“That’ll be great.”
He lumbered slowly off with the dog, leaving Mitch there alone. Upstairs, he could hear Takai shouting into her cell phone about closing dates and engineering inspections, her sharp voice piercing the house’s silence like a boning knife.
There were no lights on in the living room. What little illumination there was came from candles and the fire in the big stone fireplace, which did next to nothing against the chill. A chesterfield sofa and two battered leather wing-backed chairs were set before the fireplace, which was flanked by floor-to-ceiling bookcases. An antique rolltop desk was parked before the windows, an old Underwood manual typewriter set upon it.
But by far the most striking thing about Wendell Frye’s living room was the pair of virtually complete suits of armor standing on pedestals in the center of the room.
“My proudest possessions, Big Mitch,” Hangtown declared, returning with two large pewter mugs filled with dark beer, one of which he handed to Mitch. “Late fifteenth century. You want to talk about mm-rr-honest metal work, by God, they made these by hand. Hammered each part from a goddamned lump of metal. Missaglia family of Milan made ’em. No bogus fluting or scalloping either. Their beauty comes strictly from the form itself. And wait until you get a load of this
…” A look of childlike glee lit up his creased old face as he raised the visor of one of the suits.
Mitch heard a click and the entire wall of bookcases to the left of the fireplace rotated slowly open to reveal a secret passageway laced with cobwebs. It was like something right out of an old haunted-house movie.
“Leads straight down to the dungeon,” Hangtown explained, cackling. “Now get a load of this…” He went over to the rolltop desk and pushed a button under its middle drawer. Now a section of the bookcase on the other side of the fireplace popped open to reveal a secret wall safe with a combination lock. “Perfect place for storing secret documents, am I right?”
“Or maybe counterfeit plates,” said Mitch, who found himself wondering what, if anything, the old recluse did keep in there.
Hangtown moseyed his way back over to the suits of armor now, a sly expression on his face. “How would you like to help me choose a wine for dinner?”
“Why, sure. I’d be happy to.”
“Father, no!!” cried out Moose, who had just joined them. She wore the same homemade outfit she’d had on that morning, her sleeves turned back to reveal forearms that were uncommonly muscular. “Mitch, move three steps to your left this instant,” she commanded him urgently.
“But we’re having fun, Moose,” Hangtown protested. “Besides, he’s a healthy young buck and he’s-”
“Just do it, Mitch!”
“Tell her it’s okay, Big Mitch,” Hangtown pleaded. “Tell her you want to see what Jim and I have done.”
“Well, sure I do,” Mitch said uncertainly.
“Okay, fine,” Moose said to him with weary resignation. “Hand me your beer. Give it to me.”
Mitch gave her his mug just as he noticed Hangtown raising the right gauntlet of one of his suits of armor…
And suddenly the floor was gone under Mitch’s feet.
He’d been standing on a trapdoor.
And with a whoosh he was gone. Falling feet-first down a fun-house slide, an involuntary roar coming out of him… Faster and faster he fell-unable to see, unable to stop, out of control… Faster and faster… All of the blood rushing to his head…
Until suddenly he landed with an oof on a cushioned surface of some kind, gasping for breath. Somewhere, he could hear Hangtown cackling with maniacal laughter-either it was Hangtown or Vincent Price. But Mitch could see nothing. Everything was pitch-black. He lay there like a lump as heavy footsteps slowly descended a creaky wooden staircase. Then he saw a faint light. A pair of lights, actually. Kerosene lanterns. Hangtown was clutching them as he made his way toward him down the basement corridor, still cackling with delight.
“How did you like it, Big Mitch?”
“This is the coolest house I’ve ever been in,” he replied, taking in his surroundings in the lantern light. He was lying at the bottom of a chute in a bin that was filled with pillows.
“See? I told Moose she didn’t have to worry about you.”
Mitch got gingerly to his feet. His sweater and khakis seemed to have rearranged themselves and his feet felt numb. But once he’d stamped them on the concrete floor a few times they were fine. The narrow basement corridor they were in seemed to be part of a network of corridors. The walls were damp and slimy. It was like being in a catacomb. He accepted one of the lanterns from his host and said, “I’m half-expecting to run into The Creeper down here.”
“Sure, I remember him,” Hangtown exclaimed, wheezing as he led Mitch down the corridor. “What was that poor fellow’s name who played him?”
“Rondo Hatton. He suffered from acromegaly.”
“By God, you’re a useful man to have around.”
“I’m a waddling encyclopedia, all right.”
Now they passed through an arched doorway and Hang-town flicked on a light to reveal an extensive wine cellar. The old man was quite a connoisseur. Hundreds of bottles were stored there in row upon row of wine racks. Three of the walls were of fieldstone and mortar. The fourth, a load-bearing wall from the oldest part of the house, was made of rough oak planks that were at least eighteen inches wide and were buttressed by hand-hewn chestnut posts.
“What’s your pleasure, Big Mitch? A nice Medoc?”
“Sounds terrific.”
Hangtown slid two bottles under his arm. “Oh, hey, get a load of this,” he said, hobbling over toward the oak-plank wall. “Can’t claim I did this one. Been here since Prohibition…” He lifted a dusty bottle of port from the top shelf of the wine rack. A section of the oak wall immediately popped open. It was actually a dummy wall that had been artfully built out from the original one so as to conceal a hidden cupboard. “They used to store their hooch in here,” he said proudly, opening the cupboard doors wide for Mitch to see.
Not that there was anything in there to see. Just empty shelves coated with cobwebs and dust. Although it did appear, on closer look, that something had recently been stored on the lowest shelf-a distinct outline marked its place in the dust. It was the outline of something like a rolled-up rug, maybe eight inches wide and four feet long.
Hangtown was staring at it. He seemed startled. Almost transfixed.
“What is it?” Mitch asked him.
“Nothing.” He swung the cupboard doors quickly shut, anxious to change the subject. “Something I’ve been meaning to ask you, Big Mitch. We were joking about it this morning, but this is serious
…”
“Okay…”
“You really wouldn’t mind if I came over to watch Celebrity Deathmatch?”
Mitch gazed at the great artist with openmouthed surprise. He couldn’t believe how unassuming he was. “Are you kidding me? Come. Any time.”
“Great,” Hangtown exulted. “Just great.” Now he led them out of the wine cellar and down a clammy stone passageway, halting at a recess in the stone wall where there was a narrow wooden spiral staircase. “This goes all the way up to the second floor-there’s a secret chamber behind the master bedroom where they used to hide the slaves. A whole secret corridor runs along behind the upstairs bedrooms. In the back wall of each closet there’s a way in. The girls keep theirs bolted shut, so don’t get any sneaky ideas, heh-heh-heh. On the other side of the house it connects up with the old service stairs. You go that way. Take the wine. I’ll close up down here, okay?”
“Wait, this is another trick, am I right?” Mitch asked, as the old man started to hobble off.
“No, no. Trust me, it’s not, Big Mitch. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be giving you the wine, would I?”
Mitch supposed not. Clutching the bottles carefully under one arm, he slowly climbed the steep, narrow spiral staircase, his lantern held out before him to ward off evil spirits and vampir
es. Up and up he climbed, up and around, up and around, until he finally arrived at a narrow, airless wooden corridor. It was barely as wide as his shoulders, and the ceiling was so low he had to duck or he’d get a mouthful of cobwebs. There were many spiders. A million spiders. Every ten feet or so he passed a closed door with no knob-the secret doors to the bedrooms. Each had a peephole in it. Mitch tried looking through one, half-expecting to find another eye staring right back at him. There was nothing. Only blackness.
It was, he realized, very much like something out of a childhood dream. Or, more specifically, a nightmare.
When he had staggered his way down this wooden corridor to the other end of the house, he arrived at another staircase. This one was narrow and quite steep, almost like a ship’s ladder. Descending it carefully, Mitch found himself confronting another closed door with no knob. Frowning, he gave it a push, activating the touch latch that popped it open.
He was standing in a big, modern farm kitchen. Or at least it would have been modern in 1952. It had a vintage GE fridge and freezer chest, an ancient gas stove, a deep, scarred farmhouse sink. In the middle of the room Moose was tossing salad greens at a cluttered trestle table.
“Well, hello there,” she said to him pleasantly. “You survived Father’s little fun-house ride, I see.”
“God, this must have been a great house to be a kid in.” Mitch set the wine and the lantern down on the table, catching a wonderful whiff of meat roasting in the oven.
“Actually, you never stop being a kid if you live in this house. Witness father.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“You can help me feed the pig,” she replied, hefting the metal bucket filled with food scraps at her feet. “Unless that sounds too unglamorous for you.”
“No, it sounds right up my alley.”
He followed her out to the mudroom, where there were several pairs of men’s and women’s boots and garden clogs, all of them muddy. Also a second overflowing slop bucket. Mitch grabbed that one as Moose stepped into a pair of clogs, and they headed out the back door in the direction of the pigsty. It was a cold, clear night. There were stars overhead, and a full hunter’s moon that cast a low-wattage light over the entire barnyard.
“Suppertime, Elrod!” Moose called out, dumping the slop over a low wire fence into the pig’s aromatic home. “Sup-sup-suppertime!”
Mitch followed suit with his bucket, the pig ambling slowly over to check it all out. Snorking and slurping noises ensued. “I can certainly see why you’ve stayed,” he said to Moose.
“Stayed?” She seemed puzzled.
“Why you haven’t gotten your own place, I mean.”
“This is my home, Mitch,” she said simply.
“Does your sister feel the same way about it?”
“Well, that didn’t take long, did it?”
“What didn’t?”
“For us to start talking about Takai.”
“We’re not,” Mitch insisted. “I was asking you about the farm.”
“Sorry, my mistake,” Moose said hastily, shooting an uncertain glance at him in the moonlight. “You shop for Sheila Enman, is that right?”
“Yes, I do. How did you…?”
“We’re old, old friends. It was Sheila who got me interested in teaching. It’s very kind of you to do that for her, Mitch. It says a lot about you.”
“I don’t do it out of the goodness of my heart. I get amazing chocolate chip cookies out of it.”
“Do you know her secret?” Moose asked him eagerly.
“Her secret to what?”
“Her chocolate chip cookies, you silly. I’ve been trying to get that darned recipe out of her for over ten years. And I just can’t. She won’t let me have it. You know how those old ladies are. They won’t tell anyone. She makes her own chips out of the chocolate bars. I know that. But I also know she has a secret ingredient. If you do her marketing, you must have some idea what it is. Exactly what’s on her shopping list? Try to remember. Try very, very hard.”
Mitch found himself smiling at her. Because this was so Dorset. All of this intrigue over an old lady’s cookie recipe. And him caught right in the middle, his lips sealed. Because he did know Sheila’s secret ingredient. The sour cream. Had to be. Nobody ate as much sour cream as she went through in a week. Standing there, watching Elrod scarf up his supper in the moonlight, Mitch realized that here it was-the perfect hook to his Cookie Commerce story. Moose and her quest for Sheila’s recipe. But how could he write about Moose without mentioning her famous, reclusive father? The answer was he couldn’t. And that made it off-limits. He would not take unfair advantage of a private man who had invited him into his home. “If Sheila won’t tell you,” he finally said, “then you can’t expect me to. That would be a betrayal of confidence, wouldn’t it?”
“You’re someone who can be trusted, aren’t you,” she said, kicking at the mud with her clog. “Father has amazing instincts.” She lingered there watching Elrod, who didn’t seem to mind. He was not in the least bit self-conscious. “Takai mentioned that you’re in a relationship.”
“I thought we weren’t going to talk about Takai,” Mitch chided her.
“We’re not. We’re talking about you.”
“It’s true, I am involved. And it’s a big step for me. I… I lost my wife to cancer last year.”
“And you still think about her.”
“All the time,” he said, his voice growing husky.
“I’m sure she’d be very proud of you, Mitch.”
“That was a very kind thing to say,” he said, glancing at Moose in the moonlight. “But I’m still not going to tell you what’s in Sheila’s cookies.”
She let out an unexpectedly huge, full-throated whoop of a laugh. “Okay, you win. And in answer to your previous question, Takai doesn’t feel the same way I do about this place. She isn’t the least bit attached to it. In fact, if you get to know her better-and for your sake, I sincerely hope you do not-you’ll discover that she doesn’t care about anything or anyone.”
Mitch wondered if he had ever heard someone deliver such a sweeping denunciation of another human being.
“We should really tell Jim that dinner’s ready,” she said now, glancing over in the direction of his little wood-framed cottage, where lights were on. “He can seem a little scary, but he’s been a good, good friend to Father.”
Mitch began to hear music as they made their way to Jim’s cottage-an old sixties San Francisco band, Quicksilver Messenger Service. Mitch had always admired the soaring, quivering licks of Quicksilver’s lead guitarist, John Cipollina. He’d never been able to duplicate the sound on his Stratocaster.
“How come Jim was in prison?” he asked Moose.
She rapped on the crusty Vietnam vet’s door with her knuckles. Inside, the music went silent. “You can ask him. He doesn’t mind talking about it.”
“Talking about what, girl?” Jim wondered as he pulled open the door, wearing an aged Pendleton plaid wool shirt over a tie-dyed T-shirt. A strong scent of marijuana came wafting out of the cottage along with him.
“Mitch wondered why they sent you to prison,” Moose said to him.
“Son, I’m a big bad drug trafficker,” Jim answered as the three of them started toward the house together. “Or so the law says. I say otherwise. Had me my own place over on the other side of those trees. Sixty good acres that had been in my family since forever. I was working that land and minding my own business.”
“Jim raised organic produce for the local health-food stores,” Moose said. “Lettuce, spinach, strawberries… All of it wonderful.”
“So why did they come after you?”
“I raised me another crop, too,” Jim replied. “The demon weed, son. Not for profit. Nothing like that. I grew it for my friends with cancer who were on chemo and sick to their stomachs night and day. I grew it for the older people who’ve got the arthritis so bad they can’t get out of bed in the morning. It was medicine for them.
I gave it to ’em for free.”
“Some might even say he was an angel of mercy,” Moose said.
“Don’t know if I’d go that far,” Jim said. “I did smoke me a lot of it, too. But, hell, I was doing some good. And it’s legal to use it for medical purposes in this state. Just ain’t legal to grow it. Someone ratted me out to the law. Got me a pretty fair idea who, too. And they said my farm was being used in the commission of a drug crime and therefore could be seized. They took my family’s land away from me, son. Put me on the shelf for three years. I’m still on parole. And if Hangtown hadn’t given me a place to stay, I’d be living out of a cardboard box under an overpass.”
“What’s happened to your farm?” Mitch asked.
“Some Canadian real estate syndicate bought it,” he replied hoarsely. “Tore the house right down. Been in my family a hundred sixty years and they level it like a paper cup. Now the land’s just sitting there waiting for something bad to happen. And Bruce Leanse’s fingerprints are all over it.”
“You can’t prove that, Jim,” Moose pointed out. From her tone, Mitch gathered that Jim had voiced his theory before.
“I know what I know,” Jim said stubbornly. “He was the one making me all of those offers. He wanted my place, and he got it.”
“What do you think he intends to do with it?” Mitch asked.
“Ask Takai,” Jim said harshly.
“She’s the Brat’s realtor?”
Jim let out a laugh. “ ‘Enabler’ is more like it. She’s as slick as owl poop, too. But I know it was her ratted me out to the law. And if the day ever comes when I can prove it… Trust me, son, blood will get shed.”
“Jim, I wish you wouldn’t talk that way,” Moose said to him crossly.
“It’s the truth, girl. Can’t help it if it ain’t pretty.”
They went back inside the house through the mudroom door. After exchanging her mud clogs for wool ones, Moose returned to the kitchen.
Jim tugged off his own muddy work boots and changed into Indian moccasins. Then he set to work washing his veiny hands in the mudroom’s work sink. “Meantime, son,” he said, a malevolent grin creasing his leathery face, “I know how to get even with Brucie.”
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