The Cat Who Went Underground (15 page)

“All right,” he said. “I’ll go as an observer. Who’ll be there?”

“Just some people from the Dunes. Now I must dash off for my appointment.”

It was almost noon when Qwilleran heard what sounded like rifle shots in the woods, or a small cannon. The blasts became louder and the onslaught came closer until a ramshackle truck chugged into the clearing and stopped with one final backfire and a rattle of loose parts.

“Good morning,” said Qwilleran pleasantly as he sauntered over to the vehicle, a rusty pickup with camper top.

Out stepped an emaciated man in a dirty T-shirt and torn jeans. What jarred Qwilleran was the man’s teeth – the largest set, real or false, that he had ever seen. Thirty-two jumbo-size teeth grinned as the man approached, with a cigarette in hand, appraising the property as if he considered buying it.

Qwilleran’s first thought was: They can’t be real. His second thought was: They’re not even his. “Are you Iggy?” he asked in the same hospitable tone.

“That’s what they CALL ME!” the man said. He gestured toward the skeleton of a structure adjoining the cabin. “That the job you WANT DONE?” He had a peculiar speech pattern, starting almost inaudibly and ending in a shout.

“That’s the job,” Qwilleran said. “It’s ready for shingles, and I hope you can get them on before it rains again. You have to pick them up from the lumberyard. The previous builder ordered them to match the ones on the main cabin.”

“Can’t match them old suckers,” Iggy said. “Shingles CHANGE COLOR!”

“The people at the lumberyard understand the problem, and they’re giving us the best match they can.”

Iggy stood there with his thin body curved in a concave slump, one hand in a hip pocket, a cigarette in the other, and a seeming reluctance to leave.

“Gotta have some GREEN STUFF,” he said, lipping the cigarette and rubbing his fingers together.

“The shingles will be billed directly to me, and I’ll pay you for your labor at the end of each work day.”

Still Iggy lingered.

“Is there any question?” Qwilleran asked.

“Got any CIGARETTES?”

“Sorry, I don’t smoke.”

“Can’t work without SMOKE IN MY EYES,” he said with a squinting grin.

Qwilleran handed him a few dollar bills. “Better get on your horse. The lumberyard closes for lunch from noon to one o’clock.”

“See ya LATER.”

How much later was a question that Qwilleran would have been wise to ask. As soon as the truck had spluttered down the drive with explosive reports every thirty seconds, he thawed a frozen deli sandwich in the microwave and gulped it down in order to finish by the time Iggy returned with the load of shingles.

After all, the lumberyard was only two miles away, on Sandpit Road. As it evolved, there was no need to hurry. It was three hours before Iggy’s truck returned, gasping and choking and backfiring.

“Couldn’t find the sucker of a LUMBERYARD,” he explained with his horsy grin that stretched the skin over the bones of his face. He started to unload bundles of shingles, and Qwilleran marveled at the weight the scrawny fellow could lift. He went indoors to work at the typewriter and had barely inserted a sheet of paper around the platen when Iggy appeared in the doorway with a toothy question. “Where’s the NAILS?”

“Didn’t you pick up nails when you picked up the shingles?” Qwilleran asked in astonishment.

“You didn’t say nothin’ ABOUT NAILS.”

“Then beat it back to the lumberyard before they close. They open at six in the morning and close at four in the afternoon.”

“Won’t get this sucker up at no six o’clock in THE MORNING,” Iggy said with his leathery grimace.

“Go! Go!” Qwilleran ordered. And he returned to his typewriter, growling at the cats who were sitting placidly on his notes without a worry in their sleek heads.

In two minutes the set of teeth appeared in the doorway again. “Gotta LADDER?”

Qwilleran drew a deep breath and counted to ten. “Don’t you have a ladder in your truck? I never heard of a carpenter without a ladder.”

“The sucker’s too big to TOTE AROUND!”

“There’s a stepladder in the toolshed.”

“Need an EXTENSION LADDER!”

“Then buy one at the lumberyard and tell them to put it on my bill, and hurry before they close. Let’s get some slight amount of work done today!” He was feeling snappish.

Trying to resume his. writing, Qwilleran concentrated with difficulty until the truck returned, fracturing the silence with its ear-splitting racket. After that, reassuring noises could be heard on the roof. Bang bang bang. At least the man knew how to use a hammer.

After a while, consumed with curiosity, Qwilleran went outdoors to inspect the carpenter’s progress. What he saw sent him sprinting to the building site, shouting and waving his arms. “Wrong color! Wrong color!” The shingles were bright blue.

“The suckers was on sale,” Iggy called down from the roof. “You can PAINT ‘EM!”

Bang bang bang.

“Stop! I don’t want to paint them. I want the right color! They’re supposed to be brown. I’ll phone the lumberyard… No, it’s too late. They’re closed… Take them off! Take them off! I’ll phone the yard in the morning.”

So ended the first day. Qwilleran computed the man’s time: half an hour of work, five hours of travel back and forth.

“This is going to be worse than I thought,” he told the cats, who sensed his discomposure and remained sympathetically quiet. “I’ve paid him for five and a half hours, and we have nothing to SHOW FOR IT! Dammit! I’m talking like iggy.”

When the carpenter reported for work on Wednesday morning – or, rather, when he arrived and observed the ritual of smoking several leisurely cigarettes – Qwilleran told him to return all unopened bundles of blue shingles to the lumberyard and bring the brown ones previously ordered. Iggy was quite agreeable. He flashed his teeth and nodded to everything, then smoked another cigarette.

The lumberyard was five minutes away, even in a junk vehicle like Iggy’s spastic truck, but it was two hours before the man returned with the correct shingles.

“Got a HAMMER?” he asked.

“A hammer! What happened to yours?” Qwilleran demanded. “You were using it yesterday.”

“Had to hock the sucker FOR BREAKFAST.”

Qwilleran huffed into his moustache with impatience. There was a hammer in the mudroom closet, but the idea of lending his own hammer to a carpenter hired to do carpentry was something he found offensive. “Here, take this money,” he said. “Get your hammer out of hock.”

It was a matter of two more hours before Iggy returned, grinning and puffing smoke, and after an inexplicable delay he tackled the shingles. Bang bang bang.

Qwilleran listened with one ear as he tried to concentrate on his writing at the dining table. The carpenter had an eccentric habit of talking to himself as he worked.

All the time he was pounding he was mumbling, “Get in there, you sucker!… Whoa! Not there. Wrong place… Attaboy! Now y’got it… Need another nail… Where’s that shingle?”

There were also long stretches of silence during which he lighted up and inhaled deeply and enjoyed the landscape from his perch on the roof. During each interruption Koko’s tail went tap tap tap.

“Cut it out!” Qwilleran yelled at him. “You’re making me NERVOUS!”

To escape from the exasperating performance Qwilleran went into Mooseville for lunch, picking up the midweek issue of the Moose County Something and noting that rain was predicted. Making his usual stop at the post office he found two items of interest – one of them a postcard from Polly Duncan.

Dear Qwill – Very busy meeting people, giving talks, seeing the beautiful countryside. “This other Eden… This precious stone set in the silver sea… This blessed plot… This England.” But I think wistfully of your quiet summer in Mooseville.

Love – Polly

Qwilleran huffed into his moustache. He had hoped for a long letter, not a postcard, with less Shakespeare and more personal news and a few endearments, but it was better than no word at all. Also in his post-office box was the following note:

Dear Mr. Qwilleran, I’m writing you in behalf of Mrs. Emma Wimsey who so much appreciated your time and kind attention on Sunday. You were so gracious! It’s safe to say that your visit was one of the highlights of her long life. She talks about you constantly.

Sincerely, Irma Hasselrich, MCSCF Chief Canary

He read this note twice. In the middle of a day that was less than satisfactory, Ms. Hasselrich’s flattery made him feel good. The acronym he could decipher: Moose County Senior Care Facility. But what was a Chief Canary?

When Qwilleran returned to the cabin, the roof was half-shingled, but Iggy was not on the site and not in his truck. Iggy, he soon discovered, was on the screened porch, asleep on the redwood chaise. He had removed his shoes and covered his face with a piece of shingle-wrapping. He had holes in his socks. He was snoring gently.

Qwilleran kicked the man’s feet. “Up! Up! What do you think this is? A summer resort? I’m not paying you to sleep! Let’s get that roof shingled before it rains!”

Iggy sat up, grinned, and felt for his cigarettes.

Now Qwilleran was as grouchy as he had been before going to lunch. He returned to his writing table and started a fretful letter to Polly. A “quiet summer,” she had said. He’d give her an enlightening rundown on his “quiet summer.” Then his eye fell on Irma Hasselrich’s note. He read it once more and telephoned the Senior Care Facility in Pickax. Ms. Hasselrich answered from the reception desk.

“This is Jim Qwilleran,” he said. “I’ve just received your thoughtful note, and it brightened an otherwise frustrating day. But I’d like to ask a question: What is the function of a Chief Canary?”

She trilled a tuneful laugh and said, “Our volunteers wear yellow smocks when they’re on duty, and they’re called canaries – a cheerful image, don’t you think? I’m president of the volunteers this year, and so I’m entitled to wear a yellow blazer – as chief canary.” She had the kind of voice he liked in a woman – cultivated, well-modulated, melodic. He remembered the yellow blazer she had worn at the reunion, and how well it had looked with her shining dark hair and shining dark eyes and artful makeup. She was a goodlooking woman, and she had her father’s upbeat personality. Qwilleran had lunched with Hasselrich several times; he thought he would like to have dinner with his daughter. She was the right age – not too young but still youthful.

He said, “Tell Mrs. Wimsey that her story about Punkin will be in the paper this weekend.”

“How wonderful! Thank you so much for alerting us.”

Qwilleran went back to work in a more productive mood and maintained his equanimity until four o’clock, when Iggy wanted to quit for the day.

“Get back on that roof!” Qwilleran barked. “You don’t get a nickel until those shingles are on. I don’t care if you have to pawn your truck to buy your dinner! Finish that roof! It’s going to rain tonight.”

It was eight o’clock when Iggy drove the last nail and collected his earnings.

“Before you go,” Qwilleran said, “let me show you the sketches of the addition.”

He explained where the doorway would be cut in the existing cabin wall – to connect the old and the new. He explained that the cut-through would be left until the very last – for several reasons. He explained the choice of exterior siding and the style of window. “The lumberyard has the dimensions and will have the siding ready for you tomorrow morning. Don’t come here first. Go to the lumberyard. Pick up the siding and the nails and bring them here.”

The unflappable Iggy drove off, waving a friendly farewell, and Qwilleran strolled about the premises in peace, trying to imagine the finished wing, climbing between the studs to experience the orientation of rooms, gazing through the openings that would be windows, picturing the view. There was only one annoyance; the backyard was littered with cigarette butts, and rain would turn them into a soggy pudding. He found a sack and filled it with the unsavory litter. He had smoked pipe tobacco himself until recently, and he voiced no objection if his friends smoked, but Iggy’s non-stop habit represented sloth and delay, for which he was paying by the hour. As a journalist he had always done ninety minutes work for an hour’s pay, and he deplored Iggy’s laxity, even though the Klingenschoen estate was paying for it.

On Thursday morning he handed the carpenter a coffee can and said, “For every butt that lands on the ground instead of in this can, I deduct a dime from your pay.” He realized he risked alienating the man and losing his services, but Iggy was always tractable. He would merely grin with those extraordinary teeth and light another cigarette.

Despite weather predictions, the rain held off, and the exterior siding went up slowly, at the rate of three boards per cigarette, with plenty of conversation at the same time: “Where’s that sucker?… Get in there!… Gimme the hammer. Where’s the hammer?… There we go! Right size… Need another nail… That’ll fix the sucker.”

Before installing a board, Iggy would stand back, look up at the studding, then saw the proper length and nail it in place. Smaller lengths he measured with his foot or the spread of his hand.

Qwilleran said, “Don’t you ever measure?”

“Don’t need to measure,” the carpenter said with his ivory grin. “I just EYEBALL THE SUCKER!”

With mixed amazement and disapproval Qwilleran went indoors to make a cup of coffee, but when he plugged his computerized coffeemaker into the wall outlet, sparks flew! The radio went dead. The refrigerator stopped humming. Without a moment’s hesitation he reached for the phone and called Glinko for an electrician.

“Allrighty,” said Mrs. Glinko. “I’ll dispatch Mad Mac. He’s out on the east shore, puttin’ in circuit breakers for somebody – another one of you rich people.

Ha ha ha!”

“This rich person would also like a chimney sweep,” Qwilleran said. “There’s something wrong with the fireplace.”

“Allrighty. I’ll dispatch Little Harry if he ain’t busy.”

Mooseville natives were fond of honorifics, which were bestowed on certain persons by consensus: Old Sam, Big Joe, Crazy Marvin, Mighty Lou, Fat William, and so on. Little Harry was a young man of slight build who wore a tall silk topper, the traditional badge of his profession, somewhat incongruous with his smudged T-shirt and jeans. He quickly discovered why the damper was jammed; a raccoon had built a nest in the chimney.