by L. L. Enger
There was a solitary letter in his battered mailbox. One he should have thrown away, would have any other time. But tonight the logo of the smiling child next to the return address caught at his brain and made it remember.
The messenger had arrived at Gun’s home less than a week after the World Series. It was Gun’s Series; his three home runs and ten RBIs in seven games had sent the Cardinals sulking and earned him Most Valuable
Player. He’d celebrated with Amanda and Mazy a few days, taken them to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for salmon. It was Indian Summer on the lake, a rare sixty degrees, and three-year-old Mazy scouted the beach, her long baby curls platinum in the sun. Amanda dressed in too many sweaters and kept her pretty chin pointed at Detroit. They went home early.
Gun was still unpacking when the door bell rang. He waited, not wanting visitors. It rang again. Amanda and Mazy were out, getting groceries. Gun went to the door.
He said his name was Rudy and he had something to deliver from a Mr. Cheeseman.
“Who’s Cheeseman?” Gun asked. He had a hard time not staring at Rudy’s face, his eyes. The left was normal, but the right had an iris like a little green sequin. It swam in the white.
“Businessman. Import-export,” Rudy said. He grinned and slipped a long yellow envelope from the breast pocket of his suit coat. “Has a very big interest in baseball, loves the game. Sends this as a gift.”
“Can’t take it,” Gun said, stepping back and starting to swing the door closed. “I don’t know any Cheeseman, and I didn’t do anything for him.”
Rudy took a step forward and put a hand on the door. “You did, Gun,” he said. “You really did. And Mr. Cheeseman appreciates it. And he won’t appreciate it if I come back and the delivery isn’t made. He’ll butcher my ass and bake it up with an apple.” The strange eye sparkled, and Gun believed him. He took the envelope, tore it open, and tilted a check for $35,000 into his hand.
“Can I tell him you said thanks?” said Rudy.
“Tell him I’ll see him.”
“That wouldn’t be the best, slugger. Just spend and enjoy. You earned it.” Rudy turned on a shiny black heel and left.
It had taken Gun half the afternoon to find Cheeseman’s import basement in downtown Detroit. He’d gotten the name of the company off the check— he wished he could remember it now—and checked for a local address in the Yellow Pages. He parked the Lincoln he was driving then out in front of a moldering brick office building, dropped a couple of quarters in the meter, went down some steps a flight below street level.
Now, smoking Prince Albert at his kitchen table, Gun couldn’t bring up the name on the door. Something or other Ltd. Something African, it must have been, because that’s what Cheeseman dealt in. He’d gone inside expecting dimness and cement and saw instead a set from the African Queen, banana plants bursting under grow lights, red and blue parrots preening in miniature palm trees, a family of taxidermied cheetahs at play among the greenery. Somewhere a reel-to-reel tape played a loop of screaming birds and hissing night bugs. A fat man in shorts with a watering can said, What can I do for you?
Gun said he was looking for a Mr. Cheeseman, and the fat man sized him up, recognized the World Series MVP and smiled as though thinking of a pay raise. “Mr. Cheeseman just happens to be here,” he said. “You’re a lucky customer. He spends most of his time in his East Coast offices.” He led the way through hanging vines past two jackals and a small gorilla, and showed him a walnut door, then disappeared into the jungle like Tarzan.
Gun knocked, then went in when there was no answer. An even fatter man, maybe fifty and charging toward coronary, sat behind a metal desk. He was talking quietly into a black telephone. He didn’t even bother with a call-you-later, just put the phone in the cradle when Gun came in. He stood up, and his hard round face gave off the slightest blush of pleasure. Or, Gun thought, maybe it was just the exertion of standing.
“Friedrich Cheeseman,” he said, putting out his hand. “And you, by God, are Gun Pedersen.” Gun shook the hand, warily. It was a strong hand.
“Pedersen, I’m happy you came. I’ve watched you hit for years, and I think you’re an artist. Besides, you hit in the clutch—and those clutch hits practically doubled my net worth in Reno last week. I’ve got a casino there. I’m indebted to you.”
“Listen—”
“On the other hand, Gun—may I call you Gun?— I’m sorry you came, because I know what you want to do. Rudy told me you’d be around sooner or later, probably sooner, and it’d be my guess as a businessman that you’ve got my check there in your wallet and you’re just aching to hand it back to me.”
“It’s in my shirt pocket.”
Cheeseman chuckled. “Old Rudy. Got a bitch of an eye problem, but can he judge character.” He sat back down behind the desk and motioned Gun to a leather chair by the door. “The thing is, Gun, that I reward people who deserve rewards. Doesn’t matter if they did it for me or for themselves; if somebody’s got something coming, I like to see them get it.”
Gun put a hand to his shirt pocket.
“Please, don’t do that. You’re concerned about dirty money, I see. What a wonderful example for our children. Let me tell you, then, that the particular check you’re carrying—those thirty-five thousand specific dollars—came directly from the import section of my business. Stuff I bring over from the dark continent and sell—granted, at a markup, but legitimate all the way.” Cheeseman’s eyes were gray as a warning. Gun sat quietly.
“You know, I’ve visited African tribes where it’s considered an insult to return a gift. It’s bad luck, like breaking a mirror. I don’t think either of us needs any bad luck. There’s plenty out there already.”
For an answer Gun stood up, leaving the check in his pocket, and opened the door.
“You’re one sweet hitter, Gun,” Cheeseman said, smiling now. “I hope we’ll see each other again.”
“I doubt it,” Gun said, and left.
He wondered awhile what to do with the check. Rip it up, send it back to Cheeseman via mail, put it in a drawer and forget it. In the end he sent the whole chunk to a children’s fund in Missouri. Mazy had a pen pal there. Now Gun heard from Missouri twice a year: Thanks for your past generosity.
This letter was no different from the rest. He crumpled it and hit the wastebasket on the first try, banking it off the refrigerator.
He woke at three a.m. to the sound of an elephant blaring a high-pitched alarm. In his dream he had approached it from behind, a rifle in his hands, and the animal had turned slowly, red eyes ablaze. Gun sat up in bed and immediately identified the sound: the double-trunked birch outside his window, sawing away in the wind. He lay back down and shut his eyes.
At the tricky border between sleep and consciousness he came into the sensation of standing in a boat on a clear lake and looking into the depths. Way down on the sandy bottom he saw the check for $35,000 from Friedrich Cheeseman. The check said Kudu Club, Ltd. Higher up, in the middle depths, was Lyle Hedman’s stuffed elephant, its heavy legs treading water. And higher still, floating just beneath the surface, was the list of Hedman’s investors Carol had described to him. He couldn’t make out the names.
He lay still and told his thumping heart the connection wasn’t likely, not likely at all. All the same, it was common knowledge that Lyle and Mrs. Hedman took an annual trip to Reno—Friedrich Cheeseman’s stomping ground. How farfetched was it to think Cheeseman was the man Lyle was working for? Or working to please?
Tomorrow I’ll find out, Gun said to the darkness. Tomorrow, he thought, then fell back into dreams of zebras and lions and hyenas laughing.
20
Cheeseman’s number was unlisted, and no one at the Kudu Club’s home office in Reno admitted to knowing anything about any development project in Minnesota. One man, a marketing vice-president and the fifth person in Gun’s tag-team conversation, said, “Minnesota? Yeah, nice town—stopped there once on my way to Chicago.”
; Gun hung up and dialed the number again, asked for customer service. A honey-voiced woman named Camille came on the line and Gun told her his name was Lyle Hedman. He complained that the mounted elephant he’d bought was getting saggy in the belly. She asked how long ago he’d purchased it. He said he couldn’t remember. Ten, twelve years ago maybe. She went to look it up, then came back with the verification Gun was after.
“Yes, eleven years ago, Mr. Hedman. And the invoice was signed by Mr. Cheeseman himself. It was the very first elephant he imported, according to our
records. I’ll pass you along to Mr. Anders, he handles these repair matters.”
“Thank you,” Gun said, and hung up.
So, Hedman and Cheeseman were acquainted. It was time for another chat with Lyle.
He looked up the number and dialed it. No answer. Probably the whole damn clan was out for a happy morning swim. Gun hung up, went to the cupboard to find breakfast. Hedman could wait, and in the meantime Gun meant to learn all he could about Rutherford.
The morning sun was bright as Gun drove along County 13 toward the Broken Rock resort. He knew he’d met the owner of the Broken Rock, but couldn’t bring a face to mind.
Six, seven years ago he and Jack had stopped in after fishing Tornado Lake, eaten hamburgers at the little bar and grill located in the same low building that housed the resort office. Poor burgers, Gun remembered now, and Jack had made a point of telling the cook.
More recently he’d gotten a phone call from Billy Stanton, an old minor-league buddy who was vacationing at the Broken Rock. That must have been four years ago, maybe five, one of those back-to-back summers of high water. Billy had driven over to Stony at Gun’s invitation and taken some swings against the iron arm. No resort owner in that memory.
Gun made a photograph of the place inside his head. The long brown windowless office and store, the dinky yellow cabins, the grassy slope down to the weedy shoreline. Nothing clicked. Then, as he rounded a curve that bordered one of the lake’s reed-filled bays, a landmark came into view. It was split in half vertically and looked like the daddy of all watermelons, halved and petrified. Above it was a sign that read broken rock resort, since 1941. Gun’s brain gave a nudge and yielded the answer.
Fourth of July, 1981. Gun was asked to throw out the first pitch for a softball tournament in Emersonville, a small town just south of Tornado Lake. For some reason he accepted. He threw the first pitch that day to a chunky guy wearing a white uniform with a split-boulder logo on the chest. Across the back were letters spelling out hedman paper company. That man was the owner of the Broken Rock. Gun visited with him for a minute before the game started. Listened to him, actually. The guy was a talker. Tried to impress Gun by claiming to be a “close acquaintance” of Lyle Hedman. What the hell was a close acquaintance?
He parked the old Ford in front of the building and walked inside. It was the same as Gun remembered it: dark and low-ceilinged, with a bar straight ahead, a little grill off next to the bottles, a door marked office to the left. Through an archway to the right was a game room with pool tables, pinball machines, and video games blinking like idiots. On the other side of the game room around a corner would be the little grocery store where resort patrons could load up on beer, pop, hot dogs, and Rolaids.
Gun stepped up to the bar and pressed the button on the silver countertop bell. It took about three seconds for the office door to swing open. Same guy. His shoulders were wide and sloping and bent forward in a muscled hunch. His head was large, his face dark with whisker shadow, his nose exceptionally small.
“Well, Gun Pedersen!” he yelled. “Yeah!” and stuck out his hand. Gun shook it. “Been a while. Too long. How’ve ya been? You don’t look any different than the day we played catch. You remember. July the Fourth. What year? Believe it was nineteen hundred and
eighty-one. Have a seat, Gun, have a seat. I’ll get you a beer, on the house. Damn, it’s good to see ya again. Siddown, siddown, please.”
Gun sat.
The man touched the tips of his fingers against both Gun’s shoulders and shook his head. “Goddamn,” he said, “I’ll never forget that one you hit at Met Stadium in ‘sixty-five when you beat the Twins in the ninth— middle of August, I believe it was, Kaat was on the hill and he threw a big curve and you swung from the heels”—here the man took a big, loose imaginary swing that spun him clear around and landed him back next to a plastic rack of beer mugs—”and boom! Second deck. Bobby Allison out in left didn’t even bother to turn around and watch it come down. Shit. I was sitting up there that day and didn’t get the ball. Some hog with a glove reached out right in front of me. Should of busted his face.” Now the man picked up a mug from the rack, lifted it, and wiped his sweaty forehead with a hairy wrist. He smiled. A lot of pink gum showed above his upper row of teeth. “What’ll it be, Gun? We got Miller, Pabst, and Mick.”
“Miller.”
“Miller it is.” He drew a mugful by feel, smiling and keeping his eyes on Gun. “There you be.”
“Thanks,” Gun said. “Now, what’s the name?”
The man looked hurt for a moment, then brightened again. “Slacker, Larry Slacker. You know, we met at the softball —”
“I remember you well,” Gun said.
“Yeah, I thought so. Saw the recognition in your eyes right away. Damn”—he popped a fist into an open palm — “I’m gonna just take a little beer break myself, if you don’t mind.” He was already filling a mug with Miller. Turning his face away from Gun, he coughed. The cough had a bad sound.
“I’d like it if you joined me, Larry,” Gun said.
“Hey!” Larry pulled up a high stool and sat down across the bar from Gun. One bead of sweat clung to his short nose, several to his wide chin. He was still grinning. He took a deep raspy breath. “So tell me, what brings you out this way, Gun? Fishin’ Tornado, I bet. And let me tell you, my people’ve been catching crappies the size of dinner plates without so much as getting in their damn boats. Hell, they’re catching ‘em off the docks with angle worms. Never seen anything like it in the twenty years since I bought the place, but of course—”
“Reason I’m here,” Gun said, “is to talk to you.”
“No shit.” Larry looked puzzled and pleased. He took another breath. His lungs didn’t sound good at all as they filled up.
“I need some information about one of your recent guests.”
“Oh?” Larry expelled his chestful of air.
“A guy named Rutherford. From Minneapolis, I think. I want his address.”
Larry went bottoms-up on his beer, then set down the mug. “Sorry, Gun. But I’ve never even known anyone by that name, that I remember. And I do make an effort to get to know my people. That’s an important part of the business. You want your people to get the feeling like they’re part of a family. Kind of like a team, you know? You must understand that, Gun— team spirit and all. It’s what I try to do here at the Broken Rock.”
“I think you’re forgetting one member of the team, Larry. His name is Rutherford. He was staying here about a week ago. Think harder.”
“Look, Gun, even if he was staying here—and like I said, I’m pretty damn sure he wasn’t—but even if he was, I couldn’t tell you a thing about him anyway. My
files are confidential. Lots of pretty important folks have passed through here over the years, and they go home and tell their friends about the Broken Rock. So I can’t just start passing out addresses and such to anyone that asks—not that you’re just anyone, Gun. But you gotta see my point. I start giving out stuff like that and pretty soon I’m going to lose my reputation and the resort goes to hell. You must understand, Gun. You’re a guy that knows the value of privacy.” Larry’s face was running with sweat now. He drew himself another mug of beer. “Your brew okay, Gun? Hardly’ve touched it.”
“It’s fine,” Gun said. He could see Larry was going to take a little persuading. It wasn’t fun to push a guy who was so eager to please. Especially one with
gravel in his lungs. Gun took a sip of beer, which was getting warm.
“No hard feelings, right?” said Larry. He was still grinning, but not the same as before. His grin stopped above the mouth.
“Of course not,” said Gun.
Larry sighed, then finished his second beer, taking the bottom half of the mug in two swallows. He shut his eyes and shook his heavy face back and forth. “Gun,” he said, “that same game I mentioned before? With the Twins? Your homer in the ninth? Wasn’t there a helluva brawl in that game? Benches cleared, if I remember right.”
“Yup.” Gun got up from the stool and walked back to the door, six paces away.
“Hey,” Larry said. “Leaving already? Thought you might tell me about that little scrap with the Twins. And your beer ...”
Gun shut the inside door, blocking out the sun and making the room even darker than before. He threw the dead-bolt lock.
Larry stood up. “Whatcha doin’ anyway?” he said.
“I’m going to tell you about that brawl—and believe me, it was one of the best ones I was ever in. Then you’re going to go into your office and get Rutherford’s address for me.” Gun walked back to the bar.
“Gun, really, I can’t. . .” Larry coughed and shook his head.
Gun stood before the bar, then leaned down with his elbows so that his face was even with Larry’s. “I spent most of my time on Earl Battey,” Gun said. “Remember him? He was about your size, maybe a little huskier. Anyway, we ran into each other between the pitcher’s mound and third base and he hit me pretty hard in the gut. So I threw a straight left into his nose and roundhouse right to his ear. And you know, he didn’t go down. So I hit him hard as I could right here”—Gun touched a finger to a spot right below Larry’s breastbone—”and damned if he didn’t go down. And stay down.”
Larry stepped back, one arm lifted in conciliation. He wagged his face and the perspiration flew. “Gun, I’d like to help you. But I—you see—I told someone I wouldn’t say anything about this Rutherford guy.”