by Simon Toyne
‘So which is it?’ Earl said.
Solomon palmed the coin and slipped it into his pocket. ‘Just drop me off anywhere.’
‘Here? You sure?’
‘Not really.’
Earl eased over to the side of the road and came to a halt in a cloud of fine grit. Solomon opened his door and felt the relief of being released from the tin can of the cab.
‘You sure I can’t take you a little further?’ Earl said. ‘It’s no bother and I feel like I owe you.’
‘No. Thank you. And thank you for the ride.’ He went to close the door then paused. ‘Actually, there is one thing.’
‘Name it.’
‘That roll of cash you made betting on me. Could you maybe spare a dollar of it?’
Earl shook his head and smiled. ‘Son, I made so much on that crazy bet I’ll give you twenty.’
Chapter 7
The sun was starting to slide down the sky like butter in a hot pan by the time the lunchtime crowd dwindled and Rita finally had a moment to herself. She stood spooning coffee into the machine, thinking that this was about the last time she would ever do it, the last time she would wait for the school bus to drop Asha off outside, the last time a member of her tribe would walk across this scrap of land and call themselves the owner.
She set the coffee brewing then sat at the counter, stretching her back and rolling her feet to get the blood flowing. Just a few more hours and she would close forever. She had told the regulars she would not be running the evening shift, too much to do, too much to sort out. So this was it, her final shift, possibly ever. She wouldn’t miss standing up all day or the smell of grease she could never entirely wash from her hair.
She looked out at the parking lot where the school bus would be pulling up any minute now. Her car was parked right outside, a 1986 Buick Electra station wagon with over two hundred thousand miles on the clock, its hood lifting up like a dog sniffing the air because everything she owned in the world was packed inside and pushing down hard on the back axle. Thirty-four years of a life squeezed into the back of a station wagon. She’d had one of the regulars check it over in exchange for an extra slice of pie and he’d said it was good for another two hundred thousand miles providing she didn’t drive it too hard.
As soon as the place was sold she was going to get in that car, turn on a top forty station and hit the road. She didn’t plan on stopping until they came across somewhere green and healthy and full of life. Somewhere she could put down roots and watch her daughter grow. Somewhere the exact opposite of Broken Promise, Texas. All she needed was a little stake money. The guide price on the diner and attached land was fifty thousand dollars, though the auctioneer said it might make more.
Fifty thousand dollars.
Not much for her ancestral homeland. Twice that amount would be better. Some of the regulars said they’d happily give her that just to keep everything exactly the way it was, but talk was cheap and, sweet as they were, she couldn’t spend kind words and compliments. They were all of them dreamers, staking their futures on the lottery, or scratch cards, or on making one big score somewhere down the line. She’d been doing the same thing for long enough, hoping the tourists might start coming back, or some big oil company would come along and buy her out so they could re-open the gas station. Her father had similar dreams. After they’d built the casino on the old reservation lands he’d tried to have their land officially designated as ancestral land. She’d found the rejection letter when putting all the legal documents together for the auction.
‘Indian ancestral lands must be historically proven and ratified by either Federal decree or by other legally recognized sovereign power.’
Rita looked across at the photograph of the petroglyphs. The stranger had said it recorded an agreement between her ancestor and Cabeza deVaca, an envoy of the King of Spain. A sovereign power. Then again he’d also claimed a coin worth twenty-five cents was worth a hundred bucks, so his word wasn’t exactly scripture. But if there was any truth in what he said, anything at all, it would certainly be worth knowing, even if just to tell the auctioneer so he could maybe boost the price a little.
She pulled her phone from her pocket, opened a browser and typed in Rosetta of the Plains, the weak data signal creating a dramatic pause before the results came back.
‘Damn,’ Rita whispered when she saw how many results came back. There were pages of them. Pictures too. She clicked on one and the slow internet made her wait again while a photograph slowly sharpened on the screen to reveal a large cave covered with thousands of petroglyphs. A blonde woman with cornflower-blue eyes stood smiling in the foreground, the caption beneath identifying her as Doctor Andrea Thompson from the University of Colorado.
‘Damn,’ Rita muttered again. It was the name the stranger had given her, the person he said could prove what he’d claimed was true.
She Googled the University of Colorado, tapping her foot impatiently while the results loaded, then hit the top link and continued to tap while the home page loaded. She scrolled down, searching for a contact number for Doctor Thompson. The bell above the door jangled and she looked up expecting to see her daughter. It wasn’t Asha. It was Daryl Meeks, carrying a briefcase and accompanied by a man in a grey suit that had ‘attorney’ written all over it.
‘Hey Reet, got a minute?’ Meeks said, gesturing towards his favourite booth.
‘Sure,’ Rita said. She got up, feeling the pain of the day in her feet, and walked over to join them, closing her phone as she went so Meeks wouldn’t see what she’d been looking at.
Chapter 8
Meeks smiled at Rita as she sat down and it made her feel uncomfortable. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him smile before and his face looked like it was hurting from the effort.
‘Got something of a proposition for ya.’ He laid the briefcase on the table between them and ran his hands over the top of it.
Rita looked at the briefcase then up at the man in the grey suit.
‘This here’s Nate Prime,’ Meeks said. ‘He’s what you might call a business associate. Helps me out from time to time with the legal side of my business. Purchases and leases and whatnot.’
Rita nodded. ‘A lawyer.’
The man in the suit smiled and displayed a row of shark white teeth. ‘Estates attorney,’ he said, handing Rita a card which read:
Prime Estates
Nathaniel Prime – Partner at Law
Rita put the card down on the table next to her phone. ‘What’s the proposition?’
Meeks’s smile widened. ‘Well, as you may know, I’ve expressed an interest in purchasing your little spread here.’
Rita nodded. ‘You and a few others.’ She nodded at the briefcase. ‘Is your interest in here?’
The smile continued to split Meeks’s face. ‘Well now, you just get right to the point, don’t ya?’
‘I got coffees to refill and trash that won’t take itself out, so if you want to make me an offer, let’s hear it.’
The smile fell a little. Rita wasn’t sure if it was because Meeks’s face wasn’t used to it or he didn’t like being told what to do, especially by a woman. Either way she didn’t care.
‘You want to sell,’ Meeks said. ‘I want to buy. Now we could wait till morning and see what happens at the auction. Maybe you’ll get a good price, maybe not. What I’m proposing is to take the guesswork out for everyone and make what we call a pre-emptive offer.’
‘How much?’
‘Nate here has already drawn up the paperwork.’ The man in the grey suit reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. ‘So if we can agree a price all I’d need is your signature and we can shake hands and avoid the uncertainty of an auction.’
‘How much?’ Rita repeated.
‘I believe the guide price for this here lot has been set at fifty thousand dollars.’
Rita shrugged. ‘Just a guide.’
‘Ms Treepoint,’ the lawyer leaned in, picking up the conversation. �
��I don’t know how much experience you have of property auctions. Truth is, the guide price is exactly as stated, only a guide. Now I’ve been to hundreds of auctions, thousands even, and seen the hammer drop on final bids of a few hundred thousand dollars on properties with guides of a million or more.’
‘I bet you’ve seen things go for twice and three times as much too.’
The lawyer held his smile. ‘As a general rule the guide price sits about right. A good auctioneer will start things a little below the guide and hope to drive the price so it finishes somewhere above it. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it don’t. Now I would say the guide on this property is a shade on the optimistic side, given the current market and the fact you got an old gas station out there to contend with. Lot of extra expense to deal with ground decontamination, decommissioning the old tanks and what have you. Hell, there’s state law a foot thick needs to be satisfied on that kind of thing, and that’s bound to put off a whole bunch of potential buyers.’
Rita looked back at Daryl Meeks. ‘But not you?’
Meeks opened his hands. ‘What can I say, I like a challenge, and I’m kind of attached to this old place, all of which is to say that I might be prepared to take it on, if the price is right.’
Rita stared at him. He was a real type, one of those good ole boys who came in here and liked to hear his own voice and boss her around because she wore a waitress uniform.
‘I’ve asked you three times now,’ she said, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice. ‘So unless you’re going to tell me the figure you got in mind we’re done here, my daughter’s going to be back from school any minute and I need to fix her some dinner.’
Meeks lifted the lid of the briefcase. It was full of money, neatly bound crisp notes fresh from the bank. Fifties in thousand-dollar bundles. Sixty in all.
‘Sixty thousand cash,’ Meeks said, keeping his voice low and the briefcase angled away from the room so only Rita could see it. ‘You can buy your daughter a whole lot of fancy dinners with that kind of money.’
Rita stared at the bundles of notes. It didn’t look like much, just a few stacks of paper, but if she said the number in her head it seemed much bigger. Sixty thousand dollars would be enough to put a down payment on a decent place and leave a little for living. It was their ticket out of here. A new beginning. Lying on the table in front of her.
‘Now that there’s a fair offer,’ Meeks said. ‘More’n fair. And all you have to do is sign these papers and it’s yours.’
The lawyer placed the envelope down on the table next to Rita’s phone just as it buzzed and the screen lit up with a text message. The website for the University of Colorado was clearly visible behind it. Rita snatched up the phone, hoping Meeks hadn’t seen. The message was from one of her regulars.
Good Luck with the sale. Sorry I couldn’t make it for one last bowl of chilli. Keep in touch. RoadHog <3
‘Heading to college?’ Meeks said.
Rita felt her face flush. He had seen the website on her phone. So he knew she’d been looking and he’d also know why. She looked at the case full of money, more money than she’d cleared in the last three years of constant work and worry. All she had to do was sign a piece of paper and it would be hers.
‘Why now?’ she said. ‘Why show up with a case full of cash the evening before the auction? The notice went up over a month ago.’
Meeks shrugged. ‘I needed some time to consider my offer. Do some background checks, draw up the paperwork.’
‘But why not make the offer earlier when you stopped by for lunch? What changed?’
‘Nothing. Nothing changed.’
The lawyer leaned in. ‘An offer’s only an offer until the cheque clears.’ He smiled and it reminded Rita of the tiles in the men’s room. ‘This here’s not an offer, it’s a serious declaration of intent to buy. Sign the papers and you won’t have to wait for anything. You can be gone whenever you want. Off to your new life and with a comfortable amount of cash in your pocket.’
Rita looked back down at the cash. ‘That won’t fit in my pocket.’
‘Keep the case,’ Meeks said, a hard edge creeping into his voice.
‘Can I think about it?’
‘No.’ Meeks brought his hand down flat on the table and a few heads turned in their direction. He waited until they’d turned back again before continuing in a low voice. ‘This here’s a one-time offer. You accept it right now or I walk away and we’ll just have to see what happens tomorrow at the auction.’
Rita saw the stiffness around his jaw that showed he was clenching it. He was losing patience and finding it hard to hide it.
‘You know I get salesmen in here all the time trying to get me to buy all kinda things – water coolers, insurance, new filters for the fryers. They always got some special discount, some deal they can only give me if I sign there and then. So I’m wondering to myself, is that why you showed up with this money right now? Dazzle the poor brown girl with a whole pile of silver then threaten to take it away if she don’t sign something right now. Let me tell you something, Daryl.’ She leaned in and spoke low. ‘I ain’t some trembling squaw can be bought for a blanket and a bucket of beads.’
The bell jangled again and Rita turned to see her daughter walk in, her school bag sagging heavy on her back.
‘Go sit at the counter,’ Rita said. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’
Asha looked at Meeks and the lawyer in the suit then moved away, passing through the hatch in the counter and heading for the iced-water jug.
‘Think about your daughter,’ Meeks whispered. ‘Think about Asha and what this money could mean for her. How old is she now, seven? Eight?’ He reached across the table, picked up Rita’s phone and pressed a button to make the screen light up with the website for the University of Colorado. ‘You want to risk all that to go chasing something some roadside conman said about what might be written in those caves?’
‘Give me my phone back.’
Meeks smiled. ‘Sure.’ He laid it down on the table next to the envelope. ‘Listen, Rita. You want to leave this place. I’m just offering you the ticket. Now, you can sell to me right now for what is a very fair price, or you can sell it to me tomorrow for who knows what – maybe more, probably less.’
Meeks sat back and folded his arms like he thought he was holding all the cards. People like him always did. People with money. They always thought everything can be bought. But he was wrong.
‘You can’t buy this place if I withdraw it from auction,’ Rita said.
She saw something harden in his eyes. ‘Now why would you go and do a thing like that?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe this place is undervalued. Maybe you think that too, which is why you showed up with your case full of cash and your cheap sales routine. Either way, my response to your offer is “No”. Now if you gentlemen ain’t planning on ordering anything you can hit the road, because I’m fixing to close up pretty soon. Careful the door don’t hit you on the ass on your way out.’
Chapter 9
Solomon stepped into the casino and experienced the same kind of nausea he felt whenever he got into a car. He stood for a moment, adjusting to the barn-like room, the beep and chatter of the slot machines, the smell of greed and overstimulation, of hickory smoke barbecue sauce, of adrenaline and sweat and low-level depression. It was a twilight place, unnatural, disconnected, the only brightness coming from gaudy light displays and the frantic flicker and shimmer of slot machines hypnotizing the passing people and drawing them in like moths. It seemed extraordinary to him that anyone would voluntarily spend time in this plastic environment when outside the sky was so big and boundless, and the air so rich and fresh. He searched his memory for some recollection of ever having been in a place like this before but drew a blank. If he had he couldn’t remember.
He moved further into the room past a circular bar with low lighting that made it feel forever midnight. The clientele clustered around it reminded Solomon
of the people back in the diner: same clothes, same body types. Only the men here were sipping cocktails through tiny straws or sucking the foam off cold beers while pretty women in cocktail dresses pressed close and laughed at whatever they said.
He headed deeper into the casino, past the roulette wheels, the craps and the blackjack tables, the poker huddles, the blue baize tables like bright pools of water and the players like cattle come to drink. He did a full circle of the room, his mind shimmering with information about each game being played, the rules, the ways to cheat and the risks associated. He also read the people, the drunk and reckless gamblers and the cautious ones too. But mostly he looked at the dealers.
He finished his circuit, swapped his twenty-dollar bill at a cashier’s window for four five-dollar chips then headed back to the blackjack pit, riffling them in his hand, the hard plastic click lost amid the constant chatter of slot machines. The percentage play was to take things steady, bet small, risk little, and increase his meagre stake steadily. But even with the absence of clocks in this timeless place Solomon could feel time passing. He should be heading to Galveston right now, thirty or forty miles further up the road. But Rita had done him a favour. She could easily have blown his story about the bicentennial quarter and kicked him out, disgraced and hungry. But she hadn’t and he wanted to pay her back, not just for the meal but also for her kindness. And for that he wanted to give her something of real value if he could. He figured if he could finish here quickly and head back up the road to the diner before evening he could catch another ride east and easily make up what time he’d lost. He sat down at a five-dollar-minimum-bet table, the lowest he could go, and placed his stack of four chips in front of him. He had twenty dollars and a plan but not a great deal of time. He would have to take risks. Four chips. Four chances.
The dealer gathered the cards and chips from the previous deal and smiled at him. ‘Hi,’ he said, ‘my name’s Ryan. Welcome to the game, sir.’