Zeke blew up.
“Doof! You scumbag! You wrecked this place, you—”
“Never mind that. What’s this — this thing?” Dufault’s voice was a croak, his words slurred, his lips blue and trembling.
“What’s what?”
“This... this thing!”
“It’s a dragon!” Zeke snapped, puzzled. “You don’t know your own dragon when you see it?”
Dufault’s gaze went from Ed, to Zeke, to George, and then back to Ed again. Bleary eyes taking them in with an alcoholic sweep. He took another slug from the bottle and whispered, “Dragon...”
“That’s right, Doof. You didn’t know? That’s why he’s miffed at you. I believe he’s gonna have you for lunch. Part of you, at least.”
One of Dufault’s rubber heels left another long vertical smear down the tile.
Zeke said, “Don’t run away. It’d rather eat dead things, which means it’ll probably kill you first. Or I will. What’ve you done to the house, Doof?”
“Me? What about you? You trashed my shop... stole my car...”
“So you come to get even, that it? Except you got caught. By Ed. Now Ed kills you, my ma comes home and kills George and me. You idiot. What’re we gonna do?”
“Have you ever wanted one thing more than anything else, Ma?”
“Right now I want to go to the toilet.”
“Ma, listen. Do you know what I want?”
“No.”
“I want us to be a happier family.”
“What? You saying we’re not happy?”
“Oh, Ma. I’m saying, well... I wish we could be more content. More gentle with each other. Do you know what I’m trying to say?”
“No.”
Louie sighed, tightening his hands on the wheel and driving on towards home.
At the house Dufault’s eyes were locked on Ed.
“Call this thing off.”
“Why should I?”
“You owe me, Boyer.”
“I owe you? Doof, lemme tell you something. Here’s the plan. You’re gonna go back through this house, tidy up every bit of mess you made, then we’ll sit down and tote up the damages. My guess is you’ll owe us money. Jeez, just look at this toilet!”
“I’m not tidying nothing.”
Ed’s tongue lolled out then and lapped Dufault’s toes. Dufault cringed. Ed heaved forward, and Dufault dropped the bottle in the tub, the glass exploding, Dufault taking a drunken leap over Ed’s scaly back. He slammed into Zeke and George, taking both men down, then scrambled over them, trying to keep on going, but Zeke got a grip on his ankle.
“Home sweet home, huh, Ma?” Louie pulled in under the carport and switched off the car. Wondering why his own car was parked out on the street but not wanting to stir Ma up over it.
“If they haven’t trashed the place,” Ma said sourly, “those weasels.”
Broodingly eyeing the house.
“It’s still here,” Louie pointed out cheerfully. “They didn’t sell it off after all.”
“Maybe. Or else the customer’s coming tomorrow.”
Dufault’s face hit the floor with a dull thud. Zeke crawled over George to get at him, his pointy boots digging painfully into George’s body. Zeke got hold of Dufault by the collar and the seat of the pants.
“George,” he grunted, “the door.”
They were sprawled halfway into the hall. The door to the living room moved on a spring-loaded hinge, and George stretched out and shoved it while Zeke hauled up on Dufault and tried to heave him along. Only he slipped in the wet and went down on his elbows hard. Zeke winced.
“Man...”
And here came the door swinging back, picking up speed, whacking Zeke sharp on the top of the head.
“Ahrrr,” Zeke said.
Zeke lost his concentration then, and Dufault broke free. He got in a lucky lick, a roundhouse to the side of the Zeke’s head, and Zeke sat down. George dived at Dufault, but Dufault kicked him and made a shambling break for freedom. Zeke, coming in again, brought his fist up from the floor in a haymaker blow that felled the guy.
Going up the steps, Ma’s nose wrinkled.
“Gah! What’s that smell?”
“You go on in, Ma. I’ll bring the suitcases.”
“You hear me? I said I smell something,” Ma said. “Like a cat crawled in someplace an’ then died.”
“I don’t smell nothing, Ma.”
“Right. No sense, no feeling.”
Ma opened the door.
At first they didn’t know what they were seeing. It was Ma’s house, all right. And yet — it wasn’t. They’d expected a mess: beer bottles, pizza cartons, plates with fossilized junk food cemented to them. But this?
Things turned upside-down?
Candles in the lamp sockets?
A snow scoop on the floor?
Why?
And the smell. What Ma had got a whiff of outside. The overpowering smell of the place.
Louie heard a dull, scraping sound. Ma grinding her teeth. A bad sign, always. She was looking at George sprawled on top of the kitchen table with one of its snapped-off chrome legs in his hands, and Zeke down in the middle of the room with the toes of his broken-heeled boots turned out, his gut bulging.
And a third man. Somebody Louie had never seen before, this guy on his hands and knees, trying to get up on his feet, drunk as a lord.
Ma charged.
Grabbed up the snow scoop as she went, raised it over the redheaded man, and beaned him with it. Reshaping its thin aluminum blade into something that looked like a very large fortune cookie, which settled the man back down again. Then she turned on Zeke, and he scuttled for safety, the snow scoop glancing off his rump.
“Ma! Ouch! Listen!”
Zeke trying to burrow under the up-ended couch.
Ma beat on the underside of the couch in a fury, the scoop making loud pinging noises against the wood frame.
“I can’t go away for two days, you take and turn my house into something the bull ran through?”
“Ma, listen—”
“I knew you’d do this to me!” Pounding the couch. “I told Louie you would, sure as God made Li’l Abner, I said!” Another whack with the scoop, then she rounded on George. “What’s that sound? Water running! What’s going on around here?” She stormed down the hall to look into the bathroom.
“MY GOD!”
Zeke was staring at Louie. “What happened to your eyebrows?”
Ma was backing out of the bathroom holding onto something with both hands and dragging it. Louie saw what she had hold of, some kind of animal by the tail. A sort of alligator. Stubby, clawed feet scrabbling as she dragged it past them, out the door and onto the step. When she let go, it dived into the flower garden, lumbering for the cucumber patch at the foot of the yard.
Ma came back inside, her face beet-red with fury, little white lines around her eyes. She closed her eyes, then opened them.
“Louie says be calm. Okay, let’s try. Lemme count to ten...” Her lips moved. “Now, that alligator. Fine. I heard of alligators in the plumbing, it’s happened before, this one they had in the Enquirer that tried to drag a lady under New York, she had to whack it with a plunger to shake it off. But alligators don’t rearrange furniture. So somebody better start talking. And make it good.”
Zeke spoke up. You had to admire the guy. His face showed complete bewilderment.
“We don’t know ourselves, Ma. We come home, this guy is in the house, climbed in a window, been rearranging the place. I guess the dragon must of showed up then and went for him.”