Tats’ smile shrank but did not totally disappear upon hearing this slightly new feature of the contract, but, while it was not exactly a condition he would have suggested, he couldn’t exactly consider it unreasonable if he was collecting a commission on every transaction that went well.
“Fair enough,” Tats said.
Tats then added, “I know you said you don’t have the supply yet, but that might not be the problem you think it is. On the contrary, she might need some time to get this going. It would be best for her to start out small. I don’t know what kind of operations she’s engaged in now, although I do have a strong hunch, and it’s not selling Smokeless Green. But I know I can convince her it’s the better way to go.”
This piqued Righty’s interest considerably, but he didn’t want to pry. Prying invites prying, and he had more than enough secrets hidden underneath his proverbial floorboards that he would prefer to stay there.
“Do you have a horse?” Righty asked.
Tats shook his head.
“Well, it seems it’s time to do something with that money you’ve been burying around your house. Go buy yourself a fine stallion,” Righty said, while simultaneously handing him a hundred thousand falons with the same casualness another might pass a cigarette.
Tats’ eyes nearly bulged out of his skull.
“I would like to talk to you again at the same time in exactly one week. I would begin to worry dearly if it were a minute longer than 9 p.m. two weeks from today,” Righty said, in a tone that was affable, but Tats didn’t miss the gleam in his eye that seemed to say, Don’t screw this up.
“Once you’ve found her and made sure she’s amenable to the scenario, I want to meet her in person. You just tell her what I look like and that when I meet her I’ll say, ‘Heavens, isn’t it a blessed day!’ Not one word different, and in just that tone.”
Tats gulped and then repeated it aloud several times.
“And then I want her to say, ‘You could say so.’ Not a word different. I want to make sure she’s the right person. The last thing I want is to end up in jail in a foreign country. I’m going to go ahead and be an optimist and assume you will find her and be back here no later than two weeks from today at 9 p.m. to report that she is anxious and willing to meet me, so I want you to go ahead and take the liberty, once you do find her, to go ahead and set up a meeting. Today is October 2, so I should see you no later than October 16, so let’s go ahead and make the meeting for October 17 at 9 p.m. Tell her she can pick the location.
“If she’s the kind of operator you say she is, she’ll probably have a few large fellows standing around her for protection. Tell her that when approaching them, I will say, ‘I’m a friend of a friend wishing to talk to a friend.’ Tell her I’ll be wearing a black hat and a light blue shirt.”
Righty saw Tats was making an effort to repeat everything multiple times in order to ensure it stuck in his head, so Righty handed him a pen and a piece of paper and scribbled everything down quickly.
“Memorize this until you’ve truly got it and then burn this.”
Tats nodded, not missing the fiery look in Righty’s eye that served to remind him of the real fire just referenced.
“And here’s a pound of Green. Give it to her as a sample.” Tats’ eyes nearly bulged out.
Tats and Righty then shook hands again, cementing everything agreed upon.
When Righty and Tats rejoined the crew, Tats almost told them he had an important errand to run, but then realized no business was going to be open at this hour to sell him a horse.
When Righty pulled out the twenty pounds from his leather satchel, he expected Tats to hand him a mere $100,000 for a fifty percent down payment, as had been the usual custom, so he was happily surprised when Tats handed him $200,000 right then and there.
“I want to call a short meeting,” Righty said, addressing the gang of roughly thirty toughs loitering in the junkyard. He recognized every last one of them by face and name now, and he went around and shook each person’s hand and greeted them before stepping back and facing his audience as a whole.
“We’ve got some exciting developments in the works. First, I’d like to talk a little bit about the game plan with Sivingdel. For now, go slow and steady. As far as I’m concerned, when I took Heavy Sam out, I—and by extension all of you, as my agents—acquired exclusive rights to the Smokeless Green market in this city. One sovereign slayed another, and thus, his subjects must submit to their new ruler. However, just because this city’s ours doesn’t mean the smartest way to assert our rights is to go blitzing far beyond our current territory.
“Think more along the lines of expanding by a block or two per week. What remains to be seen is whether someone will replace Sam and keep his empire unified or whether it will splinter into competing fragments. I strongly expect the latter, but I’ll be expecting intel soon from all of you. You’re my eyes and ears out there. If a strongman takes over his organization, it will behoove us to move slowly. If it splinters, it will behoove us to move slowly while the fragments fight it out, kill and weaken each other, and draw police attention to them and away from us. Either way, it’s best to move cautiously.
“Any word so far?”
Crabs, Chalky, Tats, and the others shrugged their shoulders or shook their heads. Truth be told, they had heard a few things, but none wanted to put his neck on the line by spouting rumors. It would be best to let the dust settle a bit and see what was really going on in the once mighty organization.
“You know you can count on me for anything major. If someone tries blocking your move onto a new block, you let me know. If the police start harassing you, you let me know. If someone stiffs you, you let me know. But I’m not going to be able to go out with you every night. I’ve got some operational issues I’m dealing with right now to make sure I can keep this product coming and to make sure I can bump up the quantity.”
Righty then smiled, “That’s right. You’re going to soon find twenty pounds way too small an amount to move once you start expanding. That means more money for you and more money for me. But I’ve got some things to tend to to make sure that can happen. Any questions?”
Silence.
Righty then shook each person’s hand firmly, wished Tats good luck, and then set off for the countryside on foot. Fifteen minutes later he was cutting through the night air, and a half hour later he was arriving home from another late day at the office.
Janie was still up and seemed to be in a good mood, now that she thought she knew the cause of his perennial tardiness. In fact, given the number of nights he was gone entirely, it now seemed quite special for him to be there at all, let alone by 10 p.m.
She wasn’t quite in the mood for passionate lovemaking, but Righty figured you can’t win them all. He ate a hardy supper and fell asleep in Janie’s arms.
Chapter 3
Righty was up at 6 a.m. sharp and just barely won the battle against his body, which was insisting he had earned at least another hour of sleep. Janie had made eggs, bacon, sausage, and pancakes, and he tore into them like a wolf with a freshly killed deer.
Janie chuckled appreciatively at the display. They showered together, and then she went off to work at the library while he headed out to the woods for his morning sword practice.
As he began to practice, his enemy was not apathy but enthusiasm. He felt so desperately eager to get to the ranch and start planting crops that it was hard to focus on his lessons. To correct that he reminded himself that unless he mastered this weapon he would be foolish to stay in this business, let alone keep expanding it. His alleyway experience had already cemented that fact.
Nonetheless, much of the passion was gone today from his movements. To any outsider he would have seemed quite animated, but inside he almost felt like an employee going through the motions at a nine-to-five job. However, he knew from his boxing days that what makes a champion is the ability to practice even when the activity in question has lost all its luster. En
thusiasm will come and go, but the need to practice never does.
Three hours later, he was drenched in sweat as usual, and he considered that sufficient evidence of his having done his duty. Now, he felt like a kid who can finally get to his ice cream. Harold had noticed his rather sullen demeanor and had decided to watch from atop a tree. The konulans flew about the forest playfully, only making sure not to venture too near the razor-sharp blade slicing the air mercilessly.
It didn’t take him long to realize they were as excited as he was to go to the ranch, and he wasn’t finding any volunteers to snoop about town to watch his wife at the library or to surveil the woods, his garden, or his house. He feared he was going to make enemies out of these little devils if he didn’t placate them somehow, so he suggested they rotate in six-hour shifts.
One of the four families would stay here, two would accompany him to the ranch, and one would have to spread out and form a line of communication between Ringsetter and the ranch. He had the leader of each family (and was relieved to find no major dispute on this point, as it boiled down to age in konulan society) pull straws to see who would do what.
He found most of the process rather amusing—although he noticed Harold’s tempestuous eyes suggesting displeasure at Righty’s coddling of the konulans. Righty decided allowing Harold to assume an authoritarian role in the future would probably be more efficient. Meanwhile, Righty would work on cultivating the bonds of friendship with them.
With these matters decided, Righty mounted Harold and took off to his ranch.
Righty told Harold to set him down on the side of the mountain bordering the ranch, and they discussed business briefly. Although Righty was all but convinced he had no choice but to involve his ranch hands in his business, he was experiencing some jitters about this step. After all, they knew his real name. Harold said Righty ought to think of this as a horse race to be the first to establish a major exportation route to Sodorf. Selegania, particularly in the south, was known to have a better agricultural climate than Sodorf, so Sodorf’s Smokeless Green was going to be mostly imported. It was possibly virgin territory at this point, but it was only a matter of time before others established themselves there.
The problems he had had in the city of Sivingdel alone had given him a sufficiently bitter taste of breaking into an established market. He shuddered to think at what that would be like in a foreign country.
He told the konulans to go scout out the ranch and let him know if it would be possible for Harold to take him inconspicuously as far as the house. They soon came back and said it would be, since all the ranchers were a couple miles behind the house. Feeling emboldened, Righty mounted Harold and told him to fly low and keep flying until he told him to stop.
Harold happily complied with a speed that just about sent Righty’s breakfast onto the ground. Righty told Harold to stop once it looked like he was around a half-mile away from the ranchers’ area. There was a wall of trees there, which Righty found to be a convenient curtain of privacy.
Righty hopped off and went to approach the ranchers. He greeted them all with a handshake and a renewed request for their names, something he knew would have to be repeated several more times before he committed every last one to memory.
There wasn’t a lot of haggling involved. After Righty promised each of them $1,000 for one day of agricultural assistance, provided he was sufficiently impressed with their productivity, the ranch soon had as much hustling and bustling as a fortress preparing itself for imminent assault.
Gone were the lean, mean stallions the ranchers rode around on like so many bolts of lightning, and out came large, musclebound oxen that looked like they might struggle in a race against a tortoise but would possibly win a game of tug-of-war against a dinosaur.
Righty asked one of the ranchers who seemed to be calling out most of the orders what his name was. “Tim Sanders” was the reply. Righty then asked Mr. Sanders for a recommendation regarding the most tucked-away area of the ranch.
“Depends on how big a crop you’re planning on.”
“I’m looking to start with about five acres of my main cash crop, all of which I would like surrounded by about a half-acre of corn. But in the future, I might wish to expand to hundreds of acres, depending on how well the agricultural market is doing.”
“Follow me,” Mr. Sanders invited, pointing Righty towards a stallion.
Righty had ridden horses throughout most of his adult life, but he knew there was a big difference between trotting a few miles around town on a domesticated horse and mounting an unpredictable beast such as the one Mr. Sanders was now indicating. But he would be darned if he showed weakness to an employee, so he feigned confidence and jumped atop the animal, which fortunately had a saddle already securely in place.
Righty felt a good connection with the horse, as it appeared to offer no rebellion, and in a jiffy he was following Tim to the proposed location. This caught the eye of most of the other ranchers, who had been assembling farming tools and beasts of burden. They now began heading in Righty and Tim’s direction.
After a few minutes of swift riding, Righty began to notice a large cornfield. Tim led him alongside it for a few miles. Once they reached the back end, Tim stopped.
“I s’pose here’s as good a place as any,” Tim opined. “We’re a good five miles or so behind your house, and you’ve got several good miles to work with between here and where the ground starts to get too rocky.”
In a tone that almost sounded like an apology, Tim said, “I’m not sure if Mr. Wilkins ran it by you, but in the past he’s allowed us to harvest and sell our own corn and keep half of the proceeds.”
This seemed a bit generous to Righty, and Tim seemed to sense it, so he proffered, “We’ll understand if you have a different arrangement in mind, but for whatever it’s worth, the reasons Mr. Wilkins set it up this way are because a lot of the corn is for personal consumption and the profits aren’t particularly high. And also as kind of a bonus, since that’s helped him keep food expenses down. We also plant some other things—beans, tobacco, coffee. We have sort of our own little natural pantry back here.”
Righty wasn’t about to start grousing about fifty percent proceeds on crops whose worth was tantamount to grains of sand compared to the crop he was about to be planting, so his response was, “Well, it sounds fair to me.”
Tim’s relief was etched clearly on his face.
“You know, Mr. Sanders, I’m starting to feel like the lot of us are going to get along just swell. We might even need more help here on the ranch in the not-too-distant future. We’ve certainly got the physical space for it. Supposing—for cattle or agricultural reasons—I needed more help here, do you think it would be hard to come by? I would want good, competent workers such as yourselves. Men who can use a crossbow and sword, who know their way around a garden, and who can lasso and ride. And, above all, men who know how to keep business affairs private.”
“You’ve just described Sovelians in a nutshell,” Tim said, grinning.
Righty paused for a moment and barely managed to suppress a blush, as he then realized how provincial he was. Sovelia was the state neighboring Rodalia, Righty’s home state.
“But don’t worry—I could go to town and handpick people anytime you need more help,” Tim said smiling.
“How far away’s that?”
“About a hundred miles.”
“Well, that’s good to know, Mr. Sanders. I will certainly keep you in mind as a recruiter should business here at the ranch begin to grow.”
“Yes, sir,” Tim said.
Righty surveyed the area and couldn’t be more pleased. To his back was acre upon acre of corn and whatever else these ranch hands planted. In front of him was lush, open country for miles before imposing hills began, which then quickly graduated to steep mountains. And all of this was miles away from any prying eye.
“Looks good to me. I’ll need some help hauling the seeds here. They’re back at the house—all t
en of them,” he said, wishing that he hadn’t left all twelve there but had buried two of them in the mountains, just in case things here didn’t work out. He would make sure no more than ten barrels left the house.
A loud whistle issued forth from Tim. “Yo?” the nearest rancher replied.
“Send a wagon to the house.”
The rancher replied with an affirmative whistle.
Righty began galloping to the house. He wanted to make sure he unloaded the specified number of barrels and that no one peaked inside. He simultaneously cursed himself for not having the foresight to padlock the front door, but he promised to fix that mistake soon enough.
He didn’t make it to the house first—it was nearly impossible to contend with these ranchers on horseback, and apparently they felt obligated to express their dedication by arriving there first to pitch in with whatever was going into the wagon. To his relief, however, they were all waiting a respectful distance outside.
He approached the door and then said jovially, “No need to come inside; I’ll bring the barrels to the front door.”
The Republic of Selegania Boxed Set: Volumes One through Four Page 60