by David Giblin
For a moment he and Vop stood there face to face, and then the woman began shrieking.
“Oh my Lord,” she wailed, “oh my Lord!”
Then two more people, dressed just like Vop, walked out of the house.
“Oh my Lord!” she wailed again. “Oh, Harold, they’re in the house!”
She brushed past Vop and went straight for the house as fast as she could over the sand. Her husband followed her.
Still shrieking, the woman disappeared inside the house. Naked people started popping out of the doors and windows, everyone trying to escape the onslaught of the crazy woman in the fluffy sweater. When she had cleared the house, she began a frenzy of cleaning.
First she threw everything she found inside the house out onto the grass.
Clothing, bedding, and other possessions were heaped together with buckets of honey and sacks of flour. Even the firewood stacked neatly beside the wood stove was thrown on the pile.
Then she began washing.
She washed the walls, she washed the cupboards, and she washed the floors and the windows. The whole time she continued to shriek at her husband. He just followed her around the house, saying the occasional “Yes, dear.”
Vop and his friends collected in the woods on a hill above the house. They watched her clean. A pile of their possessions grew on the front lawn. They waited and watched all day. The woman cleaned and shrieked.
At the end of the day the house was empty but spotless. The woodwork gleamed, the paint glistened, the windows sparkled. The man and the woman got back into their airplane and took off. When the noise of the airplane finished echoing around the walls of the cove, when the house and field were silent once more, someone in the little group of stunned onlookers cleared their throat and said, “Uhhh . . . I guess that was room service.”
The RCMP came by a few days later, but the possessions on the front grass and the tents in the field had all disappeared into the woods. The house sat in the clearing, clean and empty as if no one had ever been there. The police shrugged their shoulders, climbed back into their rubber boat, and left.
The people came out of the woods and slowly moved their things back into the house. They were all slightly in awe of the polished and sparkling surfaces everywhere. In a few days they were living there as though nothing had happened. Except, of course, now the windows were clean and the stove in the kitchen. . . you could see your face in it.
As far as Vop knew there were still people living there to this day.
“Well, Vop, sounds like the typical growing-up-on-the-islands-story, but what does it have to do with the Brelands?”
Vop was down to his last two dominoes.
“Bones,” he said and paused thoughtfully. “Today out in the boat, you know how it goes, they were asking me where I was from, what I did in the winter, that kind of thing. When I mentioned Cortes Island he started talking about a place his parents owned there. I asked him a few questions about it, casually, like I was making conversation. He described the place. He described the log house and the cove exactly.
“Then he tells me that a few years ago his parents had a lot of trouble with a bunch of ‘hippies’ who had moved in there. They had to call the cops to chase them off. That’s what they called us. Hippies. Like we were some kind of Charlie Manson cult. I mean, what if I said the wrong thing, or what if his parents come up here for a visit?”
“Oh, I don’t think you have much to worry about there.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You really think they got much of a look at your face?”
thirty-four THE SUITS
A FEW DAYS after Vop told me his story the RCMP docked at the gas float. I happened to be there refilling my spare gas cans. We didn’t see much of them since they’d got their new boat. I watched quietly, wondering what the occasion was. Mr. Carrington made another of his rare appearances and seemed flustered and more put out than usual. There were two strangers on board the RCMP boat, and their presence seemed to be generating all the excitement.
The two men were wearing dark suits in the heat of summer. They both wore dark glasses with heavy black plastic frames. I noticed their shoes were polished to mirror brightness. They were introduced to Mr. Carrington and they shook hands all round. The small group stood on the dock, quietly talking for a few minutes. Troutbreath and I dawdled over the gasoline, straining to hear what was being said.
The Mounties climbed back aboard their boat and left. Mr. C himself escorted the two suits up to one of the best cabins, where the three of them disappeared for the rest of the day.
There followed a great deal of speculation among the guides about who these people were. Vop had watched them arrive through the binoculars we kept in the living room. We agreed on our initial observations.
“By the briefcases and the shiny shoes you’d almost think they were Jehovah’s Witnesses, but the Mounties wouldn’t be riding them around. No, they have to be cops of some kind or other.”
“Mr. C was all in a sweat. Maybe they want to talk to him about something. Maybe his past is catching up with him. I’ve always wondered if he was hiding out—you know, like maybe he was an embezzler or he robbed a payroll truck. He’s kind of a strange one to be running a fishing resort, don’t you think? I mean, it’s not like he’s into fishing. He doesn’t even seem to like making money.”
There were any number of questions and even Troutbreath didn’t have the answers this time. This only deepened the mystery; nothing happens on the dock that Troutbreath didn’t control in one way or another. He was miffed that he couldn’t find out more. Vop and I had to content ourselves with waiting until Carol went in the next morning to clean and make up the beds.
As it turned out, she was able to answer all our questions and more.
“They’re cops all right, but they’re American cops,” she announced at lunch the next day.
“What the hell are American cops doing nosing around here?”
Vop’s distrust of authority and fierce Canadian nationalism converged.
“Well, only one of them is a cop, an FBI agent,” Carol continued, “the one with the blond hair. The other is from the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
“What are they doing here? They’re not dressed to go fishing. You think Mr. C is in trouble in the States?”
“It’s got nothing to do with Mr. Carrington. As far as I can make out, some bank in Seattle got into trouble backing oil speculators from Oklahoma. The bank had to be bailed out by a takeover, but not before a lot of people lost money. It was kind of a pyramid scheme, using money from people coming in at the bottom to pay off the people at the top. It seems a few insiders got their money out in time. Some of them made a huge killing before the whole thing collapsed. They must have known what was going on.”
“What are they doing up here, though?”
“Apparently the oil company kept a yacht up here. They’d entertain the investors and impress them with a real high-roller act. The suits are up here to see if they can find out what may have been discussed out fishing or in the bar at night. They got permission from the Canadian government to come here and poke around. They don’t have any power of arrest or anything. They just want to ask questions and find out what they can. You might call it a fishing expedition,” she concluded with a smile.
“So how do they expect to find out this information?”
“They want to talk to the guides.”
“Seriously? The guides?” Vop’s displeasure was growing by the moment.
“What are the guides supposed to know?”
“I guess they figure the guides might have overheard what was being talked about in the boats.”
“You found all this out in one morning?”
“Well, there wasn’t much for me to do while I was in their cabin. You should have seen the place. They had extra suits arranged in the closet with their shoes lined up underneath them. The beds were all stripped and the top sheets and blankets wer
e folded and placed under the pillows.”
Vop shot me a knowing look.
“Did they have all the stuff out of their briefcases lined up on a table somewhere? You know, the pencil next to the pen, the pen next to the ruler. Maybe a notepad lined up perfectly with the edge of the table? Stuff like that.”
“Exactly. How did you know?”
Vop explained briefly about his roommate in college.
“You should try bouncing a quarter off that bottom sheet. I could tell what kind of mood he was in by how much height I got each time.”
thirty-five BIG JAKE
WE DIDN’T HAVE to wait long for Carol’s information to be confirmed. Big Jake, being head guide at the resort, was the first to be invited over to the cabin for a visit.
By the time he arrived Jake was well aware of what to expect. Knowing it to be an informal chat put his mind at ease. He was looking forward to the experience. After all, it wasn’t every day one was interviewed by the FBI. He might even be able to have a little fun at their expense. Big Jake had developed a few techniques of his own to deal with guests that asked too many questions.
The two Americans, however, were as nervous as first-time hosts of a Tupperware party. Clearly the strength of their case would depend a great deal on what they were able to find out up here. They asked Jake to sit down and make himself comfortable. They wanted to know if he’d like coffee, and then poured one for him and politely asked what he liked in it. They offered him cake. They stressed the informal nature of their inquiries. They were here as guests of the Canadian government and would be happy with anything they could find out. He didn’t have to answer any questions he was uncomfortable with. They complimented him on being the head guide and suggested that his co-operation would make it easier for them to talk to the other guides. They knew the other guides looked up to him as a leader. They flattered him for a good ten minutes. Jake knew he was being conned and was starting to get restless.
Big Jake was a friendly, helpful kind of guy. The guests at the resort all thought he was marvellous, which was why he was the head guide, and they all tried to fix him up with their daughters. Jake was polite to visitors because his parents had raised him that way; besides, he’d never found any better way to be. Yet he found he was losing patience with the transparency of these two. He finally asked them how he could be of help.
The man from the SEC sat down on the arm of the sofa and explained to Jake, in a manner more suited to a small child, that there were some bad men who had swindled poor widows out of their life savings. He knew Jake was the kind of guy that would help bring these bad men to justice. He didn’t want to bore Jake with all the details, but just think how he would feel if somebody did that to his mother.
Big Jake already knew all the details from talking to Carol; he didn’t find them boring at all. As for his mother, she’d lived on a farm all her life. She was a crack shot with both a rifle and a shotgun, could split firewood all day long with an axe and sledgehammer, and had once chased Larry Potts out of the chicken coop with a heavy skillet. She also had a law degree. Big Jake felt sorry for any bad men that got in her way. He didn’t bother telling the SEC man any of this. Instead Jake looked down at the man’s feet. Jake couldn’t get over the shoes the man was wearing. The shoes looked so out of place he had to stop himself from laughing. A pair of ruby slippers wouldn’t have caused him this much amusement.
The man from the FBI spoke next. He asked if Jake would like to look at some pictures, to see if he could recognize any of the people in them. Jake said he didn’t mind looking at pictures at all. The tone of condescension was lost on the FBI man, who started placing a series of black-and-white photographs in front of him. Big Jake, an amateur photographer who had won prizes for his work, was appalled at the quality of the photos. Grainy blow-ups of murky shots. They looked like they had been taken through the window of a van, at a variety of locations. There were shots of men in suits standing in front of a bank. There were other photos of men in suits eating in restaurants. These were even more difficult to make out, taken as they were through the plate glass window of the restaurant as well as the window of the van.
The two men looked at him expectantly. He spent a long time looking at the pictures. He didn’t quite know how to tell them. Finally he apologized to them. Even if the photography was better and you could see more of the faces, it was just a bunch of guys wearing suits. The only people Jake ever took fishing were in rain gear or check shirts and jeans. People wearing suits never went out in his boat. He had to say the photos weren’t much help.
The man from the FBI looked crestfallen. He had spent months getting those photographs. It had taken countless hours in a cramped surveillance van drinking bad coffee that tasted like pencil leads mixed with chalk dust. Even now he could still taste the coffee.
The man from the SEC brightened up a little. He brought out one more photo. It was a Polaroid and showed four men squatting behind half a dozen salmon laid out on a dock. The men wore the usual shirts and jeans, baseball caps, sunglasses, and ridiculous grins.
Jake tried even harder to be helpful. He was beginning to feel bad for these guys and the kind of life they led while he was out fishing in the fresh air. He thought they didn’t look all that healthy. He held the pictures close to his eyes, turning this way and that. He tried to find any distinguishing features that might help him identify the men. Finally he had to give up. They looked like all the people he had ever taken out fishing.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but you have to understand, after a while all these guys wearing jeans and check shirts begin to look alike.”
thirty-six THE DOG SALMON
WET LENNY SPENT more and more time with the Brelands’ daughter. In the evenings they would huddle with their heads together as she listened to Lenny talk about fish and his theories on catching them. She seemed pleased with the attention Lenny gave her, and so did her parents. Mrs. Breland found reasons to stay on the yacht and let the two of them go off alone.
In truth, the daughter was born into the wrong family. Where they were outgoing and thrilled by physical activities, she was quiet and bookish. They were tanned and extroverted, she was pale and withdrawn. They wore designer sunglasses, she wore corrective lenses. It was clear to see that the restless, ceaseless activity of her family most often left her a sidelined observer. With a father that dominated conversation, she had learned to listen. And her willingness to listen had left Lenny speechless—at least in the beginning. He soon got over his shyness.
One afternoon Mr. Breland announced he was going out with his daughter this time. He wanted it to sound like a fatherly desire to spend more time with his child. It wasn’t hard to read between the lines: he had a fatherly desire to check out the guy his daughter was bringing home.
The fishing in the rapids had been slow lately. This suited Lenny just fine; the rapids had never been his favourite place to fish, and not only because of the danger. For Lenny’s purposes they were too unpredictable to keep track of his catches the way he did. The current tossed the lines and the heaviest weights around so much he could never be sure how deep he was. He could never be sure where he was catching the salmon—and he needed to know precisely. Trolling gave him more control over the depth of his lines.
Wet Lenny headed over to the eastern side of the inlet with Mr. Breland and his daughter. Lenny had found success there often, and with Mr. Breland in his boat it was time for it to happen again. The day was oppressively hot, and Lenny was feeling the pressure.
The son and I went off in our own direction. He was tired of killing things, and given the low productivity of the fishing holes the last few days, we made the only logical decision. We would try trolling the local pub for a couple of beers.
We managed to squander most of the afternoon drinking beer and making a lazy circumnavigation of the island. We got back to the yacht to find everyone in a tizzy.
Mr. Breland had caught a big fish. From the level of exciteme
nt, I thought Lenny had guided his first tyee. I was finally able to learn the fish weighed in at twenty-four pounds: not a tyee but a respectable fish. It was also the largest fish Mr. Breland had ever caught.
Lenny was installed in the ship’s lounge with a drink in his hand. Mr. Breland paced back and forth relating the struggle to land the monster. As he paced I noticed a faint squelching sound coming from his feet. I looked down.
Those buttery soft buckskin Guccis showed signs of the struggle. I got up quietly and eased away from the little group. I wanted to sneak a look at the salmon they’d caught that afternoon.
It was cleaned and stored in the freezer. When I opened it my small act of deductive reasoning proved correct.
There are five species of salmon found on the West Coast: chinook, coho, sockeye, chum, and pink.
If Vop’s college roommate can create a hierarchy of the human needs, then a hierarchy of salmon is also possible. As far as the guides are concerned, the pink salmon is at the bottom. It might be seen as an evolutionary first attempt, but there are some defects. Though very numerous, they are a small, shabby fish. They never get much bigger than ten pounds, and they are so covered in slime and sea lice that the guides refuse to even touch them. At the Carringtons’ resort the guides consider them a demerit fish and deduct points for keeping one. They release any they catch regardless of their guests’ puzzled protests.
“No, you don’t want that,” the guides would say as they pitched the offending creature back into the water.
“But wasn’t that a salmon?” the astonished guests would whine.
“No, it was just pretending,” would often be the only explanation.
A guide—usually a rookie—hapless enough to allow a guest to keep one was awarded a demerit and was not allowed to clean it on the cleaning table with everyone else.
The sockeye salmon is really in a class all by itself. They are excellent eating but they don’t feed on herring. They are almost never caught in the rapids.