Corkscrew (3 page)

Nobody had at the north lock, either, so I crossed the bridge there and drove back down the other side of the lake, the side his cottage lay on. I met his mother, about two miles up from their cottage, still calling. For the exercise more than anything, I walked back with her as far as the lock. It was only about a quarter of a mile. Sam needed the airing, and she was getting anxious, more because of what her husband would say, I thought, than for her son.

"He's Ken's stepson," she explained nervously. "It's just a coincidence that they're both named the same. My first husband's name is Harry."

"Does your son get on well with his stepfather?" I asked her, and she shot a glance at me.

"What makes you ask?" Her mouth was a straight line. I could read the tension in her face.

"A standard question. If they don't get on, Kennie might be tempted to stay away longer for fear of a licking when he goes home, that's all."

"That won't happen," she said firmly. She glared like a lioness protecting her cub. "I won't let him beat Kennie."

"Has he tried it before?"

"He did once, when we were just married. Kennie threw a tantrum at dinner, and the next thing, Ken pulled him away from the table and whacked him, hard, before I could stop him."

"Then you stepped in?"

"Yes," she said, and then suddenly closed her mouth on her next word and shook her head, angry at herself.

"And did your husband stop right away?" I let the question dangle a moment before adding the one I really wanted answered. "Or did he take a swing at you?"

She gasped. "I've never told a soul," she said. "I told my friends I'd walked into a door."

We came around the last bend in the road that led to the lock, and I stopped. "It's a story I've heard a lot of times, Mrs. Spenser," I said. "It won't go any further. I just needed to know so I can be around when your son turns up. It won't happen again then."

She looked up at me and smiled, a nervous little twitch at the corners of her mouth. It lit up her whole appearance. "Thank you," she said. "But I'll be fine. Just find Kennie."

We walked down to the lock together. There were a couple of fishermen there with an illegal case of beer open beside them. They put a coat over it as we came up, and I ignored it. Beer and fishing go together, and these were steady-looking guys, not drunks. I asked them if they'd seen the boy, and they hadn't. Neither had the lockkeeper, so we walked back to the car, and I drove her to the house.

Her husband was already there, with a fresh drink. This time he made an effort to be pleasant. "I've walked all the way down to the lock," he told us. "Called and called, nothing."

I had Sam in the backseat of the car, and I let him out. "How about giving me something Kennie's worn—a dirty shirt would be fine—and I'll turn the dog loose to look for him."

The husband shook his head. He didn't look worried at all. "It won't help. He's been missing since I dropped him off in town, the other side of the lake. He could be anywhere." He didn't look at me, just lifted his gin and sipped, slowly, shutting me out.

"I understood he'd left from here," I said. He was beginning to be a pain.

"Yeah, well, I thought about it. Carol was off painting, and it got too quiet for me and Kennie, so we took a ride around to the town." To the liquor store, I thought, but didn't speak. He waved one hand casually. "The facts are still the same. He's always home by lunchtime, and today he isn't."

"Where did you see him last?" I cracked the question at him, trying to shatter the glassy haze he had set up between us. He looked up in surprise. I guess film students don't talk that way.

"Like I said, in town." He spread his hands apologetically. "I'm sorry if I've wasted any of your valuable time. I'm sure you've got better things to do."

I turned to his wife. "Do you have that shirt, Mrs. Spenser? I'll head over to the liquor store and turn my dog loose there."

Her husband sat up, sloshing some of his gin overboard. "Now just a goddamn minute," he started, but she cut him off.

"That's where you went, isn't it?" she said quietly.

"I don't like this cop's attitude," he said, and stood up to face me.

"And I don't like yours," I told him. "So sit and drink your gin and try to remember where you saw your stepson last."

He whirled at the woman. "So you've been whiling away the afternoon giving this guy your pedigree, have you?" He thumbed at me over his shoulder. "Your type, is he, tall, dark, rough trade. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

She stepped past him, not looking at either of us, and went into the cottage. I stood there and he turned back, but not to face me. Instead, he finished his drink in three quick gulps and reached in his pocket for car keys. "Nothing to it but do the goddamn job myself," he said, and headed for the car.

"Forget it," I told him, and he paused for a moment, then turned back and stood with both hands on his hips like a little girl, facing me down.

"Are you telling me not to drive my car?" he bellowed.

"Yeah." I walked over to him and spoke softly so that he had to pay attention to hear me. "And I'm also telling you to keep your voice down and stop acting like a common drunk or I'll take action. Understand?"

He looked at me for a moment, debating whether to go the distance and take a swing. I guess he thought better of it. He dropped his eyes and threw his keys on the ground. "You go to hell," he said. "I'm damned if I'll help you anymore." Then he turned and walked away into the cottage, letting the door bang.

He couldn't have helped me much less, but I was glad he'd quit. I picked up the keys and stood tossing them in my hand until his wife came back with a sweatshirt. "Kennie wore this last night when it got dark," she said. "Everything else is clean."

"That's fine. Thank you." I took the shirt and handed her the keys. "Your husband dropped these. Maybe you should keep them for a while."

She looked at me and gave her fleeting little smile again. "Thank you. I'm glad you were here." She stood for a moment, then said, "I think I should stay with him. He gets kind of jealous sometimes, for no reason."

"Good idea." I hissed at Sam, and he came to heel. "Now don't worry. I'm sure Kennie's gone for a walk with some other kids. This isn't any kind of big deal, tracking him. It just gives me a chance to give my dog some exercise."

She nodded without speaking and went back to the house. I could hear him shouting at her as soon as she went through the door. Who says it's only the working man who gives his wife a hard time?

I drove back to the town lock and dropped in on Murphy. He still hadn't seen the boy, but I could tell he had some news for me. It came out after he'd rolled one of his homemades and lit up. "We've got a pair of bikers in town," he said. "They went over the bridge and then north without stopping. Two of them."

He took his cigarette out of his mouth and examined the tip. "I hope they're not scouting the place for one o' their shivarees."

Chapter Three

Murphy gave me the description. He was with the police office long enough that he's a solid eyewitness. Both thirtyish, grubby, leather jackets, one with no sleeves over a bare chest, the other long sleeves over a T-shirt, the first with a black helmet, the second wearing a Wehrmacht steel pot. "I've put bullets through a couple of hats like that," Murphy said grimly. "I wouldn't mind with this bastard, either."

"Don't take it personally. This guy hates everybody, not just veterans," I said. "Thanks for the information. I'll check the Tavern and the beer parlor, see they're not up to any tricks."

There were no bikes outside either place, so I didn't bother going in. Instead, I went back to the liquor store and parked. The usual string of sunburned visitors were threading in and out, and they all nodded or acknowledged me as I called Sam out of the car and let him sniff Kennie Spenser's sweatshirt. Then I told him, "Seek." He ran in quick circles, then scratched at the door of the store. I let him in, nodding to the help and the customers, and watched as he followed the trail and went to the other door. Outside he circled some more, then ran a little way to a spot on the parking lot. There was no knowing whether the kid had started or ended his visit there, getting in and out of the family car, or maybe both, so I walked Sam around the whole area. No matter where he picked up the track, he went to the same place. Kennie had both started and finished his visit in the same car, which meant that his stepfather had taken him on somewhere else. I wondered if that other place was close enough that the guy hadn't remembered clearly or if I was going to have to talk to him again. The guy might have been boiled enough that he had trouble remembering all the details. So I walked Sam down to the store, and he picked up the track again just outside. I didn't go into the store with him but coaxed him on, from the doorway off to the side of the road. This time he followed for about a hundred yards, around the first corner to the street of inexpensive insul-brick-covered houses with their "Rooms for Rent" signs in the windows. But again Sam ran into a dead end, about six feet from the curb. And this time I was certain: the boy had gotten into a car. But there was no knowing whether it was the same one or somebody else's.

I heard the crackle of my car radio and went back to get the message. I connected, and a girl's voice said, "Are you in private, or am I coming over the airwaves?" The voice made me grin. It was Fred, an actress I got involved with after a hassle the previous winter. Fred, for Freda, thirty-two with Rita Hayworth hair, the color of a pint of English beer. I hadn't seen her for six months, but she phoned me often. I liked her a lot, but she had her life, and it didn't center on a place as small as this.

"You're on the air, kid. You want to try one of your radio parts for me."

She laughed, brightly enough that a visitor to the liquor store heard and whirled to see where the pretty girl must be. I turned the volume down on the radio, and she went on. "Then I'll keep it wholesome. Remember that key you gave me? I just used it. I'm here for the weekend, looking for some sun and games."

"There's some stuff in the fridge. Pretend you're doing that Mexican-food commercial and put some tortillas together. I'll be there in five minutes."

"Chauvinist," she said, and hung up.

I put Sam in the car and got in, grinning. She was too good an actress to be happy for long playing house in Murphy's Harbour, but we had made a real twosome for the month she'd been with me. And now she was back. Good news.

I checked my watch. It was four-thirty, eight hours since I'd last eaten. I'd take a half-hour lunch break before getting back to work, although I didn't know what I was going to do about tracing the boy. Perhaps I should go back to the house and see if his stepfather had sobered up enough to remember anything else. Otherwise, there wasn't a lot more I could do besides walking around looking for him, like any other citizen.

The radio called again as I was putting the car in gear. I picked up the receiver. "Police chief."

"Chief, can you come up here right away?" There was panic in the voice, but I recognized it. Joe Davies, who ran the township's only campground and trailer park, up north of the far lock. I wondered what was making him tense.

"Can do, Joe. What's the problem?"

He spluttered a little, nervous and half-embarrassed. "I've, er, got a couple of gennlemen here who wanna stay an' I've told 'em no but they won't leave."

My bikers had landed, by the sound of it. "Be there in five," I said.

Davies was waiting for me at the gate, a big archway built of cedar logs that he'd cut when he cleared the site. Beyond him I could see the neat rows of trailers on their hard standings, plus some tents. A bunch of little kids were playing with a Frisbee, and there in the daisy chain were the two bikers, like a couple of ugly bears at a picnic. Except for the anxious faces on the parents in the background, nothing could have been cooler.

"It's them bikers," Davies told me. He was sunburned and lean from all the outdoor work but nervous as a bank teller during a holdup.

"What do they want? Just to stay?"

He nodded. "Yeah, they say there's fourteen o' them. But shit, they'll scare off all my regulars. This is a family place."

"They look harmless enough right now."

"Now's now," Davies said quickly. "But three o'clock in the morning, when they're all drunk an' tearin' the place up, they won't be harmless."

"Do you have any rules for this place, something we can hold them up by?" Civil liberties are a pain sometimes; laws are made for oddballs like these. Their freedoms are worth more to the lawmakers than the peace of mind of a hundred ordinary people.

"No booze," he said. "No booze at all."

"Then why's that citizen holding a beer?" I pointed to one of the dads in the background who was sucking on a Labatt Blue, getting his guts together for a fight if the bikers turned nasty.

"Oh, shit. I'll throw him out if I hafta. He shouldn't be drinkin'." Davies was trembling with anxiety.

"Won't stand up. But I'll have a word with them." Again I left Sam in the car, his head sticking out of the open window so he could be with me in a second if I whistled. I walked into the ring, caught the Frisbee, and tossed it to the nearest biker, the guy I'd flattened. "Hi. Got your tire fixed okay?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said, and whipped the Frisbee on, then stepped out of the circle to come over to me. On his feet he was less of a menace, about five six and dirty, but I could always get a tetanus shot if I had to bust my hand on him. "Yeah," he said again, growling at me in that same cultivated tone his boss had used. "We're lookin' to make a reservation, but the little guy says no." He paused and grinned, showing a complete set of brown teeth. "I guess he ain't heard of our civil rights."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Davies talking to the beer drinker, who immediately hid the bottle and turned away. "Yeah, well, he's got this rule here, no drinking. And you guys aren't exactly charter members of the Temperance Union."