Heads You Lose - Lisa Lutz [79]
“What the hell’s going on?” she demanded. “Why’d you call me about Matthew’s wife?”
“I found something at Ter—Harry’s. What do you know about her?”
“Not much,” Lacey said with a shrug. “They split up recently. It was rough.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” said Paul.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She died in June.”
“Oh,” said Lacey. After a pause, she added, “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure she’s dead. What is it with you and death verification, anyway?”
She ignored the question. “So what’s he supposed to do? Tell people, ‘Hi, I’m Matthew, I’m new in town and my wife just died?’And shouldn’t we be talking about Harry Lakes right now?”
Paul just stared at her.
“Maybe Egan’s not ready to deal with her death,” Lacey offered. “So he tells people they got divorced instead. He’s in the five stages of grief or whatever.”
“Something tells me you’d respond differently if he were, say, my girlfriend. For two weeks you’ve been treating everyone like a suspect. Doctor Dreamy bats his eyes at you and it’s innocent until proven guilty?”
“Nice one, Paul,” Lacey said, and opened the truck door. “I gotta go finish my shift.”
Paul was glad to find Rafael at the Timberline, nursing a beer and a cigarette in a back booth.
“Any word from your buddy Brice?” Paul asked.
“Nope. Why don’t you join me?”
A few pints later, Paul had told Rafael about the botched Babalato meeting, Harry’s urgent call, Egan’s dead wife, even the WINO findings. When he was done, the information that had been piling up around him seemed a little less threatening.
“First thing we gotta do,” said Rafael, “is find out everything about Egan.” He whipped out his smartphone and started typing “Matthew Egan” into his browser.
Paul felt a large, soft hand come to rest on his shoulder.
“Gentlemen,” said Big Marv. “Forgive the interruption. I wonder if I could borrow five minutes of Paul’s time.”
Paul thought for a moment. “Okay, but he stays,” he said, gesturing to Rafael. From now on, any Babalato meetings would be witnessed by a third party.
Marv squeezed in next to Rafael, vivifying the verb to dwarf.
“Okay. Let me break it down,” said Marv. “I have business ties with a group of investors based in Tokyo. Long story short, they’re buying up northern properties all over the world. It’s all done with computers—they got all kinds of maps, weather patterns. Basically, they’re making a bet on global warming. They say that when it warms up, the whole climate will change, the, what’s the word . . . terror of the land.”
“Terroir?” Paul offered.39
“Yeah, the terroir. They’re buying up what they think will be primo wine-growing regions in thirty, forty years. They even have spots lined up in Finland, no joke. You ask me, the global warming thing . . . I mean, it’s fucking September, right? Last night I step out for a pee and my dick nearly breaks off in my hand. But what matters to me about these guys is they keep their word and they have deep pockets. I’m putting together a package of local properties—they’re not interested in buying fifteen acres at a time. This is the most I can pay and still do the deal.” Marv stopped and took a pen out of his pocket, flipped over a round Timberline coaster, and wrote down a figure. It took a long time to write, Paul noted. Marv slid it across the table.
Paul flipped it over. $600,000.
“That’s five zeroes, right?” said Rafael. Paul was still catching his breath.
“Five zeroes,” said Marv.
NOTES:
Lisa,
I’m not enough of a dreamer to ask you to read this chapter objectively, but I’m hoping you’ll suspend your stubbornness long enough to absorb it on its own terms. Sometimes giving up the fight is the best thing that can happen to you. Like on the road trip, when we found that hot spring in the snow because we didn’t stay at the safe motel like you wanted.
Dave
P.S. You never answered my question. Was I the first writer you asked?
Dave,
Somehow I don’t think almost freezing to death is the best thing that can happen to me. “I’m sure we can make the next gas station,” you