by Thomas Scott
The Leatherman was sharp as a razor and Charlie didn’t look up when he spoke. “My land is the only thing I’ve got left and I don’t intend to—”
Lipkins cut him off. “Listen to me, Esser. The deadline is today. If you don’t sign, and I mean right here and now, you’re going to cost us all millions of dollars and I’m not having it. None of us are. Do you hear me? Now pick up that pen and sign the goddamned papers.”
Conrad had heard enough. He stood up so fast he knocked his chair over. “This is crazy. We all used to be friends. Now look at us. I can’t take it no more.” He walked out of the room, the door banging shut behind him. The room got quiet, the only sound was Conrad’s truck as it pulled out of the lot.
Charlie was still cleaning his fingernails with the Leatherman. “I talked to Carl Johnson yesterday over at Sunnydale Farms. He’s bringing in two loads of feed corn this morning. He needs to store it here for a couple of days while he rotates his stock. The only silo we’ve got open that can handle that much is number seven.” He stood from the table. “I’m going to scrape out the floor and patch the rat holes at the base if anyone wants to help.”
Graves shook his head and said, “Come on, Charlie. It’s over. Surely you can see that.”
Charlie ignored him and spoke to Lipkins. “We’ve known each other a long time, Cal, and I think by now you’d know that I’m a man of my word.”
“Meaning what?” Lipkins said.
Charlie looked directly at him. “Meaning exactly this: You’ve called me Charlie ever since we was kids. When you address me by my last name without putting a ‘Mister’ in front of it I take that as a sign of disrespect. Use that kind of language with me again and I’ll stick that pen so far up your ass you’ll be able to sign with your teeth.” He drove the tip of the Leatherman through the stack of papers and into the wood of the tabletop. “There is no deal.” He left the room and headed out to number seven, the handle of the knife swaying back and forth like a silent metronome.
The silo access doors opened inward so that when the silos were filled the weight and pressure of the silage would hold them closed. The door was six feet high and three feet wide. Two steel beams rested on four brackets that provided additional structural support when the silo was full. A heavy-duty padlock hung on a clasp just above the lever that unlatched the door. Charlie took out his keys, unlocked the lock, removed the beams, then hung a pair of work lights on a pole-stand. When he unlatched the door to number seven and pushed it open he discovered the mess was worse than he thought. The silo hadn’t been used in over a year and the floor was covered with a thick layer of rotten silage and the rats had chewed through the dry mortar at the base. Charlie grabbed a shovel and got to work, scraping the floor. Once the silage was gathered together he’d cart it out with a wheelbarrow and dump it out back for hog slop.
He hadn’t been working long when he heard the others leave. He stepped outside and watched them all drive away, their taillights fading into the black of the morning. He had a quick smoke then went back to work. An hour later, his task almost complete, Charlie caught the shadow of someone crossing between the work lights and the open door of the silo. The lights were bright enough that he couldn’t see who stood in front of him, only their outline, like someone standing between a pair of headlights at the side of the road on a moonless night.
“You should have signed, Charlie.”
“My decision’s been made.”
“So has mine. It’s one you won’t soon forget either.”
“I ain’t afraid of you.”
“The look on your face and the sound of your voice says different.”
“What’s that you’re holding there? I can’t see you. Step out of the lights.”
“I don’t think you want me to do that. If I have to step outside of these lights it means you’ve made a choice. Why not take the easy way, Charlie? Take the money. You’ve earned it.”
“I’ve made my position clear. I’m not taking the deal.”
“So you’re not going to change your mind then?”
“No, I ain’t.”
“We’re talking about the deal of a lifetime here. Millions of dollars. You can’t say no.”
“I already have. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do and no matter what you think, I ain’t afraid. Especially of you.”
The bat was a wooden Louisville Slugger and it cracked Charlie’s skull with a dull wet crunch, like a watermelon dropped on concrete. The attacker pulled the blow at the last minute, the way a prize fighter might pull a punch and show mercy on his opponent in the first round. When Charlie fell to his knees his attacker waited a moment, then pushed him forward with the end of the bat. He fell face-first on the floor of the silo. His breathing was steady…maybe a little shallow? There wasn’t any blood—that was a relief, because this was only a message. The attacker squatted next to Charlie, close to his face and checked his eyes. Neither pupil was blown, which was another good sign. The attacker was no medical expert, but he’d seen a lot of crime shows on TV.
Then, the sounds of big trucks coming in, the roar of Jake-brakes as they slowed for the turn off the county road. The attacker ran outside and saw two semis, still about a half mile away and felt the anger swell up inside. What the hell were they doing here? Back in the silo, quickly now, where Charlie got kicked in the ribs for good measure, once, twice, then a third time, as hard as possible. “How’s that feel? You’re going to take the deal, Esser. Nobody walks away from that kind of money.” The attacker kicked again…getting a little carried away with the rush of it all, the trucks getting louder by the second. Had to go. Time to get out.
He turned out the lights, pulled the silo door shut, clicked the padlock in place, put the steel beams across the brackets and hopped into Charlie’s truck. The Esser farm was only about a mile away. He turned his head as the semis passed. They wouldn’t have been able to see inside the cab against the glare of the headlights, but better safe than sitting in county lockup. Two minutes later with Esser’s truck parked safely in the barn, the attacker switched into his own vehicle and made three or four random turns down old country roads, the highway only a few hundred yards away with no other cars in sight. He was safe.
Start to finish the whole thing was over inside of thirty minutes. It was still dark outside.
Message delivered. He’d take the deal. Might have to sign with his teeth when he woke up, but he’d sign.
The two grain haulers from Sunnydale turned into the co-op lot, Carl Johnson himself in the first truck and one of his hired hands, who was just a kid, in the second. The kid set the airbrakes with a hiss, climbed down from his rig, stretched, then walked over to Johnson’s truck.
“Was that Charlie just went by?” Johnson asked. “Looked like his truck.”
“Don’t know from Charlie,” the kid said, and he didn’t, being new and all. “Driving like he was late for quitting time though, whoever it was. You want to back up to the chute first, or you want me to?”
The chute was a huge grate set in a concrete pad large enough to accommodate the semi trailers. It sat next to the scales under a covered opening. The way it worked, a truck would pull up, get weighed, dump their load into the grated opening, get re-weighed then pull away. The difference in weight between the full load and the empty rig equaled their total off-load. An auger carried the contents—corn, beans, grain, whatever—through a large tube and up to the top of the silo where it fell right in. But the whole weighing process wasn’t necessary in this case because they weren’t getting paid for their loads, just storing them. They could skip the scales and the arithmetic and just dump their loads and the auger would do the rest. “I’ll go first,” Johnson said. “Charlie said to put it in number seven. Go check it out, will you?”
The kid said he would, and by the time Johnson got his rig backed up to the grate he was back with two cups of coffee. “Seven’s all locked up and the keys weren’t on the board,” he said. “Coffee’s hot thoug
h.”
Johnson took one of the coffees and scratched at the back of his head. “Anyone else around?”
“Nope. Must have been and gone already.”
“Well, no shit. We just saw him drive by.”
“How do we tell if seven’s empty or not?” the kid said.
“Ideally, we’d unlock the door and push. If it won’t open, it’s full.”
“But we can’t do that.”
“So, plan B,” Johnson said. He pulled a pry bar from behind the driver’s seat of his rig and told the kid to follow him. They walked across the gravel lot, around the back of the admin building and up to the silo area. There were ten of them in total, all in a row, with augers running at odd angles that snaked back to the enclosed chute behind the scales. Ten silos, with ten augers. Johnson counted from his left and they ended up at number five. Then he took the bar and tapped on the side. The noised was muffled and dull.
“Hear that? This one’s full. Number five.” Then he walked to the next one, number six, and tapped again. Same thing. Same sound. “Full.” Then they got to seven. He gave it a rap. The sound was completely different. Hollow and distant. “See? Number seven. Empty and waiting, just like Charlie said it would be. Go inside and turn on the auger for seven. I’ll dump mine then you can back yours up.”
“Okay,” the kid said, then he stopped and listened.
“What?” Johnson said.
“I thought I heard something in there.”
“In where?”
He pointed to seven. “In there. Inside.”
Johnson laughed. “You probably did. Rats. They make ‘em as big as dogs around here. They’ve got teeth the size of your thumbs.” He tossed him the bar.
“What’s this for?”
“The rats. If you see one, swing for the fence.”
The kid shuddered and walked away in a hurry.
An hour later they were gone.
So was Charlie.
3
Sunday morning, a time to relax and reconnect. Virgil Jones was up and around by eight. Up meant out of bed wearing nothing except his boxers, with around being loosely defined as standing sleepy eyed in front of the Keurig trying to decide if he wanted the Donut Shop regular or the vanilla latte jolt.
Sandy, Virgil’s wife, who was almost eight months pregnant with their first child—a boy they’d already decided would be named Wyatt—slipped in front of him and popped the latte container in the machine. The O.B. doc had said Sandy was carrying perfectly, and when Virgil looked at her from behind, he wholeheartedly agreed.
“Is that for me, or you?” Virgil asked.
Sandy hit the brew button as she simultaneously reached behind herself and cupped his boxers. “It’s for you. You’re going to need the extra energy. Drink up, big boy.”
She walked back to the bedroom and Virgil drank up, letting himself enjoy the sugar boost, not to mention the ego boost. Big boy.
The O.B. doc had warned him about this. Said it with a sly grin…the hormones and the late-stage desires. He drank the coffee so fast he burned his tongue a little. Didn’t care though.
With the reconnection, and all.
After the late-stage desire festivities were complete, Virgil—being the gentleman he was—insisted Sandy shower first. She had a brunch scheduled with Pam Donatti and he had a schedule that included precisely nothing, which was exactly how he liked his Sundays. He dozed for a while despite the coffee, then was pulled awake by a kiss from Sandy before she left. Virgil told her good-bye, shook off the sleepiness then jumped into the shower and did the whole routine. He dressed in jeans, a crisp Red Stripe Jamaican beer sweatshirt he’d gotten from their beer distributor, and half-top brown boots. When he finished, he admired himself in the full-length bedroom admiration mirror, happily deciding he looked like he’d just gotten laid and had a nap, which was all true. He went outside, grabbed The Indianapolis Star from the driveway, then made himself another latte after winning a weedy internal argument on the grounds that he’d just burned enough calories to offset the extra fat.
Virgil and Sandy had settled into a comfortable rhythm over the course of the pregnancy, and while much of it felt natural, they both admitted early on, like all first-time pregnant couples do, that neither of them had a clue what they were actually doing. They’d each read the ‘What To Expect’ bible, and while it was packed with some valuable information, most of it was generalized and the generalization seemed to create more questions instead of answering some of the more fundamental ones they already had. Sandy’s position on the matter was they were simply nervous and a little scared because it was all so new to them.
Virgil’s position was a little more basic: They were lost in space. It hadn’t helped that he’d actually sort of skimmed the pregnancy bible as opposed to reading it cover to cover.
After the death of his friend and long-time co-worker, Ed Donatti, Virgil suggested because neither of them had living parents they could turn to, maybe Sandy should seek out Pam Donatti’s advice since Pam and Ed had the experience of their own son, Jonas. Sandy liked the idea and as it turned out, so did Pam, who, they all agreed, could use a little support anyway. The problem was, Pam had never quite forgiven herself—or Virgil, for that matter—for Ed’s death. Virgil wasn’t at fault, not directly, but Pam was still stuck in the grieving process and Virgil often found himself a convenient target of opportunity.
So. Over the last eight months the two women had developed a close friendship, formed over the shaky bond of Ed’s death and Virgil and Sandy’s unborn son. What could possibly go wrong?
He was down a half-cup with his latte and had yet to look at the newspaper when his cell buzzed at him. He tapped the screen and said, “Jonesy.”
“Jones-man.” It was Cora LaRue, chief of the state’s Major Crimes Unit. Cora was a former beat-cop, a no-nonsense administrator, and Virgil’s previous boss until he’d been fired from the MCU for a smallish prescription drug problem he’d developed after getting a serious tune-up that almost killed him. “Are you open today?”
Virgil and his all-but-adopted brother, Murton Wheeler, co-owned a Jamaican themed bar called Jonesy’s, as well as a private investigations firm they ran on the side. Murton, a retired FBI undercover special agent, and Virgil, forced out of the state’s MCU, worked well together. They operated both businesses out of the same location…the bar on the main floor, the P.I. business upstairs. “The bar, or the office?”
“Both. Either. It doesn’t matter.” Their was an edge in Cora’s voice—Virgil had known her long enough that he heard it right away.
“Bar’s closed on Sunday. The shop opens at eight tomorrow morning. What’s going on, Cora?”
“The governor wants a meeting. In private.”
“How about I just go to his place, or the office?”
Cora let out a breath that landed somewhere between a sigh and a snarl on the Richter scale. “You clearly haven’t read The Star this morning, have you? I’m at the mansion now and the media is hovering at the front gate like they’re expecting us to toss a carcass over the fence. They’re already waiting at the office and this is Sunday, for Christ’s sake.”
“What do you want from me?” Virgil asked as he picked up the paper. The story was right there, front and center, above the fold. Then, without waiting for an answer he said, “Have him come out to my place. I’m alone. The bar’s too visible anyway, even when we’re closed. Maybe especially if we’re closed.”
“That could work.” Virgil heard her pull the phone away for a moment, then say—presumably to the governor—“How about his place?” Back to Virgil: “How about an hour? We’ve got to get to the airport.”
“That’ll work. Has he made a statement yet?”
“We’re working that out now. He wants your…input…before he says anything, hence the meeting.”
“Can you get here without being tagged?”
“We’re working on that too,” Cora said, then clicked off.
&nb
sp; After they’d hung up, Virgil thought, the airport?
Virgil spent the time getting himself up to speed, and couldn’t quite believe what he saw. He read the entire Star piece twice, the first time quickly, then once again more carefully, looking for the not-so-subtle tinges and allusions that typically characterized modern-day reporting. Unfortunately, he didn’t find any. There were no unquoted sources close to the investigation—which usually meant some asshole-blogger’s opinion, or the ever popular some have speculated—a different asshole’s Twitter feed—type of statements. What he found was a compact piece of investigative journalism backed up by solid research, pertinent details, specific dates, and an accurate, if not somewhat banal portrayal of the facts.
No wonder newspapers were going broke.
A quick check online revealed that the story had already been picked up by the A.P. and was beginning to gain some traction on CNN and FOX, both of whom already had it on the net. That meant it either was or soon would be on TV, so if you were either an air traveler or had a tendency to lean to the right, you had just enough information to spread some social outrage.
It went like this: The governor’s former chief of staff, the now deceased Bradley Pearson, had hopped into bed—figuratively speaking—with Augustus Pate, Chairman and CEO of Augustus Pate International. API was nothing more than a shell; a holding company for a variety of ventures, not the least of which included two disparate firms…one that contracted with the state to handle the sales and marketing of Indiana’s lottery gaming, and another that acted as the general contractor to oversee the construction of any number of private prisons throughout the country, including the state of Indiana.
