“Yes, I believe Tomás Gomez has introduced the death penalty and appointed himself judge, jury and executioner.”
Mike nodded but said nothing.
Bob walked over to the coffee maker and poured himself another cup, sat down again and watched in silence as Mikecontinued working. Looking at the dog’s eyes he could see that Mike had finally found the pair he had been looking for. And a thought struck him. That he should quit being a cop and study instead to be a taxidermist. Stuff the things he most wanted to hang on to in his life. The things he’d loved.
“Mike?”
“Yeah?”
“You ever had woman trouble?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“No. Or rather yes. The summer I was twenty-two.”
“So you haven’t had many?”
“I guess I haven’t.”
“So how many?”
“Two.”
“Two?”
“My wife and I started going steady when we were fifteen. When I was twenty-two I fell in love with a Saint Paul girl from Summit Hill. We were both students at MCAD, studying sculpture. I was shy but very definite about it, so I broke up with my future wife before I asked the girl out for a date. She said yes, we became a couple, and I spent the next two months learning the difference between infatuation and love. I think she got it too, so there was no big drama when we broke up. And fortunately the woman who was to be my wife was willing to take me back.”
“So that’s the only woman trouble you’ve had in your life?”
“Andonly my second woman.”
They laughed.
“You’re the only one your wife’s had, I’m guessing?”
“No,” said Mike. “She had one other. At least that I know of. She was twenty-five, I think. It was a Norwegian writer she met when he visited the Hosmer public library—you know, that little old one in Powderhorn. She fell head over heels for him and saysit was because he read to them in Norwegian, that we have this latent yearning toward our own original language.”
“Did she tell you or did you find out?”
“She told me.”
“How did you react?”
“I took Norwegian lessons.”
Bob laughed and Mike raised a hand theatrically and declaimed,“Vodann-stå-dettil-på-setteren-ida?”
“Meaning?”
“How are things down on the farm today.”
“And it worked?”
“Oh yes. In fact, I believe we owe our firstborn to that line. But I suspect she thought it meant something completely different.”
They both laughed.
