“You take it easy now,” I said, pulling on my jacket. “Be a good girl and I’ll see you in the morning.”
Only it wasn’t that long.
4
Dad and I pigged on Chinese food and I gave him the expanded version of my afternoon adventure, starting with Bowditch on the steps, progressing to the Hall of Old Reading Matter, and finishing with the Doomsday Pantry.
“Hoarder,” Dad said. “Seen my share of it, usually after the hoarder in question dies. But the place is clean, you say?”
I nodded. “The kitchen, at least. A place for everything and everything in its place. There was some dust on the old medicine bottles in the little bathroom, but I didn’t see any anywhere else.”
“No car.”
“Nope. And not room for one in his toolshed.”
“He must have his groceries delivered. And of course there’s always Amazon, which by 2040 will be the world government the right-wingers are so afraid of. I wonder where his money comes from, and how much is left.”
I’d wondered that, too. I think that kind of curiosity is pretty normal in people who’ve come within a whisker of going broke.
Dad got up. “I bought and carried. Now I need to clear some paperwork. You clean up.”
I cleaned up, then practiced some blues tunes on my guitar. （I could play almost anything, just as long as it was in the key of E.） Usually I could get into the music until my fingers hurt, but not that night. I put my Yamaha back in the corner and told Dad I was going up to Mr. Bowditch’s house to check on Radar. I kept thinking of her being there all by herself. Maybe dogs didn’t care about such things, but maybe they did.
“Fine, as long as you don’t decide to bring it back.”
“Her.”
“Okay, but not interested in listening to a lonely dog howl at three in the morning, no matter what sex it happens to be.”
“I won’t bring her back.” He didn’t need to know that the idea had at least crossed my mind.
“And don’t let Norman Bates get you.”
I looked at him, surprised.
“What? You think I didn’t know?” He was grinning. “People were calling it the Psycho House long before you and your friends were born, little hero.”
5
That made me smile, but it was harder to see the humor when I got to the corner of Pine and Sycamore. The house seemed to hulk on its hill, blotting out the stars. I remembered Norman Bates saying Mother! So much blood! and wished I’d never seen the damn movie.
The gate bolt was easier to pull, at least. I used my phone’s flashlight to walk around the house. I ran my flash over the side of it once and wished I hadn’t. The windows were dusty, all the shades pulled. Those windows looked like blind eyes that were somehow still seeing me and not liking my intrusion. I rounded the corner and as I started toward the back porch there was a thump. It startled me and I dropped my phone. As it fell, I saw a moving shadow. I didn’t cry out, but I felt my balls crawl and pull up tight against my scrote. I froze as that shadow rippled toward me, and then, before I could turn and run, Radar was whining and nosing at the leg of my pants and trying to jump up on me. Because of her bad back and hips, all she could do was make a series of abortive lunges. The thump must have been the dog door swinging shut.
I dropped to my knees and grabbed her, one hand stroking her head while the other scratched her ruff under the collar. She licked my face and crammed against me so tight that she almost tipped me over.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Were you scared to be alone? I bet you were.” And when was the last time she had been alone, if Mr. Bowditch didn’t have a car and all his groceries were delivered? Maybe not for a long time. “That’s okay. All good. Come on.”
I picked up my phone, gave my balls a second to settle back into their proper place, then went to the back door with her walking so close beside me that her head kept bumping my knee. Once upon a time Andy Chen had encountered a monster dog in the front yard of this place, or so he said. But that was years ago. This was just a scared old lady who’d heard me coming and bolted out through her dog door to meet me.
We went up the back porch steps. I unlocked the door and used the turn-switch to light the Hall of Old Reading Matter. I checked the dog door and saw there were three small bolts, one on each side and another on top. I reminded myself to run them before I left so Radar wouldn’t go wandering. The backyard was probably fenced like the front one, but I didn’t know that for sure and for the time being she was my responsibility.