Free Bitch Creek by William Tapply

pool where they could find some tasty stonefly nymphs to chew on until the sun got low and the next batch of mayflies began hatching and the evening caddisflies flew out of the bushes and started fluttering over the water.
    He looked at the listing of hotels and motels in the phone book. There were dozens of them. Well, the hell with it. Green was staying somewhere, and maybe he’d misunderstood about the convention.
    Now he wished he’d been friendlier to Fred Green, encouraged the man to keep talking, asked him some conversational questions. He might’ve learned something.
    He started with the Abbott Motel and worked all the way down the list to the Zanzibar Inn, and after that he looked up the bed-and-breakfasts and called every one of them, too.
    By two o’clock in the afternoon, Calhoun’s only functional ear, the right one, was ringing, and his neck had a painful crick in it from cradling the telephone against it. He was convinced that Fred Green had not rented any kind of room in Portland or any of the surrounding towns.
    And he had not been attending a convention or a conference, either, because several of the innkeepers he’d talked to had repeated what the young man at the Marriott had told him. There had been none in Portland that week.
    Well, dammit, the man had rented a car. So Calhoun proceeded to call every car rental agency in the Greater Portland phone book. None of them had done business with anyone named Fred Green that week.
    That’s when Calhoun decided that Fred Green was not the man’s name, and he further deduced that if Green—or whatever his name was—would lie about his name, he must’ve had an important reason to do so.
    Then Calhoun decided it was time to be seriously worried.
    He stood up, arched his back, and went down to his truck. He retrieved Lyle’s gazetteer from where’d he’d left it on the dashboard, and as he was walking back to the house, Kate’s image popped into his head.
    She had a telephone to her ear and a frown on her face.
    He went in and called the shop.
    Kate picked up on the first ring. “Stoney?”
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” he said.
    â€œYour phone’s been busy for hours. I was concerned.”
    He told her about calling all the hotels and motels and bed-and-breakfasts and car rental agencies.
    â€œBut why would the man give a phony name?” she said.
    â€œI’d say that’s the big question, all right,” he said. “I reckon he had somethin’ to hide.”
    â€œAnd you think . . .”
    â€œI’m thinking what you’re thinking, honey. You’re thinking that I sent Lyle off with a man who should’ve been my client, a man who had cause to lie about who he was. You’re thinking that if I’d’ve taken Mr. Fred Green fishing myself, like I was supposed to, we wouldn’t be sitting here worried about Lyle right now.”
    â€œNow, Stoney,” said Kate, “I wasn’t thinking that at all.”
    â€œWell, I am.” Calhoun let out a long breath. “This is my doing, Kate. I was selfish and small-minded. Decided I didn’t like the man. You’ve said it a million times. We don’t have the luxury of selling stuff only to nice folks or guiding only people we like. We do business. Well, I didn’t do business. I sluffed Mr. Green off to Lyle, and now we don’t know where Lyle is.”
    â€œWhat’re we gonna do?”
    â€œWell, I don’t plan to sit here on my ass for the rest of the day, I can tell you that. Guess I’ll head back up to South Riley, poke around, see what I can shake out of the trees.”
    â€œI want to go with you.”
    â€œYou stay put,” he said. “Nothing you can do I can’t do myself. Anyway, we’ve got several people who’ll call the shop if they hear something. Wouldn’t want to miss a call.”
    She sighed. “I guess you’re