The Fall of the House of Zeus by Curtis Wilkie (Crown, October 19, 2010)

“[Steve] Patterson encouraged friends to call him ‘Big Daddy,’ or, more symbolically, to refer to him as ‘King Fish,’ a nod to the nickname of the late Huey P. Long, the populist leader of Louisiana.” (page 11)

“Eager to play national politics, Patterson signed on in 1987 as a regional director in Delaware senator Joe Biden’s first attempt to win the Democratic presidential nomination. After Biden’s failed bid, Patterson refocused on the state level and won election himself, as state auditor of Mississippi in 1991. Officially, his responsibilities included oversight of bookkeeping in state agencies; the job also enabled him to peep into transactions involving public money.” (page 12)

“One evening in 1992, as Scruggs struggled to deal with the case Patterson and [Ed] Peters were building against him, he received a phone call at his home from a man named P. L. Blake. ‘I know what’s going on, and I’m going to help you,’ Blake told Scruggs. ‘You need to come up and see me.'” (page 13)

“Blake was cryptic, but Scruggs understood the significance of his call. Blake’s name was not recognizable in most households in Mississippi, but among the political cognoscenti he was regarded as one of Eastland’s original agents who still had the ability to fix things. Blake had contacted him, Scruggs believed, at the direction of Scrugg’s brother-in-law Trent Lott . . . ” (page 13)

“. . . Scruggs flew in his private plane to Greenwood’s small-town airport, where Blake met him. ‘You helped me a lot,’ Blake told Scruggs. ‘Now I’m going to help you.'” (page 15)

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