The day had started to grow cooler, but not so cool it was uncomfortable. The sky was gray and there were strips of gloomy clouds across it and they had fuzzed out the sun so that it looked like a lightbulb burning behind gauze. In the distance, on the horizon, in line with the street, the sky was darker and I saw a strip of lightning jump and flash away. The rain that had come early in the morning and retreated now had a companion, and it was blowing our way.
We drove in Marvin’s car over to Mrs. Johnson’s house, which was on the edge of the area where we had been last night. We parked in her gravel driveway and got out. It was a very small house, but brightly painted in a kind of marigold color, and there were flower beds on either side of the little gravel walk. All the flowers were dead or sleeping.
The rest of the neighborhood looked like a war zone.
The house next door was up high on stone blocks, and lying just under it was a dead cat. It had been there long enough to have gone flat and was mostly an outline made of bits of white hair, scattered bones, and a skull. There was just enough flesh on the body to hold it in place. From where the cat was lying, and the looks of the place-a car out front with grown-up grass and a washing machine lying on its side-I had a feeling there wasn’t anyone over there looking for their kitty. The cat, like the washing machine, was just part of the landscape to Mrs. Johnson’s next-door neighbors. They might have been all-right people doing the best they could, but I got to tell you, you got a dead cat lying in your yard you ought to bury it. That’s my motto. No dead animals in the yard for more than fifteen minutes.
“I don’t think Fluffy is taking a nap,” Leonard said.
“Nope,” I said.
At her door, Marvin knocked, and after what seemed like time enough for a new species to have developed from a single cell, the door was answered by Mrs. Johnson. She looked like all the sap had been sucked out of her, she was so small and so wrinkled, but there was a hardness in her eyes that showed her life had been full of experience, and some of it might even have been good. She had a swollen right cheek and a cast on her hand.
“Marvin,” she said. “And your boys?”
We were all about the same age, so I found that comment amusing. But I really liked her voice. It was like high cane syrup with a touch of sulfur and a hint of gravel.
“Yes, ma’am,” Marvin said, suddenly about twelve years old. “Me and the boys, we got somethin’ for you.”
Marvin took out his wallet and removed the hundred-dollar bill and gave it to Mrs. Johnson. She took it and looked at it, said, “I ain’t got no change, son. But if you want to go change it, or wait until I can get someone to take it to town-”
“No, ma’am. The fella who stole it, he decided he’d pay a little interest.”
“He did, did he?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re a terrible liar, Marvin,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You think it’s right I take more than he stole?”
“I think you have a cast and that cost money and a hundred dollars doesn’t cover it.”
“Would you like to come in, sit a spell?”
Marvin said, “No, ma’am, we really can’t. We’ve got some work to do. I don’t think you’re gonna be bothered again. But, you see him around, or he gives you any reason to feel nervous, call us, and we’ll have a talk with him.”
“I always see him around,” she said. “He lives in the area.”
“Yes, ma’am. I know. But… Well, you have any cause to worry, you call me.”
“All right, dear,” she said. “And thank all of you.”
Leonard and I smiled and nodded, and turned away, and just before the door closed, Mrs. Johnson said to me and Leonard, “Did you boys hurt him?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Leonard said.
“So he didn’t like it much?”
“No, ma’am,” I said. “Did you break anything?”
“Yes, ma’am, I believe we did.”
“Like what?”
“Well,” Leonard said, “I broke his hand, and Hap here broke the other guy’s knee and maybe a rib.”
“I screamed when he broke my hand,” she said. “Did he scream?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Leonard said. “And he whimpered too.”
She grinned. “But you boys didn’t get hurt?”
“No, ma’am,” Leonard said. “We came out fine, though I may have strained my elbow a bit on a downswing.”
“That Thomas sonofabitch had it comin’, breakin’ an old lady’s hand like that,” she said, “and me knowing him all my life. And that Chunk just watchin’.”
We went to eat, and then Marvin took us to a coffee shop and showed us the file. It wasn’t what I expected. After coffee, Marvin took us to our car, and we didn’t say any more about it. Leonard drove me home and went home himself.