An hour after the cacophony began, it stopped. The dogs had delivered their message, and as it goes in cases where dogs warn of coming earthquakes, tornadoes, or volcanic eruptions, the message was completely misconstrued. What was left the next morning was a very sleepy, grumpy village brimming with lawsuits and insurance claims, but without a single clue that something was coming.
At six that morning a cadre of old men gathered outside the general store to discuss the events of the night before, never once letting their ignorance of what had happened interfere with a good bull session.
A new, four-wheel-drive pickup pulled into the small parking lot, and Augustus Brine crawled out, jangling his huge key ring as if it were a talisman of power sent down by the janitor god. He was a big man, sixty years old, white haired and bearded, with shoulders like a mountain gorilla. People alternately compared him to Santa Claus and the Norse god Odin.
“Morning, boys,” Brine grumbled to the old men, who gathered behind him as he unlocked the door and let them into the dark interior of Brine’s Bait, Tackle, and Fine Wines. As he switched on the lights and started brewing the first two pots of his special, secret, dark-roast coffee, Brine was assaulted by a salvo of questions.
“Gus, did you hear the dogs last night?”
“We heard a tree went down on your hill. You hear anything about it?”
“Can you brew some decaf? Doctor says I’ve got to cut the caffeine.”
“Bill thinks it was a bitch in heat started the barking, but it was all over town.”
“Did you get any sleep? I couldn’t get back to sleep.”
Brine raised a big paw to signal that he was going to speak, and the old men fell silent. It was like that every morning: Brine arrived in the middle of a discussion and was immediately elected to the role of expert and mediator.
“Gentlemen, the coffee’s on. In regard to the events of last night, I must claim ignorance.”
“You mean it didn’t wake you up?” Jim Whatley asked from under the brim of a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball cap.
“I retired early last night with two lovely teenage bottles of cabernet, Jim. Anything that happened after that did so without my knowledge or consent.”
Jim was miffed with Brine’s detachment. “Well, every goddamn dog in town started barking last night like the end of the world was coming.”
“Dogs bark,” Brine stated. He left off the “big deal” — it was understood from his tone.
“Not every dog in town. Not all at once. George thinks it’s supernatural or something.”
Brine raised a white eyebrow toward George Peters, who stood by the coffee machine sporting a dazzling denture grin. “And what, George, leads you to the conclusion that the cause of this disturbance was supernatural?”
“Woke up with a hard-on for the first time in twenty years. It got me right up. I thought I’d rolled over on the flashlight I keep by the bed for midnight emergencies.”
“How were the batteries, Georgie?” someone interjected.
“I tried to wake up the wife. Whacked her on the leg with it just to get her attention. I told her the bear was charging and I have one bullet left.”
“And?” Brine filled the pause.
“She told me to put some ice on it to make the swelling go down.”
“Well,” Brine said, stroking his beard, “that certainly sounds like a supernatural experience to me.” He turned to the rest of the group and announced his judgment. “Gents, I agree with George. As with Lazarus rising from the dead, this unexplained erection is hard evidence of the supernatural at work. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have cash customers to attend to.”
The last remark was not meant as a dig toward the old men, whom Brine allowed to drink coffee all day free of charge. Augustus Brine had long ago won their loyalty, and it would have been absurd for any one of them to think of going anywhere else to purchase wine, or cheese, or bait, or gasoline, even though Brine’s prices were a good thirty percent higher than the Thrifty-Mart down the street.
Could the pimple-faced clerks at the Thrifty-Mart give advice on which bait was best for rock cod, a recipe for an elegant dill sauce for that same fish, recommend a fine wine to complement the meal, and at the same time ask after the well-being of every family member for three generations by name? They could not! And therein lay the secret of Augustus Brine’s ability to run a successful business based entirely on the patronage of locals in an economy catering to tourists.
Brine made his way to the counter, where an attractive woman in a waitress apron awaited, impatiently worrying a five-dollar bill.
“Five dollars worth of unleaded, Gus.” She thrust the bill at Brine.
“Rough night, Jenny?”
“Does it show?” Jenny made a show of fixing her shoulder-length auburn hair and smoothing her apron.
“A safe assumption, only,” Brine said with a smile that revealed teeth permanently stained by years of coffee and pipe smoke. “The boys tell me there was a citywide disturbance last night.”
“Oh, the dogs. I thought it was just my neighborhood. I didn’t get to sleep until four in the morning, then the phone rang and woke me up.”
“I heard about you and Robert splitting up,” Brine said.
“Did someone send out a newsletter or something? We’ve only been separated a few days.” Irritation put an unattractive rasp in her voice.
“It’s a small town,” Brine said softly. “I wasn’t trying to be nosy.”
“I’m sorry, Gus. It’s just the lack of sleep. I’m so tired I was hallucinating on the way down here. I thought I heard Wayne Newton singing ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus.’”
“Maybe you did.”
“The music was coming from a pine tree. I’m telling you, I’ve been a basket case all week.”
Brine reached across the counter and patted her hand. “The only constant in this life is change, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Give yourself a break.”
Just then Vance McNally, the local ambulance driver, burst through the door. The radio on his belt made a sizzling sound as if he’d just stepped out of a deep fryer. “Guess who vapor locked last night?” he said, obviously hoping that no one would know.
Everyone turned and waited for his announcement. Vance basked in their attention for a moment to confirm his self-importance. “Milo Tobin,” he said, finally.
“The evil developer?” George asked.
“That’s him. Sometime around midnight. We just bagged him,” Vance said to the group. Then to Brine, “Can I get a pack of Marlboros?”
The old men searched each other’s faces for the right reaction to Vance’s news. Each was waiting for another to say what they were all thinking, which was, “It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” or even, “Good riddance,” but as they were all aware that Vance’s next rude announcement could be about them, they tried to think of something nice to say. You don’t park in the handicapped space lest the forces of irony give you a reason to, and you don’t speak ill of the dead unless you want to get bagged next.
Jenny saved them. “He sure kept that Chrysler of his clean, didn’t he?”
“Sure did.”
“The thing sparkled.”
“He kept it like new, he did.”
Vance smiled at the discomfort he had caused. “See you boys later.” He turned to leave and bumped straight into the little man standing behind him.
“Excuse me, fella,” Vance said.
No one had seen him come in or had heard the bell over the door. He was an Arab, dark, with a long, hooked nose and old; his skin hung around his piercing gray-blue eyes in folds. He wore a wrinkled, gray flannel suit that was at least two sizes too big. A red stocking cap rode high on the back of his bald head. His rumpled appearance combined with this diminutive size made him look like a ventriloquist’s dummy that had spent a long time in a small suitcase.