by J. B. Hadley
Campbell sipped on his coffee and said nothing.
“Where do you go from here?” Verdoux persisted. “To interview more of these lunatics who will answer your stupid newspaper advertisement?”
“You answered it,” Mike pointed out.
Verdoux raised his hands in a Gallic shrug. “I am stupid lunatic.”
“Why do you really want to go?” Mike asked seriously. “It’s important.”
“I know you think I am retired, Mike, and what I told you about looking for a trawler to convert is the truth. Of course you assumed I wanted to convert it into a houseboat and tie it to a jetty in Florida. Let’s say I have other plans. Also, you should know I’ve been arranging some arms deals and training programs for some of the people I once fought against in Africa. These days it turns out to be my highest recommendation to them—the slaughter this white devil once wrought upon them. Now the same people want to buy my advice on how they can best do it to their neighboring tribe.”
“I had heard talk along those lines about you,” Mike said.
“You’ve hired two and you need three more men. What are your plans?”
“I’m seeing two candidates on Long Island this evening. Then I drive up to Vermont tomorrow to see an Australian.”
“I’ll go with you,” Andre volunteered. “We’ll share the driving.”
“That would be great. Only this does not amount to a commitment on my part to you coming on the mission.”
“D’accord. Agreed, mon vieux.”
They both knew that Mike Campbell had lost the battle on this one.
Verdoux beamed and ordered more Armagnac.
Chapter 10
OUTSIDE Rawsonville, on the edge of the Green Mountains of Vermont, Bob Murphy pulled his jeep beneath the sign that read tavern, whose glow was lost in the early afternoon sunshine. The inside of the tavern was dark and cavernous, and several customers along the bar shifted and blinked like disturbed bats at the blinding light that shot in for a moment as Bob came through the door.
The barman reached for a bottle of Chivas twelve-year-old scotch when he saw him come in, and poured a treble measure over ice.
“Your wife sell you yet?” he asked with a grin.
Bob held up his drink. “Your luck, chum.” He finished it in a single swallow and banged the glass back on the bar for a refill. “I been bought and sold so many times, I’ll hardly notice it one more time.”
“Caused a lot of talk about here, your wife’s ad in that newspaper did,” a gaunt elderly man up the bar said in a broad New England accent. There was a mixture of censoriousness and envy in his voice.
“Fuck ’em,” Bob grunted.
His accent was as broadly Australian as the other man’s was Vermont. Bob himself admitted that his accent had much diminished in the years he had spent overseas from his homeland—he liked to claim that when he first arrived in Britain, his accent was so thick people did not realize he was speaking English to them. Most people did not even recognize the word “Australian” when it was pronounced by him as “Strine.”
If Bob Murphy’s down-under accent had mellowed, very little else about him had. He was short and stocky, with shoulders way too broad for his body, arms too long for his frame and huge, gnarled red hands with which he liked to snap empty beer bottles clearly in two and lay the halves before him as a way of signifying he was ready for another. His face matched his hands. Beneath an unruly mop of straw-yellow hair, a couple of days’ growth of yellow beard was scattered like wheat stubble on the red expanse of his jaws. His lips were thick and sensual, and his nose showed signs of having been broken and rebroken. In contrast, his eyes were brown, soft, and mild. When his language was obscene and his gestures coarse, his eyes gave him away to women. They saw his soul in them, the beauty beneath the beast. Other men explained his success with women by claiming his dick was a foot long and thick as a baseball bat. They did not believe him when he claimed he had never been unfaithful to his wife.
“What ad?” another man down the bar asked.
“You haven’t seen the ad for Bob?” the barman asked. “In the paper two weeks ago?”
“If I had, I wouldn’t be asking, would I?” the man said irritably. “What are they talking about, Bob?”
“I have the paper here,” the barman said.
He handed his customer the local paper already folded over at the right page. From the well-thumbed condition of the newspaper, this topic had obviously been a conversation piece for some time in the establishment.
“‘Husband for sale,’” the man read laboriously. “‘A willing mate but mostly absent skiing, hunting or fishing. Answers to the name Bob. Contact Mrs. Eunice Murphy—’ Damn, she even put your phone number right here in the paper.”
“Eunice thought it was funny when she did it,” Bob explained calmly. “She had to have the number changed. Know why? Most of the callers didn’t want to buy me, they wanted to come round and take care of her loneliness. Lot of weird people in this part of the world.”
“They’d be people up from New York City, not local men,” the elderly New Englander said with solemn certainty. “This whole part of the state has been spoiled by outsiders.”
“Thanks,” Bob said with a grin.
“I didn’t include you,” the man said humorlessly. “Though there’s not all would agree with me there.”
“Give him a drink,” Bob told the barman. “I like an honest man.”
“I don’t want your drink,” the elderly man said querulously. “I’ve been independent all my life. No one has ever given me so much as a piece of thread without being paid for it. I’ll pay for what I drink here myself, in spite of your kind offer. Just as I did before you arrived and will after you’ve gone.”
“Cancel that drink,” Bob said to the barman.
The dourness of the old New Englander cast the tavern into a silent gloom. Bob thought about his wife, Eunice. People who knew them were divided in their opinions of the relationship. Some of Eunice’s friends who had been to Bennington with her in their student days regarded Bob in the same way as if Eunice had married a pipe-playing shepherd clad in a goatskin—exotic to be seen with but definitely something you did not bring indoors.
Other women, mostly those who felt strongly attracted to the Australian, said that Eunice had been lucky in getting this hulk of a man to bed her and stick around. After all, even though Eunice was very rich, no matter how much one cared for her, one had to admit she was very ugly. Bob was no beauty, either. And he was good to her. Certainly, she had a sparkle in her eye and a flush in her cheek after three years of marriage that none of the rest of them could claim. They could see the advantage of being married to an animal—excitement! And the brute was faithful to her … in spite of their efforts!
Eunice had surprised Bob once by explaining her awareness of their situation in other people’s eyes. Eunice generally felt it was bad form to make such intimate communications, having been brought up in a family where women were expected to talk without moving their jaws. A lawyer at a party had been making cracks about Bob to his face. Bob wouldn’t acknowledge the challenge for his own private reasons, of which Eunice was aware. She knew that if someone was aggressive to him, Bob saw no reason why he should limit his response to words even if the attack had been only verbal. In his book, when he fought he chose his own weapons, or he chose not to fight. Eunice saw Bob considering how he might take the lawyer apart physically, and she shook her head at him. He smiled back, and she was reassured. Then the lawyer’s wife remarked in a loud voice that she did not know how Eunice could put up with a husband who didn’t work and spent his time chasing deer, geese and fish. Eunice responded, sharp as a blade, that she’d prefer her husband to spend his time chasing fish and game than chasing other women. The lawyer went deadly pale, and his wife looked crushed. They left the party shortly afterward and were divorced six months later. Eunice must have taken that as an example of the dangers of expressing a strong person
al opinion, for Bob had not heard one from her since. Perhaps the newspaper ad was the nearest that she came to one. And no doubt that had been at the goading of some of her Bennington friends.
Bob told nobody about the other ad in the paper. He would never have seen it if it hadn’t been on the same page as his wife’s ad offering him for sale. He didn’t care about the big money, it was the phrase “combat-hardened veter ans” that appealed to him. He was bored. In the winter he skiied, in the spring he fished—except for the Easter week, which he always spent with Eunice’s family on Bermuda. In the summer he liked to take some fishing trips into northern Ontario, and they always spent the July Fourth holidays with her family at Newport, from where he did some open-water sailing. Fall was the busiest time of year for him, out before dawn every day of the hunting season. Then they always spent Christmas Day with his family on their traditional holiday picnic at the beach; from Australia they would spend a couple of weeks in one or more of the South Sea Islands. Then it was back to Vermont for the skiing.
After three years of this, Bob felt himself getting into a rut. Screwing someone else’s wife was not his idea of a change. He was very happy with Eunice. He needed something to make his adrenaline flow, to make his hair stand on end, to make his knees knock and a cold sweat form on his forehead. Other people had those sensations all the time—even driving with him in his jeep! There were days when Bob felt he was made of lead. Dammit, he was a man of action who hated whiners and complainers. He would do something about it. Liven up his life. He had replied to the ad, received a phone call yesterday and arranged to meet him here today.
The phone call had been brief and mysterious.
“Mike’s my name,” the caller said. “You said in your letter you had been with the Aussie army in Nam.”
“Right,” Bob said. “Two tours of duty. And before that I was on loan to the Malaysian government as a jungle warfare expert. Hell, I wasn’t no expert when I went there, but I sure was when I got out.”
“And then you put Nam on top of that?”
“I had a ball,” Bob chortled.
“How would you feel about going in again?”
Bob’s chortle was cut short. “Is this what that ad’s for?”
There was a lot of uncertainty in the voice, and Mike decided, against his better judgment, to put it to him over the phone.
Mike said, “Will it be worth my while driving up there to see you?”
There was a long silence.
“Yes.”
“You sure?” Mike asked.
“Come on up.”
“Where can we meet tomorrow afternoon?”
That had been about all. Bob laughed gleefully within himself as he sat stony-faced at the bar. He was so damn gung-ho, he had practically agreed to volunteer over the phone without even seeing who he was going with or getting any details. Eunice would take this hard. He sighed. And all because of her silly newspaper ad …
The barman polished some glasses with a white cloth and whistled to dispel the gloomy silence. It might be an hour before some of these daily customers said another word, but it wasn’t usual for the Australian to be this quiet. However, the barman knew his job and did not intrude on Bob’s thoughts if that was the way he wanted it.
The place was shook up by the arrival of three young men who looked barely of legal drinking age. They sat at a table, knew the bartender by his first name, and ordered a round of boilermakers. After their third round, they had gotten no quieter.
“Gonna go up on the old logging trail past Andrews’ place and git ourselves one of those bears that’s been seen there,” one said boastfully to the bartender.
“Yeah, I hear a couple of big ones have been seen around there,” the barman replied. “Five foot high, they say he was. Damn, that’s big for a black bear.”
The young man pointed up at a bearskin on the wall, complete with head and claws. “How big you think that one was?”
“Woulda been close to five feet,” the barman said. “More drinks, boys?”
“No.”
“We gotta go. We gotta shoot straight.”
“Man, you can’t even see straight. You gotta better chance of hitting those bears with your car than you do with your gun.”
They went on kidding each other as they got up from the table and headed for the door.
The barman called after them, “Watch it, boys. This ain’t hunting season. If they see you up on them hills with rifle—”
One of the three turned around and opened his jacket to reveal a heavy revolver stuck in his belt. “We don’t have rifles.” He patted the pistol handle. “We’re gonna use these.”
Another boasted, “We’re gonna give the bears a fighting chance. Let ’em take a run at us, draw on ’em and shoot ’em down.”
“You hope,” the bartender said.
They laughed and went out through the door.
Bob Murphy stirred himself for the first time in half an hour. A mischievous smile spread across his face as he got to his feet.
“I’ll be back in an hour,” he said. “I’m expecting to meet someone here named Mike. Be sure he waits, and his drinks are on me.”
Bob turned back for a moment and put a twenty-dollar bill on the bar. He looked across the room and said, “I want to rent that for a while.”
The Rawsonville boys couldn’t take their car up the unpaved logging road, but that was all right with them since they needed a little time to let their heads clear before tangling with bears. The climb up would straighten them out. Also, some dude in a four-wheel drive had passed them on the road, and they could tell by the dust which hadn’t yet fully settled that he had gone up the logging road. Probably some fairy from the city on his way to pick wildflowers. But they couldn’t be certain. He’d be long gone by the time they climbed to where the bears were being seen.
The road twisted around outcrops of naked rock and wound its way up the side of the mountain among stands of pine. Areas were free of timber where the soil was too thin for a tree’s root to take hold, and here and there grew patches of the berry bushes that bears liked to feast on. It was too early in the year for berries, but the boys were townies and did not realize that. Their hands hovered over their pistols every time they came to a place they thought suitable for the animals, and they were so busy eyeing the bushes on each side for a sudden attack that they stumbled and sometimes fell in the dried-up gashes rivulets of water had cut in the road.
“You know they say a charging bear runs faster than a racehorse.”
“Yeah, man, grizzlies are meaner than black bears, but grizzlies don’t climb trees. Them black mothers’d run up a tree right after you. You got nowhere to go when they decide to kick ass.”
“You should play dead. Lie face down and don’t move. Even if they paw you.”
“Talk loud. That’s what we should do is talk loud. It frightens the fuckers, and you can hear ’em crashing through trees as they run away and get a shot at ’em.”
“But don’t whistle. You know why? ’Cause human whistling is like the sounds bears make when they got the hots for each other. You might get a big mamma bear come out of the sticks and put it to you.”
That really broke them up.
They climbed on a way, their confidence building. None of them had gotten around to raising false alarms yet. They still believed that any moment now—maybe around the next big rock or behind that bush—a bear might jump out on the roadway and challenge them.
“Hey!” One of them stopped and pointed to patches of chest-high bushes along a ridge. “I saw something move.”
The others waited and watched.
“It was probably a bird.”
“Or a squirrel.”
“Maybe just wolves.”
“Sure. Nothing to worry about.”
They had only taken a couple of steps when one shouted, “Goddamn! It’s bear! Look at the black fur! A fucking big bear.”
“I saw it,” the second confirmed.
The third hadn’t seen it, but all the same he took his pistol from his belt, a .357 Colt MK III Lawman with a four-inch barrel. The other two had .357 Smith & Wesson M28 Highway Patrolman models, one with a four-inch and the other with a six-inch barrel. They packed a lot of stopping power and were none too worried as they spread out of each others’ way and advanced on the bushes concealing the bear.
“He’s got to break left or right. If he tries to go back over the top of the ridge, we got him sitting out in the open.”
“Instead of going to either side, he can come right at us.”
“Yeah. Gotta think of that.”
“Mothers are faster than racehorses.”
“Soon as you see him, blow the fucker away.”
They advanced carefully, three abreast.
All three of them saw an area of black fur and then, to resolve all their doubts, they saw the bear’s head and its bulging eyes glistening as it watched them. They started shooting. The bushes waved about as the bear threshed among them.
“I think we hit him!”
“Let’s finish him off!”
They ran forward.
Zip! A bullet whizzed between two of them, followed by a gunshot. They stopped.
“What the fuck was that?”
“Come on, man. Must have been an insect flying by.”
“That was a shot.”
“From where the bear was.”
Two more bullets whined passed them. Then to their horror, they clearly saw in the bushes a black bear with a revolver in its hand taking aim at them again!
They ran.
“You’re really going to bring that imbecile along?” Andre Verdoux said to Mike Campbell under his breath.
Mike nodded and relaxed in the leather upholstered easy chair.
“He dresses up in a bearskin and shoots at hunters!” the Frenchman expostulated. “And you’re going to bring him into Vietnam!”
“Yes.”
“He insults us at dinner before his charming wife—who is no beauty, but she is sincere—”
“He didn’t insult us,” Mike explained. “He was joking.”