Spotted Cats

by William G. Tapply

  ‘That is very true.’

  ‘Do you have any idea where this McBride lives?’

  ‘He lives in West Yellowstone, Montana, Mr Coyne.’

  I wrote that down too. Not that I needed to. There was no way I’d forget that Timothy McBride lived in West Yellowstone, Montana.

  CHAPTER 11

  I HAD THE COFFEE brewed by the time Julie came into the office the next morning. I filled her mug, added sugar, and handed it to her. She accepted it with arched eyebrows but didn’t say anything. She sat behind her desk and lifted it with both hands to her mouth.

  I stood in front of her desk, watching her.

  After a minute she looked up at me. ‘So what do you want?’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean, what do I want?’

  ‘You want something. I can tell. The way you gave me the coffee. The way you’re standing there with that little-boy look on your face.’

  I shrugged. ‘When you’ve finished your coffee.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Had a cup before I left this morning. Let’s have it.’

  ‘Well, OK,’ I said. ‘The thing is, I have to go to Montana for a few days.’

  She nodded. ‘I thought as much. I knew it’d be something like that. The way you’ve been moping around. You and who—Mr McDevitt? Dr Adams? Trout, right?’

  ‘This is business. For Jeff Newton. My client. Who’s now lying comatose in a hospital bed, being kept alive by machines.’

  ‘Who you really ought to visit,’ she said, peering up at me.

  ‘You’re probably right,’ I said. ‘Though I don’t see why. He wouldn’t know the difference, and it’d just depress me.’

  ‘They say sometimes people in comas know.’

  I shrugged. ‘Maybe. Somehow I doubt it. Anyway, now I’m in a position to do some real work for him. A business trip, Julie.’

  She rolled her eyes, ‘A business trip to Montana. Sure.’

  ‘Those jaguars that were stolen from him? I think they’ve showed up in West Yellowstone.’

  ‘West Yellowstone. Absolutely.’

  ‘I know how it sounds.’ I stopped. ‘Why do I feel that I need your approval?’

  ‘Because you feel guilty.’

  ‘I’d go if it happened to be Detroit, where’s there’s no clean water, or San Diego, where there’s no fresh water at all, never mind trout. It just happens to be West Yellowstone—’

  ‘Where there’s all kinds of clean fresh water full of trout,’ she said. ‘You’ve told me all about Montana. I know how you love it out there. So what do you want from me, Brady? It’s your law practice, if you want to abandon it. Your clients won’t mind. They’re probably used to it by now.’ She sighed in a heavy, exaggerated way, then cocked her head at me and grinned. ‘I do love to give you a hard time.’

  I smiled and nodded. ‘Me, too. I love it when you give me a hard time. It’s one of your important responsibilities. I depend on it. When you do it, I don’t have to. It saves all kinds of wear and tear on my conscience. So see if you can clear the calendar for next week and get me reservations into Bozeman. Oh, and arrange for a car rental at the airport. I’ll need a Cadillac, or at least a Lincoln—’

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘I said—’

  ‘I heard what you said, Brady. I just don’t believe it. A Cadillac?’

  I nodded. ‘Yes. Or a Lincoln.’

  ‘You always want compacts when you rent cars. From places like Cheepo Flybynight Rentals.’

  ‘Well, for this trip I want the biggest, glitziest car they have. I’ll need a room, too.’

  ‘A big and glitzy room, too?’

  I grinned at her. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘You are the boss, I suppose.’ She shrugged. ‘What about your friends?’

  ‘Doc and Charlie? They’re not going. This is business. Really.’

  Julie got up and walked out of my office. As the door shut behind her, I heard her mutter, ‘Cadillac. Holy shit.’

  Later in the morning I called Lily at the bungalow in Orleans.

  ‘Lily,’ I said when she answered. ‘It’s Brady.’

  ‘Oh.’ There was a long pause. ‘Well, hi.’

  ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Just fine, thank you. You?’

  ‘OK.’ I paused. I hadn’t spoken with her since she drove away from me in Scituate. ‘Look—’

  ‘Brady, it’s all right. I’m sorry how I reacted that night. I guess you had a right to ask those questions.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, too. But that’s not why I called.’

  I heard her exhale into the receiver. ‘I guess I knew that. You’re not one to apologize.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Forget it. So why did you call, then?’

  ‘I got a line on someone in Montana who might’ve bought Jeff’s jaguars from those guys who stole them.’

  ‘Does this mean I’m no longer a prime suspect?’

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what to think, and I really didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. It’s just that—’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said quickly.

  ‘Well, anyway, I just wanted you to know. So if Jeff…’

  ‘He’s not going to regain consciousness, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Well, they say sometimes people in comas can hear things. Tell him I’m working on his cats.’

  ‘Can you tell me more than that?’

  ‘Not really. My friend Dan LaBreque—he’s a curator at the MFA—he has a friend in Phoenix. I called her, and it turns out she has a friend who heard a rumour, so…’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘A rumour?’

  ‘That’s all.’

  She didn’t speak for a moment. ‘What’d you have in mind, Brady?’

  ‘I thought I’d go,’ I said. ‘Check it out.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why?’ I paused. ‘Jeff can’t very well go himself.’

  ‘How quixotic of you.’

  ‘That’s what Julie thinks, too,’ I said. ‘She thinks I’m going out there because it’s trout mecca.’

  ‘You’re not?’

  ‘Remember how Jeff looked when we found him that morning?’

  ‘I’m not likely ever to forget.’

  ‘Remember me, when you found me in bed?’

  ‘Yes.’ She hesitated. ‘It was pretty scary.’

  ‘It sure was.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Brady. It was a nightmare. Still is.’

  ‘I haven’t lost my thirst for revenge, Lily. I want those bastards. For Jeff. And for me.’

  ‘So you’re going to go riding out there with your spear and your banner.’

  ‘If you want to look at it that way. Julie looks at it that way, I think.’

  She was silent for several moments. Finally she said, ‘So exactly why are you telling me?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe it is sort of an apology. Anyway, I thought if you visit Jeff, talk to him, you could tell him. If anything is registering, it might make him feel better.’

  ‘You could tell him yourself, you know.’

  ‘He’d probably rather hear it from you.’

  I heard her snort a quick laugh. ‘Well, have fun. I’ll tell Jeff.’

  ‘I’ll call when I get back.’

  ‘Sure you will.’

  Around noon Julie scratched on the door and came into my sanctum. She had a manila folder in each hand. She sat in the chair beside my desk. She put one folder on the desk and opened the other one. She sighed heavily. That sigh reminded me of Gloria, back when we were married, sitting beside me in the den of our Wellesley home after I returned from a day’s work. She would hand me a gin and tonic, take a tentative sip of her own, give me that weary sigh, and share ‘her day’ with me. She told me little tales with no climax about faulty mechanical devices, supermarket ripoffs, neighbourhood squabbles. I would listen politely. It was, after all, her day, and all her days ta
ken together constituted her life. And whether she intended it or not, there was a purpose to her telling me about it. It took me a while, but I finally got Gloria’s point. Her life was as pointless as her stories. Mine, by extension of her implied logic, was exhilarating and infinitely fascinating.

  All of this she managed to convey in a single, exquisitely expressive sigh.

  She was not happy. This, cumulatively, made me unhappy.

  Ultimately, we got divorced.

  She remained vaguely unhappy. Nor did I find instant ecstasy. But although from time to time we halfheartedly tried, we knew that we could no longer blame each other for it.

  ‘Your flight,’ sighed Julie, ‘leaves Friday at 6:40 a.m. Delta, if it matters. You’ve got a two-hour-and-ten-minute layover in Salt Lake City. You arrive in Bozeman at 1:35 p.m. That’s Rocky Mountain Time, of course. Hertz will have a car waiting for you. I reserved a room for you at the Madison River Inn, which they claim is the swankiest place in West Yellowstone, those things being relative in the Wild West, I assume. It’s the most expensive, at least. It’s on the outskirts of town. A view, I was assured, of mountains and forests. Elk and pronghorn antelope, I think they were called, presumably graze out back. Sauna, hot tub, masseuses on call. OK?’

  ‘Perfect,’ I said.

  She cocked her head at me, a question I declined to answer.

  ‘You’re scheduled to return on Wednesday,’ she continued when she realized I wasn’t going to explain myself. ‘If that’s not enough time to wet a line in enough trout rivers, you can change it.’ She closed the folder and slid it under the other one. ‘You can pick up your tickets at the agency downstairs. Any questions?’

  ‘This isn’t a fishing trip, Julie.’

  She smiled and nodded. ‘Right.’

  ‘What about the car?’

  ‘You got a Lincoln Town Car. I gather it was the least tasteful car available.’

  ‘Good. A Lincoln Town Car is sufficiently tasteless.’

  ‘Next question?’

  ‘Why Friday? I said next week.’

  ‘The rates are better if you’re gone over a Saturday.’

  ‘I knew that.’

  ‘Sure you did.’

  ‘I’m speechless at your efficiency.’

  ‘You better be, buster,’ she said. She picked up the other manila folder. ‘Now, if you’re going to be out of the office for four days, and I’ve got to play lawyer for you, there’s a bunch of things we have to discuss.’ She tapped the folder with the long nail of her right forefinger. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Ready,’ I said. But already I was trying to decide which fly rods to pack, and whether I’d need my insulated waders, and if I should call Charlie and Doc to gloat a little. Maybe I just would try to squeeze in a little fishing. If nothing else, it would be a good cover for my real business.

  I had to stay up until midnight—ten o’clock Rocky Mountain Time—to reach Flask Dillman.

  ‘Yuh?’ he said into the phone.

  ‘Brady Coyne.’

  ‘Brady. Be damned. How’n hell are you?’

  ‘I am presently terrific, since I’m flying into Bozeman this Friday, laden with fly rods. Any fishing these days?’

  ‘Madison up back of the Slide Inn’s been fishin’ real good. Caddis comin’ off towards dusk. Little hopper action on the Yellowstone. Spring creeks’ve been hot. The usual stuff.’

  ‘You still know where all the big ones are?’

  He chuckled. ‘Every goddam one of ’em. Got a couple with your name on ’em, if you’re interested.’

  ‘I could be persuaded,’ I said.

  When I first knew him, Flask Dillman was a highly respected Montana fishing guide, a small, lithe man with a scraggly sun-bleached beard, sun-fried skin, and a boundless capacity for rum-and-Cokes.

  He lost his guide’s licence when one of his clients nearly drowned in the Box Canyon section of the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River, a place where several less fortunate fishermen have actually succeeded in drowning by carelessly wading in the heavy boulder-strewn currents. It wasn’t exactly Flask’s fault. But the client happened to be an influential Wall Street banker who believed that Flask’s failure to leap to his rescue was attributable to his having consumed the entire contents of the engraved silver flask he carried in his hip pocket before he curled up under a lodgepole pine and fell asleep, while the client tumbled downstream past him.

  After that, Flask kept the rum out of his Cokes. He placed his silver flask on the windowsill over the sink in his kitchen and left it there as a sort of trophy of his comeuppance. And every year he applied to the state’s licensing board for reinstatement. Every year he was turned down. That Wall Street banker had powerful friends. Flask always said he wished to hell the fat shit had drowned. Since then Flask and I have fished together as partners.

  ‘Saturday, then?’ he said.

  ‘It’s a date. I’ll call you when I get in Friday. You can do me a favour in the meantime.’

  ‘Name it.’

  ‘Ever hear of a guy named Timothy McBride?’

  He was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘Might’ve. Rings a bell.’

  ‘Real estate developer. Supposed to be building somewhere in your neck of the woods.’

  ‘Yeah, OK. Him. Got himself a spread up by Hebgen Lake. They say he’s gonna build a big fancy condominium resort. Sure. I heard of him.’

  ‘See what you can find out about him.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Quietly, Flask.’

  ‘Goes without saying, Brady.’

  The thing I liked about Flask was that he didn’t ask questions.

  ‘I’ll buy you dinner Friday night,’ I told him. ‘I’m staying at the Madison River Inn.’

  ‘Hoo, boy. The Inn. Some client must be payin’ your way this time.’

  ‘As a matter of fact.’

  ‘Business trip, then.’

  ‘Mainly, yes.’

  ‘This McBride,’ he said. ‘Folks don’t like him much.’

  ‘I hope to draw my own conclusions,’ I said.

  The next morning, unable to restrain myself, I called both Charlie and Doc. To gloat. I left out the whole part about the jaguars and Jeff Newton. They responded as I’d hoped they would. They were jealous as hell, and, good friends that they were, both of them expressed enormous resentment and promised they’d hang up on me when I got back and tried to tell them about all the big fish I’d taken. They knew this was the reaction I wanted.

  I also phoned Dan LaBreque to thank him for his indirect contribution to my trip.

  ‘So you’re going out there?’

  ‘I owe it to Jeff.’

  He chuckled. ‘Sure.’

  ‘I don’t understand why I get the same reaction from everyone.’

  He was silent for a moment. ‘Well, listen,’ he said. ‘The blues’ll be blitzing for the next month. When you get back?’

  ‘Definitely. It’s a date.’

  ‘Hey, Brady. Be careful, huh?’

  ‘Don’t worry about me.’

  ‘I’m jealous.’

  ‘It’s strictly business, Dan.’

  ‘Right.’

  West Yellowstone is a simple grid of twenty-eight blocks on the western border of Yellowstone National Park in the narrow south-central tongue where Montana meets Idaho and Wyoming. West Yellowstone exists for two reasons: It’s the western gateway to the Park, and it’s smack in the middle of the greatest concentration of fine trout fishing in the lower forty-eight. Within one hundred miles of the town flow more than two thousand miles of blue-ribbon trout waters—the Madison, Yellowstone, Lamar, Gallatin, and Henry’s Fork are just the better-known. And the lakes—Henry’s, Hebgen, Quake, Island Park Reservoir—teem with huge trout.

  Mecca.

  Around seven hundred people actually live in West Yellowstone. Their businesses cater almost exclusively to flyfishing and Park-visiting tourists. Over a million every year. Souvenir emporiums vie with motels and restaurants and
gas stations and fishing shops for the vacationers’ bucks. Generally there are more than enough bucks to go around.

  Many of the roads in town are still unpaved. The sidewalks are elevated from the street and made of wood. Storefronts are low, featuring log structure and rough-hewn vertical planking. The Old West.

  The natives are friendly. They all fish for trout, or pretend they do when they talk with patrons of their businesses. Western beef is the speciality of all restaurants except the odd pizza joint. Steaks are cheap and thick. If you order one rare, it gallops into the dining-room under its own power.

  They had my Lincoln Town Car waiting for me at the Hertz booth. I loaded my duffel into it, drove south for a little under two hours on Highway 191 from Bozeman into West Yellowstone, where I checked into the Madison River Inn. A big, open-faced kid held my car door for me and insisted on lugging in my gear. I folded a ten-dollar bill twice and slipped it into his hand, and he shoved it into his pocket without looking at it. A classy joint.

  A teenage girl with sleek black hair and an olive complexion checked me in and then tapped a bell. An old guy with stooped shoulders materialized and hefted my bags and rod case. I took the bags away from him and let him carry the rods. I didn’t want to be responsible for his coronary. I followed him to my room while he told me about all the good stuff at the Inn. I gave him a ten-spot, too.

  I tested the bed and the television. Then I flopped down and dialled Flask Dillman. No answer. I asked the operator for Timothy McBride’s number. A computerized voice told me Timothy McBride’s number was unlisted.

  I took a shower, slipped into my Montana outfit—jeans and moccasins and an old flannel shirt—and went outside. I climbed into the Lincoln, feeling as out-of-place among all the four-wheel drives, vans, and trucks that populated the West Yellowstone streets as a water skier on Walden Pond. I drove a few diagonal blocks to the Blue Ribbon Fly Shop, where I bought a Montana fishing licence. Then I wandered around the store, ogling the rods and reels and fly-tying stuff, and to justify my time I bought half a dozen No. 16 Pale Morning Duns. The young guy behind the counter told me that the Madison was fishing well, as was the eastern end of the Madison arm of Hebgen Lake. So, naturally, I bought half a dozen Adamses in size eighteen. It was hard to leave.