Hard News (Rune 3)

Nestor said, "Funny about how that works. You just let some money sit in the bank and there she be, earning interest every day. They just throw a few more dollars into the till. And you don't do nothing."

"Yeah."

"Bet you made yourself another ten thousand dollars."

"You think, no foolin'?"

"For sure. I think that account earns maybe five, six percent."

Boggs felt a warm feeling. He hadn't remembered about interest. He'd never had a savings account to speak of.

"You know, there's something you ought to think about. You hear about all those bank failures?"

"What's that?"

"A lot of savings and loans went under. People lost money."

"Hell you say."

"Happens a lot. Last couple of years. Didn't you watch the news Inside?"

"Usually was cartoons and the game we were watching." Boggs was tired. He put the seat way back. The last car he'd owned was a big '76 Pontiac with a bench seat that didn't recline. He liked this car. He thought he was going to buy himself a car, a new one. He lay back, closed his eyes and tried not to think about Rune.

"So," Nestor said, "you might want to think about investing that money."

"I'll do that."

"You have any idea what?"

"Nope. Not yet. I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for the right thing. You got money, people listen to you."

"Money talks, shit walks," Nestor said.

"That's the truth," Randy Boggs said.

THREE HOURS LATER COURTNEY WOKE UP AND WANTED some juice.

The little girl sat up slowly and unwound herself from the cocoon of a blanket that had twisted around her as she slept. She eased forward and climbed over the edge of the rolled-up futon like Edmund Hillary taking the last step down from Everest and then sat on the floor to put her shoes on. Laces were too much of a challenge but the shoes didn't look right with the white dangling strings, so after staring at them for five minutes she bent down and stuffed the plastic ends into her shoes.

She climbed carefully down the stairs, sideways, crablike, then walked up to Rune, who was tied into the butterfly chair. She looked at the cords, at Rune's red face. She heard hoarse, wordless sounds coming from behind the scarf.

"You're funny, Rune," Courtney said then went into the galley.

The refrigerator was pretty easy to open and she found a cardboard carton of apple juice on the second shelf. The problem was that she couldn't figure out how to open it. She looked at Rune, who was staring into the kitchen and still making those funny noises, and held up the carton in both hands then she turned it upside down to look for the spout.

The carton, which, it turned out, had been open after all, emptied itself onto the floor in a sticky surf. "Oh-oh." She looked at Rune guiltily then set the empty container on top of the stove and went back to the refrigerator.

No more juice. A lot of cold pizza, which she was tired of, but there were dozens of Twinkies, which she loved. She started working on one and then wandered around the small kitchen to see what she could find to play with.

Not a lot. There was, however, a large filleting knife on the counter that intrigued her. She picked it up and pretended it was a sword, like in one of Rune's books, stabbing the refrigerator a few times.

Rune, watching this, was making more noise, and started jiggling around, rocking and swaying back and forth.

The girl then looked into drawers and opened up some pretty-much-unused cookbooks, looking for pictures of ducks, dragons or princesses. The books contained only photos of soups and casseroles and cakes and after five minutes she gave up on them and started playing with the knobs on the stove. They were old and heavy, glistening chrome and trimmed with red paint. Courtney reached up and turned one all the way to the right. Way above her head was a pop. She couldn't see the top of the stove and she didn't know what the sound came from but she liked it. Pop.

She turned the second knob. Pop.

Rune's voice was louder now though the little girl still couldn't understand a word of it.