one, sir.”
“She was marvelous as an unwitting pneumonic-plague carrier.”
His gaze refocused from the future of science and mankind to the glob of germ-killing goop on his palm.
“She certainly had the lungs for the role,” he said.
Vigorously, he rubbed his long-fingered hands together, and the sanitizing gel made squishy sounds.
“Well,” I said, “I was headed up to my room.”
“Did you have a nice walk?”
“Yes, sir. Very nice.”
“A ‘constitutional’ we used to call them.”
“That was before my time.”
“That was before everyone’s time. My God, I am old.”
“Not that old, sir.”
“Compared to a redwood tree, I suppose not.”
I hesitated to leave the kitchen, out of concern that when I started to move, he would notice that I was without shoes and pants.
“Mr. Hutchison—”
“Call me Hutch. Everyone calls me Hutch.”
“Yes, sir. If anyone comes around this evening looking for me, tell them I came back from my walk very agitated, packed my things, and split.”
The gel had evaporated; his hands were germ-free. He picked up his half-eaten cookie.
With dismay, he said, “You’re leaving, son?”
“No, sir. That’s just what you tell them.”
“Will they be officers of the law?”
“No. One might be a big guy with a chin beard.”
“Sounds like a role for George Kennedy.”
“Is he still alive, sir?”
“Why not? I am. He was wonderfully menacing in Mirage with Gregory Peck.”
“If not the chin beard, then maybe a redheaded guy who will or will not have bad teeth. Whoever—tell him I quit without notice, you’re angry with me.”
“I don’t think I could be angry with you, son.”
“Of course you can. You’re an actor.”
His eyes twinkled. He swallowed some cookie. With his teeth just shy of a clench, he said, “You ungrateful little shit.”
“That’s the spirit, sir.”
“You took five hundred in cash out of my dresser drawer, you thieving little bastard.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“I treat you like a son, I love you like a son, and now I see I’m lucky you didn’t slit my throat while I slept, you despicable little worm.”
“Don’t ham it up, sir. Keep it real.”
Hutch looked stricken. “Hammy? Was it really?”
“Maybe that’s too strong a word.”
“I haven’t been before a camera in half a century.”
“You weren’t over the top,” I assured him. “It was just too … fulsome. That’s the word.”
“Fulsome. In other words, less is more.”
“Yes, sir. You’re angry, see, but not furious. You’re a little bitter. But it’s tempered with regret.”
Brooding on my direction, he nodded slowly. “Maybe I had a son I lost in the war, and you reminded me of him.”
“All right.”
“His name was Jamie, he was full of charm, courage, wit. You seemed so like him at first, a young man who rose above the base temptations of this world … but you were just a leech.”
I frowned. “Gee, Mr. Hutchison, a leech …”
“A parasite, just looking for a score.”
“Well, okay, if that works for you.”
“Jamie lost in the war. My precious Corrina dead of cancer.” His voice grew increasingly forlorn, gradually diminishing to a whisper. “So alone for so long, and you … you saw just how to take advantage of my vulnerability. You even stole Corrina’s jewelry, which I’ve kept for thirty years.”
“Are you going to tell them all this, sir?”
“No, no. It’s just my motivation.”
He snared a plate from a cabinet and put two cookies on it.
“Jamie’s father and Corrina’s husband is not the type of old man to turn to booze in his melancholy. He turns to the cookies … which is the only sweet thing he has left from the month that you cynically exploited him.”
I winced. “I’m beginning to feel really bad about myself.”
“Do you think I should put on a cardigan? There’s something about an old man huddled in a tattered cardigan that can be just wonderfully pathetic.”
“Do you have a tattered cardigan?”
“I have a cardigan, and I could tatter it in a minute.”
I studied him as he stood there with the plate of cookies and a big grin.
“Look pathetic for me,” I said.
His grin faded. His lips trembled but then pressed together as if he struggled to contain strong emotion.
He turned his gaze down to the cookies on the plate. When he looked up again, his eyes glistened with unshed tears.
“You don’t need the cardigan,” I said.
“Truly?”
“Truly. You look pathetic enough.”
“That’s a lovely thing to say.”
“You’re welcome, sir.”
“I better get back to the parlor. I’ll find a deliciously sad book to read, so by the time the doorbell rings, I’ll be fully in character.”
“They might not get a lead on me. They might not come here.”
“Don’t be so negative, Odd. They’ll come. I’m sure they will. It’ll be great fun.”
He pushed through the swinging door
