by John Oakes
Diego had been teaching Cody how to properly swing a club. Cody couldn't think of a reason not to hit some balls. So he assented, fetched the clubs he'd borrowed from Jason and followed.
Diego took Cody out back again, to the long grassy slope southwest of the buildings that would some day be a performance field for large-scale productions. Diego made idle chitchat about the upcoming football season. Cody didn't hear much of it as he cared little about football and had something else pressing on his mind.
He did the math in his head, trying to figure how much he would earn in the next three months. It was a tidy sum, more than he figured most folks made in years, but nowhere near a million. He repeated the motions of squaring up, waggling the club and then sending the ball out over the field. It was painful, but relaxing. Still, it was hard to outpace the anxieties building in his mind.
"You're clearly more gifted at hitting people than golf balls."
It was not Diego speaking. Cody turned to the voice behind him.
Kelly sauntered up and took the club out of his hand. She squared up, choked up on the grip and sent a ball fifty yards further than Cody's best shot so far.
"Ahuevo! Ouch man!" Diego laughed at Cody. "I'm gonna leave you to it, Homes. But stay outside and enjoy this beautiful day."
Kelly handed the club back to Cody with a grin.
"Where did you learn to do that?" Cody asked.
"The Carsons may not have oil money, Mister, but we know our way around the country club."
"I guess so."
"This is the part where you ask me to put my arms around you from behind and help guide you through your swing."
Cody laughed. "And then would come the part where you'd all of a sudden remember a meeting you had in Siberia, or wherever, and sprint for the hills like I sprouted a second head."
"Maybe you could use a second head."
"Maybe you should be nice." Cody took the club from her and pointed with it. "After nine months of running hot and cold on me, you, ma'am, have a lot of making up to do."
"I believe I'm finally up to the task. Never imagined failure would make a man so suddenly attractive."
"After years of practice, I've turned it into an art form."
Kelly laughed and crossed her arms. She wasn't in work clothes today, opting instead for a sleeveless white blouse and blue jeans. "But it wasn't so easy for me either you know."
"You and your confluence thingy?"
"Conflict, Cody, conflict. You had it right for a while there."
"I was beaten in the head recently. Sorry."
"About that conflict, well, you have a way of making a gal question her foundational principles. Felt like I was being torn in two."
Cody took a swing and sent a ball skidding down the slope. "Damn."
"I went to the hospital last night and made that Tagg fella sign the papers, ceding his shares in the resort to Cody Corp. He didn't look too good. Had to tell the cops that five guys mugged him. Makes me kind of scared of you. But Bad Girl Kelly is kinda hot for Bad Boy Cody."
Cody shot up an eyebrow and shrugged. "Payback's a real bitch, ain't it? How 'bout you don't torture me for two decades, and you got nothin' to worry about from old Cody Latour."
"And it gets better. When I asked him how much you owed him to buy him out, he declined to give a number. Just signed for nothing. Makes sense. In order to prove what he really spent, he'd be providing us with all the documentation we'd need to sue the tar out of him. He's tucking and running."
Cody didn't miss how she said us. What a beautiful word.
Cody considered that. Tagg would take the loss to prevent ruining his reputation at Latour Mining and Oil. Whatever he'd lost to Cody, though large, could be made up in a year or two of salary and bonuses probably, or with other investments.
"Speaking of your enemies, you know, I was thinking that you could have a little fun with Monica. She doesn't know she's got the yearly GDP of a small, third world nation coming her way. You could make her think you gave into temptation in a fit of masturbation that sent you to the hospital. Imagine her panic."
He laughed and shook his head. "The Bad Girl is back indeed! And I like the way she thinks!" He laughed again and sighed. "That would be fun. But I'm ready to push all that out to sea."
"Think she'll be angry at you?"
"She can dry her fake tears with her 42 million dollars."
Numerous charities would benefit too, though, including three his mother had started. Nevertheless, the thought of his grampa's money going to Monica was still revolting.
"What do you think you would have done with all that money anyways?" She asked
"Oh, I don't know. Probably nothing. Or I might have spent it all on stickers and candy. One thing's for sure, Jason would have become absolutely unbearable with all his business ideas for it though."
"You aren't too sad about it I hope."
"I never told you or anyone what was in that second note you gave me at the wedding. It made it clear this wasn't just some exercise in personal growth designed to get me out of the house. It was for real. It was for keeps. And I failed."
"Cody, I—
"Now, now. Don't go and try to make it all better. Them's just the facts. I think I'm coming to see the difference between failing at something and being a failure."
He moved a ball into position with his club.
"And if second prize is everything I see before me," he hit a ball cleanly and watched it rise and fall in a straight line, "then second prize is the best thing that ever happened to me by ten miles."
Kelly smiled and took his arm.
He looked into her happy, sweet face and felt a warm sensation spread over his whole body.
Diego called out and Cody turned to see him walking toward them.
Puzzled, Cody marched in his direction. "What's up man? You sure are acting squirrelly today."
Diego looked up at Cody. "They're ready for you." Something in Diego's usually charming brown eyes was off.
Something was wrong.
"Diego, is everything alright?"
"Sure, sure. I'll just fetch those balls up later. We should go."
Diego led Cody up toward the main house. As they neared, Cody looked left between the main house and the guest suites. He saw more cars in the parking lot, a dozen or two more than he'd seen when he left the kitchen twenty minutes earlier. Cody looked at Diego, but couldn't catch his eye.
They entered through the expansive rear doors and took a left into the dining hall and the hubbub of voices. The room full of people fell hushed, slowly at first, then all at once.
Cody saw some familiar faces scattered about the room. He saw Kevin and his giant brother Murray. He saw Darla from the bar and Ace and Gabriela. He saw a dozen more faces in attendant garb, maintenance uniforms and Cora's kitchen whites. He saw over a dozen more employees who weren't scheduled to work that day and faces he hadn't seen since the day they sold shares in Cody Corp at Darla's.
He saw Jason and Ricky.
He saw TR.
Tommy Ray Gustafson was seated at a table near a lectern at the far end of the dining hall, between Jason and a very small man in a suit who Cody had never seen before. TR was gnawing what looked like beef jerky, and Jason and Ricky were leaned over, quietly exchanging serious conversation.
Cody suddenly felt all eyes in the room turn on him. A sense of eerie dread had been creeping up on him since the moment Diego had called him away from their golfing. Now that dread broke over his head like a summer storm, whipping at him violently, sending freezing rivulets of sweat down his back. Cody remained standing at the back of the room, trying to float backward out of sight.
Winton approached the tall lectern and stepped up on a footstool behind it.
Somewhere a glass was rung with a piece of silverware. Winton held out his hands.
"Yesterday evening, some information came to my knowledge about Cody Latour, president of this resort and primary, though not majority, stoc
kholder in the corporation bearing his name."
Winton paused to let those words sink in around the room.
Winton's eyes found Cody at the back of the room. Then he looked away uncomfortably. Cody shifted on his feet. His hands were clenched.
"It has come to our attention," Winton intoned, "that more or less..." He paused again waving a hand slowly over the crowd. It wasn't like Winton to be lost for words. "...That Mr. Latour has engaged in business with performing little people to resolve a bet with his late grandfather."
"A challenge," TR shouted up through a mouthful of dry beef.
"A challenge," Winton corrected, "whose end was that Mr. Latour should inherit tens of millions of dollars if he succeeded."
Winton's disapproving tone dripped with official significance.
Cody felt his stomach creep up into his throat and his eyes get hot. He had to grit his teeth to prevent his cheeks from quavering.
"I called this meeting of stockholders and staff to discuss this new development, in light of last night's events, and to make a binding vote on this matter, and about Mr. Latour's role in this company."
Glen fetched up the wooden voting box, with its accompanying array of white and black marbles.
"Minutes ago, you were informed of the details of this vote. Please make an orderly line to my left and cast your vote. White for yea, black for nay. The question put to you," Winton took a breath, "is whether or not we, the stockholders, ask Cody Latour to leave Cody Corp."
Cody could only watch in horror as one-by-one, the dozens of people in the room picked up one of the marbles from the tray of their choice and dropped it in the hole cut in the top of the voting box. The marbles made a hollow thudding at first, like the sound of a hammer hitting a nail flush into a coffin lid. After dozens of votes had been cast, Ricky got up and joined the tail of the line, followed by Jason, TR and finally Winton.
Winton retook his place at the lectern and Glen opened the voting box and examined its contents. He nodded up to Winton.
"The vote is Yea. By shareholder vote, Mr. Latour is asked to leave Cody Corp."
Cody hung his head, unable to look anyone in the eye.
TR? What did he do? Why?
Cody sunk into a nearby chair so hard that his momentum almost carried him off the other side.
Cody had to get Winton alone. Maybe he would understand. Maybe Cody could apologize for not telling him before. Maybe it wasn't too late! They could have another vote after Winton explained to them that Cody wasn't such a bad guy. He was just stupid, and—
"Now we must vote on the sum to be offered Mr. Latour in exchange for his 849 shares."
Silence hung over the room, heavy, like a thick blanket.
"One million dollars!" a voice rang out. It was greeted by the same steely silence as before.
"A million and one!" rang out another voice, piercing Cody's eerie dread.
"One million dollars," a female voice rang out.
"One million and one!"
"A cool mil!"
A cacophony of cries and shouts ran over each other, until Winton hushed the crowd, with outstretched hands.
"Very well," he called out. "The vote is to purchase 849 shares in Cody Corp for a million and one dollars." He motioned to Glen, who, this time, brought the voting box to Cody at the back end of the room and set it on his lap.
Once again, each person in the room filed past the voting box, picking up their marble of choice and dropping it into the voting box. Only this time, many of the shareholders smiled at Cody. Some shook his hand. A few said "Thank you." Kevin held up his marble and said, "A cracker ass marble for a big cracker ass cracker," before dropping it in the box.
Jason picked up a black marble and held it over the hole for a second before putting it back and grabbing a white one, dropping it in the box with a deep smirk plastered on his face. TR dropped his white marble, flicking a sheepish glance at Cody. Then came Ricky. Finally, Winton, last in the line, picked up his own white marble and dropped it in the box. He opened it and examining the contents. He motioned for Cody to see the dozens of white marbles for himself.
Cody looked down at the pool of white. He looked back up at Winton, fear still dotting his expression.
Winton held Cody's wide-eyed gaze as he called out to the room behind him.
"Yeas carry it unanimously."
The room broke into cheers and people jumped to their feet.
Winton smiled at Cody and held out his hand.
Cody's hand shook limply in Winton's.
He bowed his head, trying to choke back the tears, but they came unbidden, hot and fast.
Chapter Forty-Five
Sunset
TR and Cody walked out of the Old West Saloon and continued their tour of the resort, that to this point, TR had not yet seen. But all TR could talk about was the duel.
"And man then you like spun in some fuckin' ninja move and cracked that sumbitch good, right in the wing!"
TR spun around in an ungainly attempt to reenact Cody's fight.
"And then, looked like he whapped you in the noggin, and you were tumbling backward like a sack of taters, and I thought you were out, and then you cracked him with that sword and were all..." TR made a pummeling motion with his fists.
"And he was all..." TR rolled his eyes, made his tongue loll out and waggled his head like it was being punched in slow motion.
TR was resplendent in oil-stained jeans, checkered flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off, and a hunter's orange vest draped over his thick, barrel-shaped torso. He was perfect.
Perfect, beautiful, stubborn-ass TR.
"And he was like, like 'Ah I'm a giant fuckin' pussy, ah I'm such a big weenie, ah stop hitting me.'"
TR stopped pretending to be smacked around and smiled big at Cody, breathing hard from his rapid-fire reenactment.
"And then you dragged his ass up to the Japanese guy, like a cat leaving a dead mouse on the doorstep, like a present." TR clapped his burly mitts together. "Oh man. I wish I coulda seen his face right then."
TR and Cody passed by the Old West Town and turned south toward the golf course.
"You were hiding?"
"Yeah, the bushes obscured me."
"Obscured?" Cody reared his had back in surprise. "That's an awfully big word!"
"Oh, I do hope I'm not coming across pedantic," TR said with a sarcastic flourish in his voice. "That means hoity-toity, like," he said matter-of-factly. "Has nothing to do with child molesters."
"What in the..."
"I've been helping one of the Mexican guys at the garage with his English in exchange for beer, and damn if I haven't learned a thing or two myself."
"Well, I'm sure glad you were there to see it. I'm just sorry this silence between us carried on as long as it did. I haven't been angry all this time. It was stupid not to go and say hey to you. I just got super busy, all caught up in everything here."
"Yeah, me either. I heard what you were doing' from Jason and Ricky, and I just couldn't take it anymore. I mean this place was hard enough to resist, but you fighting Tagg with a stick? Come on! I had to see that."
"What did you tell Winton, anyway? I still don't understand what happened."
"Well, I saw you beat him right. And I remember Jason rantin' and ravin' in the car all the way over here about how you was stupid this and a dumbass that and a stubborn ass this and—
"Okay I get the image."
"Well, and he was like 'he's throwing away a half mil,'" TR did an impression of a distraught Jason. "'And he's gonna get his ever-loving skull split open like—
"Okay, okay I get it. Then..."
"Well, I was standing behind them bushes, way down at the end of the Old West street and thinking to myself real hard. Cause, if they was gonna buy you out for near half a mil, then if y'all got Tagg's half, cause you'd won of course..." TR flipped a hand in Cody's direction. "And well if your side would then own the other 49%, that's like right near half, and if you added t
he other half, you'd kinda double what you had before and the double of near 500 is near a million...right?"
"Right," Cody said slowly. After he deciphered TR's garbled explanation of his thought process, he was astonished that TR of all people had been the first one to figure that out.
"And so during all the racket, I just asked for the guy who sorta ran things and someone brought Winton to me, right there by the bushes. And well, I just laid it all out for him." TR shrugged. "I didn't mean to blab or anything either. I thought you woulda told them what was riding on you getting your million so they'd all work harder."
"Would you work harder so someone else could get a ton of money?"
"Oh, well...right. Ok then."
"But all's well that ends well. What was Winton's reaction when you told him?"
"Asked me lots of questions, while he just laughed for five minutes straight and called you a son of a bitch."
They continued their walking tour of the property out to the golf course, or rather the patch of weedy, yellow grass and sunburnt earth that would someday be one.
"This will be a mighty fine place to live when it's all done," TR said. "You could even get one of them gals who brings you beers out to the golf course."
Cody nodded. "It's gonna be grand. I have no doubt. But I guess I won't be living here anymore."
"You're ok with that right?"
"It's ok I think. My head's still spinning."
"Shit, see I didn't know what all this place meant to you. Jason and Winton were all gung ho on buying you out. Ricky seemed concerned about them taking this place away from you."
"What's done is done," Cody said.
"So, if you can't work here, what'll you do next?"
"Well," Cody said, taking in a great deep breath, "one thing I have learned, TR, is that all things are possible." Cody swept an arm to the southeast over the rolling brown earth that stretched out before them. It had taken on a beautiful contrast with the royal blue of the evening sky.