of their system.

  Once Locklear spoke, and anyone else for that matter, he’d deliver his thoughts Joe Friday style. “Just the facts, ma’am.” At least he’d try it that way.

  “My daughter read the word ‘costume,’” Locklear said. “She wants to know if HIP is a Halloween store.”

  “Jason would love to see you in a few outfits,” cracked Evans. He was one of the husbands in the crowd, the guy who kept things light, the guy who brokered peace during neighbor-versus-neighbor arguments.

  A few people snickered, which prompted Evans’s wife to elbow him in the ribs. The chuckles were anemic, though. And Locklear stared daggers at the offenders, her fiery demeanor warning them to keep their mouths shut.

  “I can’t stop Highly Intimate Pleasures from opening next week.” Biscuit shook his head in regret. There were audible sighs across the room, the sound of air hissing from a balloon.

  “Hold them up in zoning,” somebody suggested.

  “How’d an adult superstore get this far along in the first place?” another demanded.

  “Yeah?” barked a third. “It’s a damn disgrace if you ask me.”

  The room broke into a low, unintelligible roar. Neighbors talked over each other and gunned questions faster than Biscuit could answer. No one waited for a response. And it was clear that Locklear had lost her reins, the riotous crowd growing noisier by the moment.

  Biscuit pursed his lips, stuck his forefinger and thumb in his mouth, and whistled like a steam pipe. The shrill note packed a power more abrasive than fingernails against a chalkboard. The high pitch silenced the angry mob and sent Dodger, the Locklear dog, yowling around the corner.

  “I checked out the building,” Biscuit said. “Our county law says HIP can’t locate within three thousand feet of a subdivision, church, or school. And they haven’t. You need to drive at least a half mile off exit 55 to get to them, which means they don’t need zoning approval.”

  The room grumbled in unison.

  “But why let facts get in the way?” he asked, quoting a professor from his law school days. “I’ll talk to the county inspectors tomorrow. Get them riled up.”

  “Attaboy,” one of the men encouraged.

  “Not so fast,” Biscuit cautioned. “HIP most likely complies with our zoning. And I doubt they meet the county’s definition of ‘sexually oriented businesses.’”

  “SOBs,” clarified Evans.

  Murmurs filled the room again, until Locklear turned around and glared the crowd into submission. “Why wouldn’t it be a sexually oriented business?”

  “Sales mix. Inventory selection. Those costumes you mentioned, all the lingerie, the novelties, the nutraceuticals—they don’t count as adult products. There are superstores like Highly Intimate Pleasures all over the country. Most of them dedicate less space to blue movies and toys in order to avoid the zoning requirements for adult-oriented businesses.”

  “What about the bar?” she pressed.

  “What about it? I didn’t see any references to topless dancers.”

  “We need some of that Cavener magic,” said Locklear, reminding the lawyer about the importance of his job. His mission was to stop an adult superstore, at any cost, from defiling their way of life inside Liberty Point Plantations.

  Some of the neighbors, just off duty, were dressed in Army Combat Uniforms, or ACUs as they are known among the troops. Military uniforms always filled Biscuit with a sense of mission, with the fight, the will, the energy to redouble his efforts. But he reminded himself not to overpromise. It was the surest way to underdeliver, and his newest clients needed to know exactly what they faced.

  “I’ll throw everything at them,” he promised, “including the kitchen sink. But it’s fifty-fifty whether we win.”

  “Trying to goose your legal fees?” snapped Evans. No elbow to the ribs this time.

  “The fees are the fees.” Biscuit refused to bite, no matter how provocative Evans’s questions. “In these cases, I usually check out the owners first thing. Dig up some bad stuff. Play it up in the press, big-time. And then I bring the hell and fury of political pressure down on the zoning board.”

  “So do it,” urged Locklear.

  Every person in the room nodded assent. Their jaws set and their expressions stern, they were ready to take on Goliath.

  “Won’t work,” answered Biscuit.

  “Why not?”

  “Any Catholics here today?” Biscuit scanned the crowd.

  A half dozen or so raised their hands, including Locklear. “What’s that got to do with anything?” she objected.

  “HIP is owned by a foundation.”

  “What kind of foundation?” somebody asked.

  “The kind that comes with money and a huge congregation.”

  The expressions changed from resolve to confusion. The room buzzed out of control again, nobody waiting for the lawyer’s reply but everybody demanding an explanation.

  Biscuit whistled, that shrill piercing call for attention, and the crowd went silent. “The name of the foundation,” he said, “is the Catholic Fund.”

  Stunned silence.

  “What’s that mean?” demanded Locklear.

  “HIP doesn’t sell condoms,” cracked Evans.

  “I’m all over it,” observed Biscuit. “You can take that to the bank.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  NEW YORK CITY

  MONDAY

  �
��My office, Grove.”

  It was early, before the opening bell, and that’s how my current boss summoned me. No pleasantries from her. Nothing like “How was your weekend?” I wasn’t sure what to expect, an attaboy or a beat-down.

  Current boss.

  You heard me. I’ve had fourteen managers over the last ten years. I’d call them an endangered species, except the supply is endless. The last one, Kurtz, traded SKC for Morgan Stanley. We called him the “Monthly Nut,” as much for his brain-dead decisions as for our belief that he was an extraneous expense, an overhead line item.

  Kurtz sent around an e-mail on the way out, something about seeking “new challenges” and treasuring his years “with good friends at the firm.” What a crock. The boy got himself canned. Over at the new shop, he’d stop at nothing to eat our lunch.

  Ten years. Fourteen bosses.

  Katy Anders is number fourteen. She had been on the job all of ten days, hardly enough time for me to break her in. But long enough for my colleagues in Private Client Services to dub her “Pamela Anderson.” The nickname was a not-so-veiled reference to her open buttons and pour-over blouses.

  “What’d you say to Scully on Friday?”

  Straight and to the point. Anders had heard about the F-bombs. She was all business, none of that mealymouthed baloney Kurtz had perfected. I like a boss who speaks her mind, or his, whatever the case may be. It makes life so much easier.

  “I implied he might have a career problem.”

  “How?”

  “I said Percy Phillips was on my line.”

  “Oh.” She leaned back and frowned.

  “And he wanted to know who was screaming ‘Fuck you’ every five seconds.”

  Anders developed a sudden case of thyroid eyes. Percy does that to people. Our CEO is a legend, not only for building SKC from scratch but also for his mercurial decision making. He once fired a stockbroker over the intercom during a companywide research meeting. Some hapless newbie had made the mistake of mouthing off to the press.