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The man confirmed he was Dexter Tremayne.
“I started doing this registered agent crap about two years ago,” he said. “Used to be a truck driver. Unhealthiest job there is except maybe for coal mining. Anyway, I live on disability and Social Security and what I earn as an agent. My cousin got me onto it. I’ve only got fifteen hundred companies right now. He’s got nearly thirty thousand. He has spreadsheets and state filing software and credit cards on file for autopay so he doesn’t get stiffed. Runs smooth as silk. And he’s printing money. That’s my goal. To beat him. Got a lot of catching up to do.”
“I understand. But why did you want to talk?” asked Gibson.
“I never met anyone from none of the companies I’m an agent for. Not a single one. I remember I got an email from a lawyer once, but he didn’t say much. Have no idea who owns any of this shit. My cousin thinks he’s got one of them Mexican cartel boys on his roster. Maybe I got me one, too,” he added eagerly.
“Okay. But—”
“Wouldn’t that be something? Me representing him, so to speak.”
“Yeah, really something to tell the grandkids,” noted Gibson, trying hard to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
“Now let me get to the point. Like I said, I never met or heard from any of the owners,untilthis fellow Daniel Pottinger called me up one day. Out of the blue. Could’a knocked me over with a stick.”
“How do you know it was him?”
“He said it was. And why else would he be calling me?”
Gibson could think of a few reasons but said, “What did he want?”
“He wanted to tell me something. And I’m going to tell you.”
“Why tell me?” said an instantly suspicious Gibson.
“He’s dead, right? I saw that on the news. Pottinger was killed in, was it West Virginia?”
“Close enough. But he’s dead, yes. Someone killed him.”
“Well, he said, if anyone contacted me after he was dead, I was to tell them what he told me to tell them.”
Gibson sat up straighter and took up a pen. “And what was that, exactly?”
“He told me to tell the person, ‘Now you see it, but then you don’t.’ Seemed kinda stupid to me, but there you go.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact, he did.”
“What?”
“He said, ‘Then tell ’em to take away the eight.’”
“‘Take away the eight’?”
“That’s right. The eight. Those were his exact words. He had me write them down.”
“What’s the eight? And take it away from what?”
“I don’t know what to tell you, ma’am. That’s what he said.”
“Anything else?”
“Yep, then he said for whoever to ‘use the leftovers for Sesame Street.’”
“‘The leftovers for Sesame Street’?”
“Those were his exact words. God’s honest truth.”
