Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 60198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
There’s a certain lack of surprise from the man that makes me think he knows her well enough to expect things like this. Maybe he even wants it.
Yeah. I see a glint of excitement in his eyes. He likes what she just did. Not sure he ordered her to do it. Not sure that he had any idea it would happen, but he’s stoked it did.
“Lady, what is wrong with you?” I ask the question because I can’t hit her. Want to. Never would.
She looks down at me, her voice cold and hard. “Menopause,” she says. “Don’t ever fuck with a woman over forty, little man. You don’t know what you’ll get.”
Rainer lights a cigar and sits back in his chair.
“I’d like to make an appointment,” I say, standing up. I’ll have a bruise on the back of my head, but I can respect that kind of violence. I treated her like she was nothing, and I figured out she was more than that.
“Let him make one,” Rainer says, exhaling smoke he never inhaled. Pointless fucking activity.
“I came to make you an offer on a patch of forest,” I say.
“Would you like an ice pack?” Margaret makes the offer with apparent kindness. She seems so nice now she’s not wielding a bottle like a fucking maniac, but I know how psychos operate, and I know a smile doesn’t really mean anything.
“I’ll be alright, thank you.”
“Coffee? Tea?”
I wouldn’t accept a drink from this woman. There’d be arsenic in it.
“No. Thank you.”
“Perhaps a chair, then, sir. More comfortable than the floor, or so I am told.”
I take the chair I’m offered, reaching back to pluck bits of glass out of my head.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe these people are fucking animals after all. Interesting. I start to get a sense of excitement I didn’t expect to have. I thought it’d be boring dealing with financial things. I figured we’d have some dry, polite conversation and I’d wish I was anywhere else doing anything else.
I didn’t expect to be treated like I was in a bar fight by a woman who looked like she stepped out of a catalog ad for adult diapers. She’s wearing a fucking floral chiffon skirt, for fuck’s sake.
Maybe people are more interesting than I gave them credit for. I’m going to have to think about that once I get out of here.
“Now, what did you want to talk about that was worth tangling with Margaret?” Rainer asks.
“There’s a patch of forest down by the river that’s being logged. I’d like to make an offer on it.”
He leans back and puffs his cigar, looking at me as if I don’t have the money. I’m not dressed fancy and businesslike. I’m wearing a leather jacket, a shirt that was clean before I got the blood of his workers on it, and jeans that are covered in river mud. I guess I look like a mess.
“And what offer would that be?” He asks the question like he’s indulging me.
“Market value.”
He laughs.
I get instantly annoyed.
“I have money,” I assure him.
“I’m sure you do, but I don’t deal in market value, when I buy land—which I did, from your father, by the way—I do so because I intend to add value.”
“How do you know my father? I mean, how do you know he’s my father?”
It’s annoying, being caught off guard and asking questions awkwardly. I guess it comes down to the last name.
“You’ve got his eyes. Or eye,” he says.
Roasted. By a man who looks like he belongs on a fucking spit. This visit has been a humiliation from beginning to end, and I can’t blame anyone besides myself. Ellie tried to warn me that this man was a monster of another kind. She’s afraid of him. More than she is of me. Because he can take more from her than I ever could.
“Alright. What sort of value are we talking here?”
I’m curious. I didn’t think I’d ever be curious about real estate, but today is a day for learning.
He smiles broadly. “I’m going to put in a mall and a hotel and a casino. That filthy little hole is going to become one of the most profitable centers in Louisiana. You’re welcome to invest, if you like. Use some of that land buying money to get somewhere in the world. I’m sure your father would approve.”
I’m bored again.
“How much do you want for that patch of forest?” I go back to the original question.
“It’s not for sale,” he repeats. “I already have the plans and consents for the development. I have buyers for the wood. I have contractors built for the construction phase. This is more complicated than you imagine.”
“What if it turned out that the area had some significance in terms of nature or what the fuck ever?”
“Would you like a cookie?” Margaret sweeps into the room with a tray of baked goods. I didn’t realize she was gone, and I’m definitely not having a single one of those muffins.