Free Rundown by Michael Cadnum Page A

“I’m worried about you, Jennifer.”
    â€œNothing to worry about,” I said. I gave about extra weight, maybe adopting Quinn’s cadence. I wondered if he imagined me surrounded by fluffy lace pillows, a maid bringing me tea on a tray. His father had won and lost fortunes. Quinn and his dad thought about money all the time.
    â€œYou know what anger is,” said Quinn, the sort of empathic, half ironic thing that can make him hard to understand.
    â€œI have heard of it,” I said.
    â€œWell, so you know how I feel.”
    We had agreed months before that our relationship was becoming way too steamy, and that since his father was taking a job running a casino in the Biggest Little City in the World, we should not be in contact any more.
    It had worked, sort of. Out of sight, Quinn had faded, kept artfully in a mental upper room where I never looked.
    But it all came back, every feeling.
    Conures have a whistle that sounds like a steel roof being torn in two. Even an African gray, a phlegmatic, observant bird, can shriek like a fighter jet when he hears water trickling or music thumping on the radio.
    Mr. DaGama was arguing with a man at the counter. Mr. DaGama had taught me that the customer is always right, even when he isn’t. This customer, a thin man in a blue T-shirt, was complaining that the new cowhide leash he had bought had bite marks in it. Mr. DaGama was uncharacteristically adamant in explaining the obvious—that the leash had teeth marks because a dog had bitten the leather, “leaving the marks of teeth.”
    â€œI expected a quality product,” said the blue T-shirt.
    The parrots must have picked up the tension, because all of them began yelling in the back room.
    â€œGet another leash off the rack, no charge,” said Mr. DaGama from behind the counter, with an attempt at graciousness.
    â€œI wanted a full refund,” said Blue T-shirt. But you could tell the man was growing uncertain. Mr. DaGama has dark eyes and broad shoulders; he has no trouble throwing seventy-five pound bags of wild bird seed down from the truck.
    There is a sign above the counter, tacked to a shelf among the profile shots of lorikeets and hyacinth macaws. EXCHANGES WITHIN TEN DAYS — NO CASH REFUNDS . Mr. DaGama raised his eyes upward to indicate the sign, which was located above and behind him. He looked like a man in the act of praying.
    â€œAll right, all right,” the man said. Despite what he was saying he wrapped the leash around his hand, like he was going to protect his fist in a fight. He said “All right,” a third time, not like he was agreeing, but like he was wise to some crime.
    I hurried between the two men, unhitched a double-ply leash from the rotating rack, and pressed it into Blue T-shirt’s unencumbered left hand. “This is a new kind of leash, a new model just released, way better,” I said.
    Mr. DaGama put his hands flat on the counter.
    â€œStrong?” asked the T-shirt man, but I could tell he would have accepted anything to get out of there.
    â€œSo strong you won’t believe it,” I said.
    â€œYou run an animal shop, you can’t take two-week holidays,” said Mr. DaGama, squeezing an eyedropper of bird antibiotic into Byron’s water dish. “I never wanted to take a vacation, before now.”
    Byron’s crest shuddered happily upward in response to the attention, but his stools were green water. He had been sleeping with both feet wrapped around a perch. Birds sleep on one leg or the other, a two-legged sleeper is in trouble. The veterinarian from down the street had recommended a double dose of medicine and admired our heat lamp and the air humidifier. “You’re doing everything you can,” the vet had said.
    â€œEverybody needs to take a break from their routine,” I said, feeling smart in a housewifey way.
    â€œI have never come so close to losing my temper,” said Mr.