The Little Men Read Free Page B

brushing against the side of
the bungalow. Peering out the window, the
moon-filled courtyard, she couldn’t tell. The
air looked very still.
    Maybe, she thought, it’s the fan palms outside
the kitchen window, so much lush foliage
everywhere, just the thing she’d loved, but
now it seemed to be touching her constantly,
closing in.
    And she didn’t like to go into the kitchen
at night. The white tile glowed eerily, reminded
her of something. The wide expanse
of Mr. D.’s belly, his shirt pushed up, his watch
chain hanging. The coaster of milk she left for
the cat the morning she ran away from home.
For Hollywood.
    The mouse traps never caught anything.
Every morning, after the rumpled sleep and
all the flits and flickers along the wall, she
moved them to different places. She looked
for signs.
    She never saw any.
    One night, three a.m., she knelt down on
the floor, running her fingers along the baseboards.
With her ear to the wall, she thought
the tapping might be coming from inside. A tap-tap-tap . Or was it a tick-tick-tick ?
    â€œI’ve never heard anything here,” Mr. Flant
told her the following day, “but I take sedatives.”
    Benny wrinkled his brow. “Once, I saw
pink elephants,” he offered. “You think that
might be it?”
    Penny shook her head. “It’s making it hard
to sleep.”
    â€œDear,” Mr. Flant said, “would you like a little
helper?”
    He held out his palm, pale and moist. In
the center, a white pill shone.
    That night she slept impossibly deeply. So
deeply she could barely move, her neck
twisted and locked, her body hunched inside
itself.
    Upon waking, she threw up in the waste
basket.
    That evening, after work, she waited in the
courtyard for Mrs. Stahl.
    Smoking cigarette after cigarette, Penny
noticed things she hadn’t before. Some of the
tiles in the courtyard were cracked, some
missing. She hadn’t noticed that before. Or the
chips and gouges on the sculpted lions on the
center fountain, their mouths spouting only a
trickle of acid green. The drain at the bottom
of the fountain, clogged with crushed cigarette
packs, a used contraceptive.
    Finally, she saw Mrs. Stahl saunter into
view, a large picture hat wilting across her tiny
head.
    â€œMrs. Stahl,” she said, “have you ever had
an exterminator come?”
    The woman stopped, her entire body still
for a moment, her left hand finally rising to
her face, brushing her hair back under her
mustard-colored scarf.
    â€œI run a clean residence,” she said, voice
low in the empty, sunlit courtyard. That
courtyard, oleander and wisteria everywhere,
bright and poisonous, like everything in this
town.
    â€œI can hear something behind the wainscoting,”
Penny replied. “Maybe mice, or
maybe it’s baby possums caught in the wall
between the bedroom and kitchen.”
    Mrs. Stahl looked at her. “Is it after you
bake? It might be the dampers popping
again.”
    â€œI’m not much of a cook. I haven’t even
turned on the oven yet.”
    â€œThat’s not true,” Mrs. Stahl said, lifting her
chin triumphantly. “You had it on the other
night.”
    â€œWhat?” Then Penny remembered. It had
rained sheets and she’d used it to dry her
dress. But it had been very late and she didn’t
see how Mrs. Stahl could know. “Are you
peeking in my windows?” she asked, voice
tightening.
    â€œI saw the light. The oven door was open.
You shouldn’t do that,” Mrs. Stahl said, shaking
her head. “It’s very dangerous.”
    â€œYou’re not the first landlord I caught
peeping. I guess I need to close my curtains,”
Penny said coolly. “But it’s not the oven
damper I’m hearing each and every night. I’m
telling you: there’s something inside my walls.
Something in the kitchen.”
    Mrs. Stahl’s mouth seemed to quiver
slightly, which emboldened Penny.
    â€œDo I