“Her name is Bella.”
I looked up at Lucas at the sound of my name.
“Bella!” Audrey said happily. I put my paws on her knees, trying to climb up to her face. “You are going to be such a big doggie when you grow up!”
“Hey, uh, Audrey?” Lucas made a small coughing sound in his throat, and I glanced up, sensing a rising tension. Audrey smiled up at him. “I was thinking it would be fun if you and I went out. And look, Bella agrees.”
“Oh.” Audrey stood up abruptly. I wandered over to attack Lucas’s shoes. “That’s sweet, Lucas. Actually, though, I just moved in with my boyfriend. It’s pretty serious. We’re serious, I mean.”
“Sure. No, of course.”
“Hey, Audrey! Can we get going? I want to get out to Golden before magic hour,” the man yelled out the car window. Sleepy, I yawned and spread out on the grass, thinking it was a good time for a nap. I closed my eyes and didn’t open them when Lucas picked me up.
* * *
Later I was playing with Lucas on the soft floor of the big room of the house, what they called the living room. He was pulling a string and I would jump on it and run away with it, but it would slip out of my mouth and, laughing, he would pull it along the floor again until I could pounce. I was so content to be with him, so happy to hear his laughter, that I could have played that game all night.
There was a knock at the door and Lucas became still for a moment, and then went over to it. I followed him. He put his eye to the door while I smelled the scent of a man on the colder air seeping through the bottom crack. It was the man from before, the one who smelled like smoke and meat.
Lucas went rigid. The man knocked again. Finally Lucas opened the door, sweeping me away with his foot as he did so.
“You and me need to talk,” the man said to Lucas.
Four
“Talk about what?” Lucas asked.
“Can I come in, or do you want to stand here in the doorway?”
“You can come in.” Lucas backed away from the door and the man entered, glancing around. Lucas shut the door even though it meant choking off the glorious wave of outdoor odors that had been flooding in.
The man sat down on the couch. “Cute puppy.” He extended his fingers for me to sniff. “He a pit bull?”
“It’s a she. We don’t know. She was living under the house across the street.”
The man went still for a moment and I watched him curiously. Then he sat back. “Yeah, about that. So am I right about you feeding the cat over there?”
“That was me.”
“Okay, so that’s the irony here, don’t you think? I got a problem you caused. You put out bowls of cat food, you get cats. It’s a law of nature. And I’m right about you cutting my fence as well, aren’t I?”
Lucas didn’t reply.
“Look, I came here to talk reason with you. There’s a bigger picture I don’t think you get.”
I was impatient with them just sitting around. I attacked a fuzzy squeaky ball that was lying out on the floor. I couldn’t get my mouth around it, and when I tried it rolled away, so I dove on it, wrestling it into submission. I growled, feeling fierce and triumphant.
“I’m sorry Mr. uh…”
“Just call me Gunter. I’m trying to be friendly here.”
“Okay, Gunter,” Lucas agreed.
The smoky-meat man was Gunter.
“Well, I’m sorry, but no one on your crew cared when I told them there were cats under the house,” Lucas continued. “They were just going to tear the place down, even if it killed innocent animals.”
“Right, and then you called the animal revenge squad and they called the county and now my permit’s suspended. Which means it could be a couple of weeks before it is reinstated. Weeks, hell, they don’t do anything that doesn’t take more than a month—we’re looking at the end of the summer, now, probably longer. So I’m paying interest on my loan and I’m paying my crew and I’ve got equipment and it’s all costing me a ton. All of this for a damn cat. Which you know there’s no law says I can’t shoot the thing if I want.”
“There’s more than one cat. You really want to shoot them? That’s good publicity?”
“That’s why I’m here. I don’t want to do that. But you know damn well that the minute we start tearing down the place those cats are going to take off for the hills. No need to kill them. I just need you to not call the woman with the TV camera. Okay? They don’t care what the truth is, it’ll be all over the news that we got kittens dying, which is just stupid.”
“There won’t be any way to know they’ve all escaped. We need to catch them and then seal off the entrance,” Lucas said.
“No. What? That could take weeks. We need an immediate solution.” Gunter was silent for a moment. “Maybe we’re looking at this from the wrong angle. These units I’m building, they’re going to be real nice. Upscale counters, nice appliances. I’ll reserve one for you, two bedrooms. What are you here, one bed one bath? I know this complex, it was built in the seventies. No central air, window units only, cheap electric stovetop. Whole thing probably going to be torn down—everybody’s building, now that the new hospital is for sure going in.”
“We have two bedrooms. And our rent is subsidized. We can’t move.”
“That’s what I’m saying; I’ll subsidize you.”
“I don’t think that would work. It’s all tied into my mom’s VA benefits.”
“Dammit, kid, can you just help me out here? Okay, I’ll keep it simple. I’ll give you a thousand bucks, you stop talking to the animal rights people. Deal?”
“A thousand dollars to look away while you bring a house down on a family of cats.”
“Sometimes life’s like that. You got to look at cost benefit. Think of all the good you can do for Save the Cats or Greenpeace or whatever with a thousand dollars, versus the lives of a couple disease-ridden cats that’ll probably die this winter anyway.”
I yawned and scratched my ear. It didn’t matter if there were toys to chase and chew, people usually preferred to just sit.
“Five thousand,” Lucas said after a moment.
“What?” The man twisted suddenly, making a noise on the couch. I watched him curiously. “You’re seriously bargaining with me?”
“I’m just listening to you. You’re worried about months of delay. It could cost you a lot of money. Five thousand seems pretty cheap. Ten thousand, even.”
The man was silent for a minute, then laughed out loud. There was a harshness in his voice. “What do you do for a living, kid?”
“Mostly I’m a student. Next week I start a job at the VA hospital as an administrative assistant. It’s a good deal, because that’s where my mom gets treatment.”
I sprawled on the floor, bored.
“Well hooray for you. No, I offered you a good deal and you insulted me by extorting from me. So here’s what you get, a good lesson for you. Nothing. You could have had a grand. You think you can get by in this world as a contractor without making a few friends in the government? All I have to do is find an animal control officer who is willing to sign something saying no cats under the house. He’ll probably be a lot cheaper than a thousand dollars—I was trying to help you out. You clearly could use the money.”