So that night, when Maggie’s bedtime approached, he put her in her jammies, drove down to the old brewery with her, set up her Port-a-crib in Jack’s office where it was dark and quiet, put her to bed, and then came out into the pub. He was received as a conquering hero by a very small audience: Jack Carlson, Ebenezer, Dean Knightly, a sprinkling of mature Dhonts, a few other old family friends from around town, and—to Clyde’s surprise—Marcus Berry. Jack began the proceedings by confiscating Clyde’s car keys. “If I let you have these, Clyde, you’re going to end up being the only person the sheriff’s department arrests for DWI this whole year.” Then a large glass of something brown, bitter, and thick was in Clyde’s hand, and it tasted good.
A few pints of that and other of Jack’s creations, plus the good company, helped to put some distance between Clyde and the disastrous numbers that soon began rolling in from Dr. Jerry Tompkins’s exit polls. It was almost as if he were not experiencing it in real time but remembering some tragically funny misadventure several years after it had happened. All of the Dhonts came by Clyde’s table to pound him on the back, punch him in the deltoid, or give him crushing handshakes or bone-snapping high fives.
Marcus Berry didn’t stay for long and didn’t drink anything, but he managed to get Clyde alone in a corner for a few minutes. “Have you given any more thought to filling out one of these?” he said, taking some papers out of his breast pocket. Clyde uncreased them and held them up to the light. It was an FBI job application.
Clyde felt himself getting very excited and had to take an extra swallow of ale. “Well, I wasn’t sure if you really meant it.”
“Wouldn’t have said it otherwise,” Berry said.
“Kind of hard to imagine—me in the FBI,” Clyde said.
Berry turned around and squinted at the chalkboard on the wall, which usually announced the night’s specials but today held the numbers coming in from the polls. “With a third of the vote in, Mullowney has seventy-two percent, you have twenty-five. Have you given any thought to your future in the Forks County Sheriff’s Department, Clyde?”
Clyde sucked his teeth. “Would working for the FBI require me to relocate?”
Berry grinned. “Do I look like a Nishnabotna native to you?”
“Hard to imagine—us living someplace else.”
“C’mon, Clyde. I know you’re more cosmopolitan than you let on. And when Desiree gets back from the Gulf, she’ll be an experienced traveler, too. A little change of scenery never hurt anyone.”
“Well, I don’t see any reason not to fill this thing out,” Clyde allowed. “It’s just that—with the Gulf thing and all—”
“You can’t make any decisions until things have settled. Of course, Clyde.” Berry reached out and chucked Clyde on the shoulder. “That’s understood. This isn’t a job at McDonald’s we’re talking about here. You don’t have to start tomorrow. It’s a professional situation, and we are used to making accommodations for people we really want.”
Berry excused himself and strolled out, leaving Clyde aglow with excitement. An hour later, when his standing in the polls surged to twenty-nine percent, he even experienced a momentary feeling of panic at the thought that he might inadvertently win the election and blow his chances with the FBI.
“Damn, I need a smoke,” said a Texan at his elbow. “Care to keep me company out there?”
It was Dean Knightly. Clyde scooped up some chips in his free hand and followed Knightly out the side door into the alley, which was paved with old brick polished satin smooth by a century of traffic. It led straight back toward the grass-covered levee just a stone’s throw away. Knightly stopped just outside the door to light a Camel, then began strolling toward the river. He and Clyde clambered up the steep slope of the levee and stopped at the top, looking down at the river. The black water flowed swiftly but silently, reflecting the lights of Wapsipinicon on the bluff. When the water caught the light this way, and when the surface of the river was not chopped up by wind, you could see all the patterns of turbulence in the flow: ephemeral whirlpools and sudden upwellings that combined with one another and transformed themselves into other shapes and patterns. It was as mesmerizing as staring into a bonfire. Both men watched the river in silence for several minutes.
“Kind of amazing,” Knightly said, “that your whole life, every minute you’ve been alive, this has been going on. Hell, you could have come here anytime in the last ten thousand years and watched this river and never seen the same thing twice.”
“Yeah,” Clyde said. “Makes you wonder what all else you’ve been missing.”
Knightly laughed and took a drag on his Camel. “Yeah,” he said. Then, a minute later, he continued: “As a matter of fact, Clyde, I’ve been wondering the same sorts of things about some of my little foreign scholars right up there in Wapsipinicon.”
“That so?”
“Oh, yes. I do think we have some crafty ragheads up there.”
“Anything of interest to law enforcement?”
This question seemed to touch off a large internal debate in Knightly’s mind, which necessitated the consumption of another cigarette. “I want to be clear,” he said. “So listen up.”
“I’m listening.”
“My students come in for all kinds of crap from the people here. Not just from rednecks but from people who are supposed to be educated and enlightened.”
“I know that.” Fazoul was not the first foreign student Clyde had pulled out of a scrape.