Frankenstein

with a coat thief.
    Hurrying along the deserted alleyway at the coat thief’s side, Nummy said, “Where we going?”
    “We aren’t going anywhere. I’m leaving town. Alone.”
    “Not all in orange, you can’t.”
    “I’m not all in orange. I have the jacket.”
    “Orange pants. People know orange pants is jail pants.”
    “Maybe I’m a golfer.”
    “And your jacket’s so big it’s like your daddy’s jacket.”
    Mr. Lyss halted, turned on Nummy, seized his left ear, twisted it, and pulled him—“Ow, ow, ow, ow”—out of the alley, into a walkway between two buildings. He let go of Nummy’s ear but pushed him hard against a wall, and the bricks were cold against his back. “Your grandma’s good and dead, is she?”
    Trying hard to be polite, trying not to gag on Mr. Lyss’s stink, Nummy said, “Yes, sir. She was good and now she’s dead.”
    “You have your own place?”
    “I have my place. I know my place. I keep to it.”
    “I’m asking do you live in a house, an apartment, an old oil drum, or where the hell?”
    “I live in Grandmama’s house.”
    Nervous, Mr. Lyss glanced left along the passageway toward the alley, right toward the street. His bird-that-eats-dead-things face now looked a little like a sneaky rat’s face. He grabbed a fistful of Nummy’s sweatshirt and said, “You live there alone?”
    “Yes, sir. Me and Norman.”
    “Isn’t your name Norman?”
    “But people they call me Nummy.”
    “So you live there alone?”
    “Yes, sir. Just me and Norman.”
    “Norman and Norman.”
    “Yes, sir. But people they don’t call him Nummy.”
    Mr. Lyss let go of the sweatshirt and pinched Nummy’s ear again. He didn’t twist it this time, but he seemed to be promising to twist it. “You’re getting on my nerves, moron. What relation is this Norman to you?”
    “His relation is he’s my dog, sir.”
    “You named your dog Norman. I guess that’s one step up from naming him Dog. Is he friendly?”
    “Sir, Norman he’s the friendliest dog ever.”
    “He better be.”
    “Norman don’t bite. He don’t even bark, but Norman he can kind of talk.”
    The old man let go of Nummy’s ear. “I don’t care if he sings and dances, as long as he doesn’t bite. How far is it to this house of yours?”
    “Norman he don’t sing and dance. I never seen one that did. I’d like to see one. Do you know where I could?”
    Now Mr. Lyss didn’t look like a bird that ate dead things or like a rat, or like a wild monkey, but more like a jungle snake with sharp eyes. If you spent enough time with him, Mr. Lyss was a whole zoo of faces.
    He said, “If you don’t want me to reach up your nostrils with these lock picks and pull out your shriveled brain, you damn well better tell me how far to this house of yours.”
    “Not far.”
    “Can we get there mostly by alleyways, so we don’t run into a lot of people?”
    “You don’t much like people, do you, Mr. Lyss?”
    “I loathe and despise people—especially when I’m wearing orange jail pants.”
    “Oh. I forgot about orange. Well, the shortest way is by the pipe, then we won’t hardly see no one.”
    “Pipe? What pipe?”
    “The big drain pipe for when it storms. You can’t go by the pipe in rain ’cause you’ll drown, and then you’ll just wish you’d gone the long way.”

    
chapter
22

    When she learned Deucalion had stepped into the study without ringing the bell or using the front door, when she understood that Mary Margaret Dolan did not know he was present, Carson closed the door to the hallway. In spite of the Dolan daughter who had been ticketed for driving alone in a carpool lane, Carson didn’t want to lose Mary Margaret. Although she suspected that the indomitable nanny would not be flustered even by Dr. Frankenstein’s first creation, she preferred to avoid risking the woman’s resignation.
    Without hesitation, Michael had handed Scout to Deucalion, who stood now and cradled the baby in the crook of his right arm. He was holding one of her feet between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, marveling at how tiny it was and complimenting her on her pink booties.
    Carson wondered that she worried not at all about this huge and formidable man—a self-admitted murderous creature in his earliest days—holding her precious daughter. In New Orleans, allied against Victor, they went through a kind of hell together, and he always provedsteadfast. More to the point, Deucalion possessed a quality