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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.

10
    At home, I thought about what Marvin had shown us in the folder, what he had explained to us. I put my folder on the coffee table in the living room and left it there and walked around the house for a while, then tried to read and tried to watch television, and finally just sat on the couch and watched it get dark and start to rain in a way that made me feel sleepy and gloomy at the same time.
    I didn’t open the folder again, but that didn’t make what was in it leave my head. I thought about it all the time. I was also thinking about that poor dead cat, lying out beside a house where people lived or had lived, and it bothered me they had left it that way.
    I went upstairs and stripped down to my shorts and sat by the window. The rain plunked and splattered on the panes so hard I thought they might break. Lightning lit up now and