the breath whooshed from him as the woman leaned on her elbow placed in the pit of his stomach.
The light came on suddenly. A young man, well muscled, stood laughing over the prostrate Noah and the recumbent Elke. Noah had picked the wrong room.
“Got a live one, I see,” Willy Waugh said to Elke.
“I smelled the weed stink on him,” she said. “I think he probably got in through the pantry. He tried to smother me, the silly twit.”
Noah groaned, and tried to say something. Elke leaned on his stomach with her other elbow. Noah nearly passed out from lack of air.
“Get something to tie him up with, and we’ll call the sheriff’s office,” Elke instructed. “And quit laughing. You’re not the one keeping his stinking body on this cold floor.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Willy said. He went to get some duct tape. He used it to bind Noah’s hands and feet together. Willy bound them rather tightly. Willy and Elke left Noah stretched out on the floor. Willy wasn’t laughing when he called DiConti Sharif. Then he went in to explain to La Señora what was going on.
“Elke must have given him quite a startlement,” she said. “Well done, both of you. When DiConti comes, give him my thanks as well.” She closed her eyes, and went back to sleep, secure in the care of her guardians.
A Modest Proposal
Emma snapped a leash on Prime Pussy. The orange tabby snarled; leashes went on cats only as a prelude to veterinary visits. Prime Pussy was not fond of veterinarians. Emma held the door for the grumbling cat. Prime Pussy sat on the sill, neither going out nor remaining in. Her tail, still in the living room, lashed back and forth.
“Move, Prime Pussy,” Emma snapped. Prime Pussy didn’t even deign to look at her. Ermentrude watched this play of wills from a safe place on Notta’s lap on the couch. Notta suppressed her amused smile. She had so often tussled wills the same way with Ermentrude. Cats do not readily yield to anything.
“Prime Pussy,” Emma said in her most commanding voice, “move out. We’re going for a walk.” Prime Pussy ignored Emma pointedly turning her head to the right to stare at an empty birdbath. “You asked for it,” Emma said, and put her sneaker toe under Prime Pussy’s tail and shoved the cat to her feet. Prime Pussy meowed her outrage, to no purpose. She was on her feet and walking across the porch. Emma quickly followed her. As Emma went down the stairs to the ground level, Notta permitted herself a low chuckle.
“I heard that, Missy!” Emma called back to her. “Sometimes you’re as stubborn as a cat, yourself.”
“Yes, Mother,” Notta said through the screen. Emma waved goodbye, and walked with Prime Pussy toward the gate. Much to the tabby’s surprise, Emma turned left, toward the Chapel, and not toward the garage. Prime Pussy immediately felt less put upon. Emma had engaged her curiosity. Emma’s good temper returned in the soft spring afternoon. A warm breeze, by coastal standards, blew from the landward, making the daffodils in the Swami Fendabenda’s yard prance on their stems. No roses, yet, but anemones and grape hyacinth flanked the dancing daffodils. Emma let Prime Pussy explore a little, stopping when the cat stopped to watch a lizard scurry up a fence picket, walking fast so the cat could chase a white moth passing by.
Emma had more in mind than a spring stroll with Prime Pussy. Her target today was to visit with Haakon. She wished to thank him for his gracious acceptance of Notta’s invitation after the mistreatment he had suffered at her hands. She had brought Prime Pussy because she needed an excuse to go walking without asking Notta. She did not know why, but she didn’t want Notta to know she was visiting Haakon.
Emma went up the porch steps and knocked gently on the door. Haakon came around from the side of the house. He had shed his shirt to work in the side garden, where he was planting cucumbers, spinach, lettuce, and one experimental jalapeño pepper plant. His wiry chest, with its nearly invisible gray and blonde hairs, had begun to fill out a little. His ribs still announced their pronounced presence to the eye.
“Hello,” he said. “Sorry I’m not dressed for company.” He crouched down to pet Prime Pussy. She accepted his touch with grace. Emma smiled briefly. Emma thought Prime Pussy an excellent judge of character.
“Hello to you,” Emma said. She smiled at Haakon. “I wondered how you’ve been getting along.”
“Tolerably well, Emma,” he said, standing up. “I’m eating, I’m breathing, and I can sleep at night if I leave the window open to hear the surf sing.” His blue eyes seemed less faded than they had when he had first come to Emma’s cottage.
“Notta told me she’d asked you to give her away,” Emma said. “She told me you said you would. Thank you for that, and for not holding her bad temper against her.” Haakon smiled. The smile transformed his lined face from a roadmap of sorrows to a clown’s face of laughter.
“She had a real shock to get me for a living father,” he said. “Who knows what romantic nonsense she’d invented about me when she was a child? And now, she gets this wreck of a man,” Haakon waved his hands from his shoulders to his knees, “who in no way measures up to anybody’s fantasy of a romantic father.”
“Perhaps,” Emma said, unconvinced. “Although I don’t think ‘wreck of a man’ is a proper description for you to use.”
“I am not what I was under dear Cynara’s reign,” Haakon quoted. Emma recognized it as a translation from one of Horace’s Odes. She had helped a graduate student class in the Classics when she was a librarian.
“None of us is, Haakon. We’ve all faded with the snows of yesteryear.”
“Villon, is it? One of the Ballades?”
“Yes. I don’t remember which one, offhand.”
“Forgive my manners,” Haakon said. “We don’t have to stand here in the yard. We can at least sit on the porch, or inside, if you don’t mind the liniment smell.” He grimaced. “I suppose I smell like it, myself.”
“Not that I’ve noticed, Haakon, but the porch will be fine. It’s a lovely afternoon.” Emma led Prime Pussy up the stairs and took a seat on the porch, resting her feet on the top step. Haakon sat beside her, and leaned against the porch rail. Prime Pussy meowed emphatically, until Emma allowed her leash room enough to crawl into Haakon’s lap. There she sat and purred.
“You still look the same to me, Emma,” Haakon said as he rubbed Prime Pussy’s ears softly.
“Now that, Haakon, is downright flattery, and might buy you a cup of tea sometime.”
“Tea with you is payment enough.” He smiled shyly at her. “I do have tea, if you’d care for a cup.”
“Not right now,” she said. “Haakon, what are you going to do with yourself? Have you thought about that?”
“Some. I don’t have any answers, though. I didn’t learn a lot, growing up the way I did, about earning a living, except by selling myself. One glance in the mirror tells me I’m beyond that.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what I could learn at my age, either.”
“You can learn whatever you set your mind to. Didn’t you pick up any skills in prison?”
“Just some domestic duties. And gardening.”
“And a little bit about poetry.”
“Yes, there’s that. Not a saleable skill, though.”
“And you do know a lot about selling, I’d say. At least about how to deal with customers. You could bring in a little income.”
Haakon studied the idea for a long moment, staring at his hands he had laid across his thighs.
“I’ve got another hurdle, Emma,” he said. “I’m an ex-con. Who’s going to hire an unskilled ex-con?”
“Rosa Krushan, maybe. She needs someone to pump gas for her. You should talk to her.” Haakon stared out at the cove without answering. Emma guessed he was rolling the idea around in his head. She kept quiet. Haakon needed time to build his confidence.
“Maybe she’d have me,” Haakon said. “I should talk to her sometime.”
“Try tomorrow,” Emma said, “ab
out one in the afternoon. Rosa’s usually between food preparation stints at that time.” Emma folded her hands across her breasts. “It never hurts to try,” she said, “and now I’m going to try another suggestion on you.”
“What’s that?”
“I suggest you move in with me when Notta moves out.” Emma took a deep breath. “That’s a modest proposal,” she said.
Haakon stared at her for a long moment. Then he began to stroke Prime Pussy’s chin with one hand. He looked away from Emma and smiled. “Notta’s right about one thing, for sure,” he said. Emma raised a quizzical eyebrow. “You are a take-charge kind of person.”
“Notta said that about me?” A scowl shaped Emma’s round face into a blunt instrument.
“She said it admiringly,” Haakon hastened to assure her. He took a deep breath. “Why would you want me to move in with you?”
“I have my reasons. One is you’re easy company. Another is DiConti and Notta will need a place to live, and this cottage should suit them very well. A third is Prime Pussy misses you.” She studied his face intently.
“Emma, you said this moving in with you is a modest proposal. Did you mean proposal of the romantic kind?” He glanced quickly at her, and then looked back out at the cove, as if he feared her scrutiny.
Emma looked out at the cove for a long time. When she answered Haakon, her voice echoed a surprised tone. “I suppose I did,” she said, “though I hadn’t quite
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