The Contractor

by Paul Moomaw

  Skeeter is mostly retired. She no longer needs the money, but says she likes to turn a trick or two now and then for old times sake, and because she has a fondness for some of her long-term patrons. Mostly she paints, and walks her dog around the hills of downtown Seattle. The dog is a mutt of indeterminate provenance. His name is Matisse, and he is large, but placid, and easily pleased. He likes to have his ears and neck rubbed. When I am there, and not in Skeeter’s bed, he stretches himself out next to me and naps with his muzzle resting on my foot, which pleases me more than I care to admit, even to myself.

  Usually we spend a little time chatting and catching up before we have sex, but today Skeeter gave me an odd look as soon as she opened the door, then took my hand and led me straight to her bedroom. Now we sit together on a couch that faces the windows, watching the sky begin to go purple at the end of a cloudless day. Skeeter has poured us each a few inches of Bushmills, and Matisse has taken up his usual position on my left foot. I have brought my monthly tribute, and Skeeter is nibbling at the edge of a truffle, making the act of biting a sensuous rite.

  “Something’s bothering you,” she says.

  “Not any more.”

  “If I were painting you right now, I would be sketching someone whose faith has been shaken.”

  “Maybe bumped a little.”

  “Tell me,” she says, and leans back with eyes closed.

  I tell her about Katherine. Not everything, but about the attraction that seems mutual, and, wincing a little, my failure to hold an erection. She reaches a hand out and squeezes the top of my thigh.

  “That’s sure out of character. But it happens to every man sooner or later. You’ll just have to try again.”

  “But now I’ll be anxious from the beginning, and they say that’s bad for the blood flow.”

  Skeeter gets up and goes to her bathroom, then returns with a plastic pillow with a pill inside. “I keep these for some of my dear old customers who’ve gotten more old than dear,” she says.

  I look at it, shaking my head. “What’s this?”

  “Viagra.”

  “I never would have thought of that.”

  Skeeter laughs. “Of course not. You’ve never needed to think of that.” She places the container in my hand and wraps my fingers around it. “You’ll only need the one, and then you’ll be over the hump. And in the meantime, you’re welcome to come and practice as much as you like.”

  Chapter 23

  Katherine and I sit facing each other across a table at the small Thai cafe in the shadow of the Space Needle that is my usual Thursday lunch spot. Neither of us speaks of our last Thai meal, or mentions Spokane at all. She has the afternoon off, but has come straight from her office and still wears her lawyer uniform—a midnight blue tailored suit over a white blouse and droopy red bow tie. Our conversation is awkward and disjointed, an idle sampling of topics that jerk to a start, then sputter and die. I am aware that both of us are looking out the cafe’s window more than at each other, and when the meal is done, I expect her to rise, give my hand a formal shake, and say, “We’ll have to do this again, some time.”

  Instead, she says, “Have you ever been to Gasworks Park?” I shake my head, no, and she smiles brightly. “Then I get to show you something new. Come on.”

  The park is at the north end of Lake Union. It was at one time the source of Seattle’s energy, a plant where coal, and later oil, was converted to natural gas. It has been out of service for thirty or forty years, and was converted by the city into a public park. The day is pleasant and cloudless, but when we arrive only a few people are scattered through the park. A small group of picnickers stands around a barbecue in the large building that was once a boiler house. In another part of the building a young man with a scraggly beard plays at knights and ladies, an intricate cardboard castle spread on the table before him. He laughs and nods and talks to himself as he moves small plastic people from position to position.

  We walk together toward a giant sand box that forms the centerpiece of a children’s playground. There are no children, and I wonder how often parents bring their kids to play.

  “I almost never see kids here,” Katherine says, as if she reads my mind. She takes my hand and tugs. “Let’s walk.”

  Her path leads out of the playground and past the old cracking towers where the city’s natural gas was produced. The towers are rusty, surrounded by fences to keep children and vandals away. On one of them a glass-encased poster offers the park’s history, but the glass has been shattered, and most of the printing is impossible to decipher.

  “They ran out of money a couple of years after they started on the park,” Katherine says.

  “A shame.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s better this way. It’s like life, don’t you think? Trying to keep a piece of it painted and bright, and not to notice that all the rest is falling apart.”

  She tugs at my hand again, and leads me up stone steps that climb to the top of a grass-covered mound that rises fifty feet or so above the rest of the park.

  “This is the best part,” she says. The top of the mound is flat, and a giant sculpture, a circle with the signs of the zodiac, and other designs I do not recognize, carved of brass and native stone, is imbedded in the ground.

  “It’s a sundial,” Katherine says. “Except there’s no dial. You have to do that part yourself.” She pulls me toward one of the symbols. “Stand right there, then follow your shadow. See?” She points in the direction of the tip of my shadow. Where my head intersects a time line, the number says five o’clock. I look at my watch. It is five twenty.

  “Pretty neat, don’t you think? She smiles, and for a moment I see the child-woman who rode the carousel in Spokane. Then her face clouds over and she frowns.

  “Oh, shit,” she says. She is looking past my left shoulder.

  I turn and follow her gaze. A man descends the stairs, his back to us. Although I have only met him once, something in the gait tells me it is Edward Angwin. I feel a surge of irritation.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My brother. He’s started that again.” She sees my look of puzzlement. “Following me.”

  “Coincidence?”

  She shakes her head. “He would never come here. It’s not his kind of place.” She shivers. “He tracked me down here once before. It was night, a clear night. I had walked up here to look at the stars, and all of a sudden there he was. He wanted money, as usual. He threatened me. Said he could strangle me right on the spot, and toss me into the lake, and nobody would care. I told him to go to hell, and he actually grabbed my throat. I kicked him in the shins and he threw me down on the ground. He said some day he would see me dead. That’s the way he put it. ‘I’ll see you dead.’ Then he went away. He left bruises.” She rubbed her throat just below the jaw.

  “Did you go to the police?”

  “No.” She drops her hand, turns and walks to the edge of the mound facing Lake Union.

  I follow her, and wonder if Angwin has recognized me as easily as I did him. Then I wonder if I care, and decide I do not. My main sensation is one of mild disappointment that his desire to have his sister dead is based on simple greed. I had hoped that his motive would be more interesting.

  A small sea plane passes overhead, its engine throttled back as it prepares to land at the south end of the lake. Katherine points across the water. “Dad’s office was over there,” she says. “He was in the import business, and kept his office in the same building where he warehoused his goods. It wasn’t very fancy, but it had huge windows overlooking the water. When I was a kid, I used to love to go there and watch the planes land and take off. Eddy never went there, which is probably another reason I did.”

  She gazes across the lake. “I don’t even know who has that building any more,” she says finally. “I keep thinking I should find out, just from curiosity, but I never get around to it. It sold for a good price. Half of that money would be enough to keep most people happy, bu
t not Eddy, I guess. He manages to fail at everything he tries. He’s begun five or six business and all of them failed, mainly because he spent too much money trying to make an impression instead of putting it back into the business. He had a house, and he lost that, too. Now he’s got an apartment on Yale Terrace and he probably can’t afford that either. What I hear from his ex these days is that he has to have two jobs to get by. He’s a systems tech. Works Tuesday through Saturday in Seattle and all day Monday at the VA Hospital in American Lake. I could feel sorry for him if he weren’t such a shit.”

  She shakes her head and snorts in disgust. “He’s had a lot of jobs in between failed businesses. He quit some, but most of them he lost because he’s got another little problem. He steals. Sooner or later it gets spotted and it’s easier to fire a guy than to prosecute him. Jennifer, that’s his ex wife, says he used to practically furnish the house with hot stuff. I bet he still does, especially now that she isn’t there to hassle him about it. He and Dad never got along, for as far back as I can remember. Sometimes I think it was my fault, that maybe Dad bonded with me because I was first, and when Eddy came along there was no place for him. I know it seemed sometimes like I couldn’t do anything to make Dad angry, even if I tried, and Eddy couldn’t do anything to please him. And yet he was more like Dad than I ever was. Dad used to call me the little old lady, because I was so cautious. I liked to have things planned. Eddy is a risk-taker, a gambler, like Dad was. Except Dad could leap off a cliff in the dark and land on his feet. Eddy can step off a low curb in broad daylight and fall on his ass.” She sighs, then leans toward me and kisses my cheek. “Here’s to always landing on your feet.”

  She grabs my hand and we walk toward the parking lot. Half way across the grass a man is shouting at a small boy of four or five years. The child cringes at the voice. The man shouts louder and cuffs the boy across the face with a large hand. The boy merely stands there, eyes wide, shaking his head. The man strikes him again, then stalks away. The boy stands up and runs, not away from the man, but toward him. When he reaches him, he clings to his legs. The man keeps walking, dragging the child behind him.

  Katherine and I watch in silence until the man and boy disappear behind a large Dodge van.

  “Do you believe in reincarnation?” Katherine asks suddenly, then continues before I can answer. “I had this idea once, about why there is evil in the world. It had to do with reincarnation.” She begins to walk again. “I figured that if souls are immortal, then they don’t multiply either. So there are only so many souls to go around. And that worked as long as people died young, from diseases and tigers and things. But now, people don’t die as easily, and the population has grown too much, so there aren’t enough souls to go around. That man probably was born with­out one.” She stops again, looks intently at me. “Does that sound crazy?”

  “You worry a lot about being crazy.”

  “Not really,” she says. “But sometimes I worry about whether I have a soul.”

  Chapter 24

  The Willamette Valley stretches south from Portland for about a hundred miles, between the east slope of the Coastal Range and the western foothills of the Cascades. The Willamette River was once a floating highway for logs from the surrounding forests. Now it offers a place for anglers and tourists on river boat excursions. The valley is dotted with vineyards and wineries, at least a hundred and fifty of them, mostly on the west side, tucked into the Coastal Range.

  The operation run by Towner Cooper Maxfield IV lies east of the river, near the little town of Mt. Angel on State Highway 214. I have flown to Salem, which straddles the banks of the Willamette, and rented a car, a nondescript Dodge Neon that will not leave much of an impression. I have used the name, license and credit card of one Gerald Draper, who undoubtedly existed once upon a time, and whose identity the Mob loaned me years ago.

  Mt. Angel was founded by Germans, and sports an ersatz Teutonic face, with half-timbered architecture and an Oktoberfest held in September to catch as many tourists as possible. The place is filled with shops, fountains and restaurants. A Benedictine abbey perches on the crest of a bluff three hundred feet above the streets.

  Just beyond the town I spot the road that leads to Maxfield’s farm. I turn right and approach an ornate sign of carved wood, large and painted, that says The Cooperage, which is what Maxfield calls his place. Under the name in small block letters are the words VISITING HOURS NOON TO THREE WEEKDAYS. I am glad it is still morning. I do not want any other visitors around. The road runs past fruit trees. I have no idea what kind, and then through several acres of grape vines. The road starts out paved, but after about a mile it turns to gravel. It bends to the left, and then to the right again before it tops a low ridge and drops gently toward a large house, a larger barn, and several other outbuildings. The barn and house both look new, with coats of paint that could not be more than two or three seasons gone. The barn entrance is wide open, and as I drive closer a man emerges into the pale October sunlight. I stop the car in front of the house and the man waves and walks toward me. He is tall and a little fleshy, with curly blonde hair. He wears a flannel shirt over coveralls that manage to look pressed, and cowboy boots in red and black leather with fancy stitching that is still white as snow.

  I climb out of the car and wait for him to reach me.

  “Help you?”

  I shrug and try to look diffident. “I hope I’m not disturbing anything. I saw the sign about visiting hours, but . . .”

  “No problem. I’m always glad to have a chance to show the place off. I’m one of the only purely organic growers around here, and I need all the exposure I can get.”

  I am very sure he is lying about that. The Willamette Valley is full of boutique grape growers who pride themselves on their purity. He has lied first and in my mind that gives me an edge. I have scored first blood.

  “Do you make barrels?”

  Maxfield shakes his head slightly and looks puzzled.

  “The name,” I say. “The Cooperage.”

  He throws back his head and laughs. It is a good laugh, and I smile back in spite of myself.

  “No barrels, I just wanted a name that didn’t sound like Ye Olde Farmstead, and my middle name is Cooper.” He waves his arms grandly. “I grow apples, and pears, and lots of grapes. I don’t make wine myself, but little by little my stuff is getting a reputation. I sell the grapes to an outfit over at Bend that turns them into extract for home wine makers. They won’t pay more for organic, but they come and pick them, and that’s worth something.”

  “Everything is organic?”

  “Absolutely. I do intensive tilling, plow everything back under. No herbicides or pesticides, and lots of ladybugs. Those little guys take care of all kinds of nasty critters.”

  “You do everything yourself?”

  Maxfield shakes his head. “That would be great. Labor is a real budget killer. I try to hire locals, and that costs more, too. But I can’t get with the migrant worker thing. Why hire Mexicans when the loggers’ kids need work. Loggers too, for that matter.”

  “I just didn’t notice anybody else around, driving up.”

  “Growing season and harvest are done for the year. Now it’s just maintenance, doing repairs, making plans for next year. I can do that myself.”

  “No kids?”

  “No kids, no wife, no fucking mother-in-law.” He laughs loudly again and slaps me on the shoulder. I recoil inside, but make an effort not to let it show. He steps back, hands on his hips, and gazes at me speculatively.

  “So are you just doing the wine country tour?”

  I shake my head. “The fact is, I’m interested in buying into something around here.” My first lie. Now we are even. “I’ve been in the big city rat race for too many years, and the idea of an operation like this appeals to me. So I’ve been looking, but there doesn’t seem to be much on the market.”

  Maxfield nods. “I don’t imagine so. Two kinds of people around here who own land. The one
s whose great grandparents settled here and stayed, and rich bastards from California who want to be weekend wine makers.” He sneers. “Most of these little vineyards around here belong to the California types. The real locals have to take day jobs to pay the taxes. But nobody wants to sell. It’s too pretty.”

  “Which are you?” I smile to tell him I’m just joking.

  He smiles back. “Neither. My daddy was a farmer, but that was back in Arkansas. You can’t farm there anymore. All the land has gone for vacation homes. My dad went bust, and I came out here. I sank what little I had into this place, but even so, it’s mostly the bank that owns it.”

  Lie number two. Maxfield is ahead on points, not that it will matter in the end.

  “Sounds hard.”

  Maxfield nods and sighs. “Just about everything the place makes goes to pay back the loan.”

  “Nice house and barn, anyway,” I say, just to see if he will squirm, but he is not the type. He smiles again and shrugs.

  “I probably should have left the buildings as they were, but I guess I got caught up in the image thing.” He pauses, then looks at me with wide, innocent eyes. “Would you like to see the operation?” he says, as if he just thought of it.

  “You bet.”

  He nods toward the barn and begins to walk in that direction. I follow silently. We reach the entrance and he motions me through. The building manages to seem bigger on the inside than on the outside, and is mostly empty space. A green John Deere tractor and a yellow Kubota disc tiller crouch side by side at the far end. The walls on one side are stacked with large fruit picking baskets. On the other wall are two stalls, each with a horse.

  “Clydesdales,” Maxfield says. “They could pull plows if I ever decided to go the whole organic route. In the meantime, they earn their keep by creating fertilizer.”

  I have a fantasy of two giant horses wandering through the trees and grapevines, shitting as they go.