Still dazed, I mumbled, “Um, sure,” and followed him into the kitchen. We passed the table and sat at the granite bar on a couple of barstools like we were just two guys shooting the shit instead of me and Pearl’s stepfather at near three o’clock in the morning. I twisted the cap off the bottle of water and swallowed half of it.
That’s why I love you.
Dr. Frank knit his hands together on the bar, pointing his index fingers toward me as he spoke. “Pearl says your mama’s taken ownership of the garage and intends to sell it off. That accurate?”
I nodded once, knocked catawampus by Pearl’s drunken confession. Would she mean it sober? “Yes, sir. She’s just waiting for the official transfer to go through.”
“Have you—or has she—had a business valuation done on the garage? To know its worth as a going concern versus auctioned liquidation of the property, tools, and equipment?”
Auctioned liquidation. That jerked me right back to earth. I had no damned intention of hanging around to witness that and didn’t particularly want to discuss the likelihood. “I handed the spreadsheets over to Mr. Amos, her attorney, but I have a decent idea of it since I’ve been doing the accounting for a couple of years now.”
He rubbed his chin and then said, “The probability that your mama will find a taker for that place without you at the helm is low. She’s more likely to break everything up and unload it piecemeal, I’d guess.”
Meaning liquidation. Yeah. Got it. “I reckon so,” I said. I liked the man well enough based on how Pearl felt about him, but there was only so much of this rubbing-salt-in-the-wound shit I could take.
“So she might be interested in selling the whole thing, lock, stock, and barrel, to a singular entity.” He laid this statement down like he was placing a hand of cards faceup on a table and watched as the purpose of his questions hit me.
“To you?”
“Possibly. I’m always on the lookout for investments, especially here on the island, particularly small, locally owned businesses. It’s good for my personal property value and my practice that this place maintains its laidback, small-town image. That said, you, as the current key employee, would have to be part of the deal—that’d be an associated agreement. If you’re not game, I’m not game.”
“Are you… suggesting that you’d buy Wynn’s and I’d work for you?”
“I’m planting the idea in your head. We probably don’t have a whole lotta time, but we’ve got a few days. Mull it over. If you are interested, I’ll get my CPA in touch with your mama’s attorney and get a look at those numbers. There’s due diligence that’d have to happen before any deal, you understand, handshake or paper.”
I drove home in a stupor, as unprepared for the next shock of the night as I was for the first two.
• • • • • • • • • •
I’d just fallen asleep when I heard a pissed-off voice—a male voice—that sounded as if it came from inside the trailer. As I grabbed the wooden bat from under the bed and threw my bedroom door open, I heard my mother’s equally worked-up voice and the sound of a slap.
Without a second thought, I ran across the space between the bedrooms and busted through her locked door. A man I’d never seen had her by the shoulders. “Hands off!” I roared, bat up, and he released her and sprang back with his palms in the air like I was a one-man SWAT team.
“What the fuck, Ruthanne?” he yelled, eyes wide. “What the fuck?”
The lights were all on in Mom’s room, which made her handprint on his face real visible.
“Who the fuck are you?” I spat, keeping the bat up and over my shoulder, ready to knock a home run with his head if he came at me. I outweighed the guy by at least seventy pounds. Unless he was armed and fast, I’d kick his ass to hell and back before he could count to ten.
“I done told you I live with my son,” Mom said, chest rising and falling. She jerked the housecoat she wore most of the day, every day, around herself and tied the belt.
“You made it sound like he was a kid.” He pointed at me. “That ain’t no kid!”
“No shit,” she said, a hand braced on her hip. “Better not lay another finger on me.”
Keeping an eye on me, he raked a hand through thinning, greasy hair. I figured him to be younger than her by a decade or so, but that didn’t make him a prize. He had the same weedy look Thompson had when he was sent to Jester—scrawny and lean, no muscle tone. “Why is he here, Ruthanne?” he whined. “Thought you said this place belonged to you.”
“He runs the garage, Riley.”
“So? You’re gonna sell it all off anyway. He’s gotta go.” He glared in my direction and I glared back.
Her eyes flicked to me. “Me and him have a deal. He gives me the cash that garage earns every week, and I let his little spic girlfriend live here for another month.”
I clenched the bat in my hand, teeth grinding, and fought to breathe normally when my mind and body were begging me to swing that bat in every direction, consequences be damned. “Pearl is gone,” I gritted out. Thank God, thank fucking God. “And I can be gone tomorrow. Hell, I can be gone in ten minutes. In which case you’re responsible for the cars I haven’t finished fixing, settling the end-of-month debts, balancing the books, and figuring out what the fuck everything is worth, because I’m nothing but a fucking employee with no fucking liability for any of it.”