Robert turned each steak over with a pair of tongs. “You flip once,” he said. “That’s it. You flip too much and you won’t get a well-seared crust.”
What if Robert brought me here to soften me? To knead me with kindness, leaving me no choice but to come clean? He was such a brilliant manipulator, anything was possible. Then again, it was entirely plausible that it simply hadn’t occurred to Robert until now to invite me out here. Like most powerful people with a lot on their mind, that’s how he worked. The world around him functioned according to his whims.
“Now, you paying attention?” Robert removed all the steaks from the grill and set them on a cutting board. “You let them rest for about five minutes, it gives the juices time to circulate. And in the meantime you can refresh your drink.”
He stepped past me to the bar cart. “Another bourbon for you, Tina?”
“Yes, thank you,” I said.
When the five minutes of juice circulating were up, we all sat around the patio table to eat. I was seated between Robert and Dillinger, and across from Glen Wiles. It was difficult having to look at Wiles while I ate, but the steak was so unbelievably delicious that—
“This steak is unbelievably delicious,” Dillinger said.
Robert nodded, pleased with himself. He was so much more relaxed here than at the office. Some of the wrinkles in his forehead had taken the day off, and his face had a glow about it. He told the story of how he and Avery first met. She was the prettiest cheerleader on the fifty-yard line, pretty as a pie supper, and I knew right then we’d get married. It’ll be forty-nine years in October.
Then he told another story, and another, and another.
Let me tell you something about crawfish . . .
We had a ranch hand once who . . .
My daddy back in his wildcattin’ days . . .
And like Aesop’s fables and the oeuvre of Eminem, many of these stories concluded with a moral.
There ain’t no such thing as the wrong bait.
And that’s why you never insult another man’s wife.
Just because a chicken has wings don’t mean it can fly.
I wiped the juice dripping down my chin with my cloth napkin. This was better than NPR’s Story of the Day podcast.
“See that barn over there . . .” Robert gestured in the general direction of the barn, which was actually too far away for any of us to see from where we were seated. “You know who painted that barn? Billy from the office, the mail carrier.”
Dillinger halted midbite. “Are you talking about Patchouli? The guy who skateboards down the building’s handicap ramps?”
Robert laughed. “He told me he used to paint houses, so I hired him. I paid him well, and I gave him a bottle of vodka. It was a three-hundred-dollar bottle of vodka, and he drank half the bottle before he left. That boy got drunk as a skunk, couldn’t see straight.”
Wiles forked at what was left of Carolena’s steak, which was all of it. “If that kid had any clue how much that vodka cost, he probably would have sold it.”
Yeah, to pay his rent, I thought, but everyone was having such a good time, I kept my mouth shut.
Robert refilled my glass again. “Tina, I have to say, I’m impressed by your tolerance. You can drink just like one of the boys.”
Wiles reached across the table and lifted the side of my empty plate, bloody with the memory of a buttery steak. “She eats like one of the boys, too.”
“I’m sorry, Glen,” I shot back without thinking. “Were you hoping to finish my leftovers?”
The table roared. Maybe the bourbon was having an effect after all.
Wiles was stunned to momentary silence, but Robert was clapping his hands. “Thatta girl,” he said. “You tell him!”
Robert’s overjoyed reaction kept Wiles quiet, but you could see in his eyes that he was seething. He didn’t have the self-confidence to take a joke.
I didn’t either, obviously, but whatever.
“All right now. That’s enough fraternizing.” Robert stood up. “We’ve got to get shooting while the light’s still good. Tina, Jason, you ready? Glen, you coming?”
I’d forgotten about the forthcoming guns-and-ammo element to this visit.
“Nah.” Wiles lumbered toward the pool. “I might be too tempted to teach Tina a lesson for mouthing off to me that way.”
Okay. Was that his way of, like, saying he wanted to shoot me?
“Leave her alone, Glen,” Robert said. “You had it coming.” He turned to Dillinger and me. “It’s just the three of us then. The truck’s already loaded up; come on.”
I admired that it didn’t even cross Robert’s mind to invite Dillinger’s wife along as we made our way across the property to the truck. Probably because she didn’t eat or drink or insult Glen Wiles like one of the boys. And because as far as I could tell she was mute.