Page 19 of Nash Falls

His office was adjacent to Rhett Temple’s. The man’s door was closed and Nash couldn’t see a light on under it. Rhett didn’t usually come in early, but he normally stayed quite late. He worked hard, Nash had to give him that. If he didn’t have such a chip on his shoulder because of his daddy issues, he might actually make a good executive one day.

But that point was moot if he was a crook.

Nash shut his door behind him, sat at his desk, placed his palms against his blotter, and stared at the opposite wall. Whenever he’d had to make an important decision in his life, he’d followed the advice laid out by his mother to him when he was thinking about colleges. She’d said to take out a piece of paper and make two columns. On the left were the pros of a decision and on the right were the cons.

For obvious reasons Nash did not want to commit anything to paper, so he did this calculation in his head.

Okay, if I’m convinced what Morris said is true, let’s walk through this.

The pros of working with the FBI: One, avoiding criminal prosecution if they found someone else to be their spy and he got caught up in all the indictments. Two, knowing that he did the right thing to bring down bad actors. Three… Nash couldn’t think of another reason.

Then the cons of working with the FBI: One, he could be killed while snooping. Two, he could still be swept up in a criminal prosecution if the FBI decided to screw him. Three, his wife and daughter would never forgive him for upending their lives and being forced to go into Witness Protection. Four, he could be killedafterhe went into Witness Protection by the dangerous people who got away.

Nash could think of a half dozen more, but what did it matter?

He loosened his tie, collected all the air he could in his lungs, heldit for four seconds, and blew it out for the same span of time. When he was a child, his father had taught Nash how to do that when he was nervous or anxious about something, which was almost every minute of his young, angst-ridden life.

Ty Nash had lectured, “Everybody gets scared, sonny boy. But you can control your fear. You got the keys to the car, so to speak. Suck the air in for a count of four, hold that baby for four seconds, and then let it out for another four, hold it for another four, then do it all over again. See, that gives you control back. Pulse goes down, blood pressure goes down, clammy skin goes away, upset stomach no longer upset. Your brain is telling its little scare demons to back the hell off and let the adults control the room again, you got that?”

A young Nash had nodded and said yes he had got it.

“And you keep on doing it until those bad boys go back to sleep. It worked for me in combat, so it’ll work for you with whatever crap’s going on in your life.”

And ithadworked for Nash. Through all the traumas boys normally went through while they were navigating puberty and girls and, well, everything.

The only times ithadn’tworked was when his father had cleaned his clock after the tennis-football thing, and then every time after that with anything having to do with Tiberius Nash.

Nash finished his breathing exercises, and he did indeed calm.

Seeking a distraction from the momentous decision he was going to have to make, he pulled out the card from Mort Dickey, picked up his phone, and called the man, wondering if he had two possible catastrophes to deal with instead of merely one.

CHAPTER

10

ITHINK IT BEST IF WEmeet in person,” said Mort Dickey over the phone.

“I have a busy week,” said Nash. He glanced at the calendar on his computer screen and his spirits fell. He had to travel out of town in two days’ time. “If we can’t talk now, how about a Zoom?”

“I’m an old-fashioned lawyer, Mr. Nash. I don’t really like being on camera. So, for me,zoomcan remain a verb.”

“All right. How about tomorrow morning at eight?”

“You can’t do later?”

“Eight thirty. That’s the best I can do,” said Nash. “I’m scheduled to travel out of town early the next morning and I have a full calendar tomorrow.”

“Eight thirty then. Your father said you were some sort of big-shot money guy.”

“I’m surprised he knew anything about me,” replied Nash tersely.

“Oh, he knew a lot, Mr. Nash. A lot.”

Nash did not like the sound of that. “You intimated that my father had left me something and I was his named executor?”

“Correct.”

“What does the estate consist of?”