Show Her The Money

“Thanks, Roy.” I smiled again, and wanted to throw my arms around him, I was so grateful for any morsel of support. Roy Kipper had always been amiable, and a big help to me and the staff during the audits. He managed the revenue distribution division at Marvel’s head office in Dallas. “Can I buy you lunch today? It’d be like old times.”

Reaching up, he smoothed back the patches of hair growing on either side of his otherwise bald head. “No can do, but thanks for the offer. We’re having a big powwow about maybe closing the Midland office, and since I’m gonna have to be the bad guy, I need to stick around.”

My spirits sank again and I nodded my understanding. “I’m sorry, Roy.”

“Hey, that’s the way it goes. I’m not an executive, but I’m upper management, and a year from retiring, so bein’ the bad guy sort of fell on me. Hate to do it, but the company needs to tighten its belt if we’ve got a prayer of stayin’ up.” He smiled at me and patted my shoulder. “Good to see you, Pink.”

I watched him leave and it was another five minutes before I could order my donuts because I was so choked up. It made me furious, Lowell and the Marvel brass’s greed and complete disregard for anyone else. People would lose their jobs, and investors would lose their savings. It all made me sick, and I felt guilty because I was the one who started the fall of their house of cards.

By the time I got to the office, it was about eight-twenty. I came in balancing the boxes of donuts and a few of my desk things and said hello to Tiffany. Her pretty blue eyes widened like she was afraid and I thought, geez, they’re only donuts. “You want a donut?”

“Goodness, no,” she said, “I never eat donuts.”

Of course she didn’t eat donuts. She was skin and bones. I turned and headed toward the break room, where I left the donuts, then went to get started on the Shankses’ project.

Within an hour, I had several things figured out, but most of it only led to a longer laundry list of questions. For one thing, there were quite a few checks to a company called Birds in Flight. Sixth sense told me there was something behind those checks, that they had something to do with Bert’s shady dealings. The endorsements on the back were no help, simply a stamped For Deposit Only, followed by an account number. The Birds in Flight bank was in Miami, which I thought was peculiar. I couldn’t think of any oil-related companies based in Miami.

With my methodical approach to the project, I came up with ten different ways to prove Bert Shanks was cheating his cousin. Problem was, all but one of them required information I didn’t have and wasn’t likely to get, because it was all information Bert would have. Even if Bert wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, I didn’t think he’d hand over information that would prove he was a crook.

So I’d have to go with the tenth plan, which involved staking out the pipe yard and waiting to see who bought the new pipe from Bert. The buyer wouldn’t hire a trucking company to drive out and pick up a load of what amounted to black market pipe, so chances were good they used their own vehicle to transport the pipe. Once I had a license plate number, I would go from there. If I was really squirrelly, the truck might have a company name painted on it.

I decided to go check out Shanks Resources’ equipment yard, but on the way out of the office, I thought I’d snag one of the donuts I’d yet to eat. As I walked toward the break room, I passed Tiffany and noticed what looked suspiciously like cinnamon sugar stuck to her lip gloss. I was polite and pretended not to notice. Then I got in the break room and saw both boxes of donuts were empty and wished I’d said something to her like, “When you said you never eat donuts, you meant before ten, didn’t you? Once ten o’clock rolls around, it’s a free-for-all, right?” I was so hungry, even Mom’s raspberry infused sawdust diet bars started to look tasty. Resigned to my fate, I grabbed one and left the office.

I drove out the Rankin highway, to the south side of Midland, where a lot of oil companies have yards. Most of them are several acres of scrubby land, enclosed by metal fences, and at any one time, there might be a couple of pumpjacks, a few tanks, extra pipe or wellhead equipment scattered around, looking rusty and old. When a well depletes and stops producing economically, it has to be plugged, but all the equipment is saved for whenever a new well is drilled and proven to be productive. Or the old equipment is sold off. Either way, it ends up in somebody’s yard until it’s needed again.

The Shankses’ yard was farther out, actually outside of the city limits, away from the highway by a couple of miles. It was the perfect setup for a cheating partner. I drove around, looking for a spot to park when it was dark, where I could see what was going on, but no one could see me. I was glad the Mercedes was black and that it was an SUV, although it groaned a lot when I ran over a stump, and I had the sneaking suspicion it wasn’t really made for off-road. But how could I have known I’d need an off-road vehicle when I bought it a year ago? The farthest off-road I ever got was the parking lot at Northpark Mall.

I found a good spot behind a cluster of mesquites and made a mental map so I’d know how to get there in the dark, without headlights. Driving back around, I cruised through the Shankses’ yard, scoping out their equipment, particularly the pipe. There were several strings of brand-new pipe, already strapped and ready for delivery to a rig.

From the bills of lading, I knew the pipe had been delivered the day before yesterday, so it was a good bet Bert would be selling it off soon. If I was lucky, that very night.

After congratulating myself for being so clever about the whole thing, I headed off to look for an apartment. I knew Mom would go ballistic and tell me it was too dangerous, not to mention I was silly to pay rent when I could live with her for free. But I had to have some space, sans Mom.

I saw five apartments before I found one, and it wasn’t anything to write home about, but it would do. On the second floor, it was a one-bedroom, furnished with cheesy, cheap furniture, including a scratchy couch with wooden arms supported by half wagon wheels. The grounds were well tended, and although there was no pool, there was a small duck pond, complete with a cutesy sign that said Duck Xing. I never did see any ducks.

After signing a six-month lease, I paid the deposit, then went to get my hair cut. I headed for Mabel’s House of Beauty to see if anyone could squeeze me in.

Mabel’s is one of those old-time beauty parlors, housed in a tired shopping center storefront, with avocado-green linoleum floors and faded photographs of the nineteen-sixty-five Junior League Charity Ball marching around the walls. Every picture features some of Midland’s leading ladies in their glory days, all with Mabel’s House of Beauty bouffant hair-dos, thick eyeliner and elbow-length evening gloves.

When I stepped inside, I was greeted by the whirs of multiple hair dryers, female chatter, a ringing telephone and Buck Owens on the stereo. It was like stepping back in time. I’m pretty sure I was the only woman under fifty.

The receptionist, a short, stout woman with a name tag that read Bessie, smiled warmly. “Can I help you, hon?”

“I don’t have an appointment, but I need to get my hair cut.”

Bessie nodded enthusiastically. “We’ve got a new gal, Dot, and she just happens to be free right now.”

I followed Bessie to the back of the shop, toward Dot’s station. Dot was maybe the skinniest woman I’d ever met, with a deep smoker’s voice and coal-black hair, the kind of dyed black that looks blue in fluorescent lighting. We chatted a bit while she washed my hair, and I discovered Dot was from Big Spring, that her husband died and left her no money, so she had to go back to work, and even though she was “right mad at him” at first, now she figured he’d done her a favor because she’d made so many new friends at Mabel’s.

While she snipped my hair, she rambled on about her grandkids and her Buick and George W. and the best recipe for King Ranch chicken. I didn’t pay close attention, but I was listening, sort of zoning out with the buzz of the sounds in the shop and Dot’s smoky voice.

I guess that’s why I started so violently when someone shouted, “Lord a Mercy! It’s pink!”

“Sugar, you shouldn’t jump like that,” Dot said from behind me. “I cut a bit too much when you moved.”

Her words didn’t fully register, I was so fascinated with the scene unfolding two stations away. The woman I’d thought yelled my name was actually talking about her hair, a big, fluffy mass of cotton-candy pink. She was righteously pissed off.

“Goodness,” Dot said, “looks like Miz Colder’s on a tear again. Reckon she’d learn her lesson after last time.”

“Last time?”

Dot leaned close and whispered, “She’s a stubborn old thing and insists on picking out her own color, even though she don’t know nothin’ about it. Last time, her hair was blue as the sky, and I’m not lyin’. She got mad and swore she wouldn’t come back, but there she is.”

Mrs. Colder was ancient. At least a thousand years old, with serious wrinkles and a hunchback. Dressed in a colorful silk blouse and red knit pants, she stood behind the operator chair, her spidery hands clutching the grips of her walker, her sharp, blue eyes staring at the mirror and her thin lips pressed into a straight line. “I want my money back!” she yelled, making me start again. Amazing that such a small person could pack so much punch into a shout.

Her hairdresser, a harried woman who didn’t look much younger than her client, murmured something I couldn’t hear, which appeared to send Mrs. Colder over the edge.

“Been comin’ here for nigh on forty years, paid Mabel scads of money, and this is the thanks I get!”

She had a big, black leather bag, big enough to carry a month’s supply of Depends. Or a 747. It was huge, and bulky. With an incredible show of strength, despite her thin, scrawny appearance, she hauled the bag up and rested it on her walker. Reaching inside, she thrashed about for a bit, then withdrew a cell phone. “I’m callin’ my lawyer, you hear?”

“Miz Colder,” her hairdresser said in a firm voice, “we can’t give your money back because you haven’t paid yet!”

Ignoring her, Mrs. Colder made her call.

The entire shop had gone quiet, even the ladies under the hair dryers switching them off so they could hear what was going on. The only sounds were Buck Owens’ twangy tune and Mrs. Colder’s intermittent shouts.

We were all so focused on the old lady, I never noticed the presence of a sinister figure until something dark caught the corner of my eye and I glanced in the mirror. In the place where Dot was supposed to be stood a man in a black jump-suit with a ski mask over his face. Before I could do anything, like run, or scream, he clamped one hand over my mouth, grabbed me with his other arm and hauled me out of the chair. Looking wildly about for help, I saw that Dot had moved close to Mrs. Colder, and the rest of the shop was focused toward the front. No one was looking, no one knew I was being abducted in broad daylight!

I was so frightened, I guess my body went on autopilot, and without consciously thinking about it, I kicked out and my toe connected with Dot’s little cart. It crashed to the floor, scattering rollers and hair pins and cans of Aquanet.

Everyone turned toward me, including Mrs. Colder. “Let her go,” she shouted, still holding the phone.

The man only held me tighter, squeezing the wind out of me, causing sparkles in my vision, forcing me to stop kicking and squirming. If I live to be a hundred, I will never forget just how Mrs. Colder looked as she reached into her black hole of a bag and pulled out a small, silver gun. An old lady with a walker and a pistol. Jesus, that blew my mind.

“Let her go, swine, or I’m gonna blow a hole in you!”

I don’t think the guy believed her. He never slowed down.

He should have believed her. She fired the gun and the small fax machine on the counter at the back of the shop exploded into a thousand flying pieces. I heard him mumble, “Holy shit!” But still, he kept going.

While I watched in horrified fascination, Mrs. Colder aimed the gun right at the man, which meant the gun was pointed directly at me. Jesus God, I was going to die! An old lady with pink hair and a shaky hand was about to end my life, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

She fired again and I flinched, then hit the floor when the man dropped me. Had she shot him? Was he dead? A little dazed, I glanced behind me and all I saw was the exit door as it closed. The man was gone.

Drawing in a deep breath, I noticed three drops of blood on the avocado linoleum. Wide-eyed, I turned my head and looked at Mrs. Colder. “You shot him!”

“’Course I did, but he’ll live ’cause I only nicked him. Been shootin’ since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Reckon I could pick the wings off a fly at fifty feet, if I was of a mind to.” She shuffled over with her walker and looked down at me from piercing blue eyes. “You okay, little missy?”

I was scared and shaky and completely freaked out, but I’d get over it. Offering the old lady as much of a smile as I could muster, I nodded. “Thank you, ma’am.”

She was about to say something, but before she could speak, I heard Ed’s voice. “What the hell’s going on here?”

“Ed?” I peeked around Mrs. Colder’s red pants and saw him rushing toward us. He was dressed in another pair of faded jeans and a black T-shirt that was exactly like the red one. He looked like a guy who rode a Harley and had sex with girls with gigantic breasts. Ed looked mighty fine. He didn’t look anything like a lawyer.

“You know Ed?” Mrs. Colder shouted.

I decided she had a speech problem and that’s why she spoke with intermittent shouts. “He’s my attorney.”

She slapped the handle of the walker. “Mine, too!”

“I was in the car when Mrs. Colder called, and heard everything, but I had no idea what was going on.” Ed bent to lift me to my feet and held on to me when I swayed. “What happened?”

Before I could say anything, Mrs. Colder gave him the blow-by-blow, her voice rising and falling with her odd, shouting cadence. I noticed the rest of the shop was staring, eyes wide, mouths hanging open in stupefied shock. No doubt, Mrs. Colder’s showdown with the bad guy was destined to become a legend at Mabel’s House of Beauty.

Ed insisted on taking me to lunch, so after the police came, asked a lot of questions, took some of the blood off the floor, and Dot finished my haircut, we took off in his old 4-Runner.

He turned to look at me when he stopped at a red light. “I talked to Santorelli this morning and advised him I’m now your counsel.” His voice was low and solemn. “He told me the Marvel legal team filed a request for injunction to keep your disk from being admitted as evidence. They’re claiming it’s inadmissible because you obtained it illegally.”

“What will happen if they get the injunction?”

Ed stared at me for a moment before answering. “Santorelli says he’d have no choice but to withdraw your immunity because it’s based on you turning over the disk.”

“If there’s an injunction, that’s not my fault. Besides, I was the one who went to the SEC. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

He shook his head, sending my heart into my shoes. “It might be a mitigating factor if they prosecute, but just like a crook who turns himself in, your honesty after the fact doesn’t alter your involvement.”

How stupid I’d been to naively believe I could do the right thing, that I could be open and honest, and the bad guys would pay. I read the writing on the wall, and it told me I was going down. Lowell and the Marvel guys could afford enough legal muscle to weasel out of any charges the government could lay on.

I, on the other hand, had Ed. He was bright and good-looking, and probably enough of a shark to make the big time. But he was inexperienced and unconnected to anyone in Washington. Looking across at him, I swallowed hard. What choice did I have? No way I could afford a lawyer like Mr. Dryer. I’d have to take my chances with Ed.

“Cheer up,” he said as he reached out and rubbed a tear from my cheek with the pad of his thumb. “I’m gonna help you.”

I know it’s awful, but that only made me cry harder.

Chapter 3

Midland is known for oil and rich white men and Baby Jessica, but it should also be known for Mexican food. There are forty-seven Mexican food restaurants in Midland, and the population is right about ninety-five thousand. That’s a Mexican restaurant for every two thousand people. That’s a lotta enchiladas and tamales and tacos. That’s a Mexican food lover’s wet dream.

I have personally eaten at all forty-seven, and do have a few favorites. Bettina’s House of Enchiladas is one. So is El Corazon, which means The Heart, and makes no sense, because they don’t serve any kind of heart, and nothing in the place is a heart, or resembles a heart, but a white guy who spoke no Spanish opened it in the fifties and I guess he thought El Corazon sounded cool.

Ed took me to Bettina’s and I nearly had an orgasm right there in the corner booth, beneath a piñata shaped like SpongeBob SquarePants, because the hot sauce was so good. That’s another thing. In Midland, in all of west Texas, nobody calls hot sauce, salsa. That’s a foreign, sissy word. It’s hot sauce, and we have chips and hot sauce. Not chips and salsa.

Bettina outdid herself and I practically ignored Ed while I dived into the awesome food. There are undoubtedly a lot of women who’d have lost their appetite after what happened at Mabel’s, but I wasn’t one of them. It was almost as though I enjoyed it more, could fully appreciate being alive.

That’s not to say the guy planned to kill me. The part of my mind that keeps the fires of hope burning wanted to believe he’d only intended to rough me up a little, to convince me to lose the disk.

Ed talked while he worked through the Plato Grande, which means Big Huge Plate of Everything in the Kitchen. “Is there any way at all to get your hands on that disk before Mrs. Bohannon gets back home?”

“Not unless I break into her house, and even if I did, I can’t be sure the box is there.”

He shook his head as he polished off his taco. “I really thought the guy was just bluffing, but now I think he’s serious about hurting you. Your mom has a good security system, doesn’t she?”

“The best, but it’s not going to do me much good while I’m living in an apartment.”

“Pink, you can’t move to an apartment. It’s too dangerous.”

“Maybe so, but I’m moving anyway. Besides, I already rented one.” Seeing an argument forming in his expression, I said quickly, “Living with Mom is not an option. After what happened this morning, she’ll follow me everywhere I go and fret about it and keep harping on me to blow off the disk. It’ll be bad enough at the office all day, but listening to her around the clock will make me a raving maniac.”

He conceded the point, but he still didn’t look too happy about it. Then he asked, “What’s it like to work for your mom?”

“I can’t say for sure since this is technically my first day, but based on how I grew up and the relationship we have, I’d say it’s going to be great sometimes, difficult sometimes and absolutely awful the rest of the time. I love Mom and I’m so proud of what she’s done with her life, but she’s very different from most moms. When I was four, she wanted to teach me to swim, and because she’s a big believer in just doing it, she tossed me in the deep end and shouted, ‘Swim!’”

“And you swam, I bet.”

Looking across the table at him, I realized he was a member of Mom’s Fan Club. Not that I thought that was a bad thing. It just made it harder for him to see, well, certain realities about my mother. “No, Ed, I didn’t swim. The lifeguard pulled me out and did mouth-to-mouth, then threatened to call the cops on Mom for child endangerment. I know you wanted me to say, yes, I swam, and all was well and Mom did the right thing by shoving her four-year-old into the deep end of the Midland Country Club pool. But all was not well, and I was too afraid of the water to go swimming again until I was twelve, when Brandy Hernandez had a pool party and invited Lucky Barnes. I was hot for him and didn’t want to embarrass myself, so I took lessons, but even now, I’m not real hip on bodies of water any bigger than my bathtub if I don’t have a flotation device.”

“You were hot for Lucky Barnes? The guy’s a loser.”

“Maybe now he’s a loser. In sixth grade, he was hot. Besides, he had a cool bike and listened to Def Leppard.”

“Did you go out with him?”

“Not a chance. He went with Brandy because she jumped in the pool and lost her top and he was wowed by her boobs.”

“He wasn’t wowed with yours, I take it.”

“Well, no, because I didn’t jump in and lose my top like Brandy did. That’s not to say he would’ve been wowed if I had lost it, because I was only twelve.”

“So was Brandy.”

“True. But she was obviously a wild child, losing her top like that, and Lucky being Lucky, he went for the wild thing.”

“You weren’t a wild child?”

“I had my moments, and I probably would have jumped in and lost my top and given old Brandy a run for the money, but I was too afraid of the water, so I just stood there and watched Lucky take her around the side of her house to make out where her parents wouldn’t see.”

“You wanna know what I think? I think Lucky was probably a lousy kisser and you’d have been disappointed.”

“Why would you think that?”

“I’ve seen the guy eat and it’s not pretty. He’s probably one of those wet kissers. You know, the slobbery kind.”

“Ed, how sensitive of you,” I said with a smile. “I bet you’re right. And he probably tried to cop a feel off Brandy.”

“No doubt about it.” He returned my smile, making his handsome face look good enough to eat. Or kiss. “So you see, your fear of the water turned out to be not such a bad thing. In a strange way, what your mom did turned out okay.”

My smiled died. “No wonder you’re an attorney. That was friggin’ amazing.”

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t actually mean it as a compliment.”

His smile morphed into a grin. “I know.”

The man was just way too good-looking for comfort.

He stood and handed me his keys. “You can go on out to the car if you like. I’m going to stop off in the men’s room.”

A little bemused by him, I watched him walk away, then got to my feet and headed for the door. I was halfway there when the Marvel CFO walked in, followed by the COO and a guy who’s the corporate attorney, but looks more like a bald bodyguard in a pinstriped suit. Roy Kipper brought up the rear. He looked as awkward and uncomfortable as a nun in a whore-house, and when he caught sight of me, he turned bright red, all the way to the top of his bald head. He mumbled something about taking a leak and scurried off to the men’s room.

Panic set in. I wasn’t sure whether to ignore them, be polite and say hello and keep moving, or stop and speak like the friends we used to be.

In the end, what I wanted didn’t make any difference. The CFO, a tall, lanky guy named Larry Sparks, but whom everyone knows as Sparky, stepped in front of me before I could get to the door.

“Hello, Pink,” he said in a neutral voice.

“Hi, Sparky.” I nodded at the COO and the lawyer, then looked at Sparky, waiting for him to say something.

“Saw you on C-SPAN.”

I nodded again.

“Just curious, Pink, how does it feel to fuck a senator?”

Oh-ho, so that’s how it was gonna be. “Just curious, Sparky, how does it feel to be a greedy bastard, commit fraud and ruin thousands of people’s lives?”

Sparky took a threatening step closer, his nostrils flaring and his cheeks pink with either anger or too many of the martinis I could smell on his breath, which was hot on my face. “If you turn over that disk, you’ll be the one who ruins their lives.”