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“That’s collusion,” Mack said to Walker. As Ruby recovered on the patio from her wild race to the construction site, the builder had given Mack the low down on how the Turners and Roxie Komenski were working deals in the area. The realtor set the price low, the Turners stepped in quick and sealed the deal, and the two profited from the unsuspecting landowner’s inexperience. “You got any proof?”
“Plenty,” Walker said, “if you want to talk to those that got snookered. Some of ‘em are still madder’n hell, just like you right about now. You like getting burned?”
“Hell, no.” Mack rubbed his hand across his face, recalling on the day he arrived Billy Joe had mentioned something about a new enterprise they were into. It all made sense now. The buyers’ need for anonymity. Roxie handling deals for which she got no commission. The lower asking price.
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” he told Walker. “It stops right here.”
“What’s your thinking?”
Mack pulled a long breath. “I intend to finish what I started. Not sure exactly how it’s going to play out. You just handle the building end of it, I’ll take care of the rest of it.” As Mack loaded his tools into the back of the Bronco, he assured Walker he would make good on the deal. “You won’t be the one made to pay, I guarantee.”
“Good enough.” Extending his hand, Walker grinned. “As for my part, I’ll keep my ears to the ground for anyone dumb enough to buy a custom duplex in a down-and-out place in the middle of tornado alley.”
Mack left Walker at the gated community and followed his mother to the nursing home to make sure she made it without further incident. He walked inside with her to check on his grandfather. The old man grew smaller every day, and he speculated he was not long for the world.
“I need to handle some business, Mama.”
“You going to that meeting with those lawyers?”
“No, I’m not.”
“But you signed them house papers, Mack. It’s all legal.”
“Haven’t signed over the deed yet. Not legal until I take their money.”
“It isn’t? I thought once you signed a paper, you were obliged.”
“All kinds of way to beat the law, Mama. Don’t worry your head about it.”
“I don’t want to hear that again, Mack. I’m tired of you telling me not to worry. I worry because you don’t tell me things. Does that mean you don’t have to buy that duplex, does it work the same for that?”
He hesitated. “That might be a different story. Right now, I need to clear the slate on this Turner business. But you’re not moving. You and Sister are staying right where you are, that’s a promise.”
“What’s your plan then? You gonna drive out to the Turners and tell them off?” She shook her head, forehead creasing. “That might not be a good idea, Mack. You could lose your temper. Or old Wash might, he’s got a bad one. Talking to them lawyers might be the best bet. Then again, lawyers are sweet talkers, they might—”
“I’m not talking to any of them. That ball belongs in a different court.”
Ruby paused. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ll explain later.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s getting late and I need to make a phone call. I’ll be back soon as I set some things in motion.” He paused. “You look tired. You feeling all right?”
“I’m feeling fine now. My heart was going a mile a minute there for a bit, but it’s slowed down.”
Mack looked at his grandfather again, then back to his mother. “Pa’s not gonna hang on much longer, you best prepare yourself.”
“I’m prepared, Mack. No need to worry about me. Pa’s lived a good long life.” She hesitated, looking at the person in the bed. “Well, maybe not a good life, given all we found out, but I’m prepared. It’s you I’m worried about right now. Something’s troubling you.”
He drew in a breath. “It’s just his final request about being buried with Bill and Jack. He might not hang on long enough for me to pull off that part of the deal.”
Ruby’s shoulders took a straight set. “I’m planning on taking care of that. You just get back here soon as you can. I need to pick up Sister. We have some business of our own to take care of.”
Mack was surprised at the calmness in his mother’s voice and puzzled by the coldness that entered her eyes. “What kind of business?”
“Nothing to worry your head about. Go make your call.”
*****
Mack stopped at the Seven-Eleven on the highway to put gasoline in the Bronco and to use the pay phone. He pulled alongside a gas pump, set the lock on the nozzle so it would run unattended, and walked to the telephone. He dialed the number of the Henryetta realty by heart and waited for someone on the other end to pick up.
“Put Komenski on the phone,” he said to the person who answered. “Don’t care if she is in a meeting, pull her out of it.” He started talking, low and even, the minute he heard the realtor’s voice on the line.
“Deal’s off. I’m not selling the home place.” He listened to the woman on the other end begin to rattle about the terms and conditions of the sales agreement and stopped her mid-sentence.
“You snookered me, Komenski. I talked with people in the building trade. You’ve been working deals with the Turners for years. Finding acreage, talking people into selling cheap, making your bread on volume. No wonder this country’s dying. People like you scamming honest people and ruining the land, just to put a few pieces of gold in your pocket.”
Mack paused to catch his breath, just time enough for the realtor to say she would reduce her percentage if he would meet with the attorneys and go through with the deal. He cut her off again.
“Ball’s yours, Komenski. Don’t care how you handle it with that attorney or the Turners, but it’s not happening. You push this, I’ll hire a lawyer of my own to track down every one of your illicit deals, and you know I’ll do it. Your days of working both ends against the middle are done.”
The silence on the other end was a blessing to Mack’s ears, but short-lived. The realtor got in one last punch before she hung up on him. Mack held the receiver in front of him and spit out his answer to the buzzing on the line anyhow.
“Yeah, I know. I’m still obligated to buy those two units, but you won’t get a dime in commission from either of them or off the home place.” He banged the receiver on the hook so hard, it ricocheted off the wall. Though the realtor could no longer hear him, he made her a promise. “You watch and see. I’ll just sell both sides of that duplex.”
Mack thought about his last statement on the way to his SUV. “Right, Barlow,” he mumbled to himself. “Haven’t been able to sell one, how in hell you figure on selling two?”
He looked up as a long battered Buick pulled alongside another of the gas pumps and a bent old woman got out. Recognizing Bessie Anderson, he hurried over.
“Let me help you there, Bessie.” He fitted the nozzle into the Buick’s gas tank and set it running.
She smiled. “Why, that’s right nice. Don’t I know you?”
“Yes ma’am. I’m Mack Barlow, Ruby and Will’s son. You got your hair fixed not long ago out at Mama’s. We’re cousins, second or third time removed.”
“You’re the one helping Ruby find them mules.”
“Yes ma’am. We found them.”
“You did? Well now, that’s good. Guess you found Grace, too. Knew that story wouldn’t stay buried forever. You can bury a person, not their sad tale.” The woman shivered even though she was dressed in a long wool coat. “Getting right cold, idn’t it? Think I’ll just get on back inside the car.”
“Yes ma’am.” He held the door for her. “Want me to top off the tank, or stop at a certain number of gallons?”
“That’d be fine,” she said, closing the door.
As he filled the tank, Mack ran Bessie’s words through his mind again. “Bessie,” he said, tapping the glass so she would lower the window. “What’d you mean when you said you knew that story wouldn’t stay buried?”
Bessie turned eyes clouded with cataracts and magnified by thick lenses to him. “Why, Will borrowed my car to go chasing after Grace that night she died. Said he heard the gunshots and got out there in time to see Grace leave with that friend of hers, Tootsie Turner. I found him running down the road like a crazy man, waving that shotgun in the air and swearing he was gonna kill her. Wouldn’t even drop me and the girls off at the house for fear he’d lose her. I had the girls in the back seat, you see. I babysat for them in those days. They fell asleep on the way to Tulsa, thank the Lord. We got there just in time to see Tootsie pull away, leaving Grace to catch that bus.”
She shook her head, sighing. “Fool girl didn’t have the sense God gave a goose. Soon as she saw Grover and that gun, she took off running, and he took off running after her.” Bessie paused, looking at some distant place in a time long past. “Grover chased Grace right in front of that bus. Thing knocked her a country mile . . .” She shook her head again. “Before anyone saw us, I jerked the gun away from Grover and put it in the trunk, shoved him in the passenger seat, and took off. He was limp as a dishrag, poor thing.”
Mack felt his lips go numb. “Pa chased her?”
“Grover never got over it. Wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to tell him he wasn’t to fault. ‘Course, guess he was.” She looked at Mack. “He wanted to turn himself in, be punished. Said he deserved to get the electric chair ‘cause he was a murderer. Guess if you look at it in a certain light, he did kill her.”
She hesitated, frowning. “Always wondered if he would’ve shot her. You can bet your bottom dollar that the law would’ve seen it that way, what with that gun in his hand and all. Probably locked him up right out there at the state pen where he worked. Now wouldn’t that’ve been a fine thing for those girls to grow up with?”
She sighed again. “I drove us back home and made him swear he’d never say a word. Told him it just wouldn’t be right to take both a mama and a daddy away from those girls. I swore I’d never say a word either. I dealt with the cops that came around asking why Grace was up there. I told them Will was too distraught to question and fed them a line about Grace’s frail state of mind—which wasn’t really a lie if you think about it.” She sighed. “But I never told them the reason why it was frail.” She smiled at Mack. “Family’s family, you know. And show me one that don’t have its secrets.”
Too numbed to speak, Mack looked up to see the station attendant racing toward the Buick. The man passed him up and began to tap on the passenger-side window.
“Mrs. Anderson,” he called out, tapping furiously on the glass. As she rolled it down, he said, “You want to use your credit card today? Or pay in cash?”
“That’d be fine,” she said.
Mack watched as Bessie rolled up her windows. Before he could blink, she was shifting into gear and pulling out of the station, leaving the attendant standing empty-handed and him holding a nozzle spewing gasoline on the pavement.
“Great God a-mighty,” Mack yelled, fumbling to take the lock off the nozzle.
“Get the water hose,” the attendant called to another person inside the building. He turned to help Mack shut off the spewing gasoline nozzle, saying, “She does that every time. Her sisters, too. Started a fire over at the Texaco a couple years ago. Drove off with the nozzle still in the tank, it struck the pavement and set off a spark. Whole damn thing went up in a blaze of glory.”
Mack waded through the spilled gas to remove the nozzle from his Bronco.
“Don’t start your engine,” the attendant yelled. “Whatever you do, don’t hit the ignition.”
“Wasn’t planning to. Anyone hurt? Over at the Texaco, I mean.”
“No, thank the Lord.” The attendant grabbed the water hose from a teenage boy who dragged it up and hurriedly sent the boy back inside to call the fire department. “But I tell you the truth, somebody ought to lock them three women up, just to keep them from wreaking havoc on society.”
Mack stared at his gasoline-soaked work boots and swore under his breath. “You’re right about that, pard,” he mumbled. Then he considered what the man had said. “They do need to be corralled, don’t they?”
He turned then to look down Oklahoma 69 where a big blue Buick weaved over the center line and took the turn down Peaceable Road with its tires squealing. And his mind went to weaving and wheeling just as fast.
