Chaingang

Material things meant nothing to Mary. She was such a content person. She liked being a housewife and taking care of him, or so Sam felt. She asked very little of life, enjoying people, nature, and their good health. He felt she was also a very spiritual person, but it was something she chose to keep within herself, a private and sweet core that made her what she was.

He tried to give her some money out of his wallet, but she wouldn't touch it. She could be hardheaded, too, but when she was, it was usually for the best.

He changed the subject and talked to her about fashions, which he knew interested her, because he suspected his business stuff was boring her. He knew how boring he could be, but he couldn't help himself. Sam was who he was.

The child of a couple they knew had asked him his age, and when he'd told the little boy he was in his early thirties, the kid had said, “God! I thought you were about fifty!” To the youngster fifty was obviously as old as anyone got. You turned fifty and you died. Everyone had laughed, but inside Sam knew that the boy had seen the emperor sans wardrobe. He often caught himself acting fiftyish.

In business it had been a blessing. Thinking fifty had paid for a lot of land for a street kid from a small town—a kid whose father hadn't handed him a dime. But he wondered now and then if Mary was terribly bored with their admittedly dull version of domestic bliss.

Life was funny. He looked over at his lovely wife. Her robe had fallen open slightly and he could see the swell of her breasts, and the unintentionally provocative pose as she sat with bare legs crossed, absorbed in her magazine. Her legs were as beautiful today as when she'd been a fifteen-year-old cheerleader. By anyone's standards she was an extremely attractive woman.

Any other healthy man married to this woman, sitting across from her and seeing her the way she looked at that moment, would have but one thought: he'd want to jump on her bones. Sam? He had fucking land deals running through his head. Life was nuts.

3

MAYSBURG, TENNESSEE

Sam had always wondered what Pagoda Village looked like on the inside, having passed it countless times, but he'd never had any reason to enter. Business and pleasure had brought him across the river from his hometown of Waterton often enough, but the local wisdom had it that their Chinese food was tasteless and overpriced—also it wasn't Chinese—and he was less than adventurous when it came to trying new restaurants.

What he'd always liked about it was the mock Oriental architecture. Had he not gravitated toward real estate, he'd have doubtless become an architect, draftsman, or at the very least, a contractor. Buildings intrigued him. His “edifice complex” was one of his standard business jokes.

Pagoda Village's main roof was composed of overlapping pantiles, and the dissymetrical ogee curves shimmered in the noonday sun—if one had an eye for such things. He took his dark glasses off, opened the door, and stepped into the dark interior.

It was typical for an out-of-the-way Maysburg eatery. The town was regionally famous for having forty restaurants, give or take, which seemed to exist only for tourists, persons whose taste buds had remained in embryo, and those couples who—for whatever reason—did not wish to be seen. They were usually dimly lit, chockablock with skimpy tables, plants, and gimmicky decor, and the food was, as a rule, undistinguished.

He felt very odd about this meeting with the man who had spoken with him first a week before, telling Sam he was coming to town for “another party who was interested in buying some rural land.” Nobody who bought ground, no serious buyer, that is, ever spoke that way. The choice of words was awkward, making him think that the man—identifying himself as one Christopher Sinclair—was not being especially forthright. Sam Perkins had been polite, and dismissed the call soon thereafter.

A week later his secretary told him Christopher Sinclair was on the line. He wanted to “talk turkey.” The party he represented had made up their mind what kind of package they wanted. There was “a lot of money in this deal” for Sam. But there were certain restrictions. It was all very sensitive and hush-hush. “Let's meet and I'll put my cards on the table,” Sinclair had told him, suggesting an out-of-the-way place in Maysburg, across the river in neighboring Tennessee.

Everything about Christopher Sinclair was immediately reassuring. He looked like the prototype of a Nashville con artist: big, bulky—fat, in fact—with a dimply smile and a hearty hail-fellow-well-met air about him. Not the sort to be cooking up shady real estate deals in dark beaneries. Or perhaps just that very sort. Beautiful pink skin (the color of a baby's tush, he told Mary that night), glossy, unbitten nails, good suit, and a gorgeous head of snow white, wavy hair.