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followed
him reluctantly, believing he’d walked into some sort of offbeat
home invasion that happened to be going very smoothly at the
moment.
    It was a well-ordered house, though a bit
dusty, with a closed-in, old-folk smell. Gas flames danced in the
fireplace. “What big eyes you have,” Kathleen told Charlie. “Pull
up those things so I can see your face.” Charlie pushed his goggles
up on his forehead. After scrutinizing him for a moment, she said,
“You look just like my son.” She pointed to a framed photo on the
mantel of a young man in cap and gown. “That’s Gary. He died in
Vietnam.”
    “That’s sad,” Charlie mumbled. “I’m sorry to
hear that.”
    “Yes. Yes it is. … Well, where are my
manners?”
    Kathleen told them to make themselves
comfortable while she got tea. Charlie stood by the fire to warm
himself and looked at her photos. A family portrait with two kids,
a girl and a boy. A framed black-and-white snapshot of a young man
in a combat helmet, grinning in front of a palm tree. There were
several pictures of the daughter, from gap-toothed girl to
middle-aged woman. None showed her with a child or man, though she
appeared in pictures with two different women.
    “Kathleen needs someone to take care of her,”
Trouble said.
    “Someone like you?” Charlie felt queasy,
fearing that when Kathleen returned, the conversation would turn to
her bank account and the whereabouts of her jewelry. What if she
ended up dead? The halfwit accomplice was always the one that was
caught and convicted. If Charlie could just figure out what the
bastard was doing, he’d stop this nefarious plot.
    “No, someone more down to earth. Like you, to
talk to her and wreak vengeance, that sort of thing.”
    “Wreak vengeance?” Charlie’s face contorted
in disbelief. He whispered harshly, “You’re fuckin’ crazy, you know
that? This is insane.”
    “At least she’s not shooting at us, eh?”
Trouble gave him a rotten-tooth smile.
    Kathleen returned with a tea tray, placing it
on the coffee table. Charlie watched Trouble from the corner of his
eye. The old cadger and Kathleen were talking, but he couldn’t make
out what they were saying—it was as if they were speaking
Greek.
    Charlie asked to use the bathroom. Kathleen
pointed toward the hall, and Charlie squished his way through the
dining room and into the hall.
    When Charlie returned to the living room,
Trouble was gone. Disconcerted, he checked his companion’s cup.
Empty. And the box of shortbread cookies Kathleen had offered them
had disappeared, as well. “Where’d, uh, Trouble go?”
    “He said he had to go see a man about a mule.
Or maybe a horse. I don’t remember things as well as I used to. I
have Alzheimer’s, you know.”
    “Sorry to hear that.”
    “Comes with the territory,” she said with a
shrug. “He said his job was to get us together, and his work here
was done, for the moment.”
    “You might want to check your purse.” Charlie
opened the front door and looked out. No sign of Trouble. He
returned and sat in a wing chair by the fireplace, then stirred
some sugar in his cup of tea. “You don’t know him, do you?”
    “I don’t suppose I do, but here you are, and
you are an editor, aren’t you?” She hummed a few notes and picked
at some lint on her sweater.
    Charlie took a sip. “I’m a writer. I’ve been
a newspaper editor. I don’t know that I can do this. Or
should.”
    She gave him a pleading look. “You’ve come so
far. You may as well look at the manuscript. Please.”
    But he was still perplexed. “Ma’am, aren’t
you concerned about your safety? I mean, letting strangers in …
it’s after midnight!” He pointed to the clock and shook his
head.
    “If you were going to hurt me, you would have
already done so. I can tell you’re good.”
    “Aren’t you afraid of what you’re getting
into?”
    “Not at all. You’ve been sent here to help
me. It’s Providence, you know. He told me we’re not