“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 ringers 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.