Page 113 of Nash Falls

“Well, musclin’ you up will go part of the way. You got the right frame to pack it on, you just never did shit with it. But I see your daddy’s genes in you, so there’s that. And the hair’s got to go. Grow a beard maybe. And somethin’ else that will help.”

“What?”

“You’ll see. And alsofeelit.”

Shock paused and seemed to be deliberating something, something important, for both of them. “Look, Walter, this shit ain’t gonna be quick, okay? I’m talkin’ many, many months, probably over a year even.”

“A year! Shock, if Maggie is alive I can’t waste a year—”

“The odds of Maggie being alive are pretty much nil, okay? You’re right, I was sugarcoatin’ things before. Now, we need to get real. Real, real. We can’t do this half-ass. The whole fucken country is lookin’ for you. And I’m harborin’ you, so that means you go down, I go down.”

“It was a mistake calling you to help. Just drive me—”

“Shut the fuck up, Walter, and listen ’cause I’m only gonna say this one time.”

Nash sat back and looked at him apprehensively.

Shock said, “This is a risk, a big risk for usboth. You don’t want to go down and I sure as hell don’t want to spend what years I got left in prison. But it is what it is. Now, you either take the time and make the commitment to do this right, or you might as well just go turn yourself in to the cops right now, ’cause you shortchange this, they gonna catch your ass no problem. Slow and methodical, put the hard work in, wins the day. Bet you conducted your business the same way, right?”

“I did,” conceded Nash.

“So whatever time it takes that’s what it takes. And at the end of the day you won’t look, act, orbeWalter Nash no more. Ain’t no other way to slice this sucker.” He paused again. “You really ready for all that? ’Cause I’m all in. I’m all in ’cause I promised your daddy. Now when I made that promise to him I didn’t know it would turninto this shitshow, that is for fuck sure. But a promise to that man is a promise that I cannot break. Just so’s you understand. I’m with you all the way. Now, how ’bout you? ’Cause half-ass don’t cut it. Not now, Walter. We partners on this or we ain’t. Your choice.”

Nash didn’t answer right away. Going through his mind at hyper speed were all the pros and cons of his situation. The latter easily overwhelmed the former. But then his mind stopped racing and settled onto one image. Maggie, online saying those things, none of them true. Maggie, being taken. Maggie, being coerced.

Maggie, being almost surely dead.

“I’m ready,” said Nash.

Shock scrutinized him for a long, uncomfortable moment. “I believe you.”

Nash said, “I believe me, too.”

CHAPTER

54

MY GOD, RHETT, YOUR FATHER,” said Judith as they sat in the dining room together at her home.

“Itwasa shock. I’d only just found out he was ill,” he added. He’d brought them dinner and they’d just finished eating. She poured them each out another glass of cab.

“What will happen now?”

“You mean to the business? I don’t know. I presume I’ll take over, but it will have to wait until the lawyers disclose the contents of the will.”

“You said one of the staff discovered the body?”

“Yes. Dad… he’d been dead for a while.”

“How awful.”

He gripped her hand. “But I didn’t come over here to talk about that. You have your own worries. Do the police know anything more?”

“No, they’ve been by several times, but they still have no idea where Maggie might be. But at least she’s alive. And there’s been no sign of Walter.”

“Amazing that he made such a clean getaway. Almost like he had help.”

“When he ran out of here I think he had a bag with him. It was like he had prepared for something like this. Just like an Eagle Scout,” she added derisively.