A Smile on the Face of the Tiger

by Loren D. Estleman

  “He’s rewriting it. Or another book just like it. I told you about the dictation tapes yesterday.”

  “That has nothing to do with me. Although I’d be happy to talk to him if he wants to write an original.”

  “Stop being a publisher and listen. He never got over his wife’s murder—he might have done it himself, despite the alibi he gave the cops, but if he did he didn’t get over that either—and that’s why he became impossible to work with and stopped publishing. I don’t know what he did between then and when he went to work for the trailer park, but I’m betting it didn’t have anything to do with writing; that part of his life carried memories too painful for him to live with. Then, wham, he’s a hot property again, being courted by New York and signing contracts with publishers. It all comes roaring back like indigestion and he does the same thing he did forty years ago, only more politely: He severs all his contacts and disappears. Maybe it’s coincidence, but if you start believing in that you’re through in my work.”

  “But if your theory is right, why is he writing again now?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he never stopped. Maybe it’s the New York connection he couldn’t take. If he didn’t kill her, he might feel as guilty as if he had, because he was there when he should have been here protecting her. I’ll ask him when I see him.” I told her about the Wigwam Motor Lodge.

  “His habits might have changed in forty years,” she said. “Maybe he doesn’t like fishing anymore.”

  “Maybe not. But it’s a direction to go. I’m fresh out of others.” I leaned across her for my glass of water and sat back quickly when I had it. I’d identified the scent of the soap she was using. It was the jasmine she’d worn when we first met. “I need a copy of Some of My Best Friends Are Killers. It’s the book he wrote up north after his wife’s death. It might tell me something. Have you got it?”

  “I have all his books. I left it in New York with the others. Paradise Valley was all I thought I’d need. I’ll have my assistant send it.”

  “Have her send it—”

  “My assistant’s a he.”

  “God bless Betty Friedan. Have him send it to me by overnight express in care of the Angler’s Inn in Black Lake. I’ve reserved a cabin.”

  “Why there?”

  “I got the name from the old wheeze who answered at the chamber of commerce. The current owners changed it when they bought the place twenty-five years ago. Before that it was the Wigwam Motor Lodge.”

  10

  Setting aside mile after crawling mile of feverish construction and the odd idiot who thinks free use of the accelerator saves wear and tear on his turn indicators, a straight shot up Interstate 75 to the tip of the lower peninsula in good weather is one of the more pleasant things you can do in this life. I got away from the Detroit crush before noon, stopped for lunch an hour and a half later at one of a proliferating chain of restaurants that offer “homestyle cooking” in the dining room and stuffed animals in the giftshop, and took note of the scabbed-over remnants of a culture that has all but vanished from roadside America: a homemade sign advertising a drive-in zoo whose animals had died of old age, Indian artifacts touted on the side of a semi trailer parked thirty yards off the gravel apron to serve as a billboard, great painted Amish faces weathering off the ends of painted barns in the receding farm country. I counted down to the Mystery Spot from forty miles to two hundred yards, watched a line of heavy trucks waiting their turn on the scales, drifted wide around a man squatting to change a tire on his travel trailer, his shirttail standing straight out from his body in the slipstream. Roadkill and recaps littered the apron and a gaunt backpacker stood next to a mile marker holding a sign reading ST. PAUL, no hope on his stub-bled face. A rock museum leaned at a crazy angle with its windows out and half its roof fallen in, leaving a dozen orphaned advertising placards strung out for sixty miles. It was all going to golden arches, convenience chains, factory outlet malls, and multiplex theaters selling the same bill from San Francisco Bay to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

  All except the hitchhikers. They had only turned in their bindlestiffs for duffels and abandoned the switchyards for freeway entrance ramps.

  A hundred miles north of Detroit, the farms and subdivisions faded and stands of pine began to flank the highway. Up there most of the land was owned by the state and the National Forest system, with here and there a chunk carved out for a private log home that could have sheltered Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, the Green Mountain Boys, and their families. Not that the lower classes weren’t represented; there were whole stretches of tarpaper shacks with painted iron oil pigs attached to testify to the basic human need to import slums to God’s country.

  The aging female twitter I’d spoken to over the telephone had apologized and explained it was the policy of the Angler’s Inn not to provide any information on its guests. She had admitted that two cabins were occupied at present. The fishing season was just getting under way and she expected to take more reservations for that weekend and to fill the place up by the end of the month. I’d given in to this hard sell and asked for a cabin.

  “I can offer you one of the new ones. Most of our guests prefer the modern conveniences.” “How new is new?”

  “We added two in nineteen seventy-four.”

  “So one of your current guests is occupying one of the original cabins.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. It’s the policy of the Angler’s Inn—”

  “I’ll take one of the older cabins. Does it have a bath?”

  “A shower. The new ones have Jacuzzis.”

  I said I’d rough it.

  From the exit, a broad two-lane blacktop led between more pines, past sprawls of Kmarts, Ben Franklins, and service stations whose gasoline prices dropped twenty cents in two blocks, then through an older business section with a couple of dusty giftshops, a movie theater that had been converted into an H & R Block, and a boarded-up furniture store. On the other side of town I caught glimpses of water shining like bright metal through more pines and passed a string of motels ranging from a Frank Lloyd Wright knockoff with a pool to a concrete bunker set back from an office in a Quonset hut. A quarter-mile of wilderness with signs offering lake lots for sale followed, then I was there.

  The Angler’s Inn was still recognizable as the Wigwam Motor Lodge in the old postcard. One of the four original cabins was missing, probably due to a fire, but the others hadn’t changed and appeared well-maintained, with good roofs and a new golden finish on the logs. Two new units with picture windows stood to the left on a spot once occupied by pines, and some enterprising downstater had managed to convince the new owners that white vinyl siding would dress up the office and create parity with the Holiday Inn. The arrow-shaped sign above the door had been replaced by one close to the road spelling out the new name in pink neon with a trout leaping repeatedly over the top.

  I looked for Eugene Booth’s old Plymouth in the strip lot out front, but there was only a new GMC pickup with camper parked by one of the new cabins and a muddy green van trying not to take up too much customer space on the far edge. I pulled up in front of the office and got out. The air was ten degrees cooler here than in Detroit—cool enough for a jacket in the evenings—and there was a clean sharp smell of fresh water from the lake. The mere act of inhaling sliced the soft spot out of my brain caused by four hours of driving.

  I stepped through an airlock into a shallow lobby with a rubber runner ending at the reservation desk. A six-foot-square tapestry covered the wall to the right, showing a wading fisherman in rubber pants fighting a piscatorial Moby Dick breaching at the end of his line. Opposite it was a display of mounted fish with lacquered scales and brass plates identifying their vanquishers. Tourist brochures shingled a rack to one side of the desk and there was an array of lures, flies, spools, and multiple-bladed knives for sale on the wall behind it.

  There was no one behind the desk. An afternoon soap confrontation was taking place on a TV set beyond an open door to the left. I l
eaned over the desk, found a small tin file box on a shelf underneath the top, and was reaching for it when the TV suddenly went silent. Springs sighed and I straightened up just as a thickset old woman about five feet high came waddling out in a white canvas vest over plaid flannels and a bucket hat with hooks stuck in it. Orange curls boiled out from under the brim all around like Harpo Marx’s. She had small sharp birdlike eyes without apparent need of correction, red lipstick, and round patches of scarlet painted high on her cheeks.

  “Reservation for Amos Walker,” I said when the sharp little eyes met mine. She lifted the tin box to the desk, found my card, and slapped it down on the desk with a plastic pen.

  She watched me fill in the blanks. I was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a polo shirt; nothing so suspicious as a coat and tie or riot gear. “Fishing? I can sell you a license.” It was the twitter from the telephone.

  “Not yet. I’m planning on coming up later in the season. Thought I’d take a look around, pick my spot.”

  “You don’t pick your spot. It picks you. That will be thirty-five dollars for the night.”

  I gave it to her. She put the cash in a drawer, took back the card, read what I’d written, and returned it to the box. I hoped she’d leave it there while she went to get the key, but she put it back down on the shelf, scooped a square brass key attached to a wooden tag out of the drawer, and tossed it on the desk. It skidded off the edge but I caught it.

  “You’re in Two. Actually it’s One, but the old One burned down and we didn’t change the numbers on the others. It’s on the end. Sure you don’t want a new cabin? It’s got cable.”

  “I’m nostalgic. Guess I’m not the only one.” I smiled. She stared. She was in no hurry to get back to her soap. I went out. A zinc bin with ICE painted on the hinged latch in big white letters stood outside the airlock on the side nearest the two new cabins. That was handy.

  The windows of Cabins Three and Four were shaded when I drove past to park in front of Two. If the man I was looking for was in one of them he’d walked there, as no more cars had turned in while I was in the office. I took my overnight bag from the back seat and let myself into a clean, cedar-smelling space with a buffalo-plaid comforter on an iron bed, a cheap yellow dresser with a plate-glass top, and a club chair of a vintage to match the cabin. Whoever had re-covered the chair last had selected a tough fabric with embroidered fishes on it. Fish hooks were printed on the curtains and a muddy lithograph of William Sidney Mount’s Eel Spearing at Setauket hung on the wall above the bed in a glass frame that had cost more than the print. More fish swam about on the shower curtains in the little bathroom. For a brief moment I was sorry I hadn’t brought tackle.

  I had a view through the window of a piece of the lake framed between towering pines and a public landing ending in a redwood dock. The reeds were bright green and just above ankle height. By late summer they would be the color of wheat and as tall as a man. An experienced caster would wade far out from the shore to avoid snagging his line among them on the back-swing. I wondered if that was possible, or if the bottom dropped out too steeply for anything but a boat. I tried to remember if I’d passed a marina; and then I remembered I hadn’t come up there to wet a line.

  I blew some air, set down my bag on an Indian rug, grabbed the plastic ice bucket from the bathroom, and went back out. The same three vehicles were sharing the lot. I wondered if the new units had managed to pay for themselves in twenty-five years.

  A scoop was attached to the zinc bin by a bicycle chain. I filled the bucket, turned left instead of right, and stuck my key into the lock of the new cabin in front of which the pickup was parked. The New York plate wasn’t promising. The key went only partway in. I rattled it for effect, then tried the knob.

  The knob pulled out of my hand and I looked at a man my height, but built more slightly in a denim shirt and tan Dockers, cordovan loafers on his feet. He had a New York Yankees cap pulled down to his eyes and green sunglasses. The lower half of his face was slim, tanned, shaved, fortyish, forgettable. He had a red cotton Windbreaker draped over his left forearm. That wasn’t worth noting, except it was covering his hand too, in the way you carry a jacket when you don’t want anyone to see what you have in your hand. From the length of the overhang it was one of the larger magnums, if not a .22 target pistol with a silencer.

  The face below the glasses formed a friendly smile. He had nice teeth, capped and bonded. “Wrong cabin, sport?”

  “Long drive,” I said. “I’m punchy. I thought a little ice water would help. Sorry to disturb.” I started to turn.

  He put a loafer on the threshold and brought the jacket forward a couple of inches. “No hurry, sport. Here for the bass?” He spoke huskily, from the back of his throat.

  I stopped. “No bass around here. Trout’s my fish. They put up a better fight.”

  “Trouble is you got to have a frying pan all heated up on shore and clean and cook it right there. Every minute it’s out of the water you lose some flavor. That’s what my old man told me, anyway. I’m not a fisherman myself. I’m just here for the quiet.”

  “Well, you found plenty.”

  “Not so’s you’d notice. The frogs are driving me nuts. Whoever said it’s peaceful out in the country must’ve been deaf.”

  “City boy.” I grinned.

  His smile flickered, then stayed. “Sin to waste good ice on just water. I got a bottle of bourbon that’s too big for me. I was expecting friends but I guess they aren’t showing up.” He hesitated half a beat before the aren’t. Somewhere under that tanned plastic finish was an ain’t screaming to get out.

  “Thanks. I’m cutting back. A friend told me today she thinks I’m an alcoholic.”

  “Your friend cares about you. You’re a rich man, sport. Good luck on the water.” He moved his foot out of the way and pushed the door shut in my face. The deadbolt snapped.

  I went back to my cabin. I’d intended to pull the same gag on cabins Three and Four, just to get a look at my other neighbor in case he was in after all, but I wasn’t sure how much the Yankees fan could see from his window. I decided to be true to my word. I left the bottle I’d brought in my bag, unwrapped a plastic glass from the bathroom, threw a handful of ice into it, and filled it from the tap. Sitting in the armchair sipping water I thought about the man in Cabin Five. I was pretty sure his voice wasn’t that husky in real life, that he was disguising it in the same way he was covering his face with the cap and dark glasses and his gun with his jacket. I was even more sure we’d never met. That made no sense, because his smile was as familiar as my own.

  11

  With the sun dyeing the lake pink my skin started to jump. I’d been in the cabin almost two hours, pacing the floor and sitting in the chair and lying on my back on the bed with my hands behind my head, smoking and not drinking anything but water. I had the little thirteen-inch TV set turned on for company but with the sound off so I wouldn’t miss hearing a car pull up to one of the other cabins, and if I didn’t go out and skip stones I was going to turn fishy like the natives. I got as far as the door, then went back and took the Smith & Wesson Chiefs Special out of my bag and snapped the holster onto my belt behind my right hip. I almost hadn’t packed it; I’d thought if a man couldn’t catch his limit without artillery support he might as well stay home and eat Mrs. Paul’s. That was before I knew about the guest in Cabin Five. I untucked my polo shirt and let the tail fall over the rubber grip.

  The air was chilly coming off the lake. In a half hour or so I’d be able to see my breath. I pulled a zipfront jacket out of the car and put it on. The pickup was still there and so was the old van. Vehicles tend to resemble their owners. I could imagine the old woman in fisherman’s gear driving the van, but the Yankees rooter didn’t match up with the truck and camper any way I tried to do it. He was strictly high performance and low clearance, bucket seats and twelve cylinders or better to open. I’d taken note of the number on the license plate, but if it didn’t belong to a rental or a
borrow job I was a sleuth without instincts. Maybe he didn’t have a gun. Maybe his left arm was in a cast and it embarrassed him. Except he wasn’t the getting-embarrassed type, any more than he was the type to throw a sleeping bag into the back of a camper and take off north of 110th Street. And I still knew him from somewhere.

  A hollow footpath worn down through the grass led to the redwood dock a hundred feet behind the motel. I walked out to the end and leaned on a painted piling and watched some gulls swooping at water-striders on the lake’s surface, wrinkling it like a silk flag in a light wind. When they missed they cried, the sound like the creak of an old hasp. A lone fisherman in a mackinaw and an old slouch hat stood on the opposite shore, waggling a fly rod in the approved four-count rhythm between ten and two o’clock, or so I supposed; I’m a worm-drowner myself and never found the knack. I watched him for a couple of minutes before I realized it might be Eugene Booth I was looking at. My binoculars were in the car and from that distance I couldn’t tell if it was a man in his seventies or a boy fourteen years old. Whoever he was, he was good. The red sun caught his wet line in a beautiful glittering spiral curve twelve feet above his head as he swung it like a lariat, feeding it by hand, and I could have watched until sundown without caring who he was if I hadn’t heard a car door slam a hundred feet behind me.

  I trotted back just in time to see a man fumble a big square box into Cabin Four, two doors down from mine, and kick the door shut. I had an impression of gray hair and glasses and a thick build in work twills, high-top shoes with metal hooks. Parked in front of the cabin was a twenty-year-old Plymouth, mint green with a white vinyl top. The plate matched with the registration I’d gotten from Lansing. The fisherman was home from the sea.

  I glanced toward Five, just to see if the pickup was still there. It was, and as I looked, a movement in the window of the cabin attracted my attention. It was the shade sliding back into place.