“Look dear, I caught another one (!).”
“Hold on, Mary. Hold on. It’s Baker calling.”
“Baker? Hi!”
(reply)
“Yeah, we’re getting along great. A little cold of course but it is North–”
(reply)
“What was that? Hold on, let me take this darn Russian cap off with the ear flaps and all.”
—–
“Okay go ahead, sir.”
(reply)
“Yeah, I heard that now.” He covers the phone with his hand and whispers over to fishing Mary. “Baker says he needs to talk to us as soon as we get back to town.” He listens again…
(reply)
“Mary Ball, eh? Well that’s *one* of her names.”
(reply)
“George, right.” He removes the phone from his ear but doesn’t cover the face up this time while saying over to his wife in a louder voice: “He wants to know how you acquired the Killing Shack, you know, the one over in Epping Woods.”
“Why does he want to know that?” She was happy fishing right now. She didn’t want to be reminded of that horrendous past on her well deserved vacation. Calm, she said to herself. Caalllmm.
“I’ll ask him.” Phone to bare ear again. “Baker, what’s going on?”
(reply)
“Virginia neck country again, eh? Just like with—”
(reply)
“Dead ball era, huh? That’s *my* era, where I came from. Where the *ERA* was real low, he he. Get it? My era. My ER–”
(reply)
“Okay, thanks. See you when we get back.”
(reply)
“We will. Thanks.” And Baker Bloch hangs up on the other side.
—–
“Did you mention the antipoison?”
“No,” Baker responds to Hucka. “I thought he’d had enough to chew on today.”
“Agreed I suppose. So we’re on for next Tuesday?”
“8 o’clock sharp.”
(to be continued)
Sunklands 