Improbable Fortunes

by Jeffrey Price

“Mr. Mallomar, that ain’t even posserbull.”

  “It ain’t? Well, then what’s eating at you?”

  “Ah’m sorry, sir.”

  “You’re like a goddamn priest, with this vow of poverty bullshit.”

  “Ah don’t mean to be. Ah jes need to save my money.”

  Mallomar eyed him coolly.

  “What are you hiding? What’s the real reason for this crazy acorn burying? What is it? A gambling debt? Blackmail? A woman? What?” Buster shifted his gaze to the ground and remained silent,

  “Okay, I’m going to let you in on something very important. It’s as important as the very air we breathe.” Mallomar took a deep breath as if he was going to blow out all the candles on a birthday cake. “To have our needs met…we have to make our needs known.” He waited for that to sink in. “It’s a simple, elegant idea, isn’t it? It’s Ebay, baby.”

  “Ah need her folks to think ah’m somebody.”

  Mallomar clapped his hands together with joy. Nobody loved it more than Mallomar when he was right about something. He grabbed Buster by the arms and shook him, hugged him.

  “Let me tell you something, sport,” he said with great sincerity. “More fortunes have been built upon what you just admitted than any other motivation in the world! I’m proud of you. I didn’t think you had the shit in you, but you do. Buster, my friend, don’t ever let anyone deny that you have a dick and a brain. We’re going to take care of this woman issue. Marvin Mallomar is here to the rescue!”

  The next day Mallomar handed Buster a business-sized leather checkbook with the words “Big Dog Ranch” hand-tooled on the cover.

  “I put your name on the account. There’s five hundred grand in there. Next week there’ll be another five hundred. From now on, you’re writing all the checks around here.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see why.”

  b

  Later that day, Mallomar’s architect came to the barn where Buster was working.

  “Mr. Mallomar said I was to come to you.” The architect was smirking. Buster didn’t care for him much to begin with. He was sixty years old and wore gaudy basketball shoes and dressed like a teenager at the Mesa Mall. “I need you to write a check for two hundred forty-three thousand dollars and twenty-seven cents.”

  “What for?” Buster had the temerity to ask.

  The architect tossed a thick printout on the ground where Buster was shoeing a horse.

  “That’s the production schedule for the house. Why don’t you figure it out?” And with that, he whirled around and headed for his prefab office.

  Buster picked up the itemized schedule as if it were a snake and tried to decipher it. Most of it was Greek to him, that’s for sure. But he did see that Mallomar was paying over triple for what he should have for concrete. And he understood that he could supply the “weathered barn wood” at a fraction of the price that the architect had budgeted for—shipping it in from Canada of all places. And having spent some amount of time in a tile-making family, he knew he could do a lot better than what was itemized there.

  The first thing Buster did was drive into Vanadium and round up every unemployed teenager loitering around town with their jeans hanging down below their asses. He gave them the names and addresses of every ranch and farm that that had a sagging, dilapidated barn or shed they wanted to get rid of. As he’d previously arranged, the teenagers dismantled the boards and brought them back to the ranch where Buster paid a dollar a pop at a savings of close to a hundred thousand dollars. The same was true for the concrete. Gravel and stone were quarried and mixed at the old Svendergard place. What Buster had learned from Mr. Svendergard he was now able to pass on to some of these kids who had a chance to earn some real money before school started. Vanadium’s blacksmith, whose business had shrunk to bending an occasional horseshoe, were called in to create one-of-a-kind hinges, drawer pulls, and stairway rungs. The tiles were custom-made by the Dominguez family. The copper drains and downspouts alone—jobbed out to Vanadium Heating and Downspouts—saved Mallomar another fifty grand. All the barbed wire replaced with old-fashioned worm fence. Unfortunately, Mallomar didn’t like the fact that the fence looked new and had the men stain it by hand to make the wood look old. No one in town joked about Mallomar’s house when they were making a fortune building it.

  Now, in the evenings, when Buster strolled down Main Street, the leather-bound checkbook under his arm, the local populace welcomed him as if he were a one-man government program without the bureaucratic paperwork. New cars and trucks, which had not been seen cruising Vanadium since the late sixties, were now ubiquitous. People had money to do work on their own houses and as a result, the whole town started to look a lot less tired. There was a spring in the step of Vanadium again. Everyone seemed pleased with their new free spending resident, everyone except Jimmy Bayles Morgan.

  “It aint nothin’ but a house a cards,” she dissented to Sheriff Dudival.

  “C’mon, Jimmy, loosen your girdle. You’ve got to admit he’s done all right by this town.”

  “He ain’t the one who decides what’s right for this town.”

  Jimmy threw down a buck for her coffee—even though coffee was now $2.50—and squeakily wheeled her oxygen tank out the door.

  In Telluride, the story of Mr. Mallomar had hit the trip wire. Many a dinner conversation was spent debating whether the famous Vanadian was a Republican or a Democrat. The Republicans claimed him because he had used capital to create a market economy in Vanadium where there was none. The Democrats claimed him because he was a social engineer. Both groups vied to put the Mallomar feather in their caps. The Democrats’ first gambit was to ask Mr. Mallomar to lend his name to a petition that called for the immediate cessation of coyote poisoning. After he wasn’t heard from, they tried to recoup by asking him to a thousand-dollar-a-plate gourmet charity dinner—“The San Juan Soiree”—to help finance the purchase of a high-tech MRI for their two-thousand-square-foot clinic. The ranking Republicans—a retired Four-Star General, a retired CEO of a blue chip communications company, the owner of a large Napa winery, and two owners of the biggest real estate companies—invited him to their weekly high-stakes poker game. Mr. Mallomar was neither a gambler with money nor his health. And given the fact that his wife was still “under the weather,” he declined all offers to mix and mingle with the people on his supposed level.

  As for the coyote petition, Mr. Mallomar demurred from adding his name to any list outlawing poison or traps. He tried to explain to an uncomprehending Buster that it wasn’t that he disliked coyotes, but merely that he admired them so much that he wanted the poisoning to continue. Coyotes, he said, were inspired by the impediments put in their way to identify opportunities. Ensuring their safety would only have the deleterious effect of tilting the dynamic and hindering the coyotes’ ability to act as “fringe players” in the mesa’s food system. Mr. Mallomar did not have to know anything about nature to offer up this notion. He knew what he knew, and what he knew he always applied to what he didn’t. So what if the ranch missed a cat or two to fringe playing market opportunists? His notion of using Vanadium as a palette for his frustrated creativity was working. The ranch reinvigorated his waning middle-aged self-confidence, and for the first time in his life, he had one other person in his life, besides his lawyer, with whom he could trust.

  The next week, Buster stopped at the old Vanadium Potato Company—a large, sturdy limestone warehouse that had been built in the 1880s and had been used over the years as the This ’n’ That Resale Shop. For years, they’d been lucky to see three customers a week. Mr. and Mrs. Moulder, the owners of the building and the shop’s proprietors, had sat in the same position for so long, they both had permanent vertical welts on their behinds from the slats of their wooden deck chairs that had found their way to the store from the HMS Liverpool.

  “Good day to ya’ll,” Buster said, ho
ping their response would identify them from the dusty mannequins.

  “Good day, Buster,” one of the human beings said.

  “With all due respect, ah’d like to inquire ’bout purchasin’ this here buildin’ for Mr. Mallomar.” Mr. and Mrs. Molder laughed, albeit weakly.

  “Now what the heck would anybody want this ol’ buildin’ for?” Mrs. Molder said.

  “Are you innerested in sellin’ er not?” Buster reiterated.

  “Well, sure. How much you willin’ to pay?”

  Buster laid out his checkbook on the counter.

  “Two hunnert thousand dollars.”

  “Two hunnert thousand dollars! Good gracious!”

  “You ain’t foolin with us now, are ya, Buster?”

  “No ma’am, ah ain’t.”

  Mrs. Molder started to cry.

  “We’ll take it.”

  “All righty, then.” Buster wrote out a check for two hundred thousand dollars, had them sign some papers and that was that. Buster tipped his hat politely to them.

  “Thank you kindly.”

  Buster turned to leave.

  “Buster, you never said what he wanted with it.”

  “This here’s gonna be a foreign movie thee-yator.”

  The transaction completed, Buster smiled and walked out the door. He was to meet Mallomar at the High Grade for dinner—where it was his custom to dine almost every night. As Buster entered, a long procession of folks stopped what they were doing to come greet him and shake his hand. This was Mallomar’s plan to re-groove Buster in the eyes of the town as a key player in Vanadium’s renaissance. He could have easily hogged the kudos for himself, for Mallomar was no shrinking violet when it came to taking credit due or otherwise, but in Buster’s case, he had a higher purpose. Only three short months ago, most Vanadians considered Buster to be a moron if not homicidal, but now some of the most highly regarded ranchers sought his advice about cattle and feed prices. Single women who had previously dismissed Buster as a backward oaf were now vying for his attentions. But there was only one girl, of course, whose attention he ever wanted.

  b

  Destiny Stumplehorst was sitting in booth number one with her parents, Skylar and Calvina, when Buster walked in. Since Mary Boyle had taken over the High Grade’s kitchen, it had become the custom on Friday nights, for anyone who was anyone in Vanadium, to be seen over a plate of her chicken-fried steak, cream gravy, and garlic mashed potatoes. The Stumplehorsts, in the old days—mostly due to Calvina’s parsimony—eschewed dining out, but now in the era of Vanadium’s sudden wealth, felt the need to establish themselves as “old money.” Buster tipped his hat to the mister and missus. Destiny kept her eyes fixed on the menu.

  “Evenin’, folks.”

  “Evenin’, Buster.”

  “I heard a rumor they have you running for Vanadium School Board,” said Mrs. Stumplehorst approvingly.

  “Shucks, ma’am, guess we got the Thessalonians Home Study Course to thank for that.”

  That was rank flattery, for Buster’s popularity with the high school—which was slated for an expensive expansion—was largely based on the infusion of fresh property tax revenue from Mallomar’s Big Dog Ranch. Nevertheless, there was a slight thaw in the way Mr. and Mrs. Stumplehorst regarded him. They were starting to view Buster nostalgically in contrast to the real estate agent and former drug dealer, Cord Travesty.

  “May ah borrow this young lady for a moment?” Buster inquired, like a gentleman straight out of Mrs. Humphrey’s Manners For Men.

  “Go right ahead,” Mr. Stumplehorst and Mrs. Stumplehorst, answered eagerly. Destiny shot them a betrayed look. In the last two years, Destiny had dropped nearly twenty pounds, hardly resembling the apple-cheeked farm girl Buster had fallen in love with a girl who could down a stack of Jesus cakes smothered in maple syrup and polish it off with a glass of fresh milk.

  Gallantly, Buster offered Destiny his arm and she slid out of the booth.

  “Ah won’t keep you,” Buster said in the way he’d heard Mr. Mallomar say while on the phone. He took Destiny around to the saloon side of the restaurant, which was raucous enough to provide privacy.

  “How are you, Destiny?”

  “I’m still with Cord, Buster.”

  “Ah know yor with him.”

  “You should stop thinking about me. And stop following Cord.”

  “Ah ain’t follerin’ him. Ah can tell you that.”

  “He says someone is following him and he thinks it’s you.”

  “Well, it ain’t. Look here, Destiny, yor a bidniswoman. Ah’m a bidnisman. The only reason ah brung you over here is to let you in on a sweet little deal. An op-er-toon-itty.”

  “Oh yeah?” she brightened. “Your Mr. Mallomar wants to buy some more land?”

  “That aint ’xactly it.” Buster pushed his hat back on his head. “We’re lookin’ to hire a new ’ssistant to hep manage thangs up there. The whole shebang has gotten too much for yors truly to handle by hisself. The job pays thirty-five grand.” Buster considered splitting his salary with Destiny a small price to pay for getting her away from Cord Travesty. “Course, yood have ta move in up thar on the premeeses.”

  “Thirty-five thousand?”

  “We could go forty,” Buster quickly countered—employing the same bargaining technique he’d used when haggling for his saddle.

  Destiny’s eyes softened, and Buster’s heart bounded at the possibility that there was still a wisp of something there for him.

  “That thirty-five thousand…is that comin’ outta your own pocket?”

  “Why heck no! Ah ain’t that dumb!”

  She smiled, her eyes quickly filling with tears.

  “Buster,” she said in a choked-up whisper. “I ain’t worth the trouble.” She touched his arm gently and then walked back to her parent’s table. It must have taken him a good five minutes before he could tear his eyes away from the empty space where she had just stood.

  Mallomar was at the counter having the fried abalone that he had specially flown in from San Luis Obispo. He had also installed, at his own expense, a nitrogen wine storage system where he kept his own vintages—some of them costing more than an average Vanadian could make in six months. As Buster sat down to join him, Mallomar swirled an $800 bottle of Chateau Cheval Blanc around in his glass.

  “How’d it go?”

  “Not good.”

  “They wouldn’t sell?”

  When Buster realized he was talking about something else, he slid the signed purchase papers for the potato warehouse over to him.

  “Good man. Care for a glass of wine?”

  “Ah’ll have a beer, jes’ the same,” Buster said.

  Mary Boyle, seeing Buster sit down, took off her apron and came over to say hello.

  “Hey, Buster.”

  “Hey there, Mommy.”

  “You’ll never guess what Mr. Mallomar told me.” Buster looked at Mallomar a bit uneasily.

  “What’s that?”

  “Mr. Mallomar says that he’ll supply the financing to franchise my chicken-fried steak recipe! Isn’t that exciting?” Mallomar seemed slightly embarrassed by her disclosure. It was then Buster wondered whether something else was going on between them that was more than financial.

  “That’s real good news.”

  Mallomar had enthralled her, much as he had Buster, with the notion that she could improve herself. Mallomar’s ideas about franchising the High Grade as an old-fashioned supper and dance club made Mary dizzy with possibility. How sincere Mallomar was about all this was uncertain. In the short time that Buster had known him, he had seen Mallomar concoct business deals out of thin air just to impress someone. He feared that this was the case with his adopted mother—she was, after all, still an attractive woman. Mary leaned into Buster’s ear to whisper something. />
  “He’s even offered to fix my nose that Bob broke.”

  Now Buster was really worried. Until now, it had just been buildings. Now Mallomar was folding Mary into his Vanadium renaissance project.

  “Hey, Mary, I’d like a glass of that good wine you got back there!”

  Suddenly the place got quiet as Cookie Dominguez padded in and sat on a barstool next to Mallomar.

  “That wine isn’t for sale, Cookie,” said Mary. “It’s Mr. Mallomar’s.” Mary looked tensely to Mallomar who, ever so slightly, nodded that it was okay.

  “I can’t turn down a fellow wine connoisseur,” said Mallomar with bonhomie. Everyone in town knew from years of experience with Cookie that he only started conversations to pick a fight. Buster stuffed Mr. Mallomar’s biscuit into his mouth. This might possibly save a few teeth when all hell broke loose.

  The room watched with anticipation as Mary gave Cookie a clean glass. Cookie, eyes already glazed and somewhat crossed, made a big show out of swirling the wine around, smelling its nose and gargling loudly. Folks thought that was pretty funny.

  “I hope this vintage meets your approval,” Mallomar said, trying to build on the laughter. Mallomar clearly did not understand how much trouble he was in.

  Cookie stopped gargling. “Are you fuckin’ with me?”

  “No, I…”

  “Yes, I believe you are fuckin’ with me. Do you know what happens to people ’round here who stick their noses up at poor folks?” Cookie held up his bratwurst-shaped finger stubs in the familiar victory sign. “They get a Winston Churchill. Remember that, wiseguy?”

  “I vaguely recall something about a skun…”

  But before Mallomar could finish the sentence, Cookie jammed his stubs—all the way up to the knuckles—into Mallomar’s nose. Mallomar screamed in agony as Cookie began to lift him off the stool by his nostrils.

  “All right, Cookie. Fun’s over, let’m go,” said Buster as he flanked him. Still holding Mallomar, Cookie gave Buster a quick jab to his Adam’s apple. Buster choked, but regrouped quickly enough to land a right hook to Cookie’s ear. The discomfort and ringing that followed was enough of a distraction for Mallomar to get off the hook. Blood was pouring out of Mallomar’s nose as Cookie now turned his full attention to Buster.