Lost Souls

chapter 21

Running up the stairs behind Mr. Lyss, Nummy knew he was now a jailbreaker like in the movies. Things didn’t always-or even usually-turn out okay for a jailbreaker.

The door at the top of the stairs had a small window, the window glass had wire in it, and Mr. Lyss looked through the glass and the wire before he tried to open the door, but the door was locked. The old man said a bunch of words that should’ve gotten him cooked by lightning, but he was still uncooked when he set to work on the door with his lock picks.

The awful noises rose from below, the people being killed, and Nummy tried to tune them out. He tried to sing a happy song in his head to drown out the terrible cries, just in his head because Mr. Lyss would for sure bite his nose off if he sang for real. But he couldn’t think of any happy songs except “Happy Feet,” and you had to do a little dance when you sang “Happy Feet,” you just had to, and because he was a clumsy person, he shouldn’t try dancing on the stairs.

Mr. Lyss picked and picked at the lock. Suddenly he said the dirtiest word Nummy knew-he knew six-looked out the small window again, opened the door, and left the stairs.

Nummy followed the old man into the hallway, then right toward an exit sign. They passed closed doors, and there were voices behind some of the doors.

Grabbing at Mr. Lyss as they moved, to get his attention, Nummy whispered, “We should tell somebody.”

Slapping Nummy’s hand away, Mr. Lyss went through the door at the end of the hall, but they weren’t outside like Nummy expected to be. They were in a mud room.

“We should tell somebody,” Nummy insisted.

Looking over several quilted jackets hanging from wall pegs, Mr. Lyss said, “Tell them what?”

“People is being killed in the basement.”

“They know, you moron. They’re the ones doing the killing.”

Mr. Lyss took a jacket from the rack and slipped into it. On the arm was a police patch. The jacket was too big for the old man, but he zipped it up anyway and headed toward the outer door.

“You’re stealing,” Nummy said.

“And you’re a cheese-brain ninny,” said Mr. Lyss as he went out into the alleyway.

Nummy O’Bannon didn’t want to follow the old man with his bad smell, bad teeth, bad breath, bad words, and bad attitude, but he was still scared, and he didn’t know what else to do but follow him. So now he was a jailbreaker and he was keeping company 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.”