“Didn’t he call on her? Before that last time, I mean?” The man with red hair didn’t answer at first. He stepped off the path onto the grass and then back onto the path. It was like he was resetting himself. “Okay if you don’t want to say,” the bald man said. “We know.” They knew that he called on her because they found a paper on the front lawn, a receipt from a dry cleaner across town, near where he lived. When they picked him up and told him about the paper he said that he didn’t use that dry cleaner anymore but they had already been to the place and showed his picture and the lady there had nodded once quickly and said “Ned, yes,” and got back to shaking pants straight. And they had even taken apart the story he had told about taking his car to the drive-in movie and getting back around ten because a drunk had leaned on it around ten past and had told them that the hood was cold and they knew the drunk to be honest. The man with red hair must have known that he was caught because off he went again from the path, and then back. “Make the call,” said the bald man, and the man with red hair slowly took out his phone and even more slowly began to dial Ned, a number at a time, the space between them widening as he went.
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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