by Johnny Shaw
“Do you mind me asking?” Axel said. “What’s your job here? I see you around, but I haven’t quite figured it out. I don’t see you working. I looked you up on the website, but you’re not on it.”
“That’s a little creepy,” she said. “I don’t have a job per se. I do this and that.”
“At my old job, we called that being a pilot.”
“A pilot?”
“You take a pile of papers and pilot over there.”
Virginia laughed. Seriously, when you find a woman that gets your jokes—especially the bad ones—you keep her close. That’s gold right there. Her laugh was the only evidence he needed to know in his heart that they were meant to be together.
“I’ve been with the church my whole life,” she said. “Never had an official title. Except Brother Tobin Floom’s daughter.”
Axel tripped over his own foot and face-planted on the ground. He bit his tongue and tasted blood. He had to stop doing that. Or invest in a mouth guard.
“Are you okay?” Virginia said, reaching to help him up. “Oh God. You’re bleeding.”
“I’m okay.” Axel lifted the bottom of his shirt and dabbed at the blood. “Tripped. Bit my tongue. Not too bad.”
“Don’t use your shirt.” She reached into her handbag and handed him a paper tissue.
Axel looked down at the blood on his shirt and tucked it in. “You’re Brother Floom’s daughter?”
“Yep, that’s me,” Virginia said. “The preacher’s daughter.”
“Like a stepdaughter or adopted or maybe one of those things where—”
“Here we are,” she said, ignoring Axel. They had stopped in front of a double door. “I would stop thinking about me and think about what you’re going to say.”
“Say to whom?”
Virginia threw open both doors and walked into a large conference room. Axel followed slowly. Inside, a dozen men sat around a long table, blue folders in front of them. It had all the telltale signs of a meeting. That didn’t stop Virginia from interrupting. Axel froze, all eyes on the two of them. Including Brother Tobin Floom himself, who sat at the head of the table.
“Hey, Daddy. Everyone,” Virginia said. “This is Fletcher Christian. I think he would be a big help in coordinating the tour. And he’s willing to work for free. Come on in and introduce yourself, Fletcher. Give them a good look at you.”
“Is that blood on your shirt?” one of the men asked.
Thrace McCormick’s stare burned a hole in Axel’s forehead. He wasn’t a cuddly man to begin with, but he looked genuinely pissed off. For someone who worked in a religious setting, he seemed strangely capable of violence.
“Hello,” Axel said.
“Go on,” Virginia said. “Tell them about your creative liaisoning. It’s impressive stuff.”
If he wasn’t so nervous, he would have found it funny. He was being encouraged by his aunt to pitch ideas to his grandfather, the man who stole from his mother and might have been responsible for his father’s death, events that would lead to him—Axel—facilitating a con with his partners, who were his aunt, uncle, brother, and sister. Axel really kept it all in the family.
If anything, it was appropriately biblical in its incestuous complexity. Everyone was related. Everyone was lying to each other. And everyone was going to eventually get smited . . . smoten . . . smittered. Hurt.
“What did you say?” Mother asked. “What happened?”
Axel, Mother, and Fritzy walked through a giant warehouse full of costumes, using flashlights for illumination. According to Fritzy, the building was storage for one of the big movie studios in LA. He just happened to know the security code, because of “this thing I did this one time.”
“Are you sure this is safe?” Axel asked. “I can’t afford to get caught now.”
“No one can afford to get caught ever. We wouldn’t have brought you if we thought there’d be any trouble.”
“We’re not in the right section,” Fritzy said. “All these clothes look like they were used in some lace-and-doily chick flick called The Amorous Adventures of Darcy Cumberbutt.” He walked ahead, his flashlight scanning the racks and racks of costumes and props.
“What happened with Dolphus?” Mother asked. “How did you react when you saw him? How did he react? What did you say?”
“At first, I stared like an idiot,” Axel said. “Seeing the man himself in person at that moment. I wanted to confront him right then and there.”
“You didn’t, though,” Mother said. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“Of course not,” Axel said. “I’d much rather steal his money than hit him with harsh words. It was Grandpa himself that snapped me out of my stupor. He motioned me in with one hand and said, ‘Have we met before? You remind me of someone.’”
“He probably saw your father in your face,” Mother said. “You are the spitting image.”
“Once I lifted my jaw off the floor, I gave my pitch, a bunch of management doublespeak about productivity, morale, metrics, optics, and other words I only have a minimal grasp on. The kind of thing some marketing hack would think was genius. ‘MBA’ doesn’t stand for ‘major bullshit artist’ for nothing.”
“Did it work? Are you in?”
“They didn’t say no,” Axel said. “The problem is Thrace McCormick. He didn’t hear a word. He looked at me like I ran over a litter of kittens, then backed over them because I missed the runt. He sees me as ambitious, the young buck with new ideas trying to eventually angle for his job. I don’t think it helped that I was there because of Floom’s daughter. The two of them do not like each other.”
“The daughter is a good ally to have.”
Fritzy approached. “I found the section. Up ahead. It’s marked God’s Little Acre.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that Virginia was his daughter?” Axel asked. “Your half sister.”
“I didn’t put two and two together,” Mother said. “Stupid of me.”
“You’re going to want to get close to that girl,” Fritzy said, waggling his eyebrows. “Real close.”
“To my aunt?”
“I didn’t say bang her, kid. Get close.”
“The eyebrow thing implied banging,” Axel said. “When I was all done, Dolphus nodded and said, ‘Satisfactory. Very satisfactory.’ That’s it. Like he answered a question no one asked.”
“You’re in,” Fritzy said. “If the old man likes you, that’s gold. It’s his show.”
“Don’t put the champagne on ice yet. Thrace informed the room that while ‘this ambitious volunteer’ had some good ideas, he had to assess the personnel needs for the tour and couldn’t guarantee any volunteer positions at that time.”
“Which means that you’re going to have to kneecap someone if they take your spot,” Mother said. “In a manner of speaking.”
“If you need me to plant some coke in someone’s locker,” Fritzy said, “I can score some yeyo. I know a guy.”
“I have a plan,” Axel said. “One that does not require yeyo.”
“No offense, but I’m not so sure about your plans,” Mother said. “Good ideas, but the execution? I took a look at some of the notebooks you gave me.”
“You know how many hours I put into each one of those plans?”
“Great research, but no hands-on feel for the moment. It’s like stage dialogue that’s never been read aloud. Good on the page, but it won’t play on the stage.”
“Which plans?” Axel said. “Which ones, for example? Specifically. You’re wrong. They’re great.”
“The nail salon jobs,” Mother said. “A huge flaw in that one.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Axel said.
“She does,” Fritzy said.
Axel gave him a look. “The nail salons is a solid plan. What’s wrong with it? A cash business. Low security.”
“You don’t want to touch a nail salon in Southern California,” Fritzy said. “Not unless you want to get killed. And not in a
good way.”
Mother pulled some clothes from the nearest rack. “Nail salons in Southern California are all money-laundering fronts. The last thing you want to do is steal from the—what nationality was the nail salon? Russian? Korean? Ukrainian?”
“Korean,” Axel said.
“The last thing you want to do is steal from the Jopok. They don’t play. No guns in Korea, so you’re going to be looking at axes and swords or a piece of wood with broken glass embedded in it. Koreans can turn anything into a weapon. Nobody wants to get stabbed by a sharpened carrot. The marijuana dispensary—that was a stronger plan. Man-bun vegan yoga hippies. It matters who you rob, not just how.”
“I didn’t know that,” Axel said. “Maybe I have some things to learn about nail salons, but I planned this Priscilla thing to perfection. I found the land. Gretchen will reel her in. It’s going to play out just how I said it would. You wait.”
“You’re the boss,” Mother said. “We’re just here to play the parts as written. Now pick out my costume.”
CHAPTER 19
You can’t be serious,” Gretchen said. She stared at Mother, who walked out of the back looking like an inflated adult Strawberry Shortcake. “I didn’t say anything when you came out here in the gingham dress, but the pigtails are too much. You’re just shy of penciling freckles on your cheeks.”
“I’m following Axel’s plan,” Mother said. “The only way for him to see that his plans are ludicrously overcomplicated is to see them play out. He’s too overconfident for his lack of experience.”
“Do you want to rent a potbelly pig and just kind of hold it for the whole meet? It would be adorable.”
“I don’t know what growing up in that town did to you kids, but he has this belief about how city folk see country folk. The more country, the more gullible.”
“Axel is only happy when he’s the underdog,” Gretchen said. “If he’s not, he’ll make himself one.”
“His score. His plan. Come what may.”
Gretchen kind of hoped it would blow up. Stephanie would eventually figure out that Gretchen was a part of it either way, but maybe if she didn’t lose any money on the scam, it wouldn’t be a deal breaker.
Money aside, the last thing Gretchen wanted was for Mother to embarrass her. She had too much respect for Stephanie as a thief. She could get over losing her, but she hated the idea of looking like an amateur. Gretchen wanted to impress Stephanie before the woman hated her.
“What’s the harm in toning it down?” Gretchen asked.
“Axel’s notes say ‘country bumpkins.’ The word ‘bumpkin’ is underlined. He drew pictures. Picked out this dress himself. It’s the right idea. You got to be the character that they want you to be. Not what they expect. That’s the commodity we trade in, what the world runs on. Once you know what someone wants, you can control them.”
“And Axel thinks Stephanie wants bumpkins?”
“She wants an easy mark.”
“Axel might have dated her, but he doesn’t know her. Easy holds no interest. She wants a challenge.”
“You’ve known her for a couple of weeks.”
“That’s all I needed,” Gretchen said. “You going to walk in carrying a jug of moonshine with three big x’s on the side, too?”
“No, but I can get one for Fritzy.” Mother laughed. “Everyone likes soft targets. She’s a lioness looking for the gimpy gazelle. We’re going to be them folks the local news interviews after the tornado trashes the trailer park.”
“You think Axel was a soft target?”
“That boy’s got more issues than a magazine stand,” Mother said. “He trusted her quick, hitched his wagon to a shark. My guess is that this isn’t the first time he got worked by some broad.”
“His heart gets broken every couple of years,” Gretchen said. “He believes in love at first sight.”
“Yeesh. A romantic. The softest target of all.” Mother put on lipstick in the mirror. “This woman has probably never met a farmer but sure as shooting has a picture of a farmer in her head. I’m going to walk into the meet straight from her imagination. Grab Fritzy’s ‘Make America Great Again’ cap, and let’s make some money.”
Gretchen’s role in the scheme was officially over. Her character existed to put the fabricated documents concerning the new freeway expansion in front of Stephanie’s eyes. Mission accomplished. Everything that followed was handled by Mother.
The meet that night was to sign the seven-day escrow and deliver the upfront cash. Nothing too fancy. A meal, a signature, money. Put a lie in someone’s head, play to a person’s greed or emotions, and let them give you their money willingly. Stephanie wouldn’t know that the expansion was a scam until at least a few years later, when she would notice that no expansion ever happened.
With a large black coffee on the table in front of her, Gretchen sat at the Starbucks across the street and prepared to watch the show on her phone. Mother’s broach gave a clear view of the Garlic Garden. Fritzy sat to her right, looking like he was at a casting call for a Green Acres reboot.
Gretchen put in her earbuds. The loud hum of the restaurant filled her head and forced her to lower the volume. The Garlic Garden had that vibe of a place that country folk would consider fancy. A bottomless-bread-basket kind of place. Mother was not even close to the largest person there.
Stephanie walked to the table and sat across from Mother and Fritzy—or, as they were unfortunately calling themselves in this scenario, Adelaide and Jedidiah Chickensworth.
“You’re a godsend, sweetie dear. An absolute godsend,” Mother said in an accent that sounded like a southerner making fun of a non-southerner attempting to do a southern accent. The Irene Ryan School of Hillbilly Vernacular.
“We’re right gratitudinal for your hospitableness, young missy,” Fritzy said through the toothpick in the corner of his mouth, making Mother’s accent plausible in comparison.
Stephanie didn’t blink, but Gretchen was pretty sure she was trying to keep a straight face. “A pleasure to meet you both in person. I appreciate you taking time out of what must be a busy schedule. I assure you this is an opportunity where everyone benefits. What we call a win-win situation in the business.”
“Win-win situation. Ain’t that clever.” Mother pronounced the word situation like she’d never heard it before. Like it was four words: sit, Jew, way, shun. “You hear that, Jedidiah? I told you she was a smart cookie. We wasn’t busy, sugar. Unless you count Jed scratching his balls.”
“I told you that was a duckweed rash.”
Stephanie believed that a highway expansion was about to get approval to go through the Chickensworth ranch, at which time it would shift from agricultural to commercial property. The current assessed value of the land was listed as $3,000 an acre, but that had been recorded when the land was arable. The real value of the land was zero dollars an acre, give or take a dollar. Adjacent to the former site of a crop duster’s airstrip, it had recently been designated unusable due to the amount of pesticide residue in the soil and groundwater. That information had yet to be reflected in the assessed value of the land. Unless you were planning on starting a DDT farm (which wasn’t a thing), it was worthless. Stephanie had offered $5,000 an acre for the sixty acres. Of that $300,000, a third would be in cash.
“We done been growing beans on that there land for nigh on four decades, don’t ya know,” Mother said.
Gretchen face-palmed, wondering how Wisconsin made its way into her southern accent.
“It’s always been my dream to own a bean farm,” Stephanie said.
“Has it now?” It sounded like it was Mother’s turn to try not to laugh.
“My grandfather was a bean farmer.”
“It’s good, honest work,” Fritzy said. “It most surely is.”
“Truly so, but it’s high time we retired. These old bones are creaking more than a staircase in a haunted house. Jedidiah’s knees are shot.”
“I got the arthritis, I do. Ache like t
he dickens when it rains. And even when it don’t. On top of my nut rash, it’s hellish.”
Stephanie turned toward the front door and then back. “I was going to ask, Do you find the process of deficit irrigation affects the efficiency of the fertilizer on the bean propagation?”
“Oh shit,” Gretchen said out loud.
Mother didn’t miss a beat. “We done did it the way we always done. The furrow irrigation we use allows us to control some of the saturation. Luckily the loam is rich, so we don’t rely as heavily on fertilizer. Ain’t that right, Jedidiah?”
“Prefer horse to cow, manure-wise,” Fritzy said. “All shit ain’t the same. Don’t cotton to bullshit.”
“That’s a beautiful broach,” Stephanie said, staring directly into the camera.
Gretchen held her breath. Stephanie stared right at her, like she could see her through the phone. Stephanie winked. “Shit, shit, shit.”
The guy at the table next to Gretchen gave her a wave. She ignored him. He waved again, smiling. She popped out the earbuds. “Yeah? What?”
“What’re you watching? From your reaction, I’m guessing Game of Thrones.”
“Are you kidding?” Gretchen said. “I’m busy.”
She moved to put the earbuds back in, but the guy scooted closer on the cushioned bench. “I’m Tom.”
“Seriously?” Gretchen said.
“I’m a writer. I’m writing a novel about a novelist and his complicated relationships with the female sex, but it’s really about the role of the modern man in a postfeminist society. At the same time, it’s a humorous take on modern dating. There’s also time travel.”
“You don’t understand hints or social cues, do you?” Gretchen asked.
“I was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.”
“Listen, you cartoon character, I would usually enjoy messing with a guy like you, but I am in the middle of something important. If I change my mind—I won’t—I assume you’ll be here tapping on your laptop and harassing whatever woman is sitting next to you.”