Winner Take All

by T. Davis Bunn

  “Fresh tofu. Bean curd.”

  Fay Wilbur was a smoldering wick of a woman. She shook the plate, making the white curd glisten and wobble. “You’re feeding my boy white Jell-O?” She gave it a careful sniff, and her features wrinkled even further. “Land sakes, this stuff is long dead.”

  “Put it back, please.”

  “And what do we have here.” Fay set the plate on the counter, but kept her gaze inside the refrigerator. “Would you just look at this mess.”

  Kirsten moved close enough to be able to see what she was pointing at. “That’s fresh basil. And Brie.”

  “How much did you pay for this wine?” She pulled out a bottle, raised her eyebrows at the label. “I know my boy didn’t go and buy this ’less somebody was telling him to. He’s got more sense than that.”

  “Excuse me? Your boy?”

  “Ain’t nothing in this whole kitchen to keep body and soul together.” She set the bottle back, and asked the cool interior, “Tell me something, child. Can you cook?”

  “I don’t see—”

  “This is not a difficult question. I want to know, can you cook. Don’t tell me you think you can keep my boy happy with moldy cheese and wine. What are you bringing to the table, other than some fine looks and sweet blond hair?” She swiveled around, using the refrigerator’s open door as a place to settle. “All I’m asking is, what is my boy gonna find himself living with, once them looks of yours start to fade.”

  “This is none of your concern.”

  “I saw you out there working the front garden this morning, acting like you belong. Didn’t hardly have a thing on, them shorts hiked up where nobody ought to be looking, nothing on your arms but sweat. No behind on you at all. You probably starving yourself to look like Twiggy.”

  Kirsten crossed her arms. “Twiggy’s long gone.”

  “You will be too, you keep on like you’re going. My boy needs himself a wife and a mother for his children. Not some fancy young missie from up north that don’t have a clue how to make a man feel like a man.”

  “Marcus hasn’t said a thing to me about looking for a mother.”

  Fay made a noise down low in her throat. “You thinking just because I’m old, worn out, and black, that means I’m dumb too? This is my boy we’re talking about here. I love him just as much as if I’d birthed him myself. If you got something to offer, honey, I ain’t seen it yet.”

  With Fay’s fists on her hips and her elbows cocked, she looked like a blackbird ready for battle. “I’m a ways removed from my boy’s starry-eyed mood. He thinks you’re gonna make him a good wife on account of how you’re this pretty young thing. But life’s taught me to look beyond the glamour and the glitter. I’ve listened to six babies scream through my nights. I’ve had forty-two years to get used to worrying over unpaid bills and kids that don’t come home when they should. I know what struggling does to a mind and a marriage.” One wing elongated enough to rake the air between them. “You don’t know nothing about nothing. And that’s the truth.”

  Fay moved a step closer, stalking her prey. “Why don’t you tell me something, while you’re at it. Just exactly who is this doing the loving here?”

  Kirsten backed away, or tried to, but was halted by the pantry door.

  “You’re hiding something. Ain’t you now. Tell me the truth. What is it you don’t want nobody to know?”

  This was what she had been looking for, why she had entered the kitchen, a reason to say a permanent farewell. But nothing emerged around the choking force that clenched her throat. She could not understand it. Here was her departure ticket on a platter. The woman had declared open war. Fay was asking the question Marcus had not dared to utter, the one to which she would never give an answer. Never. All she had to do was what she wanted. Leave.

  “From the outside you don’t look like nothing but successful. You’re white, you’re rich, you’re beautiful. But I seen past all that, child. I seen what’s the truth. Inside you ain’t nothing but a mess. Come on now. Let’s you and me just get to the bottom of this. Tell me what’s got you so tore up inside.”

  The first either of the women knew of Marcus’ presence was the slamming of the refrigerator door. Wham.

  Fury emanated from Marcus like a silent bellow. Kirsten had never imagined him capable of violence until this moment. What the old woman saw in his features backed her up a full yard and more.

  Marcus said, “You’re going to leave now.”

  Fay did her best to hold on to her own ire. “This girl here ain’t nothing but smoke.”

  “Wrong. This lady is more than I ever deserved.”

  Kirsten felt as defeated as she ever had in her entire life. The opportunity had been given, the excuse granted, the door opened. She shook her head. Impossible situations. Impossible moves.

  “If you ever speak to her again like that …” The grip he took on his thoughts clenched his face like a fist. Marcus took a hard pair of breaths, then started from the kitchen.

  “Marcus.” Fay’s features crumpled as she reached toward his departing back. “I got me a bad worry.”

  He stopped, but did not turn back. “What.”

  “My youngest grandson, he’s been caught taking a gun to school.” The old woman’s voice settled down one shattered octave. She angled her words toward Kirsten, offering the only apology she was capable of just then. “What is a seven-year-old child doing with a gun?”

  “He’s being held downtown?”

  “I ’spect.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Jason.” Fay was no stranger to pain. But she had little experience with weeping. The tears she shed seemed to melt her eyes. “Don’t go telling Deacon. It’d break his heart. He thinks the world of that boy.”

  “All right, Fay.” He was already stalking away. “I’ll have a word with the sheriff.”

  Kirsten had no choice but to follow him down the hall. “Marcus. I have to talk with you.”

  “Can it wait?”

  “No.” She pointed to where the check lay in the crumpled envelope and described what had happened.

  “New Horizons sent a goon over here to threaten you?”

  “Netty knew his name.”

  His secretary appeared in the doorway behind him. “Sephus Jones. You heard of him?”

  “No.”

  “Pull up enough rocks around here, you’ll come across him sooner or later.”

  Marcus turned to her. “I’m sorry, Kirsten. For Fay, for this latest New Horizons mess.” He cast a dark glare back toward the kitchen. “I can’t understand what got into her.”

  “I can.”

  Marcus pushed through the front door and started down the stairs. Netty called after him, “Should I call New Horizons and say you’re stopping by?”

  He stuffed the check in his pocket. “Don’t tell them a thing.”

  CHAPTER

  ———

  7

  MARCUS DID NOT FOCUS UPON his surroundings until he started up the bend past Deacon Wilbur’s church. As he turned into the New Horizons campus he inspected the brick centerpiece with its brass nameplate. On his first visit two years earlier, Marcus had been chased off by two men armed with baseball bats and lawyer-eating pickups. The chipped corner where he had bounced his SUV when fleeing for his life had been carefully repaired, but the spot was still visible. Marcus slowed and took a few deep breaths. A frontal assault would get him nowhere but crippled.

  He was uncertain how he felt about finding Amos Culpepper leaning against his patrol car in the New Horizons headquarters parking lot. Sheriff Amos Culpepper had appeared soon after Marcus had arrived in Rocky Mount, back when Marcus had been so desperate for trustworthy allies he could not have named the need, only the hunger.

  The rangy sheriff had one metal-tipped boot propped on the bumper. Darren Wilbur, Deacon’s nephew and the sheriff’s newest deputy, was bent over the open trunk. Amos surveyed Marcus from behind mirror shades, his face an unreadable cop’s mas
k. When Marcus opened his door, he demanded, “We going to have trouble here today?”

  “No.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “I’m just going to return a check.”

  “Should’ve used the mail.” Amos stepped over in front of Marcus, blocking his way. He was two inches shy of Marcus’ height, but his stern demeanor and buff cowboy hat raised him up to a giant’s stature. “Last time you marched in there they cleaned your clock.”

  When Marcus had taken on New Horizons, Amos Culpepper had saved both Marcus’ life and his home. They remained friends in the manner of two men who took their professions seriously, and knew there would always be the risk of them standing on opposite sides of the courtroom. “Did Kirsten call you?”

  “Matter of fact, she did. Good thing we happened to be in the area.”

  His deputy emerged from the trunk. Darren Wilbur was a huge man who covered a severe stutter with silence and muscles. The pump-action shotgun looked dwarfish in his hands. It was a riot model, with a snout of a barrel and a ten-shot clip built into the butt. Darren nodded a tight greeting as he fed in shells. “Afternoon, M-Marcus.”

  “This is not happening.”

  “Wrong again, sport.” Amos stepped closer, inserting himself firmly into Marcus’ space. “Are you absolutely certain you have a valid reason to be here?”

  “I’ve been asked to represent their chairman.” He studied his reflection in Amos’ sunglasses, and saw a man distorted by a world of half-truths. “I was told it was strictly a personal matter. Then this morning they send a man around to my house. He accosted Kirsten in my own front yard, Amos. I’m fed up with being led around by the nose. I need to find out what’s happening.”

  The sheriff radiated a professional disapproval. “Here’s how it’s going to play. We’re walking in there together. We’re going to find your man, we’re going to have a word, and then we’re turning around and walking out. Together the whole way. And you’re going to promise me this is the last time you ever set foot in this place.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  A trio of business executives passed them, the men in gray and the dark-suited woman carrying an artist’s oversized portfolio. They made round eyes at the sight of Darren, tall and dark as a latent volcano and armed with his buff-black weapon.

  “It’d be right tempting to call you ten kinds of fool.” Amos extended his hand toward Darren. “The communicators working all right?”

  In response, Darren handed his boss a walkie-talkie, then slipped another one into his pocket and threaded the earpiece up through his jacket. “Channel t-three.”

  Amos opened his jacket, slipped the walkie-talkie onto his belt, and twisted the knob. “Testing, one, two.”

  Darren gave him a thumbs-up.

  Marcus protested, “This really isn’t necessary.”

  “Don’t you even start.” Amos pointed them toward the headquarters. “I’m telling you the same thing I say to all my new recruits. Your first job is not to get shot.”

  “They wouldn’t try anything here.”

  “Course not. Ready to roll?”

  The newer headquarters building had been redesigned after the court had convicted New Horizons of colluding with Chinese slave-labor factories and abducting Kirsten’s best friend. Marcus crossed a public area done in soothing pastels and Southern tweed and approached a young woman seated at an oversized partner’s desk. The inlaid leather centerpiece had been carved out to hide her phone system. The walls behind her displayed blowups of three overseas factories, as pristine and well groomed as holiday spas. The receptionist looked terrified.

  Before he could speak, the rear glass doors slid open. A trio of blue-jacketed security emerged. “Can I help you, Mr. Glenwood?”

  “I’m here to have a word with your chairman.”

  “Mr. Steadman is not in this afternoon.” They stood an arm’s length apart, hands caught before them, legs slightly spread. “I need to ask you both to turn around and make your way—”

  Amos Culpepper dangled his badge an inch from the man’s nose. “Why don’t y’all just slow down. We’re concerned about all the infractions we noticed on our way in here. We might have to write up every single car in this lot, invite them down to the local lock-up to explain all the broken headlamps and erratic driving we’re going to find when they start leaving this afternoon.”

  To his credit, the muscle did not flinch. “You’re rousting the entire workforce?”

  “Not unless you roust first.” Amos had the country lawman’s ability to shout at a whisper. “I’m inviting you to reconsider, is all. We want to pay your chairman a visit. You say he’s not in. We’ll settle on, who will we settle on, Marcus?”

  Marcus drew out the check, and read the name printed beneath the signature. “Lynwood Hale.”

  “Now, you see how reasonable we are? Why don’t you just call ahead and say we’re on our way upstairs.”

  When the guard hesitated, Amos moved so fast Marcus did not even see his hand in motion. One moment he was standing there with his badge dangling in the muscle’s face. The next, and he had the badge in one hand and the young man’s walkie-talkie in his other.

  Amos froze the other two guards with a look, then motioned with the receiver. “Make the call.”

  The guard retrieved his radio and turned away. One of the other men demanded, “Are you carrying?”

  Amos made the raising of his gaze into a polar crossing. “Sir.”

  The man’s neck was so muscled it formed a continuous angle from his ears to the tips of his shoulders. But he was unable to meet Amos’ eye for long. “Sir.”

  “I’m an officer of the law, son. I’m always armed.” He prodded the first man’s shoulder with a knobby finger. “We’re ready to roll here.”

  The guard had turned sullen by things moving from his control. “This way.”

  “That’s more like it. See how reasonable everybody can be when they try?” When one of the trio tried to step behind them, Amos halted him with “You just move on ahead there. I’ll bring up the rear.”

  “But I’m—”

  “Don’t get me any more riled than I already am, son. Move out.”

  Heads popped out of cubicles up and down the interior hall. All five men crammed into one elevator. Amos kept his back to the doors and held the muscle against the rear wall with his gaze. The Muzak drifting down from overhead was less suited to the tension than gunfire.

  The executive floor was as muted in tone as the reception area. Beige curtains hung the length of the exterior steel and glass wall, dimming both the light and the view. As Marcus gave his name to the senior secretary, Amos Culpepper stepped over and swept aside the drapes. Marcus found himself steadied by the glimpse of the timeworn church and a cemetery resting comfortably in broad meadows of summer green.

  “Mr. Glenwood?” The paunchy man used a pomade on his hair Marcus could smell from across the room. “I’m Lynwood Hale, director of finance.”

  “Which is the chairman’s office?”

  Hale pointed to the double doors behind the secretary. “Through there. But he’s not—”

  “Show me.”

  Lynwood Hale waved a manicured hand toward the secretary. “Escort the man, Sandra.”

  Marcus followed her back and through the doors. The lavish interior held all the warmth of an empty hotel suite. Marcus did a slow sweep, but could find nothing that indicated who occupied this chamber. Marcus stood over the polished rosewood desk, empty of even a calendar. “Does he never come in here?”

  When she did not respond, Marcus crossed his arms and waited. Showing he was ready to make this an all-day affair.

  “He comes.”

  “How often?”

  “Most days.”

  Marcus swept a hand over the desk’s bare surface. “What makes him so secretive he won’t even keep his calendar in his office?”

  The finance director had waited as long as he was willing. “That’s a
ll right, Sandra. I’ll take over now.”

  Marcus reached into his pocket and drew out the check. “This check was brought by my house today.”

  “This is a large company, Mr. Glenwood. Despite your best efforts to the contrary, we are also very successful. My department issues a large number of checks every day.”

  “Let’s talk about this one. Somebody had it delivered by way of some old-style muscle.”

  “You’ll need to see our attorney about whatever …” He squinted more closely at the check being dangled in front of his face. “Where did you get this?”

  “Did you order this made up? Or did Dale Steadman?”

  “I’m not authorized to discuss such matters with an outsider.”

  “But you’re authorized to send me money.”

  “Don’t try and tell me you’re so high and mighty you’re adverse to being paid for your work.” The man made a grab for the check.

  Marcus jerked back just in time. “First you want me to have it, then you want to take it away? Sounds to me like we’re looking at a case of in-house forgery.”

  “Give me that!”

  “First you tell me what’s going on around here.”

  The man had a felon’s eyes, dark no matter what the color. “You’re nothing but a corpse looking for the open grave. You want to keep the money? Be my guest.”

  “I’m considering pressing charges against Sephus Jones for trespassing and felonious assault.” Marcus shredded the check and tossed the fragments into the man’s face. “If there’s any way to tie him to you personally, sir, I am going to nail your hide to the wall.”

  As Marcus started toward the door, Lynwood Hale hissed, “The company is delighted with Dale Steadman’s problems. You hear what I’m saying? Dee-lighted. You go right ahead and run with this thing just as long as you like. We’ll look forward to seeing you keep this man busy for ages.”

  “You’re telling me this case is your way of avoiding Dale Steadman’s proposed reforms? That’s why you had your hired gun accost my assistant?”

  But Lynwood Hale was not finished. “You just tell your client, sooner or later he’s gonna stumble. He’s gonna find himself exposed and feeble. We’ll be there and ready. You go tell Dale Steadman what I said.”