Free Flynn's In by Gregory McDonald

service. No breakfast room. No bar. No ice machines. No swimming pool, sauna, or much hot water.”
    “Not much repeat trade, I dare say.”
    “If travelers insist, we rent them a cold bed for overnight and see them off early in the morning.”
    “‘Insist?’”
    “We turn the ‘No Vacancy’ sign on every night.”
    “You’ve built a bad little business here. Was it much work?”
    Morris chuckled. “Think I should write a book,
Reverse Management?”
    “You might try it. More people fail in business than succeed. They might benefit from instruction.”
    “It’s my job. I’m a hired employee.”
    “Of The Rod and Gun Club.”
    “You know it.”
    “This packing case with no motel inside is simply a front for the far grander, more obscure establishment up the road.”
    “The members have to say where they’re going, leave a number. So they say they’re going to Timberbreak Lodge. People call here. The ladies out there answer the phone saying Timberbreak Lodge.”
    “And the calls are transferred to the members’ rooms at The Rod and Gun Club.”
    “Yes. And when someone shows up here looking for one of the members, you know, a reporter, a lawyer, a difficult family member, someone like that, we say he’s out walking.”
    “And the member comes down and meets the person here.”
    “Right. Years ago, some reporter got hold of the Club’s phone number and called a member. That was okay; it had happened before. But the reporter got curious about The Rodand Gun Club, what it was, exactly where it was, who its members are. To make a long story short, a very vague article appeared in
Eyebill
saying such a club exists, where powerful men get together—men whose interests otherwise don’t seem to connect—and hunt and fish out of season. And commit other various crimes—such as leaving their wives at home.”
    “So other journals, more distinguished and thorough than
Eyebill
, became curious.”
    “Yes. Of course. They sent up reporters and photographers and found Timberbreak Lodge.”
    Flynn scanned the sagging belly of the office’s plywood ceiling. “The building looks like it was ordered in one piece from a factory in New Jersey.”
    “Very nearly was. The members knew the
Eyebill
reporters were snooping, so they had a little time to get Timberbreak slapped together. We do have running water, and some of it is even in the pipes.”
    “Build in haste, repent in leisure,” said Flynn. “In God we trust.”
    “Ever since then, when the press gets curious and sends one or two up to snoop around, The Rod and Gun Club sends a few of its younger, less prestigious members down Friday, Saturday nights in hunting clothes, hunting and fishing licenses prominently pinned to their jackets, to sit around the lounge with six-packs of beer, yucking it up, and the press gets tired of watching them and goes away.” Morris ran his fingers through his thinning blond hair. “That’s how Timberbreak Lodge, The Rod and Gun Club at Bellingham, came to be. Sounds fancy enough, doesn’t it?”
    “And you?” asked Flynn.
    “I was born in the local hospital,” Morris said. “That’s how I came to be.”
    “Why are you spending your life running an empty lodge?”
    “I was a science teacher in the local regional high school.” Morris studied the back of his hands in his lap. “There was a school budget cutback. The Bellingham town fathers decided they wanted to educate their kids for Bellingham, not for the world at large. I was fired. Wife, kids, family here. Not reallyeducated for the world at large, either. What was I supposed to do, go out and cut timber?”
    “Honest men do.”
    Morris looked slapped. “What am I doing that’s so dishonest? I’m getting paid to run an empty motel. So I’m running an empty motel. Is that a crime?”
    “You’re earning a big bonus this weekend, I think.”
    Morris’ right hand cracked the knuckles on his left hand. “Nothing quite like this has ever happened