“Aren’t you afraid he’ll talk to someone? I mean, maybe he does business with people who have hot diamonds to sell, burglars and such, and he probably keeps quiet about that, but I’d have to think six pounds of solid gold pellets is on an entirely different level.”
He made a scoffing sound. “Risk the considerable profit he’s making on my transactions with him? That would be stupid, and stupid’s one thing Willy Heinrich ain’t.”
We were in the kitchen, drinking Coke in tall glasses （with sprigs of the mint that grew along the Pine Street side of the house）。 Mr. Bowditch gave me a shrewd look from his side of the table. “I don’t think it’s Heinrich you want to talk about at all. I think it’s the gold that’s on your mind, and where it comes from.”
I didn’t reply, but he wasn’t wrong.
“Tell me something, Charlie—have you been up there betimes?” He pointed to the ceiling. “Looking at it? Checking it out, so to speak? You have, haven’t you?”
I flushed. “Well…”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to scold you. To me what’s up there is just a bucket of metal that might as well be nuts and bolts, but I’m old. That doesn’t mean I don’t understand the fascination. Tell me, have you had your hands in it?”
I thought of lying but there was no point. He would have known. “Yes.”
He was still looking at me in that shrewd way, left eye squinted, bushy right eyebrow raised. But smiling, too. “Plunged your hands into the bucket and let those pellets run through your fingers?”
“Yes.” Now the flush on my cheeks was burning. I hadn’t just done that the first time; I’d done it several times since.
“The fascination of gold is something quite apart from its cash value. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Let us say—just for the sake of discussion—that Mr. Heinrich talked too much to the wrong person after having too much to drink at that disgusting little bar down the street from his store. I’d bet this house and the land it sits on that old limping Willy doesn’t ever drink to excess, probably doesn’t drink at all, but let us say. And suppose that the person he talked to, perhaps on his own, perhaps with cohorts, waited for you to leave one night, then invaded my home and demanded the gold. My gun is upstairs. My dog, once fearsome…” He stroked Radar, who was snoozing beside him. “… is now even older than I am. What would I do in such a case?”
“I guess… give it to them?”
“Exactly so. I wouldn’t wish them well, but I would give it to them.”
So I asked it. “Where does it come from, Howard?”
“I may tell you that in time. I haven’t made up my mind. Because gold isn’t just fascinating. It’s dangerous. And the place it came from is dangerous. I believe I saw a lamb chop in the fridge. And is there coleslaw? Tiller makes the best coleslaw. You should have some.”
In other words, discussion over.
4
One evening in late July Radar was unable to make it up the back porch steps when we came back from our Pine Street walk. She tried twice, then just sat at the bottom, panting and looking at me.
“Go on, pick her up,” Mr. Bowditch said. He’d come out, leaning on one crutch. The other had been pretty much retired. I looked at him to make sure, and he nodded. “It’s time.”
When I picked her up, she yipped and bared her teeth. I slid down the arm cradling her haunches, trying to get away from the sore spot, and carried her up. It was easy. Radar had grown thin, her muzzle almost pure white, her eyes starting to get rheumy. I put her gently down in the kitchen, and at first her back legs wouldn’t hold her. She gathered her resolve—I could see her do it—and limped to her rug near the pantry door, very slowly, and more or less collapsed onto it with a tired whuff sound.
“She needs to go to the vet.”
Mr. Bowditch shook his head. “She’d be frightened. I won’t put her through that to no purpose.”
“But—”
He spoke gently, which frightened me, because it was so unlike him. “No vet can help her. Radar is almost done. For now she just needs to rest, and I need to think.”
“About what, for God’s sake!”
“About what’s best. You need to go home now. Eat some supper. Don’t come back tonight. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“What about your supper?”