Jessie went to ring the bell again and the door opened and they looked through the screen at a man about Luther’s size but near twice his age. He wore suspenders over an undershirt yellowed by old sweat, the mask over his face yellowed with it, too, and his eyes were red from exhaustion or grief or the flu.

“Who you-all?” he said, and the words came out airless, as if whatever they answered wouldn’t make no difference to him.

“You Arthur Smalley, sir?” Luther said.

The man slid his thumbs under his suspenders. “What you think?”

“I had to guess?” Luther said. “I’d say yeah.”

“Then you’d guess right, boy.” He leaned into the screen. “What ya’ll want?”

“The Deacon sent us,” Jessie said.

“Did he now?”

In the house behind him someone moaned, and Luther got a whiff of the other side of that door. Sharp and sour at the same time, as if someone had left the eggs, the milk, and the meat out of the icebox since July.

Arthur Smalley saw that smell hit Luther in the eyes and he opened the screen door wide. “Ya’ll want to come in? Maybe set a spell?”

“Nah, sir,” Jessie said. “What say you just bring us the Deacon’s money?”

“The money, uh?” He patted his pockets. “Yeah, I got some, drew it fresh this morning from the money well. It’s still a little damp, but—”

“We ain’t joking here, sir,” Jessie said and adjusted his hat back off his forehead.

Arthur Smalley leaned over the threshold and they both leaned back. “I look like I been working of late?”

“No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t,” Arthur Smalley said. “Know what I been doing?”

He whispered the words and Luther took another half-step back from the whisper because something about the sound of it was obscene.

“I buried my youngest in the yard night before last,” Arthur Smalley whispered, his neck extended. “Under an elm tree. She liked that tree, so…” He shrugged. “She was thirteen. My other daughter, she in bed with it. And my wife? She ain’t been awake in two days. Her head as hot as a kettle just come to boil. She gone die,” he said and nodded. “Tonight most likely. Else tomorrow. You sure you don’t want to come in?”

Luther and Jessie shook their heads.

“I got sheets covered in sweat and shit need washing. Sure could use a hand.”

“The money, Mr. Smalley.” Luther wanted off this porch and away from this sickness and he hated Arthur Smalley for not washing that undershirt.

“I don’t—”

“The money,” Jessie said, and the .45 was in his hand, dangling beside his leg. “No more bullshit, old-timer. Get the fucking money.”

Another moan from inside, this one low and long and huffing, and Arthur Smalley stared at them so long Luther started to think he’d fallen into some sort of trance.

“Ya’ll got no decency at all?” he said and looked first at Jessie and then at Luther.