"Well, if you're watching this, Chuck, that means I'm fucking dead," Darren Pryce chuckled from the television screen. The man loosened his tie and continued, "Which basically means that all of that vegan, jogging, meditation horseshit is a waste of time and we should all stick to the basics. You know, Scotch, good blow and porterhouse steaks." That was a real laugh, almost a howl. It was literally a knee slapper as the blonde man on the screen slapped his knee and threw his head back; and what a glorious head of hair it was. It was thick and blonde and his highlights twinkled in what Charles could only imagine must be professional lighting. The DVD was most likely shot by an actual film director because Darren Pryce, at least to Charles' knowledge, had never done anything half-assed.
"No seriously, Chuck," the man tugged the Windsor knot down another inch or two on his crisp, white button down. It was a move that Charles knew was meant to make him seem more personable, more the guy who lived next door, the guy who sat in the barstool next to you. That was the biggest con of all because Darren Pryce was anything but ordinary. He continued, "The stress man, the fucking unbelievable stress. You know why it's lonely at the top? Because of all the motherfuckers you had to kill to get there. There's nobody left." Although that should have been a joke, Darren looked dead serious that time. His cold, blue eyes stared straight at the camera and he looked more like a gangster then than the head of the Christ Baptist Temple.
Charles scratched his head and stretched in the leather club chair. It wasn't easy to get comfortable here in the law offices of Bradford Miller. He imagined that he wasn't supposed to actually enjoy being here, considering that they charged six hundred an hour for facetime . It was more like McDonald's: grab your food and get the hell out. Charles had never really known what to believe about his client Darren Pryce. For all he knew, the killing motherfuckers reference could just be one more line in the salesman schtick or he really could have murdered some folks to get where he was. It was hard to say. Charles felt as if he were a fairly astute judge of character. In his line of work as a financial advisor, he'd been privy to some of the wealthy's dearest, darkest secrets but even in death, Charles had no read on Darren.
"Anyway," Darren shrugged, "let's get on with it. I know this is probably going to come as a surprise, but goddammit Chuck, I have recently come to understand that I've surrounded myself with vipers." This sounded like the beginning of a sermon and it seriously wouldn't be much of a surprise if Darren pulled out a few actual vipers and did a whole snake handling routine. "Fucking unfortunate, man, that's what it is," Darren shook his head. "Behold, I send you out as sheep amongst the wolves," the TV preacher said with theatrical flair. Darren held out both hands, as if he felt the spirit move him. "That's the god's honest truth. So here I am, dead and all," he smiled again and flashed two rows of brilliant, white caps. "And I've got no one, nobody in this whole fucked up world that I actually trust to watch out for my baby girl."
Charles squinted and tried to remember her. It had been a long time ago and he seemed to remember a girl in a dress and wondered if that was the daughter. She hadn't said a word while Charles and Darren signed the paperwork for one of many investment accounts. Her details had escaped his memory but he recalled the tap of her feet on the hardwood floor as she turned the chair in a half circle. Back and forth, back and forth, Charles had never asked who she was and Darren had never offered.
Charles had never asked him many questions because he'd rather not make Mr. Pryce lie more than necessary. Darren got the benefit of the doubt because he had always said that he was going to be a billionaire, "With a B." And at least that part wound up being true.
Darren continued. His hands were folded behind his head and he leaned back in his chair, as if they were shooting the shit over lunch instead of having a one way conversation. "So I've got to ask you, buddy, if you'll save my ass one more time? I mean, I've really got no one else that I trust with my heart, you know what I'm saying?" The drawl had crept back into Darren's speech but Charles knew that was just part of the showmanship. The Texans that made up his in-person congregation liked that he was a "down home" boy, one of theirs. It only took two minutes on Google to discover that he'd been born and raised in Eureka, Oregon. "I'm appointing you trustor over the trust, Chuck and asking that you be a guardian for my daughter. I know, I know, she's of legal age and all that nonsense. That would be okay if she had been raised like me. Hell," he guffawed once more at his own jive, "if she had been raised like me, she'd probably be living in the goddamn trailer park already. But she wasn't raised like that, Chuck. She's been sheltered, extremely sheltered." Darren leaned in and choked up a little and Charles wondered if the preacher could make himself cry on cue for the camera, "I'm scared for her, Chuck."
Maybe it was genuine, the man actually sounded scared.
There were creases across Darren's forehead, white lines in his made for TV tan, as he pleaded, "Please, watch out for my baby girl, Chuck. Keep her safe for me."
The DVD stopped and the television screen turned to static. The lawyer who had sat in the shadows at the back of the room all this time cleared his throat, and reminded Charles that he was still there. He asked, "Do you have any questions for me at this time, Mr. Nelson?" Charles couldn't remember the man's name and he'd said it with such an air of importance that Charles knew it would be bad form to ask now.
Did he have any questions?
Only about a million and most of them started with "What the fuck?" Darren had been a client. He had come to Charles for financial advice and later on, as his fortune grew, to set up tax shelters. The church, being the original tax write off should have been enough but Christ Baptist Temple was hardly a non profit enterprise. Darren had been an unscrupulously greedy man. Everything was for sale. Redemption could be had for the right price; or Pryce, as the case may be. So how did he go from being trusted financial advisor to guardian of someone else's daughter?
And what would happen to her if he said no?
And what did that say about the supposed man of god, the most widely watched television preacher since Jim Baker, that he had to ask a virtual stranger to take care of his heir?
Charles exhaled deeply and that meant, "Yes, I have questions but I don't even know where to begin." The lawyer made enough money to explain it to him so Charles just said, "Tell me how this works."
The stack of documents looked formidable and the lawyer gestured at the file. "Shall I explain as we go along?" It was obviously a rhetorical question because the man with the mystery last name clicked a pen and handed it over to Charles. "Might as well get started," he said in a tone that meant, "only an idiot would say no."
He spent the next fifteen scrawling his illegible signature along yellow highlighted lines. Charles thought that he might as well get right to the point, he was pretty blunt by nature.
"So how much is this girl worth?"
"You mean right now?" The lawyer asked as he pushed his readers up on his nose. "In dollars?"
Charles nodded politely, he didn't need down to the penny, he just wanted an idea.
"Approximately five billion," the lawyer said as he turned the page and pointed out another highlighted line.
Charles couldn't help but let out a low whistle, "God is good."
The lawyer added, "Thanks in no small part to your ingenuity, Mr. Nelson." He smiled although it wasn't a happy gesture, more just to be polite, "let's protect it, shall we?"
Charles noticed that he used the word "it" and not "her" and wondered what this was really all about.
***
Charles looked through the stack of dry-cleaning and wondered if he should bring more shirts. He had no idea what to bring because he had no idea how long he'd be at the Pryce family compound.
The word "compound" gave him a chill and brought to mind all sorts of nefarious activities. Who the fuck had a compound? Drug dealers and cult leaders, that's who and for all Charles knew, Darren could have been both. Charles always felt that the preacher gig was just a front but for what, he'd never wanted to ask.
Charles had wrapped things up at his own practice so that he could devote his waking hours to his new gig; being Anastasia Pryce's guardian and the administrator of her many billions. Of course it was for a fee, a very handsome one at that. It wasn't the money that made Charles hesitate, it was Darren.
He'd first met Darren Pryce almost twenty years ago. Someone had recommended Charles to him. In the beginning, Darren couldn't actually afford his services. The young man had worn cowboy boots, red and black ones at that, and a cheap suit to their first meeting. Charles had felt a twinge in his gut, something strange that had kept him from kicking Pryce out. Sure, he had been full of shit but that didn't mean that he hadn't had the potential to do everything that he claimed. Darren had told Charles that day that he was about to be very rich.
Charles could remember his reaction, the chuckle under his breath as he had folded his arms over his chest. "Inheritance?" he'd asked Darren. Frankly Darren hadn't looked like he was the sort that had a rich uncle. He had looked more like he'd grown up in a trailer park.
