With the Big Dog house well under way, Buster began his work to resuscitate the Big Dog land. As he had promised that night on the elk hunt, the sage was bush-hogged, and native grasses were planted. The place was finally taking shape and he was proud of his work. It was only natural that he’d want to show the place off a bit. So he invited his old bunkmates, Ned Gigglehorn and Doc Solitcz, over for lunch.
“How many people live here?” Gigglehorn asked as he stood before the Mallomar residence regarding it somewhat like an archeologist might regard a Mayan pyramid in Tikal.
“Two,” Buster said.
Gigglehorn turned to Doc Solitcz. “Two people live in this house.”
“I heard him.”
“Almost ev’r’body in town worked on the dang booger,” Buster said defensively.
“Trickle down economics” offered Doc Solitcz. “Can’t quarrel with that, Ned.”
“How much does it cost to heat this behemoth?”
“Ah don’t rahtly know.”
“You must have some idea, you’re the damn foreman.”
“Somethin’ like…eighty-five hunnert a month,” Buster admitted sheepishly.
“That’s over a hundred grand a year, for chrissake!”
“All right, Ned. That’s enough. He invited us over for lunch not a damn audit.”
But Ned had to admit that Buster had done well by the land. If one were to place a thumb, using the old oil painters’ trick of judging scale, over the house—a stunning landscape of rock outcroppings, rolling hills and wildflowers were revealed. The place had drastically changed since that day of the Puster auction—they had to give Buster that.
Buster had prepared a picnic of elk sausage, baked potatoes, heirloom tomatoes, and a bottle of Mallomar’s wine for his old friends. The three rode to an earthen bench two hundred yards above the house. After they ate, Doc took a nap while Buster tapped out a portrait of them on a pie plate, and Ned unpacked his easel to paint. He put a friendly arm on Buster’s shoulder as they walked the bench to find a good spot for composition.
“Kid, you did good with this place, but will you let me give you a little piece of advice?”
“Sure.”
“Get the hell outta here. This is no place for regular people like us.”
“Mr. Mallomar’s done a lot for this town. He’s not what you think.”
“This is all an amusement for him. But this is our life. A guy I grew up with on the commune has a cattle ranch in Paradox. He’s looking for another hand. Let me tell him you’re interested.”
“Ah ain’t a hand no more. Ah’m a foreman. And ah ain’t goin’.”
“You dumb cluck! Listen to me before it’s too…too…”
Suddenly Ned’s eyes started blinking rapidly, and his legs started to wobble. He keeled over and vomited. Doc woke up and ran over to him, calmly knotted his napkin and stuck it in Ned’s mouth so he wouldn’t bite off his tongue. Once that was accomplished, he patted Buster on the shoulder.
“Congratulations. Looks like you have water here.”
When Buster brought the drilling company back to the spot Ned Gigglehorn had his seizure—which was carefully marked by an empty bottle of Mouton Rothschild 2000 Pauillac—the drillers hit water going only fifty feet down. The well supplied a generous three hundred gallons a minute through a six-inch pipe. And so it was here above the house, that Buster made the fateful decision to build a reservoir. Mallomar leaped at purchasing his own bulldozer. He chose the Caterpillar D-9, the model favored by the Israelis for removing the homes of Palestinians whose relatives had been connected to acts of terrorism.
Second only to the Miramonte Reservoir in neighboring San Miguel County, the Big Dog was to be the largest private reservoir in all of southwest Colorado. Since Mallomar contributed the first real funds to the building of a new jail, Sheriff Dudival reciprocated by allowing a chain gang of able-bodied convicts to lay the reservoir bottom. Rolls and rolls of heavy-duty plastic sheeting were laid down to prevent the water from seeping into the soil. In fact, so much plastic sheeting was ordered that it forced the plastic company’s other big customer, the conceptual artist, Cristo, to postpone his wrapping of Fort Knox. In true Mallomar style, lunch for the County jump-suited group—primarily drunks and wife beaters—was catered.
Cookie Dominguez, who’d heard about the deal from one of his Bees incarcerated for pandering with a minor, drove the delivery truck and used the opportunity to transfer a half of a kilogram of meth to the jail population by way of four Trojan chicken burritos. Neither Mallomar nor Buster saw him in his white kitchen outfit. On the drive out, he stopped at the Mallomar house. Knowing that no one would disturb him, he took an unhurried tour of the place that so many people in town had been talking about.
“Así que esto es como un hombre rico con una gran cantidad real de dinero vive,” he said approvingly. He appreciated the interior color scheme that utilized colors derived from their outdoor surroundings. And the Western paintings were similar to the ones that he’d seen in a museum when his fifth grade teacher took him to Denver on a school trip. In Mallomar’s office, he helped himself to a handful of cigars and noticed some opened mail. Of particular interest was a bill from Mrs. Mallomar’s psychiatrist in New York and a corresponding payment from an insurance company. The diagnosis by the psychiatrist was in code, but the letter the insurance company sent stated plainly that they had paid for psychiatric treatments for “substance abuse.”
b
Mrs. Mallomar, meanwhile, returned fresh from the ashram to her Fifth Avenue apartment overlooking Central Park. For five months, she had kept an oath of silence and ate only brown rice and vegetables. Finding the apartment empty except for a bed and a few articles of clothing, she assumed that either they had been robbed or her husband had put everything in storage for redecorating.
“How are you feeling?” Mallomar asked when they later spoke on the phone.
“I feel recharged. Strong.”
“That’s great, Dana. I am so glad to hear that. How did it go at the ashram?”
“It quieted me. I liked not having the distractions.”
“I think I know what you mean.”
“By the way, where is everything?” she asked.
“It’s all gone.”
“I know it’s gone. Where did it go?”
“Sotheby’s, mostly.”
“All my jewelry and clothes?”
“Yes.”
“All our paintings?”
“I wanted to simplify our lives.”
“Those were my things. How dare you take it upon yourself to…”
“Dana, get a good night’s sleep and hop the plane to Montrose. We’ll both be a lot happier at the ranch. You’ll see. I’m very proud of this place. We’ve just finished the reservoir. We’ve got native grasses coming in. A five-acre organic food plot I put in just for you. And in a couple of months, we’re going to have our first yearlings for sale. It’s all so beautiful. New businesses on Main Street… We even sponsor the rodeo, for chrissakes.”
“You sold all of our things,” she responded in a depressive monotone voice.
“That’s not who we are.”
“Marvin, I could fucking kill you!”
“This, from somebody who just came back from an ashram.”
“Don’t you think you owed it to me to tell me you were going to do something asinine like this?”
“How could I? You took a fucking oath of silence!”
She hung up and looked for a vase to smash—but they were all gone. So, she sat on the floor cross-legged, concentrated on her breath and cleared her mind. Three minutes later, she was swallowing tranquilizers. By morning, the doorman alerted Mallomar to his wife’s odd behavior. Apparently, she came down to the lobby in her bathrobe and ordered a taxi in a language that sounded like Swedish, but wasn’t.
b
Despite their acrimonious relationship, the news of Dana’s recidivism caused Mallomar untold anguish. He immediately called the FBO in Montrose to fuel his plane for takeoff. His second call was to Sidney Glasker, to find yet another addiction specialist and to get the ball rolling on the necessary paperwork.
Four hours later, Mallomar stood at the foot of Dana’s bed. She had been intubated and heavily sedated to calm her down. Mallomar had seen versions of this before, but this was truly one for the books. She had a couple of shiners, a big, bloody scab on the end of her nose and stitches on her chin—the result of a header into a curb? The skin on her knuckles was raw—from punching something or someone? Mallomar pulled up a chair next to the bed, holding her non-IVed hand.
Dana Karlsson—her stage name metamorphosed from the original Donna—grew up in Shaker Heights where her father, Don, created a middle-class life for his family from a middle-management position analyzing land leases for Standard Oil. Dana’s mother, who began as a dedicated homemaker, came to express her wild side by watching The French Chef in the morning and hosting martini klatches comprised of fellow Standard Oil wives in the afternoon. Dana’s younger sibling, a brother, having escaped the fuzzy attention of his Boodles inductee-mother, became an ardent liar and defacer of public property. But Donna was a star in the community. She had a B-plus average, a diversified portfolio of volunteer work through the church, and a position as the youngest dancer with the Buckeye Ballet. Things took an unexpected turn for the worse, however, when Dana, by the age of twelve, had become preternaturally beautiful. What would ordinarily seem like a blessing became the beginning of a curse over which she had no control. Up until this time, her father had no problem hugging her, holding her on his lap, and telling her how proud he was of her. But when she became beautiful—a younger and more refined version of his wife—he became uncomfortable expressing physical affection toward her. Instead, he suddenly adopted a stern, arm’s-length attitude. She was not allowed to wear any kind of makeup, even lipstick. She was not allowed to go out on dates. He pushed her into sports, for he thought that a young girl, who looked like Dana, should have something to redirect sexual energies—when it was really his sexual energies, or at least his subconscious—that was the problem.
Dana’s perceived rejection by her father had the effect of wanting to please him even more. She tried out for the gymnastics team and showed a particular talent for the uneven bars. To say she threw herself into it was no exaggeration. When Dana was competing, she came out of a pike with such velocity—throwing her pelvis into the lower bar with such force—that people in the audience would audibly gasp. Dana’s performance won her team the All-State Women’s Finals two years in a row.
Her coach, a one-time state champion himself, believed Dana had a shot for the Olympics. This, of course, required even more work and dedication. It also required of Dana more time spent with her coach—who, while trying his best to look upon Dana’s form clinically, was also having a problem. He was thirty-five and Dana, by this time, was fifteen. The other girls on the team, who giggled over how handsome he was, also took notice of the singular attention he paid Dana. There was an undercurrent of gossip. Dana’s father and mother questioned her and made her feel badly. And while the coach was circumspect, he admitted to himself and his priest that occasionally he did have improper thoughts. The priest suggested that he find employment elsewhere. He did, at a competing school, and left Dana hanging as the person responsible. The kids on the team now hated her. Many unkind things were said to her and her parents. Dana had her first nervous breakdown.
Her parents sent her to a school that specialized in uncontrollable girls. There, she discontinued her interest in gymnastics, but not her desire to escape gravity. In fact, for the rest of her life she was determined to regain that feeling of freedom that she experienced when she left her body. She studied yoga and meditation. When she got lazy, she achieved her out-of-body experience by getting loaded.
The men, that were to follow in her life, offered her positions in the chorus line, trips to Mustique, and apartments in unsold condominiums. All of these affairs ended the same way—with the men discovering that she was just a nice girl from Ohio with a B-plus average. And then she met Marvin Mallomar. He was, by no means, the best looking of the men she had previously known. He was rich, but that wasn’t what she was attracted to. What impressed her was his ability to defy his own gravity—that of being a stubby, ill-educated man with tufts of hair on his back—and his facility for self-reinvention. Unfortunately, it was an art he didn’t care to share with anyone else, not even his own wife.
b
The door to the room opened and a doctor accompanied by two orderlies wheeled in an impressive machine—requiring Mallomar to move into the corner to provide them room. He had found, through Sidney Glasker’s contacts in the medical world, an experimental detox therapy that involved the use of ultraviolet blood irradiation. It had been a promising direction for addiction under study by the Germans in the 1940s, but was discredited because of the stigma it carried—it being tested on people in concentration camps. Mallomar stayed in her room while Dana received her first treatment that night then went home.
The next morning, Mallomar called the hospital to check on his wife’s condition. The nurse said that she was awake and was in the middle of telling him that she had eaten a nice breakfast when Dana grabbed the phone and demanded that Mallomar have her released immediately. He refused. She called him many names. He responded calmly to her, making her want to slam down the receiver, but it wasn’t the kind of phone that could be slammed down. Why did she have to be like that, Mallomar wondered. Why couldn’t Dana be the sweet and adorable woman that she was when she was unconscious? Mallomar showered and dressed himself for the day. In his vast dressing room there hung one lone suit—his sole holdout from Goodwill. He grabbed his wallet, a few thousand for walking-around money, and his phone. He saw that, while he was in the shower, he’d had a message from a friend who worked at the Fed. Was he free for dinner? Right now, he just wanted to walk.
It was the kind of day that Mallomar used to love—when the wind was blowing off the harbor making the Manhattan air smell as if one was walking on the deck of a ship at sea—rather than the usual sensation of walking on the deck of a garbage scow. Even with his medication, recent events with Dana had jangled him and pulled him downward to the bad pole. He sighed so loudly with melancholy that the people walking ahead of him actually turned to see whom it was.
Next, he swung by Georgette Klinger’s on Fifth. The receptionist greeted him like the past recipient of his extravagant gratuities that she was.
“Good morning, Mr. Mallomar. Welcome back! Natasha will be right with you.” He followed her to a private room where he changed into a robe and slippers. A few minutes later, Natasha, a zaftig bleached blonde woman in her late forties entered. Mallomar had found her years ago working at a high end Russian call out service. He saw something in her and arranged for Natasha’s enrollment in a cosmetology school.
“You lose too much weight,” she said, in a blunt Balkan accent. “When a man reaches fifty, he must choose between his ass and face. You have chosen the wrong one.” Recently a citizen, Natasha had yet to adopt the diplomatic affectations of everyday American life.
“Do what you can with it.”
Natasha put on her magnifying goggles and aimed a bright circular lamp on his nose.
“Oh boy,” she said. “Blackheads ’R’ Us.”
What he had thought was going to be a relaxing interlude turned out to be an eye-wateringly painful forty-five minutes. Natasha’s habit of knitting her eyebrows and crossing her eyes in deadly concentration, gave Mallomar the impression that she was not just eliminating blackheads, but cleansing the Serbs responsible for the death of her father and brothers.
“Still living in Queens?”
“I move to Fort Greene. Buy condo.”
“Huh. Well, good for you.”
“Two condos—one to rent, one to live. Fort Greene has many blacks but changing.”
“How’d you pull that off? Mortgage-wise.”
“Countrywide. No problem.”
“A fixed?”
“Adjustable, sub-prime.”
“You don’t say?”
“Why do you have such dirty skins?”
“I’m a rancher now.”
“You don’t say,” was now her turn to say.
After she steamed and excavated every pore of his face, applied an astringent to reduce the redness and calmed it down with a vitamin-rich moisturizer, she saw he was still tearing, which may or may not have been the result of her work, and gave him a tissue.
“I’m sorry this so painful. Can I do something to make you feel…happy?” Mallomar demurred and reached into the pocket of his robe—placing five, neatly folded hundreds into her moisturized hand.
“Thanks. You already have.”
Mallomar was a feel player and Natasha had unwittingly given him something substantial to feel. Returning to his apartment, he immediately placed a call to his consigliore, Sidney Glasker. They briefly discussed Dana’s health situation—the doctors were pleased with the photo-radiation blood-cleansing progress Dana was making and how they were wondering if Mallomar might be interested in helping them obtain FDA approval for their patent.
“Sidney, c’mon. You and I both know these guys are quacks.”
“I told them you could see your way clear to give them something.”
“Then I won’t embarrass you. Cut them a check for a hundred grand. By the way, Sidney, how much is drlivingstonipresume.com worth right at this moment?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere between eight hundred and fifty million and a billion. Why?”
“I want you to sell it. Tomorrow.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I couldn’t be more serious. Sidney, listen to me carefully. We are on the precipice of a banking disaster that’s going to rival the Great Depression.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone.
“Marvin, anti-depressants aren’t like baby aspirins. You can’t just stop taking them. You can have a psychotic episode.”
“Today, my facialist, who makes no more than forty grand a year, told me that Countrywide gave her mortgages for two condominiums at sub prime. How is that possible?”
“The government is encouraging home ownership.”
“That’s the Kool-Aid. We’re going down the tubes. I can feel it.”
“Marvin…”
“Leave me a hundred million to live on, and sell everything else.”
“What am I supposed to do with all that money?”
“Short Freddie and Fannie. But do it in ten tranches so no one knows what I’m up to.”
“Could you please give this the twenty-four hour test?”
“Sell drlivingston, Sidney. Tomorrow.”
b
Mallomar flew back to Colorado at daybreak. That morning, on the floor of the NYSE, his instructions to sell drlivingstonipresume.com were carried out at the sound of the opening bell. Serendipitously, fifteen minutes later, Google announced news of an improved algorithm that would revolutionize search engines, and the stock price of drlivingstonipresume.com plummeted 35 percent by the close. The Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as the New York District Attorney’s Office were quite interested in Mallomar’s exquisite timing. They contacted Sidney Glasker and suggested that his client return to New York for a frank discussion.
“What do you want me to tell them?” Glasker asked Mallomar.
“Tell them I’m busy.”
“They won’t want to hear that.”
“Did you place the short?”
“Of course, I did. By the way, today’s FT says constructions starts are on the rise and real estate is up another nine point five percent across the board.”
“There’s always a head fake before a crash.”
“A billion dollars, Marvin. That’s an awful lot of money…”
“Sidney, are you tryin’ to make me go wee-wee?”
“I’m just wondering if we committed the wrong Mallomar.”
“How much of your dough did you put in?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t you use any of your own money to short Fannie and Freddie?”
“Fuck no, I didn’t. It’s insane.”
“Let me ask you something. How much did you make riding my coattails into drlivingstonipresume.com?”
“I don’t know…maybe three and a half million.”
“Toss it in the pot, Sidney.”
“Three and a half million has a different meaning to me than it does to you.”
“Toss it in, you fuckin’ chicken.” And Mallomar hung up.
His business in New York finished, Mallomar flew his plane back to Colorado that afternoon, but not before stopping at Russ and Daughters to pick up five pounds of Irish organic smoked salmon.
It was unusual for Buster to pick up Mallomar at the Montrose FBO, but he had an ulterior reason. There were still three of the original rust-colored Puster outbuildings on the property and the architect wanted them torn down for aesthetic reasons. Buster wanted them to remain for authenticity reasons. Their only chance of survival rested with the Big Dog himself, so on the way home, Buster pretended that the lugs were loose on his left front tire and pulled off onto the shoulder of the highway. The location was no accident. While Buster play-acted with a lug wrench, he waited for Mallomar to notice what he had led him here to see. Across the highway was the Double RL, belonging to Ralph Lauren. Lauren had kept the outbuildings from the ranch that he’d bought from its original owner.
“He’s got all his old buildings,” Mallomar said.
Buster stood up and squinted across the highway.
“Ah do b’lieve he has.”
There was no need to say anymore. When they got back to the ranch, Mallomar put the kibosh on the demolition of his original buildings—much to his architect’s chagrin. However, it was conceded that if the dilapidated buildings were to stay, they would need reinforcing and rehabilitation. The fly in the ointment was that Mallomar had decreed that he was to be a member of the construction crew. Buster was sorry that he agreed when Mallomar showed up for work wearing a tool belt and the chrome-plated tools that he’d been gifted for his five-million-dollar contribution to Habitat For Humanity.
Each of the rickety buildings was painstakingly lifted off the ground and reset on newly poured concrete slabs. The rotted wood was replaced. The barn walls, as well as the roof, were re-plumbed, shimmed and insulated. Mallomar, silver tools in hand, insinuated his position into every one of these tasks. It was clear that he wanted to show the locals working on this project that he was just “one of the guys.”
However, his constant self-aggrandizing began to militate against the desired effect.
No matter what the men were bullshitting about as they worked, Mallomar would find a way to free-associate a story involving some great achievement of his, a famous person he knew, a beautiful woman he had had sex with, an expensive item he once owned, an extravagantly crazy thing he once did, or some really wonderful food he once ate. Buster didn’t mind this when they were alone, but he became embarrassed for him when he did this around the other men. He tried to gently head off the conversation—the way a cowboy moves a straggler out of the trees and back with the herd. Eventually, Mallomar noticed.
One afternoon while they and the crew were tearing out the asbestos roof tiles on an old chicken coop, Mallomar began to decry the quality of local meat.
“The irony,” he said through his safety mask, “…is that here we are in the middle of beef country—and you can’t even get a decent hamburger. I had the guy at the meat counter grind up ten pounds of sirloin and it still tasted like I was eating a goddamn Dr. Scholl’s insole!”
Buster could see the other fellows’ eyes widen and leaped in to say how many wild strawberries he’d run across while up in Beaver Park. Mallomar just stared at him, and then asked him to step outside for a moment.
“What’s the problem?” Buster asked as he lifted his mask.
“I’ll tell you what the problem is. Every time I start telling a story, you change the subject.”
“Well, if’n ah do, ah ain’t aware of it.”
“I’m aware of it. Trust me, you do it all the fucking time.”
“Well, Mr. Mallomar, ah’ll try to keep an eye on it.” Buster turned to go back in the chicken coop, then stopped. “Tell you what…ever’ time you start to tell these folks, who mostly live offa food stamps, how you take perfekly good steaks and grind em up into burgers—or how you have some lil’ guy in Italy make two-thousand-dollar shoes for you cause you got ’specially skinny feet…ah’ll jes kep my mouth shut and let you go on makin’a dang fool of yorself.”
“Are you saying I’ve got a big mouth?”
“You prolly know someone in New York who’s got a bigger one, a better one, one that can eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the same time whilst recitin’ all the companies on the dang New York Stock Exchange—but, yessir, that’s what ah’m sayin’.” Buster had never stood up to anyone like this before. Sarcasm, in Buster’s upside-down brain, had finally come onstream.
Mallomar sputtered, at a loss for words.
“I was just trying to hold up my end of the conversation,” he protested weakly.
“We ain’t on a talk show, Mr. Mallomar. These men are only here cause yor payin’ em. You don’t need to impress ’em any more’n that.”
Mallomar swallowed the lump in his throat. The doleful look on his face was a pitiful sight to behold.
“Well, I’m…I’m not going to say another fucking word,” Mallomar said petulantly.
Buster raised an eyebrow and pig snorted.
“Now, Mr. Mallomar, we both know that ain’t true.”
“I mean it, goddammit! I’ve got a big mouth and I’m not going to say another word!”
“Now really, Mr. Mallomar, that ain’t dang posserbull.”
“I’m not going to say another word for seven days and seven nights.”
“You cain’t do it.”
“Yes, I can.”
“Cain’t.”
“Can.”
“Cain’t.”
“Can.”
Then Mallomar broke a hunk of asbestos over Buster’s head. Buster, deadpan, broke some asbestos over Mallomar’s head. The others came out of the chicken coop and stood in silence watching the two men crack each other over the head at least a dozen times and bray with laughter until the air had been squeezed out of each others’ lungs and they fell to the ground. They then proceeded to heap dirt on each other until their ears, nostrils and mouths were filled with the stuff and they spat out dirt-colored drool like two hydrophobic dogs. The help could see that this was not an ordinary relationship between a ranch boss and his foreman. They just didn’t know what exactly it was.
“Seven days and seven nights without talking,” Mallomar gasped.
“What’s the bet?”
“I’ll bet you one hundred acres of my land.”
“And iffin’ ah lose…?” Mallomar knew exactly what he wanted from Buster. And it had been sticking in his craw from the day they went elk hunting.
“I’ll take your truck.”
All the men looked at Buster. It was too late to back out now.
“All right…it’s a bet,” Buster said.
Suddenly, the ground started to rumble and the ranch dogs woke from their naps under the deck and started barking. Mallomar’s face took on a glum expression that Buster hadn’t seen in weeks as a black Suburban worked its way up the road. Buster recognized the logo on the door as belonging to the local limo company.
Six full-sized Halliburton cases were eased down from the luggage rack, but the main cargo still hadn’t shown herself. Mallomar shooed the barking dogs away, then tapped on the blacked-out window. He found himself in the very difficult position of wanting to yell at her, but holding to the bet, not being able to speak. Tapping on the window wasn’t getting him anywhere with the occupant. He looked at Buster, entreatingly.
“Hmmm mm mmmm.” Have a heart, he said with his lips closed. Buster stepped forward, not wanting to take unfair advantage of the situation.
“Uh, you can come out now, Mrs. Mallomar.”
Buster shaded his eyes and peeked into the blacked-out car. He could make out the form of a woman in the back seat, but she wasn’t budging. Mallomar’s jaw muscles tightened, and he rapped on the window again. This next time, a bit more impatiently. Buster and Mallomar could hear the electric doors lock again.
“Hmmuhmmm.” Sonofabitch, it can be assumed he said.
“Hello there, Mrs. Mallomar…’member me? Buster McCaffrey? Welcome to the Big Dog Ranch! If ya’ll kindly unlock them doors we can get you sich-eee-yated in the main house,” Buster said as sweet as coconut pie. But Mrs. Mallomar didn’t budge. Mallomar sighed and shrugged his shoulders. He started to walk away from the car and then stopped. His face turned purple and contorted. He charged the Suburban kicking and clawing at the door like an animal.
“Do you have any idea what you put me through? Well, that’s enough goddammit! That’s enough! If you don’t get out of this car right now—I’m going to break the window and pull you out by your fucking hair!” Mallomar couldn’t believe what had just burst from his mouth. Buster raised an eyebrow and smiled to the other men. They nodded as if to say, Yep, we heard him, all right. The Big Dog Ranch was now minus one hundred acres.
Now, the damage done, the locks clicked up, and the door opened. A skinny white leg in black shorts swung out and paused as if testing to see if the atmosphere on earth was safe. An empty bottle of Ketel One toppled to the ground. Finally, the sum of Mrs. Mallomar’s Giacometti-thin figure emerged and steadied itself against the car. She jauntily adjusted her black Oakleys. She was wearing a black baseball cap that the hospital had given her as a going away present, heralding the generic version of “AMITRIPTYLIN.”
Swaying as if in a breeze, Mrs. Mallomar’s sunglasses took in her surroundings: an almost finished house in the middle of nowhere, the husband wearing cheap western clothes covered in filth, and some tall cowboy—also dirty and smiling at her through tobacco-stained horse teeth.
“Fuuuuuuuck,” she said, and threw up all over Buster’s boots before passing out.
Buster and Mallomar caught her before she face-planted. Together, they fireman-carried her into the house.
“Look at what she’s done to herself!” Mallomar said, shocked at how much weight she’d lost during her experimental treatment. “She’s got a substance abuse problem. Had her in the best…” Mallomar caught himself before bragging. “Had her in a nut hospital. I guess we know how well that fucking worked.”
Like biblical handmaidens, they carried her up the stairs to her own room.
“Last year they arrested her for shoplifting. Can you imagine that? One of the wealthiest…” Once again, he stopped himself from bragging. “They caught her stealing shoe samples on display at Barney’s. Her closets were filled with three hundred of the damn things—no pairs—just tiny single shoes. After they pinched her, I said, ‘Dana, you had no possible use for the fucking things. Why in God’s name did you take them?’ She just shrugged her shoulders and looked at me like I was the biggest lox in the world and said, ‘Why do you think?’”
Once they had her tucked in, her hospital-white skin against the white sheets made her appear chroma-keyed and invisible save for her eyebrows.
Buster thought it best that he step outside to give the Mallomars some privacy. Mallomar looked down on Dana, dead to the world, and noticed that she still had her shoulder bag on her. Gently, he lifted the strap around her neck and pulled it up from below the sheets. He threw the bag on the chair and was about to leave the room, when he had a thought. He went back to the bag and emptied its contents on the dresser. There were the remnants of her hospital hygiene kit, the plastic ID bracelet that she had decided to keep as a souvenir, and a package of beef jerky. Beef jerky? She had never eaten beef jerky in her life. He turned the package over and a white powder cascaded from it. Dana had been under close supervision from the time she left the hospital, to his own driver, to their private airplane. From Montrose, the only person with whom Dana had contact was the limo guy.
“This is Marvin Mallomar,” he said, on the phone in his office. “That’s right, you just brought my wife up to the ranch in Vanadium. Hey, in all the commotion of the happy homecoming, I forgot to tip your guy. Got his name and address handy?”
Mallomar put the jerky and drug remnants in a FedEx envelope with a note.
He wasn’t going to bother with the local constabulary when he already had connections at the DEA. Whoever that driver was, Marvin Mallomar intended to fuck him up good. When he finished, Buster was waiting for him on the front porch with two cold beers.
For the first time since Buster had known him, the arrival of his delirious wife had put Mallomar truly at a loss for words. As the sun set and the San Juan’s were slowly turning Venetian red with alpenglow, they drank their beer in silence.
“So, where do you want your hundred acres?” Mallomar asked, finally.
“At the edge of the canyon, by that old sheepherder’s wagon.”
“Done.”
“But Mr. Mallomar…?”
“Yeah?”
“Now ah’m givin’ it back to you.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Since it’s mine, ah’m free to do whatev’r I dang please. So, ah’m makin’ a little present of it for ya.”
“You’re crazy. It’s worth seven hundred thousand dollars.”
“Beggin’ yor pardon, sir. Ah ain’t settin’ out to get my ranch thataway.”
“You really…want to give it back to me?” Mallomar seemed to suffer from the same problem Sheriff Dudival had and turned away from Buster to clear the lump in his throat.
“Yes, sir.”
Buster could see Mallomar’s hand go up to his face as if he were brushing something away. Finally, he turned around and offered his hand.
“Thank you.”