“We love it down there, a real paradise. Beautiful beaches, mountains, rain forests, great food. We have some friends who own houses—real estate is pretty cheap. The people are delightful, educated, almost all speak English.”
Jake loathed the game of travel trivia because he’d never been anywhere. The local doctors were the worst—always bragging about the hottest new resorts.
Kathy was itching to move along the narrative and chimed in with “The golf is incredible, so many fabulous courses.”
Jake didn’t play golf because he was not a member of the Clanton Country Club. Its membership included too many doctors and climbers and families with old money.
He smiled and nodded at her and waited for one of them to continue. From a bag he couldn’t see she whipped out a pound of coffee in a shiny can and said, “Here’s a little gift, San Pedro Select, our favorite. Incredible. We haul it back by the case.”
Jake took it to be polite. In lieu of cash fees, he had been paid with watermelons, fresh venison, firewood, repairs to his cars, and more bartered goods and services than he cared to remember. His best lawyer buddy, Harry Rex Vonner, had once taken a John Deere mower as a fee, though it soon broke down. Another lawyer, one who was no longer practicing, had taken sexual favors from a divorce client. When he lost the case, she filed an ethics complaint alleging “substandard performance.”
Anyway, Jake admired the can and tried to read the Spanish. He noticed they had not touched their coffee, and he was suddenly worried that perhaps they were connoisseurs and his office brew wasn’t quite up to their standards.
Gene resumed with “So, two weeks ago we were at one of our favorite eco-lodges, high in the mountains, deep in the rain forest, a small place with only thirty rooms, incredible views.”
How many times might they use the word “incredible”？
“And we were having breakfast outdoors, watching the spider monkeys and parakeets, when a waiter stopped by our table to pour some more coffee. He was very friendly—”
“People are so friendly down there and they love Americans,” Kathy interjected.
How could they not?
Gene nodded at the interruption and continued, “We chatted him up for a spell, said his name was Jason and that he was from Florida, been living down there for twenty years. We saw him again at lunch and talked to him some more. We saw him around after that and always enjoyed a friendly chat. The day before we were to check out, he asked us to join him for a glass of champagne in a little tree-house bar. He was off-duty and said the drinks were on him. The sunsets over the mountains are incredible, and we were having a good time, when all of a sudden he got serious.”
Gene paused and looked at Kathy, who was ready to pounce with “He said he had something to tell us, something very confidential. Said his name was not really Jason and he wasn’t from Florida. He apologized for not being truthful. Said his name was really Mack Stafford, and that he was from Clanton, Mississippi.”
Jake tried to remain nonchalant but it was impossible. His mouth dropped open and his eyes widened.
The Roupps were watching closely for his reaction. Gene said, “I take it you know Mack Stafford.”
Jake exhaled and wasn’t sure what to say. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“He said you guys were old friends,” Gene added.
Stunned, Jake was still grasping for words. “I’m just glad he’s alive.”
“So you know him well?”
“Oh yes, quite well.”
（3）
Three years earlier, the town was rocked with the scandalous news that Mack Stafford, a well-known lawyer on the square, had cracked up, filed for bankruptcy, divorced his wife, and left his family in the middle of the night. The gossip raged for weeks, with all manner of tales spinning off wildly, and when the dust began to settle it appeared that most of the rumors were actually true, for a change.
Mack practiced street law for seventeen years and Jake knew him well. He was a decent lawyer with a passable reputation. Like most of them, he handled the routine business of those clients who walked through his door, and barely managed to keep his head above water. His wife, Lisa, was an assistant principal at Clanton High School and earned a steady salary. Her father owned the only ready-mix plant in the county, and that placed her family a notch or two above the others, but still a considerable distance below the doctors. Lisa was nice enough but a bit on the snooty side, and for that reason Jake and Carla had never socialized with them.
After Mack disappeared, and it became obvious that he had indeed vanished without a trace, word leaked from somewhere that he had left town with some money that wasn’t exactly his. Lisa got everything in the divorce, though the couple’s liabilities almost equaled their assets. Mack dumped his files and clients and legal troubles on Harry Rex, who whispered to Jake that he had been paid in cash for his troubles, and Mack left some money behind for Lisa and their two daughters. Lisa had no idea where it came from.