“Do you want large-scale maps or small-scale maps?” the secretary at the county surveyor’s said. Her name was on a plaque: Marie O’Connor. Marie O’Connor was apparently secure in the belief that she was the only person in Nishnabotna County who knew which was which. But when Marie O’Connor asked him that question, Clyde just quoted his Sherlock.
“Very large,” he said.
“Very large,” she murmured, crestfallen.
Clyde was a very large fellow. Every two weeks he stood naked in the garage, bent over the unfolded want-ads section of the newspaper, and ran a Sears electric hair clipper with a quarter-inch comb over his head, then ran the howling orifice of his shop vac over his scalp and pranced into the bathroom for a shower. His astigmatism forced him to wear glasses with very thick lenses that made his eyes look very large. Right now he was off duty, and so he was wearing jeans and very large work boots and a flannel shirt with holes burned through it from a battery-acid mishap some years back; through the holes flashes of a T-shirt could be seen on which the logo of the Texas Longhorns had been printed upside down on top of the logo of a cheerleading camp in South Carolina—Clyde bought all of his Tshirts at the monthly seconds sale down at the T-shirt plant. Clyde was also wearing an old Gooch’s Best seed-corn hat, which was on his head backward because the driver’s-side window of his pickup had been punched out by a drunken nephew of Sheriff Mullowney, whom Clyde had then arrested; the resulting air blast coming into the cab when he drove fast would catch the bill of his cap and whip it off his head unless Clyde turned it around backward.
“I need something where I can see individual houses and lots,” Clyde said.
“I’ll need the section numbers,” Marie O’Connor said.
“All of them,” Clyde said. “I need the whole county.”
Marie O’Connor was taken aback.
Clyde had not been planning to explain his plan, but as he now realized, this was counterproductive.
“See, I’m running for county sheriff,” he said. “Between now and Election Day, I intend to knock on every door in Forks County.”
“I thought Kevin Mullowney was running unopposed again,” Marie O’Connor said.
“Well, I just announced it,” Clyde said.
Actually he had just announced it that instant. This made him feel conspicuous and awkward—nothing new in and of itself. But he had just now recognized that if he could find out Marie O’Connor’s address, he could go ahead and check her house off the map. One less door to knock on.
“What are your qualifications?” Marie O’Connor asked.
“First in my class at the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy. Graduate of Wapsipinicon High School, former wrestler and football player.”
“What weight class?” Marie O’Connor said, ignoring all of the other qualifications.
“One ninety-two.”
“Didn’t you go to State?” she asked, squinting and cocking her head at him.
“Yes, ma’am. Three years in a row.”
“How’d you do?”
“Sophomore year I took third in my weight class, junior and senior year I took second.”
“That’s right. You’re the one who kept losing to Dick Dhont.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Clyde said, trying to gloss this over as fast as possible. “I’m a graduate of Iowa State Law Enforcement Academy in Des Moines, and I have five years experience as a deputy county sheriff.”
“Well,” Marie O’Connor said, “you’re talking to the wrong person. Kevin Mullowney’s second cousin is married to my daughter.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t you have any campaign literature?”
“Not on my person.”
“Any bumper stickers or shirts or hats or something?”
“Not yet. Actually, my campaign hasn’t been officially launched yet.”
“Well, you got your work cut out for you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Let’s see if we can’t get you all set up with some maps,” Marie O’Connor said in singsong tones. Clyde wondered, hardly for the last time, whether the strategy of knocking on doors was going to be a mistake.
Chapter Four