Charlaine Harris - Day Shift

“Oh, no,” Fiji said. “Oh, no! This is awful!” She rushed over to her own door and suddenly felt a lot of needles sticking in her back. She shrieked.

Mr. Snuggly hissed, “Do not open that door!” He’d launched himself from the stool to land on her upper back, and he was clinging desperately to her with his claws.

“I have to stop him! He doesn’t know!” she said. “Dammit, get off my back!”

“Just back over to the stool,” Mr. Snuggly said. “I’ll drop off.”

Clumsily, she did so, and he landed on the stool, righting himself immediately and with as much dignity as he could.

“You silly woman,” the cat said.

“I can’t let—” Then a noise from outside made her look through the window.

One of the tigers was peering around the corner of Manfred’s house at the newcomer, who was still banging and screeching. Above the pawnshop, in Bobo’s apartment, a light came on. Bobo flung open a window. She could see the silhouette of his head.

“Get back in the car, man!” Bobo called.

“What?” The man stepped back and peered upward.

“Get back in your car and leave. Right now!” Bobo sounded very serious.

“See?” Mr. Snuggly said. “He has a whole floor between him and the creatures. Let him speak.”

“I will not!” The man fairly twitched with indignation, and Fiji pulled up her own window.

“Get back in your car, you moron!” she yelled. “You’re in danger!”

“Don’t threaten me,” he yelled back, and he banged on Manfred’s door again.

The first tiger padded silently around the corner of the house. Perhaps the man smelled the tiger or caught its movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head to look. And he froze. Fiji hoped that was a good thing.

The tiger made a “chuff” noise, like a cough. Hearing it in the Texas night was hair-raising, literally. It was as out of place as a hyena’s cackle.

Fiji was awed into silence, and she didn’t hear a peep from Bobo.

She had never read a brochure advising her on what to do if she had to deal with a loose tiger. Or two.

The second one joined the first. Fiji could feel the fear emanating from the stranger. It had gathered in a tight black ball around him. The two tigers took a step or two closer to the man. Then several things happened as quick as a wink. Manfred’s front door opened, his tattooed arm shot out, his hand grasped the man’s shirtfront, and he yanked him in.

In theory, this should have worked like a charm, ending with the door slamming shut in the tigers’ faces. In actuality, the stranger’s feet got tangled, and he sprawled in the doorway, leaving it wide open.

Fiji leaned out her window and yelled, “Hey! Tiger!”

And Bobo did the same thing at the same moment.

Both tigers turned their heads, one to look up at Bobo and one to turn slightly to look at Fiji, and while they were distracted, the man was dragged inside. Manfred’s door closed.

“Shut your window,” Mr. Snuggly said. He was hiding somewhere in the room, Fiji could tell, but she couldn’t see the cat. Hearing him was enough. She shut the window and locked it.

“I wonder who the idiot is,” she said, collapsing into a chair.

“I expect,” said Mr. Snuggly, “that’s Lewis Goldthorpe.”

The silence in Manfred’s house was broken only by the ragged breathing of the man on the floor. Lewis Goldthorpe had wet himself, which Manfred supposed was not an unreasonable reaction to being faced with two tigers. But it didn’t make the atmosphere any more pleasant, and it made Lewis even more angry.

“I hope you die,” Lewis sobbed.

“I should have left you out there to be eaten.” Manfred’s grandmother had warned him about helping other people. He should have listened.

“Why are there tigers here? What’s wrong with this place?” Lewis managed to sit up.

“The only thing wrong with this place is that you’re in it right now,” Manfred said. “Why the hell did you come here?”

“The police came back,” Lewis said. “They took apart the globe. They found Mama’s stuff.”

Manfred said, “So now you know I didn’t steal it. Now you know to leave me alone. I only wished your mother well. I liked her.”

“You cheated her,” Lewis said, and his voice began to rise. “You cheated her.”

“Out of what? Hours of loneliness? I just saved your life, asshole!”

“She should have turned to me when my dad died.” Now Lewis was snarling, and there was something in his face that made Manfred feel a flicker of fear. The man was down on the floor, and he was a mess, and his facial expressions were all over the place — fear, anger, some tears, a boatload of frustration. He was ridiculous. But he was frightening, too.

“But she didn’t?” Manfred made his voice gentler. It took a huge effort.

“No, she became more and more ‘Lewis, you need to stand on your own two feet,’ and ‘Lewis, you need to get another job.’”

“But you didn’t feel that was right?” From years of talking to upset people, Manfred made himself sound as sympathetic and understanding as a good therapist. But it was a huge effort.

“Of course not! She needed someone on the spot, someone to keep the — the predators away from her. People like you and that whore Bertha.”

“Bertha? The maid?”

“Yes, Bertha, the maid.” Lewis tried to do a cruel imitation of Manfred, but he just succeeded in sounding more foolish.

“I thought Bertha seemed…” What had he thought? He hadn’t really looked at Bertha with any interest. She was the maid.

“Seemed what? Grabby? Possessive? Fertile? ” He spat out the last word.

“She didn’t seem anything,” Manfred said slowly. “She seemed like the background.”

“Right! Right!” Confirmed in his judgment, Lewis crowed in triumph. “Always there. Always at Daddy’s right hand. Waiting. Whispering. Always with John skulking around.”

“John?” That was all Manfred could think of to say.

“Yes, John .” Lewis sneered. “Couldn’t name him Juan, I guess. Wanted to be American .”

“She’s not American?”

“Bertha? Oh, I guess, technically she is.”

Manfred sighed. “So why are you upset that Bertha’s son, John, came into the house?”

“Because she wanted my dad to love him. Because she wanted my dad to love him more than he loved me. And after my dad died, she started to work on my mother. But not telling my mom the big thing! No, waiting for the lawyers on that!”

Manfred had followed Lewis’s narrative until that moment. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“John is Dad’s son!”

“Are you kidding?” Manfred’s amazement was genuine and complete.

Never ask a madman if he’s kidding. For the next five minutes Manfred had to listen to an account of the affair between Bertha and Morton Goldthorpe. And the worst part was, Manfred couldn’t tell if this was fact or fiction, because Lewis believed it absolutely. He thought that Bertha’s son, John, was the product of that long-ago liaison.

“When my dad died,” Lewis said, “his will said his estate was to go to Mother during her lifetime. And afterward it was to be divided among the heirs of his body. See? Of his body? Which includes John. But my mom didn’t know about John. And maybe she could have changed the will.”

“Is that why you put the pills in her water?”

“I did not.” Lewis sounded definite and almost sane when he said that. “I did not poison my mother.”

“Are you saying Bertha did?”

“That is what I am saying.”

“Then why did you drag me into this?”