The story is this: When the Vic, not yet known or famed or moneyed, first made his way to California in a van crammed with all the things he owned—and a dream, it says in the magazine article—he stopped at a youth hostel somewhere in blazing Arizona and ended up adopting a dog, mangy and boundlessly jazzed up, a mix of every large wild breed, left tied to a bike rack with a thick rope that prickled his fingers when he untied the knot. Finally in San Francisco, before even going to crash with his buddy (now a major shareholder), he took a celebratory walk in a little forest—not the beach—so the dog could shit and bolt around and he, soon to take tech by storm, could just breathe. Another owner was there, with a dog of the small yippy throw-pillow variety. The dogs went at each other, surprising everyone. By the time Vic yelled his way over, the big dog had the small dog in his jaws. Vic, uncharacteristically, did not know what to do, but the other owner, frantic but sure-footed, had a knife in her pocket, and the Vic left the forest without a dog.

The Vic told this story a lot, nudging it, shifting it, detailing and disguising each little move. He conned it out, the way he conned the deal out of Cogwheels, the money out of the music, tycoon, titan, widow, father. He made it work. He moved forward. These men, Padgett thinks, as the cage rattles. These men and their plans.

Chapter Three

CHAPTER 3

The drought lets up at cocktail hour. The first rain in months comes down while the town’s still badly lit and dim outside Bottle Grove. Inside the bar it’s cozy, with some new hip lightbulbs in the fixture, orangish and flickery, almost approximating candlelight, and there are new drinks, samples on the counter in an optimistic summery vein. The citrus and sugar has made it jolly among the few drinkers, so Martin and Stanford are kept busy not just mixing drinks but replying, clarifying, right-you-are-ing and settling disagreements via the jukebox. It’s playing Pérez Prado, sprightly King of the Mambo, and the elephant whinnies of the trumpets, the rain’s patter-patter, the bitching about real estate and shaky portfolios, for a long while bury the sounds outside until they are unignorable. They are the sounds of a woman screaming.