“When did they start selling it?”
“Well, now… after Grandpaw died, my uncles defaulted on taxes, and the farm went to the county. They leased it to a bottlin’ company.”
“And the vines are still growing?”
“Yep. But they’ve got big equipment to control ‘em.” Mr. Babcock asked for his tab and reached in his pocket.
“My treat!” Qwilleran insisted. “And thank you for a great story.” He and Gary watched as the old man walked away with a vigorous stride. “Hope I function that way when I’m ninety,” Qwilleran said.
“Wish I functioned that good right now! Want another Squunk water?”
“Yep, as our friend would say. Although I suspect Mr. Babcock is a shill to help you sell more of it … Now tell me the local reaction to the Owen Bowen incident.”
“What you’d expect: irresponsible skipper with fast boat, endangering smaller craft. Was the guy an experienced boater?”
“One presumes so. He brought his own boat up from Florida.”
“Will the restaurant fold? I could use another cook for the summer.”
“The chef is out of your class, Gary. You couldn’t even read her menu without a Larousse.”
“Are you kidding? I don’t even know what a Larousse is!”
Qwilleran remarked casually. “John Bushland has a new boat.”
“Yeah, he docked here and had lunch one day. Funny, isn’t it, that he doesn’t get married again - good-looking guy with a successful business.”
“What is really funny, Gary, is how you new bridegrooms want everyone else to jump off the bridge. Does misery love company - or what?”
“You sound like sour grapes. Did Polly give you the gate? I haven’t seen her lately.”
She’s vacationing in Canada with her sister.”
“Uh-huh … sure.”
And so it went, until Qwilleran said, “Speaking of our friend Bushy, he took me for a cruise on his new boat, and we saw a grungy speedboat that aroused our curiosity. It was called Fast Mama. Have you seen it in these waters?”
“Can’t say that I have, and it’s the kind of name I’d notice. Around here we name our boats Happy Days or Sweet Iva May… Is it important, Qwill? I’ll phone down to the marina.” He ambled to the phone and soon ambled back again. “The name doesn’t ring anybody’s bell down at the pier. If you ask me, it sounds like a boat from Bixby County. Their taste is raunchier than ours.”
“I don’t know anything about Bixby, except that they have a button club, and our office manager is a member.”
“There’s a lot more to Bixby than button-collecting,” Gary said. “It’s chiefly industrial and big on sports, but they’re troubled with unemployment, poor schools, a high drop-out rate, and all that.”
The barkeeper wandered off to serve a trio of boaters at the other end of the bar, and Qwilleran thought, If the Suncatcher involved with Fast Mama is the one from Florida, what was Owen’s game? … and how did he make his connection? … and was the speedboat again in the vicinity on the day he disappeared? … and did Ernie notice it? … and could Owen have been abducted while she was sleeping off a wine jag below deck? … and if so, was Owen murdered?
These were questions to discuss with
Andrew Brodie over a nightcap at Qwilleran’s Pickax address, and the sooner the better. The Siamese would be glad to return to their spacious home in a converted barn. Furthermore, there was a good neighbor there who catered home-cooked meals for the three of them. They had been at the beach for more I than two weeks. There was no real need to stay longer.
Driving away from the Black Bear Café. Qwilleran made his plans. This was Wednesday. He could move his household back to Pickax on Thursday, then drive to the shore briefly on Saturday morning to announce the dogcart races. On Monday he would pick up Polly at the airport, and Tuesday evening they would celebrate at the opening night of Owen’s Place.
It was neat planning, but Robert Burns was right; the best-laid plans go off-line.
-13-
When Qwilleran arrived at the cabin after his visit to the Black Bear Café, he found a cardboard carton on the doorstep, apparently delivered by someone from the newspaper. It contained bundles of postcards in response to his column on Lisa’s great-grandmother’s diary. Enthusiasm for the witty journalist who lectured in Pickax circa 1895 had been handed down in many local families.
Indoors, the Siamese were lounging on the coffee table in a shaft of sunlight that slanted down from a window, their fur glistening. Qwilleran took a moment to admire them. “You are two gorgeous brutes!” Yum Yum lowered her head modestly.
Koko, who was keeping the Mark Twain reference book warm, stared with meaningful intensity.
Qwilleran patted his moustache as an idea crept into his consciousness. On an impulse he phoned Hixie Rice, the promotion director for the Moose County Something.
“Hixie! I’ve just thought of a sensational idea to promote the city of Pickax - and the newspaper, too, if we care to sponsor it.”
“Is it as big as the Great Food Explo?” she asked dubiously.
“Bigger.”
“As big as the Ice Festival?”
“Bigger, and guaranteed not to melt. How about meeting me for lunch tomorrow? I’d suggest Owen’s Place, but you know what happened.”
“How about Linguini’s? They still have the same menu, the same mom-and-pop operation, the same dull color scheme, and the same broken locks on the restrooms. But the food is wonderful!”
“You might also bring Fran Brodie, if she’s available on short notice.”
“We’ll be there, I promise,” Hixie said. “You’ve got me all pumped up. Can you give me a clue?”
“No,” he said.
Not surprisingly - after thawing some pork barbecue for his dinner - Qwilleran had a graphic dream Wednesday night: He was having lunch with Mark Twain at an unidentified restaurant. The man across the table was the same one who appeared on the jacket of Koko’s favorite book: white three-piece suit, cravat with diamond stickpin, good head of hair, high forehead, alert brows, rampant moustache. He was genial and talkative as they
compared notes. One was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, in Florida; the other was born Merlin James Qwilleran, in Chicago. They discussed journalism, travel, cats, lecturing - and then the picture faded, and Qwilleran was lying in his dark bed in the cabin.
The dream was a portent of an eventful day. After breakfast, the cats wanted to play rough-and-tumble, and Qwilleran obliged by whipping an old paisley necktie through the air and watched them leap, grab, collide, and roll over on the floor. Like Montaigne, whose cat liked to play with a garter, he was not sure who enjoyed it more - the cats or himself.
Next he hung the skewers, pounding five brads in a row in the log wall above the kitchen counter. Koko immediately sniffed the fingergrips and touched the thin twisted skewers with a nervous paw. “Stay away from those,” Qwilleran warned him. They’re for skewering potatoes, not members of the family.”
His morning’s work was finished quickly. The “Qwill Pen” for Friday was a reader-participation stunt, meaning that unsuspecting readers did the legwork for him. In June, he had posed a burning question, and hundreds of subscribers had mailed their replies on postcards, which were then tabulated by the office manager. Qwilleran had only to incorporate the results into his entertaining prose. The question: Why do your cats squeeze their eyes? Eight thoughtful explanations were submitted, the most popular being: “They’re smiling.”