“Once, I used to part-time for a lawn-mowing service,” I say.

“Oh yeah?” says the girl without much interest.

“Must be hard work maintaining a yard this big,” I comment, looking around me.

“Don’t you have a yard?”

“Just a little yard. Two, three hydrangeas, that’s about the size of it,” I say. “You alone here all the time?”

“Yeah, you said it. Daytime, I’m always alone. Mornings and evenings, a maid comes around, though otherwise I’m alone. Say, how about a cold drink? There’s even beer.”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Really? Like, it’s no big deal.”

“I’m not thirsty,” I say. “Don’t you go to school?”

“Don’t you go to work?”

“No work to go to,” I admit.

“Unemployed?”

“Kind of. I quit.”

“What sort of work were you doing?”

“Lawyer’s gofer,” I equivocate, taking a slow, deep breath to cut the talk. “Collecting papers from city-hall and government offices, filing materials, checking case precedents, taking care of court procedures, busy work like that.”

“But you quit?”

“Correct.”

“Your wife work?”

“She does,” I say.

I take out a cigarette and put it to my mouth, strike a match, and light up. The wind-up bird screeches from a nearby tree. A good twelve or thirteen turns of the watch spring, then it flits off to another tree.

“Cats are always going past there,” the girl remarks apropos of nothing, pointing over at the edge of the grass in front. “See that incinerator behind the Suzukis’ hedge? Well, they come out from right next to it, run all the way across, duck under the gate, and make for the yard over there. Always the same route. Say, you know Mr. Suzuki? College professor, on TV half the time?”

“Mr. Suzuki?”

She goes on in some detail, but it turns out that I don’t know our Mr. Suzuki.

“I hardly ever watch TV,” I say.

“Horrible family,” the girl sneers. “Stuck-up, the whole lot of them. TV people are all a bunch of phonies.”

“Oh?”

The girl picks up her Marlboros, takes one out, and rolls it around unlit between her fingers.

“Well, I suppose there’s decent folk among them, but they’re not my type. Now, the Miyawakis, they were okay people. Mrs. Miyawaki was nice. And Mr. Miyawaki, he ran two or three family restaurants.”

“What happened to them?”

“Don’t know,” said the girl, flicking the end of her cigarette. “Probably owed money. There was a real commotion when they left. Been gone two years now, I guess. Dropped everything and just left. The cats just keep multiplying, no consideration. Mom’s always complaining.”

“Are there that many cats?”

She puts the cigarette to her lips and lights up with her lighter. Then nods.

“All kinds of cats. Some losing their fur, even a one-eyed cat … big lump of flesh where the eye was. Gross, huh?”

“Gross,” I concur.

“I’ve got a cousin with six fingers. A girl, little older than me, has this baby pinkie right beside her little finger. Always keeps it neatly folded under, so you can barely tell. A real pretty girl.”