I was counting on that pension.” Joe Beeker looked up from his hands, knuckled together in his lap. “I need the money.”
“We all need money,” said the lawyer. He was younger than Joe, but so was everyone nowadays. He clacked at the silver laptop sitting open on his desk. “Doesn’t mean they have to give it to you. The bankruptcy wiped out their obligations.”
“I worked there thirty-seven years.” And Joe knew he was marked from those decades: scarred fingers; flash burns on his arms; a small, weathered scar right under one eye. “On the line, mostly, and maintenance. Overtime every single week. You could look up my pay stubs.”
“I’m sorry.”
The office was small and undecorated, its window open to the parking lot off Mill Street. Humid summer air coming through the window oppressed the room rather than cooling it.
“I’ll lose the house,” said Joe softly.
“You’ll get Social Security.” The lawyer was trying to be helpful, Joe knew that. The youngster’s tie was still snug at his throat, even if he’d rolled his cuffs back in the heat. He studied the computer screen for a moment. “And it looks like you’ve been at the same address for nearly four decades. Surely the mortgage is paid off by now?”
“We bought in 1972. Right after I got out of the service, with a VA loan. Marjo loved that house.”
“And property taxes are certainly low around here.”
“I had to take another mortgage.” Joe looked away from the lawyer’s disappointed sigh. “When Marjo got the cancer.”
“Oh.” The lawyer’s sigh turned into a cough. “Insurance?”
“It wasn’t enough.” Joe shook his head. “I’m not complaining. She needed the nurse at home all those months. And the hospice. That’s okay.”
“I don’t see anything in the file.”
“She…” Joe felt his voice trail away. “Three weeks ago.”
“I’m sorry,” the lawyer said again. The fourth time since Joe had sat down.
“At least she didn’t have to see me laid off. That would have killed her—” Joe stopped abruptly. “Never mind.”
“Do your children…?”
“We never had any.” Another old wound.
“Oh.” The lawyer fussed a moment, then changed the subject. “The company’s new owners are rehiring, I’m told.”
“New owners?” For the first time, Joe couldn’t keep his anger stopped up. “New owners? It’s the same bastards, far as I can tell. They bought the company cheap, busted every single contract, sold off the inventory—and now they’re starting up again. Yeah, they’re rehiring. That’s right. You know what they’re paying? Six-fifty-three an hour. That’s only one dollar more than I started at in 1974!”
“It’s not quite that simple—”
“And you know what? I might have to take it, if I don’t get the pension. I might have to take that fucking slop-hauler’s wage, even though it’s one-fourth what I was making a month ago, because I need to eat. I’m going to lose the house, probably get a boarding room over in Railton, listen to the bikers gunning their engines all night. But I need to fucking eat.”
“I understand how you feel.”
“No, you don’t.” But Joe’s anger drained away. “That’s okay.”
“At least you can get unemployment during the layoff, if you’re not applying for early SSA.”
“They owe me the pension.”
“Not anymore.”
“And it’s not even—you know how much I’m due? Thirty-seven years, paying in every single week? All I’m supposed to get is eighteen thousand dollars a year. Barely fifteen hundred a month. These new owners”—Joe heard his voice coarsen—“eighteen grand, they probably lose that at the cleaners. Loose change in their pants.”
“Everything they did was completely legal.”
“Legal.” Joe slumped back in his chair.
“Believe me, if there was any possibility for a claim, I’d have filed already. Class action, in every jurisdiction Valiant has so much as driven his Lamborghini through.” The lawyer seemed to have some anger of his own stored away. “But they’ve got two-thousand-dollar-an-hour attorneys out of Washington negotiating these deals and writing the agreements. It’s bulletproof like plate armor. We can’t touch them.”
“Okay, it’s legal.” Joe looked out the window, at the late-afternoon sun and, far in the distance, a low line of clouds. “But it’s not right.”
TWO WEEKS LATER, midmorning. Dim inside the community room with the lights off, but dog-day heat shimmered outside the windows. An air conditioner rattled and dripped, not doing much.
A dozen men and two women sat on metal folding chairs, filling a third of the room. The Rotary was coming in later, and their dusty flag stood in one corner. No one could hear the projected video very well, not over the air conditioner, and the facilitator had closed her eyes, fanning her face with the same copy of “Writing a Killer Résumé!” that was on everyone’s lap.
“I still don’t understand how they did it,” Stokey said in a low voice to Joe. They’d taken seats in the rear. Long-forgotten memories: grade-school desks, ducking the teacher’s eye, daydreaming.
“Leverage,” he whispered back. “The lawyer walked me through it three times.” No one in the room had any interest at all in the career-counseling service, but they had to show up to keep the unemployment checks coming.
“It worked because Fulmont had borrowed all the money, six or seven years ago,” Joe said. Fulmont was the plant’s owner, the third generation to run Fulmont Specialty Metals. “For the modernization—ISO 9000, all that? But when the economy tanked, it looked like we were about to go out of business, and Valiant’s hedge fund bought up the debt.”
“How can you buy debt?”
“Like Rico laying off his markers? Fulmont doesn’t owe to First City National anymore, he owes to Valiant.”
“Oh.” Stokey squinted. “I guess.”
“So then Valiant called the debt, drove us into bankruptcy, and the bankruptcy court let him cancel every single obligation the company had. Suppliers, customers, subcontractors—they all got totally screwed, and we lost our pensions. Everything went into Valiant’s pocket.”
Tinny music came from the video. On the screen, young, well-dressed men and women strode through high-tech offices, smiling and making decisions and managing big projects.
“And then he opened the plant up again, only now everyone’s getting paid minimum wage.” Joe glanced at Stokey. He hadn’t shaved either. “You could do better pumping gas at the interstate plaza.”
“They ain’t hiring.”
“I know.” Joe felt his shoulders sag. “I asked out there too.”
“Valiant stole every penny that could be squeezed out of Fulmont,” said Stokey. “No different than he took dynamite and a thermal drill down to the bank after hours. Except instead of trying to stop him, the judges and the courts and the sheriff, they were all right there helping him do it.”
“Pretty much.”
“That’s how I see it. That’s how you see it. That’s how everyone in this fucking room sees it.” Stokey was getting worked up. Joe noticed the facilitator’s eyes had opened. “What country are we living in here? Russia? France? Who wrote these damn laws anyway?”
“The best politicians money can buy. You know that.” Joe put a hand on Stokey’s arm. “Forget it. Watch the movie.”
Stokey subsided, grumbling, and they sat through the rest of the session. People got up wearily when it was done, chairs scraping on the worn floor.
“Next week we’re doing social networking,” said the facilitator, shutting down her computer. “We’ll get you all going on Facebook.”
Outside, the sun and heat was a hammer blow.
“Where you going now?” asked Stokey. He’d taken a Marlboro box out of his shirt pocket and was gravely considering the remaining cigarettes. Seven bucks a pack. Joe knew he was figuring how long he could stretch them out.
“Down the river, by the bluff. Thought I might shoot a deer.”
“They ain’t in season.”
“There’s no season on being hungry.”
Stokey nodded. “Put some venison up for the winter.”
“That’s the idea.”
They separated, going to their trucks, and Stokey drove off first. Joe sat for a few minutes, despite the heat, gazing at nothing in particular.
THE DROUGHT FINALLY broke, like it always did, and the weather turned beautiful again. Mid-September, the high school’s first home game, and some of the nights were already cool.
On one of those nights, Joe ran into Stokey in the gravel parking lot out behind Community Baptist. Quarter to nine, mostly dark, right before the church food pantry closed up. Joe was walking out, carrying his paper sack of canned beans and margarine and Vienna wieners. Stokey hesitated, then started to turn away.
“It’s all right,” said Joe.
“I was just—you know.”
“I’ve been coming every week. No shame in it.”
“Yeah.” But there was, of course. Stokey wasn’t the only one to show up after dusk, at closing, hoping to avoid running into anyone he knew. Joe had nodded to two women inside, and none of them had spoken.
“Annie said we had to come.” Stokey sighed. “I didn’t want to. Didn’t let her last week. But she insisted. So I said I’d do it.”
“She trust you?” Joe tried to lighten it up, but Stokey just shook his head.
“It ain’t right, taking handouts. It’s not her job to be begging food.”
“Same as.”
They stood for a few minutes while Stokey finished a cigarette. Traffic noise drifted over from Route 87, across the soybean fields. The moon had risen, almost light enough to read by. Joe pulled a folded envelope from his shirt pocket. “Got this today,” he said, running his finger along the torn edge. “From the bank.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Yeah.” He looked at Stokey. “Foreclosure. I must have called six times since August, trying to talk them into a workout, but no go. They’re taking the house.”
“When?”
“Don’t know.”
“Harrell and his wife, they’re still in their place. Haven’t paid a dime since March. Sheriff’s even been out, and Harrell just says he’s working on it, shows another letter, and they let it go.”
“Working on what?” Joe didn’t know Harrell well, but once he’d seen him walking through the neighborhood at dawn, checking trash bags. “Buying Hot Lotto tickets?”
“It’s a game. The bank, they don’t really want to foreclose, because then they’re stuck with it. People ain’t exactly lining up to buy houses around here, you notice that? You could string them out for months, just like Harrell.”
Joe had thought about it, but he shook his head. “That wouldn’t be right.”
Stokey grimaced. “What’s not right is the whole fucking system. Everything’s rigged for the fat boys.”
The screen door at the back of the church banged, and a shadowed figure came out, carrying two sacks. A family allotment. Joe thought he recognized the woman, but she went by without greeting them, got in her car, and drove away.
“I’m leaving,” Joe said.
“Marjo’s gone, my job is gone, the house is going. I got nothing to do here.”
“Yeah, but—” Stokey didn’t seem to know what to say. “Where?”
“Connecticut.”
“Connecticut? What the hell for?”
“I’m going to…” Joe stopped. When he said it out loud, it sounded stupid.
“What?”
“Valiant lives there. His office is in New York City, but he lives in some little town in Connecticut. I want to talk to him.”
“Talk to him?”
“Ask him why he did it. Ask him to make things right.”
Stokey made a choking noise. He put his hands up, then dropped them. “Why the fuck would Valiant talk to you? Why would he even see you?”
“I’ll make an appointment.” Joe straightened up. “Look, he’s another human being, right? We’re all walking the earth. Maybe he just needs to see things clear.”
“That’s just plain—Valiant’s not walking the earth, not the same one as you and me. He’ll probably have you arrested. You can spend your golden years at Fort Madison.”
“I don’t think so.” Joe shifted the sack of food he’d never put down. “But it doesn’t matter. I’ve got nothing to do here. Seems worth a shot.”
They fell silent. Stokey’s energy faded. A light wind rustled the bean fields.
“You got to get in there,” Joe said finally. “They’re closing up, and Annie’s waiting on you.”
“Yeah.” Stokey started to move off. “Hey, when are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? When are you coming back?”
“When it’s done.” Joe felt—not happy, but somehow… eager. “When it’s done.”
MANHATTAN WASN’T SO bad.
Joe had been there before, but not since he was in the service—for some reason he’d been shipped home via Germany, even though the West Coast was a lot closer to Vietnam. New York in the early seventies had been spiraling into chaos, bankruptcy, and gang violence, and that’s how Joe remembered it. But the modern city was all clean streets and shiny buildings. He didn’t recognize Times Square at all.
Valiant’s firm had its offices on Park Avenue, the fortieth floor of a glass skyscraper called the Great Prosperity Building. Chinese characters on the largest logo in the atrium suggested the building was no longer owned by Americans.
“Mr. Valiant is out of the office this week,” said the receptionist.
“How about next week?”
“Fully booked, I’m afraid.”
The woman sat at her desk facing the elevator bank, but two husky young men stood by, one on either side, both staring at Joe. The carpet felt deep and plush beneath his feet.
He figured the bouncers were just guys who worked there, not real security. Their hands looked soft, and they didn’t have that wary, hooded gaze Joe remembered from the MPs. But they’d been out in the foyer already when Joe stepped off the elevator.
He’d had to sign in at the main desk in the lobby, downstairs, and show a driver’s license; he’d received a printed pass. The guard there must have called up. Somehow Joe didn’t look right.
“Why don’t you call him and check?” Joe said.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Valiant’s schedule is very busy.”
Back on the street, Joe stood on the small plaza, under a tree just starting to blaze orange. Early afternoon and people seemed to be on extended lunch breaks, sitting in the sun, tapping at smartphones, eating paper-wrapped takeout.
After a minute he walked back to his truck, drove around the block, and entered the garage underneath the Great Prosperity Building.
On the A level, closest to both the surface and the elevator, Joe coasted slowly, counting. Two Ferraris, five high-end Audis, BMWs, Mercedeses, several Range Rovers… and a single Lamborghini Gallardo, the distinctive rear end unmistakable.
The lawyer had mentioned the model Valiant owned. Before leaving town, three days earlier, Joe had looked through old Car and Driver issues at the library until he’d found it.
“I didn’t even park,” he told the attendant at the exit, “I got a phone call, have to go right back out.”
“Ten minutes.” The attendant was black, with an accent from somewhere far away. He pointed to the sign at the booth. “Five dollars.”
Joe started to protest, then shrugged and dug out his wallet. No reason to attract more attention.
This time there were no good parking spaces on the street. Good thing he’d had the tank filled that morning in New Jersey, at a gas station near the highway motel he’d stayed at. Joe started driving around the block again, taking his time. Sooner or later a spot would open up, one with a nice view of the garage exit. He had all afternoon.
Valiant would have to leave the building eventually.
THE RESTAURANT SEEMED far too crowded, barely room to walk between the tables and people standing two deep at the short bar. Despite some kind of fancy cloth on the walls and a carpeted floor, it was noisy, with constant clatter, chattering, and glassware clinking.
“I’m meeting someone here at eight thirty,” Joe said, glancing at his watch. He’d put on his old jacket and tie, good enough to pass under the dim lamps that barely illuminated a podium at the door.
“Certainly,” said the maître d’. “Care for a drink at the bar?”
“That would be perfect.”
Valiant was already at a small table, a woman probably twenty years younger sitting across from him. Joe had followed the Lamborghini straight here when Valiant left for the day, but Valiant used valet parking, and Joe had to take twenty minutes to find a spot on his own. He didn’t want to leave any more obvious a trail than necessary.
“Seltzer,” he told the barman after jostling his way to the front.
“Fourteen dollars.”
He made the drink last. People drifted in and out. Finally, after a quarter hour, Valiant’s companion stood and made her way to the restroom, in an alcove at the end of the bar.
When she came back out, Joe had maneuvered himself to stand where she had to brush past him.
“Excuse me?” he said, as politely as he could.
“Yes?” Up close she looked even more like someone accustomed to brushing off strange men in bars—flawlessly beautiful, dark eyes, precisely cut hair.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know if I should even tell you this, but…”
“What?” She was on the verge of pushing through and ignoring him.
“While you were in there? I happened to see your fella—he’s the handsome man in the blue shirt, right? He, well, he put something in your wineglass.”
That got her attention. “Say that again.”
“I’m waiting for my date, she’s coming down with one of her friends, so, you know, I’m just killing time. And I noticed, after you stood up—pardon me, miss, but I noticed you and I hope you’re not offended by that. But after you left, your man, he took something out of his pocket and reached across the table and held it over your drink. Like he was dropping something in.”
A long pause. The woman stared hard at Joe, then even harder at Valiant, who hadn’t noticed her returning yet.
“Are you sure?” she said.
“I’m afraid so. But surely, if he’s a good friend of yours—”
“I met him this weekend at a party.” She made up her mind. “Thank you.”
“Oh, no. Really, I’m sorry.”
“Yes.” And she walked straight out of the restaurant.
Joe finished his seltzer, placed the glass on the bar, and went into the dining area.
“Mr. Valiant?” He pulled out the woman’s chair and sat down. “Mind if I join you for a moment?”
“Wha—”
“Don’t worry, your companion won’t be here for a few minutes.”
“Who are you?”
“Joe Beeker.” Joe held out his hand, not expecting Valiant to take it. “I used to work at Fulmont Metal.”
Valiant looked around. Up close, he had presence—fit, strong, clear-eyed, with a haircut and clothes that even Joe could tell cost vast amounts of money. Someone accustomed to watching other people get out of his way.
“You’re interrupting a private dinner,” he said. “Leave now, or the police will haul you away.”
“Yeah?” Joe said. “Do you really want to do that? Because I won’t go quietly. I’ll be hollering about how badly you treated us, stealing the company, stripping the pensions, cheating the suppliers. I’ll bet there are forty cell phones with cameras in here. You’ll be all over the internet in half an hour—and I’ll walk, since I haven’t actually done anything wrong.” He paused. “Unlike you.”
A smile flashed. “You’re trying to threaten me?”
“Me? I just turned sixty-two. I’m a tired old man. I’m not threatening anybody.”
Valiant shrugged. “What do you want?”
“Just to talk for a couple minutes.” Joe looked closely at Valiant’s eyes. “Mostly, I’m wondering, do you understand what you did to us?”
“I—”
“Deep down? Because I don’t think a regular person would have gone there. I think you just don’t realize the suffering you caused in order to make an extra few million bucks for yourself.”
“Just business.” Valiant looked toward the bar, frowning a bit, then drank from his wineglass. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh, I—”
“Everything we did was perfectly legal. By the book.”
“I keep hearing that.”
“Your boss had run the company into the ground. What you don’t get is, we saved the place. If we hadn’t come along to fix it, the entire operation would have gone under, and nobody would be working anymore.”
“Fulmont was doing fine until you called the debt.”
“That was entirely within our rights.”
“That was ruthless and unnecessary—except to give you an opening to loot the place.” A waiter appeared, looking confused.
“Excuse me, sir, are you joining the party? And the lady…?”
“We’re fine,” Valiant said.
“Ah, shall I bring out the first course?”
“I’ll let you know when.”
“Very good.” He slipped away, still frowning.
“You can’t fix everything,” said Joe. “Not completely. I know that. But at an absolute minimum, you need to give the pension back.”
“Oh, go to hell.” Valiant’s patience had begun to wear.
“It’s only six million dollars. Last year you boasted about earning, what, nine billion? You can afford it.”
“It was all legal. There’s no obligation.”
“Legal.” Joe sighed. “What you did—it was wrong.”
He didn’t get anywhere. Valiant sat obstinate for another minute, disregarding him. When the waiter came back again, with the maître d’ for support, Joe stood up.
“Thanks for the time, Mr. Valiant,” he said.
“If I ever see you again, you’re going to jail.”
“Beeker,” said Joe. “With three e’s. You need some time to think it over, that’s okay. Let’s say, by Wednesday? A public announcement. I’ll be waiting.”
“Fuck you.”
Joe nodded. “Wednesday,” he said again, and left.
NOTHING HAPPENED, EXCEPT that Valiant hired some bodyguards. They were at his house—Joe followed the Gallardo one evening, an hour’s drive out of the city and into horse country, to see a blacked-out SUV waiting at the gate. In the morning the bodyguards arrived early at the office, and when Valiant went out for lunch, Joe saw at least one musclehead nearby the entire time.
On the other hand, they didn’t actually drive with him. The sports car was a two-seater, hardly built for six-foot linebackers carrying automatic weapons. Joe thought about this, and he followed Valiant to and from his house for a few more days.
At a distance—a great distance. He wasn’t going to be accused of stalking.
Thursday afternoon, Joe stopped waiting for Valiant’s announcement and started thinking about plan B. He had to borrow a phone book from the desk guy at the motel—the room didn’t have one, and pay phones seemed to have disappeared from the city. He’d never find this particular kind of shop back home, but Manhattan didn’t disappoint: three choices in Midtown alone, and more in the boroughs.
New Yorkers seemed to like spying on one another.
“THE LENS IS easy,” said the clerk. He gestured at a glass case alongside the counter, its shelves crammed with glinting electronics. “You need wireless?”
“I don’t think so.” Joe remembered the combat radio he’d humped through Vietnam, twenty-three pounds of steel and plastic knobs. The equipment here would fit inside a pencil. “I can wear the recorder on my belt or something, connect it under my shirt.”
“Sure. Pin-wire mike too—put it separate, different buttonhole or something, makes it harder to catch.”
“You sure it can record everything someone says to me? Video too?”
“So long as you’re facing them. The exact orientation doesn’t matter much. A lens like this”—he held up a tiny crystal bead, two thin leads trailing away—“has a seventy-degree field of view. Looks a bit like a fishbowl on playback, but you’ll see everything.”
“Good.” Joe pulled out his wallet.
As the clerk settled the components into a plastic bag, he said, “I ought to tell you, the courts don’t accept this sort of thing.”
“Excuse me?”
“If you’re planning to catch someone, go undercover? It’s not admissible. I’m just saying.”
“Oh, that’s not what this is about.” Joe took the bag. “We’re way beyond a court of law.”
ON FRIDAY HE started late, checking out of the Rest-a-Way at noon and eating a full lunch at a diner off 280. By three o’clock he was in Connecticut, the truck parked in Old Ridgefork’s municipal lot. The town was small and charming, with pottery shops and coffee boutiques on the renovated main street. Joe walked a few blocks north, to the edge of the town center, and sat on a park bench near a stoplight where Bluff Street crossed Main.
Late sunlight slanted across trees and Victorians. Children’s shouts drifted from a playground a block away. Traffic was light but steady, a stream of cars headed mostly east. Old Ridgefork sat on one of the commuter arteries into Fairfield County, as Joe had determined from careful study of a state map.
Valiant had driven this way all three times Joe had tailed him home.
He sat for ninety-five minutes, and then he saw the Gallardo coming through town, a few blocks away.
Joe stood and began to walk along the sidewalk to the street corner, his back to Valiant. He could hear the car—the sort of whiny rumble that came from overpriced, overpowered Italian engines—and paced himself accordingly. When the Lamborghini was still a block behind him, Joe hit the pedestrian-crosswalk button, and the light turned red just in time to halt Valiant at the intersection.
Two feet away.
Joe turned, leaned over, and put his hand through the open passenger window to unclick the lock latch. In one smooth motion, he opened the door, slid in, and slammed it shut behind him.
“Hey, Prince,” he said. “Light’s green, you can go.”
Valiant recovered, snarled, and twisted in his seat, reaching across in a lunge that was half punch, half grab. Joe pulled out his .45 and pointed it at Valiant’s face.
“Settle down or I’ll shoot you,” Joe said.
Valiant froze.
“My service weapon.” Joe held the Model 1911 comfortably, with his elbow against the door, keeping as far from Valiant as possible. “I wasn’t supposed to take it, but no one was paying attention on those MAC flights forty years ago. New ammunition, of course.”
“You’re over the line.”
“Yeah, I’m afraid so.” Joe considered the handgun. “I suppose I really could go to prison for this.”
“You will!”
“Maybe.” Joe looked back at Valiant. “See, that’s the difference between you and me—I own up to my responsibilities.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I told you—the light’s green. Start driving.”
Valiant glared another moment, then put the car into gear and started up the road.
“Turn up here,” said Joe. “Yes, there, on Valley Road. No need to bother anyone behind us.”
They followed the winding road up a hill, soon leaving the scattering of houses that marked the edge of Old Ridgefork proper. Fall foliage had just started to turn, and the trees glowed in the setting sun. As they ascended, Joe could see a lake sparkling in the distance. “Slow down,” he said. “Around this bend… yup, there it is. Pull in.”
They stopped at a roadside historic marker—a faded metal sign standing on a wide verge so cars could pull over. The road was deserted. Valiant killed the engine at Joe’s direction, and in the quiet they could hear birds and crickets.
“You rich assholes,” said Joe. “Playing Wall Street games. Hundreds of us, you ruined our lives, and that was just at Fulmont. I figure you have thousands and thousands to answer for, all the deals you’ve done.”
“I told you, we followed every single law, every single regulation.” Valiant didn’t look at the pistol.
“That’s kind of not the point, which you still don’t seem to understand.”
“We kept that business alive.”
“By screwing every single guy who worked there.”
“At least they’re working.”
“Is that why you did it?”
“What?”
“To put us all on minimum wage? Take away our retirement? Force us to work until we die?”
Valiant breathed hard. “Why are you doing this?”
“I just want to understand.”
“Understand?”
“You.”
Cool forest air drifted through the open window, bringing a smell of earth and fallen leaves. Far away, the sound of traffic on the state road was barely audible.
“Was it just money?” Joe said. “I really want to know. You can’t possibly need another million dollars.”
Valiant said nothing for a long moment.
“Well?” Joe moved his pistol slightly, bringing it back into the conversation.
“You just want me to explain myself?” Valiant seemed uncertain. “That’s all?”
“If I wanted revenge, I’d have shot you already.” Joe shrugged. “I thought about it. But what’s the point?”
“So put the gun away!”
“Don’t get any ideas,” Joe said. “Self-defense cuts both ways.”
Not actually true, but Valiant nodded.
A minute later he was talking, talking, talking.
“You worked at Fulmont a long time, didn’t you? The rolling line, right? Not just pressing buttons, turning cranks. You think I don’t know anything about the industry, but you’re wrong. I study every detail before I make a deal. Everything. So I know about your job. It takes skill. Years, maybe, to get good at it.”
Joe raised an eyebrow.
“That’s the reason Fulmont’s not in Mexico,” said Valiant. “Or Indonesia, or Poland. Skills. You guys know what you’re doing, and that can’t be yanked up and dumped in some cheap, overpopulated free-trade zone.”
“Thanks.”
“Not my point. Look, you were good at your job, I bet. Spend years learning a craft, there’s satisfaction in performing it. Real satisfaction. Doing a job and doing it well—that’s what makes people happy.”
Joe stared at him. “So why—”
“Because what I do is, I make deals.”
Valiant shook his head. “I find value to unlock, synergies to realize. Ways to bring people together, so everyone comes out ahead. And I’m good at it, just like you’re good at the milling press.”
“Good at destroying lives?”
“Good at two-plus-two-equals-five. Seeing possibilities where no one else does and bringing them to life.”
Not a single car had passed by. The sun was descending into a bank of purple.
“But you walk away with seven figures,” said Joe. “And I have to eat day-old bread and government cheese.”
Valiant frowned. “That’s not my fault. That’s how the world works. You make strap steel. I create billions of dollars of value. Billions! Of course I get paid more.”
They fell silent. Valiant looked away. Time passed.
“I should tell you,” Joe said finally. “You’re on tape.”
“Huh?” Valiant swung back.
Joe kept the gun steady but used his left hand to pull the camera lens from concealment in his shirt placket. He held it up, thin wires dangling.
“All recorded, picture and sound both.”
“So what?” Valiant grimaced. “Take it to some prosecutor, he’ll just laugh. I keep telling you, there’s nothing illegal going on here!”
“I know.” Joe let the lens fall. “I was thinking I’d put it on the internet. YouTube? Get some attention on what you’ve done. What you are.”
After a moment, Valiant’s face cleared. “Go ahead,” he said. “Sure, post it. My lawyers can get a takedown notice in an hour. And even if they don’t, who cares?”
“The rest of the world cares.”
“I don’t think so.” Somehow he’d recovered every last sniff of self-confidence.
“You want yourself seen like this?”
“Sure.” Valiant laughed. “All you’ll be doing, really, is proving that I know how to find a bargain—and capitalize on it.”
“That’s…” Joe’s voice trailed away.
“It’s like free advertising. Asshole.”
They sat silent, eyeing each other.
“So,” Valiant said. “Now what?”
Joe wondered how he’d ended up here. He looked out the windshield, unable to hold Valiant’s smirking gaze.
The setting sun pierced the cloud bank, and golden light dappled the trees below them. Joe sighed.
“I’m not sure.” The 1911 was heavy in his hand.
“Well, I don’t care. Do what you want.”
Joe turned back. “Okay,” he said.
He raised the pistol and shot Valiant in the heart.
“THE FBI TALKED to me,” said Stokey. “And the state police. Even the DA—and I voted for him last year.”
“Me too.” Joe closed the iron firebox, adjusted its damper, and checked the thermometer poking out from the smokehouse planking. “Down in the courthouse. They took over the whole second floor, it felt like.”
Hardwood smoke drifted from blackened vents. They were in Stokey’s backyard, where he’d built the little smokehouse twenty years before.
“I told them you went up there.” Stokey shifted uncomfortably. It was the first time he’d brought up the subject directly. “To see Valiant. You told me you were going.”
“You did the right thing,” Joe said. “I did tell you that, and I went to New York. Of course you had to tell them the truth.”
“They’re convinced you did it.” Stokey looked at Joe square. “That you killed Valiant.”
“Lots of guys wanted to.”
The October morning was cool and overcast. Joe had shot a deer the day before—in season, permit and everything—and what hadn’t been frozen, he and Stokey were turning into sausage and jerky.
“Did you?” Having finally asked, Stokey wasn’t letting it go.
“They don’t seem to have any evidence,” said Joe. “Whoever did it, he probably walked away all bloody, but if he burned the clothing and got rid of the gun, there’s no connection.”
“But eyewitnesses—”
“Saw a man in a dark jacket and a hat. Worthless.”
The wood smoke was sharp and clean. A couple dogs from the neighborhood had shown up and were now sitting out by the road, watching with keen attention.
Stokey gave up. “You taking your old job back?”
Joe studied the smoke rising, drifting slowly into the gray sky.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “That wouldn’t be right.”