Рон Гуларт - Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 39, No. 13, Mid-December 1994

Aha! Jack’s heart leaped. Paydirt! The grandmother lode.

“Hildegarde instructed me to provide sufficient funds...” Attorney Hamilton Bostwick paused, and with his breast pocket kerchief patted the corners of his eyes. He seemed about to blot further but must have dammed the freshet upstream, for he stuffed his kerchief back into his pocket.

“She felt very strongly about this bequest, quoting from the Bible, ‘The fox has his hole, and the birds of the air their nest, but the son of man hath not where to lay his head.’ ”

Jack lowered his eyes modestly to his cordovan loafers.

“Therefore she instructed me to provide ‘Dear Jack’ sufficient funds to construct a cosy dwelling...”

Attorney Hamilton Bostwick could contain himself no longer. He blew his nose.

“... for the shih tzu puppy she hereby bequeaths to him.”

Jack saw right then that his shoes could do with a shine.

“And she gave me to understand that her taste ran to a simple post-and-lintel construction with perhaps a mansard roof, all not to exceed a ballpark figure of one hundred dollars.”

“Game,” said Jack, “set and match,” noting that he would still play tennis on public courts, not his own private Grasstex. “Thank God I saved my center strap.”

Tzu is back in business. Thanks to Hildegarde’s cash transfusion, he’s almost legit. His ashram nestles on a little hill — Low Tor — where the Piedmont Plateau gives on to the Carolina Coastal Plain.

Flowing water is one Eastern model for being. So it is that Tzu’s faithful puree their fungible hopes and fears, even as the nearby New Hope Reservoir spills into the Cape Fear River; thence to wind, as hopes and fears have ever wound, to a salty, teary sea. Even Tzu’s real estate has metaphor.

“From here you walk, Jack,” said the taxi driver, depositing him at the mouth of the gravel driveway to Low Tor. Jack tipped him extra for name recognition before remembering that some taxi drivers call everybody Jack. And an extra dollar for putting up with the shih tzu puppy.

“Heel,” said Jack.

Dotting the ashram’s lush but neat lawn — sheep may safely graze, but they crop close — Jack saw huge painted plaster statues of Siva, Moses, Jesus, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others.

“Hedge your bets,” muttered Jack as he broke the electronic beam and strode through the opening gate.

“Welcome to Low Tor,” said the color-coded receptionist in golden robes and matching hair. From behind her desk smiled a hundred square feet of Kodachrome swami Tzu.

“Grainy but deductible,” said Jack.

There was no missing Tzu, known to retreating penitents as “Gurutzu,” for his image kaleidoscoped from wall to wall to computer to cash register at the reception desk.

Jack shuffled along into a glass-walled, marble-floored pavilion where hundreds of softly-chanting, shining-faced celebrants queued for an audience with Gurutzu. He sat crosslegged on a silk pillow on a Lucite throne. He wore a scarlet robe. A favored few devotees he struck with a long peacock feather as they crawled past.

Tzu said, “You bring the little shih tzu.”

“A small thing, but mine own,” said Jack, drawing himself up to full legatee stature.

The little dog wagged its tail in warm greeting of Tzu, then leaped upon the Lucite throne and established its even warmer territoriality upon the holy man’s left ankle.

“Sweets to the sweet,” said Jack.

“Blessings on you, too,” said Tzu, touching Jack’s shoulder with his peacock feather.

None could tell from Tzu’s face what he thought. In the first place, none could see through that beard, and the glasses Tzu wore were the kind that vary with light. Actually, he was mentally inventorying his Rolls-Royces, so perhaps the electrochromatic granny glasses darkened as his eyes lit up.

A swarthy figure swathed in saffron edged from behind the Lucite throne to stand at Tzu’s right hand.

“This is Salazar,” said Tzu.

“I remember Salazar,” said Jack. “He’s the Bok Tower guy.”

“Was.”

“And now?”

“Now he’s legal, with his green card and all. He does odd jobs for me.”

“I know one,” said Jack to Tzu.

But to his entire estate, which at this moment lay on his right foot in hot pursuit of a flea — an unearned increment of his legacy — Jack could say only, “Now he tells me.”

One of the things I hate most about Sunday mornings is opening up the Bait and Tackle Shop for Freddy. On those Sundays when he’s out fishing, hoping to finally get good enough to turn pro, I get stuck with the shop. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’d do most anything for Freddy. I saw him through his divorce, didn’t I?

After I unlock the door, cut off the alarm, and turn on the lights, it’s time to clean out the bait tank. I gotta grab the net and scoop out the floaters who didn’t make it through the night.

There they are, bodies distended, eyes glazed over, swirling around the surface. I pick each slimy minnow up and toss it in the trash. The fish stink. Maybe it’s fish fear. All those minnows, swimming in a tank, waiting to be used as bait, they gotta be scared. I know, you’re saying they can’t think like humans. Maybe not, but fish are mighty smart, else they wouldn’t be so dang hard to catch. Just look at all the lures and plastic worms we sell. Even with the best equipment, you gotta have technique. Fishing’s a skill. So tell me them fish ain’t smart.

On this one particular Sunday morning, I set the coffeepot on to brew and headed for the back where we keep the live bait. I figured the hot coffee would be a reward for cleaning the fish tanks. By the time I finished, the coffee would be ready. There can never be too much coffee at six A.M. on Sunday morning.

I flung open the back room door, reached around for the switch, and started screaming. There, floating in a tank full of reddish water, was Freddy’s ex-wife, Eaudelein. Her hair was fanned out around what had been the back of her head. It was now a bloody mess. I stared and screamed, turned and ran to the tiny bathroom, and heaved into the commode. I was shaking and crying, “Oh my God, oh my God.” There wasn’t a soul to hear me. I hadn’t even switched on the “Open” sign yet.

I ran back out to the front, around behind the counter, and grabbed the phone. For a moment I couldn’t remember how to dial 911.

“Oh Jesus, God,” I screamed into the phone. “Get somebody over here quick. Eaudelein’s dead.”

There’s only two cop cars in all of Barrow, and they both raced into the parking lot with lights flashing and sirens screaming. They don’t get many chances to use their lights around here. I don’t believe Wallace County had ever had a killing, at least not as long as I’d been there and that was all of my forty-five years.

Randall Vaughn was the first one to get to me. He was the duty officer. Raydeen Miller came a close second. She wasn’t on duty but keeps the police band on all night in her bedroom. She don’t like to miss much. This was just the kind of situation she’d been waiting for all of her professional life.

“Patsy,” called Randy, “you all right? What’s this about Eaudelein bein’ dead?” He was a comforting presence as he reached out to touch my shoulder. Randy’d been on the force for years; we all knew him, of course. He and I’d been in school together, and even dated briefly in high school.

I finally got it all out, how I’d found Eaudelein in the bait tanks. As soon as I told him, he and Raydeen headed for the bait room.