Page 71 of Unwanted Vows

I turn that over in my mind, while I nibble at a cuticle — a habit I thought I had ditched at the beginning of grad school. “I think I understand,” I say, “but why don’t you lay it out for me?”

“All right,” Andrew says. “Let’s start with the meth labs. Do you remember Breaking Bad?”

I give a little shudder. “I saw one episode, then I avoided it. Somehow it never seemed quite logical to me.”

“That’s because you have strong, solid ethics. You would never want to leave Paul with the kind of burden that would land on him if you were caught creating illegal drugs.”

I nod. Andrew was certainly right about that.

“But,” he goes on, “What if you were in a situation where running drugs, or being a mule, or selling your body brought in not only the best money you could make, but the only money? Would you let Paul starve or would you take the shady, risky job?”

I thought about that. If Kate and Charles had not been there for me, I could easily have been in that situation. “I guess I’d take whatever job I could get,” I say slowly. “But I think I’d rather have a food cart or work in a factory than put other people’s lives in danger.”

Andrew sighed. “See, here’s the thing. In an area controlled by a criminal organization, chances are you’d have to get approval to stand on a street corner and beg. I have to give Grandfather credit where credit is due. I remember when he took over from his Grandfather. I was eleven or twelve at the time. One of the first things he did was to set up soup kitchens and shelters.”

“What happened?” I ask.

Andrew shrugged. “About what you might expect. The soup kitchens served the worst food you can imagine, and the shelters were essentially flop houses. It wasn’t what he envisioned, but he was only one man. So he used his enforcers to clean up the shelters, used the drug money to buy real food, and he even created some scholarships.”

Paul turns around in his seat, straining against the seat belt to peer over the back. “Doesn’t that make him kind of a hero? Sort of like Robin Hood?”

“Not really,” Andrew replies. “Bad things still happened. Some of the people he hired to take care of situations turned out to be worse than what went before.”

I deliberately take my hand away from my face and wrap my fingers around my thumb, which is now painfully raw next to the nail from where I had nibbled on it. “Couldn’t you just have all the people who are doing illegal things arrested?” I ask, knowing even as I say the words that I’m probably being hopelessly naive.

“Ever play in a mud puddle?” Andrew asks.

“Not really,” I say. “My mother would have had a fit.”

He thinks a minute. “So here’s the deal. Suppose you have a super muddy puddle. It’s right after a rain, and a car has just splashed through it. You take a cup or something and you scoop as much of the water out of the puddle as you can.”

“Okay,” I say. “You then have a hole where the water was, right?”

“Maybe,” Andrew returns. “You might have a hole with nothing in it — which is a bad thing if you need water. Or more water could rush in, and become just as muddy as the water that was there before. To really clean up the water, you need a filter and you need some way to clean or use the mud.”

“People aren’t water or mud,” Paul says. “You have to feed them and make them happy if you want them to be good. Kind of like Carousel. He was scared, hungry, and lonesome. Now, he’s a super good kitty.”

“It’s more complicated than that with people,” Andrew says. “But you have the right idea, Paul. You can talk all day about morality, but if you want people to do better they need to be well fed and to feel secure.”

“But what if you have someone who thinks they need caviar and champagne to feel full, and a wall topped with howitzers to feel safe?” I ask.

Andrew sighs. “And that is part of the other end of the problem. Top that off with how difficult it is to persuade someone who is used to making several thousand dollars in a night to accept making twenty or thirty, and to then live on what they earn. Much as I hate to admit it, big crime pays big — right up until you get caught or someone gets killed.”

“No easy answers?” I ask gently.

“No easy answers,” Andrew says grimly. “If I’m going to prevent handing Paul a company riddled with graft, criminal side hustles, and a whole lot more, I’m going to have to step pretty fancy. I just hope those ledgers Grandfather is sending to Austin will give me some clue where to begin.”

“Wow! You’re going to be like a business ninja!” Paul says, his eyes shining with admiration.

Andrew sighs, and leans back in the comfortable seat. “I’ll settle for just turning Aims Corp into a real business that does ordinary business things.”

I slip my hand into his. “You don’t have to do it alone,” I say. “I’ll help. And we have friends who know how these things work. And family who care about ethical business practices.”

“I’m counting on that,” Andrew says. Then he grins at me with wry humor, “Because, dammit Maddy, I’m a doctor not a businessman.”

Paul looks puzzled, but Austin whoops with laughter from the front, then his reflection grins at us from the rear-view mirror. “How long have you been saving up to say that line?”

“On, I don’t know,” Andrew says. “Since I passed medical boards? No, actually, I’ve used versions of it before. After all, the character said it at least once an episode.”

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