“It just seems too good to be true. You’d think at least one of them would have a brother or uncle around to complicate things for me.”
“Again, you need to consider the possibility that their rootlessness was one of the qualities that drew Elliot Sr. to them in the first place. You look through these background profiles and a distinct pattern emerges. Tragedy followed by poverty followed by isolation. One of these girls was hookin’ it before your father came along. Another was a borderline junkie. Another was on SSRIs for chronic depression. Of course none of this is terribly uncommon with that generation, the ones who came of age around the time of disbandment. But it is significant that your father, a man who, by your own accounts, was something of an elitist in his own right, should decide to marry these women who he all but took in off the street.”
“My father was a perverse man. That should have been evident from the start. Six wives, thirteen kids, God knows how many others he strung along who we don’t even know about. Anyway, I’m done trying to make sense of why he did the things he did. There’s only one thing keeping me in this dusty shithole of a state, and it’s tied up in that co-op where I can’t get my hands on it.”
“I’m guessing you plan on going ahead with the shakedown, then.”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I? If what you’re saying is correct, then all I have to worry about are five lonely widows and their brats.”
“That’s so. Although I can’t help but feel you may be underestimating what they’re capable of, especially if you put them in a position where they don’t have any other options.”
“They’re middle-aged mothers from the valley. Pushovers. They probably don’t even keep guns on the property.”
“My research suggests they don’t. Or at least there aren’t any firearms licensed under their names in the national registry.”
“See? They wouldn’t know how to run me off even if they wanted to. Plus, you just said they’re more pliant than most.”
Ramirez uncrossed his legs and rested his spit cup on the armrest. His free hand started fiddling with one of his shirt buttons, pinching it between his nails and drawing it forward as far as the thread would allow. It occurred to me that none of these idle gestures of his ever seemed to stem from nerves or restlessness; it was as if he were in complete control of himself, and yet resolved by choice to expend his energy on actions that served no purpose other than to give his hands something to do.
He said, “When I was working for the government, I learned from doing criminal profiles that you always have to ask yourself the questions that will force you to defy the expectations of who and what you’re dealing with. In the case of these five women, I asked myself what it is that they value more than anything else, and the answer jumped out at me almost instantly. Security. Safety. Stability in their lives. They were so desperate for it that they married a man they had known for only a short time, and that was before they were mothers. Now, with two houses full of children to look out for, they might take even more drastic steps to ensure their family remains unmolested. Something you should keep in mind before you go and threaten them with anything.”
I smiled and stole another harsh swig from the Mason jar. “Don’t tell me you’re intimidated by a handful of country widows. Mister big, tough federal investigator.”
“A handful of mother hens can peck a fox into submission. Evolution can’t help but give the female of the species the tools she needs to keep her babies safe. Call it instinct, call it irrationality, or whatever, but at the end of the day, those with something to live for tend to outlast those with nothing to lose.”
“Right. And I suppose that’s me in this scenario. The man with nothing to lose.”
He looked around at the general squalor of the room, another seemingly idle gesture delivered with clear and deliberate intent. “That depends on how you define the word ‘nothing.’ For me personally, I have a hard time believing that a man who’s shirtless and drunk before noon on a weekday is hiding some inner light behind a bushel. That’s just me, though.”
Ramirez stood and put his hat back on. I was so angry I could barely stand to look at him, but I wasn’t about to let him go away thinking he had left me feeling humbled. I reached into the nightstand drawer and took out a white envelope with several hundred-dollar bills sealed inside.
I said, “Leave the folder on the chair and get the hell out of here. Your money’s all there just like we agreed. But don’t expect to hear from me again.”
He stuffed the envelope in his jacket pocket and sauntered casually to the door. He said, “Don’t worry. Illegal or not, your plans are safe with me. That’s the deal I strike every time I take on a new case, and I don’t mean to go against it now just because you turned out to be an asshole. Just remember what I warned you about. One stitch now could save you a whole lot of them later down the road.”
Unwashed and grody as I was, I still managed to get to my feet before he could leave. “You fucked up today, my friend. I’ve got plans for that money, and someday I’m going to be a very important man in this country. You’ll wish then that you had been civil to me, instead of trying to tear me down any way you could. Because I can tolerate a lot of things, but I won’t tolerate being belittled by someone who doesn’t know the first thing about me. I got enough of that when Elliot was alive.”
Ramirez shook his head. After all the snark and stubbornness that had tainted his work these past weeks, it seemed strange to find him suddenly divested of any concern for the situation at hand, standing with his hat brim low over his forehead, already off-duty in his heart and mind. “I worry about you, Mr. Temple. I really do. You’re an odd duck with big ideas, dangerous methods, and poor impulse control. You might end up running the Republic someday or lying dead in a gutter, but not likely anywhere else in between.”
I slammed the door behind him. I did so in the spur of the moment, just as he was passing the threshold, and afterwards I felt petty and childish for letting him drive me to such a pointless final gesture. It was the sort of thing I imagined he would have done in the same position, and it left a bitter taste in my mouth for the rest of the afternoon. With enough vodka, of course, almost any shame could be forgotten. But even as I began to make myself very drunk, the thought that he was somehow still in my head, driving me to drink from afar, made the whole thing as joyless as any other chore.
After our plates were cleared away, Dad ordered a glass of brandy to cap off the evening. He told me to order another round myself, but advised that I should “stay with the one that brought me,” which I took as an indirect way of reminding me that, regardless of the fact that I had matched him glass for glass over the entire course of the meal, he was still more experienced in these matters than I was, and always would be. He produced a cigar from out of nowhere and lit up right there at the table. Either smoking laws were very lax in San Joaquin, or Dad felt confident that no one in that place, customer or staff, would dare ask him to put it out.
He said, “So. Here we are. A couple of men out on the town. How do you like that?”
I took a drink of water from the overflowing glass in front of me. Every bit of ice had melted since we first sat down and started ordering booze. Seemed like hours had passed in the interim, although in reality it was still barely nightfall. “Can I ask you a question, Dad? And have you answer me seriously?”
Dad blew smoke in my face. I fought the urge to cough. He said, “I don’t know about you, but I’ve been serious this whole time. Go ahead.”