by Jack Cady
And, because she had her cap set for Sugar Bear, she tried, really tried, to understand him. She told herself she was more practical, but in a way she understood. It must be awful to do something really, really, really bad, and not be able to undo it. It must be even worse to be the kind of person who could not shove the blame off on someone else; and it must be pretty bad to discover a streak in yourself so ugly it caused you to smash someone. She thought over the problem, and watched from the forest as backed-up traffic drew a colorful line along the dark road. Stink of exhaust swirled among dry smells of the forest. On the north side of trees, where moisture still lingered, roll-y bugs, little snails, slugs, and earwigs hid, and, buglike, did things to each other.
Sometimes Annie showed the knowledge owned by the Ancients, even if she was not very old and knew little of them. When, for example, she told Bertha that the thing in the Canal was a Fury, she was fairly sure she spoke true. Annie was not exactly clear about what a Fury was, but made a mental note.
Meantime, she showed the wisdom of the Ancients. For two days and nights she remained silent and listened to the sounds of Canal and forest. She cloaked herself in silence, and let the voice of wind, the lap of water, the snap of twigs and rustle of leaves speak their pieces. She heard flutters of wings, the birds long past mating season, and soon to fly south. Her mind could feel fingers of mist touching the Canal when sunlight faded and the forest grew black as shoal.
Solutions presented themselves. Some solutions made her hopeful, and some sad. She was urgently aware that police divers steadily moved closer to the dead guy. She understood that if she was going to do something, she had better do it right away.
The problem with spells is some worked, some didn’t, and some went off half-cocked. With time to experiment, she could learn what worked. There was no time. Plus, she felt sort of sad, and that made it possible to do something dumb.
She saw these options:
Move the dead guy’s car, and the dead guy, to deep, deep water where the divers would never find him.
Or, just move the dead guy.
Or, cause a distraction and shut down the whole operation. “It will take time,” she whispered to the forest. “I’ll have to stall for time.” Those, her first words in two days, dropped into the silence of the forest like an echoing voice from long ago. The forest remained silent, tranquil, and possibly as tired as August; and August is the tiredest month.
On the road a state cop who looked like a movie actor hassled traffic. He seemed really official out there. When he halted traffic with his hand, he wore his don’t-screw-around-with-me cop look. He also looked like a cop who needed a drink, and Annie thought—if he were not a cop—she would take him some lemonade.
She also thought she had better figure out a pretty good stall. It would take at least a couple of days to see if she could move the car, or the dead guy. Or whatever.
Concerning Real Estate and Cops
Wind picked up during afternoon, gusting at first, then changing to a steady blow. The Canal ruffled with heavy chop, and the chop turned to waves that crashed along the shore. A few fishing boats headed to sea as Navy ships fled into port, heavy weather being tiresome to the Navy.
As wind continued, police divers shut up shop. Cops took down orange barriers blocking one lane, and the yellow crane parked. The crane looked like a heron hovering over a fishing spot, and its color matched yellow dive gear being packed into a police van. Turbulence along the shore shifted remains of fallen trees as it churned water. Divers could not see a foot ahead of them. Whether the wind and wave action was enough to tumble wrecked cars was anybody’s guess, but folks hanging out at Beer and Bait argued the possibility. Everyone figured the blow would drop when the tide changed.
Afternoon progressed toward evening, the tide turned, and wind, if anything, picked up. The parking lot at Beer and Bait came alive with rumbles of diesels as log truck drivers understood there was no other place to go, except home. The trucks are rarely fancy. They occasionally display a snazzy striping job, or an extra smidgen of chrome, but for the most part are working machines; bulky, sort of beautiful like a herd of colorful metal bison. The trucks congregated because drivers knew, what with wind, all logging operations would shut down. The forest rapidly turned to tinder where even the spark from a chainsaw could spell catastrophe. Drivers relaxed at Beer and Bait, grumbled, and were secretly glad to take a break, though everyone worried. It was no longer a question of: will there be a forest fire? That seemed certain as an owl hoots. The only way out was miracles or magic.
As a good crowd gathered, Chantrell George wandered toward Beer and Bait. Wind snatched at his raggedy orange shirt and his equally raggedy green pants. His shoes in summer are aerated, allowing breathing space for toes. Before entering Beer and Bait he used his sleeve to make sure his nose didn’t drip. He combed his hair with his fingers. Bertha, who sensed a big night, put Chantrell to work right away. She figured he would be pretty well cleaned up, for a junkie. What with the heat, his mushroom source was temporarily closed. The shy creatures prefer lots of moisture and a muted sky.
Sugar Bear sat at a table in the exact center of the room, looking like a mountain of sorrow rising above foothills of routine cares. A few fisherman scattered among loggers, and beefed about wind. A few tradesmen clustered near windows and talked shop. Wives and girlfriends chatted, laughed, or patted the backs of their men’s hands, as the men worried over truck payments.
After the first dust got washed from throats, and the first beer-buzz made the world more palatable to most, Bertha turned the whole show over to Chantrell. She sat at the far end of the bar, the end away from the door. She hassled pool games and tried to figure if it was time to give up on Petey, because he’d made no big moves since coming home.
As wind continued to crash, Bertha turned the tape deck down instead of up. Chatter competing with music did not ordinarily cause her to bat an ear, but today seemed different. She felt an edge of impatience—not the best sort of feeling for the owner of a joint; impatient with herself, impatient with Petey, plus the weather was enough to make a preacher cuss. What with wind and general unrest, Bertha suffered a bout of melancholy.
That afternoon she and Petey had been playing their first truly private game of pool since Petey’s return. The only other soul present was Jubal Jim, a-snooze on the floor. Or, it might be someone sat outside on the front steps, relaxing in the sun, and listening. If that “someone” was there, he probably made bets with himself on how far the line of traffic would stack up.
Part of Bertha’s frustration came from want of privacy. Since Petey’s return they hardly had a single moment. What with cars backing up halfway to Timbuctoo, and with the usual run of tourists who managed to feel lost on a road where you couldn’t get lost; and what with logging drivers mildly suicidal and longing for a beer to settle nerves, privacy became a memory. Quiet afternoons playing pool with Petey belonged to a past so remote somebody should have written books about it.
That afternoon Petey almost got something said. Now, with the lengthening shadows of evening, Bertha sat at the end of the bar watching him run a routine hustle on a logger. She had to admit Petey was not the handsomest man in the room. He was not, for example, as pretty as his dog. On the other hand, he had appeal no other man could touch. Bertha, a Scandinavian descended from Norsemen, held an appreciation for piracy . . . she hesitated . . . suddenly remembering the women from the housing project. Those women really might start something poolish.
It didn’t figure. Women like that generally competed against each other, but might gang up for revenge or profit. Or, they might let that beetle lady run a number just for the fun of seeing somebody get burned. And . . . what were those women doing in a beer joint in the first place? That never happened before.
Bertha knew her joint and knew her guys. Most acted like civilians until placed behind a pool cue. The majority of men at Beer and Bait were not particularly courageous, and not good at fighti
ng, even when pumped up by adrenalin and beer. Put them behind a pool cue, though, and they wouldn’t leave two sticks nailed together when it came to dismantling bank accounts of rich guys at the development. Behind a pool cue Bertha’s boys turned into a bunch of heathen savages.
She figured the development could not handle savages. If her boys romped too freely it would eventually mean cops. Rich guys had a way of getting back. Rich guys were not a hell of a lot different than regular guys. They took themselves serious.
She did not know which part of life was the biggest mess. She looked at Petey, and, to give him credit, knew he suffered from the same problems of privacy. That afternoon, alone and studying a complicated layout on the table, he muttered, “Thinking of settling down a little. Go into business, maybe.” His voice had nearly been a whisper, and he blushed. Since there was nothing to blush about when it came to going into business, he had to be blushing about something else.
“A business can be fun.” Bertha had spoken carefully, although she couldn’t picture Petey behind a bar or a counter. Her head was telling her “Go Slow” and her heart was saying “This is it. This is the big It.’’
“Because,” Petey whispered, “this bein’ on the road gets to a guy.” He hid behind his shot, banking three rails on the seven ball that sat like a purple blush two inches off the pocket. The ball fell with a little click, an itsy sigh, and a thump.
“What kind of business?” Bertha made a point of keeping her back to him. She stepped behind the bar where she picked up a fresh piece of pool chalk.
“I dunno,” Petey said, and then almost choked. “I figured maybe we could talk about it.” He sounded, to Bertha, like a man strangling.
“We can do just that,” she whispered. “I know about business stuff . . .”
That was as far as she got. They were so concentrated on each other they did not hear tires crunching gravel in the parking lot.
Heels clicked on the front steps and a stranger appeared. He was slick-haired, suited, vested, shoe-polished, wearing a red tie and a smile so cheery as to brand him severely retarded, or a phony. He stood taller than Petey, tried to appear languid, and could not even look relaxed. Everything about him said “failed hustler.”
Bertha figured him for an electronics guy, pinballs and videos. She wiped the counter, ready to say that she called the tunes in Beer and Bait, not some drunk with a buck for a jukebox.
“Passing through?” she asked.
“Business in the area.” He tried to sound reasonable, but still looked like someone peddling pukey-green refrigerators to Eskimos. He passed Bertha his card. Real estate.
“I have a buyer. Wants to retire. Looking for a small business in a quiet place.”
“Cemetery lots in Miami,” Bertha told him. “Big market. Lots of quiet.” She said it, but sounded mildly interested.
“. . . thinks a bar would do nicely. We’re talking money in front.” The real estate guy named a figure only slightly higher than reasonable.
“Whose shot?” Bertha asked Petey. To the guy she said, “I make my mortgage.” She turned to the table and looked at a reasonably easy shot. Instead, she chose to show off. She popped the cueball between the eight and nine, a really narrow space. The cueball Englished its way two rails off the corner, ran the length of the table, caromed off the ten and tapped the eleven into the pocket. “Suppose I sell the joint for a wad,” she told the guy. “I have to move someplace, buy another joint, and joints don’t come cheap. There’s no profit in it.”
“I might come up with a deal on the other end.”
“Do that.” Bertha said. “Make it a major, major deal, or give it to your retired guy.”
“You’ve got my card.” The guy sort of slithered from the barstool and disappeared into the dry and windy day. Bertha turned to Petey, and she saw Petey was lost in some kind of Hustler’s Revelation. Their magic moment was lost as Petey put together plans.
“One of the problems with business,” Bertha said to Petey, “is you got no privacy. We’ll talk.” She said it just as gravel crunched in the parking lot. Two guys from the phone company arrived, guys on their third lunch hour of the day.
═
Now she sat in early evening and listened to wind bang and holler against windows. She wondered why she had been dumb enough to say something dumb about business. Then she wondered if she still felt good about Petey, or if he was just habit. She did not wonder about her own shyness, because Bertha, being of the Norwegians, prided herself on being “old school.” Some things are done, some things are not. It was up to the gentleman to get matters started. Bertha knew little of the last twelve centuries of Norwegian history, but she knew a lot about Lutheran guilt.
She did not exactly trust her premonitions, but she did not distrust them. It seemed like all the bad stuff that got tossed up in the air since last spring was about to land. Cops closed in on Sugar Bear’s little problem. Annie was acting her age, which was dangerous. A forest fire would drive away tourists, and while she might joust with a real estate guy, it was true that bank balances got thin during slow seasons. And, if a pool tournament took place at the development, all hell would pop. She looked toward the open doorway while keeping an eye on Chantrell, or rather, on how Chantrell handled the cash register. Sunlight still lay behind the western ridges, so shadows crossed the road before running into a line of golden light reflected from high clouds. The tape deck played pop tunes of the ’40s and ’50s. A couple stood in the middle of the dance floor, swaying somewhat, mostly rubbing, while swirling light from a beer sign crossed their married faces; married, but not to each other.
Bertha became aware of unrest near the doorway. At her elbow Petey studied a shot and said something to a logger.
“The police radio,” Petey said to the logger, as Petey made a little run and the logger cussed, “claims another car dunked. Hambone radio.”
“That won’t do nothin’ to the baseball standings, either way,” the logger said. “This late in the season . . .”
“A Mariners fan,” Petey told him, “is the hopefulest damn fool in the nation. Tell me you ain’t a Mariners fan.”
“If a car has dunked,” the logger said, “that makes number eight or nine. I’m losing count.”
The disturbance near the door increased as people searched for places at tables, and got as far away from that end of the bar as they could without looking too guilty. They scattered like a flock of sparrows before a cat, but what stepped through the doorway was no kitty.
A state cop, who had to know he was where he wasn’t wanted, took a seat near the door. Bertha reacted; shocked, then angry, then ready for a scrap. She quietly reviewed her own transgressions. None of them seemed serious enough to warrant a state cop. She looked over the house, saw customers shrinking into shadows, and a few obscene gestures waving toward the cop’s back. This, the best crowd of the summer, was about to be chased home, or up to Rough and Randy, by a cop who obviously had not been raised to know his place.
═
Think of it as a dance, even while being surprised about who is dancing. Into Beer and Bait walks a thirsty man in a cop suit. The poor fellow can’t have a beer because of the suit, but he’s almost dry as the forest. He perches near the doorway, looks around, and orders lemonade from a visionary bartender—and the cop has enough experience to guess where those visions come from. This cop knows that every mother’s son and daughter in that bar is guilty of something, because all of us doubtless are; but the cop doesn’t know what, and doesn’t give a flush. When he wants is to drink and be left alone. Which doesn’t work. The dance begins, because the cop sees Bertha and things start happening like it’s daytime television.
The cop sees a lady who, if she wished, could shake out a six-by-nine carpet like it was a ragrug. Bertha tops six feet, has blond hair with sexy streaks, and a figure that causes despair among the average run of housewives. Bertha’s Norwegian blue eyes are smiley above a full and smiley mouth (most days). She ha
s artistic hands. Bertha, in other words, is a knockout when a man is sober, and the stuff of mooshy dreams when a man is not.
And what did our second dancer, Bertha, see?
The cop, were he not a cop, was himself not indistinct. The cop bulked big as Sugar Bear, but without Sugar Bear’s easy ways. This cop had been up and down a few roads. He turned a little too far east on his barstool, and looked into the mirror in back of the bar. This cop, Bertha admitted, would be mighty attractive as a TV repairman, or a garage door installer. He might do as a farmer, a house painter, or a dentist. As a cop, though, he amounted to just one more pretty-boy. He watched her with that sideways, indifferent look guys use when they pretend they aren’t interested. Man or woman, there wasn’t a good looking bartender in all of history who had not picked up on that look; maybe even that wiseass at China Bay.
This cop looked filled with fantasies of moonlight, but Bertha could see he should not even think of women, at least not now. He looked tired to the point of exhaustion, hot, miserable, ready to tell the state to take its cop-job, and its traffic, and its political pizazz, and shove it all in a sunless place. Bertha also knew if the guy got a good night’s sleep, and woke in time for an extra cup of coffee, he’d be right back on top of matters. He’d put in another day. If Bertha knew anything at all, it was certain she knew workingmen. Meanwhile, matters in Bear and Bait grew tippy.
“We got a cop,’’ the logger muttered to himself, “and I got a hot chainsaw in back of the pickup.” He looked at Petey. “Your dog gonna allow this?” Jubal Jim was nowhere seen.
“This ain’t strictly a dog type of problem.” Petey looked toward the cop. “He wants somebody, but I ain’t done nothing. Lately.” Petey checked himself for violations. He wore his going-to-town clothes, stripedy shirt, narrow pants—you can hardly get good sharkskin anymore—and a baseball cap reading “Alaska Tours and Travel.” He cued and missed an easy shot. The logger saw an opening and seemed somewhat cheered.
