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“Hello?” I say, not even bothering to check who’s calling. I wonder how far the hospital is and whether I should go.
Philip and Barron wouldn’t kill Grandad. And if they were planning on killing him, Philip wouldn’t poison him in his own kitchen. And if he did, he sure as hell wouldn’t try and get me to put the body to bed in his guest room.
I repeat that thought to myself over and over.
“Can you hear me? It’s Daneca,” she says, whispering. “And Sam.”
I don’t know how long she’s been speaking.
I look at the clock on the dashboard. “What’s wrong? It’s, like, three in the morning.”
She tells me but I’m barely listening to her answer. My mind is going through all the possible things you can give someone to knock them out. Sleeping pills are the most obvious. They go great with booze too.
I realize the other end of the line is expectantly silent. “What?” I ask. “Can you say that again?”
“I said your cat’s disgusting,” she says slowly, clearly annoyed.
“Is she okay? Is the cat okay?”
Sam starts laughing. “The cat’s fine, but there’s a little brown mouse on Daneca’s floor with its head ripped off. Your cat killed our mouse.”
“Its tail looks like a piece of string,” Daneca says.
“The mouse?” I ask. “The mouse of legend? The one everyone’s been betting on for six months?”
“What happens if everybody loses a bet?” Sam asks. “Nobody got it right. Who the hell do we pay?”
The way I calculate odds isn’t like a normal bookie for just such situations as this. If no one wins, I get a windfall. Well, we get a windfall. “Get a picture for documentation,” I tell him.
“Who cares about that? What do I do?” Daneca says. “The cat is just staring at me, and I think there’s blood on her mouth. I look at her and see the deaths of hundreds of mice and birds. I see them just lining up to march into her mouth along an unfurling carpet of tongue like in an old cartoon. I think she wants to eat me next.”
“Pet the cat, dude,” says Sam. “She brought you a present. She wants you to tell her how badass she is.”
“You are a tiny, tiny killing machine,” Daneca coos.
“What’s she doing?” I ask.
“Purring!” says Daneca. She sounds delighted. “Good kitty. Who’s an amazing killing machine? That’s right! You are! You are a brutal, brutal tiny lion! Yes, you are.”
Sam laughs so hard he chokes. “What is wrong with you? Seriously.”
“She likes it,” Daneca says.
“I hate to be the one to have to point this out to you,” he says, “but she doesn’t understand what you’re saying.”
“Maybe she does,” I say. “Who can tell, right? She’s purring.”
“Whatever, dude. So, do we keep the money?”
“It’s either that or release another mouse into the walls.”
“Right, then,” Sam says. “We keep the money.”
I drive the rest of the way home, unbuckle Grandad, and shake him. When that doesn’t work, I slap him in the face hard enough that he grunts and opens his eyes a little.
“Mary?” he says, which freaks me out because that’s my grandmother’s name and she’s been gone a long time.
“Hold on to me,” I say, but his legs are rubbery and he’s not much help. We go slowly. I bring him right into the bathroom and let him slouch on the tiles while I mix up a cocktail of hydrogen peroxide and water.
