The Cheshire Cat

[Arroyos]

THE CHESHIRE CAT

After a long silence, Emma Span finally spoke. She was trying NOT to laugh out loud. “Sooo … how much are you offering?”

Even Roberta tittered at that. In the back seat Slummings’ smile grew even wider. If it grew any further, Roberta thought, he’ll disappear like the Cheshire Cat.

Slummings pulled an old battery-operated calculator from one of his pockets. Crumbs fell out with it. He dusted it off, turned it on, typed in a few numbers and said, “89 million, 240 thousand, 883 dollars, give or take a few bucks.”

Unable to contain themselves any longer, both women erupted with laughter. It lasted nearly a minute before Roberta got herself under control enough to ask, still snickering, “Where are you gonna get that kind of money?”

Emma couldn’t resist saying, “From a long lost uncle?” which initiated another round of raucous laughs.

Slummings waited until the women calmed down, smiling the whole while, then said, “I stole it.”

More laughter. The two women rocked themselves in the front seat.

“Oh God,” Roberta said, exhaling at last.

“Unfuckingbelievable!” Emma said, sputtering.

Roberta turned her attention back to the car, pulled slowly away from the curb and asked Emma, “To your hotel?”

“Sure, but what are you going to do with …?” She gestured toward Slummings in the back seat.

“Take him to a shelter?”

Slummings leaned forward between the two women. “Take me to the stadium instead.”

Roberta looked at Emma, who shrugged, and so they drove across downtown Yuma to John Deere Stadium, home of the Yuma Bulldozers.

From the outside it was an impressive structure, rising above the small buildings of Old Town Yuma on one side and the train tracks and river on the other. Roberta pulled the car into her designated parking spot in front of the door to the Front Office and turned off the engine.

“They’re probably painting, Mr. Slummings, getting ready for the season opener, and the smell will be overwhelming,” Roberta said. “You can take my word for it.”

“I need to see what I’m going to buy. May we?” He climbed out of the backseat and waited for the women to join him. Before they got out of the car, Emma said to Roberta, “Let’s humor him, but we need to figure out somewhere to drop him when this, uh, tour is over.”

“Think a shelter would take him?”

Emma shrugged, then spun her right index finger around her ear in circles to suggest the old man might be too crazy for a shelter. Roberta nodded. They both climbed out of the car.

“Who’s got the key?” Slummings asked.

“Don’t look at me,” Emma said. “I only visit here when I have to.”

Roberta waved her key ring at Slummings and crossed to the Employee Only entrance. Once inside Slummings stopped and stared. He looked at the several desks in the front office, the mail boxes against the wall, the Xerox machine in the middle of the floor surrounded by boxes of paper and large canisters marked “Recycle” and “Trash.” Then he smelled the air.

“No paint smell, but … this is it?” Slummings said, clearly disappointed. “This is command central for the entire Yuma organization?”

“Not much, is it?” Roberta said. “Hardly worth … whatever you said you paid for it.”

“$89,240,883,” Slummings said, “but I ain’t paid for it yet. Just made an offer.”

Though there was no sign of the painters, Emma smelled something as she stepped next to Slummings and took his elbow. Roberta’s jaw dropped at the sight. Emma realized the smell was coming from Slummings, but she ignored it, speaking gently, even kindly to him, which shocked Roberta even more. She’d never heard the gentle voice that came out of Emma Span’s mouth. “It’s good you haven’t wasted your money yet, Mr. Slummings. I think you should hold onto it.”

Slummings yanked his arm away from her. “What for? What good is money except to buy things? Can’t eat it, it won’t keep you warm at night, and it sure as hell hasn’t made me happy.” He took two steps further into the office, picked up a brochure from where they were stacked on tables near the front door. “But owning a ball club, well, that would be a childhood dream come true.”

Emma braved the smell again, stepping close to Slummings once more, but she didn’t reach for his arm this time. Her voice was smooth and pleasant again. “It’s a wonderful dream to have, Mr. Slummings, but sometimes, well, sometimes—no, to be honest with you, almost never do we get to have our dreams come true.”

“Don’t I know it,” Slummings said. He turned to face Emma. “Which is why you gotta accept my offer.”

Emma smile a smile Roberta had never seen her smile before. It was almost beatific. “Nothing would make me happier, Mr. Slummings, than granting you your wish of owning this financial black hole and granting me my wish of returning to Brooklyn and never hearing about Yuma, Arizona or any goddamn bulldozers ever again.”

Slummings’ broke into a big grin. “Great!” he said. “I knew you’d accept.” He whipped a sheet of paper from his pocket. “Just sign there.” He turned to Roberta, “And if you would witness—”

“No no, Mr. Slummings,” Emma was cooing, “we won’t be signing anything today because—”

“Why put off ’til tomorrow what you can sign today?”

“Not tomorrow either, Mr. Slummings. Not today, not tomorrow, nor the day after that or after that.”

“You want more money? This is your way of negotiating? Well, okay, play hardball if you want. Make it $90 million even.”

Emma shook her head. “I don’t think so, no.”

Slummings reached into his pockets again and pulled out what looked like a slightly crumpled airline ticket. He tossed it on the table. “I already paid your airfare back to Brooklyn, first class.”

Emma took the elderly gentleman’s hand in hers and patting the top of his hand, she started to explain to him why he couldn’t possibly afford first class air fare, let alone the Bulldozers, but before she could say anything, Roberta picked up the ticket and said, “It’s first class alright, Emma. To Brooklyn. Leaves tomorrow morning.” She handed the ticket to Emma. “It’s in your name.”

Emma was speechless. She looked at Roberta, then Slummings, then at her hands holding the old man’s liver-spotted hands, and she dropped his hands and grabbed the ticket out of Roberta’s. She studied it, then looked up at Slummings.

“How’d you manage this?”

“That?” Slummings said, snorting. “That’s nothing. This,” he said, pulling yet another piece of paper out of one of his pockets, like a magician producing a rabbit, “this is something.”

He tossed the piece of paper on the table. Both women looked, then gasped. Emma took a step back, as if she might collapse or feint. Roberta leaned in and picked the slip of paper up from the desk, gently, careful to hold only one corner.

She read what it said, slowly, uncomprehendingly. “‘On Demand Pay to the Order of Emma Span the Amount 89 million 240 thousand 883 dollars. Signed Taffy Slummings.” Roberta looked at Slummings. “How did you …?”

Slummings smiled. He was enjoying this. “Banks,” he said, “are naive. You hand them money, they let you write a check on that money, then they give the money to whoever you tell them to give it to. Pretty simple.”

“It’s a forgery,” Emma said.

“Looks like the real thing,” Roberta said.

“I’m not smart enough to forge something like that,” Slummings said.

“So you did steal the money,” Emma said. “We can’t accept—”

“Oh pooh! Whadda you care where the money comes from? You ever check where your former ownership cartel got their money?”

“Consortium, not a cartel.”

“Twiddle twaddle, fancy name for legalized theft.”

“How dare you!” Emma’s back stiffened.

“How dare you?” Slummings retorted. “You’ve accused me of theft with no grounds whatsoever, yet you—”

“You said you stole it,” Roberta interjected.

“I was yanking your chains. Shoulda seen your faces!” Slummings cackled.

“So you didn’t steal it?” Roberta asked.

“Does it matter if I stole it from grandma’s cookie jar or from the Mafia themselves? Does it matter if I been saving it all my life or just inherited it from my recently deceased da-da? Does it matter if the money is counterfeit or laundered through the Cayman Islands? It’s money. It’s mine. You didn’t steal it. And now the Great Bank of Yuma wants to give it to you.”

Slummings paused, then gently pushed the cashier’s check toward Emma. “You wanna make two dreams come true? Take it. You don’t wanna, I’ll just have to buy some other down-in-the-dumps PEBA club. There’s plenty of them to be had. You ain’t the only dying dog in this universe.”

Emma stared at the check. Roberta looked at Emma. “Emma? It’s your ball club now. They left you holding the bag. What do you want to do?”

Emma was still staring at the check. Without taking her eyes off it, she said, “What would you do, Roberta?”

“Me?!? Hah! I’d sell the club and let this capitalist imposter hire me as General Manager.”

Emma smiled, “You know he can’t do that.”

Roberta nodded, “Yeah, yeah, Mayberry’s still under contract. So,” she turned to look at Slummings, “maybe Assistant GM?”

Slummings smiled like the Cheshire Cat. “Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

Roberta smiled back, then looked at Emma, who could not stop staring at the check sitting on top of the table. The numbers—89 240 883—mesmerized her. After a moment, without removing her eyes from the check, she said to Slummings, “You offered 90 mil a minute ago.”

“Good woman,” he said, “a born capitalist. Ninety it is. You’ll just have to take the rest …” He pulled a wad of bills from another pocket, removed the rubber band holding them, and peeled off eight crisp bills. He pushed them to the center of the table.

Emma said, “What’re you pulling?”

Roberta leaned down and picked up one of the bills. She held it like it were made of fragile glass. “I’ve never seen one this big,” she said.

“What is it?” Emma said.

“$100,000,” Roberta said.

“What?!? There’s no such thing. They don’t print bills that big.” She turned to Slummings, her face tinted with anger. “You passing off funny money?”

“No,” Slummings said, “collector’s items. Probably worth more than a hundred grand, but their face value’s all you’ll get at a bank. Which is where you should take those, pronto. World’s full of thieves and pickpockets.”

Roberta passed the bill to Emma like she was offering the Holy Ghost. “You’ve been carrying it in your pocket,” she said to Slummings. “Tied with a rubber band!”

“No fool’s gonna mug a dirty old man. ‘Sides, they could never find the secret pocket I hid it in.”

“Why not?”

Slummings opened his coat wide and shook it a bit. The scent wafted out to Roberta and Emma, who both recoiled, Roberta covering her nose, Emma gagging and heading to the bathroom.

“See?” Slummings said.

“No, but I do smell,” Roberta said behind the hand covering her mouth and nose.

“Safer here than in some damn bank,” Slummings said, closing his coat.

They waited for Emma to return.

“We got a deal?” Slummings asked.

From ten feet away, Emma nodded. “On one condition. I don’t have to smell you ever again.”

“Stay in Brooklyn, sweetheart.”

“I plan to.”

Slummings stood, “I have a couple conditions to discuss with my new GM—Assistant GM, excuse me.”

“I need some fresh air anyway,” Emma said, hurrying out the door.

Roberta waited, then said, “Conditions?”

“You hire Eryn Smith as Bench Coach, and we both visit the Camarillo State Hospital.”

Roberta nodded. “Okay. But why visit … youknowwho?”

“Because he’s gonna need our help to get him outa that nut house and back to work for us.” Roberta was about to say something, but Slummings cut her off. “He’ll need a lot of help to get back in the swing of running this place. Help from you. And maybe it won’t work out, maybe it’ll be too much for him. He’s an old fart, almost as old as me, only he’s been living in an institution for a decade, so …”

“So we persuade them to let him come home and then we help him resume his former life. That the plan?”

“Yeah. You run the club until he’s ready to take over, and then you become the assistant your title says you are. If you still want to.”

Roberta gave Slummings a look. “I think I know what you’re up to.”

“Do you? Bright woman, I always said.”

“But how does what’shisname, the new bench coach, figure in your plans?”

“Smith?” Slummings grinned his Cheshire grin again, “You’ll just have to wait to find out.”

His smile got wider and wider and wider, but Roberta knew he wasn’t disappearing. No, Slummings was here to stay.

Roberta began to smile.

[Borealis]

Jail Break... I mean... Hospital Break!!!

[Arroyos]

Jail Break... I mean... Hospital Break!!!

You’re two steps ahead of my plot!