We learned all this deluge of information and much more in the space of forty-five minutes, all of us sitting under the canopy outside the cookshack, sipping drinks in the waning heat of late afternoon. Nellie and Ray favored Cokes, while we four adults had Mike’s Hard Lemonade.
Throughout Nellie’s impassioned, lilting monologue, Sandralene and Stan beamed with obvious pride at the young woman, who seemed utterly at ease, as if they were her adoptive parents. Vee cast long evaluating gazes her way, with no evident approval or lack of it, impartial as a judge. Ray could not keep his jaw from going slack as he stared unrelentingly at Nellie, who took no offense. The boy seemed to be sweating from more than just the heat. His tape-repaired eyeglasses kept sliding down his nose until, just before they fell off, he absentmindedly pushed them back.
I had not even changed out of my swim trunks, which were now almost dry. The appearance of Nellie and her unanticipated, unconsulted addition to our little gang had left me too gobsmacked to think of dressing. I thought I saw—or imagined I saw—her casting frequent covert glances at my bare chest and legs. If this was really happening, it was flattering, arousing, and disconcerting, in equal measures.
Eventually, Nellie wound down, finishing up a long tale of how she and Celina had once emerged from the mall’s cinema to encounter Celina’s cousin, Evandro, a male model in New York, who now went by the name “Drew.” He had returned home for a short vacation to spread his glamour among the tribe and was outrageously squiring a fellow male model, and wasn’t it a shame that such gorgeous guys were both paneleiro?
“Uh, yeah, that is a shame,” I said. Then I peered with solemn and somewhat miffed entreaty at Hasso and said, “Stan, could you come with me for a minute?”
As we walked away toward the business office, Nellie continued to chatter away like a sports reporter trying to cram every real-time detail into a compressed broadcast.
“All right,” I said when we were out of earshot, “what gives?”
“What gives is just what I said. She’s gonna teach us the Cape Verde lingo. It ain’t straight Portagee, you know; it’s a weird mix—kriolu. You can’t buy language lessons or anything to learn it.”
I said, “If she can stop recounting her social life and every errant thought that pops into her head, for one minute, then I admit she might be useful along those lines. But why bring her here?”
“Ah, give her a break, Glen. She’s just a little nervous and trying to be friendly and impress her new bosses. As for bringing her here, how else we gonna do it? We can’t go into town for regular lessons, can we? We’re supposed to be holding down steady jobs here, according to the rules of our parole.”
“No, I guess we can’t afford to leave this place unattended for long, under the watchful eyes of both Wilson Schreiber and Nancarrow. But how did you meet her? What’s she expect?”
“Sandy and I stopped in a Micky Dee’s on that first run into town the other day. Nellie was working the counter. I got to talking with her, learned all about her heritage and shit. She ain’t shy, opens up real quick.”
“Yes, that much is obvious.”
“Anyhow, I almost freaked when it turned out she was from Cape Verde—or her folks were. Just the place I had been talking about for our safe haven after the job! What’re the odds? It was like getting punched in the gut by Fate. So it turns out Nellie was sick of being a burger slinger and was thinking of getting a new job. I came up with the tutoring gig on the spot. Pretty quick thinking, right? I told her to discuss it with her folks, and I’d come back for her if it was okay. She still lives at home. Gave her my phone number. She called this morning while you were still asleep.”
“What are we paying her?”
“Room and board and fifteen dollars an hour for any actual classroom time. But I figure we’ll pick up a lot of vocabulary from her just hanging around with us. Look, I already know how to call someone a fag. ‘Paneleiro,’ right?”
Stan was fast, and he had a good ear. I don’t think I could have repeated that word after just one hearing.
“You know what really cinched the deal, though?” Stan asked. “When she and Mom and Pop learned she’d be living at the Bigelow Junction Motor Lodge and that we were gonna reopen it. Her and her family used to stay here when she was a kid and into her teens. She loves the place. Seems like lots of these hicks have fond memories of the lodge. It was a real favorite resort until it closed. We got a lot of goodwill among the public for rebooting this joint.”
“Except that we are not actually rebooting this joint, remember? We’re just faking it until we can sell it to Nancarrow.”
“I know that! But it don’t hurt to be in good with the local yokels.”
I considered what Stan had gotten us into. “Of course, we’re going to have to keep her in the dark about our real goals here. Can you do that?”
“Hell, yeah!”
I discovered, to my surprise, that I was rather looking forward to Nellie’s lively presence around the place, and could not find it in myself to stay annoyed with Stan for not consulting me first. “Then, I guess we’re stuck with her. Maybe it’ll all work out okay. Let’s go back and get her settled.”
We returned to find the three women clustered in front of Nellie’s phone, watching a video that featured a bevy of Korean girls cavorting on a beach while lip-synching the lyrics to a pop song. Sandralene was gyrating mildly but enthusiastically in place, while Vee wore the look of an anthropologist taking mental notes. Ray maintained his rapt absorption in Nellie’s mere presence.
“Nélida,” I said, “let’s get you set up in a room. There will be some cleaning involved.”
Nellie jumped up with a squeal. “Cabin number five! That’s where we always stayed!”
Duffel slung over one shoulder, she trotted straight to cabin five as I hastened after her.
Stan called out, “Sandy and I are gonna get supper ready! Shrimps and swordfish on the grill, with coleslaw and sangria!”
I caught up with Nellie at the door of the cabin, found the right key, and unhooked it from the ring and gave it to her.
She looked me in the eye and, without any obvious guile, said, “This your only key? Guess you gotta come see me now if you wanna get in!”
20
The drab, utilitarian outskirts of Centerdale appeared without much preamble. One minute, Stan was powering the old Impala down a narrow, tree-bordered road whose humped and buckled macadam reflected the region’s harsh winters and which resembled every other green, leafy mile between here and the lodge. And the next minute, we were out in the open, with a Hess gas station on one side of the newly widening street, a McDonald’s on the other, and other small businesses, franchised or mom-and-pop, stretching sparsely ahead. I wondered whether that was the Micky Dee’s where Nellie had been discovered. But I didn’t ask out loud, and Stan did not volunteer the information.
“No burbs,” said Stan. “It’s like some kinda magic line in the sand kept them from building out.”
I said, “These little burgs had a kind of fortress mentality not so many decades ago. The citizens wanted to huddle together. And they could, because the towns were rich and lively and vibrant and offered everything you needed. And suburbs only came in later, after the heyday of these places. No one’s going to build bedroom communities for a town without jobs.”
“Wasn’t this place called Leatherville way back when?”
Stan’s question prodded some ancient memory of my parents talking about our cousins upstate. “Yeah,” I said, “I think you’re right. ‘Shoe and Wallet Capital of the State!’”
“Shit! Might as well’ve built their future on horse saddles and Roy Rogers holster sets. China’s got all our shoe factories, and most of what they make ain’t even leather no more!”
We drove by some abandoned factories. I imagined the whir and rush when they were in their prime, as worke
rs came and went by shifts, each man in a respectable fedora, the women stitchers in their knee-length skirts and sensible shoes, everyone jubilant and pleased with their lives. Now the scene could serve as a set for some postapocalyptic movie.
It was really too bad that no casino would be coming here. This place was practically crying out for the kind of economic relief such a project would bring.
We were now in what constituted Centerdale’s downtown. Two of every three storefronts in the stately old office and retail buildings were vacant. Still hanging on were a bank, a diner, and a chain hardware store. Improbably, a children’s shoe store remained: Lad ’n’ Lassie, no doubt coasting on family loyalty. Once the current generation of only child grandkids were outfitted, and their ancient elders who remembered Lad ’n’ Lassie finally died, this establishment, too, would go.
Stan parked in front of a sandstone building with elaborate carved ornamentation gracing its upper courses. I almost expected to see one of our mark’s signs by the door:
NANCARROW LOGISTICS TRUST MANAGEMENT, LTD.
“FEASTING ON THE CARRION OF FAILED COMMUNITIES SINCE 1992”
But no, Barnaby Nancarrow had not yet penetrated this far beyond his ancestral territories.
The parole and probation office for Centerdale and the region was on the second floor, reachable by a set of creaky wooden stairs whose metal trim had been worn thin by generations of weary, scuffling shoes. I almost expected to see a door with “Sam Spade, Investigator” etched on the brass nameplate.
It was three days since Nellie had come to the lodge, and her chatty presence there now felt quite natural. It was also the final day we could visit our new do-as-I-say-or-back-to-prison boss without incurring penalties.
A harried young female office manager handled the traffic for three counselors, each with their own cramped cubbyhole. After a longish wait on a hard bench, watching various lowlifes come and go, Stan and I were sent into Wilson Schreiber’s work space.
Whereas Anton Paget resembled some dwarf out of the Mines of Moria, our new parole officer reminded me of Rocky Balboa: a big palooka with a beat-up mug and an expression that challenged you to believe he could successfully dial a smartphone. But behind the Clark Kent glasses, his gray eyes shone with intelligence. And when he opened his mouth, any doubts of his mental acuity vanished.
“So, gentlemen, how goes your rustication?”
“My what, now?” said Stan.
“He means our exchanging the city for the country.”
“Oh, that. Well, Mr. Schreiber, I think it’s doing us a shitload of good. Fresh air, hard work, simple meals—all with the goal of making Glen’s uncle Ralph’s long-standing dream of resort proprietorship come true. Ain’t that just how you feel, Glen?”
“Yes, we don’t miss the city at all. It was just full of enticements to resume our old bad habits.”
Schreiber looked down at our files—I recognized mine from Paget’s office—then glanced at us over the tops of his lenses. “But out here, you two are flying straight. No fooling around. Just busy beavers getting the Bigelow Junction Motor Lodge ready for business.”
“Yes sir, that’s right.”
Schreiber’s voice suddenly boomed like a cannon. “Then why the hell, after nearly a week, haven’t you contacted any local merchants and suppliers yet? From what I can see—and I can see things pretty damn well—all you’ve done is loll around on vacation.”
I knew I should have made those calls I had considered making earlier. But I had been so busy with Ray, laying out our cybercampaign against Nancarrow, that I kept putting them off. Of course, I could hardly tell Schreiber that. But miraculously, a decent excuse came to mind.
“It’s the water, sir. You see, we can’t run the lodge without a good source of clean water, and we haven’t been able to test the lake yet. We’ve contacted Mr. Elbert Tighe, and he’s promised to help. He knows the staff at the state lab and says he can expedite the test for us. He’s coming out tomorrow, in fact. He couldn’t make it any sooner. We figure, once he certifies the water as okay, we can move ahead. No sense in committing ourselves to anything before we know that.”
Schreiber regarded us both with only half-mollified suspicion. “You’ve really contacted Tighe already?”
“Yes, sir. You’re welcome to call him yourself.”
“No, that won’t be necessary. All right, take this and go.”
Schreiber handed me a single-sheet printout. Looking at it, I saw a timeline for what we had to do to get the lodge up and running. According to Schreiber’s itinerary, we had a month till launch date.
“It’s almost the end of August now. If you can open in early September, you can still capture a little of the late-summer traffic, plus you’ll be ready for the leaf-peepers in October. And if we get some decent snow this winter, the snowmobile clubs’ll keep you busy. If you can do all this, I’ll know you’re serious and not just jerking me off. Understand?”
Stan was practically jolly. “Sure thing, Mr. S, no problem!”
I just said, “We’ll try our best.”
“You’d better try a little harder than that, McClintock. Your previous best efforts in the business world were not very goddamned impressive.”
Schreiber steered us to his office door and shook our hands. “I’ll be out to the lodge now and then to check up on things. Try to have a cold beer ready. That’s a long, hot drive without AC, and we civil servants don’t have it as luxurious as you boys.”
Walking out of the building, we were almost run down by a noisy pack of skateboarders—pimply kids, both boys and girls, full of Centerdale’s patented anomie and itchy boredom. Back in the car, I said, “So let me get all this straight. We have a lousy hundred grand in the bank—”
“More like a smidgen under ninety-eight thousand, what with the groceries and fronting Vee some travel dough, and Nellie’s pay and gas money and such.”
“Ninety-eight thousand in the bank, then. And we’re running down the clock against Steve Prynne announcing the real place where he intends to invest and thus thoroughly blowing our gaff. And now we suddenly have another deadline of just a month to show some progress we don’t even know how to make happen. Does any of this make you feel the least bit pressured or anxious?”
“Yeah, of course,” said Stan. “That’s why, when we get back to the lodge, I am going to have a long swim followed by several kick-ass drinks and about three cheeseburgers, and then hammer Sandralene until she goes all cross-eyed and drooly. I suggest you do the same—except the part about Sandy, naturally.”
PART THREE
21
Back from Centerdale, I decided to have a swim and sort things out in my head. Establish some kind of order, rank our tasks by urgency. We had to satisfy Schreiber’s new imperatives, or at least appear to be hitting his marks. Otherwise, he’d be calling fraud on our supposed productive-good-citizen endeavors down here. But it was also nearing time to launch our essential catfishing campaign against Nancarrow. We couldn’t wait much longer. I would go over with Ray once more the tricks we had connived, and then let her rip, for better or worse. With so many flaming batons to juggle, I felt that I was losing my focus.
I figured I would have the lakeshore to myself for some contemplative musings. Stan and Sandralene were goofing around in the kitchen shack, making gargantuan sandwiches (there went more of our limited money) and indulging in loud, half-serious, half-comical making out. I might have suggested they get a room, but they already had one. Vee and Ray reclined on lawn chairs under the shade of a big oak, absorbed in their reading. Vee had her Italian novel nearly done, I noticed, wondering fussily whether she had brought another to enjoy, while Ray was scrolling through what I assumed were endless baseball statistics. With everyone accounted for, I should be able to have some quiet time in the water.
But I had forgotten about Nellie. Although she had indeed
slipped comfortably into this insane jigsaw puzzle of coconspirators (although without being fully informed about our illicit enterprise), she was still not firmly embedded in my mental chart of figures and forces to keep tabs on.
So when I arrived in my trunks at the unmowed margins of Nutbush Lake, its inviting waters burnished by the downward-bound sun, I found her already there, thigh-deep in the shallows. A melodic bird call resounded as I gawped at her.
She wore a bikini that I would have bet never existed outside a pop song: pale yellow with innocuous white polka-dots, green ribbon at each hip and one between her breasts. While modest, the suit still revealed what seemed, to my woman-starved gaze, a bounty of youthfully taut skin a couple of shades lighter than a freshly hulled horse chestnut. I realized I had stopped short at the sight of her.
Nellie hailed me blithely. “The water, Glen! It’s just like I remember from when I was little! So sweet! Come on in!”
I dropped my towel on the beach and entered at a polite distance, still unable to converse normally.
“So, Glen, modi bu sta?”
“Huh?”
The Big Get-Even Page 10