No Man's Dog (29 page)

“Oh, that’s all right,” Joe said. “I’ve got some business in town.”

“Well, I’d better take you to your car,” Luck said. “Where is it?”

“Oh, I can walk,” Joe said.

Luck insisted. He said the men were likely to confront him. They were armed and had instructions. The fences were not easy to get past.

Joe said, “Let’s just take it as a demonstration. I won’t have any problems getting out.”

“If you like,” Luck said.

They went out on the porch and Joe said his good-byes, thanked Luck for the brief tour, and said he’d consider his offer. He sauntered up the road toward the gate. Once out of sight of the house he slipped into the woods. He saw one of the men, a fellow in woodland camo, watching the gate. The guard didn’t see Joe. He thought of approaching the fellow, but decided against it. Ten minutes later he was at his truck, parked in the usual place, well hidden off the county road. He got in and drove away without any problem. All in all, he thought, it had been easier than getting into Brooker Moos’s house.

19

Missing Dogs

I
t was mid-afternoon by the time they got to Queensleap. It had been a lovely drive, although it began to cloud up as the day wore on. The sun was still out, mostly, but Helen had been distracted by her thoughts and her incessant perusal of the road map. She hardly noticed the spectacular foliage. She was darned if she could find any road to McVey’s place. But in their rambling around the backcountry outside of Queensleap, they suddenly came upon the Luck mailbox.

“Stop,” Helen said. “Let’s go down there.”

“This ain’t really the car for it,” Roman said, eyeing the bushes crowding the road, thinking of the scratches. “What if I can’t turn around?”

Helen waved that objection off. Sure enough, they came to a locked gate and no place to turn. Roman groaned. But Helen got out. Within twenty seconds, however, a rough-looking fellow wearing a vaguely military uniform appeared. He wore a holstered side-arm on his hip and carried a cell phone. He stood on the other side of the gate and asked Helen what she wanted.

“Are you Mr. Luck?” she inquired.

“No,” the man said. “He ain’t around.”

Helen didn’t think he was being uncivil, merely a bit bumpkinish. She wondered momentarily if M. P. Luck was some kind of reclusive tycoon; who employed armed guards out in these sticks? She had more pressing interests, though, and inquired if he knew where McVey’s place was.

“McVey? McVey don’t live around here,” the man said.

“Well, is there a place in there where we could turn around?” Helen asked. “This car is so big. It’s too far to back up.”

The man looked at the vehicle, recognizing the problem. “Lemme see,” he said. He snapped the cell phone open. Apparently, it had a walkie-talkie function, because he immediately began talking, explaining the problem. After a brief discussion with whoever was on the other end, he said to Helen, “Gotta wait.”

He just stared at Helen, and at Roman behind the wheel, silently, until the phone buzzed. He lifted it to his ear. “Yeah,” he said into it. “There’s a guy, too, a driver.” To Helen he said abruptly, “What’s your name?” When Helen told him, and he’d relayed that information, he said, “Who’s he?” nodding toward Roman.

“He works for me,” Helen said. “He’s the driver. Hey, what’s the big deal? I just want to turn—”

The guard held the phone to his ear and waved her to be quiet. Then he said, “All right, he says you can come down.”

“Okay!” Helen scrambled back into the car while the man unlocked the gate.

He stopped them as the vehicle pulled forward. “Just go on down there to the house. It’s a little ways, but keep going. You can turn around there. Don’t get out, don’t stop. And come right back.”

When they got to the clearing around the house, a tall, handsome man was standing there, smiling. He wore an elegant plaid wool shirt under a sheepskin vest. His hair was full and dark, with gray at the temples. He came to Helen’s side of the car when
they pulled up and stuck out his hand when she lowered the window.

“Hi, I’m Imp Luck,” he said. “You must be Miss Sedlacek.”

While Helen shook his hand, Luck stooped and looked through to Roman. He nodded to him.

He stepped back from the car. “Sorry about the gate,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“I was looking for the McVey place,” Helen said.

“Well, you know . . .”—Luck rubbed his chin and looked around thoughtfully, as if trying to figure out how to describe where this might be—“McVey . . . if you’re looking for Charlie McVey, he lives back toward town, on the Summit City road. Is that—?”

“No, no,” Helen said, opening the door and getting out. She looked up at Luck. He was a big man and he projected an attractive aura, familiar to her, like certain football players she had known—very masculine, protective. Her father, Big Sid, had been like that. Helen responded to that. She couldn’t resist looking him up and down, flirting a bit.

“Maybe it’s some other McVey,” Helen said, her hands on her hips, squinting up at him, smiling. She had set her legs apart, in her short skirt, and twisted back and forth slightly, as if stretching. “Ohhh, I’m stiff,” she said.

Luck stepped back slightly to get the full view. He seemed flattered by her vivacity, as well as appreciating her lithe legs. He grinned broadly. “Why don’t you come in and we could look in the phone book? I could offer you a drink.”

“Oh. That would be great.”

“What about your friend?” Luck said, gesturing toward Roman.

“Oh, he’ll be all right,” Helen said, stepping toward the house. She couldn’t resist taking Luck’s arm.

“I could send out a beer for him,” Luck said. He helped her up the short step onto the porch.

Helen assured him it wasn’t necessary. Inside, standing in the kitchen, she said, “What a terrific place!” She glanced about. “It’s so neat. So . . . masculine.”

“Thanks,” Luck said, pleased. “Well, it’s a little early for a drink, actually, but what the heck! Eh? Join me in a taste of scotch? Or can I get you something milder? There’s a pinot gris chilling.”

“The pinot sounds great,” Helen said, “but so does the scotch, frankly. We’ve been driving all morning and I’m frustrated at not finding this McVey.”

“By all means, scotch. I have an excellent, smooth single malt. It comes from a distiller in the hills up by Strathmore.” He disappeared into a pantry and returned immediately, holding a dusty bottle. “Look at this label,” Luck said smiling.

The two of them stood close to each other, peering at the brown paper label, handwritten in faded black ink and pasted on the dark green bottle slightly askew. It attested to the fifteen years of aging and was signed by Robbie Robertson. The label had been printed with what one might presume was Mr. Robertson’s coat of arms, but it wasn’t quite clear what it was—a shield with a stag, a beaver, and an acorn, perhaps. In a fine but not too legible flowing script, it was declared to be “Robertson’s Choice.”

“Robbie makes only a few barrels at a time,” Luck said. “You can’t buy this stuff, except from him personally.”

Helen laughed delightedly and dared to squeeze Luck’s arm. “I’ll have that!”

When they were seated in the living room, Luck inquired, “Who is this McVey you’re looking for?”

“I’m not sure,” Helen said. She sipped the scotch. “This is so smooth. It’s like . . . I don’t know what, some kind of golden elixir.
It goes down so smoothly, and yet it has that glow. I can feel it all the way down.”

“Yes, you feel you can taste the peat smoke. You can’t, of course, but . . .”

“Oh, you can! I can, anyway. Well, some kind of smoky taste.”

Luck smiled at her, pleased with her. “Hey,” he said, “I forgot the phone book.” He jumped up. When he returned holding it, he said, stooping to look out the windows toward the yard, “Your friend seems a little anxious.”

Helen bounded up and looked. Roman had gotten out of the car and was pacing a few steps this way and then that, looking at the house but undecided whether to approach, rather like a puzzled bear. Helen went to the door and opened it, calling out to him: “I’ll be right there, Roman! Just wait in the car.”

She returned to her seat. “He worries about me,” she said. “Well?” She looked to Luck, who was seated, paging through the slender rural telephone book.

“Don’t you have a first name for this McVey?” he asked, looking up. “The only ones I see are Charlie and Verna, his wife.”

“Well, actually, I’m looking for a piece of property,” Helen said. “It’s supposed to be on the river, not too far from here. But I didn’t see any road down that way.”

“You know what I think?” Luck closed the phone book and set it aside. “I’ll bet it’s that old hunting cabin of Tom Adams’s. My father left it to Tom, along with some land—gratitude for long service. Then, of all things, when Tom died he left it to Charlie.” Luck’s expression darkened momentarily, as if recollecting an annoying circumstance. He smiled and added, “It’s not occupied. McVey never uses it, but he rents it out in deer season to hunters from down below. There won’t be anyone over there. Deer season isn’t for a couple, three weeks anyway.”

“That must be it. But how do you get to it?” Helen asked.

“I could draw you a map,” Luck said. “Or heck, I could take you over there. It’s just beyond my property. There’s an old logging road, but I don’t think your car . . . Were you supposed to meet someone?”

Helen could almost swear he winked, or came close to it. Abruptly, her warm feelings toward Luck faded. He seemed to be implying some faintly disreputable behavior on her part, perhaps a lovers’ tryst or something equally absurd.

“A friend of mine is staying there, taking a little vacation, I guess,” she said. “I have a message for him.” Spoken like that, she realized that it sounded lame. She compounded the false impression by compulsively adding, “It’s from his mother.”

“His mother?” Luck nodded, knowingly, his brows arched.

Helen hated him for that look. “It’s
about
his mother. She’s ill or, rather, she was ill.”

“Ah. And now . . . she’s better?” Luck sipped his scotch, almost audibly relishing the taste.

“Yes, she’s better,” Helen said, with an edge in her voice. Almost against her will, she babbled on: “She’d been having trouble with her memory, you know, a ‘senior moment.’” That sounded spiteful, she knew, but she rushed on: “She’s remembered something . . . something important. She wanted me to tell her son.”

“It must have been very important for you to drive so far. All morning, you said. From Detroit?” Luck tried to ease her apparent embarrassment by sounding detached.

“Yes, Detroit.” Helen wanted to get up and leave, but somehow she couldn’t. She was transfixed by Luck’s intense gaze. She tugged at the hem of her skirt, but it wouldn’t cover her knees.

“What’s your rusticating friend’s name?” he asked.

Helen wondered if he was patronizing her. “Muh—” she started to say, then finished with “—ullin.”

“Mullin? I don’t know him, I’m afraid.” Luck shook his head. “I haven’t seen anyone about, no strangers. Has he been up here long? Fishing, is he?”

“I guess so,” Helen said. “He’s been up here for a few days, I think.”

“The Manistee is famous fishing,” Luck said. “Mr. Mullin must be a fly fisherman. Guys come from all over—New York, Pennsylvania—to fish the Manistee. But usually it’s more over toward Kalkaska, for those big summer hatches—the ephemera, gray drakes.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Helen said. “Well, I guess we better get going,” she said. She managed to get to her feet. “Thanks for the drink. I’m sure Roman is getting antsy.”

“Hey, I’ll tell you what,” Luck said, rising. He was his old, warm self. “We could just walk back there. It isn’t that far . . . a pleasant walk. Your friend, Roman, could wait here.” He reached for her glass. “Sure you won’t have another?”

Helen let him take the glass. She flinched when their fingers touched. “No, no, it’s too much to ask,” Helen said. “We’ll drive around, if you’ll just point out the way.”

Luck followed her into the kitchen and set the glasses on the counter. “You know, I’m intrigued by this memory loss, this ‘senior moment,’” he said. “What is it, Alzheimer’s or something? You know, I’m getting to that point . . .” He laughed, a bit wildly.

Helen stared at him. “No, nothing like that. She’d had an accident.”

“Ah, yes. You said. I forgot. A ‘senior moment’ of my own. And you know what? I had another one. Maybe
I’m
the one with Alzheimer’s.” He offered another laugh, in which Helen did not join. “There is, or used to be, a phone in that old cabin. But I’ll bet it’s under Tom Adams’s name still. Want me to get it? You could call your friend Mullin.”

There was something about the way he said “Mullin” that seemed almost derisive, as if he didn’t believe there was a man named Mullin.

Somehow, Luck had gotten between Helen and the door. He gestured at a telephone on the counter.

Helen looked wary. “No, I think I’d rather surprise him,” she said.

“Ah. He doesn’t know you’re coming?” Luck said. He leaned back against the door. “That’ll be a nice surprise. It’s not often a pretty girl comes knocking at the cabin in the woods. Sort of like Little Red Riding Hood.”

He was making some kind of joke, Helen realized, but she wondered suddenly if he wasn’t a little crazy, just babbling, as she had been a moment earlier. He didn’t look crazy, but . . . the association of the fairy tale and the woods, the two of them alone . . . For a confused moment his smile seemed fixed, even wolfish.

She laughed cheerfully. “Yes, that’s . . . kind of
primal,
isn’t it? Well,” she said, in a more practical tone, “do I just go on down this road, the one we turned off at your mailbox?”

Luck’s smile shifted to wry. He folded his arms and looked thoughtful, as if pondering how to explain the terribly complicated route through the forest to Grandmother’s house. He said, “Well, you could go that way, but it’s so far around. You have to go clear back out to the highway, then south toward Cadillac. The road to the cabin is not marked, no sign or anything. You’d miss it, sure as shootin’. And heck, through the woods it’s . . . oh, not more than a fifteen-minute walk.”

“Oh, I’m really not dressed for it,” Helen said, glancing down at her skirt, her white sneakers. “And besides, there’d I be and Roman would still be here, with the car. No, we’d better drive and take our chances on finding that road. After you turn on the highway, how far would it be to the road?”

“Well, suit yourself,” Luck said. “You go about, oh, a mile on the highway, something like that. It won’t be the first road—there’s a bunch of more or less unused roads in these woods. Only the hunters use them. You might have to try one or two. But you’ll have the same problem with that Cadillac. No room to turn around, places where the car might get high-centered. You could lose a muffler, if you don’t go slow! Hey! Why am I fooling around? By now I could have driven over there and shown you the way! How would that be?”

“Oh, I couldn’t put you out,” Helen said. “I’m sure we’ll find it.”

“Nonsense! Just give me a sec. I’ll have to let the guys know I’m going out. Well, heck, I can call them on the radio. Come on!” He grabbed a field jacket off a peg next to the door and clapped a Filson hat on his head at a rakish angle.