We had a DEAL!
Zacharias Townsend stabbed the send button, hurling his message through cyberspace to the recipient waiting in the private chat room on the South of the Line website. He was furious that the seller of Stonewall Jackson’s arm was doubling the delivery price to $100,000.
The deal has CHANGED! If you want the arm, you need to come up with an extra fifty large. If you won’t pay, I’ll find someone who will.
From Bud Roy’s desk in the office at Knockers, Gage Randolph smiled as he sent his secure message back to the buyer. He did not have to wait long for a reply.
You think you can find another buyer for the arm of Stonewall? Just how are you going to do that? And just what will your fellow SOL members think once I tell them you stole the arm?
After his earlier encounters with Sam Aucoin and Monica Bell, Gage was conscious of the need to keep his criminal Tourette’s under control. Gage typed in reply, I guess I’d be scared if you knew who I am. But you don’t, and I’m not going to tell you my name or anything else about me except that I want 100k for the arm.
Suddenly, the video camera on his laptop came on, and a cadaverous-looking man with an eye patch glared at him from the middle of the screen.
“Your name is Gage Randolph,” the man said. “My name is Zacharias Townsend.”
Gage stabbed at his keyboard with no apparent effect. After realizing his computer was frozen, he looked back into the camera. “Who’re you? How’d you do that to my computer?”
“Software billionaire,” Zacharias replied, answering both questions. As he did so, his Wikipedia entry opened on Gage’s screen.
“The rich oil-rig guy?” Gage asked after reading a few lines of the Wiki. “The guy who’s helping Bill Spark screw Uncle Sam? I heard him talking about it the other day on his show. Well, that I like.” He paused as his brain caught up with what his gut was telling him. “That also means one hundred thousand should be nothin’ to you.”
Zacharias took a breath. This was not going the way he had thought it would. Usually, his name frightened people. He thought the eye patch he was now wearing would’ve enhanced the effect. There should be some upside to taking a lobster claw to the cornea, he thought.
Zacharias concluded he needed to bypass Gage’s avarice to jump-start what appeared to be the man’s seldom-used instinct for self-preservation. Making a flurry of internet pages open in Gage’s browser, he said, “Take a few minutes to look those over.”
The first headline on Gage’s computer was from The New York Times: STONEWALL JACKSON’S ARM STOLEN IN GRAVE ROBBERY. USA Today went with: (DIS)ARMAGEDDON! The Huffington Post thought ARMAGEDDON was pun enough and referred to the thief as the ONE-ARM BANDIT. The ever-reliable New York Post ran with: THE CONFEDERACY DISARMED! FIRST THE UNACRAPPER, NOW THE ULNAGRABBER!
“Fake news,” Gage assessed. “Ulnagrabber? That there’s a flat-out lie. I didn’t take no lady parts. Just Stonewall’s arm.” He sounded displeased, as if the press were questioning his professional grave-robbing ethics.
Zacharias rested his head in his hand for a moment and then looked back into the camera. “The ulna,” he said, “is a bone in the human forearm. You seem to be confusing it with the vulva, which—and historians are unanimous in this assessment—Stonewall Jackson did not have one of.”
“Who cares?” Gage retorted.
“I would assume any woman you have sex with might,” Zacharias observed. Still, he made a mental note to pay some attention to Barbara’s forearms the next time they made love on the off chance he was missing something.
“So what does this have to do with me?”
“Um, everything,” Zacharias said. “A few more mouse clicks, and the Feds will be at your door. Or I could really work you over. I know a few of your SOL friends who would be happy to get their hands on the fella who desecrated the grave of a great Confederate general. Have you been over to the message boards lately? They’re really pissed.”
“You’re threatening me?”
Zacharias thought the question somewhat unnecessary. “I’m trying to,” he said. “Most people pick up on it faster than you, though.”
“Well, Mr. Computer Genius,” Gage said. “Go ahead and call the Feds. There are plenty of computer records of you talkin’ to me in this chat room. Must be a log or something tracking what we said. I will bring you down with me and sell you for a carton of Luckies when we hit the pen.”
Zacharias gave Gage credit for having a spine but did not think it was attached to a functioning brain stem. He felt like he was trying to explain a card trick to a dog. “Gage,” he said with the slow cadence of a man focused on practicing a patience he did not possess, “I am going to, again, repeat two key words…software billionaire. It is important you understand what those two words mean.”
“So you’re rich. So what?”
Zacharias sighed. This was going to be a heavy lift. “Rich does not even scratch the surface of what I am. The ‘so what,’ Gage, is that I have hacked this site so thoroughly that the chat room records will show what I want them to show. They will show you came to me trying to sell the arm and that I, a responsible steward of our history, strung you along and contacted the proper authorities.”
Zacharias drank some scotch. He thought the eye patch and the scotch added to the image he was trying to convey. Gage Randolph, he assessed, required visual cues. He hoped these would suffice before he was compelled to resort to sock puppets. Placing his glass carefully upon a coaster, he continued. “The other ‘so what’ is that I am rich and respected, and everyone will believe me. And I have an army of lawyers to obliterate anyone who doesn’t. What do you bring to the fight?”
Gage paused for a moment, considering the question. Then he turned away from the camera. He appeared to be talking to someone. Or, more accurately, something, because shortly thereafter, the jowls of an enormous dog appeared next to him, sniffing the desktop for any food within range of its lengthy tongue.
“I got two things, Mr. Townsend. One, I got the arm. And, number two, I got this here dog. His name’s Rebel. Now, you may be asking yourself what one has to do with the other. Let me explain it to you in simple words, like you used for me.” He took a swig of Coke and, after doing so, set it carefully upon an empty Cheetos bag, mocking Zacharias’s mannered performance with the scotch.
“See, Rebel here—well, he wants nothing more in life than to eat Stonewall Jackson’s arm.” Gage reached off camera to retrieve a box. He opened it and revealed the contents to Zacharias. “This arm, as a matter of fact.”
Zacharias reached toward the screen as if to touch the morbid treasure. Rebel the Hound made his own attempt to get hold of it, earning him a rebuke from Gage.
“Goddamn it, Rebel. Not yet!…So,” Gage said, “if I were to walk out of the room for a few minutes and leave Rebel here alone with the arm…well, I bet it wouldn’t be too long before it became dog food. Rebel don’t show no mercy to no bones, believe me.”
Gage polished off his Coke and belched. “Call the police,” he said. “Send your doctored-up internet files to the Feds. But in less than five minutes, I can have Rebel destroy the evidence, and shortly after, it will be just another pile of dog shit on the street.”
Zacharias sat back and stared into the camera with grudging admiration. He was so used to intimidating people because they had a lot to gain, he was unprepared to fail at bullying someone with nothing to lose.
Keep your focus on what is important, he thought. Stonewall’s arm is worth more than beating this dipshit in a negotiation.
“Fine,” Zacharias said, surprised at how difficult it was to speak the next words. “One hundred thousand it is.”
“No,” Gage said. “One hundred thousand was the price before you made fun of me and tried to scare me by sayin’ how rich and powerful you was. Now that you’ve reminded me of how much money you got lyin’ around, the price has gone up. I want two hundred and fifty thousand.”
“Fuck me!” Zacharias spat.
“Now look who’s changin’ the terms,” Gage replied, grinning broadly. “That particular request will cost more. I ain’t sayin’ it’s a deal killer, mind you. But if you want me to get up close and personal with your…uh, ulna, or your vulva, we will need to come to terms.”
Zacharias took a deep breath. The rest of his night was shot. He would spend it reliving this discussion and trying to understand how this semieducated, Toby Keith-listening-to shit heel had bested him.
“You don’t know me; not really,” Zacharias said, the menace in his tone unmistakable. “You think I’ve always been rich?”
“Oh, I’m sure you built your empire all by yourself,” Gage said. “With nothing more than a million-dollar loan from your old man.”
Zacharias gave a small snort. “Don’t confuse me with some whole other body, Mr. Randolph. First, I actually am a billionaire. Second, I am a self-made one. My dad didn’t have ten dollars to loan me, much less a million. I grew up poor, Gage. So don’t think I’m some soft trust-fund shithead. I built my empire a brick at a time. I overcame my enemies because I knew what being poor was like and was determined I never would be again.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Gage said. “You’re the American Dream come to life.”
“No, I’m not. I’m a fucking American nightmare. I’m not a predatory capitalist. I’m viral. I kill the host.”
Gage looked into the monitor for ten seconds before speaking. “Mr. Townsend, I’m sure I should be scared, but I’m not. I don’t think you can hurt me more than life already has. Now, it’s getting late, and Rebel is feeling a might peckish. Two hundred and fifty grand is what it costs to get the arm. Do you want it or not?”
Zacharias sighed. “OK. You have a deal. When do I get it?”
“I’m thinkin’ we swap money for bones at the reenactment of the Battle of Bentonville this Saturday. It seems fitting, that bein’ the place where the South stood tall one last time.”
“Fine,” Zacharias said. “I was going to go anyway. I’ll wire the money when you give me the arm.”
“Nah,” Gage said. “I want cash. With all your threats of how you can make a computer do anything and how scary and tough you are, how am I supposed to believe you won’t just pretend to send me the money and then drain my bank account altogether after I give you the arm?”
Zacharias was annoyed, as that was exactly what he was planning to do. “Fine. Cash for bones. This Saturday, in Bentonville.”
“From one tycoon to another,” Gage said, “it was a pleasure doing business with you.”
Zacharias Townsend cut the feed and pondered the many horrible things he might do to Gage Randolph once he got the arm. It wasn’t a matter of killing the man. Of course he would. How he killed him…well, that was a matter worthy of consideration.
“How’re you with discussing…uh, whatchacallems…hypotheticals?” Bud Roy Roemer asked Linus McTane the next morning over breakfast at a local diner.
“Hypothetically,” McTane said as he liberally doused his biscuits and sausage gravy with salt and pepper, “I am just dandy discussing hypotheticals.”
“We got a couple of doozies for ya,” Gage Randolph said. “Bud Roy, which of our hypotheticals should we start him off with?”
“Well,” Bud Roy said as he buttered a piece of toast, “let us suppose, hypothetically, two guys might know where Monica Bell and the Unacrapper are. What should they do?”
McTane stopped chewing and looked at Bud Roy and Gage for a long moment. Then he said, “You know, I was really enjoying my biscuits and gravy. The current Mrs. McTane…well…she insists I eat only granola and fruit for breakfast. I guess because she has mistaken me for a fucking blue jay. I hardly ever get the chance to eat a proper southern breakfast. But now,” he said, pushing the plate to the side, “I’ll just go straight to the antacid. What in the name of Christ have you boys been up to?”
“It’s a long story,” Gage said.
“Why not hit me with the high points?” McTane suggested. “I take it you have information on the whereabouts of the Unacrapper and Monica Bell? If so, and with you both being, hypothetically, good and upstanding citizens of Fayetteville, North Carolina, might I suggest you turn this information over to the proper law enforcement authorities?”
“Now, see, this is where it gets a skidge complicated.” Bud Roy took a sip of coffee.
“I’ll bet it does,” McTane said.
Gage took over from Bud Roy. “I was sorta tricked into helping the Unacrapper kidnap Monica Bell after we all ran into each other on a back road in Virginia. Now they’re hiding out at Knockers.”
“That goddamn bar,” the lawyer said. He pulled his biscuits and gravy back in front of him and attacked with renewed vigor. McTane figured he would come out ahead if he died of clogged arteries before this conversation ended. Against his better judgment, he sought clarification. “Why on Earth is Monica Bell, whose politics make Bernie Sanders look like Jefferson Davis, hiding out with the Unacrapper at Knockers?”
“Technically, only the Unacrapper is hiding out,” Gage said, removing his Mack Truck ball cap to run his fingers through his thick black hair. “Monica is, uh, chained to the stripper pole until we can make her understand that we didn’t mean to kidnap her.”
“At some future point, I am sure I will want to hear how one gets tricked into taking hostages,” McTane said between mouthfuls. “But let me cut to the chase and give you my best unvarnished legal advice.” He paused for another mouthful of biscuit and sausage gravy. Bud Roy and Gage peered at him across the table.
“You both appear to be royally fucked,” McTane pronounced.
“Hell, Linus. We came to that conclusion on our own,” Bud Roy said. “We were kinda hopin’ you might be able to give us something more, you bein’ a lawyer and all.”
“Well, just what kind of legal advice do you think biscuits and gravy at a truck stop is gonna buy you?” McTane rubbed his temples. “Perhaps you want me to get up in court and cite temporary insanity for you, Bud Roy, because your clavicle bone is connected to your brain bone?”
“Is temporary insanity some kind of, uh, precedent?” Gage asked between mouthfuls of pancake as he tapped into legal terminology he had grown familiar with while watching film adaptations of John Grisham novels.
“It is for you two!” McTane said, louder than he intended. Nearby diners gave the group a brief look before returning to their food.
“Now, calm down, Linus,” Bud Roy said. “Gage really was just trying to help Monica, and things got out of hand. It’s surprisingly easy to move from helping someone to aiding and abetting a domestic terrorist and kidnapping.”
“So I am learning this morning,” McTane said. “Just what the hell were you doing on a back road up in Virginia anyway, Gage?”
“Well, now,” Gage said. “Your question leads us to our second hypothetical. I suppose you’ve heard by now that Stonewall Jackson’s arm is missing.”
“Missing?” McTane said. “Are you saying the arm wandered away from the rest of Stonewall’s corpse while it was visiting the mall? Is it now featured prominently on a carton of milk?” He shook his head and held up his fork as Gage started to reply. “Lemme guess: you made a pilgrimage to Virginia to pay homage to a Southern hero and got caught on the slippery slope that has driven so many innocent tourists to grave desecration and body-part theft. Am I correct?”
“To be truthful, I went there to steal Stonewall’s arm,” Gage said. “I have a buyer, a really rich guy, and I need your help in making sure he don’t rip me off. I’m also hopin’ he can help me in some way with our first hypothetical.”
“By doing what?” McTane asked.
“I dunno. Whatever it is rich people do to get out of being punished for all the shit rich people do,” Gage said.
“What about the Unacrapper?”
“Well,” Bud Roy said, “we figure if we can get Monica Bell not to press charges, we can then tell Mr. Kelley he needs to be movin’ on.”
“I’ll bite,” McTane said before draining the last of his orange juice. “Who’s the buyer?”
Gage and Bud Roy exchanged looks, and Gage said, “Zacharias Townsend.”
McTane raised his eyebrows in both surprise and admiration. “Well, you two are runnin’ with the bulls now, ain’t ya?” He paused for a moment, his formidable legal brain crunching the data he had been fed. “Look, I still think you’re both screwed and should hightail it to Canada. But you might have a very slim chance at getting out of this. Against my better judgment, I’m gonna let you buy me this breakfast, which I will consider a retainer for my legal services.” He finished the last of his coffee and continued. “I need to think about this. In the meantime, please don’t go and make this worse. I would think you couldn’t possibly do so, but I have gained a new appreciation for your ability to dig any hole you find yourselves in deeper still. Just lie low, and let me figure out the next move. If there is one.”
Linus McTane slid his bulk out of the booth, placed the check in front of Bud Roy Roemer, and left.