The Cat Who Played Brahms Read Online Free PDF Page A

Qwilleran stood on the sidewalk gulping fresh air; the others walked away without comment or any visible reaction to the experience. There was no explanation that he could imagine. In fact, there were many unexplained occurrences in this north country.
    For example, everywhere he went he seemed to be haunted by a blue pickup truck. There was one parked in front of the post office, its truck-bed empty except for a rolled tarpaulin. There was another in front of the bank, hauling shovels and a wheelbarrow. On the highway the driver of a blue truck had tooted his horn and waved. And the truck that had followed him on the Pickax Road the night before was blue.
    Tugging the visor of his orange cap down over his eyes he approached a log cabin with a freshly painted sign: Information Center—Tourist Development Association. The interior had the pungent odor of new wood.
    Behind a desk piled with travel folders sat a pale young man with a very black beard and a healthy head of black hair. Qwilleran realized that his own graying hair and pepper-and-salt moustache had once been equally black. He asked: "Is this where tourists come to be developed?"
    The young man shrugged apologetically. "I told them it should be tourism. But who was I to advise the Chamber of Commerce? I was only a history teacher looking for a summer job. Isn't this great weather? What can I do for you? My name is Roger. You don't need to tell me who you are. I read the paper."
    "The Daily Fluxion seems to have a big circulation up here," Qwilleran said. "The Fluxion was almost sold out at the drug store yesterday, but they still had a big stack of the Morning Rampage."
    "Right," said Roger. "We're boycotting the Rampage. Their travel editor did a write-up on Mooseville and called it Mosquitoville."
    "You have to admit they're plentiful. And large."
    Roger glanced aside guiltily and said in a lowered voice: "If you think the mosquitoes are bad, wait till you meet the deer flies. This is off-the-record, of course. We don't talk about deer flies. It's not-exactly good for tourism. Are you here to write about our restaurants?"
    "No, I'm on vacation. I'll be around for three months. Is there a barber in town?"
    "Bob's Chop Shop at the Cannery Mall. Men's and women's hair styling." Roger handed Qwilleran another copy of the Mooseville brochure. "Are you a fisherman?"
    "I can think of things I'd rather do."
    "Deep-sea fishing is a great experience. You'd enjoy it. You can charter a boat at the municipal pier and go out for a day or half a day. They supply the gear, take you where the fish are biting, even tell you how to hold the rod. And they guarantee you'll come back with a few big ones."
    "Anything else to do around here?"
    "There's the museum; it's big on shipwreck history. The flower gardens at the state prison are spectacular, and the prison gift shop has some good leather items. You can see bears scrounging at the village dump, or you can hunt for agates on the beach."
    Qwilleran was studying the brochure. "What's this about a historic cemetery?"
    "It's not much," Roger admitted. "It's a nineteenth century burial ground, abandoned for the last fifty years. Sort of vandalized. If I were you, I'd take a fishing trip."
    "What are these pas ties everyone advertises?"
    "It's like a turnover filled with meat and potatoes and turnips. Pasties are traditional up here. The miners used to carry pasties in their lunch buckets."
    "Where's a good place to try one?"
    "Hats-off or hats-on?"
    "What?"
    "What I mean-we have some restaurants with a little class, like the hotel dining room, and we have the other kind—casual—where the guys eat with their hats on. For a good hats-off place you could try a little bistro at the Cannery Mall, called the Nasty Pasty.
    A bit of perverse humor, I guess. The tourists like it."
    Qwilleran said he would prefer real north country atmosphere.
    "Right. So here's what you want to do: Drive west along the shore for about a mile.
    You'll see a big