Comeback (Gun Pedersen Book 1) (13 page)

“Hedman said he was a partner of some kind
who needed to keep a low profile. That’s it. Zippo.
I don’t know shit about the guy. Not a piss-poor
thing.”

21

It was four o’clock that afternoon when Gun eased the
pickup into the shade outside Jack Be Nimble’s and
tapped a
Let’s Go
on the horn. He could still taste the
Prince Albert tobacco in his mouth from the cigarette
he’d smoked while talking to Mazy on the phone three
hours ago. She’d called just as he was about to leave
for Minneapolis. Now he’d wait until tomorrow—
until after Tig Larson’s funeral—to go visit Ruther
ford.

Jack stepped outside, pulled the oak door shut
behind him and checked to be sure it was locked. Out
from behind his bar Jack looked even shorter than his
five-three and less like a stone Roman than a shaved bear with perfect posture. A poorly shaved bear. His
arms were black and his curly chest hair reached
halfway up his neck and ended in a crooked razor line.

He climbed into the truck and slammed the door.
“You didn’t say much, Gun,” he said. He held his chin
down against his chest. It was his way of frowning.

“She
didn’t say much either. Just that she had some news for me. Good news. And that I should come out
for a visit because she wanted to tell me in person.”

“Something about the land, I suppose.”

“That wouldn’t be good news, would it?”

Jack shook his head. “I’m not sure why you want
me along on this deal,” he said.

“I want you along because I don’t trust my own
judgment,” Gun said. “About Mazy, and the Hedman
kid. Finally I get a chance to see them together, and I
want to read things right. Trouble is, I might see only
what I want to see. I’m counting on you to be more
objective.”

“Don’t know if I can be.”

“Try.”

At the edge of the Hedman land Gun and Jack
found the iron gate open and unguarded. Jack said,
“I’m sure they only do this for relatives.”

Lyle Hedman was waiting on the front step of his
grass-roofed house. He was standing in a relaxed
slouch, his thumbs in the belt loops of his tan, creased
trousers, his shapeless face bright with self-satis
faction. Gun and Jack left the truck beside one of the
unlit gas torches and walked over to him.

“Nice of you to come, Gun. And you brought a
friend.” Hedman stepped forward and shook Gun’s
hand, then Jack’s. “Jack LaSalle,” Hedman said. “I
don’t forget names or faces.”

“Lyle Hedman,” said Jack. “Neither do I.”

Hedman laughed and gave Jack a friendly slap on
the shoulder. Then he whistled, and Reuben came
loping up from the lake. The dog’s reddish-brown hair
was flattened with water. He shook himself at a safe
distance before padding over to his master. “Good
boy, Reuben,” Hedman said. Reuben whined. He
rolled his yellow eyes up at Gun and shot lake water
out his nose.

“Where’s Mazy?” Gun said.

“She’ll be along shortly. Prettying herself up, I
imagine.” Hedman curled his tongue down over his
bottom lip. “I think maybe she and Geoff have been
upstairs, napping.” He shook his head the way people
do when they’re remembering the old days, and
chuckled. “Come on, let’s go ‘round back to the
gazebo.”

Gun and Jack followed Hedman and Reuben. The
gazebo wasn’t a gazebo at all, but a green safari tent
the size of a two-car garage. Two of its walls were
canvas, the other two mosquito netting. Inside was an
aluminum camp table. Scattered around were half a
dozen director’s chairs in green, red, and yellow. A sterling ice bucket on the table held a long-necked bottle of champagne. Gun thought, This doesn’t look
good at all.

“Pull up a seat,” Hedman said.

The men arranged themselves in a generous trian
gle. A woman came in with a tray of champagne
glasses. “Thanks, Mona,” said Lyle. “I’ll pour.” Mona
left, and Hedman stood to take care of the cham
pagne. Before he’d finished filling the glasses, Lyle’s
wife and Geoff and Mazy came out the back door of
the lodge and walked toward the tent.

Mazy looked all right—but then, she always did. She wasn’t one to show what she was feeling. Gun
watched her closely. Her walk seemed normal and she
held her chin high, almost defiantly so. She wore
Levi’s and a white V-necked T-shirt. As she entered
the tent her eyes darted back and forth, from Geoff to
his plump mother. Gun stood up. He and Mazy
hugged each other. He could feel the tension in her
arms and back.

Mazy said, “How are you, Dad?”

“I’m fine.”

“I’m glad you came.” Mazy was holding Gun’s

hand now, gripping it like she didn’t want to let go.
Her eyes were serious. Her voice lacked the huskiness
she’d developed as a tomboy and never outgrown.
“We’ve got some good news for you, Dad. Geoff and I
do.”

Damn, Gun thought.

“Here,” said Lyle Hedman, pushing a glass of
champagne into Gun’s hand.

Geoff put his arm around Mazy’s shoulder and
guided her away from her father. Hedman Senior handed out champagne. The group stood in a loose
circle. Mazy looked at the ground between her feet.
Geoff looked grinning at his father.

“Okay, let’s hear it,” said Lyle Hedman, lifting his glass toward his son. Mrs. Hedman, clutching tightly
to her husband’s arm, imitated his movement.

“Yeah,” said Geoff. He brushed a lock of hair out of
his eyes and glanced apprehensively at Gun. “Really, I
think Mazy should tell her father. I think that’s what
she wants.” He turned to Mazy.

She lifted her face and met her father’s gaze. “I’m
pregnant,” she said.

Gun thought, The hell you are.

“Early February it looks like,” Lyle said to Gun.
“You’re going to be a grandpa.”

Geoff threw back his glass of champagne. Mazy
looked into hers. Hedman cried, “To a healthy, stur
dy, baby boy,” and flourished his. Hedman’s wife
took a meek sip, eyes fluttering. Gun and Jack didn’t lift their glasses. They stood with their legs planted firmly apart, bodies tilting stiffly forward like sailors
in a gale.

“Gun, Gun,” Lyle said, spinning a circle in the air
with a thin hand, “now is the time to drink to the
health of our first grandchild, not the time to think
politics or business or any of the—”

“Let me get one thing straight here,” Gun said,
looking at Geoff. “You knew about this and didn’t tell
me.”

Geoff’s Florida tan was turning splotchy. His eyes
implored his father for help.

Lyle Hedman said, “Gun, this isn’t the nineteenth
century.”

“I’m talking to your kid,” Gun said, pointing a
finger at Lyle but not taking his eyes from Geoff.

“Well, ah, yes, Mr. Pedersen,” said Geoff. “You
must understand, though, that Mazy and I didn’t want
it to be like this, not at all.”

“Gun,” Lyle said. “They’re old enough to make
their own decisions.”

“And to speak for themselves. I want to hear from
Geoff, not you. Straighten me out on something. How
do you know Mazy’s pregnant when you only started
seeing each other two weeks ago?”

Geoff shook his head quickly. “We would have liked
this to be different, but this is how it turned out. We
were seeing each other several months before you
knew anything about it, in Minneapolis. Considering
your position, it was difficult to say anything.”

“Dad.” Mazy looked up from the ground. Her voice
was back again, husky, almost confident. “Geoff’s telling the truth.” She looked away toward Hambone
Bay, large and round and turquoise, with a small
green island in the center of it. “Dad,” she said, “we
want you to know something else. If it’s a boy we’re
going to name him Gun.” She kept her eyes on the
lake.

“Now, that sounds like a wonderful idea,” said
Lyle. He set down his glass of champagne and made a
soundless clap. “Gun Hedman.”

Jack laughed. Mrs. Hedman let go of her husband’s
arm and strode purposefully to Mazy. In a clipped

monotone she said, “Mazy and I are going to do some
shopping this afternoon. We’d better get started.” She
took Mazy’s hand. Mazy allowed herself to be led
from the tent.

“Gentlemen, please,” Lyle said. “Sit down. Now
that the women are gone, I want to talk a little
business. Overdue business. Gun, it’s high time I put
your mind at ease about a few things.” Hedman sat
down lightly in a green director’s chair. Geoff stood
listening in the door of the tent. “Please,” Lyle said,
indicating the chairs on either side of him.

Gun and Jack stayed on their feet. Hedman
coughed, then whistled for Reuben, who’d been lying
in the shade just outside the tent.

Hedman crossed his legs. “I’ll come right to the
point, Gun. First, I couldn’t be more pleased that
Geoff got such a fine wife, though I can see you’re less
than enthusiastic about the match. Okay. Second,
things couldn’t have worked out better regarding
Loon Country. Mazy was quite happy to offer her land
for the project. In fact, it was her idea, not mine. She
wants to see the economy thrive here in Stony, and she
wants her children to be financially secure. She’s
really a very bright girl.”

Gun said, “You said you’d get to the point.”

Lyle bowed his head slightly. “Here it is. Mazy wanted to ensure that you wouldn’t be adversely
affected by this thing. She insisted that your cabin and the forestland surrounding it be fenced off to guaran
tee you won’t be bothered. You’ll have two hundred
and fifty feet of lakeshore and plenty of woods. It’s all
arranged.”

“Plenty?” Gun said. “How much is that?”

“Ten acres.”

Jack said, “Hey, that’s great. You’re coming out
ahead on this deal, Gun. You get to keep your cabin,
and if you ever get tired of being out there all by

yourself on that big plot of land, you can just walk across your backyard and check into the Radisson
Stony for a weekend, take in a nightclub act.”

In the truck Jack said, “She was nervous, sure, but what can you expect. I think she’s doing one hell of an
acting job. If you ask me, the whole troop of them was
acting. I’d just like to know what they’re holding over
her head.”

“Use your imagination.” Gun shifted down and
turned the Ford into Jack’s parking lot. He turned off
the engine, which made its usual kicking departure.
“I’ve always been able to see through her before,” he
said. “Or thought so.”

Jack opened the passenger door. “Another thing.
Hedman’s got the land he wanted, right? So if this
thing’s a charade, why keep it up? You can bet he’s had
Mazy sign the papers. How long are they going to
make her play the game?”

“Simple enough. They make her play along until
after the referendum Tuesday. If she’s playing.”

“What about after that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then we better move before Tuesday.”

“We will.”

22

“I want to see Jim,” Gun said. The woman behind the glass window was half hidden by a glossy philoden-
dron vine.

“Dr. Samuelson, you mean.”

“His name’s Jim.” Gun reached through the win
dow and held the vine aside in order to get a better
look at the person he was talking to. He didn’t know
her. She had gray hair piled up on her head like a corn
shock. Her eyes were huge behind thick lenses. Her white name tag said
edna.

“Yes, well, Dr. Samuelson’s not here,” she said.

“Where is he?”

“And he won’t be back until . . . let’s see”—she
reached for a black notebook and riffled through
it—”until July fifteenth. He’s in Europe, you see.”

“I’ll bet he just left too.”

“As a matter of fact, yesterday.”

“Of course,” said Gun. Damn convenient. “Look, I
need a favor, okay?”

Edna’s eyes blinked carefully, like the eyes of a
serious fish.

“I want you to check your files for me,” Gun said.
“Last week Samuelson examined my daughter. Mazy
Pedersen . . . Hedman.”

“I know who you are,” Edna said with a formal
nod.

“I want to see that report.”

Edna touched her fingertips to the top of her gray
cone of hair, as if to be sure it hadn’t toppled over. “I’m sorry, but I simply can’t do that.”

Gun was still holding the green vine out of Edna’s
face. He said, “It’s important that I see that report.
If it makes any difference, I’ve known Jim, Dr.
Samuelson, for a long time. He wouldn’t say no
.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Pedersen, it’s not my
decision. It’s policy.”

“Tell me,” Gun said, making an effort to modulate
his voice, “is there any way I could contact
Samuelson? By phone, today?”

Edna shook her round face from side to side. “Not by phone. But there’s a forwarding address.”

“No,” Gun said, and he let the vine drop back in
front of Edna’s face. As he turned to go he caught sight
of a small orange dot. He leaned down toward the
window for a closer look. Sure enough, affixed to a
brown purse that was hanging on a chair to Edna’s
right was an orange button that said
vote no on loon
country.

“Edna,” Gun said. His face was right up to the window opening.

She looked up from an appointment calendar and
pulled back, startled.

“It’s wrong to follow policy sometimes,” Gun said.
“Would it help if I told you that this has to do with the

Loon Country mess? Please let me see the file on my
daughter.”

Edna touched her fingers to her hair again and
hummed a short low pitch, her lips pressed tight.
Then she stood and went to a row of gray file cabinets.

Samuelson’s report verified Mazy’s claim. Preg
nant. Gun wasn’t surprised. Do it right or not at all, he
thought.

“Thanks,” he said, returning the file to Edna. “One
other question. Do you have any idea when Dr. Samuelson made his vacation plans?”

Edna shrugged. “He and Mrs. Samuelson go every year about now. Have for a long time. Most people
know that.”

“Do they use a travel agent?”

“Fredericks, I believe.”

By the time Gun reached Fredericks Travel it was
five o’clock. The office had closed early. Gun drove
home and phoned Paul Fredericks at the golf club.
Samuelson had made his plans early. Six months
early.

Which didn’t mean much, Gun told himself. He
was sitting at the table, smoking. None of it really
meant anything. For Lyle it would have been a matter
of talking things over with Samuelson, making an
offer as sweet as was necessary, and promising the good doctor that Mazy would later claim to have
miscarried. The doctor’s reputation would remain
untarnished, and he’d be able to spend an extra week
or two on the Riviera. No one the wiser. At least
that’s how Gun preferred to think it must be.
“None of it means a thing,” he said to the kitchen
table.

He put out his cigarette in the square glass ashtray.
Then on impulse he stood up and went into the spare
bedroom, took down an unopened bottle of Johnnie

Walker Red Label and walked down to the lake. He
untied the Alumacraft and stepped in.

The surface of the water was smooth, and Gun
followed an imaginary line across the width of the
lake, past the four cluster islands straight toward the
inlet, the mouth of Woman River. He followed the
center of the narrow river for a mile, passing beneath
the lake road and coming eventually to a second
bridge. He ran the bow up onto a low grassy bank and
took a small pair of battered binoculars from his
tackle box. He climbed out of the boat and up the
grade to the roadbed and walked to the middle of the
bridge.

Ahead of him the river widened into a sprawling
marsh: hundreds of acres of rushes and cattails,
dun-colored mostly, but starting to brighten here and
there with new shoots of green. The main channel of the river wound through the marsh like a string of
bright blue yarn.

Through the binoculars Gun spotted it right away—
the dark brown hump rising several feet above the
tops of the rushes. It was a good half mile away and
probably a couple hundred yards from the main
waterway. There were other muskrat houses in the
swamp, thousands of them, but this one was by far the
largest. For some reason that Gun didn’t understand,
the little animals chose to build their palace in the
same exact spot every year, without fail. Gun had
driven by every summer to check.

He returned to the boat and motored upriver half a
mile. He cut the engine. Using an oar he poled the
Alumacraft straight into the heavy marsh. In some places the water was four or five feet deep and had a
solid bottom. In others it was shallower, but had a
bottom so soft and boggy he was able to drive the long
oar right up to its handle. The rushes were thick everywhere. It was slow travel.

The sun was nearly gone when he finally ran out of
water. The dark mound was still twenty yards off and
he couldn’t pole the boat any closer. With the bottle of scotch in one hand, Gun lifted his right foot out of the
boat and tested the surface of the bog. It felt solid enough to walk on. He swung his other leg over the
side and let his full weight come down. The crust gave
way. Gun fell against the bow of the boat and the
bottle cracked on the gunwale.

“Aw, damn,” he said. The amber liquid streamed
from a crack that jagged down the glass, neck to base.
He lifted the bottle and shattered it against the
aluminum hull. He pulled one foot out of the muck and took a long high step away from the boat. The
smell of rotting swamp stung his nostrils. The bog
gasped and sucked at his feet.

In twenty slow steps Gun was sitting on the firm lodge of reeds and mud and cattails. He watched the light fall low in the sky, then seep down behind the
dark hills to the west.

Next morning he watched the sun come around
again. It was the second sunrise he’d watched from
this spot, and it wasn’t as spectacular as the first. Ten
years ago he’d been less sober, and the glaring colors
had looked deeper than blood.