That Old Ace in the Hole (35 page)

Bob flushed with shame, for it did seem he was rich and awful.

“More elk, Father-in-law?” Bob Mason lifted a dripping slice on the serving fork. The tender meat swayed. But the old man had fixed on Bob.

“You will have to find your way alone. Maybe this uncle you speak of will help you.”

“Maybe,” said Bob, subdued and miserable.

The old man said to the ceiling, “Have pity. Help this poor man to lead a good life.”

For Bob the pleasant evening had gone sour. As soon as he could he left. As he started the Saturn he saw a light come on in the old man’s room, saw Shirley Mason turn on the television set and set the trembling images in motion.

I
t was after midnight when Bob walked into the little apartment above the shop. All was silent and unchanged, a few dishes in the drainer, the countertops clean and shining, the chairs neatly aligned around the table, a small stack of bills squared next to Uncle Tam’s checkbook and pen, the honey bear bottle in the center. Bob looked inside the checkbook and saw the balance was $91.78. Unless the bills were minuscule none would be paid in full. In the refrigerator he saw bundles of carrots, two cabbages, rotting bananas, a plastic bag of kale and, next to some senescent apples, a bunch of leeks and a container of mushrooms. A plastic sack of salad greens proclaimed fourteen times that the leaves within were “Organic!” It looked unpromising until he saw the ball of pizza dough and a square of mozzarella. Uncle Tam must be planning a mushroom and onion pizza, Bob’s favorite. Looking around the pokey kitchen he knew that if he were fired he could not come back and live with Uncle Tam.

He heard Uncle Tam’s bedroom door open and turned to face his relative.

“Bob! I didn’t hear you drive up. Want some decaf?”

“Sure.” He examined his uncle critically. He had the same cat face as Bob, a genetic gift from Slavic ancestors unphotographed and long ago perished, their features persisting through the generations. Uncle Tam looked smaller, greyer, less able in some sad way. He had lost enough weight that his pajamas, printed with green moose, hung on him like old curtains.

“You still on the vegetarian kick?”

“I am. But carrots have lost their thrill. Now I’m trying the exotics—chayote, cactus leaves, persimmons. There’s some new kiwis, real, real small and sweet, they don’t have those hairy rinds. Smooth. They taste like grapes. Probably genetically modified. But there’s times when I think about eating a whole standing rib roast by myself. The first slice would probably kill me. Anyway, I thought about making pizza. If it’s not too late. If you got any appetite. How was the elk?”

“The elk was wonderful. I did bring you a slice. And pizza sounds good. For tomorrow, right? I’ll help you make it. What’s been going on in the neighborhood?”

“Oh, the big news is Dickie Van Hose, remember him? Ran the drugstore? Van Hose Pharmacy?” He had been fitting in the coffee filter while he talked and measuring the coffee and water.

“Sure. Fat kind of guy with big eyebrows. What happened to him?”

“He invested all his money with a brokerage firm downtown. All tech stocks. And he took a bath. Lost everything, mortgaged the house, lost that, sold drugs under the counter, lost the store. He was wiped out. And apparently he got despondent. He killed his wife and the three kids, left a note saying he was sparing them pain, then he went to the broker’s office, Handfull and Palp down on Lincoln. He shot five people in the office including the brokers. Then he went home and shot himself. In the note he said Handfull and Palp ‘destroyed me with their merciless greed.’”

“God, that’s lousy.” He poured milk in his coffee, added a little honey from the honey bear bottle. “And what do you hear from Bromo these days?”

Uncle Tam looked at him until Bob began to feel uncomfortable.

“Do you know that’s the first time you’ve ever asked about him?”

“Oh, come on!”

“Yes, it is. You never really got along with him. He thought you were smart, Bob, but that wasn’t a compliment. The crossword puzzle thing upset him. All that vying over ‘ibex’ and ‘aorta’ and ‘Ares’ and ‘Oona.’”

“There was always a pattern to them. You had to find the pattern. He thought it was only individual words and that loused him up. Anyway, I never asked about him because—well,
you
know.”

“No, Bob, I don’t know. What do you mean?”

“Nothing. It’s just—you’re right, we never got along. He—I always thought he resented me. Like jealousy.”

There was a long silence.

“You’re falling all over yourself. Well, anyway, I appreciate your asking.
Wayne
is doing very well in New York. He’s been taking classes in design and the history of furniture for the last few years. Mornings he works at a classy antique store in the World Trade Center, down on a lower level. It’s a beautiful shop, he says. I forget the name. He invited me to come there for a visit at the end of the summer. And he wants to come back here for Thanksgiving or Christmas, some holiday. He sent you another book—if I can find where I put it. It might be in my office downstairs.”

“How’s business, the shop?”

“So-so. This isn’t really a very good location. I’m sorely tempted to get rid of everything except the Art Plastic. Start over somewhere else.”

“I wish I could,” said Bob. “I kind of hate this hog site job. I think it would be fun to have a little bookstore somewhere.”

“That’s how I started out,” his uncle said. “It just grew into all-around junk. I still got most of the books in boxes in the storage space. Anyway, let’s change the subject,” he muttered. “Got something I want to show you.” He left the kitchen and went downstairs to the shop. Bob poured more coffee into the familiar old Toby mugs. When his uncle came back he was carrying a Bible and Bob felt his heart sink. No doubt the vegetarian diet had stirred some dormant religious volcano in Uncle Tam and the lava would start to flow in a minute. But Uncle Tam passed him the Bible and told him to look in the map envelope inside the back cover. Bob withdrew the map and behind it saw a sheaf of hundred dollar bills. He counted them. There were twelve.

“What’s this all about?” he said.

“Look at the back of the bills,” said Uncle Tam. “You’ll see.”

One side of the third bill was covered with writing in red ink, very hard to read, but Bob made out most of it. It was a will.

It was signed “Floyd Lollar, Colorado Spgs 9–30–56.”

“So,” said Uncle Tam. “It made me think about my situation here. I’ve about decided to put the shop up for sale, find a new location.”

“My God, that’s a big step. Like move to New York? Take a vacation or do something you like?”

“No. New York is not a good place for me. And sometimes it’s not a question of doing what you like. I know your generation puts a lot of value on that, but for most of us it’s a matter of doing the best we can with what we’ve got and who we are.”

“I know, I know,” said Bob, bracing for the responsibility lecture. But it did not come. To fill the awkward silence he began to describe the brooch Freda Beautyrooms had worn at the quilting bee, sketching it out on the back of an envelope. Uncle Tam smote his brow with the heel of his hand and moaned.

“Why not here? Why Texas?”

B
ob slept in his old bed and in the morning he walked down to the bakery and bought brioche and Danish pastries and jelly doughnuts and both papers. He would look for an apartment near a bakery if he moved back to Denver. He and Uncle Tam sat companionably dunking pastries in their coffee and reading bits of news to each other.

“That brooch you described to me last night, it might be French—anyway European. The French took plastic quite seriously and made some beautiful jewelry. I’m guessing it might be a French Art Deco piece from the twenties—the pearlized celluloid and those rhinestone zigzags. See if you can’t buy it for me.”

“I’ll try,” said Bob. “But she’s rich and headstrong and bold. Quite a few of the others at that quilting bee had nice things too,” and he tried to draw the pendant necklace he remembered seeing around Rella Nooncaster’s neck, saying, “This is nile green, this is black.”

“Oh my,” said Uncle Tam. “How I wish I could make her an offer. I wish you’d try for me.”

“I will,” said Bob.

“I found a few things myself while you were gone,” said his uncle. “A pair of Beth Levine acrylic shoes. And I got my eye on some crazy flatware from the thirties, yellow with red polka dots. Trouble is the owner wants four hundred dollars. If that Sweepstakes money comes through—”

“You could spend some of the Bible money.”

“Oh yeah, I could, but—I might have to use it for something else.” He was silent for a moment and then added in a rush, “I might take that trip to New York and see what Wayne is up to. Now, what do you say we go to the Mayan and catch a movie this afternoon?”

On Monday morning Bob luxuriated in the hot shower, though he missed having his coffee on the bunkhouse porch. He dressed in his good grey suit hanging in the closet, knotted the tie his mother had painted of the sinking
Titanic
. In the kitchen he opened the window near the table onto an exquisite early summer day, robins shouting their endless
“Shut up! Shut up!”
Uncle Tam came in saying “Top a the marnin to ye” in a stagey Irish brogue. At 7:30 Bob went downstairs to the Saturn and drove to the Denver offices of Global Pork Rind. He could have taken the bus but thought Mr. Cluke might ask him to turn in the Saturn’s keys on the spot.

Mr. Ragsdale from the Tokyo office was an unusually good-looking human being. Although he was in his fifties his chiseled jaw and regular features, his broad shoulders and athletic frame, his supple movements, deep tan and manicured hands combined with the Armani suit to say, “Here is a man to whom all good things come,” but Bob thought to himself, So how come you work for a pork company? In actuality he said “How do you do, sir?”

“Sit down, Bob,” said Ribeye Cluke, pointing at the lime-green metallic-toned aluminum chair across from his desk. Mr. Ragsdale sat in a leather chair off to one side, a chair exactly like Ribeye’s own. Bob thought that perhaps Global Pork Rind bought them in large lots for their executives.

“Well, sir, Bob,” said Ribeye. “I wonder if you know how close you are to being let go?” He frowned at Bob.

“Yes sir, I had that feeling,” said Bob. “But I really do have some good prospects lined up.” And he told them about Tater Crouch and Jim Skin. “And Mr. Crouch, sir, asked me what kind of money we could offer for his place. Of course I couldn’t give him a figure, but I’d like to be able to set up a time for the Money Offer Person to come down soon and look at it. I had him
right there
and I couldn’t go any farther because I couldn’t give him a figure. And I’ve been thinking, sir,” he went on, “that there’s a subsidiary business Global Pork Rind could develop.” Bob launched into his argument for luxury home properties, describing the Beautyrooms ranch in some detail but omitting the price Waldo Beautyrooms had floated.

“Great Scott!” boomed Bill Ragsdale. “We’ve actually got a site scout who thinks!”

“He
is
smart, Mr. Ragsdale,” said Ribeye Cluke in a fawning tone.

“It’s common sense,” said Bob, his heart beating.

“I’ll discuss it with Mr. Goliath,” said Ragsdale. “Who knows? He might like it. And it’s true that handsome properties do come to the attention of site scouts, but until now they have all rejected them as too upscale—unfit for a hog farm—and that’s been the end of the matter. Of course we have to consider the bottom line. Can you have upscale properties in a region where confined animal farm operations take place? And, of course, it would necessitate an extensive infusion of capital.”

“Sir, actually it wouldn’t. Site scouts see nice properties all the time doing their regular work. So there’d be no need for extra people or anything.”

Mr. Ragsdale smiled knowingly and lowered his eyelids.

Ribeye Cluke picked up another thread. “Bob, about Mr. Crouch’s property. We will get a Money Offer Person down there. In fact we have a very good site scout in the region already and she has just been promoted to money offer status. She could size the place up and give Mr. Crouch a figure.”

“Please, Mr. Cluke, not Evelyn Chine.”

“What! You’ve met Evelyn Chine?”

“Sir, she’s been after my prospects all along. She’s here, she’s there, she’s everywhere. She’s tried to cut in on me several times. Mr. Cluke, I don’t care for Evelyn Chine. Neither does Tater Crouch. He’s one of them she’s tried to get away from me. He told me he didn’t like her and wouldn’t sell to her. Now what is he going to think when I bring her in to make the money offer?”

“That’s a good point, Bob. I’ll see who else we’ve got in the region who could help you out. I’ll let you know in a few days.”

“Thank you. Anybody but Evelyn Chine. And she’s having an affair with a local married man. She’s a real snake.”

“That is malicious gossip, Bob. We don’t do that.”

“Oh?” said Bob then, recklessly, “but it’s all right to lie about what I’m doing down there, right?”

Ribeye Cluke gave Bob a terrible look. “Watch it, Bob. You are not out of the woods yet. We are going to give you one more month to make good. You will sew up two properties in that time or you are out on your bumpus. And I see, Bob”—his tone was menacing—“that you are still wearing those brown oxfords. Did I not tell you to wear cowboy boots?”

“Sir, I
do
wear them all the time, but today, being in Denver I thought I would wear these. They go better with my suit,” said Bob. “Mr. Cluke, people complain about the smell. The hog farm smell. It’s really pretty awful downwind.”

“That’s the country, Bob. That’s rural life. Feedlots smell too. Stock smell is a natural accompaniment of living in the country. The panhandle—in fact everywhere we put our hog farms—is rural, low-population
country
. Anyway, only a very few supersensitive souls are bothered. Most people are not affected.”

“Well, they say other things too. They say the animals are confined in those buildings, that they suffer and live unnatural lives.”

Ribeye Cluke turned to Mr. Ragsdale. “I can’t believe I am having this conversation. I believe Bob
wants
me to fire him.” Then he switched back to Bob, speaking in a sarcastically patient voice as though to a mental deficient. “We don’t think of hogs as ‘animals,’ Bob, not in the same way as cats and dogs and deer and squirrels. We say ‘pork units.’ What they are, Bob, is ‘pork units’—a crop, like corn or beans.” There followed a long lecture on free enterprise and the American Way, the importance of economic opportunity and the value of entrepreneurship to the general good and the well-being of America.

Bill Ragsdale spoke in his sonorous, well-modulated voice. “Not only America, Bob, but the
whole world
.”

“But people down there in the panhandle feel like if they own property they have some say in what happens on it and next to it.”

“You will find, Bob, as you mature, that lip service to the rights of the property owner is just that—lip service. What rules the world is utility—general usefulness. What serves the greater good will prevail. You know that highway departments can take property against the ‘owner’s’ will to widen the thoroughfare for the general good. It’s a similar situation. And if it were put to a general vote, time and again it has been shown that the public supports such moves because they benefit the greater community.”

Bob suddenly remembered Bromo reading a paragraph from his ongoing essay, “This Land Is NOT Your Land,” describing democracy as the duped handmaid of utility. He opened his mouth to say something but both men stood up. It was over.

Ribeye Cluke nodded at Bob. “Go nail down some properties,” he said.

“Good to meet you, Bob,” said Mr. Ragsdale smoothly. He nodded toward Ribeye and added, “You’re well-guided by Mr. Cluke,” and Bob knew the man was not going to discuss a luxury house property subsidiary with Mr. Goliath, whoever that Pork Rind giant might be. Hog farms were for the general good.