Side by Side

10

The warehouse was filled with the sounds of men at work. Stanley “Peanut” Smoot finished talking on the phone with his youngest son, Click, and slipped the disposable cell phone into his pocket. He focused his attention on the men who were loading boxes into a step van. Picking one of the cartons at random, he flicked open his knife, cut the paper tape, and opened the flaps. He pulled out a T-shirt, inspected the artwork, and admired the NASCAR authenticity tags complete with the holograms. Some people tried to sell counterfeit shirts and caps from China, but that was dumb. The company that screen-printed shirts and caps under official licenses ran off a few thousand extra pieces and claimed those were defective. The plant sent the actual rejects along with the good ones to a company that shredded and recycled the rejected piece goods to recycle. Peanut owned the shredding company, and the rejected NASCAR merchandise was recycled onto racks in stores all over the country to be sold to race fans. Initially the owners of the silkscreen printing company had not wanted to cooperate, but they’d come around. Most people did if you used the right persuasion.

The distinctive modified-hourglass shape of Stanley’s head had been passed down through the generations-in the way of long, narrow feet or crooked teeth. The fact was that the Sear County Smoots all had high foreheads and lantern jaws. It was not unusual in some communities-and not just the mountains-that one family might have a physical trait they shared down the line.

Peanut’s small ears lay flat like they’d been thumbtacked to his skull, which further accentuated the shape of his head. His hair, which he kept short and oiled, was the color of a molding strawberry and so thin you could see skin through it like bare ground beneath poorly scattered pine straw. His skin looked freshly sunburned, and flaked if he didn’t keep it moisturized.

Peanut dropped the shirt back into the box and went back into his office to get the valise that contained the week’s cash take from his various enterprises. He threw it onto the passenger’s-side floorboard of his shiny black, Hemi-powered Dodge Ram pickup and drove out of the warehouse. He drove downtown and pulled into the building owned by his partner. Every Saturday he parked in the same “client” spot and took the elevator up to drop off the week’s cash. As he waited for the cab to arrive, he shifted the heavy, short-barreled revolver from the side pocket of his limited-edition NASCAR jacket to the small of his back where it would be out of sight. The Smith amp; Wesson.44 special, five-shot revolver was Peanut’s favorite handgun. If anybody tried to rob him, they’d be very sorry.

Most people called Stanley Smoot “Peanut.” His father, a car salesman by title, had told him that going by a nickname made people feel like they’d known you a long time, and more likely to trust you right off the bat. Peanut had listened to his old man because anybody that put “Pooter” Smoot on his business cards, and sold used automobiles to coloreds and other credit-risky types and collected several times the blue-book retail, had a good handle on human nature. “Pay Pooter Pennies and Drive a Quality Car” was still talked about in regional business circles as being the model for the “buy here, pay here” scam, which was hardly more than legal loan-sharking. And those who didn’t pay Pooter always wished they had. Peanut had cut his business teeth on visiting deadbeats in the middle of the night and convincing them to get current on payments to Pooter’s.

Smoots had always known who and what they were, and they were taught that getting what their family needed was what life was about. Take care of your own, and they’ll take care of you. The Smoots had instilled that philosophy in their offspring for the past two hundred years. That mind-set and physical toughness meant that no man pushed you aside or broke apart what you were-always loyal to your blood. Getting what you needed didn’t have anything to do with good looks, but doing whatever was called for. And whatever it took was exactly what a Smoot did.

In the lobby Mr. Laughlin’s personal secretary, Rudy Spence, who was filling the receptionist’s chair, was looking down at a magazine at some pouty young man in a lime green shirt open to his belly button and a suit that looked like he had slept in it. What the boy in the ad was irked about wasn’t apparent, but Peanut thought maybe he’d gotten hold of some bad meth.

Rudy said, “Mr. Laughlin is waiting for you in his office.”

Rudy had a fancy college education and acted like he was a member of the royal family. He was a reed-thin boy-man who wore expensive clothes and slipper-looking shoes with soles hardly thicker than dog skin.

Peanut strode down the wide hall whose walls were paneled in rosewood and decorated with ornately carved frames holding oil paintings of farmland, mountains, rivers, shiny-coated horses, and one of hunting dogs.

Mr. Laughlin’s door was cracked open and Peanut saw the attorney sitting behind his desk shuffling papers. Peanut tapped on the door and Mr. Laughlin smiled and came around the desk to shake hands with him. Laughlin wore what appeared to be expensive golfing attire-a powder-blue shirt and yellow linen slacks with a crease you could peel an apple with. His white hair was combed straight back on the sides. He had bushy brows, which contrasted with the tidy mustache. The first time Peanut had met him, twenty years before, he’d told the lawyer that he looked just like the little rich guy on the Monopoly board game.

Mr. Laughlin didn’t even glance at the valise in Peanut’s hand. The attorney always acted like the money was the last thing he cared about, and maybe it was.

“Sit down,” Mr. Laughlin said. “I wanted to go over the latest figures with you before Sarnov and Randall get here.” He went around the desk and turned a computer printout around so Peanut could see the figures. Peanut was always amazed at how Mr. Laughlin changed their illegal profits into legitimate money with the swipe of his pen. That was a trick not every lawyer could perform. Mr. Laughlin was a legal magician.