The Cat Who Went Underground Read online

  “Not so fast, Qwill. First you have to go to his shop, sign up, pay a fee, and give him a key to your cabin.”

  “I don’t like the idea of handing out keys indiscriminately,” he said with irritation.

  “People around here are perfectly honest,” she said with a note of gentle reproach. “You’ve lived Down Below too long. You suspect everyone.”

  Thanking her briefly, Qwilleran dashed out to the car and dropped the cats into their travel coop again. “Sorry. You’re going for another ride,” he announced.

  They headed for downtown Mooseville, three miles to the west, where the Huggins Hardware Store made duplicate keys.

  The proprietor said, “Spending the summer up here, Mr. Q?”

  “Only if I can get the chill out of the cabin, Cecil. Where can I find a repairman for a wall-heater?”

  “Glinko’s got ’em all tied up,” said the storekeeper. “See Glinko.”

  Mildred had said that Glinko’s place of business was right behind the post office, and Qwilleran found only one building in that location: a garage—a greasy, shabby garage with a large door standing open. There was a car inside, with its hood raised. Under the hood a pair of spindly legs in old ragged trousers could be seen waving aimlessly, while the torso was buried among the valves, spark plugs, and cylinders. There was no visible head.

  “Excuse me,” Qwilleran said to the waving feet. “Where can I find Glinko?”

  The torso reared up, and the head came into view—a face almost obscured by a wild set of whiskers, a rat’s nest of hair under a greasy beret, and a pair of bright, merry eyes. The gnomelike character slid across the fender and landed nimbly on the concrete floor. “Standin’ right here,” he said with a toothless grin. “Who be you?”

  “My name is Qwilleran, and I’m staying at the Klingenschoen cabin near Top o’ the Dunes.”

  The gnome nodded wisely. “That be the place with a K on a post.”

  “Correct,” said Qwilleran. “I have a heating problem. I need a repairman.”

  “See the wife,” said the little man, nodding toward the house in the rear. “She be the one does all that.”

  Qwilleran grunted his thanks and found his way to the house, picking his way through tall weeds, chunks of concrete, and auto parts. Three other cars were parked in the weedy lot, waiting for Glinko’s attention, and they were all in the $40,000 class.

  The house was no less dilapidated than the garage. The front steps had caved in, and Qwilleran climbed cautiously through the remaining boards and rapped on the torn screened door. The woman who waddled over to greet him, ample flesh bouncing and tentlike dress billowing, was all smiles and affability.

  He introduced himself and said, “I understand you operate a service network.”

  “Network!” she hooted, her plump cheeks trembling with merriment. “That’s a good one! Wait’ll I tell Glinko. Ha ha ha! Come in and join the club. You wanna beer?”

  “Thank you, but I have two friends waiting for me in the car,” he declined.

  She ushered him into a dingy living room where there was nothing to suggest a business operation. “Two hun’erd to join,” she stated. “Fifty a year dues, or a hun’erd if you wanna be on the fast track.”

  Qwilleran thought the fee exorbitant, but he gave his name and the address of the cabin and opted for priority service. “Right now I need a wall-heater repaired in a hurry. How quickly can you dispatch a repairman?”

  “Dispatch!” she cried with glee. “That’s a good one! Gotta use that! . . . Lemme see . . . In a hurry for a plumber, eh?” She gazed upward as if reading file cards on the water-stained ceiling. “Ralph, he went off to Pickax for a load o’ pipe . . . Jerry, he come down with hay fever so bad he can’t see to drive . . . Little Joe’s workin’ out your way, puttin’ in a new toilet for the Urbanks. I’ll radio out there.”

  “Do you bill me for the work?” Qwilleran asked.

  “Nope. You pay Little Joe when the work’s done. But you gotta gimme a key.”

  He handed over the new key with reluctance. “I’ll write you a check for three hundred. Is that right?”

  Mrs. Glinko shook her head and grinned. “Gotta have cash.”

  “In that case I’ll have to go over to the bank. Do you want to write down my name and address? It’s spelled Q-w-i-l-l-e-r-a-n.”

  “Got it!” she said, tapping her temple. “I’ll dispatch Little Joe after dinner. Dispatch! Ha ha ha!”

  “Not until after dinner?” he protested.

  “We eat dinner. You folks eat lunch. Ha ha ha!”

  After picking up some cash at the bank for Mrs. Glinko, Qwilleran drove to a parking lot overlooking the municipal marina. There he released the cats from the hamper. “No point in going home yet,” he told them. “We’ll give the guy time to fix the heater. Let’s hope the Glinko system works.”

  He bought a hot dog and coffee at the refreshment stand and consumed it behind the wheel, offering the Siamese a few crumbs which they delicately declined. Together they watched the craft rocking at the piers: charter fishing boats, small yachts, and tall-masted sailboats. There was plenty of money rolling into Mooseville, he concluded. Soon the natives would get rich and start spending winters in the South. He wondered where the Glinkos would idle away the winter. Palm Springs? Caneel Bay?

  At two o’clock he drove slowly to the cabin, skeptical about Mrs. Glinko’s reliability and efficiency. To his relief he found a van parked in the clearing—a rusty, unmarked vehicle with doors flung wide and plumbing gear inside.

  The cabin doors were also open, front and back, and warm June air wafted through the building. Little Joe had been smart enough to ventilate the place. Good thinking on his part, Qwilleran had to acknowledge. Why didn’t I do that?

  The access door on the front of the heater was open, and in front of it a body lay sprawled on the floor. Qwilleran first noticed the muddy field boots, then the threadbare jeans. By the time his eyes reached the faded red plaid shirt, he knew this was no repairman.

  “Hello,” he said uncertainly. “Are you the plumber?”

  The body rolled over, and a husky young woman with mousy hair stuffed into a feed cap sat up and said soberly, “There was a dead spider in the pilot light. Whole thing’s dirty inside. I’m cleanin’ it out. Gotta broom? I made a mess on the floor.” This was said without expression in her large, flat face and dull gray eyes.

  “You surprised me,” Qwilleran said. “I was expecting some fellow named Joe.”

  “I’m Joanna,” she said. “My daddy was Joe, so we were Big Joe and Little Joe.” She lowered her eyes as she spoke.

  “Was he a plumber, too?”

  “He was more of a carpenter, but he did all kinds of things.”

  Noticing the past tense, Qwilleran sensed a family tragedy. “What happened, Joanna?” he asked in a sympathetic tone that was part genuine interest and part professional curiosity. He was thinking that a female plumber would make a good subject for the “Qwill Pen.”

  “My daddy was killed in an accident.” She was still sitting on the floor with her eyes cast down.

  “I’m sorry to hear that—very sorry. Was it a traffic accident?”

  She shook her head sadly and said in her somber voice, “A tailgate fell on him—the gate on a dump truck.”

  “Terrible!” Qwilleran exclaimed. “When did it happen?”

  “Coupla months ago.”

  “You have my sympathy. How old was he?” Joanna appeared to be about twenty-five.

  “Forty-three.” She turned back to the heater as if wanting to end the painful conversation. She lighted the pilot, closed the door and scrambled to her feet. “Where’s the broom?”

  Qwilleran watched her sweep, noting that she was very thorough. Joanna was a strong, healthy-looking young person, but she never smiled.

  “Be right back,” she said as she carried a small toolkit to her van. When she returned, she mumbled, “That’ll be thirty-five.”

  Assuming
that she, like Mrs. Glinko, preferred cash, he gave her some bills from his money clip and accepted a receipt marked “Paid—Jo Trupp.” He thought the charge was high, but he was grateful to have the heater operating.

  Next she handed him a yellow slip of paper. “You gotta sign this,” she said without looking at him. “It’s for Mrs. Glinko.”

  It was a voucher indicating that he had paid Jo Trupp for the heater job—that he had paid her twenty-five dollars. Twenty-five? He hesitated over the discrepancy for only a moment before realizing he was dealing with corruption in low places. He would not embarrass the poor girl for ten dollars. Undoubtedly she had to pay Glinko a kickback and liked to skim a little off the top.

  Once the plumber’s van had disappeared down the long undulating driveway and the indoor climate was within reason, Qwilleran was able to appreciate the cabin: the whitewashed log walls, the open ceiling crisscrossed with log trusses, the oiled wood floors scattered with Indian rugs, two white sofas angled around a fieldstone fireplace, and the incomparable view from the bank of north windows. A mile out on the lake, sailboats were racing. A hundred miles across the water there was Canada.

  He carried the wicker hamper indoors and opened the lid slowly. Immediately two dark brown masks with wide, blue eyes and perky ears rose from the interior and swiveled like periscopes. When assured that all was clear, they hopped out: lithe bodies with pale fawn fur accented by slender brown legs, whiplike brown tails, and those inquisitive brown masks. Qwilleran apologized to them for their protracted confinement and the unconscionable delay, but they ignored him and went directly to the fireplace to sniff the spot where a white bearskin rug had warmed the hearth two summers before; bloodied beyond repair at that time, it had since been replaced by an Indian rug. Next, Koko stared up with interest at the moosehead mounted above the mantel, and Yum Yum flattened herself to crawl under the sofa where she had formerly hidden her playthings. Then, within minutes they were both overhead, leaping across the beams, landing on the mantel, swooping down to the sofas, and skidding across the polished floor on handwoven rugs.

  Qwilleran brought his luggage indoors and quickly telephoned Mildred Hanstable. “Mildred, I apologize for my bad manners this morning. I’m afraid I was rather curt when I talked with you.”

  “That’s all right, Qwill. I know you were upset. Did it work out all right?”

  “Amazingly well! Thanks for the tip. Glinko took care of the matter in no time at all. But I’ve got to talk to you about that extraordinary couple and their unorthodox way of doing business.”

  Mildred laughed. “It works, so don’t disturb it. Why don’t you come over here for dinner tonight? I’ll throw together a casserole and a salad and take a pie out of the freezer.”

  Qwilleran accepted promptly and made a special trip into Mooseville for a bottle of Mildred’s favorite brand of Scotch and a bottle of white grape juice for himself. He also laid in a supply of delicacies for the Siamese.

  When he returned from town, Koko was in the back hall, busily occupied with a new discovery. The hallway functioned as a mudroom, with a mud-colored rug for wiping feet, hooks for hanging jackets, a cleaning closet, and other utilitarian features. Koko had tunneled under the rug and was squirming and making throaty sounds.

  Qwilleran threw back the rug. Underneath it there was a trap door about two feet square, with a recessed metal ring for lifting. The cat eagerly sniffed its perimeter.

  Qwilleran had visions of underground plumbing and wiring mysteries, and his curiosity equaled Koko’s. “Get out of the way, old boy, and let’s have a look,” he said. He found a flashlight in the closet and swung back the heavy slab of oak. “It’s sand! Nothing but sand!” Koko was teetering on the brink, ready to leap into the hole. “No!” Qwilleran thundered, and the cat winced, retreated, and sauntered away to lick his breast fur nonchalantly.

  By the time Qwilleran set out for Mildred’s cottage, his companions had been fed and were lounging on the screened porch overlooking the lake. They sat in a patch of sunshine, utterly contented with their lot, and why not? They had consumed a can of red salmon (minus the dark skin) and two smoked oysters. Now they relaxed in leisurely poses that prompted Qwilleran to tiptoe for his camera, but as soon as they saw him peer through the viewfinder, Yum Yum started scratching her ear with an idiot squint in her celestial blue eyes, while Koko rolled over and attended to the base of his tail with one leg pointing toward the firmament.

  They were chased off the porch and locked in the cabin before Qwilleran set out on the half-mile walk to Mildred’s place. A desolate stretch of beach bordered his own property, lapped by languid waves. Next, an outcropping of rock projected into the water, popularly known as Seagull Point, although one rarely saw a gull unless the lake washed up a dead fish. Beyond Seagull Point a string of a dozen cottages perched on the dune—a jumble of styles: rustic, contemporary, quaint, or simply ugly, like the boatlike structure said to be owned by a retired sea captain.

  The last in the row was Mildred’s yellow cottage. Beyond that, the dune was being cleared in preparation for new construction. Foundations were in evidence, and framing had been started.

  A flight of twenty wooden steps led up the side of the dune to Mildred’s terrace with its yellow umbrella table, and as Qwilleran reached the top she met him there, her well-upholstered figure concealed by a loose-fitting yellow beach dress.

  “What’s going on there?” Qwilleran called out, waving toward the construction site.

  “Condominiums,” she said ruefully. “I hate to see it happen, but they’ve offered us clubhouse and pool privileges, so it’s not all bad. The lake is too cold for swimming, so . . . why not?”

  Handing the bottles to his hostess, he volunteered to tend bar, and Mildred ushered him into the house and pointed out the glassware and ice cubes. Their voices sounded muffled, because the walls were hung with handmade quilts. Traditional and wildly contemporary designs had the initials M.H. stitched into the corners.

  “These represent an unbelievable amount of work,” Qwilleran said, recognizing an idea for the “Qwill Pen.”

  “I only appliqué the tops,” she said. “My craftworkers do the quilting.” Besides teaching school, writing for the local newspaper, and raising money for the hospital, she conducted a not-for-profit project for low-income handworkers.

  Qwilleran regarded her with admiration. “You have boundless energy, Mildred. You never stop!”

  “So why can’t I lose weight?” she said, sidestepping the compliment modestly.

  “You’re a handsome woman. Don’t worry about pounds.”

  “I like to cook, and I like to eat,” she explained, “and my daughter says I don’t get enough real exercise. Can you picture me jogging?”

  “How is Sharon enjoying motherhood?” Qwilleran asked.

  “Well, to tell the truth, she’s restless staying home with the baby. She wants to go back to teaching. Roger thinks she should wait another year. What do you think, Qwill?”

  “You’re asking a childless bachelor, a failed husband, with no known relatives and no opinion! . . . By the way, I saw Roger on my way up from Pickax. He was hightailing it back to the office to file his copy for the weekend edition, no doubt.”

  Mildred passed a sizzling platter of stuffed mushrooms and rumaki. “I liked your column on the taxidermist, Qwill.”

  “Thanks. It was an interesting subject, and I learned that mounted animal heads should never be hung over a fireplace; it dries them out. The moosehead at the cabin may have to go to the hospital for a facelift. Also, I’d like to do something with the whitewashed walls. They’d look better if they were natural.”

  “That would make the interior darker,” Mildred warned. “Of course, you could install skylights.”

  “Don’t they leak?”

  “Not if you hire a good carpenter.”

  “Where do I find a good carpenter? Call Glinko, I suppose. Has anyone figured out his racket, Mildred? He has a monopoly, and I suspe
ct price-fixing, restraint of trade, and tax evasion. They don’t accept checks, and they don’t seem to keep written records.”

  “It’s all in Mrs. Glinko’s head,” said Mildred. “That woman is a living computer.”

  “The IRS frowns on living computers.”

  “But you have to admit it’s a wonderful convenience for summer people like us.”

  “I keep wondering what else they supply besides plumbers and carpenters.”

  “Now you’re being cynical, Qwill. What was wrong with your space heater?”

  “A dead spider in the pilot light—or so the plumber said; I’m not sure I believe it. Glinko sent me a woman plumber!”

  Mildred nodded. “Little Joe.”

  “She isn’t so little. Do you know her?”

  “Of course I know her!” Mildred had taught school in the county for more than twenty years, and she knew an entire generation of students as well as their parents. “Her name is Joanna Trupp. Her father was killed in a freak accident this spring.”

  Qwilleran said, “There’s a high percentage of fatal accidents in this county. Either people live to be ninety-five, or they die young—in hunting mishaps, drownings, car crashes, tractor rollovers . . .”

  Mildred beckoned him to the dinner table.

  “Is Little Joe a competent plumber?” he went on. “I thought of writing a column about her unusual occupation.”

  “I don’t know what it takes to be a competent plumber,” Mildred said, “but in school she was always good at working with her hands. Why she decided to get a plumber’s license, I haven’t the faintest idea. Why would any woman want to fix toilets and drains, and stick her head under the kitchen sink, and crawl under houses? I don’t even like to clean the bathroom!”

  The casserole was a sauced combination of turkey, homemade noodles, and artichoke hearts, and it put Qwilleran in an excellent frame of mind. The Caesar salad compounded his pleasure. The raspberry pie left him almost numb with contentment.

  As Mildred served coffee on the terrace she said, “There’s a party on the dunes tomorrow night. Why don’t you come as my date and meet some of the summer people? Doc and Dottie Madley are hosting. He’s a dentist from Pickax, you know. They come up weekends.”