THE AFTERNOON SKY WAS DARKENING, THREATENING another storm. Chick was chatting about his house up in Big Bear, bragging about what a great real-estate deal it was and how smart he'd been to buy it. I was just trying to keep my eyes off Evelyn's brain spatter. Somewhere past San Bernardino, he moved on to his land speculation and real-estate philosophy.
"When the property market crashed with the junk mortgages last year, all the ribbon clerks panicked and started selling. There was more dirt for sale at low prices in Big Bear than in fucking Baja. All that action drove land prices down even further. Of course, I never' even considered selling. I plan a strategy, think things out carefully in advance. When I buy something, I'm making a long-term investment. It's not about short-term profit or loss, like with these other hit-and-run, get-rich-quick guys. For me, it's about looking for a market opportunity and capitalizing on it. Real estate is where the really great long-term fortunes are made, but you have to have an approach and a long-term philosophy."
I was getting very put off by all this, especially while we were taking this grisly mission to clean out his just-murdered wife's mementos.
Where was the abject grief from yesterday, the terror at the looming prospect of having to sort through Evelyn's belongings? I'd only come along to help him through that trauma, but here he was chatting me up on his long-term business goals.
"The Internet, where I work, has redesigned everything, all aspects of commerce," he was saying. "I predict, for instance, that there won't even be real-estate agents in the future. Everything, all property, will be listed and sold online. Virtual property tours, deals, negotiations in secure chat rooms, all final transactions subject to an actual viewing of the property, set up on the Web by the buyer and the seller. The ten-percenters will all be dust."
He was giving me a headache.
We had left the 210 and were on Highway 18, climbing up toward Running Springs. There were patches of fresh snow on the side of the road, and long mounds of it lay in the center of the highway where the snow plows had left it. Chick kept talking endlessly about money and how good he was at making it. The further out of L. A. we got, the more animated he became. Suddenly, he jerked his thumb at the passing scenery.
"All of the property up here is gonna be for sale soon. It's mostly parkland now but we're gonna be seeing the Fed cutting loose big parcels of this stuff. All the CC amp;Rs are going to vanish." He looked over at me. "That's Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions. It's why I wanted you to see how beautiful it is, 'cause once that happens, I'm set to pounce."
I was seriously beginning to wonder what on earth this trip up here was really all about.
Then he actually said it. "I'm planning on taking my considerable assets from the sale of bestmarket. Com and sticking them in a longterm, high-growth project, like this raw land here. I know just about everybody who's anybody in L. A. Got a bunch of state contacts to help with zoning changes. All the serious insiders are watching me, because they want to take a ride on the Chick Best Express. Lotta people, right now, are waiting to see which way I'm gonna jump. The people who end up with me are gonna make a fortune. The people close to me, my `investment family' so to speak, they're gonna do very well."
Then he looked over and gave me what I'm sure he thought was a sexy smile and added, "That could be you if you want it to be, Paige."
My heart sank, because in that instant, I pretty much knew I'd been played. In that moment, only twenty miles or so from his cabin in Big Bear, I was absolutely convinced Chick had invited me up here to see if he could get something started. I sat there, looking at that tiny speck of Evelyn's brains, and tried to choke down my anger.
As we kept winding up Highway 18, my mind focused on how to get the hell out of this car and down off this mountain. How could I have been such an idiot? I had ignored the warning voice in my head. I had projected my own feelings onto him. Not the first time in my life I've made that mistake.
Shortly after we turned onto the highway, huge snowflakes began to fall. They stuck on the glass and drifted like large pieces of white confetti past the windows. The heavy sky was gunmetal gray, and dropping ever lower. As an army brat, I'd lived in enough cold climates growing up to know that this was the beginning of a big storm, a heavy dump.
During the next half-hour, we slowed because it was hard to see through the falling curtain of white. Soon the road was covered with snow. Chick stopped at a gas station in Fawnskin and paid the attendant twenty bucks to put the rear chains on the car for us.
I asked to use the phone, but the attendant told me that the storm yesterday had taken down the lines and cellpod communications. The phone crews were working on it, but it wasn't back in service yet. I was now feeling very cut off and uneasy.
We got the chains on and pulled out. The cold air was freezing the snowflakes on the side window. The landscape was quickly becoming a Christmas card of white jagged mountain peaks and snow-covered pines. I could hear the chains crunching and ringing on the concrete under us as we cut through the wet, drifting snow, always moving further up toward the mountain summit.
The cabin wasn't in Big Bear proper, but in a smaller, more remote area called Sugarloaf, a few miles off Highway 18 on 1-38.
Finally, around three-thirty, we turned left off the interstate and pulled up a long drive.
"Where are we?" I asked.
"Casa Best," hegrinned. "This is my driveway. The cabin's about two miles up ahead. It's nice up here. No neighbors, real peaceful… " Great, I thought, no neighbors, what a break.
I finally saw the outline of his cabin in a shard of afternoon light that was streaming through a hole in the clouds, lighting the curtain of fast-falling snow. It was an A-frame at the end of a line of snow-covered pine trees facing back toward the narrow road.
"There she blows," he said with hearty good cheer.
He pulled up in front of the cabin and turned off the engine. Then while I sat in the car, not wanting to get out, he hurried up the walkway to the porch, opened the front door, and went into the house.
My next thought chilled me. Now I'm stuck with this asshole in the middle of a blizzard.