“Really?”
“Yeah, about a year ago I was panning up near Malakoff and he was there too, on the same stretch of river. We started talking, we had the gold thing in common and I was your old buddy so we got along pretty good.”
“Oh? He never said.”
“Yeah, we used to meet up and go panning. Or we’d go to Elephant Society meetings together. I tell you, I was freaked when he disappeared. The cops didn’t find anything?”
“No. But I wanted to ask you something. Did you ever go out with him when he was working? When he was doing his real estate thing?”
“No.”
“Not outside Oakridge, ever? Looking for properties to market?”
“Why would I?”
“I was out at a place called Empty Mile. The woman who lives there said that when my father came out to try and get her to put it on the market he had someone with him.”
Gareth frowned and shook his head, then suddenly his face brightened. “Oh yeah! I know what you’re talking about. My Jeep broke down coming back from Burton. Ray was passing and gave me a ride, but first he had to go someplace for business. Empty Mile. But I wasn’t working with him, dude.”
“Did he have a particular interest in that land?”
“I don’t know. The woman didn’t want to sell, I remember that.”
“I mean the land below her house.”
“I don’t think so, it’s just a patch of land.”
“Did you know he ended up buying it? For himself.”
“Yeah, I heard something about that.”
“The woman said you were interested in a journal she had.”
“Oh yeah, that. It was really interesting. We both spent, like, an hour reading it. Do you think you’ll sell the land, after Ray’s will and everything gets sorted?”
“I could sell it now if I wanted, he put it in my name before he disappeared.”
“Really? How come?”
“Some tax dodge.”
“Interesting… You know, me and Dad have been thinking about getting a piece of land, something for the future. Maybe we could work something out.”
“You want to buy Empty Mile?”
“If you’re selling, why not? I’ve seen it, it’s just the kind of thing we’d be interested in.”
“I thought you guys were broke.”
“We are, but I could still raise the money on the equity we have in this place.”
“I’m not planning to sell.”
He looked disappointed. “Okay, promise me one thing. If you change your mind, give me first crack at it, okay? I’ll pay market value, I’m not asking for a discount or anything.”
After we’d had another beer, Gareth walked me out to my truck. As I got into it I remembered something. “What were the holes for?”
“What holes?”
“The ones you drilled with my father at Empty Mile.”
“Fence posts.”
“Really?”
“That’s what Ray said.”
“But they’re too deep. And they’re right in the middle of the trees.”
“Dude, I was just labor. Your father wanted a hand, he said they were for fence posts. Who gives a fuck? Remember what I said about selling.”
He turned and walked back into the bungalow. I drove to Empty Mile and picked Stan up and we headed to the warehouse for our appointment with what we hoped would be a new customer for Plantasaurus.
There was a high-sided rental van parked at the junction of the garden center driveway and the Oakridge Loop. Its engine wasn’t running and I got the feeling that it had been there for a while. There was someone in the cab but the light was such that I couldn’t make out more than a dim shape behind the wheel.
Stan and I passed it and went on up the driveway. We opened the warehouse and, as we had a little time before our prospective customer was due, Stan turned on the hose and started watering. We’d received our first shipment from the Sacramento wholesaler ten days before and it felt good to stand there and look at the plants, at the different greens of their leaves, shining under the spray of water, knowing that this miniature forest of trees and potted shrubs was ours, that we were in business and this was our stock.
When the watering was done we took several sample displays outside and placed them along the front of the warehouse. As we finished positioning the last of them a champagne Mercedes SUV pulled in from the road, crunched up the drive, and parked in front of us. Three well-dressed women got out, one of them was the customer we’d been waiting for-the owner of an expensive clothing boutique in Old Town. Her name was Cloris and she wanted plants for both her store and her house on the Slopes. The women gathered in front of the displays.
We all said hello and Cloris introduced her friends as fellow Slopes-dwellers who’d come along because they were interested in displays for their homes. Stan managed to shoot me a quick look without anyone seeing and I knew if he’d been able to get away with it he’d have made the sound of a cash register. I left it to him to explain about the various types of plants we used and the other options that were available if they didn’t like what they saw today. The women nodded and made approving noises.
While Stan was speaking I heard an engine start a little way off and half a minute later the van that had been parked at the side of the road raced noisily up the drive and slid to a stop behind the Mercedes. The women turned in surprise. Stan stopped his spiel and looked uncertainly at me.
Jeremy Tripp climbed out of the van and walked calmly around to the double doors at the rear of the vehicle. He paused there and nodded to the women.
Stan lifted his hand timidly. “Hello, Mr. Tripp.”
Tripp ignored him and addressed the women. “You might want to look at this before you waste your money.”
He opened the back of the van and began hauling out the planters we had installed in his house. He handled them with quick angry movements and let them fall heavily on the ground. When he was done he put his foot against one of the tub planters and tipped it over. The Yucca it contained broke rottenly, its trunk opening to show a center of soggy pulp. Its leaves, too, had shriveled from their usual tough greenness and were now empty skin, wet and darkly discolored. The other plants were the same, all blasted and dark and dead.
“Great service, guys.”
The women made small, anxious comments to each other as they tried to figure out what was going on. Stan stammered that something must have gone wrong, that the plants must have caught a disease, that we would replace them immediately…
Tripp snorted in disgust and climbed back into his van. Before he closed the door he paused and took a long look around the garden center land.
“You know, this site would be perfect for a small hotel. Say about thirty rooms. You ever thought of that?”
He made a tight U-turn and drove leisurely down to the road and away. Stan dropped to his knees and started inspecting the plants, pulling their limp carcasses from the soil and holding them up to the light. The women looked briefly at each other then got into their Mercedes. Cloris thanked us then quickly made her own U-turn and drove away before I could say anything.
“They’re not going to be customers, are they, Johnny?”
“Somehow, I don’t think so.”
“This is bad. They might tell someone else.”
“What do you think happened?”
Stan shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s too quick to be a disease. The only thing it looks like is too much insect spray.” I prodded a couple of the plants with the toe of my shoe but it was pointless, I didn’t know anything about the things plants died of. Some of the planters had fallen onto their sides and I bent down to right them, pushing the spilled soil back into them with the flat of my hand. As I did so I smelled something-an ammoniac, chemical tang. I lifted a handful of soil to my nose, then held it out for Stan to sniff.
“Smells like bleach, Johnny.”
“Yeah.”