Free The Dead Don't Dance by Charles Martin

either. And there are enough money-grubbers in Digger, small town or not, to rob Bryce blind.
    So a few weeks after that, I got to thinking about Bryce while harrowing a section of pasture. What was a half-naked drunk, probably the richest man in South Carolina, doing, living in a trailer next to a drive-in movie theater that had been closed since the early seventies? I said to myself, “This is just not right. This could turn out real bad if someone doesn’t start taking care of Bryce.” So I went up to the Silver Screen and gathered up all those envelopes. Bryce showered once a week, and I made sure that once a week was that day. Once Bryce was smelling sociable, we loaded up my truck and the three of us—Bryce, Blue, and I—drove to Charleston to talk to the man who Bryce said handled his trust fund.
    The man’s name was John Caglestock. A skinny little man with rosy cheeks and round glasses that hung on the end of his bulbous nose. Legally, the man had no actual control over the fund, but he was careful to make it his daily priority. His firm made some good commissions from handling Bryce’s affairs. But Bryce could be intimidating when he wanted to. Whatever Bryce said, Mr. Caglestock did.
    After our meeting, due in large part to the way Bryce talked about me, Mr. Caglestock did whatever I said. Bryce called me his brother, and the man brought out some paperwork and had me sign it. I told him I wasn’t anybody’s brother and I wouldn’t sign anything, but Bryce told me to do it. That way I wouldn’t have to “drag his butt” down here again.
    So I read it, got the gist of it, and signed it. From then on, the firm had to run every transaction by me before it did anything. Bryce’s orders. In essence, I couldn’t spend any of Bryce’s money on personal matters, but I could look over the firm’s shoulder and see where it wanted to invest it. And Bryce thought that was good.
    About once a month Mr. Caglestock would call me, and we’d have a real polite conversation in which I approved or denied every transaction he wanted to make. The more time I spent with Bryce, the more I realized that behind the drunk façade, Bryce had moments of lucidity in which he really knew what he was doing. I guess he knew the day I took him to Charleston.
    In the three years since I’ve been talking with Mr. Caglestock, Bryce has made a pile of money. He’s more than
    doubled his fund. Looking back, I realize that has more to do with the market and Mr. Caglestock’s research and advice than my input. Caglestock knows his stuff, and he taught me a lot.
    One day Maggie asked me if Bryce had a will, and I said I didn’t know. I started doing some digging and found out that he did not. And he had no one to leave anything to. That worried us, so I went up to his trailer one afternoon and asked him, “Bryce, if you were to die tomorrow, who would you want at your funeral?” Without batting an eye, he said, “The bugler.”
    That didn’t give Maggie and me much to go on. Just whom do you leave forty or fifty million dollars to when the guy who owns it isn’t saying? We decided that while we had no right to play God, we could do a better job than the state. So we had Mr. Caglestock draw up a will that left the whole kit and caboodle to the children of the men who had served with Bryce in his unit in Vietnam. Most of them never knew their fathers, but Bryce did. He kept their dog tags in his ammunition box. About fifteen in all.
    So why did I do all this if I didn’t want the money? I guess because Bryce couldn’t, or at least didn’t, and I didn’t want him getting taken advantage of by a bunch of Charleston lawyers who found him incompetent to handle his own affairs. And since Bryce’s fund has doubled, they can’t accuse me of that. Besides, between Caglestock and me, they’ve made good money. I’m not sure