It was, in fact, at Raven Lake in 1976 where I first met Vernon Wheeler. The ice had been out for three weeks, so the place had opened for official business. My friend Doc Adams, the master oral surgeon, had gotten wind of the fabulous salmon fishing there, and he had no trouble persuading me to take a week off to share it with him.
On the third day of our stay Doc claimed his arms were tired from hauling in so many large salmon, a complaint that I didn’t share, and he decided to test the trout fishing at Harley’s Creek for the day. I hadn’t had my fill of hauling in large salmon, so I found myself in a canoe with Woody, our Penobscot Indian guide, and a taciturn old guy who was known around the lodge only as “Vern.” I didn’t realize until later that he owned the place. It turned out to be one of those rare days when the salmon refused to bite, and although Vern and I flailed away with our fly rods until our arms ached, we returned to the lodge in the afternoon empty-handed. Doc resumed salmon fishing the next day, promising to show me how it was done, and I saw little of Vern during the rest of our stay.
But a couple of weeks later he called me at my office back in Boston. “This is Vernon Wheeler,” he said.
“Yes?” I answered, drawing a blank.
“You and I got skunked up on Raven Lake.”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “How are you?”
“Been checking up on you. I like to check up on people. Especially on men who stick to the fly rod when the salmon aren’t biting. There’s usually something to be said for men like that.”
“You stuck to the fly rod, too.”
“That’s what I mean,” he said. “I spoke to an old friend of mine this morning. Florence Gresham.”
Florence Gresham had been my very first client. She was a flinty old Yankee lady who owned a mansion on the water in Beverly Farms, on Boston’s North Shore, and spent her summers in what she called her “cottage” in Bar Harbor, the swankiest part of Maine. “Florence is one of my favorite people,” I said.
I heard Wheeler chuckle. “That’s exactly what she said you’d say. Anyhow, you come well recommended. I need a man I can trust. I figured I could trust a man who’d stick to the fly rod. Florence assures me that while my body is decaying, my instincts remain acute.”
“What do you need me for?”
“Right now, nothing special. But things come up. I like to be prepared.”
“Well, I’m like you, Mr. Wheeler,” I said. “I like a man who sticks to the fly rod. I can also afford to be particular, and, like you, I always check out what my instincts suggest. So why don’t you leave me your number and I’ll get back to you.”
He chuckled again. “Florence said you’d say that, too. She’s waiting for your call.”
Florence Gresham’s recommendation was, for her, effusive. “Vernon Wheeler’s not half bad,” she told me. “Of course, I wouldn’t want to be married to the man.”
So Vern Wheeler joined my small but select group of clients. I fiddled with his will every year or so, advised him on matters that were usually more personal than legal, served as a sounding board for his opinions, checked on the reliability of some of the advice he received from his corporate attorneys, and let him buy me lunch at expensive Boston restaurants.
For this he paid me an outrageous retainer.
It seemed to be an arrangement that, all in all, we both found eminently satisfactory.
And several times after that he invited me and my friends up to Raven Lake right after ice-out, before the paying sports arrived. Doc Adams and Charlie McDevitt and I usually made a threesome of it. We caught lots of salmon on flies, which was worth more to me than the retainer.
Vern’s curse about the “goddamn Indians” reminded me of the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot guides who worked at Raven Lake. “Tiny mentioned old Woody,” I said. “He’s the last of the Indian guides, isn’t he?”
“Yep. The rest’ve died or gone back to the city.” He looked down at the pigeons, which were still scratching around for bits of popcorn. “Hell, maybe it’s time to sell the place, anyways.”
“I don’t think Tiny wants to sell.”
Vern shrugged. “Tiny usually goes along with what I say. Raven Lake ain’t a big money-maker.”
“It’s Tiny’s life, Vern.”
He nodded. “Yes. That it is.” He sighed. “You’d think, in this land of the free, that a man wouldn’t have to sell anything he didn’t want to sell. But we’re talking about Maine, now, and Maine, as you know…”
“Is the home of the braves,” I finished for him. “An old line, Vern.”
He chuckled. “This any kind of a case, Brady?”
“I’ll know better when I talk to this Smith in Portland. On the one hand, the land settlement made by the feds some years ago says no, the Indians can make no more claims in Maine. On the other hand, the fact that this is sacred land we’re talking about may make Raven Lake an exception. Complicated.”
“Umm,” he grunted. “Indians got more lawyers working for them than squaws these days, and since that settlement, they’ve got more money to throw around than they know what to do with. They have discovered the joys of litigation.”
“It can be profitable,” I agreed. A pigeon pecked at my shoe. I shoved it away with a sideways swipe of my foot.
“Makes you wonder,” said Vern.
“What?”
“What the Indians really want with Raven Lake.”
I shrugged.
He put his hand on my shoulder and pushed himself into a standing position. He was a tall man, still straight and broad-shouldered in spite of his years. He peered down at me. “Hope you have good fishin’, Brady.”
I stood beside him. “There’s one thing I especially like about Raven Lake, even when the fish don’t bite.”
“What’s that?”
“No pigeons.”
I shook hands with Vern, and he wandered off through the gardens toward his office on Tremont Street, while I strolled back to my office in Copley Square via Boylston Street, plotting my trip to Raven Lake. I decided to bring my new Orvis four-weight boron rod as well as my old faithful Leonard split bamboo. I’d have to pick through my boxes of bucktails and streamers. Maybe tie up a few Grey Ghosts and Dark Edson Tigers and Warden’s Worries for the trip.
Of course, I still had to clear it with Julie. There was only one way to do it. I’d give her the same couple of weeks off, in addition to her regular vacation. A little bonus for her. A nonrefusable offer. Julie would call all our clients to tell them we’d be gone. That was the sort of small courtesy that set my practice apart. Then we’d put the “Gone Fishin’” sign on the door, call the answering service, and depart.
Julie was my secretary, my sole employee. In the actual practice of things, she was more like a partner. Hell, she really was more like my boss than the other way around. I once tried to bestow upon her the title of “Administrative Assistant.” I had been struggling to elevate my consciousness to the ever-increasing heights expected of an enlightened man in these days of sexual equality and liberated womanhood, and it never occurred to me that I might have committed another faux pas. Julie instantly set me straight.
“There’s nothing wrong with being a secretary,” she told me hotly. “You just have to keep in mind that secretaries do not brew and fetch coffee, buy birthday presents for ex-wives, sign and mail their employer’s Christmas cards, or stand in line for his Celtics tickets. So don’t you try to buy my goodwill with any phony new title. I am your secretary. It’s an important job. And don’t forget it.”
Indeed. Julie knows the business. She’s smart, efficient, imaginative, self-starting, self-reliant. She utterly charms all my clients. She is, in a word, all the things that I would like to be.
She also happens to be young and beautiful, which has not proved to be a serious hindrance to our working relationship.
As I sauntered along Boylston Street, sniffing the air and peering into the store windows, I tried to anticipate Julie’s reaction to my announcement t
hat we would be closing the office for a week or two. She would tell me I was being irresponsible again. I would deftly parry her thrust by reminding her that I had to see Seelye Smith in Portland and that Tiny and Vern Wheeler, who were, after all, important clients, wanted me to hang around Raven Lake for a little while.
She’d remind me that she wasn’t stupid.
I’d tell her to remember that she would have the time off, too.
She’d tell me that was even more irresponsible.
I’d ask her just who the hell she thought was the boss around here.
She’d give me one of her sardonic grins.
No sweat.
When I walked into the office, Julie had the telephone tucked against her ear. With one hand she was flipping through her Rolodex file. With the other hand she was tapping on our new office computer. I decided to wait a while to tell her about the Raven Lake trip.
I kissed the top of her head, and she rewarded me by rolling her eyes and crinkling her nose at me.
I went into my inner office and called Charlie McDevitt. In addition to being golf and fishing partners, Charlie and I liked to exchange favors with each other. This was a businesslike arrangement. We paid each other off with lunches in Boston restaurants.
I swapped flirtations with Shirley, Charlie’s grandmotherly dumpling of a secretary. When Charlie came on the line, I said, “Need a favor.”
“Will this be a Burger King favor or a Locke-Ober favor?”
“Probably somewhere in between,” I said. “More like a Jake Wirth or maybe a Durgin Park favor. Depends on what you can do for me.”
“Who gets to decide?”
Charlie always did drive a hard bargain. “You decide the category, I’ll pick the place,” I told him. “Fair enough?”
“I think you better tell me what you want, first.”
“Okay. I want a rundown on an attorney by the name of Smith. First name of Seelye. He’s got an office in Portland. You guys should have something on him, because he represented some landowners in the Maine Indian cases. I seem to recall that Justice was involved in that one.”
“We were,” said Charlie. “Interior and Justice both helped to negotiate the settlement.” He paused. “This sounds to me at least like a Jimmy’s Harborside favor.”
“You must know somebody who could help.”
“I can talk with the folks in the Augusta office. Tell me what you’re after.”
“You remember Vern Wheeler? Runs Raven Lake?”
“Ah, those salmon. Of course I remember.”
“Vern’s brother, Tiny, has hired Smith. Seems that the Indians want to buy Raven Lake.”
“And Smith is doing the dickering?”
“Not exactly. Smith is advising. Tiny doesn’t want to sell. Question is, if he refuses, can the Indians win in court? They’re hinting at a suit, claiming that since the place sits on one of their sacred burial grounds, the old settlement doesn’t hold. So Tiny is depending on this Smith to handle the litigation, if necessary, or to advise him with regard to the transaction. He wants to know if Smith’s any good.”
“And,” added Charlie, “if he’s in somebody’s pocket. Sure. It’ll take me a few days, probably. I’ll get back to you.” He paused. “Did I tell you the one about the pope dying and going to heaven? See St. Peter’s there at the pearly gates talking with a guy—”
“I’m kinda busy now, Charlie,” I said.
“No, listen. St. Peter’s talking to this guy, who’s wearing a pinstripe suit, expensive worsted charcoal, pale blue button-down shirt, nice silk tie, black wing tips. St. Peter says, ‘So we’ve been saving a super place for you. Think you’ll like it. Three bedrooms, two full baths, nice balcony to catch the morning sun, view of the golf course, trout stream out back. Agreeable girls to bring your coffee in the morning, make your bed, whatever. Tennis courts, Jacuzzi, Olympic pool, exercise room. Couple nice restaurants within walking distance. How’s that sound to you?’ And Pinstripe says it sounds great. Sounds like heaven, he says. And all this time the pope is standing there next in line, listening, thinking, Man, this sounds great. They must have something terrific for the pope.”
“Charlie, really,” I said. “I’m on a tight schedule. Gotta run.”
Charlie pressed on. “So the gates swing open, and two gorgeous angels, look like Loni Anderson and Joan Collins, they come down and take Pinstripe by the hand and lead him inside, and the gates close again. Then St. Peter turns around and sees the pope standing there, and he drops to his knees and kisses the pope’s ring and murmurs, ‘Welcome to Heaven, Your Holiness. We are honored to have you here.’ And the pope is thinking, hot diggity, this is gonna be great. So he says, ‘Rise, my son.’ So St. Peter stands up and he says, ‘We want you to be happy, Holy Father. We have a lovely efficiency apartment for you. Nice Army cot, bedside table, windup alarm clock, communal bathroom just down the hall. The hot water works most of the time, and you get an extra blanket for when the heat goes off. I think you’re going to love it.’ Now, the pope, he doesn’t want to admit it, of course, but he’s pretty disappointed. So he says to St. Peter, ‘It sounds very nice, of course. But I was wondering. That man who was in front of me, the man in the pinstripe suit. You seem to have really rolled out the red carpet for him. His accommodations sounded, er, even more luxurious than those you have set aside for me. And I was the pope. Who was that man, anyway?’ And St. Peter, says, ‘Oh, that man was a lawyer.’ And the pope frowns and says, ‘A lawyer, huh? Well, how come he got such a nice place?’ And St. Peter says, ‘Well, see, Your Eminence, we never had a lawyer up here before.’”
I snorted through my nose. “You trying to tell me something?” I said.
“Hell,” he said. “I’m a lawyer, too, you know.”
Charlie called me back the following Tuesday. “Good news,” he said. “This Seelye Smith is a straight arrow. And a very sharp one. Back in the seventies, while everyone else in the state of Maine ignored the Indians, Smith was warning them that the tribes had a helluva case. He predicted exactly what was going to happen. That they’d win Passamaquoddy v. Morton, that they’d follow up with that big lawsuit, and that Congress would settle. Nobody listened to Smith. Now everybody does. The boys in Augusta respect the hell out of him. And they like him, too. The Wheeler brothers’ve got themselves a good attorney.”
“Your sources, Charlie. You trust them?”
“Oh, yes. Absolutely.”
“Well, good, then. That’s a big help.”
“So when you taking me to Jimmy’s?”
“When I get back.”
“Back?”
“From Raven Lake. Didn’t I tell you? I gotta go up there.” I sighed elaborately. “Leaving Friday. Probably have to do a lot of fishing.”
“Jesus, Brady. That’s rough.”
“Well, you know, this isn’t an easy racket I’m in.”
Two
WHEN I GRASPED SEELYE Smith’s hand to shake it, I thought for a panicky moment that I had somehow managed to grab on to his bare foot. I looked down at the thing I held in my hand before I could stop myself. Then, with what I imagined was a sickly grin, I quickly lifted my gaze to his eyes.
He had a plump woodchuck face. Two large front teeth with a space between big enough to wedge a matchstick into. Fiftyish, fat cheeks, thinning reddish-gray hair. Small, closely spaced pale blue eyes. He wore a hearing aid in his left ear, the old-fashioned kind with a wire running from a white button down into a battery pack in his shirt pocket. He was smiling broadly.
“It’s okay, Mr. Coyne. Everybody sneaks a look the first time.”
He held his right hand up for me to see. Where the thumb and forefinger should have been was a red mound of scar tissue. He had half a middle finger. His ring finger and pinkie remained intact.
He jerked his head toward his office. “Come on. Let’s go in. Hey, Kirk,” he said to his receptionist. “Bring Mr. Coyne and me some coffee, will you?”
I followed Smith into an unpr
epossessing office. One wall was dominated by a window giving a view down the hill to the Portland harbor. There were the standard wall-to-wall bookshelves lined with legal tomes, a few framed diplomas, plain gray metal desk, and a small conference table. We sat opposite each other at the table.
Smith put his mangled hand on the table. Again, I had trouble not staring at it.
“Mill accident,” he said, flip-flopping his hand around on the table so that I could see all sides of it. “Happened when I was fifteen. My old man owned a sawmill in Lewiston. Did finish work—moldings, valances, door frames, mostly fancy stuff like that. I worked there after school, summers, weekends. Learning the trade, the old man called it. Started by sweeping up the offices, and when I got bigger, I helped with the heavy outside work. Learned to drive the machinery—forklifts, what have you. Summer I was fifteen, Pop figured I was big enough to do some cutting. Thing was, there was this old Frenchman who worked with me, supposed to be breaking me in. Told the damnedest stories. Dirty stories. Raunchy. Very flattering for a kid, the boss’s son, to have this old Canuck tell him dirty stories. One day he really broke me up, and when I started laughing, I ran my hand right through the saw. Didn’t even feel it. The old Frenchie stopped in the middle of his sentence and started bellowing. I looked down, saw the blood gushing out of my hand, and passed out.”
Smith rubbed his scarred right hand with the palm of his left. “I spent five days in the hospital. For a long time those fingers that weren’t there anymore hurt like hell. After that, they started itching. Still do. Damnedest thing. The itch is up where that thumb and finger ought to be. Can’t scratch it. Drives me nuts sometimes. Anyways, when I came home, the old man sat me down. ‘Boy,’ he said, ‘you sure’n hell ain’t gonna be no use now. Anyone numb enough to saw his hand off belongs in college.’ So he shipped me off to a private school down in Berwick, then got me into Bowdoin. After that I went off to Stanford for the law degree, then came back and set up shop right here in Portland.”
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