A large bald man in shorts and a loud Hawaiian shirt stood at the third urinal, his stance wavering. When LePere stepped in, the man looked up from his business. His hand traveled along with his bloodshot eyes, and a stream of urine splashed over the wall. He watched the yellow flow make its way down the wall and puddle on the floor, then he grinned stupidly at LePere and zipped up. He started toward the door, reaching into his pocket as he came. When he was abreast of LePere, he said, “Sorry ‘bout that, Geronimo.” He pulled a red five-dollar casino chip from his pocket, tossed it onto LePere’s cart, and stumbled out the door.
5
WHEN CORK FINALLY ARRIVED at Sam’s Place, his daughters already had things well under control.
Sam’s Place was an old Quonset hut set on the shore of Iron Lake, just outside the town limits of Aurora. Long ago, the structure-a leftover from the Second World War-had been purchased by Sam Winter Moon. Sam had turned the hut into a clean little joint where, during spring, summer, and fall, he’d served burgers and shakes and cones through a small window. His customers had been mostly boaters who motored up to the dock Sam built. When Sam Winter Moon was killed at Burke’s Landing, the old Quonset hut had passed, via Sam’s will, into Cork’s possession. And when, immediately after that, Cork’s life fell apart, Sam’s Place had become his refuge and his vocation. He’d learned how to flip a pretty mean burger.
North of Sam’s Place, behind a chain-link fence, was the long brick rectangle where Bearpaw beer had been brewed since 1938. South, stood a copse of birch and aspen that hid the ruins of an old foundry. In its day, the foundry had cast the metal for a good number of the double-bladed ax heads used to clear the magnificent white pines that had been the glory of the great North Woods.
Except for the haze from the burn of the forest fires up north and the black smudge from the fire at Lindstrom’s mill, the day was beautiful. A perfect day for sailing, and already a lot of boats were on the lake.
Sam’s Place was divided into two parts. In the rear half was a kitchen, a small bathroom, and a living area furnished simply with a table and two chairs handmade from birch, a desk with a shelf for books, a couple of lamps, and a bunk. Sam Winter Moon had lived there first, then Cork in the worst part of his life. The front of the Quonset hut contained the freezer, grill, deep fry, ice milk machine, and stacked cartons of food and paper goods. As Cork entered, he saw that it contained all of his children as well.
“Daddy!” Stevie cried. “I’m helping.”
“I can see that, buddy. Good for you.” He smiled at his daughters. “Thanks, guys.”
Jenny said, “No problem, Dad.” She was busy with the ice milk machine.
“We’re going to need ones,” Annie told him, looking up from the register.
His daughters were growing in a way that made him proud. Jenny had recently abandoned purple hair and a fierce desire to pierce her nose. Over the last year, she had worked her way through every volume of The Diary of Anais Nin. Her sixteenth birthday was less than a month away; she intended, once she’d finished high school, to move to Paris, live on the Left Bank, and write great works of literature.
Annie, eighteen months younger, redheaded, and freckled, was the star pitcher on her softball team. For as long as she’d had the ability to conceive a future for herself, she’d wanted to be a nun.
“What was all the excitement this morning?” Jenny asked.
“Some trouble at the Lindstrom mill.”
“What kind of trouble?” Stevie asked. He’d opened a small package of Fritos and was munching.
“Well.” Cork hesitated, but he knew they’d all hear soon enough. “There was an explosion and a fire. Someone was killed.”
“Who?” Annie asked.
“We don’t know.”
“We? You mean they, don’t know. Sheriff Schanno and his men.” Jenny looked at him in the same way her mother did whenever she caught Cork in a slip of the tongue.
“Right,” Cork said. “That’s what I meant.”
Stevie appeared troubled, his small face intense and focused as his mind worked. “He got blowed up?”
“They’re not sure, buddy. He might have died in the fire.”
“He got burned up?”
Cork felt his stomach turn as he watched his son work on that one in his small head. “Tell you what,” he threw in quickly. “Let’s you and me go to the bank and get some small bills so we can do business today.”
Stevie brightened. “Will I get a Tootsie Pop?”
“If they don’t give you one, we’ll change banks. How’s that?” He hefted his son onto his shoulders. “Hold down the fort, you two.”
“We’re on it, Dad,” Annie said.
• • •
When Cork returned almost half an hour later, a beaten-up Econoline van stood parked in the graveled lot of Sam’s Place. The van was a dull green and wore a thick coating of dust. Painted on the side, barely visible now beneath the grit, was a huge white pine. Scripted in red letters under the pine were the words SAVE THEM AND WE SAVE OURSELVES. The van carried California plates.
A young man lounged against the counter at the serving window. He appeared to be in his early twenties; he had curly blond hair, wire-rimmed glasses, a light green T-shirt with the sleeves rolled high up on his biceps, cutoff jeans, and hiking boots. He laughed as he spoke with Jenny. Near the picnic table on the grass that edged the shoreline of Iron Lake, a woman about Cork’s age leaned on a carved wooden cane and stared across the glimmering blue water. When she turned and walked to the picnic table, her gait was slow and appeared to cause her a good deal of pain. She relied heavily on the cane.
The young man slid money to Jenny and received in return a white sack and two shakes. Cork, as he headed toward the door, heard the final exchange between the two of them, French words he didn’t understand. The young man took the sack and shakes and joined the woman at the picnic table. They talked quietly, then opened the sack and began to eat.
“Dad,” Jenny called to Cork as he came in. “That guy. He studied in Paris, at the Sorbonne.”
“He says he studied at the Sorbonne,” Annie pointed out. “Sister Amelia warned me that men will say whatever they think you want to hear.”
Jenny fisted her hands on her hips. “Yeah? And what would that dried-up old cow know about men? The nearest she ever came to being with a guy was that Halloween Stuart Rubin got drunk and put on a Richard Nixon mask and trick-or-treated at her door stark naked. You know what she said to him?”
“Everybody knows what she’s supposed to have said.”
“What?” Stevie asked.
Jenny smiled down at her brother. “‘Thank you, Lord.’ “
Stevie’s right cheek bulged around his Tootsie Pop. “Huh?”
“Never mind,” Cork said to him. “Why don’t you help your sisters get some more cups out and ready to go. I’ll be in the back with the books,” he told the girls.
Cork sat at the desk in the back part of Sam’s Place and pulled out the ledgers he used to track the finances of his business. So far, in terms of profits, the summer had been stellar. The heat drove people early to the lake, and when they got hot on the water, they often headed toward the little stretch of shoreline at Sam’s Place where the big red pine shaded the picnic table. Cork paid his daughters a good wage, and not just because he loved having them around. They were excellent help. Annie possessed such a sense of responsibility that God, on the seventh day, could easily have turned his new creation over to her and napped without a worry. Jenny had a mystique and a skill with people that kept them talking with her through the serving window long after they’d been given their order. Studying the numbers in his ledgers and listening to the laughter of his children in the other room, Cork was fairly certain that-even full of smoke and fire-this summer would be the best since he’d taken over Sam’s Place.