Free Name Games by Michael Craft Page A

light of our past run-ins, they could guess I was lying.
    Kaiser crossed to meet me in the middle of the street, extending his hand to shake mine. “Morning, Mark. Didn’t know you harbored an interest in dollhouses.” The remark could have been intended to question my masculinity, but his tone seemed innocuous enough—he was just inept at small talk. If his words carried a hidden message, he was really trying to ask, What are you doing here?
    Strolling with him back to the curb, I bulled, “Wherever there’s news, there am I.”
    Miriam had made no move to acknowledge me, so arriving where she stood on the parkway, I dispensed with further pleasantries and asked her bluntly, “What are you doing here?”
    “One might ask you the same,” she snapped back with a defiant stomp of one foot, but the gesture lost its punch—her clog merely mashed the turf.
    “Actually,” said Kaiser, attempting to keep things civil, “we’ve come to see Carrol Cantrell. He’s a distinguished visitor to the city, and we both wanted to wish him welcome.” He smiled, as if that explained everything, wrapping it up.
    “What a coincidence,” I fibbed. “I was just on my way to see him myself. We’re working up a feature.” It would be Glee’s story, of course, but for the moment, there was no harm in letting Kaiser think I was there on assignment. I found it unlikely that both he and Miriam were inclined to roll out the welcome mat for the king of miniatures as a simple matter of civic courtesy. Still, I had no theory that would better explain their visit. If I stuck with them, their motive might become plain to me. Brightly I suggested, “Let’s all pop in on him.”
    Miriam and Kaiser exchanged an uncertain glance; in my presence they did not feel free to discuss my proposed intrusion. Miriam looked vexed, Kaiser wary. He hawed before relenting, “Sure, why not? Do you think he’s at the shop?”
    “Actually, no.” I waved my arm up the street—“I drove from that direction and got a pretty good look at the mob. Carrol Cantrell is at least six foot four, so I’d have noticed if he were there. I think our best bet is the coach house.”
    Kaiser and Miriam were aware of Carrol’s lodging arrangements, but neither of them knew the lay of Grace Lord’s property, so my presence proved helpful in that I could guide them. The three of us walked in silence as I led them up the driveway beside the house, our feet crunching the gravel. Watching the DA and the feminist as they trudged toward the coach house for purposes not known to me, I found it difficult to imagine that they had grown up with Doug Pierce—their lives had taken such radically different directions.
    Out on the street, with all the activity surrounding setup of the convention, there’d been a sense of merry confusion. But here, in the shadow of the house, all was still—save for us, save for the rustle of a bird somewhere in the soaring limbs of old trees. The bright day had taken on an eerie quality, and I instinctively removed my dark glasses, pocketing them. Our lack of conversation, prompted by nothing more sinister than distaste for each other, now seemed to radiate an active malice borne of tight-lipped silence.
    I broke this lull by asking Miriam, “Did you get your school up and running?”
    Without breaking stride, she turned to tell me, “You know very well that I did. Your own paper reported it—barely. It is news, you know. Wisconsin’s—probably the nation’s—first holistic, paganic New Age day school. Ariel would benefit from our curriculum and from our all-organic diet.”
    This last comment was made purely to nettle me. Ariel was the name Miriam and her Fem-Snachers had given to Thad, claiming him as a child of the Society. I reminded her, “The boy’s mother named him Thad.”
    She was revving up for a diatribe when Kaiser shushed her, saying, “Not now, Miriam. We have other fish to fry.”
    So then—they were indeed paying this