Chaingang

“Let's do it, then,” he said.

“Whatever makes everybody happy."

“How soon?"

“Whatever, bro. I set it up ASAP. Whatever it takes. All right?"

“Hey, Happy,” he said, pushing it a little behind the cocaine, “I ain't no ounce-pouncer now, am I, señor?"

“Chit no, jefe,” Happy laughed. “Ju drivin’ the heavy Chevy."

They said their good-byes, slap-dapped, and Royce patted Luis on the back and left. It was like patting a large tombstone.

“Hi, Royce. Come on in,” Mary told him, turning away when she saw who was at the door.

“Thanks, hon. I owe you big,” he told her, handing her the envelope of cash.

“Oh, sure,” she said, absentmindedly, but pleased to have her five thousand back. She glanced inside the envelope but didn't check it. “Any time.” She appeared to have no further curiosity about his bizarre loan.

“I put a couple hundred in—you know—for interest or whatever. If you're penalized more than that, let me know."

“No. Take that back. It wasn't hardly anything."

“That's yours. I came out great. It's for the inconvenience. Don't give it back—I'll only waste it."

She didn't even hassle him about taking the two hundred back, so he knew she wasn't with it.

They sat at the kitchen table and he asked the usual question. She shook her head, telling him that Marty Kerns had called. Telling him the details of their conversation. As she did so, her pretty face registered worry, great anxiety, doubt, and suspicion—an assortment of quick despairs that blew across her attractive features like a chilling breeze.

Marty Kerns. There were three salient features about the good chief of public safety, or chief of police, as everybody in the town still called the office. He was tough, corrupt, and stupid. Royce decided he'd start trying to really help this woman—whom he'd just taken advantage of without a thought to any possible consequences.

“Marty Kerns isn't doing anything, Mary. Whatever gets done from here on, we're going to have to do—or some other law enforcement agency like the county or the Feds will have to do. Kerns couldn't find his fat ass without help."

There was a moment like the old times that flashed between them in that heartbeat of candor, and he read an unspoken question in her eyes. He imagined that she was asking him—you think something bad has happened to Sam, don't you? And he tried to answer her on the same wavelength.

“Listen,” he began, “let's start with what we know. Take it from the top. What was the biggest thing in Sam's life besides you? It was the land deal. Since the first time you told me about it, the thing has bugged me. Something doesn't play. Something wrong. I think that if we follow what Sam did in putting the land sale together, we might get some clue as to what happened."

“I ... uh ... don't have any better ideas,” she said, shrugging. Telling him that she thought it was useless.

“Go back to the beginning. When was the first time he mentioned the deal to you? Who was this guy—this Sinclair whatshisname? How did he get in touch? Let's start by calling the phone number in Virginia that Sam called."

She took him through the whole thing, step by step. The walk-in who called out of the blue one day about wanting to purchase rural properties, not sounding like he was anybody who would actually follow through. Then showing up a week later and meeting her husband at a restaurant in Maysburg. Describing Christopher Sinclair later to Mary as having “pink skin the color of a baby's tush.” The big cash offers that whoever he represented intended to make to ten local landowners. Whoever he was fronting for had done their homework. They knew how to make offers that would be extremely tough to decline out of hand. Something that no outsider should have been able to do without spending a lot of time in research, Sam emphasized.

There was supposedly going to be a major ecological research and development center located on this three- or four-hundred-acre circle out in the middle of nowhere. There were already rumors flying around the town about what the piece of ground was going to be used for.

She told Royce about the big cashier's check that the man gave Sam to present to Cullen Alberson at that initial meeting.

“Take me through the offers, Mary. How was it handled?"

“Well, Cullen was first. Sam took the money out to him that evening and got a done deal, as he called it. Got Cullen to sign his piece of ground over right then and there. All it took was a look at the numbers on the check."

“How much was the check for?"

“Fifty thousand dollars!"

“I shouldn't wonder. That's ten times what it's worth. My God!"

“Sam said it was way out of line. But that's how he knew Mr. Sinclair was a legitimate businessman, when that first cashier's check went through without any problems. Anybody with that kind of serious money, you know, they have a way of getting your attention.