The Contractor

by Paul Moomaw

  Maxfield starts toward the barn entrance again. “I’ll show you,” he says. “Like I said, no chemicals on this place.” He strides rapidly out of the barn and heads toward a low, circular structure that lies about two hundred yards away. It looks like a giant steel drum, maybe forty feet in diameter and about five feet high. In the middle is a post, and through the post is a steel girder that stretches from the center of the structure in both directions and extends about five feet beyond the edges. Maxfield walks up to the drum and slaps it with his right hand.

  “Compost,” he says. “Good and clean, too.” He releases a large metal latch and pushes up on the edge of the drum’s roof. A section about five feet across lifts up on hinges and locks itself open at a forty-five degree angle. “Come look.”

  I walk over and look through the opening at a mass of brown sludge. “Looks wet.”

  “That will change through the winter. Twice a week I hook the horses up to those girders, and they just go round and round. A big paddle in there turns the stuff over as they move. The Clydesdales get exercise, and I get organic fertilizer.”

  “I’m impressed,” I say. That is true.

  Maxfield closes the opening to the drum and steps away. “Other than the trees and grapes themselves, that’s about it. Pretty low tech.”

  We walk back toward the house and barn, and then to the rental car.

  “I hope you can make this all work,” I say, which makes us even on lies.

  “It’s my dream. I’ve always been dedicated to the environment. A lot of people laugh and call me an unrealistic do-gooder, but I want to leave the world a little better place than I found it.”

  Maxfield is ahead on points again. In fact he earns double points for that one-two combination. Natural talent, I suppose.

  “I can understand. If I were going to get into a business around here, I would want it to be something like this.”

  Maxfield nods thoughtfully, then gives me the wide-eyed gaze again. “There’s something to be said for buying into a going concern,” he says.

  I do not answer. Instead I cock my head and shrug, and wait for has to be coming next.

  “A little extra operating capital sure couldn’t hurt here.”

  I wait some more.

  “You might want to think about it,” he says.

  I meet his eyes and give him my most sincere smile.

  “I might.”

  “There’s a half-million dollar balance on the bank note.”

  “I don’t have that kind of money.”

  “But if somebody wanted to put a smaller amount in, say fifty or a hundred thousand, they would own that much of the operation .”

  I stand around a little longer, then shrug and smile. “A fun thought.” I open the car door and slide behind the wheel.

  “I don’t suppose you have a business card” Maxfield asks.

  I shake my head. “Not with me.”

  “But I bet you have a name.”

  “Of course.” I fall silent. I cannot resist the urge to toy with him, try to break through his cocky air of self-assurance, but all he does is smile and spread his hands.

  “Okay, mystery man.”

  “The name’s Gerald,” I say, because that is the first thing that pops into my head.

  Maxfield nods and holds out his hand. “Does that come with a last name?”

  I take the hand to shake it, and he does the dominance thing, grabbing me right at the knuckles so that I can’t get a grip. I let him play the game until he is ready to drop my hand.

  “That is the last name. First name is Adam.” I pause, then start the engine. “Sure like your place.”

  “Give it some thought.”

  “I will,” I reply.

  I am smiling as I head back toward State Highway 214. I have done my homework, and I know that there is no mortgage on Maxfield’s farm. He paid cash, and I wonder if he had to use all of his ill-gotten stash on the place and now needs a quick infusion of mad money. But most of all I am smiling because I know how he is going to die.

  Then, as I drive through the hills to Salem, a fantasy slips into my thoughts, and I am sitting on the porch of a house surrounded by vineyards, with Katherine next to me, her head on my shoulder, and her hand rubbing the top of my thigh. It is so real I can feel the pressure of her fingertips. I shake my head rapidly and slap the steering wheel.

  “Stupid,” I mutter, and concentrate on the road.

  Chapter 25

  I return home to find the message light blinking on my safe phone, the one that gets my business calls. There are four messages, all from Edward Angwin. He sounds more irritated with each one; but he also does not leave a return number. I could look it up, but I decide I would rather ignore him for now. I go to the liquor cabinet and pour myself three fingers of Scotch, then settle myself in the big recliner by the window. Sitting down with a drink and spending half an hour or so looking at the city has become a re-entry ritual for me whenever I have to be away.

  The telephone rings and interrupts my reverie. Annoyed, I refuse to budge from the chair. It rings four times and then the answering machine cuts in. It is Angwin again.

  “If it isn’t too goddam much trouble, I need to talk to you,” he says. “I know it’s hard for you to understand that something can be important to someone else, but this is important.” He hangs up and I take a swallow of Scotch and concentrate on the view again. My mind drifts to the Willamette Valley and Towner Cooper Maxfield IV, and for a while I daydream about actually buying a piece of his operation. That tells me I played my role well with him, because when I do it becomes real to me. Then, before I can stop it, I am imagining Katherine, dressed in coveralls, a smudge of dirt on her cheek, smiling as she bends over a cluster of grapes.

  I push the image away and focus my attention on the plan that is forming in my mind. The Cooperage is isolated, off the road, out of sight. I like that. It should be easy to show up after visiting hours. This time I will travel to Eugene and rent a car there. I will call him the day before, to let him know I am coming and have business in mind. That will be true, although it will not be the business he wants; but if he is expecting me to propose a deal, he will be pretty sure that no one else is around. I will have him to myself.

  I finish the Scotch and the telephone rings again. I push myself from the chair, go to the phone, and answer it. It is Angwin, of course.

  “About time,” he says. I do not respond. He breathes into my silence for several seconds and then says, “I need to see you.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “We are talking.”

  “Not on the phone. I don’t trust that.”

  “All right. Don’t talk. Good-bye.”

  I hang up the telephone and begin to count. I get to eight before it rings again.

  “You win,” Angwin says. I wait for him to continue. “My sister needs to be a priority,” he says. I wait some more. “Do you know what I mean?”

  “No.”

  “I need to have that situation resolved,” he says. “Put it right at the top of your list of things to do.”

  “I don’t work that way.”

  An exasperated sigh. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means I make my own lists and do things my way. Right now I have a project under way, and that is at the top of my list.”

  “Fine,” Angwin says. “But as soon as that is done, Katherine needs your attention.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Either she does, or all future . . . all future retainers dry up.”

  “You don’t get to dictate our agreement, but feel free to end it any time you wish,” I say.

  “You’re bluffing.”

  “I never bluff.” I hang up and pour myself another Scotch. Before I can get back to my recliner the telephone rings again. I ignore it, and this time Angwin gives up without leaving a message.

  I settle down by the window again. What I told Angwi
n is not true, of course. I do bluff. Life is a bluff. I bluff, you bluff, and then we see who calls first. It is a lesson I learned the hard way when I was young. I was still in grade school. We sat at table desks, the kind where you lift the top to get at the books and papers inside. One of the other boys lifted his desk top to show off a pile of candy bars—Baby Ruths, Butterfingers, and Almond Joys. He bragged that he had stolen them from the corner store. He said he did it all the time and never got caught. I was hungry. I was frequently hungry. And my father never brought home candy, which made this secret treasure even more enticing. At recess, while the other boy was outside, I took three candy bars. I was stuffing them into my pocket when he returned and saw what I was doing. He threatened to tell the teacher I had stolen his candy. I said if he did I would snitch about where he got them. I was bluffing, and he called my bluff. He told the teacher, the teacher told my father, and I got a beating. My father said he did not give a damn about my stealing the candy. He was punishing me for being stupid enough to get caught. It was a lesson I never forgot.

  Chapter 26

  Maxfield is eager to die, although he does not think of it that way. I called him three days ago from Seattle and told him I was returning to Oregon. “To do a little business?” he said, and I told him I was thinking about it. He wanted to know how much I was interested in putting into the Cooperage, and did his best to make it sound as if anything under a hundred thousand would be inadequate. I let him dangle. I told him I never talk business on the telephone. He said he could understand that. “You never know who’s listening,” he said. He asked me what time he should look for me. I told him it would be after visiting hours, and he told me not to worry, he would be sure that we had total privacy.

  Instead of flying, which I dislike, I decide to take the train. I love trains. If I had my wish I would never travel any other way. American trains are a pale shadow of what they once were, and provide abominable service compared to those in other parts of the world, but to me they still represent romance. I have childhood memories of taking a train, and of waking up and looking through the dirty window of a sleeper car and seeing the snow-covered peaks of the Rocky Mountains across the prairie to the west, shining impossibly white in the early morning sun. The memory returns now as I look up train schedules from Seattle to Eugene, Oregon. The image of the mountains, and the dirt on the window, percolate through my mind, along with a feeling of excitement and the smell of some perfume that makes me feel good, and safe. I have the feeling that I was on that train with my mother. The recesses of my mind contain a few images like that, small flashes of childhood. I have no conscious memory of my mother, but those traces let me imagine how it might feel to be a small child sitting safely in the warmth of arms and a soft lap.

  The Amtrak station is at the south end of a tunnel that runs under downtown Seattle. The tunnel will eventually be for light rail, but now buses travel it. They are free, to encourage their use. I can walk from my place straight down Queen Anne Hill to Westlake and then take the bus right to the station, where the train misnamed the Starlight leaves at mid morning and gets to Eugene by shortly after five in the afternoon. I carry only a small briefcase, because that will make me look more business-like to Maxfield, as long as he does not know that it contains nothing but a small pewter flask of brandy and a ham sandwich that I have made for the trip. The briefcase is one I bought years ago from Lands End. It is called a Square Rigger and is made of heavy canvas with leather reinforcements at the corners. I like it because it expands to hold almost anything I need.

  I have arranged for a rental that waits for me at the Eugene Amtrak station, and am able to be on my way to Mt. Angel within half an hour of my arrival. The Interstate would be faster, but instead I swing onto a state road that winds through farm country and little towns with names like Mohawk, Marcola and Mabel. One is called Waterloo, but I am not superstitious. I have told Maxfield that I will not arrive until close to nine, and he has offered to let me stay the night. I tell him I do not want to put him to any trouble, but he says he will be glad for a little company and a chance to mix business with pleasure. I decide that if I get there too late I will take him up on the invitation and then finish my business the next morning.

  I manage to reach Mt. Angel closer to eight o’clock, but even so, it is getting dark as I turn onto his road and past the Cooperage sign. Maxfield has apparently heard the rental car approaching because he stands at the open front door waiting, silhouetted in the light from the house. He stays there as I get out of the car, then walks toward me, hand extended. We shake, and he glances at the briefcase.

  “Traveling light?”

  “I always do.”

  “No matter,” he says. “I’ve got spares of everything, so the invitation to spend the night is still good.”

  I shake my head doubtfully. “I’m not sure that works for me.” I do not want to spend the night. The longer I am here, the greater the risk. Get in, get the job done, and get out. That has always been my way of doing things.

  “Nonsense. Anyway, I imagine you are going to want a more thorough tour of the place, and it’s too late for that today.”

  I want to argue with him, but realize I should not. He has a point, and if I were really here for the reason he thinks, I would probably be happy to accept.

  “How can I refuse?”

  “Great,” he says. He slaps me lightly on the shoulder and turns to go back into the house. I follow him without protest, but I am aware of a sense of unease. This is supposed to be my show and he is taking control.

  He leads me into the front room, where there is a piano and a giant television. A couple of what are known as coffee table books, the kind meant to pass idle moments looking at pictures, lie on a low, wrought iron table with a glass top. Other than that, there are no books in the room. Maxfield apparently is not a reader.

  “You hungry?” he asks, and strides quickly toward a door that leads into a large, tile and chrome kitchen. He passes momentarily from view, then returns carrying a tray loaded with crackers and three or four kinds of cheese. He places the tray on the glass table, then returns to the kitchen. Moments later he is back with a bottle of red wine and two glasses.

  “Pinot, but not mine.” He places the bottle and glasses next to the tray. “Like I told you the other day, I grow the grapes, but I don’t make the wine.” He grins. “Like Dirty Harry says, a man has to know his limitations. I could probably make an okay wine, but I couldn’t settle for less than outstanding. That takes years of experience and learning, and life’s too short.”

  I nod, and appreciate the irony. Dramatic irony is what they call it, when the speaker does not know he is being ironic. I sit down and let him pour me a glass of wine, then examine the bottle. More than not his, it is not even local, but comes from the Sonoma Valley in California. I point to the label.

  “Don’t you worry about the neighbors?”

  Maxfield laughs. “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” He leans across and takes the bottle, pours some wine into his glass, then gives me a conspiratorial look as he puts the bottle down. “To tell the truth, I think Oregon Pinots are kind of insipid. Give me a big California boomer any day.”

  “I’m afraid I agree. But I’m not crazy about the French version either. My secret vice is Zinfandel.”

  Maxfield laughs again. He raises his glass in my direction. “Here’s to secret vices.” I respond with my glass, and we both drink. I am aware that I find him likable, and I am not surprised. Being charming is a con man’s most important asset, along with believability and the illusion of sincerity. I remember an old joke, about a prize-winning salesman who takes a young beginner under his wing and tells him that the secret of his long years of success is sincerity. “If you can fake that, you can fake anything.”

  Maxfield gives me a more serious look. “What made you decide to consider investing in this place?”

  “I don’t know that I will.” I do not want him to relax, not yet. I want to see the c
on man at work. I want him to sell me. It is only fair that his last hours be happy ones.

  “But you’re here, so at least you’re considering it.”

  I nod. “How would you use the money?”

  “That depends on how much. Things have been hard, I’ll admit. I don’t know if you have ever tried to start a business from scratch.”

  “I’ve been self-employed for years.”

  “So you know startups are hard.”

  I do not know that from experience, of course. My very first job paid me more for a few days of my time than I had ever made in a year before, but I nod and say, “All beginnings are hard.”

  Maxfield grins and jabs a finger at me. “That’s from a book. Now I can’t remember which one, but I read it a long time ago.”

  “Chaim Potok,” I say. “In The Beginning.”

  “Right,” Maxfield says, and I allow myself a moment of smug pride in my knowledge until it occurs to me that he may have set me up to show off, so that I will like him better for allowing me to look intelligent. I smile in appreciation of his skill.

  “You like to read,” Maxfield says. “So do I.” He glances around the room and spreads his hands. “You wouldn’t guess it from this place,” he adds. He is quick. He can catch himself in mid leap and change directions before anyone notices. Another necessary skill, I suppose.

  “You were going to tell me how the money would be used.”

  “Right.” Maxfield pauses, takes another swallow of wine. “I put every penny I had into the place when I bought it. I didn’t want to carry any debt. Couldn’t quite do that, but the amount I owe is pretty reasonable. Still,” he drinks more wine, “the income just about covers what I have to pay out. I could do better if I didn’t insist on everything being absolutely organic, but my own family farmed the bad old way and I saw what that did to the environment.” He shakes his head. “I would rather not farm at all.”

  I am in awe. He manages to say that with an air of sincere humility that could get him past Saint Peter.