The New Yorker Stories (87 page)

“Used to live in a Victorian over in Milo,” Jim said. “Wife comes home one day, says she’s seen to it I can’t come within ten feet of her. For nothing! Never laid a hand on a woman in my life. You can march into the police station, if you’re a woman, and just get an order to have a guy gone from your personal space, like it hadn’t been his space, too.”

“Bitch,” Don said, under his breath.

“Do you have children?” Francis asked.

“Children?” Jim said, somewhat puzzled. “Yeah, we had a kid that had a lot of problems that we couldn’t take care of at home. One of those things,” he said.

Don averted his eyes and toed a dandelion that had gone to seed.

“I’m sorry,” Francis said.

Don said, “I got one wife, no kids, a bulldog, and half my life stacked up in some storage place by her brother’s, since we had to downsize when the balloon came due. Downsized into my brother-in-law’s garage! You know what I mean?”

He did, actually. “Yes,” he said.

Jim tossed the big key ring on the worktable, which took up most of the room. There was a single bed pushed in the corner with a cat lying on it that looked something like Simple Man. The cat raised its head, then curled onto its side to continue its nap. There was a brown refrigerator in the corner opposite the bed, and a sink hung on the wall. The toilet sat next to the sink. He saw no sign of a shower.

“Sit,” Don said, pulling out a canvas director’s chair. Francis counted seven such chairs, most of them similar to the first, but avoided the one that sagged badly.

“Could you use a beer?” Jim said.

“That would be nice,” Francis said. He told himself, I can’t call my wife, because how would I explain where I am? He reached for the can of Coors, which was icy cold. He could not think of the last time he’d had a beer, rather than a Scotch-on-the-rocks. He raised the can, as they all did, in silent toast to whatever they were toasting.

It did not look as though Jim had done any work on the table recently. There were piles of newspapers, dishes, something that looked like part of a saddle. In a glass, there were some feathers. Francis wished that he could see some wood chips. The table looked too low to carve on—you would stand to carve, wouldn’t you? He saw with relief that there were a few tools, but the one he focused on looked rusty. “O.K., let me get ’em out,” Jim said, kneeling.

He lifted a box from under the table, opened the lid, and unwrapped a white towel inside. The box itself was beautifully made, with the word “Mallard” burned into the wood on the underside of the lid. Jim removed a duck and put it on the table.

“Un-fucking-believable,” Don said, shaking his head.

Jim took a step back, cleared his throat, and said, rather formally, “Some would do it different, but I use black eyes on the mallards. Ten millimeter,” he added. Francis stood with his can of beer, looking down. He wondered if he was supposed to touch it. It was quite convincing, and really beautiful. He moved forward tentatively, and, as he did, Don said, “Let me get that Coors outta your way,” sweeping the can out of Francis’s hand.

Francis held the decoy at a distance where he could see it clearly without putting on his reading glasses. Jim was pulling out other boxes. “Got one more to go, then I ship ’em off. Guy from Austin, Texas. He got himself an art gallery as a ‘ship to’ address, so maybe it doesn’t matter if he’s got no real idea what he’s doing,” Jim said. “Guy wants nothing but mallards, O.K., but if you’re going to set out decoys, then, yeah, you can have mallard, mallard, mallard, mallard—lots of ’em. But you throw in one of these—” He set another box on the table, and unwrapped a beach towel. “This is your egret. You put all the mallards out there, but if you’re going hunting you need something like this egret, for a confidence decoy.”

Francis had never heard the term, but he understood. In any case, the egret was a real piece of art.

“Yeah, like things are just nice and casual,” Don said. “An egret happens to be standing around, you know? Could be something else. A crow. Got to mix it up a little bit, so the ducks don’t get suspicious. ‘Hey, look down there, quite a flock of ’em, even an egret wandered in. Let’s go down and see if we can join the party.’ ” Don put his beer and Francis’s on the table. “Bang!” he said loudly.

“That’s the idea,” Jim said.

“How many of these did you make for the man in Texas?” Francis said. He was amazed at the detail. He stared at the black eye, and it seemed to stare back, the way it reflected light.

“Just over a dozen. If he’s a hunter, which I doubt from the way he talked and looked, maybe he’s been having bad luck. That’ll change when he gets this confidence decoy. Might have overdone it just a bit, carving an egret, but what the hey. You know, if you’ve got ’em in fields, most of them will be eating, but then there’s always one at least that acts as a sentry head. You think about all that while you’re working. About how the whole flock’s gotta look.”

“Well, the detail is just incredible. You say you learned this from your grandfather?”

“Learned a couple of things on my own, I guess. Went to some shows, got some ideas.”

“I do the naming,” Don said. “I’ve got a kit. I’m enrolling in a course in special writing at night school, come fall.”

“Calligraphy,” Jim said. “We’re a team.”

“I wonder if you would be offended if someone who didn’t hunt wanted a mallard just as a beautiful piece of handwork to put on his desk?” Francis asked.

Jim shrugged. “All the same to me,” he said.

“May I ask what they cost?”

“Two twenty-five,” Jim said. “Cost of eyes just went through the roof.”

“They’re worth every penny,” Francis said. “They—I’m sure they do the job, but just as something to look at and contemplate . . .” He trailed off. “Would you have time to make one for me?”

“This is what I do,” Jim said. “Sure.”

“Well, may I give you a down payment? That, and of course I wanted to tip you, because the way you drive, you’re sure to get to my house in Connecticut before I do!” Without waiting for a response, he reached into his back pocket. His finger slid through. His wallet was not there. He quickly patted his jacket pocket. Only the cell phone was inside. Then he jerked the chair back and felt shock reddening his face. He almost ran out to see if the wallet was on the ground, but tried to remember that nothing would be gained by being in a rush, by being sloppy. He walked back to the car, sensing both of them conferring silently behind him, searching too. The wallet had been full of cash, because he’d known that he would need to tip them. How would he drive without a license? He would have to notify the bank, American Express, too many places to remember.

“Bad break,” Jim said, holding a can of beer toward Francis. “Worth going back to the house to look? It would be, wouldn’t it?”

“This is hardly your problem,” he said.

“Terrible feeling,” Jim said. “I got my wallet picked at a Sox game in Boston, summer before last. Caused me no end of trouble. You think it might be back at your aunt’s place?”

“It couldn’t be. I mean, it could, but I would have noticed. It was empty up there.”

“Let’s leave the truck here and go in your car,” Jim said. “Maybe it’ll turn up.”

“It’s no use,” Francis said. “I can envision where I was standing, and I know it wasn’t there.”

“You don’t know,” Don persisted. “C’mon, back we go. We’ll impress you with our fast drivin’. ”

It was getting dark. Francis felt terrible, as if he’d lost a friend. He had lost his wallet only once before—left it behind in a hotel room, actually, and it had been returned to him empty. He tried to tell himself that twice in sixty-six years wasn’t so bad, but both times had happened in the past year. He closed his eyes to envision the second-floor room in which he’d been standing. It was something he’d trained himself to do as a lawyer, to reimagine something. Something concrete, not something abstract, like an idea.

“You prayin’ or something?” Jim said and held out his hand for Francis’s keys. Francis shrugged and handed them to him. At least he hadn’t lost his keys.

Jim drove as if they were being chased, taking a shortcut he’d had to avoid with the truck. When they pulled in to the drive and got out, Jim began to pace the lawn, in the last of the waning light, leaving Francis and Don to go inside. Francis began looking through the first floor, feeling utterly defeated. Then he heard someone bolting up the stairs. “We got gold!” Don shouted almost immediately. “Hunt’s off.”

It was unbelievable; what concluded that way, so easily, so well? He couldn’t believe what he heard, and stood with his head turned toward Don’s voice, perplexed, allowing only the slightest tingle of relief to pass through his clenched stomach.

“What’s this? Is this a wallet?” Don said, stepping off the last step into the hallway.

In that second, Francis, who had never been paranoid, realized that the wallet had been missing because Don had taken it. Hidden it somewhere. He had meant to go back later to get it. But then why had he insisted that they all come back there? Why had he produced the wallet so suspiciously soon? Why would Don do such a thing?

“Holy shit!” Jim said, giving Don a quick slap on the back when he and Francis emerged from the house. “He found it! Just like that, he found it! See?”

It was the moment when Francis, too, should have thrown his arms around Don. But he knew Don had taken the wallet. O.K.: maybe it had fallen out of his pocket, but then Don had noticed it on the floor and either pocketed it or put it somewhere where he could get it later. As sure as Francis had an instinct for anything, he knew that the man preening in front of him had both taken, and returned, the wallet. Because he wants to be the big man in his friend’s eyes, Francis thought. His more talented friend, whom he wanted to impress. Don was like those firemen who set fires so they can be heroes when they extinguish them.

“Where exactly did you find it?” Francis asked when they were back in the car, not turning to look at Don.

“On the shelf in the hallway,” Don answered. “Sitting right there.”

Francis searched his mind, but could not remember having gone near that shelf.

Zooming again through the dark back roads, Jim seemed energized. In the back seat, Don fell silent. The silence was deafening, but Francis thought it would be rude to put on the radio when he wasn’t the driver. He would almost certainly not select the sort of music Don and Jim would like. Fidgeting, he took the wallet from his breast pocket and tilted it toward him: it was accordioned-out with money. “I think I should give you the two hundred and twenty-five dollars now, rather than just a deposit. Will that be all right?” he said.

“Hey, I don’t turn down an offer like that,” Jim said.

“But then, separate from that, I want to thank you for working so quickly and getting everything out of there so well—I mean both of you, of course,” he rushed to add. An image of the broken tree limbs sprang into his mind. He blinked. “I’m much older than you two,” he said, “so will you permit me an awkwardness?”

“What’s that?” Jim said.

“I’ve never really known exactly how to tip, when furniture is moved. Never in my life. Is there some—”

“Like you’d tip a whore,” Don said.

“Excuse me?” Francis said.

“He’s kidding,” Jim said, disgusted.

“No, I’m not. Don’t you tip whores? They name a price, and you’ve got to pay it, but, if you really like what they did, don’t you give them a big tip and go to them again?”

“At my age, I’m not sure I’ll have any more moving jobs for you, unless it’s moving us into the old-age home,” Francis said.

“You never went to a whore, did you?” Don said.

“Shut up,” Jim said.

“I’m not bragging,” Don said. “I never did it in Kuwait. I did it once in Las Vegas, and once in the Combat Zone, when one almost pulled me outta my car. She was terrible, but the one in Vegas had red hair.”

“I’ve been to Vegas,” Francis said. “But you’re right—not for anyone’s services. I was with Hugh Hefner, who had to fly there to pick up the sister of that month’s Playmate, to help Miss November, or whoever she was, get her twin into rehab. They were only seventeen, lying that they were eighteen.”

“What?” Jim said. “You’re puttin’ us on.”

“No,” Francis said, with the dismissive tone of someone telling the truth. “No, I was advising Hugh Hefner about a legal matter I’m still not free to disclose. We talked business on the plane, because we thought a trial might be coming up soon. I found him to be a gentleman. This was long before he went everywhere in pajamas.”

They rode in silence for a moment. Then Jim said, “So did it work out O.K. with the sister?”

“She completed rehab but died in a skiing accident,” Francis said. He could feel it as if it were yesterday: Hefner’s broken voice on the phone, going straight into his ear.

“You wouldn’t have struck me as the sort of guy who hung out with Hugh Hefner,” Don said.

“I was a lawyer,” Francis said. “Lawyers meet all kinds of people.” He let the comment hang in the air. What he still did not know was how one calculated a tip. He decided to delay payment until the furniture was unloaded, which might have been the way to do it, in the first place.

By the time they got on the road with the truck, it was after ten o’clock. They drove for a while, and then Francis blinked his lights several times; eventually, Jim responded by pulling to the side of the road. It was late and Francis was tired. He asked Jim if they could check into a motel. The two detours had cost them several hours, and Francis was having trouble staying awake. He was worried for Jim, as well, and insisted on paying for their room. Jim thought it over for a second. “Sure,” he said.

Half an hour later, as they registered for two rooms at a Hampton Inn, Francis handed Jim a folded-up wad of money. “For the decoy,” he said solemnly, as the night clerk handed them their key cards. Don had fallen asleep in the truck but stumbled out, groggily, when he realized where they were. He stood outside the door on the passenger side, blinking, his hair matted. He looked young, and helpless, and for a second Francis felt sympathy for him—he’d acted impulsively, then regretted what he’d done, because he wasn’t a bad guy, after all. Tough lives, both of them had. Fighting in the Gulf War. Having a damaged child.