That Old Ace in the Hole (24 page)

D
utifully Bob went to the sheriff’s office in Woolybucket the next morning. There was no receptionist, only Dispatcher Christine Logevall putting green polish on her toenails with painful effort, as her spare tire and arthritis kept her from bending close to her feet. She did not look up when Bob came in, and after hesitating he knocked on the frosted glass door labeled
SHERIFF
.

“Yep,” said a noncommittal voice and Bob pushed the door open.

He had never been in a sheriff’s office before but quickly grasped that it was an uncomfortable place unless you were the lawful inhabitant or his deputy. The walls were the dull pistachio green beloved of small municipalities. An aged dog collar held down a stack of papers whose corners were riffled by the sheriff’s electric fan. Despite the fan the room was stuffy and stale. There were bars on the only window. An axe hung on the wall and a flowery necktie dangled from the coatrack. On the wall behind the desk Bob saw a photograph of the sheriff embracing a trophy the size of a teenager and, below it, in a shadowbox, a pair of oversized handcuffs with explanatory lettering saying that these had been custom-made for Jack “Big Wrist” Derrida. Two hulking computers from the 1980s, black with grime, buzzed on the sheriff’s desk, and in the corner a table bore a printer, a dinosaur fax machine and an electric coffee pot from Sears. The telephone also was a relic from the past, the plain black 1949 Bell 500, a rotary dial instrument with the loud drill of a movie telephone where the heroine lets it ring four times before answering.

The sheriff looked up.

“Do for you?”

“Yesterday. You told me to come in. Bob Dollar.”

“Right, right. Sit down.”

Bob sat in the only chair, an orange, soiled plastic Eames knockoff. All the furniture looked like fifty-year-old castaways and everything was shiny with the patina of old hand grease.

“What’s your business in Woolybucket County, Bob?” asked the sheriff mildly, but his eye was so penetrating and cold that Bob began to tell his history: how his parents had left him on Uncle Tam’s doorstep, their disappearance into Alaska, his life of poverty with Uncle Tam (he left Bromo out of the account as an unnecessary complication), his first job. But when he came to describe hiring on with Global Pork Rind, he veered violently around the truth. Yes, he said, he
apparently
was employed by Global Pork Rind and looking for hog farm sites, but in
actuality
he was acting for Global Deluxe Properties, a subsidiary of GPR interested in rural acreage for luxury home communities. At last he fell silent.

The sheriff said nothing for some time. His gaze had not softened.

“I spose you got a reason for sayin what you say,” said the sheriff, “but you might have boxed yourself into a corner. You got a couple tough locals interested in you and what you are doin here. You might want a know I checked with GPR. You’re scoutin pig farm sites, pure and simple. Nothin a do with no Global Deluxe Property, which don’t exist. Now, there’s no law against searchin out property for swine production, but it could be unhealthy to tell folks you’re a real estate developer front man when it ain’t true. My guess is that the price differential between agricultural land and property folks think is goin a be developed is enough so’s you won’t make many hog site buys. You may think because most a these old boys didn’t git too far in school they will be suckers for the easy deal. I’ll tell you what. These illiterate old coots can figure you right out a your socks. I don’t know why you are lyin about it. There’s two others workin the panhandle and ever one a you is pretendin a be in some other business. I’m goin a be keepin an eye on you.”

“Who?” said Bob. “Who are the others?”

“You’re so smart, you find out,” said the sheriff. “Anyways, I was you, I wouldn’t give no time to that chickenshit hog farm work. How much they pay you?”

“Twenty-four,” said Bob, sure that the sheriff of this panhandle town made far less than that judging by the antiquated equipment in the office.

“If you was as smart as you think you are, you’d be down in Austin with the computer Dellionaires,” said the sheriff.

“No,” said Bob. “The bottom fell out of all that. It’s over.”

“Then you ought a think about prisons.”

For a moment Bob thought the sheriff was threatening him with jail time, but the man went on calmly.

“There’s good money in prisons. They are ideal for rural towns on hard times like Woolybucket. Look at this place. Just a bunch a old farmers livin on government crop-support handouts and ranchers usin the last a their oil money to support cows. A prison is a good, stable source a income for the town and the county. Hires locals, pays taxes, pays for water and other utilities and services, pays sales tax. And attracts other businesses. Prisoners’ visitors need motels, restaurants, gas stations, bus depots and Wal-Marts. I’d purely love to see a great big Wal-Mart in Woolybucket. It would make this place hum. They got them a
good
prison over to Pampa.”

“So how do I fit into that?”

“Why, you ought a be scoutin for a prison-builder corporation stead a hog farms. There’s one up in Nashville. They pay good money, I bet, to fellers finds them a sorry little town at the back a everthing that’s perfect for a good prison. Your best prisons are in the rural places. You get in touch with that Nashville outfit and tell them you know some good places in the panhandle perfect for prisoner incarceration. Put them inmates next to a hog farm, see how fast they reform.” Suddenly he got up and put on his hat. “In the meantime, I’ll be watchin you. Now git.”

As he drove out of town he noticed a new restaurant sign down the street from the Old Dog.

HEALTHY CHRISTIAN CAFÉ
it read, and in the window a small sign announced

Afternoon Tea 3–5
P.M
.

Assorted Pastries

The windows, in contrast to those of the Old Dog, were sparkling and a lace edging frilled the sides; potted geraniums enticed. A brisk stream of elderly women, many wearing flower-sprigged dresses and white gloves, were going in and he slowed to better see the crowded interior, glinting water goblets, a waitress in a muslin apron pushing a trolley of creamy pastries, an elderly lady raising a demitasse cup to her withered lips. A large billboard beside the window with moveable red plastic letters spelled out

W
ELCOME TO
W
OOLYBUCKET
.

H
APPY
B
IRTHDAY
TAMMY

Congratulation

Today Carrot Cake

So, he thought, the Old Dog had competition. Of a sort. And because he liked carrot cake very much he parked and went in, nodded to many of the women whom he remembered from the quilting session. There were no men in the shop. He glanced at the short menu, which featured chicken salad and egg salad sandwiches, a cream soup du jour, a blue plate special and assorted pastries to accompany coffee or tea or hot chocolate. It was obvious every customer was there for the desserts.

“Is there any carrot cake left?” he asked the waitress, who also looked familiar, her shining black hair parted in the center, her pink uniform snug.

“Your lucky day. It’s usually all gone by now but we made extra and there’s a good piece for you. There’s plenty a rice puddin. And cream horns.”

When she brought the confection he recognized her as Dawn Crouch, Ace Crouch’s pregnant granddaughter who had embroidered James Dean’s face onto Abel.

“You had your baby,” he said. “Was it a boy or a girl?”

“Twins. One a each. I named them James and Jeanette. My grandmama takes care a them while I work. How you doin?”

“Pretty well,” said Bob. “Out of curiosity, what is the blue plate special today?”

“Today it was tuna melt, but it is all gone now. Real good. We still got cheese sandwiches.”

“No thanks. So, who owns this restaurant?”

She laughed. “We all do. It’s a cooperative multidenominational church venture.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “But the First Primitive Babtists are the real ones. Same as the quilt. We pretty much do the work and did the setup. It’s nice.”

“Yes,” said Bob truthfully, “it is nice. Very nice. Did you all ever finish the quilt?”

“Looks like it will be finished in a couple weeks. There’s the big rodeo at the Barbwire Festival on the third weekend in June, and that’s when it will get raffled off. Five a’clock. You be sure you buy a bunch a tickets. And the Babtist ladies will serve a good supper. It’s usually the same thing—bierox, french fries, coleslaw, baked beans and a kind a tutti-frutti Jell-O or sugar snakes. Course, Cy runs the barbecue.”

Bob could not imagine what sugar snakes might be and he was going to ask but a bell tinkled somewhere in the back and she went to fetch a plate of sandwiches to a table near the back and was soon talking with the group of women exclaiming over the sandwiches embellished with radish roses, black olives and parsley bouquets. Bob could see that the cheese peeping from the bread was the supermarket utility grade colored federal yellow.

T
he way to the Beautyrooms’ Axe-Head Ranch began with a letter from Houston on thick grey paper.

T
EXOLA
P
ETROLEX

He called the Houston number and got Waldo Beautyrooms’ secretary. The man came on the line, sounding like a camel in distress, apologizing for his guttural voice with the explanation that he was just recovering from a throat operation.

“I’m eager to meet you, Mr. Dollar,” he grated. “I think we have
nearly
persuaded Mother to come down here and live in a very pleasant retirement home. We worry a good deal about her. If she should chance to fall or have a dizzy spell…well, she’s an elderly woman with an active mind and will not admit that she cannot ride or work in her garden as she once did. If you think you can come to Houston for a day we could discuss the possible sale of the ranch.”

“Yes, I think I can,” said Bob Dollar who, despite the sheriff’s warning, was losing sight of hog farms and now more than ever believed in the luxury homes. Perhaps Waldo Beautyrooms would turn out to be a man of sense, who understood that hogs, too, needed a place on the planet. Or perhaps Global Pork Rind would diversify into luxury homes. He reminded himself to write to Ribeye Cluke and suggest this. They might give him a raise for being so attentive to ways of expanding the company’s business. “How about Thursday next week? I’d like to drive down, see more of Texas. I guess it might take a day and a half to drive to Houston?”

“You could easily take two days driving from Woolybucket to Houston. Do you know Houston? No? I’ll send you directions on how to find the Texola offices. We’ll look for you next Thursday around noon.”

On the drive he banished boredom by counting dead skunks on the margin of the highways. (Sheriff Hugh Dough had mapped most of the state in average numbers of dead skunks between towns, depending on the season. He contributed to the number as often as he could, for he believed that running over a skunk fostered a wealth of common sense in the driver.) He passed oddly named side roads—Greasy Corner Junction, Wrinkle Road, Diving Board Road. Shortly before noon on the Thursday Bob turned onto the 610 loop road. He had counted seventy-three dead skunks between Woolybucket and Houston, slightly above the sheriff’s average sixty-eight.

Texola Petrolex was near the Saudi Arabian consulate on Post Oak. He got out of the Saturn into a wet heat that had him sweating in seconds. By the time he reached the enormous glass doors he was drenched. Inside the doors a blast of arctic air coated him with light frost. On the seventeenth floor a sneezing receptionist buzzed Beautyrooms’ office.

“Blease take a seat, sir,” she said. “Mr. Beautyroobs will be with you in a bobent.”

He sat and leafed through slippery copies of
Texas Monthly
and an awkwardly large book titled
Texola Petrolex, Building a Bigger Texas
. After leafing through the bright photographs of folksy, grinning roustabouts on offshore rigs, he closed the book and his eyes.

“Mr. Dollar?” It was the same hoarse voice he had heard over the telephone. Waldo Beautyrooms stepped up, presenting a curved, silver face surmounted by a tremendous pile of white hair like Hokusai’s
Great Wave
. There was a snowy bandage around his neck. He held out a thin hand.

“I thought we might hit the Trail Dust for lunch,” he rasped. “They have great Texas steaks.” They rode the elevator down in silence. Outside the enormous glass doors the wet heat fell on them like a barber’s towel. They drove to the restaurant in Waldo Beautyrooms’ Cadillac. “A lot of executives like the Lexus,” he said, “and they say this is old-fashioned, but I’ll stick with the Caddy. My sisters will be joining us,” said the man hoarsely. “We thought it best that we all meet you. I must confess I guessed you would be an older man. Your voice on the telephone sounded older.”

At the restaurant they headed for a corner table where two thin and remarkably similar women sat drinking blue cocktails. “Bob, let me introduce you to my sisters, Eileen Moon and Marilyn Tyrell.” The women looked at him and smiled. The thinner one, arms like pool cues, asked if the drive had been boring. He nearly told her about counting the skunks but thought better of it.

A few feet away three men sat at a table for six, their briefcases on the empty chairs, papers weighted by salad plates, a map draped over the fattest briefcase. A cadaverous man with slick grey hair the color of a wet mouse talked to the other men, showed them photographs, pointed to a crude circle on the map. Bob heard the words “weed killer,” “carrying capacity,” “erosion,” “riparian recovery” and “back from the dead.”

Waldo rubbed his palms and cracked open the menu. “It’s all Texas meat, Bob. Are you hungry?” The silvery face bent toward him.

“Starving. I could eat a horse.”

“Then I recommend the Bronc Buster’s Special.”

When his plate came he thought for one terrible moment that it actually contained the larger part of a horse. An enormous, four-pound slab of meat covered the sixteen-inch plate. The waitress, a blond girl in the restaurant’s uniform of cowboy boots, miniskirt and tight T-shirt emblazoned
Trail Dust Saloon,
unloaded an array of side dishes—grits, mashed potato, gravy boat, pickled beets, cornbread, fried onions, stuffed mushrooms, sliced beefsteak tomato, a pot of freshly grated horseradish, stewed okra and a bowl of tiny, lethal chiles.

Waldo had ordered cream soup for himself and both women dabbed at lobster salads.

One of the women, the one whose lips were edged in cracks, spoke—he had already lost their names. “About the ranch,” she said, winking her eyes rapidly. “Have you been over it?”

“No, ma’am,” he answered through a mouthful of bloody meat. “Your mother wasn’t receptive to that idea.”

“You have a treat coming, then. It’s truly beautiful, and we think it would be wonderful if the other luxury homes were modeled after the original place. The house was built in 1891 of local limestone. It overlooks the lake. The living room and kitchen have hand-hewn beams. There is a separate guest cottage once used for
very
distinguished visitors, for our parents knew everyone in Texas and entertained lavishly, but now, alas, it’s rarely in use except when one of us visits. The outbuildings include corrals, chutes, a barn, machine shop, three line camps. There are many rare plants and a diversity of wildlife on the ranch. We’ve always been guardians of the land. The selling point, of course, would be that the ranch would continue to give enjoyment to people as a site for fine homes.”

Waldo Beautyrooms mock-frowned at his sister. “Now, Eileen, don’t rush ahead,” he said. “We haven’t even told Mr. Dollar—Bob—the possibilities. Or the good news. How’s your steak, Bob?”

“Delicious,” he said, swallowing a great painful lump and swilling his glass of beer.

“The good news is that our mother has tentatively agreed to the sale. She says she’ll move down here to Oak Shadows Village. I’ve talked with several real estate men about what we might expect for the property, which is
exceptional
as it has live water and a twenty-eight-acre lake, as well as the house, which is on the Historic Register, and the ranch outbuildings, and eight thousand acres of prime grazing land and the natural attributes my sister mentioned. They tell us a fair price, if it’s going to be subdivided and developed, would be nine million dollars.”

Bob Dollar had been sampling a chile when Mr. Beautyrooms floated the figure. His quick intake of breath carried the chile with it and in a second he was strangling and retching. A nearby waiter, trained in the Heimlich maneuver, rushed over, wrapped his muscular arms around Bob’s lower chest and jerked. The chile shot across the table and, wet with saliva, stuck to Waldo Beautyrooms’ silk necktie. Although the chile had been dislodged, its fire had not and Bob continued to choke and weep. He seized his water glass and emptied it. He went for the beer glass and swallowed the contents. Desperate for relief, he ignored the expressions on the Beautyrooms’ faces and took up the gravy boat, drank deeply of the soothing mixture. He excused himself, went to the men’s room where he vomited, drank water out of the faucet, washed his face, drank more water, heaved again, and finally returned to the dining room. Only Waldo Beautyrooms remained. Bob was grateful to see the remains of the steak had been taken away.

“Bob, are you all right?”

“Oh, better now,” he croaked. “It was a pretty hot chile.”

“My sisters had hairdresser appointments so they’ve gone on. But here is what we would suggest you do. Go back up to Woolybucket. Visit the ranch—I’ll tell my mother you are coming. Steve Escarbada can show you around—he’s a kind of ranch manager, even though we don’t run our own cows anymore. He grew up on the place and knows everything about it. Take all the photographs you like. Send them on to your corporate principals. Invite them down to see for themselves. We’re confident that there isn’t a more beautiful or historic property in the panhandle.”

“Why don’t you live there yourself, Mr. Beautyrooms?”

“What! Live in the
panhandle
!?” For the first time the man lost his aplomb. It was as though Bob had suggested he move to the near east and become a camel drover. “No, Mr. Dollar, I think not.”

“All right, I’ll look at it. It sounds like a beautiful place.”

“It is. And this, I think, may be the break we’ve been waiting for. Otherwise we might have to sell the water rights to T. Boone Pickens and let the place go to desert.”

“But he’d never pay you nine million dollars for water rights,” said Bob Dollar hoarsely.

“Oh, wouldn’t he?” asked Waldo Beautyrooms, smiling, turning his silvery moon face toward the waitress and making scribbling motions for the check. “I’ve known T. Boone since he was a kid in Oklahoma and I think I know better than you what he might do. Just so you get the drift of it, in 1997 the Bass brothers sold forty-five thousand acres of water rights for two hundred and fifty million dollars to a southern California water utility. Up in the panhandle the only dependable Ogallala water left is what’s under Roberts County. And T. Boone has got control of the water under a hundred and fifty thousand acres of Roberts County. In quite a few panhandle areas they’ve had to give up irrigation and go back to dry farming. So the water’s an asset. A very big asset.”

They said goodbye and shook hands before leaving. Bob headed back to the men’s room, his gut rumbling. When he came out of the cubicle the cadaverous man from the next table was washing his bony hands. He looked at Bob in the mirror.

“You look like a decent kid,” he said. “What are you doing in the dirty subdivision game?”

“Sir?” said Bob.

“I was listening to you fumble the deal with those assholes. You got any idea what you’re doing to the country when you chop up one of those ranches? You’re bringing in powerlines, roads, increased water consumption for Kentucky bluegrass lawns, giant trophy homes. You’re bringing in people who don’t know and don’t care about the region, so long as they get theirs. All so some greedy little pipsqueak developer like you can make a buck.” He glared at Bob.

“I’m not a developer,” said Bob.

“I overheard you talking about the ‘luxury homes’ that are going on the property.”

“Maybe,” said Bob, “if you didn’t eavesdrop you wouldn’t get wrong ideas.”

The man stood there scowling at Bob, who walked briskly to the door, then turned and said loudly, “For your information, mister, I’m in HOG FARMS,” relishing the man’s incredulous and horrified expression. At the exit he realized he had come to the restaurant with Waldo Beautyrooms, and now had to call for a taxi to take him to the Texola parking lot on the other side of Houston, using his last cash to pay for it.

There were several entrances to the Axe-Head Ranch, all but one behind electronic gates set between upright posts bridged by a hand-forged arch that carried the brand, an axe head in a triangle. He could see corrals inside each of these gates. The main gate was open and Bob drove down the graveled road and through a short tunnel of trees near the bridge. As he emerged from the trees the pale rock house appeared in the distance, long and low. It did not look particularly imposing or large but as he came nearer he could see wings and ells. In front of the house there was a hitching post and a horse trough, both obviously still in use judging by the piles of manure.