Cadillac Cathedral (6 page)

“Just checking. We heard you moving around in there but it’s not like you to work with the door closed and locked.”

“The ‘closed’ is meant to be a hint. The ‘locked’ is for them that don’t know how to take a hint.”

“We just want to make sure you’re okay. Maggie said you were feeling a little dizzy when she saw you Monday.”

“I always feel a little dizzy on Mondays. The sound of everyone racing off to work on Monday mornings makes my head spin.”

“I hope you don’t start up any motors with the doors closed.” There was a sort of embarrassed chuckle in his voice. “We don’t want you asphyxiating yourself.”

“What
do
you want, Matt? I’m working on something that could ruin any number of lives if I don’t get ’er right. And the clock is ticking away while I stand here shouting at you.”

All of this was true, though he hadn’t thought of putting it quite that way until now. His own future, Martin’s future, perhaps even Myrtle Birdsong’s future depended upon his making sure this hearse was in top shape before he set out tomorrow morning for the city.

“I was joking, Arvo. We know you’re a man of good sense. It’s just that I’ve got someone here who wants to have a word. If you won’t let us in, maybe you’ll come out. It won’t take more than a few minutes.”

“This
someone
doesn’t have a name?”

“Ms., uh, Edwards — from a home-and-family magazine? Happened to be in the Store when she heard someone wondering what you were up to. Alice Redmond said she could swear she seen the tail
end of a hearse disappearing into your shop a few hours ago.”

“You sure she didn’t say ‘tail end of a horse?’”

“If you had a horse in there we’d smell it even through your goddamn three-inch doors. I don’t smell anything but grease and oil the same as always. This lady says she only wants a few minutes of your time. It won’t take her any longer than that to see if you’re a story worth her writing up. Might even take your picture.”

“Tell her if she comes back around noon tomorrow she might get a story if she can find me. Right now I’m too busy to talk to her or anyone else.”

There was some whispering and muttering outside the doors before Foreman said, “We’re going. Ms. Edwards may come back tomorrow or she may not. You could have missed your chance to see your picture in a magazine.”

“I’ve lived for three-quarters of a century without seeing my picture in a magazine. I guess I can manage to live a little longer without.”

“Suit yourself,” Foreman said, making it sound like some kind of warning. Footsteps crunched in gravel, moving away.

But then returned. “My father owned a pair of Clydesdales,” Matt Foreman’s voice said. “If you had a horse in there I would’ve smelled the sonofabitch. I think you’ve got a hearse in there. If Mizz Edwards decides you’re doing something illegal you can be sure she’ll hound you till she’s found the truth.”

“I didn’t hear a word you said, Matt,” Arvo said, turning away. “I’m too busy to pay attention to gossip.”

Whether or not this Ms. Edwards came back, it was important to get this Cadillac out on the road and heading south as early as possible tomorrow, certainly before Matthew Foreman was awake and spying out his side window.

Naturally he would not let Bert Peterson or Herbie Brewer know
that he had more than one reason for making this journey. He would rather be doing this alone but knew it wasn’t possible. Peterson would be furious, Herbie disappointed. You don’t allow your friends to lead you to a great opportunity and then leave them behind while you enjoy the rewards in secret.

This didn’t mean that if he happened to wake up early he would sit around and wait for them to show up. Nor did it mean that if they did show up in time he would stop for any distractions that intrigued them, or make side-trips for some errand they wanted to run. They would be in Peterson’s Henry J and could do whatever they pleased. He would simply keep on moving steadily down the highway in the direction of Martin’s hospital morgue and, maybe, to Myrtle Birdsong’s home in the city of his childhood years.

But before doing anything more, he would phone David Henderson to let him know that Martin had made his old friend Arvo his executor, and that Arvo was about to go down to rescue Martin from the city. If Henderson was interested in selling him a coffin today on their way through town, and later conducting some sort of funeral for their former Member of Parliament, and even making temporary use of a vintage Cadillac hearse for the occasion, maybe he would also be interested in filling out the proper paperwork requiring the hospital to hand the body over to Arvo as a temporary representative of his company.

CHAPTER 4

THIS TIME IT WAS
Peterson hammering on the door. “I been thinking about Martin’s boy. Shouldn’t we be letting him know about the funeral?”

Martin’s
boy
had to be fifty years old by now, a successful businessman somewhere east of the Rockies — or so they’d been told.

Arvo opened the inset door just wide enough for Peterson to slip through, then closed it and slid the bolt across. “He wouldn’t visit his ol’ man while he was alive, so why would he care about his funeral?”

“Well, he’s bound to show up some time — to claim the house and all that waterfront property. He could be pissed we didn’t let him know.”

Arvo used the rag in his hand to erase his own fingerprints from the left-side headlamp. “Martin’s lawyer will look after that.”

Peterson waggled his shoulders, shaking off a topic that had probably been nothing more than an excuse to stop by. He grinned, eager to be in on things. “So — you got ’er ready yet?”

Arvo led him around to the far side of the hearse. “We should be able to head out early tomorrow morning, but there’s still something I don’t much like. Have a look at this rear tire.”

“Still as bald as it was last time I looked.” Peterson crouched to run his fingertips over the tread. “You think she’s dangerous?”

“Well, tell me how you think we’ll like hearing the hiss of it going flat when we’re halfway home with Martin in the back and nowhere near a town.”

Peterson grunted from the effort of getting himself upright.

“But the only place I can think of finding a good match to the others is out in Billy-boy Harrison’s pasture.”

“Ha!” Peterson said — not exactly a laugh. “You’ll need an extension ladder then.” Billy stacked old tires in tall black pillars out in his field. “Anyway, Billy won’t be home. This is Arts and Crafts Day in Portuguese Creek.” He said this with a bit of a sneer, while making quotation marks in the air with his fingers. “He’ll be up at the hall, trying to sell his so-called art. Which you couldn’t pay me to hang in my
barn
.”

Billy-boy Harrison was one of the dozen or so Americans who’d shown up in Portuguese Creek during the Vietnam War — young men who’d chosen to live in this foreign country rather than let themselves be sent to die in another, or to sit in prison at home. Billy-boy had bought the old Houston dairy farm, as well as Wally Houston’s herd of Jerseys, claiming his grandfather had a dairy herd in South Carolina. When he wasn’t milking cows or delivering the milk, he
fashioned “art works” out of junk he’d picked up at yard sales around the district.

When Arvo pulled in beside the community hall a half-mile north of the Store, several cars were parked in front of the big unpainted hip-roofed building, others in the gravel beside the road. Albert Taylor and Willie Ford leaned against the railing at the foot of the steps, sucking on their thin, flat, home-rolled cigarettes and deep in serious talk. Willie nodded to Arvo. Taylor raised a finger salute to the beak of his cap.

Inside, too many conversations were happening at once, most of them at the plywood folding tables to one end of the hall where you could buy coffee and doughnuts or a slice of blackberry pie. Harvey Foster raised a hand to greet Arvo without pausing in his grim-faced explanation of something aimed at Beryl Woods, who leaned back in her chair and seized Arvo’s pant leg as he was about to pass. “Come here a minute!” When he crouched beside her, she lowered her voice to a growl. “When’re you gonna have that pickup ready for my niece? Every time I go by your place I see ’er still parked in the weeds. Have you even bloody started?”

Although he was face-to-face with Beryl Woods, he avoided looking into her eyes, which were imperfectly aligned. “There’s no use even starting till I’ve found a replacement for that cracked gear box.”

“Have you
looked
?”

“I warned you, Beryl.” Speaking to Beryl Woods usually required some care. She did not respond well to evasions. “Ford pickups just aren’t showing up in the bush, or even the junkyards. I should’ve kept that little black Hillman for your niece.”

“Bah!” Beryl Woods released him with a gesture that clearly said
Get away from me, you
!”

A series of tables had been set up down the length of the back wall,
each with a local artist or artisan standing behind it — or, he supposed, a friend — ready to sell the wares displayed on the tables or hung on the wall at their backs. Knitted sweaters were taped, spread-eagled, to the plywood. Wood toys were lined up on home-made shelves. Walter Percy had brought his daughter with him this time, in case she attracted more interest in his walnut salt and pepper shakers — which wasn’t likely so long as she kept that resentful expression on her face.

Billy-boy Harrison’s table was between Percy’s wooden toys and Maggie Reynolds’ hooked rugs. Billy stood at attention, his fingers combing down through his patchy beard. On the wall behind him he’d hung half a dozen box-framed plywood squares, each filled with a variety of glued-together junk. One was crammed with broken crockery fitted together like a jig-saw puzzle, another with an assortment of small plumbing items: washers, a spindle top from a tap, an elbow coupling, a rubber bathtub plug with dangling chain, a T-junction joint.

“Looking for something, Mr. Saarikoski?”

“I am, Billy, yes.”

He was tempted to accuse Billy of wasting perfectly good parts that someone could have used for a better purpose, but at least he hadn’t sent them to the dump.

“You see anything you lack?”

Had he said “lack” or “like?” Arvo couldn’t tell. If you’d forgotten that Billy-boy was from the Deep South, his slow accented drawl was a surprise. Some claimed he put it on, but Arvo suspected that Billy was too open-hearted to be skilled at deliberate falsity. “You’re lookin’ at my
Open Sesame
there. Those handles represent the opportunities that await us if we just open ourselves to the world.”

“Is that so?” As far as Arvo knew, Billy-boy Harrison had never
opened himself to the world beyond finding the fastest route between South Carolina and the Canadian border. “What I’m looking for today doesn’t hang on walls. I need a tire.”

Billy-boy’s interest perked up. “Well, I have an abundance of those at home.”

“I know that, Billy. I’ve seen them from the road. You stack up many more of those towers you’ll have to apply for a building permit.”

Billy-boy seemed pleased to hear this. “I don’t suppose any old tire will do.”

“I don’t suppose it will.” Arvo removed the note from his pocket and consulted his scribble. “I’m looking for a Series 353. Pretty rare.” He read directly from the paper. “Seven, dot, zero, zero, dash, A. This is a 19-inch tire.”

“Well, that’s pretty darn specific. I’ll have to check my records for one of those.”

“I’d like some decent tread on it. And I’d rather you didn’t take much time looking.”

“What do you call decent tread?”

“You can start with
not bald
and work up from there.” Arvo laughed to hear himself say this.

But Billy raised his eyebrows. “Well sir, I figure if you get much tread at all you’ll be lucky.”

“All I need right now is one that’ll run a couple hundred k without a flat. You think you can find me that while I’m minding your stall?”

“I keep a record. I know where every tire is at. I like to keep them together with their own kind, if you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean, Billy. No man from South Carolina wants his Firestones mingling with his Goodyears.”

“Ha ha. Go help yourself to a coffee. Whitey Burke stands in for me when I need a break.”

Billy-boy Harrison slapped a soiled ball cap on his head and worked his way through the tables of coffee drinkers, pausing just long enough to say something to wild-haired Whitey Burke, and then left the hall tossing his keys in the palm of one hand.

Arvo was not much interested in the variety of home-made wares for sale — baked goods, knitted items, sewn aprons, preserves. He talked for a while with Kevin Williams, who was carving a small figure out of a block of yellow cedar — probably another owl to stand amongst the half dozen already lined up on a shelf with his miniature pigs and donkeys. Kevin reported that his mother’s fourth marriage was turning out better than the earlier matches, possibly because this husband had no family to interfere. “I had my hopes pinned on
you
for a while there, Arvo, before this fellow showed up. You could have been my step-dad by now! She’d told me this time she’d decided to marry a Finn.”