Chapter 7: The Offer

Gene Sandberg slid a second sheet of paper beside the check.

It was an affidavit, two paragraphs long, with a line at the bottom for a signature.

"All you have to say is that my son paid you to stand in that line and say yes," Gene said.

"Which is true. A notary can stamp it in ten minutes."

Cal didn't touch the paper.

"And then?" he said.

"And then the marriage was a fraud on June, and a judge dissolves it by Christmas."

Gene turned his glasses in his fingers. "You keep fifty thousand dollars. Your lease on this lot gets a ten-year extension at today's rent."

He looked around the shop with real interest.

"It's good work," he said. "I'd hate to see a place like this lose its ground."

I stood by the launch with the cloth still in my hand, and I said nothing.

This was Cal's choice. I had told him so on the courthouse steps.

"Mr. Sandberg," Cal said. "Who wrote the card?"

"What card?"

"Step four. Don't let her leave the lawn."

Gene's face didn't change. I couldn't see it well enough to read it anyway.

But his thumb stopped turning the glasses.

"That card," he said carefully, "was never meant to be read aloud."

"That's not what I asked."

"Son," Gene said, "it's a theatrical bit between two kids who grew up together. You're out of your depth."

Cal picked up the check.

He looked at the number for a long moment, and then he folded it in half, and in half again.

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