by Alan Lee
Tom continued, “We usually sell in the 2-4 EBIT range, and in this scenario I suggest the upper half because profit margins should increase. You wanted my professional evaluation, here it is. After examining the numbers, I propose a sale price of $8,425,000.”
Marcus nodded without comment.
In my head, I was already shopping for a new pair of sneakers. Mine were two years old.
“That’s too high,” said Veronica. I remained calm. “I’m not doing this for money, I’m doing this to get out. Marcus risked his life to save my husband just because I asked. I came here hoping Mr. Garrett would give me a number close to three million and, considering he exceeded the number, I’ll take three and a half.”
I debated telling her that if she took eight million I could upgrade my Honda Accord, but it didn’t seem the time.
Marcus said, “Summers, you—”
She reached for his hand. Squeezed. Even professional stoics and happily married men like Marcus Morgan get quiet when Veronica Summers touches them. She said, “It’s complex, Marcus. But I’m not interested in maximizing my potential profit and I’m not interested in haggling with you. I want you to have it because you’re responsible and you care about me and my husband and you care about Roanoke. In a perfect society we get rid of the drugs. Until then, it’s better if men like you handle them. Plus I’m putting every penny of it into a woman’s shelter. I’ve already picked out the building downtown. I’m taking care of girls. Prostitutes. I don’t care if they quit the job or not, that’s up to them. But I want to run a safe place they can stay. And three million is plenty.”
Tom looked pained, the poor creature. He did that often.
Marcus said, “Gotta be more than three, Summers.”
With her free hand she tapped the white table cloth, her red fingernail clicking firmly. “I am intentionally and willfully taking less. I am expressing to you and to myself what I think about money. I don’t need wealth. I want to help hurting women like me and this is enough to start.”
“I’ll give you six.”
Ronnie ceased her response even as she drew breath. I saw the conflict in her. Despite her speech, she liked wealth. A lot. She had several hundred grand hanging in her closet. This must be half killing her.
I whispered, “Take the six. Imma buy Nikes.”
“Shut up, August,” said Marcus. “I’ll buy you Nikes.”
“No, I’ll buy him Nikes. For the rest of his life. He married me, not you.”
Either way, I got new shoes. So all was well.
Finally Ronnie said, “I know myself, Marcus. That amount is too much. It’ll kill me.”
Marcus shifted in his chair. Glanced at the three of us. “I’ll give you two now. Cash. And then another million each of the next three years. Final offer.”
She made a cute face, drawing her mouth to one corner. Postulating. “Okay. Deal. And I’ll name the shelter The Marcus Morgan Home For Whores.”
“You do and I’ll have to move. And take August with me.”
She laughed. He laughed. I laughed.
Tom looked pained.
Marcus dropped us off at my house late that evening. We strolled the sidewalk, her leaning against me. Her heels clicked with each footfall and I enjoyed it.
I stopped her on the front porch.
“You just turned down millions of dollars.”
“I know.” She made a slight groaning sound. “Don’t remind me. I still can’t feel my legs. I’ve wanted to be wealthy my entire life.”
“Do you know why you did?”
“Yes. I’m growing up, I hope. I’ve grown up enough to realize I’m not an adult yet, at least not one that functions well. And if I became rich, I’d spiral into a black hole I’d never get out of. You don’t give an idiot a license to practice law and you don’t give a mess like me millions of dollars. And here’s the best part, Mackenzie. I didn’t do it for you. I did it for me.”
“Wow.”
She pushed some blond hair from her eyes. “Right? How august and pious am I? I’m essentially the Pope.”
I grinned and got the door for her.
“Let’s go in and talk about money and pretend we already have it, because…” She smiled and I nearly tripped. “Because what could be more fun than that? Other than sex with one another. This is why I rejected it, because just the thought makes me tingle. I’ll need some way to launder the money so it looks legal. Two million at once is a lot, after all. Suspicious as all get out.”
Georgina Princess Steinbeck greeted us.
My attention drifted as Ronnie talked.
Laundering money.
Laundering money.
Hmmm.
A few chimes were ringing in my head.
But I had no idea why.
Par for the course.
20
Courtney Farmer got on her knees when I entered her animal hospital the next morning, and she threw her hands out. Georgina Princess abandoned all pretense at self-possession and bounded to her, the leash pulling out of my grip. How do dogs intuitively know that vets love them?
Perhaps it was the posture of lowering oneself to their level.
Courtney and Georgina spent half a minute letting the other know how highly she was valued and then we ventured deeper into the hospital.
“A beautiful boxer,” she said. She remained a tall and trim vet with shoulder length brown hair dyed blond and eyes a fraction too wide, as though surprised or impressed. I picked Georgina up and set her on the examination table. “Just perfect, yes she is. Yes she is. You two are ideal together, Mackenzie, like a commercial. I’d buy whatever you’re selling. Gonna tell me what I’m looking for, big guy?”
“No,” I said. “Render unto her the most thorough inspection possible and tell me if you see anything spectacular or amiss.”
Georgina submitted to the examination with grace and dignity and enthusiasm.
“She’s eating?”
“Yes,” I said.
“What do you feed her?”
“Not beer and donuts, that’s for sure.”
“Drinking plenty of water?”
“Yes.”
“Breathing fine? Energy is good? Have you witnessed bowl movements?”
“I have; best thirty seconds of my day. Healthy dog poop, no doubt.”
“You brought a sample?”
I handed her the brown bag, inside of which there was a sealed plastic bag, inside of which there was a small sealed Tupperware container, inside of which there was a small stool sample, which was gross.
She and Georgina talked about some things, checking hearing and alertness. She and Georgina trotted around the room. She checked the skin on her belly—Georgina’s belly—and looked in her eyes and ears and nose, and she pulled her lips up and looked at her teeth, which was also gross. She palpated the legs and lymph nodes and abdomen. With a stethoscope she auscultated the heart and lungs, talking softly to herself.
Courtney took x-rays while I made soothing sounds for the sake of the canine and she used an ultrasound wand to look everywhere else. I watched the garbled feed on the monitor as she pointed out organs and I learned nothing.
After forty-five minutes of rigorous scrutiny, and after the stool was witnessed under a microscope, Country set Georgina upright, gave her a treat and pronounced, “Healthiest three-year-old boxer imaginable. I love her to pieces and she’s got a sweet temperament. Patient and calm and she adores you. So what gives? Ulysses Steinbeck ordered all this?”
“No. He doesn’t know I have the dog yet. Before I tell him, I was hoping you’d find something.”
Courtney Farmer looked at me as if I had mange. “Find something? Give me more details. Like what?”
“A tumor worth two million dollars? Pot of gold in her intestines? A femur shaped like a skeleton key? I don’t know. Do you see any indications of trauma? She was wounded when Ulysses first got her.”
“No. I see nothing but a perfect dog.”
I sighed and patted Georgina. “She’s a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit.”
“Maybe it’s you who needs his head examined, not her.”
“A bizarre diagnosis, doctor. But potentially accurate.”
Georgina laid on her side on my passenger seat as though the doctor’s visit exhausted her. Head down, eyes closed. I drove her home, the winter sunlight blinking through the window and turning her fur aureate.
I patted her for the duration, experiencing an odd form of guilt.
Farmer was right—this was an exceptional dog, seemed to me. Put up with a lot, no complaints, obeyed all the rules, wasn’t shedding. A puzzle piece she may be, but also more than that. And impossibly likable.
We parked in my driveway and idled, and I scratched at her ribs, burrowing my fingers beneath the fur and rubbing against skin and ribs, and scratched and scratched, and she was pleased. I got her shoulder and her neck and her chest and her haunch, and she laid without moving in the sparkling sun and soaking the heated seat’s warmth. The light came through in such a way that she reflected the brilliance but also absorbed it, and as I scratched her fur I could see skin under the dense growth. I rubbed the side of her abdomen this way and that, parting the fur like a wave.
During such a wave I saw markings on her skin but the fur immediately closed overtop. So brief it could be imagination. Scar from the old wound? I placed both hands on her and used my thumbs to draw the fur aside. Her hairs were short and stiff and uncooperative, but she didn’t mind.
With careful manipulation I found the marking again. Multiple markings—it was a pale blue tattoo. I’d seen these before; vets used the same ink to indicate a neutered animal. But vets marked the animal’s belly, not the side. I shifted Georgina enough to get direct sunlight and pushed her fur aside. After enough iterations of the glimpses, the hidden marking resolved into patterns and I knew what I was looking at.
Numbers. Georgina Princess Steinbeck’s abdomen had been tattooed with at least ten numbers.
21
Georgina remained placid on the warm seat for twenty minutes while I scrutinized her abdomen. The numbers were tiny and they’d grown distorted as she aged. Some of the numbers I had to guess at. Was that a 1 or a 7? Eventually my thumbs and eyes were raw, and I relented and sat up to examine my phone, where I’d written down my best guesses.
371612
-801716
Who on earth would tattoo a dog thusly?
Someone who didn’t care about dogs.
Someone like Ulysses. This was the key mentioned in his journal. These numbers were what his subconscious clawed at. He’d forgotten the dog, forgotten the numbers, but some part of him remembered the necessity of them.
Be nice if he could remember what the numbers symbolized but I bet he forgot. On some level, this was what I’d been hired to do.
I was supposed to parlay with him that afternoon, but I texted Rose Bridges and informed her I needed to delay the meeting.
A clue had surfaced, after all, and needed decoding. And I, Sherlock Holmes.
Georgina and I went walking and I thought.
I went to the gym to exercise and I contemplated.
I made a late lunch and I postulated.
I punched the numbers into Google and got nothing back. I subtracted them. I sent them to Manny. I translated the numbers into letters. Nothing. I changed the 1s into 7s and tried it again. I put it all on paper, including the name Georgina Princess. I rearranged, I deciphered, I codified.
I traveled to the city library and showed them to a librarian, but they made no sense even to an expert at the dewey decimal system. I called Whitney Potter and asked if the arrangement made sense to a physician, but they didn’t. I stopped by my bank but the manager indicated these weren’t routing or account numbers.
The numbers weren’t zip codes or telephone numbers. They weren’t patents. Potentially Bitcoins or some other blockchain currency, but it looked doubtful. Not credit card numbers, not social security numbers, not passport IDs.
That evening I stared at the numbers on a pad while I chopped onions and garlic for chili. The secret to my chili, as with many other things, was bacon. I sautéed the onions and garlic in bacon grease, emptied the pan into the pot with the beef and beans and tomato sauce and Rotel, and stirred and set the lid on top. I got a Dogfish Head brown, popped the top, and watched Georgina walk circles around Kix’s playpen and Kix try to keep up from within. They had a good thing going—Kix would throw plastic blocks and Georgina would bring them back, stick her mouth over the side, and release the block. Not hygienic, probably. But Courtney Farmer had let the dog lick her on the face and mouth—ew—so I didn’t panic.
Timothy August returned. He petted Georgina politely, and picked up Kix and they hugged one another and inquired after the other’s day. Then Kix was returned. Timothy hung his coat up and set his briefcase on the stairs. He clapped me on the shoulder and washed out his coffee mug before getting a scotch glass and pouring himself two fingers worth.
“Smells good,” he said, walking to his reading chair.
“Obviously. Ready in forty-five minutes.”
“Are you geocaching tomorrow? Too cold, in my learned opinion.”
“Did you say geocaching?”
“I did,” said Timothy August.
“That game where people hide treasures for each other under rocks and bears and so forth.”
“Correct.” He sat in the chair and drank scotch and closed his eyes. Kix called to him, and he smiled and waved and Kix waved back.
“Why would I be geocaching tomorrow?”
“Aren’t those the coordinates for Roanoke? On your notepad?”
I looked at the numbers. I looked at him. With keen insight sharpened from years in homicide and years more as a private investigator, I said, “Huh?”
“A science teacher at Crystal Spring Elementary is big into geocaching. He makes me listen to his exploits and look at the GPS coordinates on his map. I thought that’s what you had there. I must be mistaken.”
I said, “What are the coordinates for Roanoke?”
“Thirty-seven point something, and negative eighty point something. Right? Isn’t that what you have written down?” He drank more scotch and closed his eyes again. “Or maybe ignore me, an old man yammering after a long day. I couldn’t find enough subs so I taught music class, and there’s not enough Glenlivet in the world.”
I glared some more at the numbers.
371612
-801716
I drew a dot after the 7 and after the 0.
37.1612
-80.1716
I opened my laptop and surfed to a website that mapped latitude and longitude, and I entered the coordinates. The map flickered and zoomed in on southwest Roanoke County.
Only five miles from the location of Ulysses’s car crash.
“Jiminy Christmas,” I said.
Dad opened his eyes. “Was I helpful?”
“You’re right. These are map coordinates. On Bent Mountain, near the site of his car accident.”
“I should be a sleuth. August and August, Father and Son Sleuthing Agency.”
“Want to hear the darnedest thing?”
“I do.”
“Georgina Princess Steinbeck. Her initials are GPS. Global Positioning. How about that.”
Kix laughed. Took you long enough.
22
That night I sat upright in bed, ankles crossed, listening to Manny snore on my floor, and I made a list of things I didn’t know.
Why was Alex Steinbeck at the sight of her father’s crash, and why did she lie to the police about it?
Why had Steinbeck tattooed a puppy with GPS coordinates?
What was at that spot on the map? Because according to the satellite images, it was nothing but a massive expanse of forest.
Did this have anything to do with his mental breakdown? I mean, it sounded like something a crazy guy would do.
Who was the mysterious woman at
the crash? Had to be a paramour. Or his ex-wife. Or his daughter’s friend. Or somebody I hadn’t met yet. Or Salma Hayek, which would be my first choice.
Was Colleen Gibbs as innocent as she seemed?
What about the shady and sudden trip to the casino? How did this factor into everything?
And the last question was, what was I being paid to do? The easiest answer—find the dog. Done! But Ulysses also requested I find out why the dog was important. Done! Mostly! Kinda!
Here you are, Ulysses, here’s the dog and here are the GPS coordinates tattooed on the dog’s ribcage. Have a nice life.
That wouldn’t work. He didn’t want the dog.
And he’d immediately ask me to divine the significance of the GPS coordinates.
So maybe I should do that.
It’s nice to have a purpose in life.
Georgina Princess Steinbeck whined in her sleep and sighed from her spot near the heating vent, two feet from Manny’s head. A curious characteristic of mine—lonely people and/or dogs sleep on my floor.
Downstairs, someone came in the front door. Locked it. That someone kicked off her heels and ascended the stairs.
Here comes the lady. O so light of foot,
Will ne’er wear out the everlasting hardwood.
She entered and her face blossomed with gladness and, stepping over Manny with her dainty bare feet, she laid two large aluminum briefcases on my mattress.
She said, “We’re rich,” and her chest, neck, and cheeks flushed.
These violent delights have violent ends.
I said, “The sale is finalized?”
“I signed everything Tom Garrett sent me and Marcus brought the money.” She inserted a key into the briefcases and they clicked and the lid opened. “Mackenzie, just look.”
Stacks and stacks of hundred dollar bills. Stacks and stacks of twenties. They overflowed the secure case and spilled onto my comforter.
Even I, conservative and spartan, experienced a rumble of pleonexia like thunder in my gut.
“The wildest part,” she said, caressing the cash, “is that I already spent ten thousand. And look what’s left.”
