One Rule - No Rules

by Lawrence Ambrose

  It wasn't nearly so clear here, she thought with a regretful shake of her head. A South Dakota cop was usually a decent guy who went home to his loving family every night. Sheriff Martson might be a pushy asshole, but he was probably also an okay person who didn't deserve to be gunned down because he was fucking annoying.

  As the police SUV finally rumbled away in the direction from which it had come, Thalma thought suddenly of Louis, who was walking back from that same direction. It would be just her – and his – luck to encounter the nosy sheriff. Nothing to do now but get the dinner going, she thought. Though by the time Louis finished his walk and his thinking, he might not even stay for dinner.

  But when Louis sauntered in twenty minutes later, and the steaks were sizzling on the grill, his first words were, "Man, that smells incredible!"

  "You didn't run into Sheriff Martson?"

  "I saw him from a distance and got off the road. Why - was he just here?"

  "Yeah. He stopped by after chasing someone speeding on a motorcycle."

  "Oh, shit," Louis chuckled. "But he didn't catch you, I take it."

  "Nope." She flipped the steaks. "How do you like yours?"

  "Medium rare."

  "There's beer in the fridge, if you want some."

  "I could definitely use one after that walk. You want one?"

  "Yup."

  He returned with the beers, and dropped down in one of the chairs on the deck.

  "Man, that tastes good," he said after a long swig. "So what did the sheriff say to you?"

  "He asked about the motorcycle, and then made threatening noises about your allegedly upcoming trial and my connection to you."

  Thalma popped open her beer bottle and plunked down beside him. It was the perfect late-afternoon summer day, she thought. A blue jay was doing Soc's job – chasing a red squirrel through the branches of a tree – while a cardinal settled on a nearby limb. She liked cardinals. Something indisputably in your face about their redness.

  "I'm sorry I got you into all this," said Louis. "Did you ever wish you could go back and just drive past me out on that road?"

  "Not so far."

  "I'm not sure I'm cut out for this, Thalma."

  She drank her beer and watched the cardinal hop from branch to branch over the guest house.

  "I want you to know something," he said. "I will never kill another human being, no matter what."

  Thalma got up and moved her steak onto the plate on the grill sideboard.

  "Man, you barely cooked yours," he said.

  "I like some blood in my meat."

  "Why am I not surprised?"

  She dropped back down beside him, and lifted her beer. The cardinal flew away, but a hummingbird hummed up to the red feeder hanging from one end of the deck.

  "You wouldn't kill someone in self-defense?" she asked.

  "I don't think so."

  "Not even to protect someone you love?"

  Louis grimaced. "I don't know. Maybe you could think of an exception, but I'm not going to shoot anyone under any normal circumstances – not to stop a cop from arresting me, that's for sure."

  "I can accept that," she said.

  "Really?" He raised a skeptical brow.

  "Yes. Do you think I want a killer without a conscience for a partner?"

  "Have you ever killed anyone?"

  Thalma finished her beer and set it on the deck. She rocked to her feet and slid the second steak onto the plate.

  "Ready to eat?" she asked.

  "You didn't answer my question."

  "Yes."

  "But you said you'd never killed anyone in this line of work."

  "That's true. It wasn't in this line of work."

  "What line of work was it?"

  Thalma gave a sharp shake of her head.

  "You're telling me all your secrets," said Louis. "Why not that?"

  "I'll tell you about it some other day," she said. "Assuming you'll be sticking around for another day."

  She brought out plates with the artichokes, potatoes, and silverware. Louis cut into his steak.

  "Perfect," he said. "Man, I'm starving."

  They ate in silence for a while. Socrates padded up onto the deck and sat down a polite distance away, peering out into the yard as if it were far more interesting than the T-bone steaks perfuming the air.

  "You have a well-mannered dog," said Louis. "Even if it seems like he could disembowel you by looking at you."

  Thalma smiled. "Disemboweling you isn't what he's interested in."

  "He wants the steak, doesn't he?"

  "It's his favorite food."

  "But he's not begging. He's not even looking at us."

  "It's not in his nature to beg. And he learned as a puppy that being nearby and even looking at me while I eat guarantees he'll get none of it."

  "Smart dog."

  "Smarter than a lot of people I've known."

  A red-tailed hawk swooped in and landed at the top of a tall oak bordering the backyard. A pair of crows landed in the same tree, squawking at it in protest.

  "It's nice out here," said Louis. "So if we do this partnership thing, where would I be staying?"

  Thalma nodded to the guest house – a structure roughly the size of a double garage perched next to the driveway and an actual garage.

  "The people who owned it before me built it for an elderly parent, I think," she said. "Judging from the framed quilting patterns on the walls – which you'd be welcome to take down, by the way. It has pretty much everything - kitchen, gas heater, refrigerator, washer and dryer. Even a basement."

  "Cool."

  "I was thinking of using it for something, but I never thought of the right thing, so it's basically the same as the person who lived there before left it."

  "What would my salary or whatever be? I mean, you know, roughly speaking."

  "I was thinking one thousand a week, either in cash or a corporate check, or in some combination. Depends how legitimate you want to appear."

  "I've been wondering what you do with all the cash."

  "There are a lot of layers. I own shares in dozens of legitimate businesses in the U.S. and Canada – along with a bit over one hundred houses and buildings - purchased from what you would call 'shell companies' which I own, though not in my name. I have thirty-two different offshore bank accounts, which invest in stocks, precious metals and gems, and other money instruments here and abroad."

  Louis's brow furrowed. "How the heck do you control all that?"

  "I have people who manage the corporations, whose names appear as the owner or director. They have some leeway in their investments, though I dictate some of them – including payouts – and they must ultimately account for the money and investment decisions to me."

  "What if they just take the money and run, or lie to you about the returns or invest it in bullshit and lose your money?"

  Thalma laughed. "You sure you weren't majoring in business instead of engineering?"

  "God, no. But as I said, I'm pretty good with basic logic."

  "The answer is that when I suspect someone of theft or 'malfeasance,' I cut them off. I have some people, mostly ex-military – I call them my 'persuaders' - that I use to straighten things out, but I've also paid a personal visit to three of them over the years. Still, surprisingly, those kinds of problems are rare with the upper echelon people in my organization. They don't want to kill the 'cash cow.' And the homes and buildings are managed by rental agencies, so they're fairly hassle-free."

  "What happened to those people you visited?" Worry was creasing his face again.

  "We were able to reach a settlement." She smiled. "No, I didn't hurt them. I was just very persuasive."

  Louis returned his attention to his beer, a frown forming.

  "The biggest problem isn't the shell corporations and their directors," Thalma said. "It's the businesses I've loaned money to or purchased shares in. I usually have two or three who are balking on their payments. One in particul
ar right now is being a real hard ass. He's told my agent – who's a pretty intimidating dude – to go fuck himself. He appears to have aligned with a local crime boss, and thinks that makes him safe."

  "So you're going to go see him?"

  "That's looking likely."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "Assess the situation, and then do what seems appropriate."

  "I've been wondering how you communicate with all these people? Some kind of encrypted system, I assume."

  "Encrypted emails, mostly. Sometimes, one of my throwaway phones. I also have computers and phones in other clean locations that I use. I don't store any information, except on well-hidden memory sticks, and each stick only holds a piece to the puzzle. The information is spread across several different email accounts, requiring a code to assemble which I keep only in my head."

  Louis was nodding. "I get the general picture. For what it's worth, I'm pretty good with computers and math. Still, that sounds kinda complex."

  "You get used to it. At least I did."

  She finished her beer – one beer was her limit – and with it the last two pieces of steak. Louis was halfway through both his steak and his beer.

  "I feel like I took a wrong turn, and stepped into Alice in Wonderland," he said.

  "Or maybe reality's a lot stranger than people think."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Because most people live incredibly narrow, mundane lives. They convince themselves that's what's real. But in many ways, their normal reality is an illusion."

  "Sounds deep." Louis chuckled. "I sometimes thought that during a mushroom trip. That we're just seeing the surface of things."

  "You should try my mushrooms."

  "What did you see?"

  "That we're all one. That death is an illusion."

  "Heavy."

  Thalma matched his dry smile. "I don't know if it's real. But it doesn't take hallucinogenic drugs to know that the real world is very different from the one most people believe in."

  "You think living like you do is the real world?"

  "For me, it is. And I'm far from alone." She turned to him. "Is it a world you could live in?"

  "Honestly, I'm not sure." Then he grinned. "But I think I'd like to give it a try."

  Chapter 3

  "THE BRETON COUNTY PROSECUTOR is offering five days in county jail, twenty days community service, and a five hundred dollar fine," said Dale Waters.

  Louis glanced a "What do you think?" at Thalma, who'd been asked to come down with him to the attorney's office.

  "Do I have to admit I'm guilty?" he asked.

  "No contest would be the usual plea in a case like this," said the lawyer.

  "What do you think his chances would be in a trial?" Thalma asked.

  Dale Waters spread his hands out on his desk. "It's hard to say, but I think there would be a major problem if – perhaps I should say when – they call you, Thalma, to the stand. It would be your word against Sheriff Martson's – I don't especially like the odds there, to be honest – and if you don't produce this look-alike person she says was her friend..." He flipped his hands upward.

  "If I were convicted, what do you think my sentence would be?" Louis asked.

  "That's hard to say as well. The prosecutor would probably try to float a felony charge for reckless endangerment, but considering you were out on a rural road, I doubt that would stick. So chances are you'd be convicted of a Class 1 misdemeanor, which could involve a month or two of jail time, loss of driver's license, and probably a larger fine. Also a year or two of probation."

  "If I accept their deal, they can't say: 'Hey, you just admitted you're guilty, now we're going to throw the book at you'?"

  "No, it's a formal, legally binding offer on both sides. It's also worth mentioning that should we go to trial, you will incur further legal fees. As it is, your retainer will prove sufficient."

  Yeah, Louis thought, nodding to himself. Fifteen hundred dollars for maybe two hours of your time. Life sure is sweet for lawyers.

  "Would you recommend he accept the offer, then?" Thalma asked.

  "That would be my feeling," said the attorney.

  "Five days in jail." Louis sighed. "That's the worst part of it. But I guess that and some hours of community service isn't that bad."

  "It could be much worse, agreed," said Dale.

  "All right. Let's do this thing and get it over with, I guess."

  "Fair enough. I'll let the county prosecutor know. You'll receive a notice in the mail about your jail time and community service schedules."

  "Thank you, Mr. Waters," said Louis.

  "Thank you for hiring our firm."

  They shook hands. Puzzlement and question flickered in his eyes as he shook Thalma's hand, but then he nodded and his eyes glazed over in professional disinterest.

  Outside, on their way to the pickup, Louis said, "I'm going to pay you back out of my earnings, of course."

  "Of course," Thalma agreed with a thin smile. "Are there any other legal issues or debts I should know about?"

  Louis fingered his beard, shifting his eyes from hers. "Well, ah, I did have an appendix removed and a broken leg set a couple of years ago, which I couldn't pay since I had no insurance. I compounded that mistake by making some payments on that with a credit card, and now they're after me, too."

  "How much?"

  "Around thirty grand, last time I checked. I stopped reading their letters and answering their phone calls a year ago." He waved off the subject. "But that's not your problem. You've helped me too much already."

  "Okay. They'll probably never come after you, a poor former student, anyway." Her smile was sympathetic. "Are you ready to pick up your stuff at the apartment?"

  "Sounds good. Not much to pick up – the place was furnished, and I travel light."

  FOR THE next two weeks, Thalma led Louis through a step-by-step familiarization with the operation on the farm, focusing on the feeding and caring of her mild-altering "babies." With each passing day, Thalma grew more impressed with Louis's ability to retain information and reason his way to correct conclusions without her always having to fill in the gaps. He'd even made some intelligent suggestions about improving certain aspects of the system.

  Thalma appreciated that Louis's laid-back hippie-hipster vibe retreated in favor of his more serious engineer side when they were "down under" working with the crops.

  "I have to admit, you've surprised me," Thalma said to him over evening dinner – a routine she'd begun to anticipate more and more every day. "I didn't expect you to pick it up this fast – or to be so serious about it."

  "Maybe you bring out the serious in me," Louis chuckled, saluting her with his beer. "You know, people – my parents, teachers – have always been on my case telling me I need to 'apply' myself in school and get serious about my so-called talents. But it's not until now, doing this crazy outlaw shit, that I actually feel like I'm applying myself. Funny, huh?"

  "Yeah." Thalma's smile lacked his enthusiasm. "My mom said something similar. She's a chemist with a master's degree, and thought I should follow in her footsteps. She didn't think you could make anything out of yourself without a college education – and she completely freaked out when I decided to join the Army. Ironically, she's in a dead end job making barely seventy thousand a year – about what I make every two weeks."

  "Holy fuck," Louis gasped. "I knew you were making some serious 'bank', as they say, but I wouldn't have guessed that much. That's a freakish amount of money."

  "Mere pennies to some people."

  "Well, you know, it's not all about the money. Maybe your mom loves what she does. Maybe even my folks like working for the State of California, God help them."

  "They can't be that happy if they won't talk to you just because you dropped out of school."

  "Heh, well, there was a little more to it than that. In our last conversation, I told my mom that I thought they were shitty parents and that as far as I was co
ncerned they could go fuck themselves. That was after they threatened to cut me off – they were paying the rent and some of my bills at the time – if I didn't go back to school. Anyway, they both said – they were on speaker – that if I felt that way that they would bow out of my life. Until such time as I offered an abject apology." He exhaled. "That was nearly two years ago."

  "You haven't felt like apologizing?"

  "Sometimes." He sighed. "And then I think: But they really were – are – shitty parents. Yes, they helped me financially with school, but they would help only if I did what they wanted me to do. Aside from that, they hadn't the faintest clue about who I was or what I was interested in the whole time I was growing up."

  Thalma looked away from him to the corn fields, where one of Bob Johnson's sons, Randy, was walking between the rows talking with another man who she guessed was a seed company rep.

  "I'm whining, aren't I?" Louis asked with an embarrassed chuckle. "The typical cliché of the ungrateful son of middle-class parents."

  "I wasn't thinking that."

  "Doesn't compare to having a father try to kill you, does it?" He forked up some of the salad he'd helped assemble. "I take it you haven't talked to your mom for a while, either?"

  "Not since I moved out here, nine years ago. There wasn't any big falling out. I couldn't tell her anything about my life, and I wasn't interested in hers. It just reached the point where there wasn't anything to talk about. Also, I decided it would be safer if she didn't know where I was living."

  Louis nodded, but with a puzzled edge, Thalma thought, as if he was trying to understand but not quite getting there. She didn't want to mention that one reason she cut ties was that her father would almost certainly use her mom to find her.

  "Do you think you could handle taking care of the place for a few days?" she asked. "I was thinking of driving out to Rapid City to deal with the used car lot owner I mentioned before."

  Louis looked distinctly uneasy.

  "Are you worried about what might happen out there?" she asked. "Or about taking care of the plants?"