Those Canny MacDougalls

“Ah, remarkable, is it not, how our wee problems lose their power tae perplex when we put a few lang Scots miles between us and them?” Clem MacDougall stretched his legs and puffed on a cigar – a black market Cuban Corona-Corona El Ropo Deluxe – which Soppy Doyle had just clipped and lit for him. “What a lovely evening. Thanks for askin’ me up here, Professor. I was goin’ daft back there in the Metrop. Ah, bugger it. The mess’ll be waitin’ for me Monday, for sure and certain. It always is. One way or anither.” “Glad to have you here, Mac.” Soppy Doyle poured a hefty dollop of Fundador brandy into his friend’s Styrofoam cup and another into his own. “Best way to handle it when you get stuck on a problem is to leave it alone and walk away for a spell, eh?” “Oh aye. That’s it, right enough. Solve themsels’, most o’ the time. Bonny cabin ye have here, laddie.” “Damn your eyes, you pettifogging old Scotch Philistine!” MacDougall flinched at the sudden eruption of fluent profanity, dandruff and cigar smoke from Doyle. “Not a cabin, damn it. This is a cottage, not a cabin. And don’t you bloody well forget it.” “Eh? What’s the difference?” “In a cabin, hot and cold running water means you run out and get the water, then you bring it in and heat it. This isn’t a cabin.” “Well, now, I’m sure I meant no offense, ye auld sot. Cabin, shack, cottage, pied-a-terre – I don’t give a fiddler’s fart what ye call the place. Call it Inveraray Castle if ye want. I’m just thankin’ ye for your hospitality, and I’ll thank ye not tae jump doon me craw for havin’ guid manners.” “Well, it’s a cottage.” “All right, all right. It’s a cottage, and a damn fine one at that. Reminds me of the Rabbie Burns cottage in Ayrshire -- except for the hot and cold runnin’ water part. I rather think auld Rabbie had tae do the runnin’ himsel’ back in 1786. And your roof isnae made o’ straw.” Doyle grunted, nodded, sipped brandy, scratched up a cloud of dandruff, blew cigar smoke in MacDougall’s face, belched and settled back into his wicker chair on the sweeping verandah of what had now been conclusively established to be a cottage -- Innisfree, Doyle’s family cottage on the shores of Excelsior Lake in the foothills of the Excelsior Mountains -- the Switzerland of the Midwest, the tourist brochures said. MacDougall waved his hand in front of his face. “Right. Glad that’s settled. Now, help me think this thing through, Professor. I’m feelin’ damned exposed and vulnerable these days. Hermit crab between shells, ye might say. This blighter who’s invadin’ me professional life is startin’ tae fire up the Hielander in me. We’re bonny fighters in a guid cause, ye know, because we’re no afraid tae fight dirty, unlike the bloody Sassenachs wi’ a’ their airs an’ graces; it’s why we mak’ such fierce, canny lawyers.” “Oh, bravo. Lovely speech, Mac. You’ve got the talking part done, eh? About the only thing you blasted lawyers are good for, if you ask me. Talk, talk, talk. Well, now, are you ready to stop talking and start applying some intelligence and wit to this problem?” “Aye. That I am.” For the moment, MacDougall seemed slightly at a loss for words. “Very well. Best leave that job to the Irish – namely, Elwood Doyle, Doctor of Deviant Deviltry. Not that we Micks aren’t decent talkers in our own right, mind you. Now. Tell me about your secretary and the Russian.” “As we speak, they’re supposedly attending some damn fool opera or concert of some kind at the Arts Centre – you know, that over-budget rock pile the do-gooders put up so limp-wristed grown lads of dubious sexual preference could prance around in tights with skinny lassies dressed like dandelion fuzz. A lot of ex-husbands helped me subsidize that place, I can tell ye.” “Old son, you’ve sadly neglected your cultural development. And, as to your political correctness.... Ah well. Old dog, new tricks, eh?” Doyle sipped brandy, puffed his cigar and swatted a mosquito on the back of his neck. In the twilight to the west, the low hills that passed for mountains in that part of the world made undulating silhouettes against the orchid sky. “Go on.” Clem MacDougall jumped to his feet and began to pace the length of the verandah. “Hell’s bells, man. The Russian can’t have anything to do with it. No. It’s an inside job o’ some kind. I thought it was Claudia at first – ye know, the business with the postcards. Thought I had her dead tae rights; now I’m not so sure. Me proof vanished intae thin air. It’s no funny any mair. Ye saw the mess yesterday. Even at the height of your Satanic powers, ye couldnae have been such a rotter.” “Ha! Don’t be so sure, Jocko.” Doyle chuckled, stubbed out his cigar and tossed the butt over the railing into the woods. MacDougall raised his eyebrows, knowing how fussy Soppy Doyle was about protecting the environment. “Not to worry, my friend,” Doyle said. “Don’t ask me why, Mac, but the deer love ‘em. Silly beasts’ll eat anything that won’t eat them first. Look here. You have all your files on computer, eh?” “Not all. Most of the important, recent stuff, aye.” “And you back up your hard drive?” “Aye. Every day. Claudia – Ms. Aikens – backs up the hard drive every day.” “And the backup tapes are kept under lock and key?” “Aye. In the office safe.” “Who has access to the safe?” Doyle’s voice had lost its whimsy. Now he fired questions at MacDougall like a prosecutor with a conviction in view. “Just Ms. Aikens and me.” “Look here, Mac. I’ll bet you the next place our mystery miscreant strikes will be at your computer files – if it hasn’t happened already. I’ll bet you a round of what you like at the Fox & Hounds.” “Bloody hell. The way things have been goin’ in the last two days, naething would surprise me. But, ye know, I’ve got a trick or two up me sleeve, too. Somehow, I’m no too worried aboot the computer.” “You should be, I think.” “Aye weel, it’s Saturday nicht an’ me office is a hundred miles awa’ an’ locked up tight as a tick as far as I know. Rax me anither drappie o’ that braw bonny brandy and let’s talk o’ loftier things. I’ll pop back intae me office tomorrow and see which way the wind is blowin’ wi’ the computer. I may be an auld fool, but I’m no a stupid one.” Doyle leaned across the table and splashed several more fingers of brandy into MacDougall’s cup and then his own. He pulled out his rumpled bandanna handkerchief, blew his nose, wiped his forehead and blew his nose again. Doyle’s voice softened and grew misty with reminiscence. “Mac, do you remember back when we were undergraduates at the University? That night we slipped a pair of old Doc Goodfellow’s prize baboons from the psychology lab through the kitchen window of the Kappa Delt sorority house at three in the morning?” “Aye! Wi’ a bunch o’ rotten bananas! I’ll never forget it!” MacDougall laughed until he gasped for breath. “All those snooty debutantes runnin’ around in their knickers in the middle o’ the night! Goodfellow damn near kicked ye out of the department!” An hour or so later, as the gibbous moon rose all buttery from behind the mountains to the east, in the cool of the evening, a pair of deer – a doe and a mossy-antlered buck – edged through the ground mist to the cottage clearing and began chewing on the litter of cigar butts below the verandah. Torrents of human laughter cascaded from above. And the occasional cigar butt. TO BE CONTINUED