Yellow Dog Contract

by Thomas Ross

  Although I may have thought that it could, the gin didn’t keep me from thinking about Max Quane. All that it really did was make me sweat and stop the twitching in my foot. The right one.

  I thought about Quane and his throat and how it had been cut and again I found myself resisting the phrase ear to ear. I wondered when it had happened and decided that it must have happened while I was passing the two bare-chested Cubans who were sharing a bottle of something out of their brown paper sack. That meant that it had happened about a minute or two before I got to the three-story row house and passed the two children on the porch and started up the stairs where I had met the wide man with the short legs and the thick dark eyebrows whom I had seen somewhere before, but couldn’t remember where.

  It was easy to remember where I had first met Max Quane. It had been twelve years before when he had been only a few years out of some Colorado college with a degree in something useful such as psychology. He had gone to work for the Public Employees Union in Denver as an organizer and because he was quick and smart they had brought him to Washington and by the time I met him he was what was called an International Representative.

  Ward Murfin was then the union’s director of organization although he had been only twenty-seven at the time. Stacey Hundermark, the soft, gentle president of the Public Employees Union, had felt in probably an uncomfortable sort of way that he needed someone he could trust on his side who was hard and mean and that’s why he had made Murfin director of organization. At twenty-seven Murfin was as hard and as mean as they come.

  Murfin and Quane had made a team of sorts after that and I remembered that I had hired them as such during four separate political campaigns that I had been called in on between 1966 and 1972. Over all those years Ward Murfin didn’t change much. He just stayed hard and mean although his lust for details might have grown a little.

  Quane changed. He remained as quick and as smart as always, but as his illusions went he found nothing to take their place, not even ambition, because to be ambitious you had to believe that it all really meant something, and Quane knew better than that.

  So he went after money, because it at least always added up the same way, and he wasn’t too particular about how he got his hands on it. When he wasn’t working with Murfin, Quane was quite often involved in some get rich quick scheme that sounded suspicious and usually was much worse than that. But sometimes the schemes paid off and for a time Quane would have a bundle of cash that he spent quickly in a determined, joyless, almost grim sort of way.

  But most of his schemes were like the Mexican dope deal that had involved the old World War II Air Corps pilot. I wondered if Quane had been mixed up in something like that with the wide, short-legged man with the heavy eyebrows who had come hurtling down the stairs. But that seemed unlikely because I still knew I had seen the short-legged man somewhere before. I just couldn’t remember where. Or even when.

  So I went over the entire day again, hour by hour, trying to remember everything and everybody. It had been a busy day and by the time I reached Leesburg my recollection of events had me just arriving at Quane’s apartment.

  Although I really didn’t want to I recalled that bloody scene again, everything, even down to the spoon that I had picked up and put in my pocket. I felt my pocket to see whether the spoon was still there. It was and as I touched it I suddenly remembered where I had seen the man with the thick eyebrows and the short legs.

  He had been sitting in the black Plymouth sedan when I had first gone into my sister’s house in Georgetown. When I had come out of her house he had been replaced by the man who claimed to be Detective Knaster. I remembered the short-legged man not only because of his black caterpillar eyebrows, but also because of the spoon, which reminded me of my sister. I touched the spoon again. I could think about it and what it meant now, or I could think about it tomorrow. I chose tomorrow. I often do when it involves something unpleasant.

  When I got home the dogs were glad to see me and so were the cats. The peacocks and the ducks didn’t care whether I came home or not. I had named all of the dogs Old Blue, regardless of their color, breed, and size. They didn’t seem to mind. The cats, with the exception of Honest Tuan, the Siamese, were all called Fluff. They didn’t seem to mind either. They didn’t even mind when I called them kitty, which is what I usually did.

  It was nearly four by the time I got home and Ruth was on the porch by the pond drinking a glass of ice tea. When I leaned down and kissed her she smiled and said, “You reek of gin, sir.”

  “Probably.”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “No, but I’m thinking about it.”

  She looked at me carefully. “Bad?” she said.

  I nodded. “Very bad.”

  “Sit down and I’ll get you something to help you get drunk.”

  I sat down and she went into the house and came back with a tall gin and tonic. I rolled a cigarette, lit it, took a sip of the drink, and stared out over the pond at the farm.

  It wasn’t really a proper farm, of course, because most of it ran straight up the mountain. Old man Pasjk, who had sold me the place, claimed that his father and brother had made a living from its eighty acres for nearly 100 years, but I found that hard to believe.

  The house, which had been built in 1821, was nothing but a rambling shell when I bought it. It doubtless would have been cheaper and far more practical to have torn it down and built a new one. Instead, I had spent a lot of money remodeling it because there had been no plumbing and the electrical system could only be described as a hazard.

  So I had put in a septic tank and two bathrooms and a modern electric kitchen and as a result the plumber had been able to send his oldest son to Yale. When the electrician got through, I think he took his wife on a round the world cruise.

  I was thinking about the farm because I didn’t much want to think about anything else, especially the day I had just gone through, when Ruth said, “You had two telephone calls.”

  “Who from?”

  “One was from Senator Corsing. Or rather it was from his office. The Senator would like you to call him tomorrow.”

  “Why?”

  “The young lady who called didn’t say.”

  “The other call?”

  “It was from Mr. Quane. I gave him Audrey’s number. Did he reach you?”

  “Quane?”

  “Yes.”

  “Quane’s dead,” I said. “Maybe I’d better tell you about it.”

  Ruth looked at me gravely and then in an equally grave tone she said, “Yes, perhaps you’d better.”

  So I told her about it, about the entire day, about everything—except the spoon. I didn’t tell her about the spoon because I wasn’t sure about that yet. When I was sure about it I would tell her.

  When I was through talking it was nearly six-thirty and I noticed with some surprise that I had finished only half my drink. The ice had melted in it, but it was still cool, so I drank some of it anyway.

  Ruth was silent for a moment and then she said, “These things really happen, don’t they?”

  “Yes,” I said. “All the time.”

  “It seems so senseless.”

  “Yes.”

  “What I mean is if Mr. Quane thought he knew what happened to Mr. Mix, why would he call you? Why wouldn’t he call the police?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “unless he was working an angle that might make him some money. Quane was like that sometimes.”

  “And you think the man who killed Mr. Quane was the same man who was watching your sister’s house this morning?”

  “Yes, he was one of them. There were two.”

  “Why would they be watching Audrey’s house?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is it something to do with Mr. Mix?”

  “I think it’s all tied in with Mix.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  She looked at me for a while, rather fondly,
I thought, and then she smiled.

  “Is something funny?”

  “In a curious way.”

  “What?”

  “I really shouldn’t be thinking of anything funny now.”

  “Because of Quane?”

  “Yes.”

  “People make jokes at funerals all the time. They don’t mean to, but they can’t help themselves.”

  “A mild form of hysteria?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “I always thought of Mr. Quane as such a sad man. He always seemed terribly unhappy.”

  “He probably was.”

  “Did he have many friends?”

  I thought about that for a moment. “No,” I said, “I don’t think so. He had Murfin. Murfin was his friend. And me. I suppose I was his friend. That’s about all. He knew a lot of people, but I think he was a little short on friends.”

  “Some people need a lot of friends,” Ruth said.

  “Does all this talk about friends have something to do with what you thought was funny?”

  “Perhaps,” she said. “I was thinking that it was a little something like a western.”

  “A western what?”

  “Film.”

  “Oh,” I said. “How?”

  “When we moved out here four years ago it was because we had our reasons, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was thinking that those reasons were very much like those of the gunfighter in a western who stops gunfighting and settles down to something else.”

  “Because he’s scared?”

  She shook her head. “No, because he’s tired of being a gunfighter or bored with it or even both.”

  “God, you’re a romantic.”

  “I’m not through, either,” she said. “So he’s tending his pea patch or raising his cattle or doing whatever it is that he’s decided is better than gunfighting when they come to see him.”

  “Who?”

  “The town folk.”

  “Ah.”

  “They’re worried.”

  “About the crooked sheriff.”

  “Who dominates the town by fear and force.”

  “And a fast gun.”

  “One of the fastest,” she said.

  “Maybe even faster than the old, retired gunfighter.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. But the town folk turn to him and beg him to do something about the crooked sheriff.”

  “Do they offer him any money?” I said. “That’s not a bad incentive.”

  “Perhaps they do, but not much, and it’s not really the reason that he agrees to help them.”

  “What’s the real reason?”

  “He’s curious about whether he’s still better at what he once did than anyone else.”

  “He can get killed finding out.”

  “Not in a western,” she said and all the lightness went out of her voice.

  There was a pause and then I said, “I think you’re trying to tell me something in that elliptical way that you sometimes use. I think you’re trying to tell me that you’d prefer me to stay home and tend the pea patch.”

  “Of course I would,” she said. “But there was also something else.”

  “What?”

  “I was also trying to tell you that I understand why you won’t.”

  I rose and went over to her and put my hand on her shoulder. She reached up and put her hand on mine, but she didn’t look up at me. She stared out over the pond where the ducks seemed to be holding their evening regatta.

  “Well, if it’s to be done,” I said as gravely as I could, “I think it should be done quickly.”

  “Yes,” Ruth said and gave my hand a squeeze, “but you’d better change your clothes first.”

  So I changed my clothes and went out and milked the goats. They seemed fairly glad to see me.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE NEXT MORNING at nine I was back in Georgetown knocking on my sister’s door. She wasn’t naked this time when she opened it. She was wearing white pants, a blue silk blouse, and a scarf on her head. She was also carrying a broom in one hand.

  “Jesus,” I said, “you look the way TV commercials think a housewife should look.”

  “Fuck off,” she said.

  I went in and my niece and nephew bounded into the room with my nephew yelling, “Harvey, Harvey, Mama says we’re gonna go out and see you and Ruth Saturday and you got a new swing and everything.” Maybe it wasn’t a yell, but it was loud.

  Before I could reply, Audrey said, “En Français, goddamn it! En Français.”

  My nephew, whose name was Nelson, age six, frowned, thought about it, and said, “French is too damned hard.”

  My niece, Elizabeth, age five and a vixen, smiled smugly and said in rapid, perfect French, “Good day, uncle, I hope you are well and that Aunt Ruth is well and that the dogs and the cats and the ducks and the goats are also well.” Then she stuck her tongue out at her brother.

  I picked Elizabeth up before her brother smacked her one and said in French, “The goats asked only yesterday if you were coming Saturday.”

  “Goats can’t talk,” her brother said. But he also said it in French. “Goats can only say baaaaaa.” That was in French, too, perhaps even the baaaaaa.

  “Did you ever speak French to a goat?” I asked him, still in French.

  He looked at me suspiciously, but finally gave in with a wary, “No.”

  “Well, goats speak only perfect French,” I said. “So until you’re perfect, they won’t talk to you.”

  He still wasn’t convinced, but when I put his sister down, he took her hand and said in French, “Let’s go outside and play.”

  My niece turned to me, smiled silkily, and showed off her perfect accent again. “Farewell, uncle, I will enjoy seeing you and Aunt Ruth and the dogs and the cats and the ducks and the goats on Saturday.”

  “You forgot the peacocks,” I said and repeated “peacocks” in English.

  That was a new word for her so she pronounced it carefully a couple of times and then said, “And, of course, the peacocks.”

  Her brother gave her hand a yank and they raced out of the room toward the rear of the house and the garden.

  “You’re right,” I said to Audrey. “They’re six and five.”

  She shook her head. “I think I started them on the French too late. I should have started them at two or three instead of four.”

  “They’re doing fine,” I said.

  She nodded toward the rear of the house. “Let’s go back in the kitchen,” she said. “I’ve got to sweep up the cornflakes. The maid couldn’t make it this morning.”

  “Where’s Sally?” I said.

  “She’s not here either,” Audrey said.

  Back in the kitchen she poured me a cup of coffee which I drank while I sat at the table and watched her sweep up some spilled cornflakes. I thought she was a little out of practice, but I didn’t say anything. When she was done she joined me at the table with a cup of tea.

  “Well, you’re certainly doing the elder brother role this week,” she said. “Two days in a row.”

  “I was sort of in the neighborhood.”

  “You were. Sort of.”

  “You’ve decided to come out Saturday then?” I said. “Ruth was tickled when I told her you might.”

  “Harvey.”

  “What?”

  “What the fuck’s on your mind?”

  I sighed and took the spoon out of my pocket and put it on the table. Audrey looked at it, picked it up, then stared at me, and said, “Where’d you get this?”

  “You recognize it?”

  “Christ, yes, I recognize it. It’s Mother’s.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Of course, I’m sure. Good God, you must know what it is. It’s what we used on Sunday and Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter. It’s a spoon from the good silver. Mother’s good silver. It’s even got the L on it. See.”

  I had already seen the L for Longmire
, but I looked anyway.

  “You took the silver, didn’t you, I mean after Mother died?”

  “Sure I took it,” she said. “You don’t throw silver away. You didn’t want it, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t want it. You still have it, don’t you?”

  “Of course I still have it.”

  “Where?”

  Audrey thought for a moment. Then she got up and started opening some of the lower drawers in the kitchen cabinets. “Here,” she said with a small note of triumph. “I remember that I asked Sally to ask the maid to polish it a couple of months ago. What do you want me to do, count the spoons?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “I want you to count the spoons.”

  She counted them. “There’re supposed to be twelve, but there’re only ten.”

  “What about the forks?” I said. “Not the salad forks, just the regular ones.”

  After she counted them, she said, “Two missing.”

  “Maybe you’d better count the knives, too.”

  She looked up at me after she was done. “Two missing. Anything else?”

  “No,” I said. “They probably wouldn’t need anything else.”

  “Who?”

  I took out my tin box and started to roll a cigarette. “Oh, for God’s sake!” Audrey said, reached in a drawer, and tossed me a pack of Luckies. “I bought these yesterday after you left. I swore I wasn’t going to watch you go through that macho cigarette-rolling act of yours again even if I had to buy you a year’s supply.”

  “I didn’t know I was being macho,” I said.

  “What else would you call it?”

  “Economical.”

  “Cheap, too.”

  I put my tin box back, opened the Luckies, and lit one. Audrey was angry, or at least pretending to be. She flounced down into the chair opposite me, providing that one can flounce in pants and a shirt. I decided that she could.

  “Okay, Harvey, who’s been dipping into the family spoons?”

  “What do you think about Max Quane?” I said. Even though she was my sister I watched her closely for a reaction. I also think I hated myself a little.