Дональд Уэстлейк - Brothers Keepers

“I’ve never actually read that,” Brother Hilarius commented. “Do you recommend it?”

“Not wholeheartedly,” Brother Oliver told him.

Brother Clemence, who was usually a jovial galumphing St. Bernard sort of man, could become a bulldog when his attention was caught, and this time his attention had been caught for fair. “I need that lease,” he said, his heavy white-haired head thrusting forward over the refectory table as though he would chomp the missing lease in his jaws. “I need to look at it, I need to see the wording .”

“I can’t think where it is,” Brother Oliver said. He was looking the way I’d felt at that awful typewriter.

Brother Hilarius said, “Wouldn’t the Flatterys have a copy? Why don’t we ask to look at theirs?”

“I don’t think so,” Brother Clemence said. “I don’t think it would be a good idea to let the other side know we can’t find our own copy of the principal document.”

Brother Hilarius said, “But the Flatterys don’t own us any more, so what difference does it make?”

“That’s not exactly the case,” Brother Dexter said, raising a finger for our attention, and never in his life had he looked so neat and clean and controlled, though not particularly joyful.

Brother Oliver, who seemed to be getting closer and closer to some sort of distractive fit, said, “Not exactly the case? Not exactly the case? Do they own the land or not? Dan Flattery told me they’d sold it. Did he lie to me?”

“I’m sorry, Brother Oliver,” Brother Dexter said, “but the only short answer I can give you is, ‘Not exactly.’ ”

“Then give me a long answer,” Brother Oliver said, and pressed both palms flat on the table as though our ship had entered heavy seas.

“I spoke to a Dwarfmann assistant this afternoon,” Brother Dexter said. “Actually I spoke to several people in the Dwarfmann organization all day long, but finally this afternoon I got through to someone at an executive level. Snopes, his name is.”

“This is a longer answer than I’d anticipated,” Brother Oliver said.

“I am getting to it,” Brother Dexter told him, exhibiting just a touch of that expert’s peevishness again. “According to Snopes, they have taken an option on this land and on several other parcels of land around here.”

“Option,” said Brother Oliver. “Option means choice. You mean they’re going to choose one bit of land and let the rest go?”

Brother Clemence said to Brother Dexter, “May I?”

“By all means,” Brother Dexter said to Brother Clemence.

Brother Clemence said to Brother Oliver, “In law, an option is a binding agreement to make a purchase. For instance, I might say to you that I want to buy your, um...” Frowning massively, Brother Clemence ground to a halt. “You don’t own anything,” he said. He looked around at the rest of us. “None of us own anything.”

“Perhaps I ought to try it,” Brother Dexter said.

“You’re welcome to,” Brother Clemence told him.

Brother Dexter said to Brother Oliver, “Suppose you owned the chair you’re sitting in.”

Brother Oliver looked doubtful but willing. “Very well,” he said.

“Suppose,” Brother Dexter went on, elaborating his fantasy, “suppose we all owned the chairs we were sitting in.”

Brother Oliver looked at us. I looked steadfastly back, trying to fix about my face the gaze of a man who owns the chair he’s sitting in. Even more doubtfully, but just as willing, Brother Oliver said again, “Very well.”

“Now suppose further,” Brother Dexter said, risking all at every step, “that I wish to own all the chairs.”

Brother Oliver gave him an astounded look. “What for?” Brother Dexter was patently stymied for just a second, but then he leaned forward and said, clearly and distinctly, “For purposes of my own.”

“Yes!” cried Brother Clemence. He had obviously caught Brother Dexter’s drift and was pleased with the structure under formation. Leaning forward to stare intently at Brother Oliver while waggling a finger at Brother Dexter, Brother Clemence cried out, “For reasons of his own! Personal private reasons! He has to own all the chairs!”

“That’s the point,” Brother Dexter said.

Brother Oliver, apparently at the point of despair, looked at him and said. “It is?”

“I have to have all the chairs,” Brother Dexter said. “Just some of them won’t do, not for, uhh, those purposes of mine. I need them all. So I come to you,” he rushed forward, “and I tell you I’ll pay you, oh, fifty dollars for your chair.”

Brother Oliver twisted about to look at his chair, which was in fact a very handsome carved-oak antique. “You will?”

Brother Dexter was not about to get sidetracked into a discussion of furniture. Racing along, he said, “However, I explain to you that I can’t use your chair unless I can also buy all the other chairs. So we sign an agreement.”

“An option agreement,” put in Brother Clemence.

“Yes,” said Brother Dexter. “An option agreement. The agreement says that I will buy your chair for fifty dollars next Monday, if I have managed to conclude similar agreements with the owners of all the other chairs. And I will pay you five dollars now as an earnest of my intentions. With that agreement, and once you accept the five dollars, you can no longer sell your chair to anyone else, even if someone were to make you a better offer. If Brother Benedict, for instance, were to come along tomorrow and offer you a thousand dollars for that chair, you couldn’t sell it to him.”

Brother Oliver studied me in bemused astonishment. “A thousand dollars?”

For some reason I remembered yesterday’s very long penance, which Brother Oliver had noticed, and I became very very guilty. I think, in fact, I blushed, and I know I averted my gaze.

But Brother Dexter wasn’t going to permit that digression either. “The point is,” he said, “once we sign that option agreement we are committed to the sale of the chair if the other conditions are met by the deadline. Being next Monday.”

“I think,” said Brother Oliver cautiously, “that some parts of this are beginning to make sense.”

“Good,” said Brother Dexter.

“Peripheral parts,” Brother Oliver added. “But now, if you would expand your parable from chairs to monasteries, I just might be able to follow you.”

“I’m sure you will,” Brother Dexter said. “The Dwarfmann people — by the way, they seem to refer to themselves as Dimp, which would stand for Dwarfmann Investment Management Partners — so the Dimp people—”

Brother Hilarius, incredulity ringing in his voice, said, “The Dimp people?”

“That is what they call themselves,” Brother Dexter said.

“Quickly,” Brother Oliver said. “I feel it all slipping away.”

“Certainly,” Brother Dexter said. “The Dimp people have acquired options on several pieces of land in this area. The Alpenstock Hotel, for instance, and this monastery, and that building on the corner with the silver-fronted store. You know the one.”

“I’m afraid I do,” Brother Oliver said. The store in question, very Bauhaus in its facade, was called the Buttock Boutique and it featured ladies’ slacks. When a member of our community did find it necessary to Travel, he almost always set off in the opposite direction from that shop, no matter what the destination.

“Well, these options,” Brother Dexter said, “come due on January first. At that time, if all the necessary parcels of land have been acquired, the sales will go through.”

“I don’t understand about necessary parcels,” Brother Oliver said. “If they buy one piece of land — or one chair, come to that — why do they have to have another one as well?”