The Paper Grail (14 page)

“Another round of drinks here,” Stoat said to the bartender as he stood up. He widened his eyes at Uncle Roy. “Think about it,” he said. Then he nodded to Howard, walked across and laid a five-dollar bill on the bar, and walked out.

Uncle Roy sat still for a moment, as if waiting for Stoat’s return. A car started up outside, though, following the labored, metallic whine of a bad starter. Uncle Roy relaxed then, all in a heap, producing a handkerchief and mopping his brow. The atmosphere in the bar seemed to ease just then, and Howard could smell the wind off the sea, tainted with candy-drop eucalyptus.

“Put that in the tip glass, Sammy,” Uncle Roy said, waving at the bill on the bar. “Let’s go,” he said to Howard. “I won’t drink on that bastard’s money. Go ahead—I’ll meet you in the truck.”

Without asking about it, Howard went outside, squinting in the late-afternoon sunlight. He sat in the truck for a moment warming up the engine before his uncle came out, carrying a paper sack. Uncle Roy winked at him after he hauled himself in and waved the paper bag. There was a bottle of Sunberry Farms whiskey in it. “No need to tell Edith about any of this,” he said.

“Not a word,” Howard said. “I’m not sure what went on myself.”

Uncle Roy gave him a sideways look. “There’s nothing to tell, really. Damn all creditors,” he said. “There’s nothing worse than a landlord. Bunch of vultures. Money’s not enough for them, they want your soul, too. Give me a psychotic with a loaded gun anytime.”

“Anything to do with that sketch I’m after?” Howard asked, working on a hunch.

Clearly his uncle didn’t want to discuss it. Let the matter slide, his face seemed to say. And the sketch wasn’t Howard’s in any real way, despite Graham’s letter. Although if he, or rather the museum, wasn’t going to get it, someone owed him an explanation—some story he could take back south with him.

“Don’t worry about Stoat,” Uncle Roy said, as if that answered Howard’s question. “I’ve already forgotten him. He draws pictures of copulating machines. What can you say about a man like that? Steer clear of him. That’s the advice I gave Sylvia, and I’m going to give the same advice to you. I’ll show him a thing or two if he comes meddling around us again.”

Uncle Roy went on in a more determined voice. “Look, I won’t pretend here. You’ve come up north at a … tenuous time. Things are shaky. The ground’s rumbling. Pressure’s dropping. Do you follow me?”

“Yeah,” Howard said. “The haunted house and all. The landlady. I’m willing to help, though.”

“I know you are. God bless you. But it’s not just that. There’s some of this business that you ought to steer clear of. This man today … this Stoat—he’s a dangerous character. And you come up here on vacation and run straight into him.”

“And Sylvia was crazy for this guy.”

“After a fashion. She’s fond of a handsome face and she trusts damned near anybody until they give her reason not to. He’s not her sort, though. And if she knew he was hounding me … !” Uncle Roy shook his head at the thought of what Sylvia might do.

“Well, look,” Howard said, pulling in at the curb in front of the house. “I’ve got a sort of proposition for you. A business deal. It wouldn’t mean much money, I’m afraid, only a couple hundred. And I wouldn’t ask you at all if I thought it might be wasting your time. It seemed like a sure thing to me yesterday, but after visiting with Mr. Jimmers last night, I’m not so sure anymore.”

“Sure about what? I’m happy to help. I don’t need any commission, though—not from my nephew.”

“Of course, of course. It’s the museum, though, that’s offering the commission. They’ve sent the money up with me—part of an expense account. It’s this bit of artwork that I’m supposed to obtain—I don’t know how much I told you about it in my letter. It’s a piece owned by Michael Graham, a sketch for a Japanese woodblock print. But now Graham’s dead, and I can’t get anything sensible out of Jimmers. I’m a foreigner up here, and what I need is a local—someone these people trust. You, actually, if you’d tackle it. I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that I can’t accomplish it alone. I hate to foist this off on you, what with the haunted house and all …”

His uncle was as pale as one of the Studebaker ghosts. Abruptly he held up the paper bag and pulled the cork out of the bottle with his teeth. He offered the bag to Howard, who immediately looked into the side mirror, a little bit uneasy with the idea of opening the whiskey in the car.

“No thanks.”

“That’s the stuff,” his uncle said, after swallowing a mouthful. “That’s the feathers on the bird.” He replaced the cork with a shaking hand. “My advice to you is to forget this—what did you call it?”

“It’s a sketch by an old Japanese artist. Hoku-sai, I think. Graham had it hidden. Jimmers claims that it’s gone now, but I can’t make out whether Jimmers has made off with it or if the piece has been stolen. I don’t mean to accuse him, of course.”

“Well, you know how it is up here. Lots of mysteries. Jimmers is one of the biggest of them. It’ll probably surface in one of the oriental antique shops down in San Francisco, and Jimmers will be in groceries for a couple of months. I’ll level with you. This is nothing you want to be involved in. If the thing’s gone, it’s gone. I’m certain that if Jimmers still had it, he’d ante up. Think of it as spilt milk.”

“Maybe,” Howard said. “I’ve got to try to recover it, I guess. I’ve got to have something to tell them back at the museum. I’ll need advice, though, from someone who knows the territory. But I won’t take it for nothing, so this commission business still stands. If you won’t help, I’ll have to go elsewhere, which I don’t want to do.”

“I’m telling you that I can’t do you a shred of good. You’re pumping money down a rat hole.”

“Fair enough. I’ve been warned.”

“Of course if push comes to shove,” Uncle Roy said cryptically, “then I’m your man. You won’t be working alone.”

Howard nodded, grateful for the promise but wondering how to apply it. He pulled in at the curb in front of the house and the two of them got out. Howard decided not to press it any further, not to mention the “object” that Stoat had referred to back at the bar. Easy does it, he told himself.

“Follow me,” Uncle Roy said, heading toward the back, past the scaffolding again. He stopped at the lean-to shed, pulling the splinter of wood out of the hasp, then stepped inside. There was a trouble light hooked up, hanging from the ceiling, a heavy orange extension cord leading away beneath the house. Uncle Roy turned the light on, pulled open a drawer, hauled out an inch-thick stack of sandpaper, and shoved the bottle in under it.

“Edith’s not much on hard liquor,” he said. “I’ve got a house bottle, too, but I’m pretty sure she keeps a weather eye on it. She’s a fierce one when she’s got a measuring stick in her hand. Doesn’t mind a couple of bottles of beer gone, but a bottle of whiskey had better last a man six months; either that or he’s a rummy. Better to humor her than to argue the case, though. That’s paramount in a marriage. Argue for fun, if you want to, but not for profit.”

Together they strolled toward the back door, Uncle Roy telling Howard about his plans for the haunted house, calculating ticket prices and overhead and then going on to the barn lumber issue, and from there into talk about video game arcades and the profit to be made hauling chicken manure, carrying the conversation farther and farther away from landlords and rice paper sketches and the manifold mysteries that rode on the evening sea wind.

8

H
OWARD
found himself that evening in Sylvia’s yellow Toyota, riding down the coast highway toward Mendocino and Sylvia’s shop. Dinner had been a little rough. Uncle Roy talked so seriously and optimistically about the haunted house that he might have been soliciting investments in it. It was set up in
an abandoned icehouse down on the harbor, behind the Cap’n England. His friend Bennet was “working on it night and day.” It wasn’t clear to Howard whether “Bennet” was the man’s first name or last name. Uncle Roy was the business end of the thing and the creative genius behind it. The man Bennet could use a hammer and nails and had been willing to work “on spec.” Uncle Roy promised to haul Howard down there tomorrow, first thing in the morning, and show him a thing or two.

Uncle Roy’s cheerful and convincing notions about the haunted house did nothing to enliven things, though. Aunt Edith had a look about her that suggested she found the haunted house tiresome, or worse—that she saw it as another looming financial disaster. Howard knew that they were in such straits that the loss of a couple of hundred dollars qualified as a financial disaster.

Sylvia said little. The subject of haunted houses seemed to embarrass her slightly, as if she had her opinion but couldn’t state it without causing trouble between her parents. Howard smiled and nodded, uttering pleasant statements in a sort of oil-on-the-waters way. It had been a strain, though, and when he had suggested, after dinner, that he and Sylvia go out for a drink, she had accepted without hesitation.

Now Howard tried to make small talk while driving into Mendocino, but she seemed depressed and was untalkative. “This haunted house business might just work,” he said. “Those are popular things down south. Kids line up for blocks.”

Sylvia glanced into the mirror and shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. “Mr. Bennet’s sunk most of the materials into it. They’re mostly salvage. If it fails, there won’t be too much loss, financially speaking.”

“Right. That’s what I was thinking. Uncle Roy’s got some nice props, anyway—the eyeballs and ghost woman and all.”

Sylvia looked at him as if she thought he was kidding. “It isn’t money, though, that’s bothering Mom. Not mainly. I think she can’t stand to see him make a fool out of himself. She believes in him like crazy, and so every time he jumps on a new idea she suffers for it. She’s seen him fail, and she doesn’t want it to happen again, for his sake.”

“I talked to the old landlady today, what’s-her-name.”

“That would be Mrs. Lamey. She can be awful. Sometimes I think that it isn’t just money she’s after.”

“He gave her a thrill with the rubber bat.”

Sylvia smiled just a little bit, as if there were something about Uncle Roy’s eccentricities that pleased her, after all. Then the
troubled look came into her face again. “If I lose the store,” she said, “we lose the house.”

“That’s too bad. The store floats the house?”

“In the spring and summer, when the coast is full of tourists, but the rest of the year it’s a matter of squeaking by. Dad gets a Social Security check, but you know what that’s worth these days. Anyway, I’m squeaking now. I operate these private New Age parties on the side, selling catalogue stuff, and that helps. That’s what I was doing last night. That’s why Jimmers couldn’t find me. Mother and Father were out playing pinochle. Anyway, Father has the capacity to sort of fritter money away when we get a little ahead. Before the haunted house it was an aquarium down at the harbor. He got hold of a lot of heavy window glass and had the idea of gluing up aquariums and piping water in out of the ocean. He even applied for a grant to study marine life. He was going to sell fish and chips on the side.”

“It didn’t work?”

“No.” She shook her head.

“He means well.”

“Of course he means well. And he’s optimistic, too. He’s always on the verge of making a killing. The spirit museum was going to make a killing, and it bled him nearly dry. It’s almost a blessing that he doesn’t have any real money to invest anymore.”

“He’s got a certain innate genius, though. I’m sure of it. If he’d only find out how to put it to use.”

“Before we all go broke.”

“As I understand it, he believed pretty strongly in the museum.”

Sylvia looked hard at him. “Why shouldn’t he have?”

Howard shrugged. “Sounds a little implausible, that’s all. He was in competition with all those other roadside attractions, where gravity abdicates and water runs uphill and all. Hard to imagine tourists stopping at any of them, unless maybe their kids force them at gunpoint. What sorts of gimmicks did he have?”

“Gimmicks? None, if I understand what you mean. It wasn’t fakery. He had a historical interest in the paranormal. He was sure there was something out there, along that stretch of highway. He was picking mushrooms early one morning, and … He’s an amateur mycologist, did you know that? He used to be very well thought of, actually.”

“No,” said Howard, “I didn’t know. Anyway, he was out picking mushrooms …”

“And he saw a car full of ghosts drive past in the early-morning fog. They were apparently in Michael Graham’s car.” Sylvia looked straight ahead, down the highway.

“I heard about that. He wrote a letter to my mother. How did he know they were ghosts?”

“He said they just evaporated there, while he was watching. The car was sort of drifting up the highway, and there were three men in it, wearing out-of-date hats. The car was slowing down as it passed him, and the three inside just … the car disappeared in the fog. It was Father that drove it back down to Graham’s after it rolled to a stop against the guardrail. There wasn’t anyone in it and not a soul around.”

“These ghosts were car thieves?”