“The man said you must have banged it real hard against something because the innards are all fucked up, pardon my French, and he couldn’t do anything with it.”
“Uncle Barney said that you were feeling poorly and that I should stay with you in your room until he got back, in case you had to vomit or something.”
After they had gone, Moses opted for the public school boy’s remedy, a cold shower, and then he decided not to join the others for dinner. Instead he ate a cold roast beef sandwich in the kitchen with the grizzly Motor-Mouth. Motor-Mouth’s wife ran a florist’s shop that they both owned in Campbellton. “Having a good summer?” Moses asked.
“Terrific. We’re averaging three funerals a week.”
Short-tempered, his casting jerky, Moses lost a big fish in the Bar Pool and never got another strike. Barney came back with a fish that looked to be no more than ten pounds, but—according to young Armand—it had weighed in at twelve.
Moses retired early, but he was too restless to sleep. So he slipped into his clothes, went down to look at the water, and then climbed to the dining lodge to see if there was a Perrier in the refrigerator. Barney was standing at the bar. Drunk again.
“I’m developing a property for Warners. Dustin’s crazy for it, but I’m thinking Redford and Fonda. It’s a baseball story, the greatest ever told. I’ve got to keep it under wraps, but let me describe the big scene to you. Redford’s a pitcher, see, the greatest southpaw since Koufax. Only he can no longer throw red hot. He’s got arm trouble. Each time he’s gone to the mound this season the other teams have shelled him. So the manager, played by Walter Matthau, has benched him. Now we are into the deciding game of the World Series and the team’s young hotshot, Al Pacino, has been throwing and he is suddenly in trouble. His team is leading 7–4, but it’s the bottom of the ninth, the bad guys have the bases loaded, and up to the plate steps this big buck, a Reggie Jackson type, who can murder southpaws even when they’re at their best. What does Matthau do? He takes the ball away from Pacino and turns to the bullpen indicating his left arm. The crowd begins to murmur. No, no. Is he crazy? He’s bringing in Redford. Redford takes his warm-up pitches and then Reggie steps into the box. Tension? You can cut it with a knife. Reggie spits and Redford just grins at him. He rears back and pitches. Ball one. Reggie steps out of the box, looks at the third-base coach and steps in again. The catcher gives Redford a signal and he shakes it off. He throws. Ball two. The crowd is roaring. They are cursing Matthau. The windup. The pitch. Holy shit, it’s ball three! The fans are going bananas because they know Redford just has to throw a strike now. He’s won maybe two hundred games for them over the years and now some of those bastards are booing him. Cut to the stands, where Jane Fonda is weeping. She’s eight months pregnant, but the kid isn’t even his. It’s Reggie’s, which will be very controversial as well as give the picture a redeeming social value. Cut to Reggie at the plate. Imitating Babe Ruth, that cocky jigaboo points at the flagpole out there. He’s going to hit a dinger. Cut to Redford’s baby-blues and they say you fucked my wife. Now it comes. This is it. The catcher trots out to the plate and hands Redford another glove and Redford puts it on his left hand. The fucker has been practising a secret pitch for just such a spot as this. HE’S AMBIDEXTROUS! A SWITCH-PITCHER! THE FIRST IN THE HISTORY OF OUR NATIONAL PASTIME SINCE ABNER DOUBLEDAY INVENTED IT! But can he deliver? Sixty thousand fans in the stadium and you can hear a pin drop. Redford rears back. He throws. STEE-RIKE! Reggie calls time out and asks for another bat. A lot of good it will do him. STEE-RIKERINOO NUMBAH TWO! Reggie asks to see the ball. Catcalls. Boos. Laughter. He steps back into the box and this time he’s swinging for downtown you bet, but he’s out of there. STEE-RIKE-OLA NUMBAH THREE! Game over.” Barney, who had been acting out all the parts, slumped exhausted at the bar and poured himself another drink. “I’m going to call it The Big Switcheroo.”
“How old were you when Solomon’s plane went down?”
“Old enough to know that it was mighty convenient for somebody.” Barney stretched. He yawned.
“You know, Berger, I’ve got you figured out. Lionel sent you down here after he found out I was coming. You’re a paid snoop.”
“Good-night, Barney.”
But Barney followed him out on to the porch. “Hold on a minute. It’s copyrighted.”
“What?”
“The Big Switcheroo. And remember what I said. Have it dyed.”
Moses took his pill and slipped into bed. He didn’t hear Barney come in. Neither did he appreciate how deeply he must have slept until a subdued Darlene turned up for breakfast. The last to appear, her eyes were puffy and her lower lip swollen.
“See you later,” Barney said, “I’ve got to go and catch me a big fish.”
Outside Moses ran into Jim. “A Mr. Harvey Schwartz has called three times from Montreal. He knows that you’re here and he says that it’s urgent.”
There was not a cloud in the sky and the sun had already burnt the mist off the winding river when Jim anchored at their first drop on the Cross Point Pool.
Moses took a grilse and a big fish before noon. While Jim went to weigh them, he slipped away to have a few words with Darlene.
At lunch Jim reported that Moses had taken a five-pound grilse and a twenty-four-pound salmon. Barney had only managed to kill a small fish that weighed in at nine pounds. Rob took his first fish and Larry never got a strike. So Moses was now top rod, if only just. “Yeah,” Barney said, “but he’s shot his legal wad for today and I intend to take a whopper tonight.”
Moses didn’t turn up for dinner.
“Where’s the old hand?” Barney asked.
“Like you said, he’s not allowed to fish any more. I lent him my canoe so he could visit with Gainey downriver.”
“Well, let’s hope his cheque is good.”
Moses waited on the road, exactly where he had promised, and as soon as Darlene spotted him she slowed down, pulling up and letting him take the driver’s seat.
“How was he lost in the mail?” he asked, immediately.
“Oh, him. Holy Toledo!” Lyndon had been killed in a hunting accident in Vermont and Mary Lou arranged to have him cremated, the skull left intact so that it could sit on the mantelpiece each holiday season. “If only for little Rob’s sake,” she said. “But he was lost in the mail. The undertaker man swore up and down that he had sent him off in a box they had made especially because of how the bones stuck out of regulation size. Some of them didn’t crumble in the fire. He was a Baptist, you know.” A tear slid down her cheek. “Mary Lou wrote to the postmaster-general in Washington and phoned our congressman I don’t know how many times, but to this point in time nobody could ever find him. So poor old Lyndon is lying in some damp ratty post office basement somewhere, unclaimed after all these years because of insufficient postage or some shit like that.”
Moses turned the Mercedes on to a narrow bumpy track and eased it down a steep incline, tucking it among the trees where it could not be seen from either the road or the river. Then he led Darlene to where he had laid out the quilted blanket.
“Oh, you’re such a dreadful man,” she squealed, setting down her camera.
Moses lifted the vodka bottle out of the ice bucket, dipped in for some ice cubes, and poured her a long one. He sat down and watched enviously, his heart aching, as she gulped it. Then she contrived to tumble into his lap, the glass rolling away, her drink spilling on the blanket. He was still mourning the lost liquor as she squirmed out of her jeans and he slid her jersey over her head. He began to fondle and kiss her breasts.