“Yourlife partner?” scoffed Temple. “I told you to knock off the meditation voodoo books, but you do you. And I’ll do me. Now the meal’s done, why don’t you go check on Mandy? Dillon and I have some things to discuss.”
“Just like that?” said Mindy coolly.
“Just like that,” he replied, his mouth easing into a snarky grin. She got up and stalked out while Temple watched her with a widening smile.
After she’d gone Nash said, “She’s going through some complicated things right now, Rhett. You could be more supportive.”
“I could be, but the fact is I don’t want to be. And you haven’t lived with her. It’s hell. But forget that. This lawyer, Dickey, how do you want to handle it? I mean, he’s going to want to say zilch. But we can’t leave it there.”
“I don’t think siccing Steers’s goons on him would be the right thing to do.”
“Why the hell not?”
“They might kill him for all we know.”
“Look, Dillon, you have to understand that this is dog eat dog. And while I don’t want this lawyer to die, I don’t want myself to die even more. So get with the program. There are winners and there are losers and there is nothing in between. Why do you think a few guys who look and act like me and my dad own this country? Because they are strong. And they don’t care about anybody but themselves, okay?” Temple waved his arms wildly around. “I’m not saying that’s how little old Jesus would have done it. But the tech bros would eat Jesus alive today. Take care of the poor? Treat everybody the same? Love everybody for who they are? Give me a break. No, you crush the opposition. You love your brother so long as he does what you tell him. The second he goes rogue, you throw him under the bus. You gotta be a killer, like my old man was in business. And we’re killers like that, right? You and me. And, hell, you killed for real back in Myanmar.”
Nash stared at him for a few seconds, considering how to respond to this barrage of a word salad. Temple was a man who had earned really nothing that he had, but had acquired it by simply being the son of a rich man.
He said, “Let’s talk to Dickey. He might open up more than you think.”
“If he’s smart, he can be bought, and I’m willing to dump a truckload of cash on anybody who can get us to Nash.” He paused and looked thoughtful. “Why do you think he hasn’t surfaced? He’d get a hero’s welcome.”
“Well, his daughter is dead and so is his wife. Maybe he thinks he doesn’t have anything to come home to.”
Temple looked surprised. “Huh, I never thought about it like that. You might be right.”
“By the way, what’s with Mindy’s face?”
Temple glanced at him sharply. “What are you talking about?”
“It was all puffy.”
“Oh, she had some dental work done,” he said quickly.
CHAPTER
54
AFTER NASH LEFT, TEMPLE WENTupstairs to go to his bedroom, bypassing where Mindy and their daughter were now staying on another floor in a two-bedroom suite.
As he got to his bedroom door his sister Angie opened hers. “I saw that man.”
He turned and looked at her. “What man, Ang?”
“That man who used to live here. That man with allthese.” She jerkily moved her hands over her head and body.
“Oh, right, the tattoos. Yeah, Dillon Hope.”
“I saw him.”
“Yeah, I’m sure, he was here for dinner.”
Angie shook her head vigorously. “No, no, I mean, before.”
Temple glanced over at the door of the bedroom Dillon Hope stayed in when he had worked as his bodyguard.
“Well, hewasstaying in that bedroom, across the hall from you.”
