Free Best Place to Die by Charles Atkins Page A

row. Like having the fucking world on a silver platter, and the three of them – Ravens of the Apocalypse – front and center at the banquet. Dennis out of control, his dad forever bailing him out, only to end up drinking himself into a year in jail. Fat Wally needing to be told how to wipe his butt, which girls to date, which one to marry. Which free ride at which college to take, even his career in finance – and God help his poor clients – was Jim’s suggestion. And him, quarterback Jim, taking all the best morsels, the full scholarship to Dartmouth and then law school at Yale, the prettiest girl in Grenville from the richest family, and business offers from men who wanted to bask in his reflected glow. Old-money men who knew that whatever golden-boy Jim invested in would sprout returns beyond their wildest hopes, like Nillewaug Village and Eagle’s Cairn.
    â€˜Jim?’
    â€˜Yeah, Wally, give me half an hour.’
    â€˜So you’re coming?’
    â€˜Yeah, just stay cool. If anyone asks, tell them everything’s going to be OK.’
    â€˜Is it, Jim? I mean, this is bad.’
    â€˜Don’t sweat it, Wally. Things will be fine,’ he said, picturing the relief on Wally’s corpulent face. He remembered something Dennis’s father, Dr Trask, once said about Wally: ‘
Strong as an ox and just as smart.
’
Poor Dennis,
he thought, wondering what he’d do without his dad. Who’d pull him out of scrapes, now?
Not your problem . . . not any more.
‘I’ll be there soon.’ And he hung up.
    Getting up from his leather chair he headed toward his home office’s marble bath. He stripped out of his dark gray Dockers and black sweatshirt. As the room steamed up he caught his wonderfully toned reflection in the mirrors. His belly flat and ripped, his arms and chest defined. If it weren’t for the silver hair he could easily pass for a man in his thirties.
Maybe I should dye it
, he thought, stepping under the brushed nickel rainforest shower heads.
    Toweling off he picked up his fallen clothes, and put them to his face. He inhaled and smelled traces of Delia’s Chanel. ‘Shit!’ Wondering what other unseen evidence of their frantic tumble might be hidden in the folds. He stuffed it along with the running shoes he’d been wearing into a gym bag, all indecision gone. Jim Warren believed in contingency plans; they were a part of his nature and had always served him well. If plan A doesn’t go well, then he could easily shift to plan B, C or D. Decisions were made in the flash of an eye, or the snap of a wrist and forearm sending the pigskin hurtling long or in shorter stabs cross field to Dennis’s waiting hands.
    â€˜Honey?’ Joanie’s voice from the distant kitchen.
    â€˜Up here, sweetie.’
    â€˜There’s something happening at Nillewaug. A big fire.’
    â€˜I know,’ he shouted back, as he pulled on clean underwear, jeans and a baggy sweatshirt from the office’s walk-in closet where he kept an entire wardrobe. Over that he grabbed his leather bomber jacket. ‘I’m heading there now.’ And he pulled down a wheeled carry-on suitcase, and stuffed it with shorts, tee shirts, a pair of sandals and a couple of favorite Tommy Bahama short-sleeved silk shirts.
    â€˜You want some coffee?’ Her voice rose up the steps.
    â€˜Don’t bother, I’ll get some at the Donut House,’ he said, picturing his still pretty wife, ten years younger than himself.
    â€˜Call me, if there’s anything I can do,’ she offered. ‘Those poor people.’
    â€˜You got it.’ And with the gym bag in one hand, and his carry-on in the other, he opened the outer door to his home-office suite and took the back stairs to the garage. Glancing across the high-vaulted structure with its polished cement floor he pressed the button for the bay door behind his BMW.
Time to go long,