Free The Dead Caller from Chicago by Jack Fredrickson

health but a whole way of life.
    Mackinaw City was no city, but rather several blocks of gift stores, resort clothing shops, and trendy bars lining both sides of a wide center ribbon of mostly empty parking spaces. I drove up and down the long main street, checking out the few cars. None were familiar.
    I checked out the parking lot for the ferry operation that serviced Mackinac Island, then cruised the side streets. Pa Brumsky’s brown LTD was parked beside a peeling tan-painted house four blocks in. I knocked at the front door. A teenaged boy wearing a tousled T-shirt and rumpled jeans answered.
    â€œI’ve been looking for a big old Ford like yours,” I said. “Is it for sale?”
    The kid shook his head. “We just rent parking for people going to Mackinac.”
    â€œBut do you know if it’s for sale?” I said, to keep him talking.
    â€œYou could leave a note on the windshield, with your name and phone number.” He started to close the door.
    â€œDid the owner say when he’d be back?”
    A pouty blond girl came into partial view, running her fingers through her own hair because the young man’s was too far away. She wore a tousled T-shirt and rumpled jeans, too.
    â€œLeave a note,” the kid said, shutting the door.
    I envied him. There are points in every life when tousling and rumpling must proceed without distraction. I felt ancient, as though it had been centuries since I’d last been properly tousled and rumpled.
    I drove back to the ferry service. Past a row of outdoor restrooms and a gift shop, small whitecaps crashed against a white-fenced dock ramp. Farther out, a ferry was churning the rough water, heading in. Beyond that were two bumps, one large, one small, faint against the gray. Mackinac and Eustace.
    No one was around except a man in a white wood ticket booth. “Does that go to Eustace Island?” I asked, pointing at the approaching ferry.
    â€œNothing goes direct to Eustace. Got to go to the big island, then catch a ride to Eustace.”
    â€œI need to go straight to Eustace.”
    â€œWhat the hell for? Nothing there but one old hotel, thirty rooms, built by some moron thinking to compete with the Grand on Mackinac. He went bust in short time. Other fools came along, thinking to compete, too. Busto, every one of them. Only seasonals use it now, green cards mostly, and most of them won’t be here for another month.”
    â€œA woman I know has a cottage there.”
    â€œThere are those,” he allowed, “a few places that rent to idiots with little money and fewer brains. It’s a dismal rock, Eustace.”
    â€œWill your ferry take me if I pay extra?”
    â€œFerry’s too big. Docks on Eustace are rickety things, only good for small craft.” He pointed to the whitecaps. “Won’t be anybody going to Eustace today except the first crew working at the Grand. Best I can say, if you’re hell-bent, take our ferry to Mackinac, ask who’ll run to Eustace tomorrow, and huddle up at a bed-and-breakfast if you can find one open this early.”
    The approaching ferry pivoted in a tight arc, reversed its engines, and backed up alongside the ramp. A hardy-looking couple, tanned even in March, wheeled bicycles down the ramp and rode off. Cheerios people.
    â€œWhen’s it leave?” I asked the ticket seller.
    â€œTwenty minutes.”
    â€œEven if I’m the only passenger?”
    â€œIt’s in the contract. We run on schedule, rain, snow, or empty.”
    I boarded and went up to the open top deck. The day had darkened even further, smudging the horizon into the waterline. Mackinac Island and its tiny sister, Eustace, were lost in the gloom.
    The diesel engines rumbled louder below decks, and the ferry pulled away from the dock. No one else had gotten on board.
    I looked back at the shore.
    A bulky figure was standing alongside the ticket shack. His hands were jammed in the