“Before disbandment, everyone in my family was well-educated. At one time we had three generations of USC alumni alive at once: my father, my grandfather, and me.”
“That’s wonderful. My own mother was a Stanford undergrad in the pre-Republic days.”
She gave me a very small, practiced smile. “I have great respect for that particular school. Though growing up we never thought much of the Bay Area in our house.”
I smiled. “You sure I can’t offer you something to drink?”
“No, thank you. I’d rather return to the issue of the farm.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed so she wouldn’t have to keep looking up at me. I said, “It’s no issue as far as I’m concerned. I want you and the rest of them to sign a contract turning over everything to the Russert Growers Company. If I place a call to Mr. Russert this afternoon, he should be able to have something written up and faxed to me within the next few days so that, come Sunday, I’ll have it ready for you sign when I head back out there. But Russert will only go through the trouble of making a contract if I can assure him that a deal has been reached, and I won’t tell him that unless I’m sure myself that all five of you will agree to sign. If that’s something you can arrange for me, all five signatures on a piece of paper, then I believe you might deserve something over and above what the others would receive. Something commensurate with your contributions to the farm. How does that sound?”
Jennifer traded glances with Dale. Even with a few shots of homebrew in him, there was a shrewd and stoic quality to the old farmhand. Jennifer said, “It sounds to me like you don’t really think I’m entitled to a larger share based on what I’ve already put into the place. You’re only open to the idea because I’m in a position to give you something more, to serve as your spy within the farm, so to speak. I’m not sure how I feel about that, to be quite honest.”
“I’m glad you said something. Now let me make myself perfectly clear: I’m not going to offer you a larger share simply because you’ve earned it. I’m blackmailing you here. It’s not a fair system. It’s out of respect for you and my father that I agreed to see you today, and I’m making you this special offer because you’re in a position to help me get the contract signed in the least messy way possible. That’s my only reason. And if you deliver on what I’m asking for, you’ll get the special treatment you want. It’s an indelicate way of doing business, I know, but considering the constraints and risks I’m dealing with, it’s all I can do to help us both. If I’m right about you, and the kind of woman you are, then I believe you’ll understand.”
Without a word, Jennifer rose and walked the dozen or so steps from the chair to the bathroom, Dale following behind her instinctively, without needing to be called, like any good lapdog. I took another swig of homebrew waiting for them to finish their private deliberations. By the time they came out again, I was feeling alert and lucid enough to tackle any roadblock or counteroffer they tried to throw at me.
I said, “Perhaps now we can continue. Or do you need more time with the toilet?”
Jennifer reclaimed her position on the edge of the chair cushion. She said, “I’m not a greedy woman, Mr. Temple. I don’t believe in the supremacy of the almighty dollar. It’s one of the lifelong burdens of coming from Orange County, people developing these assumptions about you based on where you were raised.”
I nodded sympathetically and even showed her a slight frown; to secure a mole inside the co-op, I would have gladly gone along with her act for as long as necessary, coaxing her bloated ego, letting her think she was honoring the valley itself by deigning it with her presence. But I had read the background profiles Ramirez put together. I knew that, despite her upbringing, she was no Southern California elite, and hadn’t been for some time. Her parents had been practically insolvent when Dad met her, one of the many families caught off-guard when Wall Street disintegrated and the American treasury dissolved. For so many years he must have held his tongue while she condescended to him, even as he was helping to rebuild her shattered world in the form of a sixty-acre spread with a legion of pickers and foreman for her to look down on. And now here she was, condescending to me even as she pleaded for a larger share of the wealth. I took it all in stride, speaking softly and acting the gentleman, just as Dad had taught me to do when facing an avaricious whore.
I said, “You won’t find any negative assumptions here with me. Not after all the hardships you’ve had to endure since father’s death.”
She closed her eyes and appeared to hold back a sudden outpouring of grief. Ever the committed actress, the old bitch. She said, “Because I’m not greedy, I won’t try to take advantage of the situation by asking for more than I deserve. Even after all the hard work I’ve put in these past months, I’m willing to walk away with a stake in the property no better or worse than what I had before. Except it has to reflect my initial investment, which of course was never equal to those of the other women. From day one, they were trying to extort something extra out of me, and they finally succeeded when I agreed to pay the slut’s share of the deposit. Two fifths of that cooperative belong to me by right, Mr. Temple, and that’s what I’m asking in exchange for helping to secure a peaceful transition. Two-fifths of the total offer, promised to me in writing as part of the contract you want signed. That’s my condition. Take it or leave it.”
I let her sweat, watching her eyes closely as the resolute expression she was going for began to waiver in the face of my stonewalling silence. As I left her dangling well past the appropriate amount of time needed to consider her proposal, I noticed Dale also started to appear nervous, fidgeting with his hands like he didn’t know what to do with them except leave them stuffed inside his pockets. It was like watching a two-headed beast out of mythology.
Finally I said, “It would seem you’re asking for more than just that, really. You’re also asking us to exclude Dawn from the offer altogether. That extra share has to come from somewhere, after all, and I imagine you wouldn’t be heartbroken seeing her left out.”
She contorted her face into a look of such pure disgust that I half-expected her to spit on the floor at the mere mention of Dawn’s name. “She’s an opportunist of the worst kind, a parasite that latches onto a healthy organism and stays until it dies off. First she latched onto your father, and we both know how that ended, and now she’s dug her hooks so far into that farm there’s no other way I can think of to get her out. She’s even started referring to other women’s children as her own. ‘Our children.’ That’s what she said. That’s when I knew I had to find a way to get rid of her. Then you showed up, and everything became clear to me for the first time in months. Suddenly I understood exactly how to get me and my kids away from that place, and that demented bitch away from us. So, no, to answer your question, I wouldn’t care one way or another what happens to her after all this is done.”
“I can respect that. Of course, what I can respect and what’s in my best interest are two very different things. I’m wondering how you’re going to convince the other wives to forsake her. How will you get them to sign the contract if she’s left out?”
“Don’t worry about the others. Being forced to live next to them all this time, I’ve learned what I need to know to get them on my side. Sandra and Claudia are ruled by fear, and Katie’s been looking for a way out ever since her daughter got into trouble with a boy from school. They’re all desperate to make you go away, and to do so they’d be willing to believe anything I tell them. Even if they do read the contract before signing it, and supposing they notice the biggest share’s going to me, all I’d have to do is promise to give Dawn half of it once the deal goes through. And then disappear once the money is in my hands.”