Anarchy of the Mice

Chapter Three

Quaid believed in Molly McGill.

Molly didn't answer the door, though. The grandmother did.

"Why, color me damned," she said, yanking the screen door. "The louse returns. Whorehouses all kick you out?"

Quaid grinned. "Hello, Eunice. How are you this fine morning?"

Her seamed face turned askance. "What're you here for?"

"We were hoping for a word with Molly if she's around."

He opened his shoulders to give the octogenarian a full view of the porch, where stood Durwood Oak Jones and his dog, Sue-Ann. They made an odd sight. Quaid and Durwood shared the same vital stats, 6'1" 180-some pounds, but God himself could not have poured two more different molds. Quaid in sportcoat, softish, suntanned forearms and mussed-just-so blond hair. Durwood removing his hat and casting steel-colored eyes about with a humble air, bluejeans pulled down over his boots' piping. The mottled dog rasping like any breath could be her last.

Eunice stabbed a finger toward Durwood. "He can come in. But you need to turn right around. My granddaughter wants nothing to do with cads like you."

Behind her, a voice called, "Granny, I can handle this."

Eunice bared her dentures. "You're a no-good man. I know it, you know it, my granddaughter knows it." Veins showed through the chicken-y skin of her neck. "Go on, hop a flight back to your whores and Hollywood buddies!"

Quaid gave her a wide berth, trusting the woman's control of neither her bony fists nor Polygripped chompers. He actually lived in San Diego, a distinction lost on Eunice, for whom Hollywood and all of SoCal constituted a single unbroken Gomorrah.

"Sorry Eunice," he said, "but Durwood drove the van up from West Virginia. We're sticking a while."

Before she could object, Molly appeared. Bending to slip on a shoe, wriggling past her mother with a kid's jacket tucked under one elbow. Even in the worst domestic throes, Molly McGill could have charmed slime off a senator. Those freckles, the dimpled smile oozing wholesomeness. And that body, just enough va-voom to push Quaid's thoughts in decidedly unwholesome directions.

He said, "Can't you beat a 74-year-old woman to the door?"

Molly staggered into her second shoe. "Can we please just not? It's been a crazy morning."

"I know the type." Quaid smacked his hands together. "So hey. We have a job for you."

"Oh really? You're a little late. McGill Investigators closed. I have a real job starting in 53 minutes."

"What kind?"

"Reception," she said. "First Mutual, three months."

"Temp work?" Quaid asked.

"I was supposed to start with the board of psychological examiners, but the position fell through."

"How?"

"Funding ran out. The governor disbanded the board."

"So First Mutual ...?"

Molly's eyes, big and leprechaun green, fell. "Is temp work. Yeah."

"You're criminally overqualified, McGill." Quaid stooped as he said this, feeling the injustice in his own gut. "Let's talk, get this straightened out."

He breezed inside to the living room. Durwood and Sue-Ann followed, Sue without a leash but keeping a perfect twenty-inch heel at her master's side.

Two kids poked their heads around the kitchen door-frame. The boy was Zach. No forgetting Zach. What was the girl's name? As Quaid groped back in memory, he waggled his fingers at her.