All That I Have (22 page)

“No.”

“You were up here a lot this summer,” the chief said. “We have to get word to the owner. You know who that is?”

“I understand the place has been on the market.”

“Not anymore,” said the chief.

“O’Connor’s, in Manchester, manages it,” I said. “Or, they did this summer. You can talk to them. Emory O’Connor. You know him?”

“I know Emory,” said the chief. “Somebody else can talk to Emory.”

“There’s a caretaker,” I said. “Mayhew. Buster Mayhew. You know him?’

“Sure, I know Buster,” said the chief. “He was here earlier. I told him to go on home. He didn’t have a lot of light to shed.”

“No.”

“Truth is, Buster ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer,” said the chief.

“Well, well,” I said, “we can’t all be mental giants like me and you, Chief.”

“Ain’t that a fact?” said the Grenada chief.

I started walking around among the groups of firefighters from the different departments, looking for Buster Mayhew. I didn’t find him, but I did find Trooper Timberlake.

“Evening, Sheriff,” said Timberlake.

“Trooper,” I said. “You see all your friends at these things, don’t you?”

“That’s affirmative, Sheriff.”

“There ain’t going to be a lot left of this place, is there?”

“I wouldn’t call it a great loss though, Sheriff,” said Timberlake.

“Maybe not.”

“Sheriff?”

“Trooper?”

“I haven’t seen you since the election,” said Timberlake. “I wanted to congratulate you. Some of us were pulling for you, you know. ’Course, we couldn’t say anything.”

“ ’Course not.”

“And, it’s true, some thought Lyle would do a better job.”

“Lyle’s a good man.”

“Yes, he is,” said Trooper Timberlake. “Too good, it might be.”

“Too good?”

“That’s right, Sheriff. You know what I mean.”

“I’ve wondered about something, Trooper,” I said.

“What’s that, Sheriff?”

“The night Sean Duke took off, when your dispatch sent everybody to hell and gone off to Grafton, should have been Afton? You remember that?”

“I remember.”

“How did that come about, how did that develop exactly, Trooper?”

“It seems as though there was something in the nature of a miscommunication, there, I guess, Sheriff.”

“You didn’t have any part in that miscommunication, I don’t suppose?” I said. “You, personally?”

“Well, Sheriff,” said Timberlake, “it’s possible I might have corrected dispatch’s initial transmission in a way that was misleading to some. The transmission was pretty garbled, Sheriff.”

“I bet it was.”

“Things were developing pretty fast that night, if you recall,” said Timberlake.

“I recall,” I said.

We stood and watched the Russians’ house burn. There must have been some kind of tank or gas line inside, because the flames were higher now than they had been when I drove in. One of the fire companies had its pumper going and was putting water on the ground around the fire. For ten, fifteen feet back, the ground steamed.

“Have you hired a new deputy yet, Sheriff?” Trooper Timberlake asked me after a minute.

“Not yet,” I said. “I ain’t in a hurry. I’m waiting for the right man.”

“That’s smart, Sheriff.”

“It ain’t anything you’d be interested in at all, I don’t suppose, is it, Trooper? That deputy job?”

“I don’t know, Sheriff,” said Timberlake. “It might be. It would mean a pay cut, I guess.”

“You guess right,” I told him. “I ain’t got the governor behind me, you know.”

“ ’Course not.”

“On the other hand, money ain’t everything,” I said.

“It ain’t nothing, either,” said Timberlake.

“You’re a married man, I think, ain’t you, Trooper?”

“That’s affirmative, Sheriff. Going on two years.”

“Kids?”

“Not yet.”

“You’ll get by,” I said. “You never know. You might take to sheriffing. It ain’t like where you are now. Sheriffing and the state police are different.”

“Yes,” said Timberlake.

“It’s like the difference between a gentle breeze and Hurricane Hugo,” I said.

“Yes,” said Timberlake.

“Sheriffing’s the gentle breeze.”

“Yes,” said Timberlake.

“It’s like the difference between being a fellow in a bear suit, and being a bear.”

“Which is which on that one, Sheriff?”

“I’m damned if I know.”

“Well, I’ll think it over,” said Timberlake.

“There ain’t a sword in the shop,” I said.

“What’s that, Sheriff?”

“Nothing. You think it over, Trooper.”

“I will,” said Timberlake. “I’ll get back to you.”

Clemmie was sleeping when I got home, but when I came into our room she woke, rolled over, and turned on the light. She lay in the bed, looking at me.

“What time is it?” Clemmie asked.

“About half past two.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Place is a total loss. Whatever it was up there, it’s all over now. It’s all gone.”

Clemmie yawned and stretched herself. She was still partly asleep. I started getting undressed.

“That was the place you had Daddy find out about,” said Clemmie.

“That’s right,” I said. I was taking off my shoes.

“The place with the Russians,” said Clemmie.

“Same place.”

“The place with that guy that Sean — that guy that got beaten up.”

“The nude male,” I said. I was unbuttoning my shirt.

“I remember,” Clemmie said. “I thought it was the
new
male. On the radio. I thought the radio said the
new
male.”

“Not new,” I said. “Nude.”

“That’s right,” said Clemmie. “And you said you were the new male. I didn’t get it.”

“But you do now.” I was unbuckling my belt.

“I guess I do,” said Clemmie. “You were joking.”

“I was.”

“You aren’t the new male.”

“No.”

“You aren’t the nude male, either, are you?” Clemmie asked.

“Give me a minute,” I said.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It is a pleasure to acknowledge the contributions to
All That I Have
of its principal editors, Chip Fleischer and Roland Pease of Steerforth Press. They have understood the book as well as, and sometimes better than, its author, and their responses and suggestions, through several readings, have been a model of editorial intelligence and tact.