Dressed in a nice suit and a dapper hat, with an attractive woman at his elbow, entrepreneur Blake Palmer is almost unrecognizable compared to the barefoot man who used to lumber around in dirty overalls, making me nervous as he drank God-knows-what and cleaned his shotguns in the apartment directly above mine in the old Tarantula Arms boarding house. But despite his change of attire—and change of fortune—Mr. Palmer is, at heart, still the same man.
Blake Palmer is the owner of several businesses in town
At the time of our first interview, Mr. Palmer owned three businesses. We met in one of them, a club called the Havana Rose, where a sultry woman in a fancy dress was singing her heart out on the stage. At the time of our second interview, the club was no more, and his other businesses had moved locations, with a third in the works. As of press time, that’s changed again—and not all of that can be attributed to the slow writing pace of a certain
Tattler reporter. Mr. Palmer is a man with ambition, dreams, and an almost manic energy. New ventures open and move and close and reopen almost overnight, and the reasons for this are tough to get a handle on. After agreeing to meet me for a drink to talk about his many and varied business ventures, Mr. Palmer spent nearly half an hour deflecting my questions with winks, changes of subject, and exaggerated declarations of ignorance. Eventually, I lit a cigarette and started at the beginning.
When Mr. Palmer lived upstairs in the Tarantula Arms, there was a run-in one night with the police—it seems he was bootlegging out of his apartment. The particulars are somewhat muffled by the fact that I got under my bed as soon as I heard the cocking of a shotgun, but the officer left alone, smiling, swaying slightly down the steps, and hiding what looked like a mason jar behind his back as he waved me off and assured me, “Everyshinsss fine.”
After Mrs. Varnish unceremoniously evicted her remaining tenants so the building could be torn down, Mr. Palmer opened a useful and well-stocked general store and filling station on Carricre Street. He could frequently be seen tooling around town in his pickup (sober, we hope), delivering groceries to customers. Then suddenly one day, the shop was boarded up and Mr. Palmer had left town.
He says he went down to South Florida to take advantage of “opportunities” and did odd jobs like driving boats.
When I asked why he came back, he gave me a grin and said, “Let’s just say heavy storms were rolling in and the work became too dangerous.”
I reminded him that he rolled back into New Toulouse just in time for a major storm with devastating flooding, and he shook his head, telling me the storms in Florida weren’t raining water.
“Bullets,” he whispered. “But don’t quote me on that.”
Blake closes up shop for the night at the Old Town General Store
The grocery store is back, in a different location but with what appears to be similar quality and service. Business is good, he acknowledged, before slyly telling me that business at the grocery store could dry up tomorrow and he’d still be in good shape. He got up from the table and gestured to the door, offering to take me to the “nucleus of the operation.”
The Still House Saloon is exactly what it sounds like. The still towers over the space, where Mr. Palmer says he offers “barbecue ribs, cornbread, moonshine, and poker.” When I asked if he had a permit, or if there would be any trouble for printing this in the paper, he shrugged. “Trouble from who? Wouldn’t worry about the police.” Remembering the Tarantula Arms, I nodded.
“So this is how you pay for everything?” I asked.
“I’ll just say that copper and corn have made me a very happy man.”
Salome Starsmith chats up the owner of the Still House while sampling the house special
After that, he got vague again, refusing to give me a straight answer about his clients or his employees—”I can’t tell you offhand how many are on my payroll, but I have several close partners,” was the most he would give me, clearing his throat and looking pointedly in the direction of the hospital.
I haven’t seen Mr. Palmer since, but on my way to the Tattler to turn in my photos and have a possibly terrifying conversation with my boss, I saw a new restaurant sign downstairs at the Red Drum. Being curious (and prone to procrastination), I took a detour to the land office to see who had registered the space.
As I suspected, the name on the ledger read “Palmer, Blake.”
Blake Palmer owns the Old Town General Store, the Still House Saloon, and Begue’s Restaurant.
Jane Moreaux keeps half an eye on New Toulouse.