Текст книги "Poisoned Soil"
Автор книги: Tim Young
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 22 страниц)
“Hmm...maybe you’re right, Blake. Except...I’m not sure the USDA would agree with you on that if they were to come in and ask us who we got the meat from. Oh sure, we’d probably tell them what you just said, but then again we as the restaurant wouldn’t have any culpability. The responsibility for knowing and following the law is on the one who sells the meat. That’s you, Blake. And that’s what happened to that farmer in New York who sold meat that wasn’t inspected. Let’s see he’s doing, what is it...eight years behind bars now, on top of the quarter million dollar fine they laid on him. Lost his house and his wife.”
Blake listened and thought of how to respond to Nick’s thinly veiled threat, but Nick continued.
“All I do is just write the check to you, Blake. Never checks larger than $5,000 at a time, just as you requested.”
Blake clenched his jaw.
“Of course, the authorities don’t come in and ask questions too often,” Nick said, “but you never know when someone may make an anonymous call and a health inspector will show up here or a USDA investigator will show up at your place. By the way, if the inspectors ever do visit you, where’d you get those pigs from anyway? I suspect they’d want to know about that too.”
Nick knew full well where he got those pigs, but, as if it had never dawned on him before, Blake realized that Nick had nothing to do with it other than planting the seed to germinate in the fertile soil of Blake’s greedy mind. It was Blake who had found Savannah locals to trap the descendants of Spanish pigs for him for next to nothing. They were all too happy to make some money doing it.
“Island’s overrun with them little black suckers,” they had said. Hunts were held on the island every year just to eradicate as many wild pigs as they could, most of the carcasses just lying there and going to waste. After they were captured, it was Blake himself who had hauled them to the mountains. It was Blake who had built the curing sheds. Nick had told him how, sure, but otherwise he had nothing to do with it. Most important though, Nick was right; the meat wasn’t inspected. Blake had talked to the USDA folks in Atlanta early on about getting licensed, but they said it had to be in a climate-controlled, stainless steel facility.
“That is bullshit!” Nick had said at the time. “Look Blake, if you follow all the rules then you’re playing someone else’s game and not your own. You won’t accomplish anything that way.”
“Look at this,” Nick had said, pointing to his gold watch. “This watch cost me thirty grand. I have four of them. Pocket change. You think I’ve achieved everything I have by doing what others told me to do? Friggin’ USDA! What the hell do they know about gourmet food? About tradition?”
Blake recalled how intoxicated he was at the idea of Nick’s wealth. At the idea that he, Blake, could achieve...well, if not all of it, at least some of that wealth. In Blake’s eyes, Nick could do no wrong.
“I want those hams to be from wild, black-hoofed pigs that range on acorns and are cured in the open mountain air. Just like we did it in Spain. None of these heavily salted country hams the USDA loves. I wouldn’t feed that garbage to my bulldog. Otherwise Blake, no deal.” Blake had hesitated for an instant, before Nick gave him his closing pitch. “But, if you do raise these for me,” Nick had said, “you’ll not only be richly rewarded, you’ll be a legend, Blake. It’ll be me and you together, doing something that no one else has done.”
So Blake built the sheds and hid them in the woods the way the mountain moonshiners had done successfully during prohibition. Now, Nick was squeaky clean, Blake concluded as he stood there and thought it through, and Nick had no intention of letting him stop, of letting this be a one-time deal. Blake realized that he’d have to find another way out.
Hell, I’ll just close up shop and not even tell Nick, Blake thought. Get rid of everything to the highest bidder. Ain’t a damn thing Nick can do then once I’ve shut it down. To hell with him!
“You know,” Nick continued, “come to think of it I can’t remember if we ever asked for your tax identification number or your social security number to issue you a 1099. I’ll have to check with my accountant to find out for sure. What did we pay you last year, Blake? At least a hundred grand I’d say for the fresh meat, wouldn’t you?”
Blake stared and listened, hating what he was hearing, hating how much Nick knew about him, how much he controlled him. Most of all, hating what he had been doing. Nick was right. Blake had not walked the straight and narrow. He was nowhere close to the center of the road. He had veered off, deep into the woods, and now found himself perched on the edge of a ravine with a strong wind at his back.
“And I figure we’ll owe you, what, another twenty-five, thirty grand for the shipments and deliveries this week. Broken up into checks for five grand each per usual, right Blake?”
Blake exhaled, looked at his feet.
“I wouldn’t worry about anything, though,” Nick continued, “I know you just added all the money I paid you to your tax return as the IRS requires, and that you will again this year. Besides, the IRS would have noticed if you didn’t anyway, unless...well, unless you didn’t actually deposit the checks in a bank account, but just cashed them instead. Of course you wouldn’t have done that, and even if you did I suppose the only record would be the cleared checks that I have with your signature from when you cashed them.”
Nick stopped talking and simply stared at Blake as his words hung in the air with the resonance of a jury’s verdict.
Blake had driven to The Federal full of hope. Hope for a fresh start, hope to get back on the straight and narrow and renew his vows to Angelica. Hope for the simple life that he had once scoffed at and couldn’t wait to get away from. Now it was all he wanted. Nick had just sucked that hope right out of Blake.
“Nick,” Blake whispered softly, “p-l-e-a-s-e!”
Blake composed himself.
“Please let me stop. Let me have my life back. Please Nick.”
Nick smiled, partly to calm Blake, but mainly because he knew his tactics had succeeded. He liked controlling things, owning things. Now it was clear to him that he owned Blake. He placed his hand on Blake’s shoulder.
“My friend, it will all be fine. And you’ll be handsomely rewarded, just as you wanted. Just deliver to me what you promised, when you promised. What we agreed to. We’re both men of our word, Blake. You do what’s right and I’ll do what’s right, my friend.”
Blake knew he was not Nick’s friend. And he knew there was nothing that he could do. He turned and walked away from Nick without saying another word. He continued walking through the kitchen, out the delivery door and to his truck, utterly dejected. He couldn’t imagine how his life could get any worse.
Chapter 18
“Hold up, Tammy!” Ozzie called ahead to Tammy as she walked furiously beside the stream away from Angelica’s secret garden. He raced ahead to get in front of her, his wounds finally healed enough to allow him to run freely. Ozzie turned and stopped, staring at Tammy.
“What’s wrong?” Ozzie asked.
“Nothing. Just leave me alone. I wanna go back to Hal’s.” She moved to her right and lunged forward to pass Ozzie. Ozzie moved left and leaned into Tammy, blocking her momentum with great force. The impact angered Tammy.
“Get out of my way, runt!”
The hair on the back of Ozzie’s neck stood up. “Who are you calling a runt?” Ozzie demanded. “What is wrong with you?”
Tammy lunged, this time right into Ozzie rather than around him. She wanted him to see her maturity, her determination. “I go where I want, when I want,” she exclaimed. “I’m free and I’m sure not gonna have you telling me where I can and can’t go!” She lunged into Ozzie with more force than before and hit him squarely in the chest, but despite being the one in motion, the impact knocked Tammy to the side. Ozzie barely budged. Instead he looked at her, puzzled, trying to figure out why his friend was so incensed. Tammy stepped back for a moment. She turned right and walked away from the stream, into the woods. The understory was thick, mostly a leafy patch of purple ferns and wild anise, but she liked the cool cover it provided. Ozzie followed her in and walked behind her for a few minutes with neither speaking.
“Tammy, what’s wrong?” Ozzie was as much concerned as he was curious.
Tammy stopped and sat down, crushing the leaves of the sweet anise plant. “I don’t know. Just something about that woman I didn’t like, that’s all.” Tammy said.
“She seemed pretty friendly to me,” Ozzie replied. “I like the way she sings.”
“Yeah, I noticed. Couldn’t keep your eyes off her!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ozzie asked.
Tammy didn’t know why she was so upset. She knew she had no reason to be. But she was flushed; her face was on fire. “I just don’t trust people in this neck of the woods,” she said.
“What about Hal?”
Tammy thought for a moment. “He’s all right,” Tammy said. “I guess. But I don’t need anyone else.”
Ozzie said nothing, just stood and listened. Tammy lay on the ground looking up at Ozzie, at the trees swaying gently and freely above him, their leaves painted in October red, orange and gold. At the beautiful, impossibly blue sky. The movement of the trees inspired Tammy to move. She rose, allowing her body to rock back and forth to the motion of the treetops as she inhaled the intoxicating aroma of licorice from the crushed anise leaves. She looked at Ozzie and walked slowly in front of him. Tammy moved whisper-close to share the anise fragrance with him and nuzzle his neck.
Ozzie watched Tammy and tried to stand quietly, but his heart began to pound loudly. A warm flush overcame him as she brushed close to him, his body tingling and burning from deep within, so much that it scared him. It was a burning sensation he had never felt before. He wanted to run, to move, to somehow get rid of that feeling, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t take his eyes off her.
Tammy moved around him, leaning against Ozzie’s back as she did, her warm breath falling softly on his neck. She walked right before him, stood there and presented herself to him. Ozzie felt the strongest need to move, as if an earthquake would erupt from within if he didn’t. He stared at Tammy’s body, her eyes drawing him closer in an inevitable embrace. Ozzie stepped forward and dropped his head on her shoulder, his lips on Tammy’s neck. Tammy uttered a deep moan as they closed their eyes at the same time, surrendering themselves to nature’s will.
***
Rose slipped the DVD into the player in Angelica’s living room and pressed play. Within seconds, Ariel entranced the girls as The Little Mermaid sealed them in an isolation bubble that was impenetrable to the kitchen conversation. Angelica poured coffee into Rose’s cup and poured herself a glass of lemongrass tea, into which she stirred some honey and two droppers of echinacea tincture. She sat next to Rose at the kitchen bar.
“So, are you all packed?” Angelica asked.
“Oh yeah,” Rose answered. “Even packed a bikini if I can get up the nerve to put it on. Maybe at night.” Rose laughed.
“Now Rose, stop it. You have a great body and you know it,” Angelica placed her hand on Rose’s forearm to offer reassurance, although she couldn’t imagine why Rose would need any. She needn’t worry. Indeed, Rose was beautiful as well as smart. The sheen of her black hair matched Angelica’s, though Rose kept hers shorter, never letting it drape over her shoulders. Like Angelica, Rose had inherited her mother’s green eyes and they seemed to be able to see inside you, what you were thinking, what you were feeling. They gripped and held their prey until truth was revealed, and only then softened their grip.
“Hey, you wanna take some of my sunscreen with you?” Angelica offered.
Rose laughed. “I’ve got my sunscreen already packed, silly. But don’t worry, it’s SPF 50.”
Angelica frowned at Rose. “Please tell me that you don’t put those chemicals on your skin. Do you even know what’s in it?”
“Now who’s being silly?” Rose asked. “It’s FDA approved, sis. You think they’d approve it to use on children if it wasn’t tested? Safe?”
Rose cast her green eyes at her country bumpkin sister in both a loving and condescending way, as if to say, “Poor Angelica. Didn’t want to go to college and learn about scientific progress. Instead just kept her feet stuck in the mud back in the hills, going backwards in time instead of forward, clinging to Grandma’s Cherokee traditions.”
Rose had fond memories of the mountains, but going to Athens and meeting so many new and enlightened people and professors at UGA had liberated her from the parochial views on religion, family, and science that had clouded her thinking as a child. Once she stepped out of that circle and opened her eyes, she found she couldn’t move back, even when her parents were killed shortly after her graduation and she was so worried about Angelica. Instead, she had hoped to lure Angelica away, even offered her a place to stay in Athens. But Angelica was as stubborn as her Cherokee ancestors had been two centuries before, Rose reasoned, staying entrenched on her land, handcuffed by ancient religious beliefs, and refusing to surrender herself to progress.
“Are you taking the echinacea tincture that I gave you to boost your immune system?” Angelica asked. Rose reached into her purse and pulled out the small bottle. “Every day,” she said.
“Good. Because wasn’t that peanut butter sold in the stores FDA approved? You know, the stuff with the salmonella?” Angelica asked, without looking at Rose.
“Now wait a–” Rose began before Angelica interrupted.
“And wasn’t that spinach approved...the bags coated in e.coli?” Angelica turned and looked Rose squarely in the eye. Angelica despised confrontation and almost never raised her voice, the only exception being if one of her dearest beliefs was challenged. She knew there was much of the modern scientific world she didn’t know and didn’t care to know. But she also knew what she did know, and that was the natural world and the Bible.
“Come on!” Rose said, glancing over her shoulder to see if the girls had been disturbed. They stayed under Ariel’s hypnotic spell, so Rose continued. “Those are rare exceptions, Angelica. Accidents do happen, you know. The world isn’t perfect!” Rose didn’t like having to defend herself and preferred to squash questions as they arose so that she could then control the progression and content of the discussion.
“Nature is,” Angelica said.
“Is what?”
“Is perfect. There’s no waste. Everything is in God’s landscape for a reason.”
Rose rolled her eyes.
“Do you think people went out in the sun a hundred years ago...two hundred years ago?” Angelica asked. “Did you know that they knew how to protect their skin? Do you think there was widespread skin cancer back then?”
Rose was tempted to take the bait, to challenge Angelica to a debate. Instead, she chose to sit back and let Angelica have her moment.
“So tell me, little sister, what’s in your magic skin potion?”
Angelica smiled, happy that any contention was over.
“Well, as Grandma would probably say...”
Both Angelica and Rose smiled, remembering the way their grandmother never followed recipes with precise measurements, instead relying on cute and cryptic phrases.
“A pinch of carrot seed oil, a hunk of beeswax, a smidgen of Shea butter, a dash of zinc oxide and some drops of vitamin E and lavender oils,” Angelica said. “And then, I melt the oils, beeswax and butter in a double boiler and—”
“You mean in your cauldron over the fire pit, right?” Rose said with amusement. Angelica brushed the comment aside and continued.
“AND...I let it cool a bit, add the oils and zinc oxide. Then I push it into a container and, voila!
Angelica walked to the sink window that overlooked the forest and retrieved a newly made container of sunscreen.
“Here,” Angelica said as she placed it in Rose’s hand and narrowed her eyes on her, “Take it and use it. And here’s a bottle of yarrow spray too. Directions are on it. Stop dousing your body and your food with chemicals, Rose.”
Angelica walked back to the sink.
“Oh, before I forget,” Rose began, “here’s a gift card for McDonald’s in case you want to take the girls in town for lunch and a play date, seeing as Clayton finally got a McDonalds.”
Angelica turned her head slowly and bore her eyes directly into Rose’s. “I most certainly will not take them to McDonald’s, Rose. Please tell me you don’t take the girls to eat fast food!”
“Oh c’mon!” Rose exclaimed. “You gonna tell me that’s all unsafe too? You don’t see their parking lots littered with dead bodies do you, little sister?”
Angelica cast a disapproving eye as Rose embellished the words “little sister” with as much sarcasm as she could.
“Stop calling me little sister. You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”
Rose crossed her arms and put on a smug grin.
“It isn’t just the nutrition Rose, or lack of nutrition,” Angelica said. “You KNOW how horribly those animals are treated in factory farms, and that’s where their meat comes from.”
As Rose opened her mouth to address that last remark, her cell phone buzzed in her purse. She reached in the side pocket and looked at the iPhone’s display. “It’s John,” she said. “Hang on a minute.”
“Hi, John.”
“Hey, Rose. So...you w –to –ar–vacation a little ea–?” John asked.
“What? You’re breaking up on me,” Rose said as she looked at her phone and saw only one bar.
“Don’t you guys have any towers around here, or are you afraid they’re gonna kill you too?” Rose quipped to Angelica as she cupped her hand over the phone.
“I said, do you want to start vacation early?” John repeated.
“What do you mean?” Rose replied.
“My angel investor, Wade Ferry, just called me and invited us to a secret supper club dinner tomorrow night,” John gushed with enthusiasm.
“Oh,” Rose said, interested, but clearly not as excited about the idea as John was. John picked up on the tone and decided to sell the notion.
“This is one of Nick Vegas’s special dinners, part of that 50-Forks thing we heard about on Fox News last week. It’s only for the members of 50-Forks and even then you have to be invited to join,” he added.
“How did you...we get invited?” Rose asked.
“A couple of members can’t make it. You believe that? Shell out seventy-five grand and you can’t make the first event?”
“Where will it be?” Rose asked.
“A house here in Athens. Not sure where. Wade said we’d get an email tomorrow morning telling us where to go. He said there’s going to be amazing food that can’t be found anywhere else. Sounds like a great start to the vacation to me!” Rose thought about it for a moment. She didn’t care as much for the hobnobbing and social scenes as John did, preferring a more quiet life at home in front of a good movie with John and the girls. She pondered that for a second, realizing that maybe she and Angelica weren’t as different as she had thought.
“Sounds like fun,” she said, knowing how excited John was about it.
“You betcha!” John said. “Then Sunday morning we’re off on our private flight to San Salvador, and a couple of hours later we’ll be walking on Grotto beach!”
Angelica sipped her tea as she watched Rose on the phone. She couldn’t hear the conversation but could hear the mumblings of John’s excitement, of good news he had that he wanted to share with Rose. She picked up on Rose’s sensitivity to John’s needs, giving in when necessary and standing firm when necessary. A marriage based on loving give and take. She glanced over at Rose’s girls, who were happily lost in a world of make believe. Angelica was thrilled that Rose was letting her keep her nieces for so long. She would take them out to the garden and show them another world, one that wasn’t make believe, one that was real, alive, and wondrous.
Rose had it all, Angelica thought. Beautiful girls, a loving husband and security, although she had almost become a little too big for her britches just like pretty much everyone that went off to college. She had lost her way with nature and with God, but she had the children and a loving relationship that Angelica longed for.
Why can’t I have that? Why doesn’t Blake talk to me that way, doesn’t spend time with me the way John does with Rose? John is much busier with his business and he finds time for Rose and the girls. He always puts them first.
“Anything new on tropical storm Isabel?” Rose asked John.
“They say it should pass south of Puerto Rico and go south of Florida,” John said. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll know in advance if the course changes and we’ll have plenty of time to leave if we have to. The pilot will be on call.”
“Good. That’s what I want to hear. All right, I’ll see you tonight. Love you!” Rose said as she pressed the button to end the call.
“Did you get some good news?” Angelica asked.
“John got an invitation to a fancy dinner tomorrow night. He’s all excited.” Rose knew the dinner wouldn’t interest Angelica much so she skipped the details. Angelica smiled. As Rose figured, she didn’t get what the big deal was. No dinner would be more special to Angelica than a home cooked meal with a husband and children that she not only cooked herself, but also from food that she grew, raised, and produced herself. The simple life was all she hoped for or aspired to.
“What storm are you talking about?” Angelica asked.
“Don’t y’all get the news up here in Clayton? You know man walked on the moon too, has that news reached here yet?
Angelica cocked her head at Rose and raised her eyebrows.
“Nothing, just your typical October tropical storm brewing in the Caribbean. They say it will become a hurricane, but John says it’s going west into the gulf.”
“Cuckoo-Cuckoo.” The clock in the kitchen struck one and somehow managed to penetrate the girls’ bubble. Their eyes marveled at the bird that came out and announced the time. The girls rolled on the floor and laughed with silly hysterics, the way that only little girls can.
“Oh jeez,” Rose said. “I lost track of the time this morning. I need to get back to Athens. I’ve got to go by the post office and cancel mail delivery before our trip.”
Rose got up to give her girls a hug. They accepted it begrudgingly as Ariel had captured their attention once again.
“You girls mind what your Auntie Angelica says,” Rose said to the ears in the living room deaf to all sounds not from The Little Mermaid.
Angelica walked with Rose out to the car.
“Looks like the fog’s about burned off,” Rose said to Angelica at the car door, and reached her arms around her sister. Angelica closed her eyes and hugged Rose’s middle as she normally did when Rose draped her arms around Angelica’s neck. As she did, Angelica opened her eyes as...she felt something deep inside. She concentrated on the feeling and looked around to see if something around her was out of place or was wrong. It wasn’t. It was coming from within, from Rose. Angelica grew uneasy, but felt it must be silly. But still...something didn’t feel right to her.
She pushed back from Rose and looked into her eyes.
“Rose,” Angelica began, “be careful.”
Rose smiled. “Don’t worry, silly. We’ll be careful and we’ll see you in about ten days. Just have a great time with the girls!” Rose got in the car, buckled her seat belt and put the Honda Odyssey into reverse. She looked through the windshield at Angelica, waved goodbye, and left.
Angelica stood for a moment trying to put her finger on what she had felt. She turned to go in and get the girls, but had the most troubling feeling in her gut. A feeling she hadn’t had since the last time she saw her parents alive.
