Mickelsson's Ghosts by John Gardner (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

to the dark-haired boy, then another to the blond, who was looking over his shoulder down the hallway, worried. “It’s all right,” Mickelsson said, “the mugs are old and cheap. Go ahead, they’re yours.” He moved toward the door and just after the first knock came he opened it. A sheriff’s deputy stood, pot-bellied, hands on hips, silhouetted in profile against the blue-flashing lights. He was no one Mickelsson had ever seen before.

“Professor Mickelsson?” he asked. In one gloved hand he had a long black flashlight, solid as a club.

“Come in,” Mickelsson said. “I gave them a cup of hot milk and they haven’t figured out quite what to do with it yet.” He smiled. “They’ll be right with you.”

“That’s OK,” the man said, and grinned, then sucked at his lower lip, a gesture apparently habitual.

The two Saints were drinking quickly, probably scalding themselves, eager to be off with the policeman, not make a bad impression, but also eager not to carry away the mugs. The cat stood waiting with his back raised.

“It’s OK,” the policeman said to them, grinning, showing his teeth, then sucking at his lower lip again.

They put the mugs down, empty. “You got here quick,” the dark-haired one said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He gave a jerky nod to Mickelsson and drifted toward the door.

When they were gone, Mickelsson again poured milk for the cat, mixed in dry catfood, then slowly washed the pot in which he’d heated the milk for the Mormons. He moved the Brillo pad around and around long after the pot was clean. At last he realized what was bothering him. It was that look, the night of the fire up at Spragues’, on Owen Thomas’s face. Was it just that they couldn’t find the old man’s body—or had he seen something?

5

Mid-morning, Saturday. Bitterly cold again. Mickelsson registered it like a man moving toward some important, foreknown event.

Owen Thomas’s reserve seemed more than ordinary shyness. He smiled to himself, his gray eyes as evasive as a rabbit’s, and seemed to mull over Mickelsson’s question, turning it over and over again like a hundred-dollar bill found in a clock. While he thought about his answer his small, elegant hands measured out lengths of chain he was cutting for a customer, a young man in a quilted orange down jacket. He had longish, matching orange hair. The store was overwarm, as it always was on cold days. There were a number of customers, most of them probably just looking, fleeing the cold. The customer buying chain had small, bright blue eyes like a baby’s, and seemed to listen for Thomas’s answer as eagerly as did Mickelsson. He was stocky, powerful, as innocent as a hen.

“Well,” Thomas said, “the place was quite a mess, I can tell you that. It was pretty much burned down to nothing when we axed our way in, but you could see how bad it had been.”

“Yes,” Mickelsson said, unsatisfied, “I was up there once. Junk from one end of the house to the other.” He kept his face turned partly away.

Thomas nodded, then squeezed the handles of the chain-cutter. The chain-links parted without a sound and the lower length of chain fell to the floor and nestled. “That’s true, but it’s not what I meant,” he said at last. “I mean the livingroom walls were all torn up. It looked like a bomb had gone off there or something”—he smiled, glanced at Mickelsson—“or maybe somebody’d started tearing the house down.”

“The walls—?” The young man leaned around, trying to see Thomas’s eyes.

“All torn up, plaster all over the floor,” Thomas said. He seemed reluctant to speak further.

“Jesus,” the young man said, then held out both arms to take the chain as he would yarn. Thomas lifted it toward him and hung it over his arms loop by loop. “What’s this country comin to?” the young man asked. He looked, full of concern, at Mickelsson, as if he might know.

“You’re sure of this?” Mickelsson asked. “Couldn’t it just be that things caved in during the fire?”

Owen Thomas shrugged, noncommittal, as if to say “That’s not how it looked to me,” but he said nothing.

The young man’s face tightened; then he said what he was thinking: “Gol darn motorcycle gangs.”

“You think so?” Mickelsson asked.

“They’re everywhere. Rip up your place worse’n a tornado.”

“Surely not in the winter, though. It was all snow and ice.”

“Snowmobiles, then. It’s all the same,” the young man said. “My wife’s folks went away one time, week-end at Elk Mountain, and they came home and, by heck, you just wouldn’t believe it. Place tore all upside and down. And as if that weren’t enough, they blew up the little bridge on the road in front! Dynamite! Everybody knows about ’em. Heck, they brag about it! They’ll steal your overcoat and wear it right downtown, big as life, or they’ll tear up your place just for the fun of it. They’re nuts!”

“Well,” Thomas said, negotiating.

The young man stood holding the chain, face reddening, eyes growing brighter. “They’re just nuts, that’s all you can figure. They all gaht good jobs. Those machines they drive, they don’t come cheap—you know? They work in their drugstores or banks or wherever, and then the weekend comes—”

“Who?” Mickelsson broke in to ask. When the young man looked blank, he asked again, “Who? I keep hearing that everybody knows who they are, but who are they?”

The young man looked down at the chain.

Mickelsson leaned toward him, speaking gently. “Do you mean Tim Booker and his friends?” He glanced at Owen Thomas, but Owen was looking away.

“I don’t say it’s Tim,” the young man said, pouting, disliking pressure. “People like that, that’s all. Maybe just people too smahrt for Seskehenna. Bored, I mean. They just do things, f’no reason.” He shook his head. “Seems like a lot of people do that. Makes you sick.” He looked sternly at the chain, maybe thinking of all he had to get to yet today—chores, frozen waterlines—and abruptly turned