Читать книгу Dead Cow in Aisle Three - H. Mel Malton - Страница 6

Everything is at steak! At Kountry Pantree, our meat’s the freshest in town. Let our experts help make your family barbecue sizzle! This coupon entitles you to three free steaks!

—A flyer distributed with every new gas barbecue at the Laingford Canadian Tire

In the District of Kuskawa, true summer is a fleeting thing. Most of June’s a write-off, because the blackflies and mosquitoes gather in thick clouds that block the sun and drive all but the insane indoors. Before you know it, you’re in the last week of August, and you can see your breath in the mornings again. Blammo, it’s fall. The trees put on a spectacular show of colour, delighting the tourists and reminding the locals that there’s another nine-month winter just around the corner.

July had been unusually hot and sunny—the kind of picture postcard weather that people around here regard with deep suspicion.

“Another gorgeous day,” we whispered to each other, as if saying it too loudly might make it disappear. Day after day the sun rose unencumbered, magnificent in an azure sky. We trod the baking pavement in a daze, dodging the crowds. Summer visitors swarmed over everything, thick as ants on a dropped ice cream. Downtown traffic was solid from eleven in the morning until dusk, and local retailers developed goofy, banner-year grins.

The Laingford Library was an oasis in all this. Tourists tend to purchase their reading matter from bookstores and checkout displays, believing perhaps that using the library in a strange town is as unthinkable as using a stranger’s toothbrush.

“Nice and quiet in here today,” I said to Evan Price, the head librarian, a gaunt, melancholy man with thoughtful hair who ruled his territory with the threat of incipient tears.

“Quiet for now,” Evan said. His voice sounded as if it were coming from some distance away, down a long tube. “We’ve got a children’s entertainer coming in at four to do a concert in the boardroom. Audience participation. Lots of hand-clapping and shrieking. It’ll be chaos in here in about half an hour.”

“Awful for you,” I said. “I won’t stay long, then.” I was headed for the children’s area, where I was hoping to find some good source material for my drawings.

My preliminary sketches for the Kountry Pantree mascot were expected on Saturday, when the PR committee would discuss them and choose one. They wanted me to come up with a couple of different designs based on the ideas thrown around at the first meeting, a brainstorming session where its members had tossed suggestions at me for more than an hour. They’d called it a focus group and served Colombian coffee and danishes.

“I think we should have a giant moose, wearing an apron,” one member had said.

“It’s been done,” the chair of the meeting said.

“How about a cow in an apron? We could call it Kountry Kow.” (I could just hear the K in Kow—a hard, commercial, who-gives-a-crap-about-spelling kind of sound.)

“No, a beaver. A beaver in a chef’s hat.”

“We need a mascot that will make our customers think ‘fresh’ and ‘healthy’. Beavers are disgusting animals that live in stagnant ponds,” said the chairman, David Kane, the frontman for the new superstore. Kane was a young executive type from the city who had moved permanently into his parents’ monster summer home near Laingford. He stank of money, and his teeth were too perfect to be natural. The committee had finally decided on three options; a cow, a Canada goose or a gopher.

I love the kiddie corner of the Laingford library. It’s an airy, sunny space with wide gaps between the aisles, mats and cushions strewn about for serious floor-readers (a posture frowned upon in the stuffy, grown-up section) and a great collection of material.

A boy of about eight was seated on a fat red cushion on the floor right next to the “Wide World of Animals” shelf. “What are you doing in here?” he said belligerently.

“Same thing you are,” I said.

He looked down at the dinosaur picture book in his lap, then back up at me. “You can’t have this one,” he said.

“I don’t want that one,” I said.

“I need this because I can’t find a good Tyrannosaurus rex on the Internet, and I need one for my website,” he explained, suddenly chummy. “I can scan this into the computer and then use my animation program to make its mouth move.”

“Ah,” I said.

“What’s on your website?” he said.

“I, ummm, don’t have a website,” I said.

He reached into the pocket of his shorts and produced a grubby business card, which he handed to me. “I can design one for you, if you want,” he said. “I don’t charge much.”

“I don’t have a computer, either,” I said, taking the card. He looked at me like I was one of the creatures in his picture book.

“How do you do e-mail, then?” he said.

“I write letters,” I said. My face burned. He smiled very sweetly, shook his head and stood up. The top of his head came up to my chest.

“You need a computer if you want to be competitive,” he said. “Call me when you get one, and I can help you do your website. It’s not hard.” He walked away, heading for the circulation desk. I looked down at the card in my hand.

“Webmaster Bryan,” the card said. “For all your Internet needs.” Sometimes the universe likes to remind Luddites like me that the rocket ship left a long time ago, and most of the world was on it. I sighed, pocketed the little Webmaster’s card and took his place on the red cushion. I pulled The Big Book of Animals off the shelf and started looking for gopher pictures.

When I got back to the truck, where I’d left Luggy and Rosie in the cab (It’s okay—I’d parked in the shade with the windows down), there was a note on the windshield, under the wiper.

“Polly,” it said, “when are you going to get a phone? Call me at home. M.B.” Detective Constable Mark Becker really hated that I didn’t have a telephone. I’d explained that if people were truly eager to get in touch with me, they could leave a message at George’s house, or they could come and find me. Being phone-free meant that I was saved the hassle of bill collectors and telemarketers, but he said I was just in denial.

It surprised me that he’d said to call him at home, because summer is an awfully busy time of year for the local police force. The population quadruples, and the streets fill up with city drivers who can’t leave their road-rage at home. Every season, a fresh gaggle of underage drinkers descends on the bars, camp counsellors on day passes and sophisticated urbanites who may only be sixteen but look thirty. Cottage break-ins, loud parties, out-of-control campfires and downtown vandalism are all part of the policeman’s summer lot. The cop shop’s usually short-handed from June to September, and everyone works double shifts. I figured Becker had noticed my truck (it’s George’s really) on the way to arrest some mid-afternoon mischief-makers, and it was nice that he’d left me a note, even if it was terse and completely devoid of affectionate terms. “Dear Polly” would have been nice, or “Darling . . .”, but it wouldn’t have been his style, and I would’ve known at once it was a fake. I scurried back into the library and called from the payphone in the lobby, but I just got his machine.

“Hey, Becker,” I said. “Polly, returning your call. I’ll try again when I get back to the farm.” If it had been urgent, he could have come into the library and found me. Maybe cops are allergic to libraries. He was probably still out arresting people.

I had a couple of stops to make before heading home. I don’t go into town much in the summer if I can help it. The traffic jams are frustrating, and the line-ups are wretched. Still, Laingford is the only place you can get a case of beer within a ten-kilometre radius of Cedar Falls, our rural village address.

It was a Friday afternoon, and I’d avoided the northbound highway and taken a back route into town. The stream of cars, campers and mini-vans peeling off the highway onto Laingford’s main street made it look like Highway 401 in rush hour. I waited in the beer store line-up for an eternity, got my two-four of Kuskawa Cream Ale (a local brew, and therefore much healthier than the conglomerate brands), then braved the downtown gridlock so I could drop off a classified ad at the Gazette. Along with my Kountry Pantree gig, I was also preparing for a small exhibition of artwork in an empty downtown storefront. Two artist friends and I had decided to take advantage of the tourist boom to stage a “Weird Kuskawa Art” show. We’d rented the storefront for next to nothing from a retailer who’d gone belly-up the previous summer. It was my job to do the advertising; hence my visit to the local paper.

I was standing at the front counter filling in a classified order form for our ad when a beefy man with a very red face stormed into the building.

“Where’s that Grigsby?” he shouted. “Where’s that slimy little two-bit reporter who can’t get his facts straight? Where is he? I want to see him right now!” I froze, and the receptionist, who had been talking quietly to someone on the phone, muttered something into the receiver and rose slowly to her full height, which must have been close to six feet.

“Archie Watson,” she said, in a cold voice, “that ain’t the right way to behave in a newspaper office. Have some respect.”

“It’s Grigsby who oughta have some respect, Bonnie,” the man called Archie Watson said. “You see what he wrote about me in this week’s rag?” He looked vaguely familiar—I knew I’d met him somewhere before, or maybe I’d just seen his picture in the paper.

“I never read the Gazette,” Bonnie said, primly. “Too much to do around here to waste my time reading. Now if you sit nice and quiet over there, I’ll see if Cal is in and if he’s free, though I don’t see why he’d want to talk to you when you’re acting like such a maniac.”

“He wanted to talk to me bad enough last week,” Watson said. “Begged me to return his calls. So I talk to him and then he twists everything around and makes me look like an eejit.” Bonnie gave him the kind of look that suggested that an idiot was exactly what he was. She picked up the phone, punched out a number and kept her eye on Watson, who had not obeyed her instructions to sit down.

“Cal? Archie Watson’s here to see you and he’s loaded for bear, dear. Shall I tell him to get lost?” Bonnie listened to the response, nodded to herself and placed the receiver gently back in its cradle. Then she turned to me with a smile.

“How’s that ad comin’, sweetheart? You got your words figured out?”

“Well?” Archie Watson said, leaning over my shoulder.

“You wait your turn,” Bonnie said.

“I’m a busy man,” Watson said.

“I’m sure this here young lady is a busy person, too, Archie. Didn’t Selma teach you no manners at all?” Watson let out an exasperated breath right behind me, and I resisted the urge to wipe my neck.

“I, uh, I’m not quite finished,” I said. Bonnie, determined to torture the man, flicked the form around to her side so she could read it.

“Weird Art of Kuskawa, eh? I like that. Got any nude paintings? Maybe you could get Archie here to pose for you. That’d be weird.” She chuckled at her joke. I could feel Watson vibrating with frustration behind me. “Have a seat, Archie,” she said. “Cal’s on his way down.” But he didn’t have time to sit because the door marked “Editorial/Sales” opened, and a young man stepped into the reception area.

“Archie,” he said, striding towards the big man, who was one stage away from hyperventilation. “Good to see you.” The young man, Calvin Grigsby, I assumed, held out his hand in such a natural manner that Watson shook it automatically before thinking better of it and snatching his away.

“I have a bone to pick with you,” Watson growled.

“Of course you do. Everybody does, sooner or later,” Grigsby said. “Come on back, and we’ll talk about it.” Grigsby’s easy manner put Watson completely off his stride. I’ve never seen anyone turn the other cheek quite so effectively before. It was impressive. Watson followed the young newspaperman meekly and even turned to close the door behind him.

“Wow,” I said.

“Cal’s a people person,” Bonnie said with pride. “The sales people call him in if a client’s getting into a tizzy about a mistake or something. He’s like human Valium.”

“Useful trait in the business you’re in, I guess. What was that guy so upset about, anyway?”

“Oh, Archie’s hopping mad about that new store going in,” Bonnie said. “His family has run Watson’s General Store since the town was born, and he thinks he’s going to lose all his customers. Cal probably quoted something stupid he said.” Watson’s General Store was up at the top of Main Street, a handsome brick building with the original wood and glass counters in the front—a big tourist attraction. The front of the store featured hand-scooped ice cream and candy displayed in big glass jars. It also sold groceries, bread and fresh produce and had an excellent meat counter at the back.

I remembered where I’d seen him before, wearing a big white apron and smiling cheerfully as he handed over a slab of steak wrapped in butcher’s paper. Watson’s wasn’t cheap, but it was family-run, and the service was great. Remembering the array of cleavers and knives behind Archie’s counter, I thought privately that having him mad at you could be dangerous. Better Calvin Grigsby than me, I thought. Fortunately, the work I was doing for the Kountry Pantree was behind the scenes. Nobody ever looks at a person dressed as a cow and wonders who designed the costume. In the mind of the average Joe, store mascots just are; they’re a given, a fact of life, like those little plastic forks you get with Kentucky Fried Chicken. There was no point in worrying about Watson coming at me from behind his meat counter, waving a chopper and calling me a slimy little two-bit puppet maker.

I paid for the art show ad and grabbed a copy of the Gazette on my way out. If I was working for the Kountry Pantree people, it would probably be a good idea to keep abreast of the situation. I had a nasty feeling that this mascot-gig was going to turn out to be trouble.