Chapter 7

"David is on the way with a candidate for a stable hand," Joe said as he hung up the phone. His wife looked pale — morning sickness, he assumed. "Are you up to meeting her?"

"Her?" Carol said, looking surprised.

"Yes, a woman named Tammy Wilkes, around thirty-five years old, David says, currently homeless, a drunk, but on the wagon. I'd like your opinion before I hire her, but if you're not up to it, I'll speak with her and have her come back when you're feeling better."

"I'm fine now — I think. If not, I'll be fine by the time they get here. Why a woman, cowboy?"

"Why not?" he said.

"She'll be sharing the bunkhouse with the other stable hands, men probably," Carol said.

Joe grinned. "So?"

Carol laughed. "If mixing genders in the bunkhouse doesn't bother you, I won't let it bother me. Besides being homeless and a drunk, what are her qualifications?"

"She likes horses," Joe said.

"Well, hell, what else could we possibly ask for?" Carol said with more than a touch of sarcasm.

"Be nice, buttercup. I'll ask her a few questions, and after watching her with the horses for fifteen minutes, I'll know if she can do the job. I see David's main function as — to use Nora's word — vetting the candidates not only for likeability but also acceptance of our lifestyle. She passed those tests, or David wouldn't be bringing her to us for our opinion."

"I stand corrected, cowboy," Carol said.

Tammy Wilkes was excited out of her mind. A job! A job with board and room! A job with horses! She squirmed on the soft leather seat of a Rolls Royce car. A Rolls! That she'd ever get to ride in a Rolls was beyond her imagination before David Stanley walked into her life that morning.

"Mr. Flint, is Mr. Stanley really in a coma like he said?" Tammy asked the driver. Stanley had announced that he was phasing out shortly after they left the shelter.

"I go by Flint, Tammy, not Mr. Flint, and yes he's in a coma-like state. He takes catnaps like that on and off throughout the day, says he slips into deep delta, which is the brainwave pattern for patients in a coma," Flint said. "Nothing wakes him up, not loud noises or being bounced around."

"Does that mean he can't hear us?" Tammy said.

"Yes," Flint said, but then wondered. Flint didn't really know the answer to that question, so he decided to assume David could hear them when he phased out until he found out otherwise.

"Have you met Mr. and Mrs. Patterson?" Tammy asked.

"Yes," Flint said.

"What can you tell me about them?"

"They're good people, Tammy," Flint said. A horse whisperer and an earth mother, he thought. An earth mother that fucks her son and daughter. An earth mother I fell madly in love with at first sight. Flint had decided if he'd had a mother like Carol Patterson, he would have never left home.

"You're being considered for a stable-hand job, right?" Flint said.

"Yes."

"Can you do the job?"

"Yes! I worked for a dude ranch for five years, Flint. That's where I met John. The sonofabitch swept me off my feet. He drank a bit, he said. Hah! He was a drunk, but I loved him, and when he asked me to go with him, I said yes. We partied. Oh god, did we ever party! Married to John was like sailing on a cruise ship in an ocean of booze. Wasn't long before I was a drunk, too. Then John found someone he wanted more than me, and he started to pass me around to his friends. I ended up with one of them, a mean drunk. John wasn't mean; I'll give him that. That's when the slow trip down started. I won't tell you about those years, but I ended up homeless a year ago, and hit bottom in the spring this year. An angel named Ridley saved me, picked me out of the dirt, and drove me to a free clinic. I'd been raped and beaten. I was malnourished and sick. Pneumonia. I almost died, Flint. At first, I couldn't decide whether I wanted to die or live, but Ridley visited me, convinced me that my life wasn't over. 'You're alive, ' he said. 'You've got another chance at life. Take it, Tammy, ' he said. I figured I owed him, so I tried to live." She snorted. "Trying, wanting to live did the trick. When the clinic kicked me out, he drove me to the CASS shelter and got me going to AA meetings. I worked hard at CASS, went through all their programs. I'm human again, Flint. Yes, I can do the job." Tears stung her eyes. "I don't know what I'll do if they don't hire me. My time at the shelter is almost up. Ridley says there's other places I can go until I can find work, but this job... oh, god, Flint, this job is perfect for me."

"How long have you been sober, Tammy?" Flint said.

"Since I hit bottom in the spring," she said.

"Is the craving still there?"

"Yes. There have been times I wanted a drink so bad I would have done anything for one. I could taste it in my mouth, feel it move down my throat, feel that warm glow spread to every molecule in my body. But for where I was at the time, I would have fallen right back into the bottle. I'm an alcoholic, Flint. I'll have the craving for the rest of my life. I can live with that because I want to live more than I want to die, and if I have that drink, just one, I'll surely die."

David's consciousness watched a slide show on Nora's computer. Mug books, he'd discovered, had been digitized. He'd been looking at the faces of known terrorists for about a half-hour. Arab men, mostly, but some blacks were scattered among the Arabs, some women, too. He hadn't seen anyone that resembled any of the men with whom Yuusif or Widdaud had interacted during the slices of their pasts that David had visited the previous night.

"How many more?" David whispered in his wife's ear.

Hundreds, she wrote on the pad on her desk next to the computer. And we haven't touched Al-Qaeda or Hamas.

"I'll drop back later today," he said.

She nodded.

"I love you, baby," he said.

"Ditto, " she whispered.

He brushed his invisible lips to her live lips and returned to his body. When he opened his eyes, he discovered he was alone in the Rolls. At the ranch, he realized immediately after looking around. He opened his cell phone and called Nora.

"Hi, it's me," he said when she answered the phone.

"Hi, you," she said.

"Let's do this," he said. "From previous visits with you at night at your office, I met the night personnel. I'll connect with one of them, turn on your computer, and go through the mug books while you sleep. This way I can study each person, see their faces, read about what the FBI knows about them, get to know them — sort of. Then if I see one of them while on a flight, I'll at least know his name and something about him, which should give me a better understanding of what I see and hear."

"All right," Nora said. "Where are you?"

"At Arabian Downs. I woke up alone in the Rolls. Mom and Joe are probably interviewing the candidate for a stable hand as we speak."

"The woman?"

"Yes."

"Speaking of a woman, I've isolated a candidate for your tutor. I don't know if she knows how to belly dance, but she is a black-eyed beauty from the Middle East. She'll be dropping by our house this evening before dinner."

David laughed. "I thought you'd recruit a fat, gay man for the job."

"I considered that approach but figured a black-eyed beauty would hold your attention better. You'll need to immerse yourself in this effort to succeed, David."

He groaned but said, "Okay."

They said their goodbyes, and David walked into the big house. He found Flint and his mother having a cup of coffee at the kitchen table. She's pale. The aftermath of morning sickness, he reasoned.

"Good, you resurrected," Carol said, hopped up and poured him a cup of coffee.

"Did you meet Tammy?" David said as he took a seat.

"Yep, Flint introduced her. If Joe gives us a thumbs up after spending some time with her and the horses, we'll hire her," Carol said. "What's the status of the non-profit corporations you've been setting up?" She set a cup of coffee in front of him.

"Don't know. Why?"

"I think we should make an offer on the 40-unit apartment building near CASS's family shelter."

He retrieved his cell phone from a shirt pocket and called the attorney handling the job. He asked the attorney his mother's question, listened, and then said, "My mother will be calling you. We'll want you involved in the offer to purchase and the closing of an apartment project. She'll work through real estate agents, but I want you to have oversight to insure the viability of the tax-exempt status of the transaction." He hung up and gave his mother the name and number or the attorney with whom he'd just spoken. "George Sanctuaries, Inc., will be active tomorrow, Mom," he added with a grin.

She smiled and said, "Good name."

"Named after your grandson?" Flint said to Carol.

"After my dad, my mother's first husband," David said. "I named the foundation the G&T Foundation. The non-profit corporation for battered women and children will be known as Tess Sanctuaries, Inc. The foundation will fund and own the two non-profits. Tess was Joe's first wife and Nora's mother."

"Oh, how marvelous, David! Joe will be pleased," Carol said. Tears misted in her eyes.

"Pleased about what?" Joe said as he marched bull-legged into the room with Tammy.

"Tell him, David," Carol said.

David repeated the names for the foundation and non-profits. "I figured my dad and Nora's mother should not only be remembered but also revered. They understood love and sacrifice."

Joe gulped and fought back tears. He looked toward the heavens. "Waddaya think, Tess? You're not forgotten, and this way, you'll be remembered and honored always."

"Ditto that, George," Carol said, looking skyward.

Tammy looked confused, but she didn't look unhappy, David noticed. "Thumbs up or down for Tammy, Joe?" he said.

"Thee Brigand liked her," Joe said with a grin.

David chuckled and said, "Welcome aboard, Tammy." He turned to his mother. "Do you know about the hiring bonus for employees from shelters?"

She grinned and said, "A new wardrobe from the skin out and for all occasions, and in the case of female employees, a trip to a beauty parlor for the works. I'll take her shopping this afternoon."

"Oh my! You... oh, that's too much!" Tammy said.