The Plague of Doves - Louise Erdrich [55]
Billy Peace was quiet. “That’s just over fifty thousand,” he said finally.
Wildstrand nodded. “See? But that’s a doable thing. Only there must be a reason. A very good reason.”
“Well maybe,” said Billy, “you were going to start some kind of business?”
John Wildstrand looked at Billy in surprise. “Well, yes, that’s good, a business. Only then we’ll need to actually have the business, keep it going, make a paper trail and that will lead to more deception and the taxes…it all leads back to me. It gets too complicated. We need one catastrophic reason.”
“A tornado,” said Billy. “I mean in winter maybe not. A blizzard.”
“And where does the money come in?”
“The money gets lost in the blizzard?”
Wildstrand looked disappointed and Billy shrugged weakly.
“A cash payment?”
They both cast about for a time, mulling this over. Then Billy said, “Question.”
“Yes?”
“How come you don’t get divorced from your wife and marry Maggie? A while ago, she said you loved her and now it sounds to me like you still love her. So maybe I didn’t have to come here and threaten you with this.” He wagged the gun. “I’m not getting why you don’t leave your wife and go with Maggie, like run off together or something. You love her.”
“I do love her.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Look at me, Billy.” John Wildstrand put his hands out. “Do you think she’d stay with me just for me? Now be honest. Without the money. Without the job. Just me.”
Billy Peace shrugged. “You’re not so bad, man.”
“Yes, I am,” said Wildstrand. “I’m…a lot of years older than Maggie and I’m half-bald. If I had my hair, then maybe, or if I was either good-looking or athletic. But I’m a realist. I see what I am. The money helps. I’m not saying that’s the only reason Maggie cares for me, not at all. Maggie is a pure soul, but the money helps. I’m not losing one of my biggest assets—if I divorced Neve now I wouldn’t have a job. All gone. I took over from her father, who is, yes, old and in a nursing home. But perfectly lucid. Neve is a fifty-one percent shareholder. Besides, here’s the thing. Neve has done nothing wrong. She has never, to my knowledge, betrayed me with another man, nor has she neglected me within her own powers. It is not her fault. Until I really saw Maggie, you understand, one year ago, I was reasonably happy. Neve and I had sex for twenty minutes once a week and went to Florida on winter vacations; we gave dinner parties and stayed two weeks out of every summer at the lake. In the summer we had sex twice a week and I cooked our meals.”
Billy looked uncomfortable.
“Besides, we’re a small bank and we could get bought out. That would change my situation. I’d like to be with Maggie. I plan to be with Maggie. If she’ll have me.”
Now Wildstrand leaned questioningly toward Billy.
“What does your presence here mean, actually? Did she send you?”
“No.”
“What happened? She won’t talk to me, you know.”
“Well, she told me about her being pregnant. She was kind of upset and I thought you were ditching her. That’s what I thought. You know there’s always been just the two of us. Our mother froze in the woods when I was eleven. Maggie raised me in our grandparents’ house. I would die for her.”
“Of course,” said John Wildstrand. “Of course you would. Let that be our bond, Billy. Both of us would die for her. But here’s the thing. Only one of us…right now anyway, only one of us can provide for her.”
“What should we do?”
“Something has come to me,” said Wildstrand. “Now I’m going to propose an act that may startle you. It may seem bizarre, but give it a chance, Billy, because I think it will work. Hear me out? Say nothing until I’ve laid out a possible plan. Are you ready?”
Billy nodded.
“Say you kidnap my wife.”
Billy gave a strangled yelp.
“No, just listen. Tomorrow night you do the very same thing. As if tonight was just practice. You come to the door. Neve answers. You show her the gun and you come into the house! You