As Qwilleran sauntered back toward the cabin his pique was somewhat soothed by the tranquility of the beach and the performance of the gulls. Climbing the slope of the dune was an awkward exercise. In the fine dry sand he climbed three steps upward and slid two steps backward. Avalanches of sand cascaded down to the beach. Other beach-dwellers had installed steps to combat the erosion. He really would need to find a carpenter …
A familiar van stood in the clearing, and Joanna was in the kitchen repairing the second leak under the sink.
“How did it happen so soon after you fixed it?” he demanded with a hint of accusation.
“You need new pipe. This old stuff is no good.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you install some new pipe?”
“I just did,” she said simply, lying on the floor, propped on one elbow, with her head under the sink.
When Qwilleran saw the bill, he said, “What kind of pipe am I buying?
Gold-plated?”
“It’s plastic,” she said in her humorless way. “Could I have a drink of water?”
He handed her a glass. “Help yourself. I think you know where it is.”
“You gonna be here all summer?” She was wearing lipstick again-a purplish red.
“That’s my intention,” he said with pointed brevity, thinking she might be planning to pay daily social visits.
She looked around the cabin, staring at the Indian throw rugs with their splashes of red. “Pretty rugs.”
A raucous voice was coming from her van. “I believe your short-wave radio wants your attention,” he said.
After she had driven off in her van to the next job, Qwilleran began to suspect the entire Glinko method of doing business. When Joanna fixed the sink the first time, could she have left a fitting loose so that it would start dripping again?
Was this a Glinko technique? Did Mrs. Glinko train her people, like a north-country Fagin?
Suspicious, frustrated, and disgruntled, he needed the therapy of a long lunch hour at the Press Club with half a dozen fellow journalists, but there was no Press Club within four hundred miles of Moose County. There was, however, his old friend Arch Riker. He made a call to the newspaper office in Pickax.
After years without an adequate newspaper, Moose County now had a publication of professional caliber that reached the reading public twice a week, answering their need for local news and local advertising. It was called the Moose County Something, a name that had started as a joke and had persisted. Editor and publisher of the Something was Qwilleran’s lifelong friend from Down Below. He telephoned Arch Riker. “Are you free for dinner tonight, Arch? It’s been a long time.”
“Sure has!” said Riker. Because of his approaching marriage and the pressures of launching a new publication he had not been available for bachelor dinners for many weeks. “I’m free, and I’m hungry. What did you have in mind?”
“I’ve moved up to the cabin for the summer. Why don’t you meet me here, and we’ll go to the Northern Lights Hotel. They have spaghetti on Mondays…
How’s your lovely fiancee?”
“Lovely, hell! We broke it off this weekend,” Riker growled into the phone.
“I’ll see you at six o’clock … Wait a minute! Where’s your cabin? I’ve never been there.”
“Take the main highway north to the lake, then left for three miles until you see a K on a cedar post.”
The editor’s car pulled into the clearing shortly after six, and Qwilleran went out to meet his paunchy, red-faced, middle-aged friend.
“Man, this is my idea of the perfect summer place!” Riker exclaimed as he admired the weathered logs, hundred-foot pine trees, and endless expanse of water.
“Come in and mix yourself a martini,” Qwilleran said. “We’ll relax on the porch for a while.”
The editor entered the cabin in a state of awe and envy as he saw the massive stone fireplace, the open ceiling trussed with logs, the moosehead over the mantel, and the bar top made from a single slab of pine. “You’re one lucky dog!”
He mixed his drink with the concentration of a research chemist while Qwilleran leaned on the bar, watching the process, knowing enough not to interrupt. Then, “What happened between you and Amanda?” he asked with the genuine concern of an old friend.
“She’s the most cantankerous, opinionated, obstinate, unpredictable woman I’ve ever met,” Riker said. “Enough is enough!”
Qwilleran nodded. He knew Amanda Goodwinter. “Too bad. She’s losing a good man.
Do you ever hear trom KO-sie?”
“She writes to the kids, and they keep me informed. Rosie married again, and they say she has to support him.”
“Rosie lost a good guy, too. How do you feel about living up here? Have you adjusted?”
Riker gave his martini a trial sip, winced, and nodded approval. “Yes, I’m glad to be here. I was relieved to cut loose from the Fluxion, and after the divorce I wanted to get out of the city. I never thought I’d like living in the hinterland, so far from everywhere, but my attitude is changing. My viewpoint is changing.”
“In what way?” “Remember our front-page story about the chicken coop fire last week? It destroyed 150,000 chickens. When I was working Down Below I would have written a flippant headline about the world’s largest chicken barbecue, assuming the place was fully insured and no particular loss.” He took another sip of his martini.
“Instead, I empathized with the farmer. I’ve never met Doug Cottle, but I’ve driven past his farm-the neat house, well-kept barnyard, huge facility for chickens. And when it happened, I felt real agony over the loss of his property and the fate of all those birds trapped in a burning building. I could imagine his dreams and years of work going up in flames in the middle of the night! ..
Ironic, isn’t it? I’ve edited copy for hundreds of fires Down Below, and I never felt that way before. Am I getting old?”
They carried their drinks to the lakeside porch, where the armchairs were made of three-inch logs hammered together by some anonymous carpenter at some date unknown.
“Sit down, Arch. They’re more comfortable than they look.”
Riker slid cautiously into a hollowed-out seat and breathed a deep sigh of contentment. “Beautiful view! I’ll bet you get some spectacular sunsets. You have a lot of goldfinches.”
“What do you know about birds, Arch?”
“When you raise a family you learn a lot of things you didn’t want to know.”
“My plumber said they’re wild canaries.”
“Your plumber didn’t have three kids working on merit badges in ornithology.
What do you hear from Polly, Qwill? Does she like England?”
“I’ve had a couple of postcards. They’ve asked her to give talks to civic groups.”
“I suppose you’ll be seeing a lot of Mildred while Polly’s away.”
Qwilleran’s moustache bristled. “If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, the answer is no! Mildred lives half a mile down the beach; we both write for the newspaper; her son-in-law is one of my best friends; she’s a great cook. But that doesn’t mean I intend to jeopardize my relationship with Polly.
And, for what it’s worth, Mildred has a husband.”
“Okay, okay!” said Riker, throwing up his hands in surrender. He and Qwilleran had grown up together in Chicago, and their friendship had survived fistfights in grade school, arguments in high school, competition in college, and bickering ever since.
Qwilleran said, “Now that youVe broken up with Amanda, there’s no reason why you couldn’t take Mildred out to dinner yourself, Arch. On a scale of one to ten I’d give your ex-fiancee a two and Mildred a nine.”
“Not bad!”
“And I’d rate you six-plus.”