by John Oakes
"Oh the business? You mean with the Tiny Tacklers?" Cody laughed out loud. "I thought you meant my business," he said nodding down to his crotch. "That was more on the mark."
Cody sipped again at his drink, letting Monica dangle.
"See in his final months, Grampa got more and more religious. He started asking a lot of questions toward the end about me and my relationship with Jesus and all that. It made less sense then than it does now. Lots of folks take up again with the Bible thumping when they know they are about to punch their ticket. Well anyways, he'd been beating himself up plenty about all his sins, womanizing most of all. He didn't want me to go down the same path of lust and sin that he did, figuring I would, since we're so dang alike in most ways."
"So..." Monica led.
"So, Grampa's dying wish was that I become celibate...for a time at least. And I mean real celibate." Cody made a motion of finality over his crotch. "Nada."
Monica sat back. "Celibate?"
"As a monk."
"You mean...you can't even..."
"I mean I can't 'operate my business' in any way shape or form."
"No way," Monica said, leaving her mouth agape. All her normal affectations had vanished.
"Crazy right? Well, I go and get off to a real good start when I tell that lawyer gal how crazy that was. Then she starts in on me with a vengeance, going on about hellfire and damnation and honoring a man's dying wishes. I found out real quick why he'd chosen her to be the executor of his will."
"She's a church bitch!" Monica said with realization. "Of course! I could see it in those innocent little angry eyes."
"Oh yeah," Cody agreed, "but don't be fooled. She can lawyer with the best of 'em. Mean as a junkyard dog that one. Talking about how, if I sign on, she can spy on me and tap my phones and go through my trash, all sorts of stuff to make sure I honor the will. But more importantly, like I said, she's a holy roller, speaking in tongues and in-the-name-of-Jesus this, in-the-name-of-Jesus that. When she gets going – man alive!"
Cody turned to face Monica.
"But I got to thinking for a sec, while she was in the middle of laying into me. Even though I was mad, I figured well, hell, I loved my grampa more than anything. Certainly I loved and respected him enough to humor his last wishes, even if they were a little cooky. A man's last wishes is a sacred trust. You gotta agree with the bitch on that point."
Cody gave Monica a significant look, and after a moment she nodded eagerly. He drank again and let the bite of the vodka leave a pained expression in his face. He grabbed her hand in his.
"Plus, if I didn't do it, the money would all go to charity." He made a rude noise of dismissal and smirked up at Monica. She was looking at him in wide-eyed rapture, like a woman turning the final pages in an Agatha Christie novel.
"So, I manned up and accepted the challenge of purity." Cody made a magnanimous gesture, sweeping both arms in front of him like a conductor. "But I tell ya, my boys weren't too happy about the yearlong cease-fire. Jason and them that is. Oh no. All they want to do is run around chasing tail! TR, the big one, he won't even speak to me anymore. We got in a fight yesterday and about demolished the pool house. Look."
Cody untucked his shirt and turned to lift the back of it up, displaying a large purpling bruise on his lower back.
She gasped at the sight of it. "Those brutes! Well, I..."
Cody had never seen Monica struggle for words before.
"I...I'm happy that you finally cut loose from them."
Cody gave her a sideways look. "Well, I didn't say I wasn't friends with them anymore. I've known them for years." Cody's voice had a slight edge to it.
Let her dance.
"Oh, no of course," Monica said. "I'm sure they are...delightful...fine friends." She was falling over herself to be agreeable to him. He knew at that moment, that he could ask anything from her, almost anything in the world, and she would give it.
"But friendship don't mean I ain't seeing a bigger horizon now than I did before. Spending less time with them and more time with people like you, well, I find myself thinking that..." Cody looked down at his hands guiltily, "that maybe they were holding me back, just the tiniest, least bit. I feel bad for saying it, 'cause I love them. But it's true."
Monica grabbed his hand and set it on her thigh, electing to be silently comforting, instead of risking putting her foot in her mouth again.
"I tell you, I've had to find the darndest ways to keep myself occupied. Thank God for these shows for giving me something to organize all day! Ha! Forget just avoiding chasing tail. I mean that impurity train, we could call it, pulled into the station two, maybe three times a day. Know what I mean? I would have gone batty if I didn't have something to do."
Monica shook her head with her mouth open in astonishment. "Is it forever? Like a priest?"
"Oh no, no, like I said, it's temporary. One whole year, though."
"But then you...after the year, you get the...how much?"
Cody got up from the couch and staggered, artfully he thought, to the bar. He dispensed with the glass and just grabbed the bottle of vodka. He held it to his closed lips and tipped it up. He swallowed hard on nothing. He walked back to her, leaned over and held his bleary gaze close to her face, close enough so she'd have to smell the alcohol on his breath.
"84 million dollars," Cody said, annunciating every syllable slowly. Then with a tilt of his head, "Enough to buy a yacht right?"
Monica had gone pale.
She swallowed hard and nodded.
"Yeah," she said faintly. "Yeah, I think that oughta do the trick..." She trailed off, staring into the distance like a combat survivor. She grabbed up her own drink and started drinking and didn't stop until her glass was empty.
"But you can't tell lawyer gal, ok?" Cody straightened up. "She would read me the riot act if she knew I told you," he said, pointing a finger down at her. "She thinks you'll tempt me."
"No, no sure," Monica said, eyes still far away. Then she looked at Cody and asked, like a little girl, "So it's you or charity?"
"That's about the size of it. Me or charity. Something about poor kids in Africa."
"Africa," Monica choked. She looked close to tears. "Dear God."
She took a deep breath and then another before she looked up at Cody. The color slowly returned to her face, and she regained that hungry tiger look in her eyes again.
"Well, sugar," she said. "Tell me more about this yacht."
She grabbed his hand and sat him back down. She laid a hand on his shoulder and placed her chin on her hand. She batted her eyelashes up at him.
Instead of speaking, Cody reached over and kissed her again. She kissed him back, and with renewed vigor. He began moving his hands all over her back and legs.
"I can tell you the first thing I'm doing on that boat!" He met her eyes intently.
"You!" He laughed, and they began kissing furiously again. "We shall bang on the high seas!" he said to the side, like an Olympic swimmer taking a breath. "Like sexy pirates!" Then he dove his face down and began kissing her neck and shoulders. Monica gasped his name, and he unzipped the back of her dress. He tipped her onto her back and their legs intertwined. It was a charade, but his body responded dutifully all the same.
He began to pull the straps of her dress down, and she helpfully shimmied her way backward, exposing her shapely and large, if not God-given, breasts in a black lace bra.
"But I don't think I can wait that long. No way I can go a year."
"Wait! Cody, what about the inheritance?"
Realization was dawning on Monica.
"We can't! Oh my God, you said she would surveil you. Are there private detectives lurking around right now?"
Her face held absolute alarm.
"That's the thing!" Cody smiled brightly. "Yeah, sure the private detectives and all that, but I think that's only if she suspects I'm cheating the deal. But I've been the picture of purity in our meetings. I go to her bible study once a week now
! She can't suspect anything. She actually let on that she thinks she'll discern from the Holy Spirit if I screw up. I vowed before God to be pure, and she thinks I'm scared as she is of all that voodoo. So it's mostly on the honor system now. I just gotta put up a good front."
Monica still looked feverish.
"And speaking of which, I've gone two months without and I'm about to explode, here!"
Cody went to kiss her again, but Monica pushed him away and they both sat up.
"Cody you might not be thinking clearly here. I dunno. I mean what if she really does find out? It's not worth the risk! Africa, Cody. Africa, for crying out loud."
"Ah hell, you believe in her snake charming mumbo jumbo?" Cody said, holding his arms out.
"I don't know," she said. "I went to a Pentecostal church as a kid. Some is just show, but some of it's real. There were ladies there who could read your mail. God spoke to them, I swear it."
"Oh Monica, remember what you did to my nuts, that day in the pool house? Well it's time to kiss them better." He bowed down and they began kissing again. He moved a hand up her stomach onto a breast.
"No Cody, we can't! The risk!"
"That'll make it even hotter!" He leaned her back, buried his face between her breasts and shook it back and forth, whinnying like a horse. He looked up at her and exclaimed,
"Let's make a baby!"
"Well, now hold on there. Cody, it just ain't worth it is all."
"You don't want me?" He relented and sat back on his heels.
"Cody, I would have you six ways to Sunday right now. Believe me."
Cody did believe her. He smiled at that.
"But you are drunk, and you aren't thinking straight. We gotta plan for the future. Don't chance the 84 million dollars. Don't chance your yacht."
"Well, I suppose you're right."
Cody sat back on the sofa, seemingly dejected.
"I just wanted to ring your bell so dang bad. How am I gonna go a whole year without hitting this?" Cody asked, pitifully motioning to the lovely woman before him.
"Well, I'll help," Monica said. She sat herself up and took his arm. Cody could see her gears turning on overdrive, trying to figure out how to get something for the first time in her life by actually extinguishing her sex appeal. She pulled up her dress and zipped up the back.
"I'll make sure we don't have sex," she said firmly.
"But now I want you more than ever," Cody pleaded. "You've awoken this passion inside of me now!"
"Well, you do your best and use ice packs liberally on your special place if you have to. Just try not to think about me."
Cody bit his lip to keep from smiling.
"I'll...I'll dress real modest around you." She stood up and started pacing. "And no more kissing. We'll keep it real chaste."
"Well, how are we gonna be together? Being around you at all makes me so crazy. Every time I think about you, or see you now, it makes me wanna...you know, succumb."
"Well, I'll...I'll...I'll go back to Dallas then! Yeah that's it! We can talk on the phone sometimes."
Before Cody could protest, she continued, "Or maybe we could just email! Whatever we need to keep you controlled."
"Yeah, I suppose...but it's just so far off."
"It will be ok," she said, coming near and cradling his face in her hands. "We'll get through this, together." Though it was motivated entirely by greed, her gentle concern in that moment was almost touching.
Almost.
"Together? You mean it?"
"Of course sugar! It's just a year, and it's part way done already, right?"
"You're right. And now that you're staying chaste with me," Cody widened his eyes and grabbed her on both shoulders, "I really think I might just be able to have the strength."
Her eyes took on a wild, terrified look.
"Well...I...I didn't mean..." She darted her eyes around helplessly looking for a way out.
Cody stood to face her.
"But...sure," she offered hesitantly. "Yes, yes of course that's what I mean. I'm with you all the way, Cody. Pure as dove song."
Cody could have laughed out loud at the expression on her face. Somebody else was pretty fond of the self-love too.
Cody's work here was done.
"I'll meet you on the other side of it, the best man I can be. And you'll have waited for me too. And that thought..."
He squeezed her shoulders and gave her a genuine smile that danced in his eyes.
"That thought is just so beautiful."
Chapter Twenty-Six
Big Tex
"Well hell, boy, I thought you might never call me!"
Big Tex slammed the door of his Cadillac and adjusted a pair of dark sunglasses. Big Tex wore silver cowboy boots, a dark blazer, blue jeans and the same big white Stetson and belt buckle he'd worn the day Cody met him. He extended an arm with a smile and encased Cody's hand in his own. Cody was fairly sure Tex could have crushed his hand to dust if he wanted to.
Cody really needed to start working out.
"Fine day. Fine Day," Big Tex said, turning from side to side. "Fine Dee-cember day. And who are you?"
Ricky extended a wiry forearm. "Ricky," he said.
"Pleased to meet you fella." Tex shook his hand too. "You must be the muscle."
The five-foot-seven, 145 lb Ricky actually laughed out loud at that.
"Just don't make any sudden movements, and we'll all be fine," Cody said.
Tex clapped them on the shoulders and led them away from the parked cars. Their steps crunched over weedy gravel and past some weathered little white flags stuck in the ground that marked the edge of a parking area. Tex stopped them on bare, churned-up earth that stretched for 150 yards until it became patchy grass and forest again. Huge ruts had been dug in the lot by the wheels of construction equipment. Chain link fences leaned precariously, or were already face down on the dirt. Three structures stood in varying degrees of partial construction. The plastic wrap that protected the half-built buildings was torn and dirty.
"Now, I know she don't look like much, but you gotta think possibilities." Big Tex stretched his hands toward the site. "But to understand the possibilities, you gotta understand the state of the world that brings us here."
He turned around to face them again.
"Boys, the world is changing. For decades, the Japanese haven't had an army to speak of. But with the rise of China, those days are over. And Uncle Sam has every interest in helping the Japanese act as a regional buffer to Chinese economic and territorial expansion. You with me so far?"
They both nodded. Ricky pulled out his cigarettes.
"Japan has money, but our government is still helping foot the bill. And those Japanese want the most high tech apparatus, as you'd expect, none of that French or Russian garbage. So, who do you come to when you absolutely, positively got to sink that Chinese Destroyer? You guessed it. Liddel-Northumberland, that's who. So, dealing with Japanese businessmen and government officials is beginning to consume my entire dance card. I have managed ok so far, but you see fellas, these Japanese come to do business as if Japan Airlines was giving out buy-one-get-one tickets. You saw how many guys were there that day at the football game, right? Twelve men! And do you know why Takahashi Holdings needed to send enough men to find me guilty under due process of law?"
Cody looked to Ricky to see if he knew the answer. Ricky just lit his cigarette.
"A Fan. That's right, a fan." Big Tex leaned back a little and pushed his hands downward. "Now, I will admit that it's a rather important fan, for some kinda engine. But still, the thing blows wind."
Tex took a step toward them and said in confidential tones, "I'm no anthropologist, but I have come to find that these Japanese have a Spartan, military nature. I get the feeling they think of business in terms of warfare."
Tex took a breath and his eyes narrowed. "So, I said, well, if it's war, then I gotta go back to the books. You ever read Sun Tzu?"
Cody shook his head.
<
br /> "Art of War!" Big Tex cried out. "Maybe the greatest book on warfare ever written."
"I know it," Ricky said, exhaling smoke.
"So, I started thinking." Tex crouched down like a football coach giving a play. "How do I deal with folks when there is very little middle ground with them? In negotiation, I like to think of a win-win situation. Right? But for them, if you win anything, they lose. There is no win-win. They come here to dominate you. At least these big business fellers do. They believe that there is strength in numbers. And I've come to see it's true."
"What do their numbers do?" Cody asked.
Tex straightened and clapped.
"That's exactly the question! If you got five Japanese techs asking questions of your tech guys, and four lawyers and an accountant hassling over the wording of the deal and then a head honcho to..." Tex trailed off and waved his hands in front of him. "So you see what I'm saying! They're gonna keep us running scattered, expending our resources."
Ricky was nodding along thoughtfully.
"And account management, that's me, we get all flustered trying to meet the needs of wining and dining 12 fellers instead of say, three or four. And then we don't have time to handle the client. You know what I mean, handle?"
"Like make the sale?" Cody tried.
"More or less," Big Tex agreed. "But it's more subtle than that. Subtlety is hard to achieve anyway and it's dang near impossible across such a thick cultural barrier."
"They got you on yer' heels," Ricky said and pulled on his cigarette.
"And that is it." Big Tex snapped his fingers into a fist.
"Now, I've been spinning their plates and hitting most of their volleys back across the net. But I for one am tired of playing defense. I'm a Texan. We don't do defense. Last time was the Alamo, and that didn't work out so well. So, I started thinking of ways I could change the balance. And when I saw their reaction to them teensy friends of yours, well, I got to thinking."
"So, how does that bring us to an abandoned lot in the middle of nowhere?" Cody asked.
"The book says all war is deception," Big Tex said with conviction. "So, If I can divert the interests of my clients, I can neutralize their numerical strength. But to do that, I have to get them out of the office."