by John Oakes
They stood in total darkness for long moments, while Ricky brushed past them and bustled about. Cody heard a light switch chord being yanked. A dim greenish light flickered to life. Cody looked around, absolutely speechless. After a moment of stunned silence, Jason spoke in a reverential whisper.
"Mother of God."
Cody examined the dimly lit room, which seemed incredibly bright compared to the abject dark of a moment ago. He stood just inside the door. To his right and left were metal shelving units against the walls. Their shelves held 5-gallon buckets with masking tape labels across their lids and sides. The labels read "beans," "rice," "tapioca," "margarine," and other foodstuffs. There were olive green metal ammunition boxes that read "5.56mm," ".308 NATO" and "7.62mm armor piercing" in yellow stencil on their sides.
Also on the shelves were radios and other electronics, some of whose wires were exposed in disarray. There were armored vests and chemical suits and gas masks and MREs. On the far wall, ten feet away, a sheet of plywood stood upright behind a long trestle table, bristling with hooks and pegs. From those hooks and pegs hung a tactical shotgun, two hunting rifles, a sniper rifle with the biggest scope Cody had ever seen, a small-bore shotgun, a 12-gauge shotgun and a rifle with a Mannlicher stock that looked like it had seen a world war. The right side held a dozen or more pistols, one of which Cody could have sworn was an Uzi. Some of the weapons, he recognized from movies and video games, a couple, Cody was sure had once belonged to his grandfather. But many of them were new to him.
The rack was tall but the guns only went as low as the long trestle table that ran the width of the locker. The table held what looked like a half finished science project with wires and parts of a remote control or maybe a cell phone strewn about.
"Ricky..." Cody was lost for words. "What the hell is this place?"
"This?" Ricky looked from side to side. "This is Plan B."
Underneath the table sat a wide, black safe. Ricky knelt under the table and began fiddling with it.
"If the day ever comes, and I'm not here, the combo is the area codes furthest north and south plus the code you used to get in."
Cody nodded and moved forward to look at the next set of metal bookcases. There were knives and canned goods, hand tools and plastic sacks full of prescription bottles. He also saw duct tape, car parts, and cartons upon cartons of cigarettes. Bandoliers sat folded up, filled with shotgun, rifle and pistol ammunition. The whole scene was like something Cody had only seen in action movies.
Cody heard the metallic CLUNK of the safe door and looked down. Ricky began rifling through the contents. He laid something that looked like long straps of condom packages on the table above his head. They landed not with the soft sound of latex, but with a loud clatter. The condoms inside their snaking shrink-wrap shone brightly in the greenish light.
Gold! Dozens of gold coins!
Rick worked quickly. He slammed a brick shrink-wrapped in black plastic on the table next to the gold coins, then another. He grabbed the long snaking package of gold coins off the table and placed them back into the safe. He closed the door with a heavy sound and locked it by pulling the outside handle up to horizontal.
Ricky got up, grabbed a block in each hand and turned to Cody. He held them up and waggled them slightly.
"I'll take 200 shares."
He handed Cody fifty thousand dollars in cash, like a mother handing her son his lunch money.
"Remember the safe. North and South."
Chapter Thirty
February
Cody could not imagine how people who lived in places that had winter ever managed to get anything done. A Texas winter, this far south at least, was more or less just a short reprieve from the bugs and the oppressive heat. Cody was thankful for this now that he was living so close to that hellish swamp flat called Houston. But mostly he was thankful that the sleet, snow and frozen ground that would have prevented construction in most of the U.S. did not apply to him.
God Bless Texas, indeed.
Cody got up from his cot, and unpinned a piece of plastic from the wood frame wall. He peered through the corner of what one day would be a large, luxurious window, but today was simply a place where the pressboard and the 2x4 framing left a rectangle of open air. Cody surveyed the front lawn and white gravel circle drive that led to the main house of the resort. When he had first arrived with Tex, months ago, there had been no grass and the main house had looked like a bombed out ruin. The building Cody was sleeping in hadn't existed at all.
The main hall was taking shape now, having already progressed from its bare bones to a beautiful white centerpiece. Its sweeping lines and geometric turns were a beautiful melding of Spanish colonial and modern design. The front of the building was slightly curved, enfolding the newcomer and the rounded parking lot like welcoming arms.
Cody's own quarters were still a mess of exposed wiring and insulation pads, wood framing and plastic sheeting. But he loved it. He thought of those old western movies where people on trains start ripping apart the wooden cars to feed the fires and keep the train going. This was somehow the exact opposite. Cody was living inside a growing thing and was an active participant in its creation.
He got dressed in a pair of dirty cargo pants and a laundered, long-sleeved t-shirt that was still irreparably stained by paint. He pulled a heavy-laden tool belt off a nail sticking from a beam and buckled it on. Then he slipped his feet into a pair of steel-toed work boots and knelt to lace them up.
He held up his phone and considered his features reflected in its unlit screen. He looked scruffy as hell, but there was nothing to do about it. He grabbed a navy blue beanie off the small table by the door and pulled it snuggly over his unkempt head as he walked out.
Two hours later, Cody was twenty feet in the air, perched on wood framing where two great beams came together in a corner. The high-pitched whir of his power drill sounded as he drove a screw into place where it would help hold up a ceiling joist. He reached for the next screw, but it slipped from his fingers and bounced off the beam he was standing on down to the ground far below. Not far from where the screw hit the ground, a figure in red caught his eye.
Down below was a small man wearing a red t-shirt that read "Sexual Dynamo" in big white letters.
"Winton!"
"Well, hey there, Mr. Workman. Getting dirty with the peasants I see."
Cody returned a wry smile. "They need their betters to keep them in line, don't they?"
A workman on a nearby beam shouted down to Winton. "More like slowing us down!"
"You shut your mouth Joel," Cody said playfully, "or I'll tell Pedro it was you what stole his Gatorade."
The much older Pedro turned around on the other side of the building and gave Joel a not-so-playful look. Cody tittered and scampered down the framing. He hopped to the ground, took off a work glove and offered Winton his hand.
"Well, this is a treat," Cody said. "Haven't seen you in weeks."
"I was just heading home for a visit," Winton said, pointing East toward New Orleans, "and figured...since I was in the neighborhood."
He led Winton to the main hall. "High time you checked in on us."
"Hey just 'cause I'm not wearing a cute little tool belt doesn't mean I'm not working."
"That's not what I meant."
"I'm a Chief Operating Officer now. I'm a very important man, I'll have you know. I still don't know exactly what that means, but I'm pretty sure it includes not having to take lip from the manual labor."
"Fuck off," Cody said with a laugh.
Cody opened the ornate glass door of the main house and held it open for Winton. He watched him intently as he took in the expansive lobby with its pillars and counters and lounge seating.
"Swanky!"
"That was the idea. This hallway leads down to the dinning hall on the left and the kitchen on the right."
Winton peeked his head into the kitchen and barked a laugh.
"The world's two foot lower! Fi
nally, our utopia!"
"State of the art. It's all commercial stuff. We just modified it for use by our staff." Practically nothing in the gleaming kitchen came up higher than Cody's chest.
"That is a wonderful sight."
"Jean Baptiste, JB, our chef, he broke down in tears when we showed it to him. I mean the guy designed the dang thing, but when he actually saw it for the first time...he'd been dreaming it up in his head for years...he just plain lost it."
"Our chef, is he..."
"He's a small guy yeah. He's from Belgium. You can call him a midget or a dwarf or a sack of shit. Just don't call him French."
"Humans and our fragile identities."
"Oh, and he is a bit of a prick. Just so you know."
"Chefs can be prima donnas. They're like an old-timey ship captain. They have total power and are therefore subject to a bit of a god complex at times. Glen found him you said?"
"Yeah. Apparently Glen is hooked up in the service world. And he speaks French!"
"Eh, I'm not surprised."
Before Cody could ask why, Winton crossed the hall into the dining room. They exited from the dining hall into the weak sunshine outside. Winton looked far out and scrunched up his mouth. "You think that golf course could be more of an eyesore? It looks like an artillery practice range."
"It ain't pretty, but it's kind of out of sight. And you gotta keep the vision. Someday we'll make it pretty."
Winton peered up at him. "Look at you talking about vision and shit."
Cody shrugged and led him onto the grass where Raul was laying sod with his crew.
"Winton, this is Raul. He's basically family."
"We met at the football game," Raul exclaimed. "Hi Winton." Raul waved a dirty, gloved hand.
Winton nodded back. "Remind me to never let Cody make me family. Looks like a shitty deal."
"Don't worry. For me laying sod is like making love."
"Ah gross!" Cody said. "I'm never going to look at grass the same way."
"Well, just keep your gloves on lover boy," Winton said. "You don't know where that sod has been."
"Actually, I do. I grew it myself."
"Okay, this discussion just got way too weird." Cody turned right and walked toward the guesthouses under construction. "That is the primary guesthouse," Cody nodded in the direction of the building just west of the main hall, the one he had been working on. The sound of hammers and saws could be heard from inside, where the finishing touches were being put on the finer rooms for VIPs and executives. "It's nearly finished. Should be finishing the second guest house soon, and we break ground on worker digs next week." Cody pointed back to the east, on the other side of the main hall.
"Look and despair, all ye mighty," Winton said. "You had lunch yet?"
G. Williker's was the bar and grill where Cody and Ricky waited for Jason to arrive on the day they'd first met with Tex, back in December. Winton and Cody sat down in a booth for an early lunch.
"So, everything is going perfect. Why do you have that sad puppy dog look?"
"What look?" Cody demanded. "It's just my face."
"What is it? A girl?"
Cody bent his mouth to one side. "I don't have a look on my face. Let's get that clear." He leveled a finger. "But...there is a girl."
"Oooooh! Goodie." Winton clapped his hands together repeatedly. "Tell Uncle Winnie all about her." He did a little dance in his seat.
"She's a lawyer." Cody stopped himself from mentioning his Grandfather's estate or his challenge. Winton would probably understand, but Cody didn't feel like chancing it.
"A lawyer? Where did you meet a lawyer?"
"A wedding," Cody said, telling a version of the truth. "And yes, she is way out of my league."
"In what way?"
"She is beautiful and everything. But more than that, she just has it all together, man. She's smart, organized, she doesn't put her foot in her mouth every five seconds. She's basically my polar opposite."
"Opposites attract, my friend."
"Tell her that."
"So, she doesn't like you back? Not that I'm surprised." Winton winked.
"That's the problem. I think she does, or something...maybe. It's like there is this invisible pull between us. The air tingles and...but I can't tell if that's mutual or just me being a creepoid. Things will be going great and then she says she has to leave."
"Hmmm. Do you make her laugh?"
"Yeah," Cody said. "I suppose."
"Why does she leave?"
"That's just it. I can't figure it out. If I say dumb stuff, she doesn't bolt at that. She always leaves right when I get her laughing, right when we're having a good time. It's so frustrating."
Winton considered that. Then his eyes narrowed. "At this wedding, did she have a date?"
"No. Pretty sure she came and left alone."
"Does she date much?"
Cody thought on that. "No clue, really. I think she might be a married-to-her-work type."
"But she spends time with you?"
"Well, it's business related, but yeah. She's had coffee with me, even lunch once, but never like a date. It's always kind of uncomfortable."
"How so?"
"She, umm, she works for a family member. She says it's a conflict of interest to date me."
"Well, shit. You fell for an impossible woman. But I guess that's more common than not."
"What do I do, man? I suck with stuff like this to begin with."
"Well, it doesn't sound like she is disinterested. It sounds like she has a guard up."
"A guard?"
"Yeah," Winton said, miming an invisible wall, "People can be afraid to let anyone in, for many reasons. She leaves when things are getting good, when she is feeling things she is afraid to feel."
Kelly was giving him mixed signals because she liked him? Cody had to admit, it gave him hope, even if he didn't fully believe it.
"You got two options then. 'Kool-Aid Man' or 'Trickle'."
"Say what now?"
Winton held out his hands. "You can either blast through her bubble the way the Kool-Aid Man used to bash through walls in those commercials when we were young. But in so doing, you might crash in too hard and spook her."
Winton moved his hands gently back and forth in a swaying motion, the way he did in his magic act. "Or you can be like the small, steady stream of water," Winton said softly. "Given enough time, it wears even the largest stones to nothing." Winton took a sip of water. "But the downside is it could take longer than you have. And you could find yourself firmly in the friend zone."
Cody's phone rang. He picked it up off the table. It was an unknown number. He didn't answer and looked back up at Winton.
"So what's it gonna be?" Winton asked. "Kool-Aid Man or Trickle?"
Chapter Thirty-One
The Bail Out
Cody arrived at Fayette County Courthouse completely puzzled.
When he had listened to the voicemail, he was surprised to hear Kelly's voice. Her tone was small and almost sweet. She had slowly given him explicit instructions and then repeated them, as if she were explaining to a child the evacuation procedure in the event of a fire. Cody had left Winton and driven twenty minutes to La Grange and the county courthouse there. He entered the building, went through security, and looked for the counter marked "Bail and Restitution."
He approached the empty counter and rang the small bell. Soon a short, curvaceous black woman in a black sweater vest and blue uniform shirt exited a room behind the window and came to his aid.
"You bailing someone out?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Name?"
"Mine or the person I'm bailing out?"
"The prisoner, sir," the woman said in a tired tone.
"I don't actually know."
"You don't know the name of the person you came to bail out?" Her tone had changed from tired to amazed and irritated.
"No. I'm here for a friend, a lawyer who asked me to come here."
&nbs
p; "What's the lawyer's name?"
"Kelly Carson. Do you know her?"
"No, I do not know Kelly Carson," she said. But instead of giving him an aggravated look, the woman typed something into a computer.
"Well, why didn't you just say so? Kelly Carson. Bail is set at $3,500. You prepared to pay that?"
"Kelly's in jail?"
The woman gave a wide-eyed shrug.
"Do you take Visa?"
"Damn right we do."
Because the amount was over $500, something Cody had rarely ever spent in a day, he reached in his wallet and handed her his black credit card, the one with no limit. The woman's eyes shot up as she took it. She cradled it in both her hands. For the first time she smiled. "A black card? I've only heard about these. Why Mr. Latour," she said looking at his name on the card and then up at him, "We haven't been properly introduced. I'm Lucy. Do you happen to like large women?"
"Sorry. I sorta have a thing for the gal I'm bailing out."
Her face went sour again. She swiped his card and handed it back to him. "She a skinny white woman?"
"Yeah," Cody said, guiltily.
She handed him a receipt with a suggestive look. "Mmmhmmm," she intoned. "When are you boys gonna learn?"
Cody made to walk away, then he stopped and turned back. "I got a friend though. Real pretty. And he owns a Lexus."
"Is that so?"
"Yes ma'am."
"He buy it new or pre-owned?"
Cody drew his lip down, "Ehhhm, pre-owned?"
She waved him away and walked away into the back room.
Cody waited outside the processing bay of the county jail, which sat behind the courthouse. Finally, Kelly emerged with her coat over an arm and her purse in her hands. She walked up to Cody sheepishly, unable to make eye contact. She searched for words, but none came. She looked close to tears.
Cody stepped up and hugged her stiffly. He released her and she sniffed and straightened herself.
"You need a meal?" he asked.
"I need a shower with a firehose."
"Now that is a highly erotic image."