Wolf Hour

14 Downtown, September 2022

I stand with my face pressed against the display window and peer into Town Taxidermy. In the darkened interior of the store I can just make out a bear standing up on two legs and a deer with a massive set of antlers. The store doesn’t open for another hour, but the arrangement I have with the owner isn’t even for today, I just wanted to have a look since I was driving past.

It strikes me that it’s such an odd profession, to recreate something that once was. Although actually, a few months ago, when I spoke to the taxidermist who runs the place, he insisted that what he did was not recreate but create something. That it isn’t an actual recreation but a fiction. Something that tells a story by putting it in a certain context in which it can be felt, and for that reason can sometimes feel truer than the cold, isolated facts do.

And that was when it struck me that this is precisely what I’m doing in this book I’m writing. I’m a taxidermist.

15 Taxidermy, October 2016

The time was 9 a.m. and Bob was standing in a narrow street in downtown. He looked at the sign above the store doorway.

Town Taxidermy.

In the display window a black bear stood upright on two legs, and around it, like courtiers, a gathering of birds and various rodents, which, Bob assumed, formed part of the local fauna.

As he entered a bell over the door jingled feebly. But once it stopped, and the door had closed behind him, he noticed how quiet it was. Quieter than simply soundless. Quiet as the grave, he thought, as he looked around at the bodies of the silent animals. A hart, a lynx. A wolverine with bared teeth. Several birds. As far as he could tell they were perfect copies of the original living beings they once had been. He stopped before each one in turn. How lifelike they were. As though they all had a story to tell. So unlike the corpses he was used to seeing. Murder victims with expressions of fear, perhaps, or pain, but who otherwise hid more than they revealed, holding on to secrets it was his job to wrest from them. Bob stood contemplating an owl that returned his gaze. And it occurred to him that the silence in here wasn’t oppressive at all, it was... restful. Liberating. Balm for the ears and the soul.

‘Good morning.’ A smiling man with a laurel wreath of hair surrounding a bare dome emerged from a doorway, in the act of removing a pair of latex gloves. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, I was in the middle of something rather complicated in the workshop.’

‘Quite all right,’ said Bob. ‘Mike Lunde?’

‘That’s right.’

Bob showed him his ID.

‘That was quick, I must say, Detective...’ He leaned closer and read the name aloud: ‘...Oz?’

‘My great-grandfather’s adaptation of his Norwegian name. A-a-s-s. The pronunciation is the same. At least it is according to our Norwegian relatives.’

‘That’s correct. Two A’s in Norwegian are pronounced like an A with a hoop on top of it. Å.’

‘You speak Norwegian?’

‘No, no.’ Mike Lunde laughed and shook his head. ‘I learned that about the Å from my grandfather.’

‘I see. Well, of course, my great-grandfather couldn’t have known that Frank Baum would one day write a kids’ book about a wizard.’

‘Precisely. But I don’t suppose that was the worst name you could be called as a child?’

‘The wizard of Oz? Better than the alternative, I guess. The wizard of ass would have been harder to shake off.’

Mike Lunde laughed heartily. There was something melodic and disarming in the sound. Perhaps because of the silence of all the animals, it made Bob think of birdsong in a vast forest.

‘I’m here about a customer of yours, Tomás Gomez,’ said Bob. ‘I found your card in his apartment yesterday. A neighbour of his, a Mrs White, said she had recommended you to Gomez.’

‘Ah, I see,’ said the taxidermist. ‘I thought you were here because of my phone call.’

‘Your phone call?’

‘I saw in the morning newspaper that you were looking for Tomás Gomez. So I rang the police and left a message. A... eh, a tip-off, isn’t that what it’s called? That was just...’ He looked at his watch. ‘Two hours ago. That was what I meant about being quick.’

‘If it was about Gomez then it probably didn’t get through to us at Homicide, it probably went to Aggravated Assault, because the victim didn’t actually die. What did you say in your message?’

‘That Tomás Gomez has an order here waiting to be picked up. A cat.’

‘I see. Anything else?’

‘Anything else?’

‘Anything else you can tell us about Tomás Gomez?’

‘What might that be?’

Bob didn’t respond but just looked at Lunde. He had taken a spontaneous liking to the man. There was something straightforward and natural about him. The type who calls the police because it’s the right thing to do. But it was also evident that he wasn’t telling Bob everything. He continued to hold Lunde’s blue eyes and let the silence work for him. Watching for signs of stress. But Lunde seemed unaffected by the silence. And when he finally did speak, he did so in a calm, assured voice:

‘I had no idea he was going to shoot someone, if that’s what you mean. If, that is, Tomás really is the one who shot this other person.’

Bob nodded. He studied the owl. The feathers looked so vivid and the eyes so lifelike he wouldn’t have been all that surprised if the bird had suddenly taken off from the pedestal on which it stood. ‘So you know Tomás Gomez? As more than a customer, I mean?’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Tomás Gomez is a very common name. There was no photograph or drawing in the newspaper, and yet you knew that the man in question must be your Tomás Gomez. You call in with information, but now you express doubt about whether it really was Gomez who did the shooting. And you referred to him by his first name just now.’

The taxidermist rubbed his chin. ‘My wife always tells me I’m a terrible liar. She says I should practise more.’ He gave a resigned smile. ‘So yes, I do know Tomás as rather more than just an ordinary customer.’

‘Why didn’t you say so straight away?’

Mike Lunde sighed. ‘I thought it would be enough if I did my civic duty and reported something I supposed would be relevant to the case.’

‘So he’s a friend?’

‘Not a friend. I...’

‘Yes?’

‘I like to get to know a bit about my customers. See what it is they want when they come here. What it is they’re really looking for. Even when they’re not entirely clear about it themselves.’

‘And what is Tomás Gomez really looking for?’

Lunde moved his hand and started rubbing his neck. ‘It’s rather a long story, Detective Oz.’ He gave the name its correct Norwegian pronunciation. ‘One that he told me in all confidence. And one which I doubt would bring you any closer to your goal.’

‘Let me be the judge of that, Lunde.’

‘Of course, but should I not make my own judgement too? I accept that one has a civic duty to provide the police with information that can help them catch dangerous criminals, but I have to weigh that up against the fact that what Tomás Gomez told me about himself he told me on the understanding that it would remain between us.’

‘To the best of my knowledge taxidermists are not bound by any oath of confidentiality, Mr Lunde. And we have an innocent man fighting for his life in a hospital bed.’ Bob saw no indication that Lunde saw through the untruth. ‘Have you any idea where Tomás Gomez might be?’

‘I have his address in Jordan. That was how I knew it had to be the Tomás Gomez referred to in the newspaper. But I presume he isn’t there now.’

‘No.’

‘Then beyond that I haven’t a clue as to where he might be, alas. Or fortunately.’

‘Fortunately?’

Mike Lunde sighed again, raised a glove to dust off the owl’s beak. ‘I’m in a dilemma here. I must confess I did consider not calling the police.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I like to think he’s a good man.’

‘A good man doesn’t try to kill people.’

‘That’s a valid objection.’

‘And yet you did call us, Mr Lunde. So that must mean that you understand Gomez has to be arrested.’

‘Oh indeed yes. The trouble is, one’s intellect and one’s feelings aren’t always in agreement with each other.’

‘Well, we certainly can’t let our feelings decide.’ Bob took out his notebook. ‘What can you tell us?’

‘Hm. Are you so sure about that, Oz?’

Bob looked up. ‘That we can’t let our feelings decide?’

‘Yes. Can you be sure it isn’t the feelings that decide, and that we afterward employ our intellect to rationalise the choice to the point at which we believe it was actually the intellect that made the decision?’

‘I’m pretty sure about that, yeah.’

‘Yes, you do look pretty sure of yourself.’ Lunde smiled. ‘The first time Tomás Gomez came here was three months ago. He wanted to have his cat stuffed.’

‘It was... eh, dead?’

Lunde gave a short laugh. ‘Yes. It’s in the freezer in the basement if you want to look. Sickness, so natural causes.’

‘And?’

‘He could not afford to pay what I charge for such a job.’

‘Are you very expensive?’

‘That depends.’

‘On the animal? A canary can’t cost all that much.’

‘On the customer. If it concerns a pet that was very dear to them then I have to lower my price.’

‘So you dropped your price. Feelings took priority over common sense?’

‘Perhaps, but I still have to make a living. Six months ago I received a large, lucrative commission which has led to me putting everything else aside while I finish it, so hopefully I’m not too naive. Anyway, the result is that Mr Gomez has had to wait.’

‘When was the last time you were in contact with him?’

‘I’ll need to check in my diary.’

‘What about the call log on your phone?’

‘We’ve never spoken on the phone — I don’t know whether he has one. Just a moment.’

Lunde disappeared, and again Bob Oz was struck by the silence. Why did he like it so much? Was it the feeling of time standing still, of discovering a moment in which it moved neither forward nor backward, in which nothing happens? In which everything feels safe?

Lunde returned. He was now wearing a small pair of glasses perched on the tip of his nose as he peered down into a book bound in brown leather. ‘Now let’s see...’

‘Mind if I tape this, for the record?’

‘Of course. The taxidermy of the word.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I visited Tomás Gomez on October 7.’

‘You visited him?’

‘He invited me for some of his home-made chilli con carne. It was extremely tasty.’

‘Do you usually visit your customers’ homes?’

‘Not always, but if possible I like to see where my work will be displayed. To see what sites are available and find out which spots the pet frequented, how my customers were used to seeing the animal. It can be useful in deciding the ultimate pose of the finished piece. And the lighting is important. Enough to highlight the details, not so much that the work fades.’

‘You take this extremely seriously?’

Lunde looked at Bob over the top of his glasses. ‘I try to take it every bit as seriously as my customers do. I feel it’s something I owe them. But of course—’ he smiled wryly — ‘it has happened that sometimes I take things a little more seriously than my customers. So I need to listen.’ He flipped on through his diary. ‘By that time we had had three... no, four meetings in the store, I see here.’

‘And you did what? The cat still being in the freezer, I mean.’

‘What I said.’

‘What you said?’

‘I listened.’

Bob Oz nodded slowly. ‘To what he had to say about the cat?’

‘To what he had to say.’

Bob put down his pen. ‘And what did he say? People I’ve spoken to already have told me Tomás Gomez was the taciturn type.’

Lunde shrugged. ‘It took a while. But in the end, everybody talks.’

‘Oh really? Why don’t they do that with me?’

Lunde smiled. ‘Perhaps because they know you only want to hear one thing: the confession. Gomez told me that he and his family came here to Minneapolis as illegal immigrants from the south.’

Bob picked up his pen again. ‘So he has family? Do you have names and addresses?’

‘He had a family. Even though both Gomez and his wife were university-educated they didn’t have much money. They lived in a tiny house in Phillips West and were eating out when two gangs began shooting at each other inside the restaurant. Teenagers with guns. His wife tried to cover the little boy on the floor while Tomás headed for the exit with his daughter, she was in a wheelchair. He got her outside and almost to shelter behind a car when two of the boys came out and shot Tomás in the foot. He fell, and the next bullet, meant for him, instead hit the back of the wheelchair. By that time his son and wife had already been executed. The boys were on their way to deal with Tomás, who was trying to drag himself over to his daughter, when the first police car arrived, and they ran off. The daughter died in her father’s arms.’

Bob felt a sudden pain in his jaw and realised that he had clenched his teeth.

‘The police later told Tomás that gangs usually only shoot at each other.’

Bob put a finger on his cheek next to his jaw and pressed hard. ‘That’s correct. As a rule they aren’t bothered about witnesses either.’

‘Tomás asked what did I think, why had they shot his family.’

‘And what did you say?’

‘I told him the truth, that I didn’t know. What do you think, Detective Oz?’

Bob watched through the window as a couple passed arm in arm, her with her head on his shoulder, and it took a moment for him to shake off a memory.

‘It’s a question of numbers,’ said Bob. ‘They have shit jobs as foot soldiers for the Black Wolves, X-11 or another of these gangs where they get paid three dollars an hour for standing on street corners getting their balls frozen off selling crack and meth. One in four of them is going to get killed on the job. So it’s about moving up the system, becoming a runner, a security chief or a banker for the outfit, straight away you’re earning ten times as much and you’ve got a much better chance of surviving. But to get there you have to be noticed. And the quickest way to be noticed is to show you’re willing to kill.’

‘Interesting. And this you know from your own experience?’

‘I know because I read it in an article about the economics of the narcotics trade.’

‘I see. So it was simply a matter of economics?’

‘Economics and incentives. Morality is about how we want the world to function, economics is about how it actually does function.’

Lunde nodded.

‘You look as though you don’t agree,’ said Bob and glanced down at his notes.

‘You probably want to hear more about Gomez?’

‘There’s no hurry as long as we have no idea where he is. Go ahead.’

‘Right. Well, I think they shoot because they can. Because they recognise no limits. And they have these incredible weapons. Because it feels good to shoot, doesn’t it?’

Bob Oz coughed. ‘Dunno. I don’t shoot. Did he mention any other family or friends, here or elsewhere?’

Lunde shook his head. ‘Only that his parents live south of the border.’

‘What does he live off?’

‘Casual work. An education from his own country is no use to him when he doesn’t have the necessary residence permit.’

‘Can you recall the names of any employers?’

‘I’m sorry, we didn’t talk about things like that, about... about our everyday lives. I remember only that he said the longest he had worked at the same place was two months.’

‘Maybe the reason he didn’t want to talk about his everyday life was that he made his money working for X-11,’ said Bob Oz.

The man in front of him wrinkled his brow in disbelief.

‘I spoke to the doctor who writes his insulin prescriptions and he told me that Gomez had an X-11 gang tattoo on his back.’

‘But that’s... ridiculous,’ said Lunde.

‘Why so?’

‘Because he told me that the boys who shot him and his daughter were wearing X-11 jackets.’

A sound cut through the silence. A solitary police siren that rose and fell somewhere out there. Bob checked his watch. ‘Do you think he’ll be coming back here, Lunde?’

‘Maybe. I can’t read people, but as long as his cat’s here there’s a chance. People who have lost loved ones often end up feeling closer to their pets.’

‘Will you let me know if and when he does turn up?’ Bob offered him his card. Lunde hesitated a moment, then took it.

‘I do things slowly,’ he said as he placed the card inside his diary. ‘As you’ll have noticed, I think slowly, and I talk slowly. So if he does show up, I might be a bit slow about calling you too.’

‘But you will call?’

Mike Lunde nodded slowly. ‘I guess I probably will, yes. This innocent man he shot...?’

‘The name is Dante and he’s a gun dealer in Jordan. Probably works with several gangs, but mostly the Black Wolves.’

‘So he...’

‘Yes, I lied, he probably has a few lives on his conscience. Always assuming he has a conscience.’ Bob pushed the notebook back into his pocket.

The bell above the door tinkled as Bob left. And jingled again when he came back in moments later.

‘Yes?’ said Mike Lunde, who was squatting in front of the wolverine with a spray.

‘So then what did you talk about?’

‘What did we talk about?’

‘If you didn’t talk about jobs, friends, family.’

Mike Lunde stopped spraying and looked up with a sad smile. ‘We talked about loneliness.’

Bob Oz nodded.

As he emerged into the main road the sun was shining over the whole city.