“Yes. I hate that song. It makes me depressed. If I bought a pre-owned bird, I'd get it from a soul brother, not some bean head. It always starts in with that song at six in the morning. And, it’s like, loud.”

Blaine remained in the porchway with his hands in his pockets, rocking on his heels, wondering if the doorbell had shorted out. But then he heard voices inside. He gave the door a little rap. He was thinking of the stickup, wondering if his insurance would cover it. Well, it would or it wouldn’t.

He gave the door a second sharp rap and stepped inside. Blaine liked his entrances to seem like explosions. His voice was a rich baritone, and he liked to ham. “Is somebody in here badmouthing my parrot?”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Freddy said. He got up to shake hands with his uncle, but they ended up in a tight, back-slapping embrace. It had been three years. The family had been dying out fast. Freddy was the last of the Blaine line, and, by the looks of him, Blaine wondered how long Freddy would last. He looked terrible.

Blaine held his nephew at arm’s length and studied his face. “My God, Freddy, it’s good to see you again. Jesus! How are you feeling?”

“Not too bad. How are you? Lucky to be alive, ain’t you? Stick ’em up, dude!”

“Oh, Christ,” Blaine said dismissively. “I was just thinking about those cocksuckers. They got away clean. I’m lucky to be alive. Or not so lucky, when you consider the state of the world. A bullet between the eyes might have been a blessing. I’m seventy-two, for Christ’s sake. I am probably nourishing monstrous occlusions and tumors of which I’m not yet aware but will be presently. Ha! But what about you? What about this number you pulled on the airplane?”

“I hate to go into that,” Freddy said. “I’ll just get riled up again.”

“No, tell me.” Blaine said. He was an expert at drawing people out, and he loved lurid tales. Blaine winked at Zona, who ran upstairs to put on some clothes.

“I haven’t done anything like that in years,” Freddy said. “I thought I was in control, that those days were over. But sometimes there is a black-and-white situation where anger seems completely justified.”

“I want to hear the whole story. Don’t shortchange me,” Blaine said, as he selected a pipe from Walter’s pipe rack and began loading it from a canister of coarse tobacco.